The last US slave ship was burned to hide its horrors. A storm may have unearthed it
In 1860, long after Congress made it illegal to import slaves, a crew used the ship to haul 110 men, women and children from West Africa into Alabama. Then, after the human cargo was unloaded, they secretly set it on fire
In the summer of 1860, half a century after the United States banned the transatlantic slave trade, Captain William Foster sneaked 110 African slaves into Mobile, Alabama – and knew that the floating evidence of the illegal deed could get him killed.
The trip was more part of an obscene bet than any sort of profitmaking scheme, but the Clotilda, the ship that made the months-long journey, held the telltale signs that it was an illegal slaver – containers for water and food, and the lingering stench of urine and faeces and vomit and blood.
If caught, Foster and his crew could be imprisoned or executed, so they found a remote section of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and torched the ship, igniting a mystery that would endure for a century and a half.
What happened to the Clotilda, the last ship to bring slaves to the United States?
Ben Raines, a reporter for the Birmingham News and a part-time nature guide, believes he has unearthed the answer – and the remains of the Clotilda, partly buried in 10 feet of river mud.
It was part investigative journalism and part luck. The shipwreck is normally under water, but was exposed by abnormally low tides caused by the same weather system that brought the “bomb cyclone” to the East Coast.