Photo: Ben Raines/Al.com via AP
Pieces of a wooden ship that was the last to transport dozens of enslaved men, women and children from Africa to America in the mid-1800s has been found off the East Coast, officials announced this week.
“The discovery of the Clotilda is an extraordinary archaeological find,” Lisa Demetropoulos Jones, executive director of the commission, toldNational Geographicabout the find. “[The ship’s journey] represented one of the darkest eras of modern history.”
While transporting slaves to America had been made illegal in 1808, the vessel was used in 1860 to ship 110 people from West Africa to Mobile, Alabama. Though slavery was against the law, the demand for free labor remained high, which prompted smugglers to make illegal trips.
This demand, and resentment about the government placing restrictions on slave labor, is what influenced plantation owner Timothy Meaher into making a bet that he could illegally transport Africans to the states using his ship, the Clotilda.
“They were smuggling people as much for defiance as for sport,” historian Natalie S. Robertson toldNBC.
After making its voyage without being detected and winning the wager, he burned Clotilda to hide all evidence of his activity.
Illustration of Clotilda.DAN ANDERSON/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
While there were no remaining remnants of the ship that positively identified the wreckage as Clotilda, other evidence, such as metal fasteners made of hand-forged pig iron, and signs that hull was sheathed with copper, point to it being the long lost vessel, maritime archaeologistJames DelgadotoldNational Geographic.
Now there will be discussions on what to do with the surviving parts of the ship, and there have been discussions around creating a national memorial to help teach new generations about the horror of slavery.
source: people.com
