The last slave ship

[..]

In about 1997/1998 I went on vacation to Gulf Shores, FL with my now ex and some of her family.

Whilst we were there I took ex and stepson on a trip across Mobile Bay on the ferry.

On the return leg we had some time to wait for the ferry.

I went for a walk whilst they waited in the SUV.

I came across a small brick building. No door, no glassed windows.

I'm nosy so I went into the building. One small room and nothing in it apart from a length of old burnt wood.

Screwed to the wood was a small brass plaque with the inscription "From the last slave ship to come to America, 1859."

I've mentioned this to quite a few people over the years and everyone has looked at me as if I had 2 heads.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/23/last-slave-ship-review-clotilda-africatown-ben-raines?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

[hubcapsc]

everyone has looked at me as if I had 2 heads.

"From the last slave ship to come to America, 1859."

I don't know anything about the truth of it...

Most slave ships didn't come to the US, though...



Some states forbid the importation of slaves (Virginia), even from other states,
by 1778, and it was stopped all together by the Constitution by 1808. England
abolished the Atlantic slave trade by the 1820, they used their navy to enforce
the abolition. Smuggled slaves, in the US, were not valuable for many reasons,
including their condition upon arrival as well as their disposition compared to
slaves who had been here for generations.

-Mike

[..]

everyone has looked at me as if I had 2 heads.

"From the last slave ship to come to America, 1859."

I don't know anything about the truth of it...

Most slave ships didn't come to the US, though...



Some states forbid the importation of slaves (Virginia), even from other states,
by 1778, and it was stopped all together by the Constitution by 1808. England
abolished the Atlantic slave trade by the 1820, they used their navy to enforce
the abolition. Smuggled slaves, in the US, were not valuable for many reasons,
including their condition upon arrival as well as their disposition compared to
slaves who had been here for generations.

-Mike

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clotilda_(slave_ship)

[hubcapsc]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clotilda_(slave_ship)

URL was busted, I hope this works...

-Mike

[Earl43P]

"U.S. involvement in the Atlantic slave trade had been banned by Congress through the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves enacted on March 2, 1807 (effective January 1, 1808), but the practice continued illegally, especially through slave traders based in New York in the 1850s and early 1860.  In the case of the Clotilda, the voyage's sponsors were based in the South and planned to buy slaves in Whydah, Dahomey. /snip/
The schooner Clotilda, under the command of Captain William Foster and carrying a cargo of 124 African slaves,[8] arrived in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in July 1860.[9] Captain Foster was working for Timothy Meaher, a wealthy Mobile shipyard owner and steamboat captain, who in 1855[10] or 1856[11] had built Clotilda, a two-masted schooner 86 feet (26 m) long with a beam of 23 feet (7.0 m) and a copper-sheathed hull, designed for the lumber trade.[12]

Meaher had learned that West African tribes were at war and that the King of Dahomey (now Benin) was willing to sell enemy prisoners as slaves. Dahomey's forces had been raiding communities in the interior, bringing captives to the large slave market at the port of Whydah.[12][13] Meaher was said to have wagered another wealthy gentleman from New Orleans,[citation needed] that he could successfully smuggle slaves into the US despite the 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves."

[Patrick]

Yep, even though slavery was banned in many states by the late 1700's and congress in 1807/8, the illegal trade to the southern states continued for quite some time.

Remember the big court case of the slaves on the La Amisted. There was a great movie made about it.