Community leaders in Africatown announced Friday that a team of maritime historians and archaeologists had arrived in Mobile to investigate whether a wooden shipwreck found earlier in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta area could be the remains of the Clotilda, the last known ship to bring enslaved Africans into the United States.
Anderson Flen, president of the Mobile County Training School Alumni Association, told a crowd of community members, visitors and reporters gathered at the Robert Hope Community Center that a group of historic preservationists had traveled to the historic Africatown community to help confirm the location of the wreckage, which had recently drawn national attention after a local journalist documented the remains.
“We all hope that it is,” Flen said of the possibility that the wreck is the Clotilda. “However, whatever the findings, we know it’s out there.”
Flen said the effort came together quickly, thanks to relationships built over years of advocacy for Africatown’s history and the international interest the story has attracted.
“Today’s event came about very quickly because of the relationships formed by so many and because the Africatown story is such a remarkable story,” he said. “So many in the community of Africatown were a part of the conference call to help make this happen.”
Officials confirmed that several major institutions are now involved in the effort to identify the wreck, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Smithsonian Slave Wreck Project, the National Park Service and the Alabama Historical Commission.
Clara Nobles, assistant director of the Alabama Historical Commission, said her agency would help lead the identification process.
“Our main goal is to identify the wreckage,” Nobles told the group. “It may be the Clotilda and that would be great. It may not, and that’s OK, because that’ll mean it’s still out there.”
State Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, who represents part of Mobile in the Alabama Legislature, said she believes the wreckage could indeed be the Clotilda and pledged to support the effort however she could.
“This is a blessed day,” Figures said. “I’m very excited about this day. I’m excited to be a part of this.”
Asked what would happen to the wreckage if researchers confirm it is the Clotilda, Figures said she intends to ensure any remains stay in Alabama and in the Africatown community that has preserved the ship’s story for generations.
“It will not leave Alabama,” she said. “I will do everything within my power to make that happen. It needs to be here.”
Liz Smith-Incer, a representative of the National Park Service’s Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program, said her agency is also working to connect historic sites across the region through a roughly 10-mile water trail, or blueway, linking Africatown with Prichard, Chickasaw and other parts of Mobile County.
Smith-Incer said the blueway project would highlight the Clotilda story alongside other historic sites along the route, and that the National Park Service’s Submerged Resources Center, which specializes in underwater archaeology, is assisting with the shipwreck investigation.
The Clotilda was smuggled into Mobile Bay in 1860, decades after the United States banned the importation of enslaved people, carrying 110 captive Africans. After unloading its human cargo, the ship’s captain is believed to have set it ablaze and sunk it to destroy evidence of the illegal voyage. The Africans aboard the Clotilda later founded the community now known as Africatown, just north of downtown Mobile, and many of their descendants still live in the area today.
Community leaders said the investigation into the wreckage is expected to continue in the coming weeks, with additional details to be released as researchers analyze the site.