CBH TALK: Discovering the Last Slave Ship: A Conversation with Ben Raines
For 160 years the fate of the last known slave ship bringing captives from Africa to the United States remained a mystery. In 2018 journalist Ben Raines discovered the remains of the infamous Clotilda deep in the bayou off Alabama’s coast. He writes about this discovery in his new book, The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning. Join him and historian Sowande' M. Mustakeem, author of the award winning book Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage, for a discussion of the Clotilda and its legacy, those who survived its voyage and founded Africatown after Emancipation, and what it means that this history become embedded in our public memory today.
Clotilda was a ghost that haunted three communities— the descendants of those transported into slavery in her hold, the descendants of their fellow Africans who sold them, and the descendants of their American enslavers—and the only way that ghost could begin to be expelled was for the ship to be revealed.
- The Last Slaveship
Participants
Ben Raines is an award-winning environmental journalist, filmmaker, and charter captain. He lives with his wife in Fairhope, Alabama.
Photo by Susan Raines
Sowande' M. Mustakeem is a historian with specializations in slavery at sea, medicine, Black women’s history, terror, violence, policing and public memory. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Departments of History and African and African American Studies at Washington University. She is the author of the award winning book, Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage and cohost of the Apple podcast TheBookLane365.
For 160 years the fate of the last known slave ship bringing captives from Africa to the United States remained a mystery. In 2018 journalist Ben Raines discovered the remains of the infamous Clotilda deep in the bayou off Alabama’s coast. He writes about this discovery in his new book, The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning. Join him and historian Sowande' M. Mustakeem, author of the award winning book Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage, for a discussion of the Clotilda and its legacy, those who survived its voyage and founded Africatown after Emancipation, and what it means that this history become embedded in our public memory today.
Clotilda was a ghost that haunted three communities— the descendants of those transported into slavery in her hold, the descendants of their fellow Africans who sold them, and the descendants of their American enslavers—and the only way that ghost could begin to be expelled was for the ship to be revealed.
- The Last Slaveship
Participants
Ben Raines is an award-winning environmental journalist, filmmaker, and charter captain. He lives with his wife in Fairhope, Alabama.
Photo by Susan Raines
Sowande' M. Mustakeem is a historian with specializations in slavery at sea, medicine, Black women’s history, terror, violence, policing and public memory. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Departments of History and African and African American Studies at Washington University. She is the author of the award winning book, Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage and cohost of the Apple podcast TheBookLane365.