Investigating The Crime Of The Slave Ship Clotilda

Dr. Natalie S. Robertson devoted 30 years of research, from Benin to Alabama, to share the story of Clotilda, the last American slave ship, and to tell the startling truth about the Clotilda smuggling crime. Her award-winning book, The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Making of AfricaTown, USA: Spirit of Our Ancestors, chronicles Clotilda’s fateful, illegal smuggling voyage from point of capture in the West African interior to point of disembarkation in Mobile, Alabama, on the eve of the Civil War.

Hear how Clotilda’s 110 West African captives survived their transatlantic ordeal, building their own Africa in America, nobly retaining the traditions and cultures of the land they left behind.

Check out NATGEO’s film “Clotilda: Last American Slave Ship,” featuring Dr. Robertson. Now on Hulu and Disney+, the film explores the vessel’s recent discovery in the Mobile River 162 years later.

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