It was finally found in 2019.
WEB of SOULS
TIMOTHY MEAHER - wealthy Mobile, Alabama planter made a bet that he could bring a shipload of captives from Africa, right under the noses of authorities, even though the slave trade to the United States had been legally prohibited since January 1, 1808.
CAPTAIN WILLIAM FOSTER - recruited and financed by Meaher, Foster built and owned the Clotilda. -
OLUALE KOSSOLA (later renamed Cudjo Kazoola Lewis), was among the 110 children and young adults kidnapped from various areas of GHANA, NIGERIA, and BENIN. They were taken to Mobile, Alabama where they then were enslaved and divided up between Foster and the Meaher brothers.
After being freed by Union soldiers at the end of the Civil War, shipmates pooled their money and were able to buy plots of land from the Meaher family. They established a small village which they proudly called African Town [AFRICATOWN]. It was a clear way of demonstrating who they were, who they wanted to remain, and where they wanted to be.
Finding the Clotilda makes it possible to see the history of the slave trade in human terms. It brings the story out of the shadows of the past, into the light of the present.
The schooner Clotilda is the last known United States slave ship to bring free people from Africa and enslave them in the United States. Constructed in 1855 by shipbuilder/captain William Foster, it was eighty-six feet long and twenty-three feet wide. Foster sold the Clotilda to a prominent Mobile, Alabama businessman, Timothy Meaher in 1860, after he was approached by Meaher about commanding an illegal slaving voyage to Ouidah (now Benin in West Africa).
The ship set sail, under the cover of darkness, on March 3, 1860. It sailed under the pretense of bringing a cargo of lumber to the Danish Virgin Islands. It reached Ouidah on May 15. On July 9, the Clotilda entered the Mississippi Sound, docked until nightfall and then was clandestinely tugged up the Mobile River to Twelve-Mile Island. Here, the Africans were transported to a second ship, the Czar, and sent further up the river to be surreptitiously transferred to their respective new "owners." The Clotilda and the evidences of the slave voyage, was then set afire by William Foster.
1860 South Carolina secedes the Union
1861 Lincoln is president
1861 Confederate States of America established under Confederate President, Jefferson Davis
1861 Civil War begins
1862 Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
1865 Lincoln assassinated
1865 Andrew Johnson is president
1865 Civil War ends
1865 Reconstruction begins
1866 Ku Klux Klan founded
1877 Reconstruction ends
The Clotilda
is a tangible link in American history
to the names and stories passed down
through generations of "her" descendants.