from Jameelah Mullen

15 August 2024

The ship is “too broken” and “too dilapidated” to be evacuated, archaeologists say.

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The task force, led by the Alabama Historical Commission, concluded that the Clotilda, the last ship known to have transported enslaved Africans to the United States, was too dilapidated to be salvaged from the Mobile River. According to the 500-page report, researchers recommend that the best course of action would be to keep the ship submerged.

“There is no other site in the world that provides as much physical evidence as Clotilda,” said marine archaeologist James Delgado. The Associated Press.

He continued: “Clotilda is the crime scene, so we did everything in the style of a crime scene investigation.”

After the Civil War, 32 freed Clotilda survivors bought land outside Mobile and founded Plateau Village, now known as Africatown.

William Foster took the ship West Africa, where he illegally smuggled 110 Africans back to Alabama. After his return, he attempted to burn and sink the ship to destroy the evidence of his crime.

The Clotilda lay undiscovered at the bottom of the Mobile River until it was discovered in 2019. The state then investigated whether the ship could be excavated and turned into a museum.

Delgado said it is not impossible to evacuate parts of the ship, but it would be “difficult and costly”.

Despite the risks, some residents support the museum, stclaiming that it would bring much-needed revenue to Africatown and the descendants of the enslaved Africans who arrived on Clotilda. Others, however, disagree.

Patrica Frazier, a descendant of a Clotilda survivor, says she would prefer to leave the ship underwater.

“I’m more in favor of a memorial. We don’t need to spend $30 million to dig up a ship. And it will take too long to recover that money so that it can directly benefit the community,” she told The Related press.

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