Joining the ranks of Rebecca Sklootâs The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Zora Neale Hurstonâs rediscovered classic Barracoon, an immersive and revelatory history of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on US soil, told through the stories of its survivorsâthe last documented survivors of any slave shipâwhose lives diverged and intersected in profound ways.
The Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on American soil, docked in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in July 1860âmore than half a century after the passage of a federal law banning the importation of captive Africans, and nine months before the beginning of the Civil War. The last of its survivors lived well into the twentieth century. They were the last witnesses to the final act of a terrible and significant period in world history.
In this epic work, Dr. Hannah Durkin tells the stories of the Clotildaâs 110 captives, drawing on her intensive archival, historical, and sociological research. The Survivors of the Clotilda follows their lives from their kidnappings in what is modern-day Nigeria through a terrifying 45-day journey across the Middle Passage; from the subsequent sale of the shipâs 103 surviving children and young people into slavery across Alabama to the dawn of the Civil Rights movement in Selma; from the foundation of an all-Black African Town (later Africatown) in Northern Mobileâan inspiration for writers of the Harlem Renaissance, including Zora Neale Hurstonâto the foundation of the quilting community of Geeâs Bendâa Black artistic circle whose cultural influence remains enormous.
An astonishing, deeply compelling tapestry of history, biography, and social commentary, The Survivors of the Clotilda is a tour de force that deepens our knowledge and understanding of the Black experience and of America and its tragic past.