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In July 1860, on a bet, the schooner Clotilda carried 110 kidnapped Africans to slavery in Alabama. The traffickers tried to hide their crime, but now, archaeologists explore the sunken wreck.
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02:23but also because they're such an important part of the clotilda story
02:29just being able to be at the very site of the of the location of clotilda knowing that this is
02:38where
02:39essentially evidence was destroyed evidence that humans were illegally transported here
02:48back in 1860. it's a very surreal moment we have very few identified slave ships worldwide to begin
02:57with and certainly clotilda is very unique in my experience as an archaeologist to have a site to
03:05which you can directly tie descendants i hope they find as much as they can about history down there
03:17and some kind of way get it back up here so we can see it the clotilda was the last
03:29documented
03:29illegal slave ship to come to the united states
03:37the story of the people were on the clotilda is the best documented story of the entire transatlantic
03:44slave trade we are talking about over 12 million people and so far there's just one ship where we
03:53can have the entire story the clotilda cargo numbered 110 west african captives being smuggled into the
04:05country against the country against their will
04:11clotilda is the last ship known to have illegally brought slaves to the united states following
04:16the abolition of the slave trade in the united states in 1808
04:22misery goes that timothy meher bet that he could bring a ship full of africans and that's not the word
04:30used under the nose of the authorities
04:41timothy meher was a wealthy plantation and shipyard owner and so they did it using deception very clever
04:52deception this was a ship building family they built a ship that was uh not more like the classic
05:00slave ship it was a lumber ship it happened to be a very fast lumber ship and then when the
05:10bet was made
05:12was re-outfitted for slaves and and the fact that it was fast they thought that that was obviously
05:20on their side that was a benefit
05:28now the fact is captain fosker kept a log
05:33fitted out for the coast of africa to purchase a cargo of slaves
05:38cleared and sailed for mobile march 4th with the following cargo and nine thousand dollars in gold
05:44nine men for the mast first and second mates and myself captain foster kept a log but that's his story
05:54and the fact is we also have the oral history and those are the stories that we have to get
05:59at
05:59it helps us reveal the truth i am a fifth generation descendant of polly and rose allen
06:08who are both enslaved africans or nicola tilda
06:14there's not a lot written about polly allen and a lot of my information that i've been able to capture
06:22has been through my research and my reading and my grandmother and some of my cousins
06:32he was possibly from the western part of nigeria his african name was capoli he was late teens early 20s
06:44age and he was probably a warrior of his tribe
06:50i'm the great grandchild of james and lottie denison i um know more about this than i probably
07:01would have if it hadn't been by my mother she was the author of two memoirs for james and lottie
07:09i am the great great granddaughter of james and lottie denison
07:23this is james headstone lottie was kidnapped her mother had sent her on an errand one day and
07:34lottie was taken and her parents never saw her again
07:39we think she was around 18 or 19 years old when she was captured
07:46my grandmama she was the one that instilled in me about history
07:56charlie that came over on the cotilda that was my great great grandfather he was the head of the talker
08:05tribe
08:08they were hunting for food but while they were on their way back to the camp people were out hunting
08:14for people to that they captured to take back or bring to america for slave
08:24kujo is my grandmother's great grandfather i'm his second generation she's the third i'm the third great
08:32there's a really wonderful book based on the oral history of one of the survivors of the clotilda
08:41who we know as kojo lewis also went by the name kazula
08:51this touches me in such a way it's amazing it is just truly amazing for us to have
09:04our history documented so well to be so fortunate you know
09:12thank you jesus somebody come ask about kujo i want to tell you somebody who i is
09:18so maybe they go in the afiki soil someday and call in my name and somebody dare say
09:26yeah i know kasuna
09:29kujo came from benin and he came from the yuba tribe
09:33and they were farmers so he was 17 going to 18 so uh he's going to become a warrior
09:43he actually never had a chance to see that happen because of the village got raided
09:50it about daybreak when the folks that sleep get wake with the noise when the people of the homie break
09:56at the great gate i see the people getting killed so fast they grab me and tie the wrist i
10:05beg them
10:06please let me go back to my mama
10:10they got him he never did see his mom he never seen his siblings he never did see anybody after
10:16that
10:18he's been in the hospital
10:19generally africans are captured 200 or more miles in the interior then forced to walk that very long
10:26distance from the interior down to the coasts where they are sold to europeans and and later american buyers
10:38all day they make us walk the sun's so hot we sleepy on the ground that night i think it
10:46too about my folks and i cry
10:49all night i cry
10:54for kujo and his group it was about five or six days and people were tied one to the other
11:02uh there was very little food very little to drink and once they arrived on the coast they were held
11:13in prisons called barracoons slave pens and you have men women children held in those barracoon settings
11:24for sometimes two months at a time and you're sitting in that barracoon disoriented likely starved
11:33likely in pain having been marched all those miles
11:39and once they got there they said charlie said oh lord
11:47they knew then that they were at the place that they were gonna never return back to the camp where
11:54they had left so imagine living with with that lack of hope but still trying to survive
12:02the land we're here on the mobile river at the site of the clotilda shipwreck 25
12:17it's in pretty shallow water between five and about 20 feet deep 15 drop i think we'll get a pretty
12:25good sense not only of the condition of the wreck but if the visibility has improved at all
12:31we may be on this dive able to the very first time to see clotilda underwater we're gonna jump in
12:39and
12:39we're gonna find the bow we'll start there which is where our buoy is located and then likely we'll uh
12:44investigate the bow then just take measurements and points along that starboard side of the hull
12:50and uh and see what we find when we get there
13:01the boat bill river is not your ideal diving conditions yeah there tends to be a lot of debris
13:07we have seen snakes and alligators on site we typically don't have any visibility uh at this site
13:19so i know when you get on on bottom i'm on the wreck but i'm not on the bottom
13:24okay trying to figure out where on the wreck i am okay he's on the wreck he landed on um
13:31so the debris
13:32that's on top of the wreck right now any dive into this wreck is risky any place where the ship
13:42has
13:43been splintered or broken you now have very sharp projectiles that can go through a wetsuit like a
13:49knife would it can be disconcerting when we come up along a tree or a piece of debris or even
13:59a loose
13:59timber on the vessel you know you go over it not under it so you don't get anything entangled
14:09how's visibility uh well right now it kind of looks like chocolate milk it's uh pretty dark
14:19uh uh a lot of uh particulates in the water obscuring a vision
14:25it's certainly well articulated here
14:28it's a lot of whole planking it's in pretty good shape
14:33integrity in this portion of the wreck is pretty pretty sound
14:47so today we actually had uh what we would consider great visibility about four to six inches i have
14:55never seen the vessel until today we focused most of today orienting around the outside of the vessel
15:02focusing on that outer hole planking and focusing on the condition of the timbers themselves
15:09the vessel itself is is incredibly interesting but really when you pair that with the story of the
15:16clotilda and and the you know the individuals brought over and and then you talk to the descendants
15:24it really kind of it's awe-inspiring it's it's quite humbling you can't separate the two
15:40it's a great great great grandfather on my father's side so i'm his great great great granddaughter
15:49and he was from what is now known as benin back when he was alive it was the kingdom of
15:58tahoni
15:59so around 1859 1860 in dahomey they were a very turbulent um nation so they would actually go to war
16:10with surrounding countries and other tribes and they would take the people captive and later sell them to
16:18whoever came to the the slave coast
16:23the buyers like captain foster would arrive there in uh weeda um and negotiate uh sales
16:34for africans through a series of appointed officials arrived at weeda may 15th having gotten ashore safely
16:44i met with interpreters who gave me charge of three natives who put me in a hammock with canopy
16:50and carried me into the city of weeda six miles distant upon arrival i found splendid accommodations
16:59slivers were treated very well you know and foster was actually very surprised at the level of comfort
17:08of weeda i went to see the king of dahomey we went to the warehouse where they had in confinement
17:16four thousand captives in a state of nudity from which they gave me liberty to select 125 as mine for
17:25which i agreed to pay 100 per head and through a translator he told the people to stand in circles
17:37they make everybody stand in a ring about ten folks in each ring the man by the self the woman
17:44by the
17:45self then the white man looky and looky he look hard at the skin and the feet and the legs
17:53and in the
17:54mouth then he choose every time he choose a man he choose a woman we all lonesome for our home
18:03we don't know what going to come of us when you hear about the story you hear about the door
18:10of no return
18:14you had to forget where you came from forget your family forget your religion you just had to forget
18:21everything that you knew going through that door is just saying that you would never return back and
18:32that just gives me so many chills
18:39it was their last step that they did to prepare them to embark on that ship and then they're taken
18:47by small boats into the ships waiting off the coastline you get to that coast and you see
18:52that beast of the ocean for the first time and picture that you see ships waiting off that coastline
18:59and they're waiting to fill their hull with these people one of them is you
19:16this is an incredible story the clotilda story has international significance
19:23this is the first phase that we're working on the investigation that we're doing we're collecting all
19:28the scientific information we can to find out the best way to stabilize and preserve the vessel
19:35today we're doing the sonar image so we could get an idea of how the dynamic environment the storm
19:41events things like that are affecting the shipwreck
19:48one thing we're trying to get a handle on if we're going to preserve in situ we need to know
19:53what
19:53we need to do to keep that to keep it from deteriorating further we need to process the sonar
20:00results so that we can see our path forward
20:16so for the first 13 days the people were held in darkness in chains in the hold
20:27soon we get in the ship they make us lay down in the dark
20:31we stayed there 13 days they don't give us much to eat me so thirst they give us a little
20:39bit of
20:39water twice a day oh lord lord we so thirst
20:47it's pitch black
20:51you are chained to another person most often the men were chained to one another on ships there were
20:58women and children had more ability to move about but they were still contained
21:04cramp conditions using the bathroom where you ate where you laid so you can imagine you know the horror
21:13of the situation and the fieldiness of the of the place uh as well i can imagine they were praying
21:21and
21:22they were singing they were afraid of being killed to throw overboard they didn't speak the same
21:29languages they didn't practice the same religions but even without words they knew each one knew what the
21:38others were feeling they were all going through the same horror the same
21:46the same agony the same separation you know from everything that they knew from their loved ones
21:52and that created the birth of a family
21:58on the 13th day they fetch us on the deck
22:03we so weak we ain't able to walk ourselves
22:05so the crew take each one and walk around the deck till we get so we can walk ourselves
22:14typically they would allow africans to come up to exercise their limbs or take on some fresh air
22:23but they wouldn't allow them to stay on deck for long periods of time they would keep them shackled below
22:31day how do you hold on to your humanity under the most inhumane circumstance how do you will yourself
22:40to live through that
22:44it's this idea that you can break my bones you can strip me down but what you're not going to
22:48do is
22:49you're not going to take away my understanding of what it is to be a human
23:00so what we're out here doing today is that we're actually going to attempt to enter the hold of the
23:05clotilda where the captives were kept
23:11what makes this very powerful and it's chilling in this aspect is that that hold where those 110 people
23:21were placed survives
23:25so that as we go into it we have the understanding of being the first people in there since those
23:33captives
23:38he's going to go into the water and what he's going to do is he's taking a look
23:41over or in by feel into the hull seeing what he can with the visibility
23:49yep
23:52and so his standing rules of engagement on this dive are not to go into the hold any further
24:00than he can reasonably lean over or take a look at we don't want him snagged
24:10so
24:11sure
24:11sure
24:12yeah
24:13can you hear a little slack
24:15yep a little slack mike
24:23understood driver's going to the inside of the vessel
24:28as we move along we go into a more open space and at this point the hull is widening from
24:3418 feet
24:35to the full 23 feet and this is the main cargo hold and that's when you realize that what you're
24:43looking
24:44at is the place of confinement for the clotilda captives
24:53we did go a little bit inside of the hull and we see that there is probably anywhere from a
25:00foot
25:00or two to the mud line and a number of spots inside the hull and then a couple feet of
25:05mud
25:05down into the bottom of the hull and everything seems to be very similar to what the sonar imagery
25:10is showing us
25:17it seems to be um pretty stable that's good news that we don't have a lot of sediment that's moved
25:22off of it that bodes well for the preservation of the wreck
25:28and i can almost imagine uh also saying i'm glad to see you grandson
25:35glad to see you see this is where they this is where they put us this is what they did
25:40to us
25:41and try to destroy the evidence
25:44yeah we're gonna do fine i know they're proud of us
25:49they're very proud of us
25:51drank to you grandpa
25:57from the start what we've been doing because this water is so murky is we've been using sound
26:03to map it all with the sonar of all of the ships engaged in this trade the the thousands over
26:10the
26:10400 years to date this is the only one found now and identified that is so intact that we're the
26:19first
26:19people in that space since your ancestors left
26:28and this 500 square foot area and that's the area in which people were confined has to be
26:40so between these two spaces 23 18 26
26:51wow wow
27:05i mean you had to lay down flat
27:10that you couldn't hardly turn and you that's what i don't think and you had to stay in that
27:15position until they let you up on board until they let you up on board uh-huh and this represents
27:23the hold of the clotilda uh which as you can see is not a very large space even for the
27:30few of us
27:31imagine 110 captives aboard that vessel it's smaller than my basement so that really puts um a lot of
27:42things in perspective and then there's only six of us in here so to have 110 people you also have
27:49to
27:49keep in mind too that you know i don't think we really have any portal holes for fresh air to
27:55pass
27:55through you only have the hatch only the head right well that that makes me uh fight mad now that
28:03uh
28:04our ancestors went through that you know it you know makes you get kind of emotional
28:12the slave ship clotilda arrives in mobile july 9 1860. july 9th i transferred my slaves to a river
28:26steamboat and sent them up into the cane break to hide them until further disposal
28:32i then burned my schooner to the water's edge and sank her
28:36so foster took the platilda to a remote place and he torched it he actually in theory could be
28:47hanged so he had to destroy the evidence
28:54the piracy act of 1820 made smuggling africans into the country punishable by death by hanging
29:05so they hit kujo and his co-captives the cotilda africans in the cane breaks
29:14they stayed in the swamps they were mosquitoes they had little to eat
29:32they had little to eat but they had little to eat because he might have little to eat
30:01Here we're Captain Foster Burncloth Tilda and where it still rests today we're
30:07on a mission to recover scientific samples from the wreck itself what we're
30:14doing is documenting positions of the things and then recovering them even if
30:19the entire ship remains in the river pieces of it artifacts that speak to the
30:23vessel and to what happened on it being available for people to look at
30:34if those items are found it would it would be the first time that we have not
30:42only these items but the story of the people who actually use them and then
30:49the descendants when we were working and picking samples out of piles of broken
31:01wood it was a selective process because we're looking for things that are
31:05diagnostic they're gonna tell us a story it's not ironic that the four of us are
31:13here witnessing this at this point in time and there's a responsibility that we
31:20carry and I think there's also a privilege to be able to even see this to witness
31:25this honor and a privilege it is I think we might be the only four people who've ever seen like
31:34the
31:34actual ship yeah our ancestors came over on and so that's really a unique situation
31:49the mobile custom officials have discovered that the clotilda has come in to the port under the cloak of
31:59night in an in a very stealthy way Timothy mayor was subsequently arrested in the end this case was
32:10dismissed because there was no proof there was no ship and there were no
32:15people ultimately Timothy mayor won his bet and Foster was fined a thousand
32:27dollars because he had not paid duties on the imports a thousand dollars for not
32:36paying his customs duties not for victimizing 110 West African captives who were brought to
32:45Mobile Mobile against their will our grief so heavy look like we can't stand it I think maybe I die
33:00in my sleep when I dream about my mama oh Lord
33:10it's a quote Osir said I goes back to Africa every night in my dreams
33:19it was traumatic in so many ways because they were kidnapped from their home and brought to a
33:26strange place where they didn't know nobody they just spoke the language among themselves but they
33:32knew what they wanted to do they wanted to go back to Africa and then they had no
33:36ways of getting back
33:46the Africans were auctioned off to a number of people 76 were dividing between
33:54Timothy mayor his two brothers and and William Foster
34:01Lottie worked in the house house cleaning cooking or you know whatever but she was in the house and you
34:10know for that time that was unusual because she was practically right off the boat the mayor family
34:18were very prominent in the steamboat industry here and I do know that
34:23um Polly Allen worked on on those steamboats and they would be deck hands and and that sort of thing
34:32Captain Jim Gotti five boats run from the Mobile to the Montgomery
34:37oh Lord I work is so hard every landing you understand me I tote wood on the boat
34:44they have freight and we have to tote that too oh Lord I so tired
34:59they were slaves for about five years until uh the war was over they found out that they were free
35:05around
35:06April uh 12th 1865
35:12after they free us you understand me we so glad we make the drum and beat it like in the
35:19Africa soil
35:25the goal was always to go home they always wanted to go back home when they found out that they
35:35um that they were free they went to the mayor family and said hey we want to uh purchase our
35:41way back to Africa
35:43they say Kujo you always talky good so you go tell the white man and telly them what the Africans
35:51say
35:55they chose Kujo uh to be the leader because of uh he had a way with words right he wasn't
36:02scared to go go
36:03go ask for what he wanted absolutely Mr. Mayor told him that right I'm not gonna give you nothing for
36:09free
36:10Mr. Mayor told him you're not going back to Africa you might as well make the best out of this
36:17situation
36:18because you're not going back so what he did he went back to the group and told them what Mr.
36:24Mayor said
36:26and so they all sit down and came up with a plan
36:30we working hard and safe and eat Molassian bread and buy the land from the mayor they don't take off
36:38one
36:38five cent from the price for us but we pay it all and take the land
36:46and they couldn't go back home so they had to make the best of the best okay we can't go
36:50back to Africa
36:50so we'll make our own Africa town
36:59I have a deed where uh old Sakibi purchased the land from the mayor's I have that deed
37:07uh-huh I think he purchased that land for about 150 dollars something like that which was a lot of
37:15money back then
37:17and uh Kujo Lewis had purchased land too and uh all of together we called it Africa town
37:25and so the picture of him relaxing in
37:30in his chair at the fireplace it was a flat open house with a uh with a fireplace
37:39and uh he pretty much had all his blacksmith tools and uh his gardening tools
37:54we are at gumpa's chimney this is the last remaining part of gumpa's house that he
38:01built along with the rest of the people in Africa sound um so this is kind of the last remaining
38:08um
38:10i guess remnant of that time
38:18Africa town started to thrive as its own little community like they founded union backed church
38:26they started a school mobile county training school which is still there
38:33people have also talked about like they had a movie theater so they had like all kinds of things
38:58they all collectively work and save money to buy this piece of land
39:12they kept some of their um the customs and languages and those Africans would play the drums
39:19they can bring African dishes and just have a good time and speak the language
39:26if you were to go there today it's pretty much a shell of what the community used to be
39:34the houses that are still there are very dilapidated um it's very rare that people have a nice house living
39:42in Africa town
39:54well what is Africa town like today let's say it's uh it's a community
40:00uh it's a that was once vibrant that's struggling to survive uh both economically culturally uh even
40:09environmentally so that descended community is looking for some healing because they're trying to
40:17reclaim a memory and reclaim identity and reclaim culture that was stolen from them
40:26you need to know the story of Africa town to appreciate Africa town
40:33what we're seeing here is going to be the future home of the Africa town museum heritage house
40:41this will house artifacts it will take you through the story of the Clotilda through the story of Africa
40:46town and how the two mesh together well hopefully next time you see this place there will actually be a
40:53welcome center here and not just a sign if we get on the shore you can take your back the
40:59next steps
40:59for Clotilda are to finish the scientific studies that will help us determine the best ways to stabilize the shipwreck
41:06for the future
41:07we've just started to explore the science the artifacts and the additional secrets it may hold
41:15there is certainly discussion of some sort of memorial on the water or you know nearby for the shipwreck
41:23hopefully our study will help inform that and and show a path forward towards memorializing the shipwreck
41:32i see it as a physical anchor for the story
41:42ocean i do have flowers that i would like to place here in honor of the people who made it
41:48over for the
41:49ancestors
41:57to be able to be here and honor them today is just like i can't even put it into words
42:10all of us look for a touchstone where do we put our sorrow
42:15where do we reconcile our history and where do we reconnect with our heritage
42:22and so i think that's important for people to be able to have that
42:26we feel proud we're very proud we feel proud that we had that bloodline i think that's one of the
42:32reasons we are who we are these are our people that's our issue this is us this is us
42:43there's a sort of privilege right the fact that i have the ability to at least trace my my heritage
42:52and my ancestors to the last known slave ship
42:59most african americans don't have this they can't point back to the person to the spot to the day and
43:09say this is where my story in the united states began and we're extremely fortunate to be able to do
43:17so
43:20this is part of african american history and it needs to be in the history books
43:28let's tell about mobile alabama where the last slave ship come just because it's in the salt
43:36and it's been a long time coming and they still there so they want their story told
43:49we have to keep it alive too it's for the younger generation to be proud of who they are and
43:55where
43:55they came from absolutely i am my ancestors wildest dream that spirit of my ancestor that spirit lives in me
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