The Alabama Historical Commission will launch a new $1 million phase of work this fall to preserve the remains of the Clotilda, the last known ship to bring enslaved Africans into the United States, agency officials announced. The state funding will support archaeological excavation, an environmental study of the wreck site and an engineering assessment of the surrounding riverbed, with work expected to begin in October.
The project is described by the commission as multifaceted, combining targeted artifact recovery with scientific study of the site’s condition. Divers will conduct industrial-style excavation work at the location where the Clotilda was scuttled, supporting a broader environmental and structural assessment of the wreck. An accompanying engineering study of the riverbed is intended to determine what steps are needed to stabilize the area, including whether it could eventually support a memorial.
The environmental portion of the study will examine the sediment surrounding the wreck, monitor how water moves through the site and catalog the species that have colonized the remains over the past century and a half. A separate structural assessment will evaluate how much the wood has deteriorated and help investigators build an evidence-based, long-term preservation plan. Officials say all three components are designed to work together, giving the commission a fuller picture of the wreck’s condition before deciding how to proceed with permanent protective measures.
Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement that safeguarding the Clotilda is a responsibility the state takes seriously. “The Clotilda is a priceless and significant artifact very much deserving of our respect and remembrance. Protecting this resource is imperative,” Ivey said. “The Alabama Historical Commission has been devoted to carrying out their mandate of guardianship, acting with the ship’s best interests. By preserving Clotilda, Alabama has the opportunity to protect a piece of history, and I look forward to Alabama carrying out that responsibility.”
State Sen. Vivian Figures said the Mobile community known as Africatown exists because of the Clotilda, and that its history must be told by the descendants of those who survived the voyage. “With the confirmation of the vessel, there is no denying the brutality they suffered, and the reality of how they survived and built a community in Alabama in spite of all the things they endured,” Figures said.
An archaeological report released in May 2019 first described the wreckage as being in a fragile state, a finding that has shaped how the commission has approached every subsequent phase of work. Historical accounts hold that the Clotilda was scuttled and burned in July 1860 in an effort by its owners, Captain William Foster and Timothy Meaher, to destroy evidence of the illegal voyage. According to oral histories passed down by residents familiar with Mobile’s maritime past, the wreck was later dynamited sometime in the 1940s or 1950s, possibly in an attempt to salvage material from the ship or to further obscure what remained of it.
To track how the site has changed over time, the commission has maintained an ongoing documentation effort throughout every phase of the project. SEARCH Inc., the archaeological firm contracted by the Alabama Historical Commission, has continued to scan the stretch of the Mobile River near Twelvemile Island where the Clotilda rests, an area also known as a graveyard for other abandoned vessels. That continuous monitoring has become a key part of evaluating the wreck’s overall structural integrity as the state moves into this next phase.
New sonar images captured in March 2020 show the full form of the ship more clearly than earlier scans, according to the commission. River levels were lower that month than they were during a September 2019 survey, and with less current in the water, investigators were able to run a slower, more continuous series of sidescan sonar passes near the vessel, producing sharper images of the hull.
Officials consider the ship’s interior especially significant, since it may still hold archaeological and forensic evidence connected to the 110 African men, women and children who were trafficked aboard the Clotilda and brought to Mobile to be enslaved. “Phase 3 archaeological investigations will provide important information that sheds more light on the stories of those who were captured and transported aboard the Clotilda,” State Archaeologist Stacye Hathorn said. “It will also inform us regarding the condition of the wreck itself and help us to make the most responsible and best decisions about how to preserve and memorialize the vessel.”
The funding announcement comes just over a week after the Mobile City Council approved a separate $24,000 contract with SEARCH Inc. to prepare an application seeking to list Twelvemile Island on the National Register of Historic Places and to have the Clotilda designated a national landmark. Alabama Historical Commission Executive Director Lisa Demetropolis Jones said the agency fully backs that effort. “The City of Mobile is working with our agency for these National Register nominations through the Certified Local Government Program,” Jones said. “The importance of the Clotilda deserves National Historic Landmark status, along with the designation of two ironclads and a maritime historic district that tells the story of Mobile and Alabama’s maritime history.”
Access to the wreck site itself remains tightly restricted. The area is protected under a “Boats Keep Out” zone authorized by regulation 220-6-.19 of the Administrative Code of Alabama, meaning only vessels and individuals authorized by the Alabama Historical Commission may enter. Alabama Law Enforcement Agency state troopers assigned to the Marine Patrol Division regularly patrol the stretch of river, and violators are subject to citation.
Since the wreck was confirmed as the Clotilda, growing numbers of visitors have made their way to Africatown to pay their respects to the 110 individuals held captive aboard the ship and to reflect on the broader history of the roughly 12.5 million Africans forcibly transported during the transatlantic slave trade. State officials describe the site as significant not just to Alabama but internationally, arguing that preserving what remains of the ship carries cultural importance well beyond the region.
That growing interest has also fed a push to expand educational resources tied to the discovery. In March 2020, the commission announced a partnership with the History Museum of Mobile, the Mobile County Commission, members of the Africatown community and the city of Mobile to support a Clotilda exhibit inside a new facility, the Africatown Heritage House, which is being built in the heart of Africatown. The planned exhibit will include items from the History Museum of Mobile’s collection, a space dedicated to Africatown community stories and Clotilda artifacts on loan from the Alabama Historical Commission.