Clotilda Makes the Last Known Slave Voyage to the United States
What happened
The schooner Clotilda brought about 110 kidnapped Africans from present-day Benin to Mobile Bay, Alabama, despite the United States having prohibited the importation of enslaved people in 1808. It was the last known slave ship to reach the country. Survivors later founded the community of Africatown near Mobile.
Literary impact
The testimony of survivor Cudjoe Lewis, recorded by Zora Neale Hurston in Barracoon, preserved a direct literary link to the voyage. Africatown's oral histories continue to inform poetry and writing about memory, ancestry and survival after enslavement.
Source: Wikipedia
