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Africatown, Plateau, Mobile, ALABAMA
Africatown, also known as AfricaTown USA and Plateau, is a historic community located three miles (5 km) north of downtown Mobile, Alabama. It was formed by a group of 32 West Africans, who in 1860 were bought and transported against their will in the last known illegal shipment of slaves to the United States. The Atlantic slave trade had been banned since 1808, but 110 slaves held by the Kingdom of Dahomey were smuggled into Mobile on the Clotilda, which was burned and scuttled to try to conceal its illicit cargo. More than 30 of these people, believed to be ethnic Yoruba, Ewe, and Fon, founded and created their own community in what became Africatown. They retained their West African customs and language into the 1950s, while their children and some elders also learned English. Cudjo Kazoola Lewis, a founder of Africatown, lived until 1935 and was long thought to be the last survivor of the slaves from the Clotilda living in Africatown.
In 1860, some wealthy slaveholders of Mobile and their friends decided to see if they could evade the federal law that prohibited importing slaves from Africa. This Atlantic slave trade had been prohibited by the United States by the 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, although the domestic slave trade continued. The slave traders bet each other and a group of men from New England that they could evade federal authorities. Timothy Meaher, a shipbuilder and landowner; his brother Byrnes (also spelled Burns) Meaher; John Dabey; and others invested money to hire a crew and captain for one of Meaher’s ships to go to Africa and buy enslaved Africans.
They used Timothy Meaher’s ship Clotilda, which had been designed for the lumber trade. It was commanded by Captain William Foster. While the ship was in port at Whydah in the Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day port of Ouidah in Benin), additional work was done to accommodate and conceal the transport of enslaved people. Foster bought the slaves and loaded them. The ship sailed in May 1860 from Dahomey for its final destination, Mobile, with 110 persons held as slaves. Foster had paid for 125 slaves, but as he was preparing for departure, he saw steamers offshore and rapidly departed to evade them.
The captives were said to be mostly of the “Tarkbar” tribe, but research in the 21st century suggests that they were Takpa people, a band of Yoruba people from the interior of present-day Nigeria. They had been taken captive by forces of the King of Dahomey. He sold them into slavery at the market of Whydah. The captured people were sold for $100 each to Foster, captain of the Clotilda.
Abaché and Cudjoe Kazoola Lewis at Africatown in the 1910s, two persons from Clotilda
In early July 1860, the Clotilda entered Mobile Bay and approached the port of Mobile. Trying to evade discovery, Foster had the ship towed at night upriver beyond the port. He loaded the slaves onto a steam riverboat and sent them ashore; he set fire to the Clotilda and scuttled it to hide the evidence of its smuggling slaves. The Africans were mostly distributed as slaves among the parties who had invested in the venture. Before being taken from Mobile, they were on their own in terms of surviving. They built shelters of whatever they found growing in the Alabama lowlands, and adapted their hunting to the rich game.
Some slaves were sold to areas more distant from Mobile. Among them were Redoshi, a woman from the Clotilda, and a man who became her husband, who were both sold to Washington Smith of Dallas County, Alabama. He had a plantation in the upcountry of the state, and later founded the Bank of Selma. Redoshi was known as Sally Smith as a slave. She married and the couple had a daughter. The family continued to work at the Smith plantation after emancipation. While Redoshi Smith was interviewed by Zora Neale Hurston and known by others, later in her life and after her death, she was forgotten. In 2019, researcher Hannah Durkin published new information about her: she documented that Redoshi Smith lived until 1937, making her apparently the last survivor of the slaves from the Clotilda.
In 2019, scholar Hannah Durkin from Newcastle University documented Redoshi, a West African woman who was believed at the time to be the last survivor of slaves from the Clotilda. Also known as Sally SMITH, she lived to 1937. She had been sold to a planter who lived in Dallas County, Alabama. Redoshi and her family continued to live there after emancipation, working on the same plantation. Durkin later published research indicating that another slave, Matilda McCREAR, in fact outlived SMITH, dying in 1940.
The population of Africatown has declined markedly from a peak population of 12,000 in the 20th century, when paper mills operated there. In the early 21st century, the community has about 2,000 residents. It is estimated 100 of them are descendants of the people from the Clotilda. Other descendants live across the country. In 2009, the neighborhood was designated as a site on Mobile’s African American Heritage Trail. The Africatown Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. Its related Old Plateau Cemetery, also known as Africatown Graveyard, was founded in 1876. It has been given a large historical plaque telling its history.
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George Edward FREENEY Jr..
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