Thursday, May 23, 2019

The wreckage of the last slave ship to successfully bring its human cargo to American shores has been found conclusively in a remote tributary of the Mobile River in Alabama.



The Clotilda's bondage mission came as a result of a bet by the owner that it could be done in 1860, when slave imports had been banned since 1808. The owner won the bet. The Clotilda set off for what is now called Benin and brought back 110-160 African slaves. Survivors were sold into bondage by the White Man. Redoshi, name changed to Aunt Sally Ann Smith by a subsequent Virginia owner,
was the last known survivor of the Clotilda. Redoshi lived until 1937, when she was 89 years old, and is the only slave survivor to be filmed during life, by the United States Department of Agriculture for "The Negro Farmer: Extension Work for Better Farming and Better Living."

Today the identity of the burned scuttled hulk of the Clotilda was positively identified.
The Clotilda in 1914.

Remains of the Clotilda today.