The last known U.S. slave ship is too “broken” and dilapidated to be pulled from the murky waters of Alabama’s Gulf Coast without being dismembered, a task force of archaeologists, engineers and historians said after a years-long investigation.
The task force led by the Alabama Historical Commission said Thursday that the Clotilda, the last known ship to have carried enslaved Africans to the United States, was broken in two by a larger ship and badly eroded by bacteria.
The 500-page report says the “responsible” way to commemorate the ship is to protect it underwater where it was discovered in 2019.
“There is no other site in the world that has as much physical evidence as the Clotilda,” said James Delgado, one of the lead marine archaeologists on the investigation, who said the priority was to preserve that physical evidence. “The Clotilda is the crime scene, so everything we did was part of a crime scene investigation.”
The wooden schooner at the heart of the investigation was commissioned in 1860 by Timothy Meaher, a year before the Confederacy was formed and decades after the importation of slaves was made punishable by death in 1808.
Commanded by William Foster, the ship sailed to West Africa and smuggled 110 Africans into Alabama. Foster then attempted to burn and sink the ship to cover up the crime.
After the Civil War freed the Clotilda survivors, historical records show that 32 of them purchased land from Meaher and established what is now Africatown, formerly known as Plateau, about 3 miles north of Mobile.
The remains of the ship remained, unidentified, in the brackish water of the Mobile River until 2019.
On Thursday, the task force presented photos of some of the charred remains of the hull that were excavated throughout the investigation — evidence that supports the story that historians and community members have documented for decades.
Before the $1 million state-funded investigation, it was unclear how well the ship had fared after more than 160 years underwater.
Some hoped it was intact enough to be fully excavated and turned into a land museum.
“Museums have power, and this ship loses its power if it stays in the water,” said Ben Raines, a former local journalist who wrote a book about the Clotilda.
Raines said he remains optimistic that the ship could be excavated and turned into a museum, as the task force said that option was still scientifically and technically possible.
Raines said a museum would be an important resource for all descendants of slaves in the United States and could bring much-needed revenue to the Africatown community.
Many residents at Thursday’s meeting expressed a similar sentiment.
Delgado did not rule out that option, but said the process would require dismantling the ship “piece by piece, nail by nail” and could compromise some of the remaining physical clues about the experiences of the enslaved people on board.
Key historical features include the lower hull where African slaves were held captive. Deep-sea dives have revealed that the confined chambers where 110 people were held remain largely intact.
Clotilda Descendants Association president Jeremy Ellis became visibly emotional as Delgado shared details of the compartment where his ancestors were kept.
“Since we’ve been able to learn more about what they actually went through, how cramped the cargo hold was and how they were on top of each other, it’s been very scary,” said Ellis, who is in his 40s and a sixth-generation descendant of Clotilda, Pollee and Rose Allen’s survivors. “And it makes me want to continue the effort of reconciliation and healing for the descendants.”
Instead of excavating, the report recommended a plan that would preserve the structure underwater by installing large pillars around the ship to protect it from other ships and boats.
The ship is submerged in a designated wildlife management area and the town is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, meaning the process will require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to obtain a federal permit to install the protections.
Representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers, who played a key role in the investigation, said the process could be resolved within months, provided there are no serious conflicts between environmental protections and the ship’s needs.
The ship’s discovery in 2019 reignited a long-running debate about how to deal with the Clotilda’s poignant legacy, particularly for direct descendants of survivors.
The Meaher family still owns millions of dollars in real estate in the area, as well as parks and roads that bear the family’s name.
Zora Neale Hurston’s best-selling book, “Barracoon,” chronicles the life of Cudjo Lewis, the last surviving African slave from the Clotilda.
Released in 2018, “Barracoon” chronicles Lewis’s upbringing in Africa, his experiences aboard the slave ship and during his slavery, and his role in the discovery of Africatown. Lewis died in 1935 at the age of 94.
As a result, Africatown and Clotilda are frequently cited in the national debate over reparations.
Ultimately, the task force said the underwater preservation plan would only protect the structure for about 100 years before it completely succumbs to erosion.
They added that the delay could be shortened by climate change, which will likely affect water levels, temperatures and salinity around the ship.
But many descendants said they were happy to leave the ship underwater.
Veda Robbins, 55, is also a sixth-generation descendant of Pollee and Rose Allen.
Robbins grew up in nearby Mobile, but clearly remembers going to her great-aunt’s house in Africatown as a child. Robbins was married in the local Africatown church and later baptized her children there.
Robbins said the ship was not as important as the need to revitalize the Africatown community, which has been ravaged by environmental contamination and disinvestment since its inception.
“I don’t want to see a ship taking up space in the community that could be used for housing and things for the community itself,” Robbins said. The unincorporated town’s population has shrunk significantly to just under 2,000 people.
Robbins echoed the official position of the Clotilda Descendants Association: Ultimately, the ship is less important than the stories of the people who survived it, as well as the descendants already struggling to keep the Africatown community intact.
