FILE – Joycelyn Davis, a direct descendant of Clotilda survivor Charlie Lewis, stands for a portrait at the community center in Africatown in Mobile, Ala., Jan. 29, 2019. VOA
A way to honor Africatown USA
Joycelyn Davis, a descendant of one of the Africans held captive aboard the ship, said she wants to somehow honor both the ship's human cargo as well as their hard work and that of their descendants in forming Africatown USA, a coastal community where the Africans settled when they were freed from slavery after the Civil War.
"I got chills when it heard it," said Davis, who still lives in the area.
James Delgado, a maritime archaeologist who helped lead the team that verified the wreck as the Clotilda, said Thursday that the ship's remains are delicate but the potential for both research and inspiration are enormous.
"Nobody has ever found one of these this intact and been able to dig it up, and that is now possible," said Delgado, of the Florida-based SEARCH Inc.
Officials with the Alabama Historical Commission will meet next week with residents in Africatown, just a few miles north of downtown Mobile, to detail the discovery and begin a discussion about the next steps.
The Clotilda's unique dimensions made it a one-of-a-kind Gulf Coast schooner, and it made multiple cargo trips in the region before plantation owner Timothy Meaher of Mobile hired it in 1860 for an illegal trip to Africa to gather slaves, Delgado said.
Importation of slaves had been banned in 1808 and was punishable by death, so the Clotilda's captain, William Foster, burned the vessel in a river bayou north of Mobile after unloading about 110 captives on to a steamboat.
Foster kept a detailed log of everything he did, Delgado said, and that helped lead to the discovery of the wreck.