Tag Archives: Africatown

Africatown USA Trailer on Vimeo

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A Slave Auction

“This amazing story tells the events of these men, women and children, who were kidnapped from their native land in West Africa, enslaved in Ouidah, a coastal town in the Kingdom of Dahomey, the current day coastal country of Benin, and brought to America on what is believed to be the last slave ship, the Clotilda. Through their resilience, they not only survived the horrific Middle Passage, but the American Civil War, the reconstruction of Alabama, and the Jim Crow period, but they also fought to preserve their African memories, culture, and community over the generations. “For out of the bowels of slave ships they rose, and their descendants are, in the powerful words of Langston Hughes: Still Here.”After the Emancipation Proclamation, the newly freed Africans tried, but failed to return to their beloved homeland Africa. The story describes the group reuniting from various plantations, alongside American-born, formerly enslaved men, women and children. The Africans bought land and founded their own settlement, which came to be known as Africatown.The Founders appointed tribal leaders and governed Africatown according to customary African laws, spoke their own regional language, kept their own customs, used African irrigation and gardening techniques, and built their own social structures. The people of Africatown formed their own self-sufficient world.Marine archaeologists and researchers from Search, Inc. have confirmed the location of the schooner Clotilda-the last known ship to bring enslaved Africans from Benin, West Africa into the Mobile Bay. The search team discovered the schooner in a remote area of Alabama’s Mobile River.”

 

 

The ‘Clotilda,’ the Last Known Slave Ship to Arrive in the U.S., Is Found | At the Smithsonian | Smithsonian

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A cast iron bust of Cudjo Lewis, one of the last survivors of the slave ship Clotilde, can be found in front of the historic Union Missionary Baptist Church in Africatown. (Graveyardwalker (Amy Walker) Wikimedia Commons )

“The excitement and joy is overwhelming,” says Woods, in a voice trembling with emotion. She is 70 years old now. But she’s been hearing stories about her family history and the ship that tore them from their homeland since she was a child in Africatown, a small community just north of Mobile founded by the Clotilda’s survivors after the Civil War.The authentication and confirmation of the Clotilda was led by the Alabama Historical Commission and SEARCH Inc., a group of maritime archaeologists and divers who specialize in historic shipwrecks. Last year, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Slave Wrecks Project (SWP) joined the effort to help involve the community of Africatown in the preservation of the history, explains Smithsonian curator and SWP co-director Paul Gardullo.”

Source: The ‘Clotilda,’ the Last Known Slave Ship to Arrive in the U.S., Is Found | At the Smithsonian | Smithsonian  

“After the Emancipation Proclamation, the newly freed Africans tried, but failed to return to their beloved homeland Africa. The story describes the group reuniting from various plantations, alongside American-born, formerly enslaved men, women and children. The Africans bought land and founded their own settlement, which came to be known as Africatown.”
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Africatown USA Trailer from Roslyn Williams on Vimeo.