Unearthing the last slave ship: A tale of suffering – and reckoning
The Atlantic slave trade was abolished in the United States in 1808, but in 1860, planter Timothy Meaher bankrolled a voyage that smuggled 110 West African captives into Alabama. His criminal operation was praised by a local newspaper. “Whoever conducted the affair has our congratulations,” the editorial read, reasoning that not only did planters require labor, but they were “civilizing and Christianizing a set of barbarians by the same course.”
The Civil War erupted months later, so the ship that Meaher commissioned for the horrific task, the Clotilda, ended up being
