Shipwreck Found In Delta Is Not Last Known Slave Ship: Report

MOBILE, AL - A 19th century shipwreck discovered in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta is not the wreckage of the slave ship Clotilda, the last known ship to bring African slaves to America. A team of archaeologists determined that the wreckage was larger than the Clotilda, Al.com reported.

Ben Raines, a reporter for Al.com, used historical accounts and stories from old-times to pinpoint where the schooner should have rested after it sunk more than 150 years ago. The wreckage was exposed by low tides accompanying the "bomb cyclone" weather system that battered the Eastern Seaboard in January.

The wreckage of the notorious ship was almost completely buried in mud near an island in the lower Mobile-Tensaw Delta. It is typically under water, but tides that were about two and one-half feet lower than normal gave Raines a better view of it. Archaeologists from the University of West Florida helped him in the documentation.

John Sledge, a senior historian with the Mobile Historical Commission and author of "The Mobile River," had said the vicinity where the wreckage was found corresponds with historical accounts.

An investigation of the wreck was initiated by the Alabama Historical Commission and the international partners of the Slave Wrecks Project and SEARCH, a private archaeological exploration firm. The Slave Wrecks Project includes the National Park Service, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture and a group of African American divers who donate their time to the Slave Wrecks Project, Al.com reported.

The investigation was spearheaded by SEARCH's Jim Delgado, a marine archaeologist and host of The Sea Hunters, a National Geographic TV series.

The team of archaeologists studied the submerged site Thursday and Friday. With state and federal permits, the archaeologists were allowed to dig around the ship where a large portion of it was buried in mud, Al.com reported. Delgado said that made the difference in the team's conclusion.

The team determined that the wreckage did not match the Clotilda, which was built in 1855 and was never intended to be used as a slave ship, according to historical accounts.

During the earlier investigation by the University of West Florida archaeologists, they were not allowed to dig around the wreckage because no permits had been obtained.

Though slavery was still legal at the time, the international slave trade was outlawed in 1807, years before the Clotilda made its final journey in 1859 under the command of Capt. William Foster, writes historian Sylviane Anna Diouf, the author of "Dreams of Africa in Alabama."

The ship came ashore in Mobile in the summer of 1860, carrying a cargo of at least 110 children, teenagers and young adults from modern-day Benin, Africa.

Other accounts say the ship carried 160 Africans and that it arrived back in Alabama the same year it sailed. What most historians agree on is that Mobile shipyard owner Timothy Meaher sent the ship to Western Africa on a bet he could bring a shipful of slaves "right into Mobile Bay under the officers' noses," Diouf writes.

It worked. The ship came into port under the cover of darkness. After transferring the Africans to a riverboat, Foster burned and sunk the Clotilda to cover up what at the time was illegal activity, Al.com and others say.

At least 30 of the slaves were dispatched to work at Meaher's plantation, Al.com writes. Many remained in the area after emancipation, settling in what is now known as the Africatown neighborhood of Mobile.

Read the Al.com story here.

Image: This is an undated photo of an illustration of slavers subduing their African captives in the cargo hold of their slave ship. (AP Photo)