Scuttling the Clotilde
$ 225.00
16x20” Oil on Canvas
Fifty years after the importation of African slaves into the US was banned, the schooner Clotilde left Alabama on an obscene bet- to once again travel the trans-Atlantic slave route, illegally bringing newly captured and enslaved people into Mobile Bay. Upon its successful return in 1860, the Clotilde was burned and scuttled to erase any evidence of the crime. The people sold into slavery from the Clotilde were not enslaved for long, as the end of the American Civil War brought about their emancipation. Unable to find a way to return to their native Africa, the survivors pooled what money they had to buy land and settle in Alabama, naming their new community Africatown in honor of their homeland.
Fifty years after the importation of African slaves into the US was banned, the schooner Clotilde left Alabama on an obscene bet- to once again travel the trans-Atlantic slave route, illegally bringing newly captured and enslaved people into Mobile Bay. Upon its successful return in 1860, the Clotilde was burned and scuttled to erase any evidence of the crime. The people sold into slavery from the Clotilde were not enslaved for long, as the end of the American Civil War brought about their emancipation. Unable to find a way to return to their native Africa, the survivors pooled what money they had to buy land and settle in Alabama, naming their new community Africatown in honor of their homeland.
