Africatown Historic District

Africatown was created by the people who had been captured in present-day Benin in the 1850s and then transported to America aboard the last slave ship to import Africans into America. This ship, the Clotilda, left Africa with an estimated 110 people, of which 103 survived the journey and were enslaved in the Mobile Bay area in 1860. The arrival of the Clotilda is historically significant for many reasons, including the date of its arrival many decades after the slave trade had officially been abolished. The captured Africans were enslaved in the Mobile area and other parts of southern Alabama for five years. After the Civil War, many of the survivors created the community known as Africatown, which has long celebrated their descendants. For example, in 1959, residents created a monument to one of the early leaders of the community. In more recent years, there has been a greater emphasis on economic revitalization and home ownership while passing on the history and culture of this community to the next generation.

The Clotilda imported enslaved people into Alabama nearly fifty years after the international slave trade had been officially abolished. Local legends suggest the journey of the Clotilda may actually have started on a bet between a man who thought it impossible to sneak a slave ship in under the noses of federal authority. While many still share that origin story, many of the descendants focus on the larger history as an example of the continuation of the slave trade and the resilience of those who were enslaved. 

Financier and planner of the illegal operation, Timothy Meaher, avoided prosecution by hiding the enslaved people and disposing of the ship. Meaher was also considered something of a hero by his peers at the time for taking the law into his own hands and "helping" planters in the deep South access cheaper labor in an era when they typically purchased enslaved laborers from plantations further north. 

Half of the kidnapped and enslaved passengers of the Clotilda were adults and half were children and teens. All were from Benin in West Africa. One teenager upon the ship was Cudjoe Lewis, or Kazoola. He was 19 at the time and was the longest-living among the last imported slaves from Africa who remained in the Mobie area. 

The passengers aboard the Clotilda, along with other enlsaved people regrouped in Northern Alabama after slavery ended. They initially attempted to go back home, but were unable to arrange such a journey. Next, they asked the government to provide them with land, reparations for the hardships they had endured illegally in America as part of the slave trade. They were denied. Finally, the group worked and saved money until, with their resources pooled, they could afford to buy some land in 1870. Men worked in Mobile industry such as for mills, women sold produce in order to keep the community going. As a community, they maintained their language and arbitration system with a chief and even saw their own African doctor. Children born in this new community known as Africatown received both African and American names. 

Cudjoe Lewis became the best-known inhabitant of Africatown both because he lived into his nineties and because he was especially outgoing. He gave many interviews about Africatown and about life in Africa, warring tribes, and how he and others were sold into slavery. Because he died in 1935, he still has living descendants, and there are still people who know him who are personally involved in Africatown today. Today, a fifth generation of the original descendants still live in Africatown. The grounds still have the original cemetery, church, and even trees planted by the founders. The grounds were added to the National Register of Historic Places in December 2012.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/legacies/AL/200002671.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYTlwC0963s http://www.sylvianediouf.com/dreams_of_africa_in_alabama__the_slave_ship_clotilda_and_the_story_of_the_last_a_58311.htm http://www.ebru.tv/en/genres/TalkShow/footnote/episodes/5/512-sylviane-diouf http://www.nps.gov/nr/listings/20121214.htm http://alabama.travel/places-to-go/historic-africatown-welcome-center