The Last Slave Ship by Ben Raines
The Clotilda became the final ship in history to transport enslaved Africans to the United States, fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was declared illegal. To hide the affluent offenders and shield them from punishment, the ship was destroyed and set afire upon arrival. Clotilda remained undiscovered for the following 160 years in spite of several attempts to locate the submerged wreck. But in 2019, journalist Ben Raines made headlines across the world when he ended his obsessive search for one of our country’s most significant historical relics in Alabama’s wetlands.
The Last Slave Ship by Ben Raines
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Raines describes the ship’s treacherous journey, the tale of its rediscovery, and its complicated legacy as it travels from Alabama to the ancient African kingdom of Dahomey in contemporary Benin. Africatown, the Alabama town established by Clotilda prisoners, thrived under the Jim Crow South despite all difficulties. Cudjo Lewis agreed to an interview with Zora Neale Hurston in 1927 so that she could write about his enslavement in the New York Times best-seller Barracoon.
Nonetheless, the eerie memory of servitude has been passed down through the centuries. The descendants of those sold into slavery, the descendants of the fellow Africans who sold them, and the descendants of their fellow American enslavers are the three societies that Clotilda haunts. These two groups continue to be linked by this bond.
The Last Slave Ship is an epic story of one community’s achievements over immense difficulty and a celebration of the capacity of human inquiry to unearth the truth about our past and mend its wounds, yet at its core, it maintains optimism.
An informative factual story of the last slave ship to arrive in the United States. The story begins in present-day Benin, Western Africa, with the selling of local Africans by other Africans of royal blood, and it then depicts the dreadful journey across the ocean in abhorrent circumstances. Raines establishes Africatown in Alabama, a town that is still in existence today after he leads the slaves to freedom and buys land close to the location of their slavery. In the wetlands close to Mobile, Raines directs a hunt for the original boat, the Clotilda.
After initially discovering the incorrect boat’s remains and having it widely reported, Raines, humiliated by the error and now gun-shy, eventually discovers the real Clotilda, or, at least, the remains of her, as her owner burned the boat to the water’s edge in an effort to destroy any traces of his crime because importing slaves at this time was illegal. When narrating, Raines does a fantastic job of identifying the voices of the many characters. The book combines information and entertainment.
