(soft orchestral music) - [Narrator] Since 1860, there has been a story about a ship that brought the last known group of enslaved Africans to Alabama.

The names and stories of these Africans have been passed down through generations by their descendants.

But there was no evidence of this ship to prove that it ever existed.

Was the ship real?

Then, on May 22nd, 2019, the announcement was made that the last slave ship to reach American soil, the Clotilda, had been found buried in the mud near Twelvemile Island in the Mobile River.

Finding the Clotilda provided powerful physical evidence to the validity of the stories of the people who were enslaved and brought to Alabama on the ship.

These people would eventually build a community that still exists today, a place called Africatown.

What is the link between a hidden ship and a town in Alabama called Africatown?

The Clotilda brought 110 people from Africa to Alabama.

We are lucky to have the story of one of them, Cudjo Lewis.

Cudjo was one of the last Clotilda survivors living in Africatown when he shared his experiences with author and folklorist Zora Neal Hurston in 1927.

Cudjo was born a Olulale Kossola in 1841 in the Bante Region of West Africa, part of present-day nation Benin.

He grew up in a large Yoruba community.

His story, like many others on the Clotilda, involves being captured by the army of the king of the Dahomey and then being brought to the slave port at Ouidah to be sold in the international slave trade.

The United States had abolished the international slave trade in 1808, meaning that no one could go to Africa and bring enslaved people back to America.

But because of the high demand for slaves for the cotton trade, many plantation owners broke the law and continued to send ships to Africa.

One plantation owner bragged that he could smuggle a ship of enslaved Africans into Mobile Bay and not get caught.

This turned into a bet, and that ship was the Clotilda.

The Clotilda went to Africa to win a bet.

A wealthy Mobile ship builder and riverboat captain named Timothy Meaher made a $1,000 bet with a northern businessman that he could smuggle a cargo of enslaved Africans into Mobile on an illegal slave ship.

In March of 1860, Captain William Foster and the Clotilda set sale for Africa to illegally purchase and transport enslaved Africans back to Alabama.

Cudjo Lewis was only 19 years old when he was captured and brought to the port to be sold.

In total, 110 enslaved men, women and children were loaded into the cramped, unsanitary cargo bay of the Clotilda and forced on a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.

As they neared the United States, crew members disguised the two-masted wooden schooner by taking down the top of the mast to make it look more like a ship for moving lumber.

Captain Foster then brought the Clotilda into the Port of Mobile at night and had it towed up the Mobile River to Twelvemile Island.

After moving the enslaved people from the ship to a riverboat, he set the Clotilda on fire to hide the evidence of his crimes.

Meaher and Foster were arrested but never convicted for their illegal involvement in the international slave trade, because there was not enough evidence of their crime.

No one could find the ship.

The Clotilda survivors formed Africatown.

Cudjo Lewis was given to Meaher's brother and worked as a deckhand on a steamboat until the end of the Civil War in 1865, when all enslaved people in America were emancipated.

The freed Africans wanted to go back to Africa but did not have enough money to do so.

They would need to find a place to live in Alabama.

Cudjo and the other Africans had worked so hard for Meaher that they asked him for land as payment for their free labor.

He refused.

They gathered what little money they had and bought and rented parcels of land to create an independent settlement at Magazine Point, a community they called Africatown.

The Clotilda families formed a society in Alabama based on their African roots.

Africatown was led by a chief, had a system of laws, churches, and a school.

They created a tight-knit, self-reliant community with everything that they needed to grow and thrive.

They built a piece of Africa right here in Alabama.

The survivors preserve their history through storytelling, providing an unbroken genealogical record for their families, something that is unavailable to many Black Americans.

Descendants of the Clotilda survivors are still here today.

Cudjo Lewis died in 1935, but today his descendants and the descendants of the other Clotilda survivors still call Africatown home, despite facing many threats to their community, such as declining population, poverty, and environmental issues.

With the 2019 discovery of the wreck of the Clotilda, people are interested in Africatown again.

Residents hope that it will generate tourism and bring businesses and employment back to the streets.

A new welcome center, Africatown Heritage House, will ensure that this important part of American history continues to be told by the descendants themselves.

The museum tells the story of the Clotilda survivors, where they came from, their journey to Alabama, and how they survived and prospered.

Part of the exhibit shows the names of those who were forced on this journey, many of whom are still unknown.

Africatown stands as a testament to the strength and perseverance of the original survivors and their descendants.

With the finding of the Clotilda, Africatown has a physical link to its history, identity, and justice for its founders.

(upbeat music)