Clotilda: Last American Slave Ship (2022) Movie Script
1
- []
- [birds chirping]
[woman vocalizing]
[Jeremy Ellis]
I am the voice of Pollee and Rose Allen.
[Garry Lumbers]
I am the voice of Cudjo Lewis.
[Ted Keeby Jr.]
I am the voice of Ossa Keeby.
[]
Clotilda is the only slave ship
that's been discovered
that is essentially intact
as an archaeological site.
[Delisha Marshall] To actually be able
to see it with your own eyes
over 160 years later,
six, seven generations,
here we are.
We're still talking about the story.
We're still preserving it.
I mean, seeing the actual ship
that our ancestors came in on.
Man, it's quite amazing.
[]
[Dr. James Delgado] Today, we're heading
to the site of the Clotilda shipwreck.
We're starting a series
of archaeological dives
to assess the condition of the ship
and the best way to preserve it.
We've invited some of the descendants
to join us
so that they can connect
with their ancestors,
but also because
they're such an important part
of the Clotilda's story.
Just being able to be at the very site
of the location of Clotilda,
knowing that this is where, essentially,
evidence wasn't destroyed,
evidence that humans
were illegally transported here
back in 1860.
It's a very surreal moment.
[Stacye Hathorn] We have very few
identified slave ships worldwide
to begin with.
And certainly, Clotilda is very unique
in my experience as an archaeologist
to have a site
to which you can
directly tie descendants.
[Keeby Jr.]
I hope they find as much as they can
of our history down there,
and some kind of way
to get it back up here
so we can see it.
[Joseph Grinnan]
Primary is 28.
[Mary Elliott] The Clotilda was the last
documented illegal slave ship
to come to the United States.
[]
[Dr. Sylviane Diouf] The story
of the people who were on the Clotilda
is the best documented story
of the entire
Transatlantic slave trade.
We are talking about
over 12 million people,
and so far, there's just one ship
where we can have the entire story.
[Dr. Natalie S. Robertson]
The Clotilda cargo
numbered 110 West African captives
being smuggled into the country
against their will.
[Dr. Delgado]
Clotilda is the last ship
known to have illegally brought slaves
to the United States
following the abolition of the slave trade
in the United States in 1808.
[Dr. Diouf]
The story goes that Timothy Meaher
bet that he could bring
a ship full of Africans,
and that's not the word he used,
under the nose of the authorities.
[Dr. Robertson] Timothy Meaher
was a wealthy plantation
and shipyard owner.
[Kamua Sadiki] And so they did it
using deception, very clever deception.
This was a ship-building family.
They built a ship that was not modeled
like the classical slave ship.
[Altevese Rosario]
It was a lumber ship.
It happened to be
a very fast lumber ship.
And then, when the bet was made,
it was re-outfitted for slaves.
And the fact that it was fast,
they thought that that was
obviously on their side.
That was a benefit.
[]
Now, the fact is
Captain Foster kept a log.
[Foster]
Fitted out for the coast of Africa
to purchase a cargo of slaves.
Cleared and sailed from Mobile March 4th
with the following cargo
and $9,000 in gold.
Nine men for the mast,
first and second mates
and myself.
[Elliott]
Captain Foster kept a log,
but that's his story.
The fact is
we also have the oral history,
and those are the stories
that we have to get at.
It helps us reveal the truth.
I am a fifth-generation descendant
of Pollee and Rose Allen
who were both enslaved Africans
on the Clotilda.
There's not a lot written
about Pollee Allen,
and a lot of my information
that I've been able to capture
has been through my research,
and my reading,
and my grandmother,
and some of my cousins.
He was possibly
from the western part of Nigeria.
His African name was Kupollee.
He was late teens, early 20s age
and he was probably
a warrior of his tribe.
I'm the great-grandchild
of James and Lottie Dennison.
I, um...
know more about this
than I probably would have
if it hadn't been for my mother.
She was the author of two memoirs
for James and Lottie.
I am the great-great-granddaughter
of James and Lottie Dennison.
This is James' headstone.
[Dennison]
Lottie was kidnapped.
Her mother had sent her
on an errand one day.
And Lottie was taken
and her parents never saw her again.
We think she was around 18 or 19 years old
when she was captured.
[Lorna Gail Woods]
My grandmama,
she was the one that instilled in me
about history.
Charlie had came over on the Clotilda.
That was my great-great-grandfather.
He was the head of the Tarkar tribe.
They were hunting for food.
But while they was
on their way back to the camp,
people were out huntin' for people
that they captured to take back
or bring to America for slaves.
Cudjo is my grandmother's
great-grandfather.
I'm his second generation,
she's the third.
I'm the third great.
There's a really wonderful book
based on the oral history
of one of the survivors of the Clotilda
who we know as Cudjo Lewis,
also went by the name Kazoola.
[Rosario]
This touches me in such a way.
It's amazing.
It is just truly amazing...
for us to have...
our history documented so well.
- To be so fortunate.
- Yeah.
You know?
[Cudjo] Thankee, Jesus.
Somebody come ask about Cudjo.
I want to tellee somebody who I is,
so maybe dey go
in de Afficky soil some day
and callee my name,
and somebody dere say,
"Yeah, I know Kossula."
[Lumbers] Cudjo came from Benin
and he came from the Yoruba tribe.
[Rosario]
And they were farmers.
[Lumbers]
So he was 17 going on 18,
so he was going to become a warrior.
He actually never had a chance
to see that happen
because of the village got raided.
[Cudjo] It about daybreak when de folks
dat sleep get wake wid de noise
when de people of Dahomey
breakee de Great Gate.
I see de people gittee kill so fast.
Dey grab me, and tie de wrist.
I beg dem, please let me go back
to my mama.
[Lumbers]
They got him.
He never did see his mom,
never did see his siblings.
He never did see anybody after that.
[Dr. Robertson] Generally,
Africans are captured
200 or more miles in the interior,
then forced to walk
that very long distance
from the interior down to the coasts
where they are sold to Europeans,
and, later, American buyers.
[Cudjo]
All day dey make us walk.
De sun so hot.
We sleepee on de ground dat night.
I thinkee too about my folks and I cry.
All night I cry.
[Dr. Diouf]
For Cudjo and his group,
it was about five or six days.
And people were tied one to the other.
There was very little food,
very little to drink.
And once they arrived on the coast,
they were held in prisons
called barracoons, slave pens.
And you have men, women, children
held in those barracoon settings
for sometimes two months at a time.
And you're sitting in that barracoon
disoriented,
likely starved,
likely in pain having been marched
all those miles.
[Woods]
And once they got there,
they said Charlie said,
"Oh, Lord."
They knew then that they were at the place
that they wasn't gonna never return
back to they camp
where they had left.
So, imagine living with that lack of hope,
but still trying to survive.
[]
[Dr. Delgado]
We're here on the Mobile River...
at the site of the Clotilda shipwreck.
Twenty-five.
[Dr. Delgado] It's in pretty shallow water
between five and about 20 feet deep.
Fifteen, drop.
[Dr. Delgado]
I think we'll get a pretty good sense,
not only of the condition of the wreck,
but if the visibility has improved at all,
we may be, on this dive,
able to... the very first time...
To see Clotilda underwater.
[Grinnan] We're gonna jump in
and we're gonna find the bow,
start there, which is where
our buoy is located,
and then, likely,
we'll investigate the bow,
then just take measurements and points
along that starboard side of the hull,
and see what we find when we get there.
The Mobile River is not
your ideal diving conditions.
Yeah, there tends to be a lot of debris.
We have seen snakes
and alligators on site.
We typically don't have
any visibility at the site.
Let me know when you get
on... on bottom.
[Grinnan] I'm on the wreck,
but I'm not on the bottom.
[man] Okay.
[Grinnan] Trying to figure out
where on the wreck I am.
He's on the wreck,
he landed on some of the debris
that's on top of the wreck right now.
[Dr. Delgado]
Any dive into this wreck is risky.
Any place where the ship
has been splintered or broken,
you now have very sharp projectiles
that can go through a wet suit
like a knife would.
[Grinnan]
Got some pretty heavy structure here.
It can be disconcerting
when we come up along a tree
or piece of debris,
or even a loose timber on the vessel,
you know.
You go over it, not under it,
so you don't get anything entangled.
[water sloshing]
- How's visibility?
- [Grinnan] Uh...
Right now, it kinda looks like
chocolate milk.
It's, uh... pretty dark.
A lot of particulates in the water
obscuring your vision.
Certainly well articulated here.
There's a lot of hull planking
in pretty good shape.
The integrity of this portion of the wreck
is pretty... pretty sound?
[Grinnan]
Yeah. I think I'm coming up.
[man] All right.
Diver coming up.
All right. Diver up.
Diver okay.
[Grinnan] So today, we actually had
what we would consider
great visibility,
about four to six inches.
I have never seen the vessel until today.
We focused most of today orienting around
the outside of the vessel,
focusing on that outer hull planking
and focusing on the condition
of the timbers themselves.
The vessel itself
is incredibly interesting,
but, really, when you pair that
with the story of the Clotilda
and... and, you know,
the individuals brought over,
and then you talk to the descendants,
it really kinda...
It's awe inspiring,
it's quite humbling.
You can't separate the two.
[]
[Marshall] Gumpa is my great-
great-great-grandfather,
on my father's side.
So I'm his great-great-
great-grandaughter.
And he was from
what is now known as Benin.
Back when he was alive,
it was the Kingdom of Dahomey.
So around 1859, 1860,
in Dahomey,
they were a very turbulent nation.
So they would actually go to war
with surrounding countries
and other tribes,
and they would take the people captive
and later sell them to whoever came
to the... the Slave Coast.
[Dr. Robertson]
The buyers like Captain Foster
would arrive there in Whydah,
and negotiate sales for Africans
through a series of appointed officials.
[Foster]
Arrived at Whydah May 15th.
Having gotten ashore safely,
I met with interpreters who gave me
charge of three natives
who put me in a hammock with canopy
and carried me into the city of Whydah
six miles distant.
Upon arrival, I found
splendid accommodations.
Slavers were treated very well,
you know.
And Foster was actually
very surprised
at the level of comfort of Whydah.
[Foster] I went to see
the King of Dahomey.
We went to the warehouse
where they had in confinement
4,000 captives in a state of nudity
from which they gave me liberty
to select 125 as mine,
for which I agreed to pay $100 per head.
And through a translator,
he told the people to stand in circles.
[Cudjo] Dey make
everybody stand in a ring,
'bout ten folks in each ring.
De man by dey self,
de woman by dey self.
Den de white man lookee and lookee.
He look hard at de skin
and de feet and de legs
and in de mouth.
Den he choose.
Every time he choose a man,
he choose a woman.
We all lonesome for our home.
We don't know what goin' become of us.
[Joycelyn Davis]
When you hear about the story,
you hear about the Door of No Return.
You had to forget where you came from,
forget your family,
forget your religion.
You just had to forget
everything that you knew.
Going through that door is...
Is just saying that
you would never return back,
and that just gives me so many chills.
[Elliott]
It was their last step that they did
to prepare them to embark on that ship.
And then they're taken by small boats
into the ships waiting off the coastline.
You get to that coast and you see that
beast of the ocean for the first time
and picture that you see ships
waiting off that coastline.
And they're waiting to fill their hull
with these people.
One of them is you.
[Hathorn]
This is an incredible story.
The Clotilda story
has international significance.
This is the first phase
that we're working on,
the investigation that we're doing.
We're collecting
all the scientific information we can
to find out the best way to stabilize
and preserve the vessel.
Today, we're doing a sonar image
so we can get an idea
of how the dynamic environment,
the storm events, things like that,
are affecting the shipwreck.
[man] That's it.
Clear the deck, please.
[Hathorn] One thing
we're trying to get a handle on
if we're going to preserve in situ,
we need to know what we need to do
to keep that...
Keep it from deteriorating further.
[Dr. Delgado]
We need to process the sonar results
so that we can see our path forward.
[bird screeching]
[Dr. Diouf]
So for the first 13 days,
the people were held in darkness
in chains in the hold.
[Cudjo]
Soon we get in de ship.
Dey make us lay down in de dark.
We stay dere 13 days.
Dey don't give us much to eat.
Me so thirst.
Dey give us a little bit of water
twice a day.
Oh, Lord, Lord, we so thirst.
It's pitch black.
You are chained to another person.
Most often, the men
were chained to one another.
On ships, there were...
Women and children
had more ability to move about,
but they were still contained.
Cramped conditions,
using the bathroom where you ate,
where you laid.
[Dr. Diouf] So you can imagine,
you know, the horror of the situation,
and the filthiness of the...
Of the place as well.
I can imagine they were
prayin' and singin'.
They was afraid of being killed
or throwed overboard.
[Marshall]
They didn't speak the same languages,
they didn't practice the same religions.
But even without words,
they knew, each one knew
what the others were feeling.
They were all going through
the same horror,
the same agony,
the same separation, you know,
from everything that they knew,
from their loved ones,
and that created the birth of a family.
[Cudjo]
On de 13th day,
dey fetchee us on de deck.
We so weak, we ain't able
to walk ourselves,
so de crew take each one
and walk around de deck
till we get so we can walk ourselves.
[Dr. Roberson] Typically,
they would allow Africans to come up
to exercise their limbs
or take on some fresh air.
But they wouldn't allow them
to stay on deck for long periods of time.
They would keep them shackled below deck.
How do you hold on to your humanity
under the most inhumane circumstance?
How do you will yourself
to live through that?
It's this idea that you can break
my bones, you can strip me down,
but what you're not gonna do
is you're not gonna take away
my understanding
of what it is to be a human.
[man]
Buoy, drop!
[Dr. Delgado]
So what we're out here doing today
is that we're actually going to attempt
to enter the hold of the Clotilda
where the captives were kept.
[]
[Dr. Delgado]
What makes this very powerful,
and it's chilling in this aspect,
is that that hold where those 110 people
were placed survives.
So that as we go into it,
we have the understanding
of being the first people in there
since those captives.
[]
[Dr. Delgado]
He's gonna go into the water,
and what he's going do
is he's taking a look
over or in by feel into the hull,
seeing what he can with the visibility.
Yep.
[Dr. Delgado] And so his standing
rules of engagement on this dive
are not to go into the hold any further
than he can reasonably
lean over or take a look at.
We don't want him snagged.
[Grinnan]
Can you give me a little slack?
Yep. A little slack, Mike.
Understood.
Diver's going to the inside of the vessel.
[Grinnan]
This is awful.
[Dr. Delgado]
As we move along,
we go into a more open space,
and at this point,
the hull is widening from 18 feet
to the full 23 feet.
And this is the main cargo hold.
And that's when you realize
that what you're looking at
is the place of confinement
for the Clotilda captives.
Hold on one moment.
[Grinnan] We did go
a little bit inside of the hull,
and we see that there is probably
anywhere from a foot or two
to the mud line
in a number of spots inside the hull
and then a couple of feet of mud
down into the bottom of the hull.
And everything seems to be very similar
to what the sonar imagery is showing us.
[Hathorn]
It seems to be pretty stable.
That's good news that we don't have
a lot of sediment that's moved off of it.
That bodes well
for the preservation of the wreck.
I can almost imagine Ossa saying,
"I'm glad to see you, grandson."
[chuckles]
"Glad to see you.
This is where they...
This is where they put us.
This is what they did to us.
And tried to destroy the evidence."
- [Ellis] We're gonna do...
- [Keeby Jr.] We gonna... Yeah.
We gonna do fine
and I know they're proud of us.
- [Ellis] We're gonna do all right.
- [Keeby Jr.] They're very proud of us.
- Drink to you, Grandpa.
- [Ellis] We're here for them.
[laughing]
From the start, what we've been doing,
because this water is so murky,
is we've been using sound
to map it all with the sonar.
Of all of the ships engaged in this trade,
the... the thousands over the 400 years,
to date, this is the only one found now
and identified
that is so intact
that we're the first people in that space
since your ancestors left.
[]
And this 500-square-foot area,
that's the area
in which people were confined.
Has to be.
[]
So between these two spaces,
23, 18, 26.
- [Marshall] Right. Yeah.
- [Keeby Jr.] Mm-hmm.
[Keeby Jr.]
Wow. Wow.
[]
[Keeby Jr.]
I mean, you had to lay down flat.
- You couldn't hardly turn and you...
- That's what I don't...
And you had to stay
in that position for...
- Until they let you up on board.
- Until they let you up on board, uh-huh.
[Dr. Roberson] And this represents
the hold of the Clotilda,
which, as you can see,
is not a very large space.
Even for the few of us.
Imagine 110 captives
aboard that vessel.
It's smaller than my basement.
[laughs]
So, that really puts, um...
a lot of things in perspective.
And then there's only six of us in here,
so to have 110 people...
[Dr. Roberson]
You also have to keep in mind, too,
that, you know, I don't think
we really have any portal holes
for fresh air to pass through.
- You only have the hatch.
- Only the hatch.
Right.
Well, that makes me,
uh, fighting mad now that, uh,
our ancestors went through that,
you know.
It... you know, it makes you get
kind of emotional.
The slave ship Clotilda arrives in Mobile
July 9, 1860.
[Foster] July 9th.
I transferred my slaves
to a river steamboat
and sent them up into the canebrake
to hide them until further disposal.
I then burned my schooner
to the water's edge and sank her.
Foster took the Clotilda to a remote place
and he torched it.
He actually, in theory, could be hanged.
So he had to destroy the evidence.
[Dr. Roberson]
The Piracy Act of 1820
made smuggling Africans into the country
punishable by death by hanging.
So they hid Cudjo and his co-captives,
the Clotilda Africans,
in the canebreaks.
[]
[Dr. Diouf]
They stayed in the swamps.
There were mosquitoes.
They had little to eat.
[]
[Rosario]
How about this?
- You're shepherded off of a boat...
- [Marshall] Uh-huh.
You're in this.
- That's crazy.
- It is.
A hundred sixty years ago.
They had no idea what...
- What was ahead.
- Yeah.
Away from family,
away from home.
That's amazing.
It is.
[]
[Dr. Delgado] Here,
where Captain Foster burned Clotilda,
and where it still rests today,
we're on a mission to recover
scientific samples
from the wreck itself.
What we're doing is documenting
positions of the things,
and then recovering them.
Even if the entire ship
remains in the river,
pieces of it,
artifacts that speak to the vessel
and to what happened on it
being available for people to look at.
[Dr. Diouf]
If those items are found,
it will... it will be the first time
that we have not only these items,
but the story of the people
who actually used them,
and then the descendants.
Don't stop, Daniel.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Joe, try not to move around, Joe.
[Dr. Delgado] When we were working
and picking samples
out of piles of broken wood,
it was a selective process
because we're looking for things
that are diagnostic.
They're gonna tell us a story.
It's not ironic
that the four of us are here
witnessing this at this point in time,
and there's a responsibility
that we carry.
Um, and I think there's also a privilege
to be able to even see this.
- Oh, yes.
- To witness this.
- Oh, yes. An honor and a privilege.
- It is.
I think we might be the only four people
who've ever seen,
like, the actual ship...
- Yes.
- our ancestors came over on,
so that's really a unique situation.
[]
[Dr. Roberson]
The Mobile custom officials
have discovered that the Clotilda
has come in to the port
under the cloak of night in a...
In a very stealthy way.
Timothy Meaher was subsequently arrested.
[Dr. Diouf] In the end,
his case was dismissed
because there was no proof,
there was no ship,
and there were no people.
Ultimately,
Timothy Meaher won his bet.
And Foster was fined $1,000
because he had not paid duties
on the "imports."
[Dr. Roberson] A thousand dollars
for not paying his customs duties,
not for victimizing
110 West African captives
who were brought to Mobile
against their will.
[]
[Cudjo]
Our grief so heavy.
Look like we can't stand it.
I think maybe I die in my sleep
when I dream about my mama.
Oh, Lord.
[Keeby Jr.]
It's a quote Ossa said,
"I goes back to Africa every night
in my dreams."
It was traumatic in so many ways
because they were
kidnapped from their home
and brought to a... a strange place
where they didn't know nobody.
They just spoke the language
among themselves.
But they knew what they wanted to do,
they wanted to go back to Africa.
And they had no way of getting back.
[]
[Dr. Diouf]
The Africans were auctioned off
to a number of people.
Seventy-six were divided
between Timothy Meaher,
his two brothers,
and... and William Foster.
[Frazier]
Lottie worked in the house.
Housecleaning, cooking,
you know, whatever,
but she was in the house.
And, you know, for that time,
that was unusual
because she was practically
right off the boat.
The Meaher family were very prominent
in the steamboat industry here.
And I do know that Pollee Allen
worked on those steamboats,
and they would be deckhands
and that sort of thing.
[Cudjo]
Captain Jim gottee five boats
run from de Mobile to de Montgomery.
Oh, Lord!
I workee so hard!
Every landing.
You understand me?
I tote wood on de boat.
Dey have freight,
and we have to tote dat too.
Oh, Lord, I so tired!
[Lumbers] They were slaves for
about five years until the war was over.
They found out that they were free
around April 12, 1865.
[Cudjo] After dey free us,
you understand me?
We so glad.
We make de drum and beat it
like in de Africa soil.
The goal was always to go home.
They always wanted to go back home.
When they found out that they, um...
that they were free,
they went to the Meaher family
and said, "Hey, we want to purchase
our way back to Africa."
[Cudjo] Dey say,
"Cudjo, you always talkee good,
so you go tell de white man,
and tellee dem what de African say."
[Lumbers]
They chose Cudjo to be the leader
because of, uh...
He had a way with words.
- Right.
- He wasn't scared to go...
- Right.
- Go ask for what he wanted.
- Absolutely.
- Mr. Meaher told them that,
"I'm not gonna give you nothin' for free."
Mr. Meaher told them,
"You not goin' back to Africa.
You might as well make the best
out of this situation
because you not goin' back."
So what he did, he went back to the group
and told them what Mr. Meaher said.
And so they all sat down
and came up with a plan.
[Cudjo]
We workee hard and save,
and eat molassee and bread,
and buy de land from de Meaher.
Dey don't take off one five cent
from de price for us.
But we pay it all and take de land.
They couldn't go back home so they had
to make the best of the best.
"Okay, we can't go back to Africa,
so we'll make our own Africatown."
[Keeby Jr.] I have a deed
where Ossa Keeby purchased
the land from the Meahers.
I have that deed.
Uh-huh.
I think he purchased that land
for about $150.
Something like that.
Which was a lot of money back then.
[chuckles]
And... And, uh, Cudjo Lewis
had purchased land too.
And, uh, all of it together,
we called it Africatown.
And so the picture of him relaxing in...
in his chair at the fireplace.
[Lumbers]
It was a flat, open house...
with a, uh... with a fireplace.
And, uh, he pretty much
had all his blacksmith tools
and, uh... his gardening tools.
[]
[Marshall]
We are at Gumpa's Chimney.
This is the last remaining part
of Gumpa's house that he built
along with the rest of the people
in Africatown.
So this is kind of
the last remaining, um...
I guess remnant of that time.
Africatown started to thrive
as its own little community.
Like, they founded Union Baptist Church.
They started a school,
Mobile County Training School,
which is still there.
People have also talked about
they had movie theaters,
so they had, like, all kinds of things.
[birds chirping]
My uncle and them
just stayed in them houses
just like they were from Africa.
And they left the windows open,
and we could just go in
and they ain't lock no doors.
[Davis] They all collectively
worked and saved money
to buy this piece of land.
[]
- Water is vital.
- [drumming]
And as we think about...
[Davis] They kept some of their, um...
Their customs and languages,
and those Africans would play their drums.
They can bring African dishes,
and just have a good time
and speak the language.
[Marshall]
If you were to go there today,
it's pretty much a shell
of what the community used to be.
The houses that are still there
are very dilapidated.
It's very rare that people have
a nice house living in Africatown.
[]
[Sadiki]
Well, what is Africatown like today?
I say it's a...
It's a community,
it's, uh... that was once vibrant
that's struggling to survive
both economically, culturally,
even environmentally.
So that descendant community
is looking for some healing
because they're trying
to reclaim memory,
and reclaim identity
and reclaim culture
that was stolen from them.
[]
[Darron Patterson] You need to know
the story of Africatown
to appreciate Africatown.
What we are seeing here
is going to be the future home
of the Africatown
Museum Heritage House.
This will house artifacts.
It will take you through
the story of the Clotilda,
through the story of Africatown,
and how the two mesh together.
Well, hopefully,
next time you see this place,
there will actually be
a welcome center here
and not just a sign.
If we get on the shore,
you can take your boat...
[Dr. Delgado]
The next steps for Clotilda
are to finish the scientific studies
that will help us determine
the best ways to stabilize
the shipwreck for the future.
We've just started to explore
the science, the artifacts,
and the additional secrets it may hold.
There is certainly discussion
of some sort of memorial
on the water or nearby for the shipwreck.
Hopefully, our study will help inform that
and show a path forward towards
memorializing the shipwreck.
I see it as a physical anchor
for the story.
[]
For the ocean.
[Marshall] I do have flowers
that I would like to place here
in honor of the people who made it over.
For the ancestors.
[murmurs]
To be able to be here
and honor them today
is just like... I can't even
put it into words.
[]
[Elliott] All of us look for a touchstone.
Where do we put our sorrow?
Where do we reconcile our history?
And where do we reconnect
with our heritage?
And so I think that's important
for people to be able to have that.
- [Lumbers] We feel proud.
- [Rosario] We're very proud.
[Lumbers] We feel proud
that we have that bloodline.
I think that's one of the reasons
we are who we are.
These are our people.
That's our history.
This is us. This is us.
[Ellis]
There's a sort of privilege, right?
The fact that I have the ability
to at least trace my heritage
and my ancestors
to the last known slave ship.
[]
[Rosario]
Most African-Americans don't have this.
They can't point back to the person,
to the spot, to the day and say,
"This is where my story
in the United States began."
And we're extremely fortunate
to be able to do so.
[Keeby Jr.]
This is part of African-American history.
And it needs to be in the history books.
[Woods]
Let's tell about Mobile, Alabama,
where the last slave ship come.
Just because it's in the South
and it's been a long time comin',
and they still there,
so they want their story told.
[]
[Davis]
We have to keep it alive too.
It's for the younger generation
to be proud of who they are
and where they came from.
Absolutely, I am my ancestors'
wildest dream.
That spirit of my ancestors,
that spirit lives in me.
[]
- []
- [birds chirping]
[woman vocalizing]
[Jeremy Ellis]
I am the voice of Pollee and Rose Allen.
[Garry Lumbers]
I am the voice of Cudjo Lewis.
[Ted Keeby Jr.]
I am the voice of Ossa Keeby.
[]
Clotilda is the only slave ship
that's been discovered
that is essentially intact
as an archaeological site.
[Delisha Marshall] To actually be able
to see it with your own eyes
over 160 years later,
six, seven generations,
here we are.
We're still talking about the story.
We're still preserving it.
I mean, seeing the actual ship
that our ancestors came in on.
Man, it's quite amazing.
[]
[Dr. James Delgado] Today, we're heading
to the site of the Clotilda shipwreck.
We're starting a series
of archaeological dives
to assess the condition of the ship
and the best way to preserve it.
We've invited some of the descendants
to join us
so that they can connect
with their ancestors,
but also because
they're such an important part
of the Clotilda's story.
Just being able to be at the very site
of the location of Clotilda,
knowing that this is where, essentially,
evidence wasn't destroyed,
evidence that humans
were illegally transported here
back in 1860.
It's a very surreal moment.
[Stacye Hathorn] We have very few
identified slave ships worldwide
to begin with.
And certainly, Clotilda is very unique
in my experience as an archaeologist
to have a site
to which you can
directly tie descendants.
[Keeby Jr.]
I hope they find as much as they can
of our history down there,
and some kind of way
to get it back up here
so we can see it.
[Joseph Grinnan]
Primary is 28.
[Mary Elliott] The Clotilda was the last
documented illegal slave ship
to come to the United States.
[]
[Dr. Sylviane Diouf] The story
of the people who were on the Clotilda
is the best documented story
of the entire
Transatlantic slave trade.
We are talking about
over 12 million people,
and so far, there's just one ship
where we can have the entire story.
[Dr. Natalie S. Robertson]
The Clotilda cargo
numbered 110 West African captives
being smuggled into the country
against their will.
[Dr. Delgado]
Clotilda is the last ship
known to have illegally brought slaves
to the United States
following the abolition of the slave trade
in the United States in 1808.
[Dr. Diouf]
The story goes that Timothy Meaher
bet that he could bring
a ship full of Africans,
and that's not the word he used,
under the nose of the authorities.
[Dr. Robertson] Timothy Meaher
was a wealthy plantation
and shipyard owner.
[Kamua Sadiki] And so they did it
using deception, very clever deception.
This was a ship-building family.
They built a ship that was not modeled
like the classical slave ship.
[Altevese Rosario]
It was a lumber ship.
It happened to be
a very fast lumber ship.
And then, when the bet was made,
it was re-outfitted for slaves.
And the fact that it was fast,
they thought that that was
obviously on their side.
That was a benefit.
[]
Now, the fact is
Captain Foster kept a log.
[Foster]
Fitted out for the coast of Africa
to purchase a cargo of slaves.
Cleared and sailed from Mobile March 4th
with the following cargo
and $9,000 in gold.
Nine men for the mast,
first and second mates
and myself.
[Elliott]
Captain Foster kept a log,
but that's his story.
The fact is
we also have the oral history,
and those are the stories
that we have to get at.
It helps us reveal the truth.
I am a fifth-generation descendant
of Pollee and Rose Allen
who were both enslaved Africans
on the Clotilda.
There's not a lot written
about Pollee Allen,
and a lot of my information
that I've been able to capture
has been through my research,
and my reading,
and my grandmother,
and some of my cousins.
He was possibly
from the western part of Nigeria.
His African name was Kupollee.
He was late teens, early 20s age
and he was probably
a warrior of his tribe.
I'm the great-grandchild
of James and Lottie Dennison.
I, um...
know more about this
than I probably would have
if it hadn't been for my mother.
She was the author of two memoirs
for James and Lottie.
I am the great-great-granddaughter
of James and Lottie Dennison.
This is James' headstone.
[Dennison]
Lottie was kidnapped.
Her mother had sent her
on an errand one day.
And Lottie was taken
and her parents never saw her again.
We think she was around 18 or 19 years old
when she was captured.
[Lorna Gail Woods]
My grandmama,
she was the one that instilled in me
about history.
Charlie had came over on the Clotilda.
That was my great-great-grandfather.
He was the head of the Tarkar tribe.
They were hunting for food.
But while they was
on their way back to the camp,
people were out huntin' for people
that they captured to take back
or bring to America for slaves.
Cudjo is my grandmother's
great-grandfather.
I'm his second generation,
she's the third.
I'm the third great.
There's a really wonderful book
based on the oral history
of one of the survivors of the Clotilda
who we know as Cudjo Lewis,
also went by the name Kazoola.
[Rosario]
This touches me in such a way.
It's amazing.
It is just truly amazing...
for us to have...
our history documented so well.
- To be so fortunate.
- Yeah.
You know?
[Cudjo] Thankee, Jesus.
Somebody come ask about Cudjo.
I want to tellee somebody who I is,
so maybe dey go
in de Afficky soil some day
and callee my name,
and somebody dere say,
"Yeah, I know Kossula."
[Lumbers] Cudjo came from Benin
and he came from the Yoruba tribe.
[Rosario]
And they were farmers.
[Lumbers]
So he was 17 going on 18,
so he was going to become a warrior.
He actually never had a chance
to see that happen
because of the village got raided.
[Cudjo] It about daybreak when de folks
dat sleep get wake wid de noise
when de people of Dahomey
breakee de Great Gate.
I see de people gittee kill so fast.
Dey grab me, and tie de wrist.
I beg dem, please let me go back
to my mama.
[Lumbers]
They got him.
He never did see his mom,
never did see his siblings.
He never did see anybody after that.
[Dr. Robertson] Generally,
Africans are captured
200 or more miles in the interior,
then forced to walk
that very long distance
from the interior down to the coasts
where they are sold to Europeans,
and, later, American buyers.
[Cudjo]
All day dey make us walk.
De sun so hot.
We sleepee on de ground dat night.
I thinkee too about my folks and I cry.
All night I cry.
[Dr. Diouf]
For Cudjo and his group,
it was about five or six days.
And people were tied one to the other.
There was very little food,
very little to drink.
And once they arrived on the coast,
they were held in prisons
called barracoons, slave pens.
And you have men, women, children
held in those barracoon settings
for sometimes two months at a time.
And you're sitting in that barracoon
disoriented,
likely starved,
likely in pain having been marched
all those miles.
[Woods]
And once they got there,
they said Charlie said,
"Oh, Lord."
They knew then that they were at the place
that they wasn't gonna never return
back to they camp
where they had left.
So, imagine living with that lack of hope,
but still trying to survive.
[]
[Dr. Delgado]
We're here on the Mobile River...
at the site of the Clotilda shipwreck.
Twenty-five.
[Dr. Delgado] It's in pretty shallow water
between five and about 20 feet deep.
Fifteen, drop.
[Dr. Delgado]
I think we'll get a pretty good sense,
not only of the condition of the wreck,
but if the visibility has improved at all,
we may be, on this dive,
able to... the very first time...
To see Clotilda underwater.
[Grinnan] We're gonna jump in
and we're gonna find the bow,
start there, which is where
our buoy is located,
and then, likely,
we'll investigate the bow,
then just take measurements and points
along that starboard side of the hull,
and see what we find when we get there.
The Mobile River is not
your ideal diving conditions.
Yeah, there tends to be a lot of debris.
We have seen snakes
and alligators on site.
We typically don't have
any visibility at the site.
Let me know when you get
on... on bottom.
[Grinnan] I'm on the wreck,
but I'm not on the bottom.
[man] Okay.
[Grinnan] Trying to figure out
where on the wreck I am.
He's on the wreck,
he landed on some of the debris
that's on top of the wreck right now.
[Dr. Delgado]
Any dive into this wreck is risky.
Any place where the ship
has been splintered or broken,
you now have very sharp projectiles
that can go through a wet suit
like a knife would.
[Grinnan]
Got some pretty heavy structure here.
It can be disconcerting
when we come up along a tree
or piece of debris,
or even a loose timber on the vessel,
you know.
You go over it, not under it,
so you don't get anything entangled.
[water sloshing]
- How's visibility?
- [Grinnan] Uh...
Right now, it kinda looks like
chocolate milk.
It's, uh... pretty dark.
A lot of particulates in the water
obscuring your vision.
Certainly well articulated here.
There's a lot of hull planking
in pretty good shape.
The integrity of this portion of the wreck
is pretty... pretty sound?
[Grinnan]
Yeah. I think I'm coming up.
[man] All right.
Diver coming up.
All right. Diver up.
Diver okay.
[Grinnan] So today, we actually had
what we would consider
great visibility,
about four to six inches.
I have never seen the vessel until today.
We focused most of today orienting around
the outside of the vessel,
focusing on that outer hull planking
and focusing on the condition
of the timbers themselves.
The vessel itself
is incredibly interesting,
but, really, when you pair that
with the story of the Clotilda
and... and, you know,
the individuals brought over,
and then you talk to the descendants,
it really kinda...
It's awe inspiring,
it's quite humbling.
You can't separate the two.
[]
[Marshall] Gumpa is my great-
great-great-grandfather,
on my father's side.
So I'm his great-great-
great-grandaughter.
And he was from
what is now known as Benin.
Back when he was alive,
it was the Kingdom of Dahomey.
So around 1859, 1860,
in Dahomey,
they were a very turbulent nation.
So they would actually go to war
with surrounding countries
and other tribes,
and they would take the people captive
and later sell them to whoever came
to the... the Slave Coast.
[Dr. Robertson]
The buyers like Captain Foster
would arrive there in Whydah,
and negotiate sales for Africans
through a series of appointed officials.
[Foster]
Arrived at Whydah May 15th.
Having gotten ashore safely,
I met with interpreters who gave me
charge of three natives
who put me in a hammock with canopy
and carried me into the city of Whydah
six miles distant.
Upon arrival, I found
splendid accommodations.
Slavers were treated very well,
you know.
And Foster was actually
very surprised
at the level of comfort of Whydah.
[Foster] I went to see
the King of Dahomey.
We went to the warehouse
where they had in confinement
4,000 captives in a state of nudity
from which they gave me liberty
to select 125 as mine,
for which I agreed to pay $100 per head.
And through a translator,
he told the people to stand in circles.
[Cudjo] Dey make
everybody stand in a ring,
'bout ten folks in each ring.
De man by dey self,
de woman by dey self.
Den de white man lookee and lookee.
He look hard at de skin
and de feet and de legs
and in de mouth.
Den he choose.
Every time he choose a man,
he choose a woman.
We all lonesome for our home.
We don't know what goin' become of us.
[Joycelyn Davis]
When you hear about the story,
you hear about the Door of No Return.
You had to forget where you came from,
forget your family,
forget your religion.
You just had to forget
everything that you knew.
Going through that door is...
Is just saying that
you would never return back,
and that just gives me so many chills.
[Elliott]
It was their last step that they did
to prepare them to embark on that ship.
And then they're taken by small boats
into the ships waiting off the coastline.
You get to that coast and you see that
beast of the ocean for the first time
and picture that you see ships
waiting off that coastline.
And they're waiting to fill their hull
with these people.
One of them is you.
[Hathorn]
This is an incredible story.
The Clotilda story
has international significance.
This is the first phase
that we're working on,
the investigation that we're doing.
We're collecting
all the scientific information we can
to find out the best way to stabilize
and preserve the vessel.
Today, we're doing a sonar image
so we can get an idea
of how the dynamic environment,
the storm events, things like that,
are affecting the shipwreck.
[man] That's it.
Clear the deck, please.
[Hathorn] One thing
we're trying to get a handle on
if we're going to preserve in situ,
we need to know what we need to do
to keep that...
Keep it from deteriorating further.
[Dr. Delgado]
We need to process the sonar results
so that we can see our path forward.
[bird screeching]
[Dr. Diouf]
So for the first 13 days,
the people were held in darkness
in chains in the hold.
[Cudjo]
Soon we get in de ship.
Dey make us lay down in de dark.
We stay dere 13 days.
Dey don't give us much to eat.
Me so thirst.
Dey give us a little bit of water
twice a day.
Oh, Lord, Lord, we so thirst.
It's pitch black.
You are chained to another person.
Most often, the men
were chained to one another.
On ships, there were...
Women and children
had more ability to move about,
but they were still contained.
Cramped conditions,
using the bathroom where you ate,
where you laid.
[Dr. Diouf] So you can imagine,
you know, the horror of the situation,
and the filthiness of the...
Of the place as well.
I can imagine they were
prayin' and singin'.
They was afraid of being killed
or throwed overboard.
[Marshall]
They didn't speak the same languages,
they didn't practice the same religions.
But even without words,
they knew, each one knew
what the others were feeling.
They were all going through
the same horror,
the same agony,
the same separation, you know,
from everything that they knew,
from their loved ones,
and that created the birth of a family.
[Cudjo]
On de 13th day,
dey fetchee us on de deck.
We so weak, we ain't able
to walk ourselves,
so de crew take each one
and walk around de deck
till we get so we can walk ourselves.
[Dr. Roberson] Typically,
they would allow Africans to come up
to exercise their limbs
or take on some fresh air.
But they wouldn't allow them
to stay on deck for long periods of time.
They would keep them shackled below deck.
How do you hold on to your humanity
under the most inhumane circumstance?
How do you will yourself
to live through that?
It's this idea that you can break
my bones, you can strip me down,
but what you're not gonna do
is you're not gonna take away
my understanding
of what it is to be a human.
[man]
Buoy, drop!
[Dr. Delgado]
So what we're out here doing today
is that we're actually going to attempt
to enter the hold of the Clotilda
where the captives were kept.
[]
[Dr. Delgado]
What makes this very powerful,
and it's chilling in this aspect,
is that that hold where those 110 people
were placed survives.
So that as we go into it,
we have the understanding
of being the first people in there
since those captives.
[]
[Dr. Delgado]
He's gonna go into the water,
and what he's going do
is he's taking a look
over or in by feel into the hull,
seeing what he can with the visibility.
Yep.
[Dr. Delgado] And so his standing
rules of engagement on this dive
are not to go into the hold any further
than he can reasonably
lean over or take a look at.
We don't want him snagged.
[Grinnan]
Can you give me a little slack?
Yep. A little slack, Mike.
Understood.
Diver's going to the inside of the vessel.
[Grinnan]
This is awful.
[Dr. Delgado]
As we move along,
we go into a more open space,
and at this point,
the hull is widening from 18 feet
to the full 23 feet.
And this is the main cargo hold.
And that's when you realize
that what you're looking at
is the place of confinement
for the Clotilda captives.
Hold on one moment.
[Grinnan] We did go
a little bit inside of the hull,
and we see that there is probably
anywhere from a foot or two
to the mud line
in a number of spots inside the hull
and then a couple of feet of mud
down into the bottom of the hull.
And everything seems to be very similar
to what the sonar imagery is showing us.
[Hathorn]
It seems to be pretty stable.
That's good news that we don't have
a lot of sediment that's moved off of it.
That bodes well
for the preservation of the wreck.
I can almost imagine Ossa saying,
"I'm glad to see you, grandson."
[chuckles]
"Glad to see you.
This is where they...
This is where they put us.
This is what they did to us.
And tried to destroy the evidence."
- [Ellis] We're gonna do...
- [Keeby Jr.] We gonna... Yeah.
We gonna do fine
and I know they're proud of us.
- [Ellis] We're gonna do all right.
- [Keeby Jr.] They're very proud of us.
- Drink to you, Grandpa.
- [Ellis] We're here for them.
[laughing]
From the start, what we've been doing,
because this water is so murky,
is we've been using sound
to map it all with the sonar.
Of all of the ships engaged in this trade,
the... the thousands over the 400 years,
to date, this is the only one found now
and identified
that is so intact
that we're the first people in that space
since your ancestors left.
[]
And this 500-square-foot area,
that's the area
in which people were confined.
Has to be.
[]
So between these two spaces,
23, 18, 26.
- [Marshall] Right. Yeah.
- [Keeby Jr.] Mm-hmm.
[Keeby Jr.]
Wow. Wow.
[]
[Keeby Jr.]
I mean, you had to lay down flat.
- You couldn't hardly turn and you...
- That's what I don't...
And you had to stay
in that position for...
- Until they let you up on board.
- Until they let you up on board, uh-huh.
[Dr. Roberson] And this represents
the hold of the Clotilda,
which, as you can see,
is not a very large space.
Even for the few of us.
Imagine 110 captives
aboard that vessel.
It's smaller than my basement.
[laughs]
So, that really puts, um...
a lot of things in perspective.
And then there's only six of us in here,
so to have 110 people...
[Dr. Roberson]
You also have to keep in mind, too,
that, you know, I don't think
we really have any portal holes
for fresh air to pass through.
- You only have the hatch.
- Only the hatch.
Right.
Well, that makes me,
uh, fighting mad now that, uh,
our ancestors went through that,
you know.
It... you know, it makes you get
kind of emotional.
The slave ship Clotilda arrives in Mobile
July 9, 1860.
[Foster] July 9th.
I transferred my slaves
to a river steamboat
and sent them up into the canebrake
to hide them until further disposal.
I then burned my schooner
to the water's edge and sank her.
Foster took the Clotilda to a remote place
and he torched it.
He actually, in theory, could be hanged.
So he had to destroy the evidence.
[Dr. Roberson]
The Piracy Act of 1820
made smuggling Africans into the country
punishable by death by hanging.
So they hid Cudjo and his co-captives,
the Clotilda Africans,
in the canebreaks.
[]
[Dr. Diouf]
They stayed in the swamps.
There were mosquitoes.
They had little to eat.
[]
[Rosario]
How about this?
- You're shepherded off of a boat...
- [Marshall] Uh-huh.
You're in this.
- That's crazy.
- It is.
A hundred sixty years ago.
They had no idea what...
- What was ahead.
- Yeah.
Away from family,
away from home.
That's amazing.
It is.
[]
[Dr. Delgado] Here,
where Captain Foster burned Clotilda,
and where it still rests today,
we're on a mission to recover
scientific samples
from the wreck itself.
What we're doing is documenting
positions of the things,
and then recovering them.
Even if the entire ship
remains in the river,
pieces of it,
artifacts that speak to the vessel
and to what happened on it
being available for people to look at.
[Dr. Diouf]
If those items are found,
it will... it will be the first time
that we have not only these items,
but the story of the people
who actually used them,
and then the descendants.
Don't stop, Daniel.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Joe, try not to move around, Joe.
[Dr. Delgado] When we were working
and picking samples
out of piles of broken wood,
it was a selective process
because we're looking for things
that are diagnostic.
They're gonna tell us a story.
It's not ironic
that the four of us are here
witnessing this at this point in time,
and there's a responsibility
that we carry.
Um, and I think there's also a privilege
to be able to even see this.
- Oh, yes.
- To witness this.
- Oh, yes. An honor and a privilege.
- It is.
I think we might be the only four people
who've ever seen,
like, the actual ship...
- Yes.
- our ancestors came over on,
so that's really a unique situation.
[]
[Dr. Roberson]
The Mobile custom officials
have discovered that the Clotilda
has come in to the port
under the cloak of night in a...
In a very stealthy way.
Timothy Meaher was subsequently arrested.
[Dr. Diouf] In the end,
his case was dismissed
because there was no proof,
there was no ship,
and there were no people.
Ultimately,
Timothy Meaher won his bet.
And Foster was fined $1,000
because he had not paid duties
on the "imports."
[Dr. Roberson] A thousand dollars
for not paying his customs duties,
not for victimizing
110 West African captives
who were brought to Mobile
against their will.
[]
[Cudjo]
Our grief so heavy.
Look like we can't stand it.
I think maybe I die in my sleep
when I dream about my mama.
Oh, Lord.
[Keeby Jr.]
It's a quote Ossa said,
"I goes back to Africa every night
in my dreams."
It was traumatic in so many ways
because they were
kidnapped from their home
and brought to a... a strange place
where they didn't know nobody.
They just spoke the language
among themselves.
But they knew what they wanted to do,
they wanted to go back to Africa.
And they had no way of getting back.
[]
[Dr. Diouf]
The Africans were auctioned off
to a number of people.
Seventy-six were divided
between Timothy Meaher,
his two brothers,
and... and William Foster.
[Frazier]
Lottie worked in the house.
Housecleaning, cooking,
you know, whatever,
but she was in the house.
And, you know, for that time,
that was unusual
because she was practically
right off the boat.
The Meaher family were very prominent
in the steamboat industry here.
And I do know that Pollee Allen
worked on those steamboats,
and they would be deckhands
and that sort of thing.
[Cudjo]
Captain Jim gottee five boats
run from de Mobile to de Montgomery.
Oh, Lord!
I workee so hard!
Every landing.
You understand me?
I tote wood on de boat.
Dey have freight,
and we have to tote dat too.
Oh, Lord, I so tired!
[Lumbers] They were slaves for
about five years until the war was over.
They found out that they were free
around April 12, 1865.
[Cudjo] After dey free us,
you understand me?
We so glad.
We make de drum and beat it
like in de Africa soil.
The goal was always to go home.
They always wanted to go back home.
When they found out that they, um...
that they were free,
they went to the Meaher family
and said, "Hey, we want to purchase
our way back to Africa."
[Cudjo] Dey say,
"Cudjo, you always talkee good,
so you go tell de white man,
and tellee dem what de African say."
[Lumbers]
They chose Cudjo to be the leader
because of, uh...
He had a way with words.
- Right.
- He wasn't scared to go...
- Right.
- Go ask for what he wanted.
- Absolutely.
- Mr. Meaher told them that,
"I'm not gonna give you nothin' for free."
Mr. Meaher told them,
"You not goin' back to Africa.
You might as well make the best
out of this situation
because you not goin' back."
So what he did, he went back to the group
and told them what Mr. Meaher said.
And so they all sat down
and came up with a plan.
[Cudjo]
We workee hard and save,
and eat molassee and bread,
and buy de land from de Meaher.
Dey don't take off one five cent
from de price for us.
But we pay it all and take de land.
They couldn't go back home so they had
to make the best of the best.
"Okay, we can't go back to Africa,
so we'll make our own Africatown."
[Keeby Jr.] I have a deed
where Ossa Keeby purchased
the land from the Meahers.
I have that deed.
Uh-huh.
I think he purchased that land
for about $150.
Something like that.
Which was a lot of money back then.
[chuckles]
And... And, uh, Cudjo Lewis
had purchased land too.
And, uh, all of it together,
we called it Africatown.
And so the picture of him relaxing in...
in his chair at the fireplace.
[Lumbers]
It was a flat, open house...
with a, uh... with a fireplace.
And, uh, he pretty much
had all his blacksmith tools
and, uh... his gardening tools.
[]
[Marshall]
We are at Gumpa's Chimney.
This is the last remaining part
of Gumpa's house that he built
along with the rest of the people
in Africatown.
So this is kind of
the last remaining, um...
I guess remnant of that time.
Africatown started to thrive
as its own little community.
Like, they founded Union Baptist Church.
They started a school,
Mobile County Training School,
which is still there.
People have also talked about
they had movie theaters,
so they had, like, all kinds of things.
[birds chirping]
My uncle and them
just stayed in them houses
just like they were from Africa.
And they left the windows open,
and we could just go in
and they ain't lock no doors.
[Davis] They all collectively
worked and saved money
to buy this piece of land.
[]
- Water is vital.
- [drumming]
And as we think about...
[Davis] They kept some of their, um...
Their customs and languages,
and those Africans would play their drums.
They can bring African dishes,
and just have a good time
and speak the language.
[Marshall]
If you were to go there today,
it's pretty much a shell
of what the community used to be.
The houses that are still there
are very dilapidated.
It's very rare that people have
a nice house living in Africatown.
[]
[Sadiki]
Well, what is Africatown like today?
I say it's a...
It's a community,
it's, uh... that was once vibrant
that's struggling to survive
both economically, culturally,
even environmentally.
So that descendant community
is looking for some healing
because they're trying
to reclaim memory,
and reclaim identity
and reclaim culture
that was stolen from them.
[]
[Darron Patterson] You need to know
the story of Africatown
to appreciate Africatown.
What we are seeing here
is going to be the future home
of the Africatown
Museum Heritage House.
This will house artifacts.
It will take you through
the story of the Clotilda,
through the story of Africatown,
and how the two mesh together.
Well, hopefully,
next time you see this place,
there will actually be
a welcome center here
and not just a sign.
If we get on the shore,
you can take your boat...
[Dr. Delgado]
The next steps for Clotilda
are to finish the scientific studies
that will help us determine
the best ways to stabilize
the shipwreck for the future.
We've just started to explore
the science, the artifacts,
and the additional secrets it may hold.
There is certainly discussion
of some sort of memorial
on the water or nearby for the shipwreck.
Hopefully, our study will help inform that
and show a path forward towards
memorializing the shipwreck.
I see it as a physical anchor
for the story.
[]
For the ocean.
[Marshall] I do have flowers
that I would like to place here
in honor of the people who made it over.
For the ancestors.
[murmurs]
To be able to be here
and honor them today
is just like... I can't even
put it into words.
[]
[Elliott] All of us look for a touchstone.
Where do we put our sorrow?
Where do we reconcile our history?
And where do we reconnect
with our heritage?
And so I think that's important
for people to be able to have that.
- [Lumbers] We feel proud.
- [Rosario] We're very proud.
[Lumbers] We feel proud
that we have that bloodline.
I think that's one of the reasons
we are who we are.
These are our people.
That's our history.
This is us. This is us.
[Ellis]
There's a sort of privilege, right?
The fact that I have the ability
to at least trace my heritage
and my ancestors
to the last known slave ship.
[]
[Rosario]
Most African-Americans don't have this.
They can't point back to the person,
to the spot, to the day and say,
"This is where my story
in the United States began."
And we're extremely fortunate
to be able to do so.
[Keeby Jr.]
This is part of African-American history.
And it needs to be in the history books.
[Woods]
Let's tell about Mobile, Alabama,
where the last slave ship come.
Just because it's in the South
and it's been a long time comin',
and they still there,
so they want their story told.
[]
[Davis]
We have to keep it alive too.
It's for the younger generation
to be proud of who they are
and where they came from.
Absolutely, I am my ancestors'
wildest dream.
That spirit of my ancestors,
that spirit lives in me.
[]