Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Friday 24 May 2019
Clotilda: Last U.S. slave ship discovered among gators, snakes

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) line and above it in a few
— The old wooden ship places."
hull didn't look like much With a gator living nearby
when researchers first saw and snakes everywhere,
it: just broken, waterlogged research divers descended
boards and a few pieces of into the brackish, muddy
rusted metal, all stuck in the coastal water to determine
muddy bottom of a bug- what remained. Visibility
infested Alabama bayou was virtually zero, and one
where an alligator and poi- diver standing in the hull
sonous water moccasins nearly impaled herself on
swam nearby. a broken plank, Delgado
Months later, after hun- said.
dreds of hours of study and "It is not a place anyone
testing, historians say the would want to dive," he
wreck is the Clotilda , the said.
last ship known to trans- But teams were able to
port African captives to gather a few loose planks
the American South for en- and pieces of metal, Del-
slavement. gado said, and foren-
The question now becomes sic analysis showed they
what to do with the rem- matched materials that
nants of a ghostly vessel detailed records showed
that's a testament to the were used in the Clotilda's
horror of human bondage. construction.
Some have suggested rais- One big question is what
ing the ship and putting it might be inside the still-
in a museum. Others want unexcavated hold, where
it to become the center- the African captives were
piece of a national memo- kept. Delgado said the
rial to the slave trade. Leav- area could contain casks
ing the remains in the Mo- or food buckets or even
bile River and marking the In this undated image released by SEARCH Inc., maritime archaeologist Kyle Lent examines a manacles, but further ex-
area reverently is another wooden plank from the hull of Clotilda, in delta waters north of Mobile Bay, Ala. cavation work is required.
possibility. Associated Press While there are no known
Joycelyn Davis, a descen- photographs of the Clo-
dant of one of the Afri- "Nobody has ever found gado said. in a new search that led re- tilda, Labarron Lewis of
cans held captive aboard one of these this intact and Importation of slaves had searchers to the spot where Mobile painted a giant
the ship, said she wants to been able to dig it up, and been banned in 1808 and a wreck was found. A team roadside mural depicting
somehow honor both the that is now possible," said was punishable by death, descended on the wood- the ship along a busy road
ship's human cargo and Delgado, of the Florida- so the Clotilda's captain, en hulk to take measure- through Africatown two
the hard work of them based SEARCH Inc. William Foster, burned the ments and gather a few years ago. The announce-
and their descendants in Officials with the Alabama vessel in a river bayou north loose pieces for analysis. ment of the ship's discovery
forming Africatown USA , a Historical Commission will of Mobile after unloading Using detailed archival re- came as he was planning
coastal community where meet next week with resi- about 110 captives on to a cords of more than 1,500 to touch up the painting,
the Africans settled when dents in Africatown, just a steamboat. ship registries, researchers which was based on an im-
they were freed from slav- few miles north of down- Foster kept a detailed log determined the half-buried age he found on the inter-
ery after the Civil War. town Mobile, to detail the of everything he did, Del- ship was the exact size and net.
"I got chills when it heard it," discovery and begin a gado said, and that helped shape of the Clotilda. It was It also left Lewis wondering
said Davis, who still lives in discussion about the next lead to the discovery of the also in the same spot and whether he is a descen-
the area. steps. wreck. the same depth of water dant of the Clotilda's last
James Delgado, a mari- The Clotilda's unique di- A Mobile-area reporter, where the captain wrote of surviving African, Cudjo
time archaeologist who mensions made it a one- Ben Raines, spurred fresh scuttling the vessel to hide Lewis, who died in 1935
helped lead the team that of-a-kind Gulf Coast schoo- interest in the Clotilda last evidence after its one and and was featured in the
verified the wreck as the ner, and it made multiple year by publishing a de- only voyage as a slaver, best-selling "Barracoon" by
Clotilda, said Thursday that cargo trips in the region be- tailed account of a wreck Delgado said. the late Zora Neale Hur-
the ship's remains are deli- fore plantation owner Timo- that could have been the "About half of the ship rises ston, released last year.
cate but the potential for thy Meaher of Mobile hired Clotilda but turned out to above the river bottom," "My granddaddy's brother
both research and inspira- it in 1860 for an illegal trip to be that of another wooden he said. "The hull is there, looked just like Cudjo Lew-
tion are enormous. Africa to gather slaves, Del- ship. The publicity resulted burned down to the water- is," the painter said.q

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