Africatown, Alabama: The Last Slave Ship and the Town Built by Survivors

In July 1860, under cover of darkness, 110 West Africans were smuggled into Mobile Bay aboard the Clotilda—the last known slave ship to reach American shores. Arriving fifty years after Congress banned the transatlantic slave trade and made it punishable by death, these captives were quickly hidden and distributed to local plantations before the ship was burned and sunk to destroy the evidence. But this story doesn't end with enslavement. After emancipation in 1865, a group of thirty-two survivors did something extraordinary: they pooled their resources, purchased land north of Mobile, and founded their own community. They called it Africa Town—a settlement where they could preserve their language, customs, and dignity on American soil. This episode explores how these remarkable men and women, torn from kingdoms in present-day Benin and Nigeria, built a thriving community that still exists today, more than 160 years later.Timeline of EventsJuly 1860: The schooner Clotilda arrives in Mobile Bay with 110 enslaved West Africans, the last known illegal slave shipment to AmericaJuly 1860: Captain William Foster burns and scuttles the Clotilda in the Mobile River to hide evidence of the crime1865: Civil War ends; Clotilda survivors gain freedom after five years of slavery in Alabama1866-1870: Approximately 32 survivors purchase land and establish Africa Town (later Africatown) north of Mobile1872: Community builds Union Baptist Church, their first institution1910: Mobile County Training School founded, becoming educational center for Africatown1927-1931: Author Zora Neale Hurston interviews Cudjo Lewis (Oluale Kossola), documenting his firsthand account1935: Cudjo Lewis dies at age 94, the last known survivor of the transatlantic slave trade in AmericaMay 2019: Archaeologists discover and verify the wreck of the Clotilda in the Mobile RiverJuly 2023: Africatown Heritage House opens, featuring "Clotilda: The Exhibition" and artifacts from the shipThis remarkable settlement emerged during Reconstruction, when most formerly enslaved people had no resources and faced violent opposition. The Africatown founders defied these odds, creating schools, churches, and self-governing institutions while maintaining cultural connections to West Africa.Historical SignificanceAfricatown represents the only known American community founded and led entirely by African-born survivors of the slave trade. Unlike other Black settlements of the era, residents spoke Yoruba, Ewe, and Fon languages into the 1950s and maintained West African naming traditions, burial practices, and storytelling customs. The community's existence challenges common narratives about slavery's erasure of African identity—these founders consciously rebuilt pieces of home from memory. Zora Neale Hurston's 1927 interviews with Cudjo Lewis, published as "Barracoon" in 2018, provide one of the only firsthand accounts of the Middle Passage and the experience of direct capture from Africa. The 2019 discovery of the Clotilda's wreckage, verified by the Alabama Historical Commission, has sparked renewed interest in Africatown's history and the ongoing work of descendant communities to preserve their ancestors' legacy. Today, Africatown faces environmental challenges from industrial development but continues as a living memorial to resilience, self-determination, and cultural survival against extraordinary odds.Sources & Further ReadingNational Museum of African American History and Culture: Slave Wrecks Project and Clotilda research initiative