July 8, 1860

The schooner Clotilda, the last recorded slave ship to bring African slaves to the United States, arrived illegally in Mobile. Though the U.S. had abolished the international slave trade 52 years earlier, the ship brought 110 men, women and children from present-day Benin to Alabama. The majority of the slaves were kept in Mobile, with 25 sold upriver. Following the Civil War, most of the formerly enslaved wished to return to Africa, but lacked the required funds. Instead, they founded the community of Africatown (also called African Town) in Mobile County as the first town in the country founded, controlled and continuously occupied by blacks.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Timothy Meaher organized the last slave shipment to the U.S. in 1860, an illegal endeavor since the trafficking of captive Africans was declared an act of piracy, punishable by death, by the U.S. Congress in 1820. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of South Alabama)

Cudjo Lewis (ca. 1841-1935) was a founder of African Town (now Africatown) and was the last survivor of the Clotilda, the last ship to illegally transport captive Africans to the United States. Toward the end of his life, Lewis became famous when his story was published in a book and newspapers. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of South Alabama)

Cemetery located in Africatown, Mobile County, 2010. Africatown, also known as AfricaTown USA and Africa Town, is a community in Mobile County, Alabama, three miles north of the city of Mobile. It was formed by West Africans who were among the last known illegal shipment of slaves to the United States. These Tarkbar people created their own tribal community and retained their customs and language following the American Civil War. (The George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)