BookShared
  • MEMBER AREA    
  • The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning

    (By Ben Raines)

    Book Cover Watermark PDF Icon Read Ebook
    ×
    Size 23 MB (23,082 KB)
    Format PDF
    Downloaded 612 times
    Last checked 10 Hour ago!
    Author Ben Raines
    “Book Descriptions: An NPR Best Book of the Year.

    The incredible true story of the last ship to carry enslaved people to America, the remarkable town its survivors founded after emancipation, and the complicated legacy their descendants carry with them to this day—by the journalist who discovered the ship's remains.


    Fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed, the Clotilda became the last ship in history to bring enslaved Africans to the United States. The ship was scuttled and burned on arrival to hide evidence of the crime, allowing the wealthy perpetrators to escape prosecution. Despite numerous efforts to find the sunken wreck, Clotilda remained hidden for the next 160 years. But in 2019, journalist Ben Raines made international news when he successfully concluded his obsessive quest through the swamps of Alabama to uncover one of our nation's most important historical artifacts.

    Traveling from Alabama to the ancient African kingdom of Dahomey in modern-day Benin, Raines recounts the ship's perilous journey, the story of its rediscovery, and its complex legacy. Against all odds, Africatown, the Alabama community founded by the captives of the Clotilda, prospered in the Jim Crow South. Zora Neale Hurston visited in 1927 to interview Cudjo Lewis, telling the story of his enslavement in the New York Times bestseller Barracoon. And yet the haunting memory of bondage has been passed on through generations. Clotilda is a ghost haunting three communities—the descendants of those transported into slavery, the descendants of their fellow Africans who sold them, and the descendants of their American enslavers. This connection binds these groups together to this day. At the turn of the century, descendants of the captain who financed the Clotilda's journey lived nearby—where, as significant players in the local real estate market, they disenfranchised and impoverished residents of Africatown.

    From these parallel stories emerges a profound depiction of America as it struggles to grapple with the traumatic past of slavery and the ways in which racial oppression continue to this day. And yet, at its heart, The Last Slave Ship remains optimistic—an epic tale of one community's triumphs over great adversity and a celebration of the power of human curiosity to uncover the truth about our past and heal its wounds.”

    Google Drive Logo DRIVE
    Book 1

    Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"

    ★★★★★

    Zora Neale Hurston

    Book 1

    Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People

    ★★★★★

    Tiya Miles

    Book 1

    Africatown: America's Last Slave Ship and the Community It Created

    ★★★★★

    Nick Tabor

    Book 1

    The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

    ★★★★★

    Erik Larson

    Book 1

    A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

    ★★★★★

    Timothy Egan

    Book 1

    Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

    ★★★★★

    Ilyon Woo

    Book 1

    Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America's First Humanitarian Mission

    ★★★★★

    Stephen Puleo

    Book 1

    The Deerfield Massacre: A Surprise Attack, a Forced March, and the Fight for Survival in Early America

    ★★★★★

    James L. Swanson

    Book 1

    Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America

    ★★★★★

    Candacy A. Taylor

    Book 1

    The Blue Sky

    ★★★★★

    Galsan Tschinag

    Book 1

    Hell's Half-Acre : The Untold Story of the Benders, America's First Serial Killer Family

    ★★★★★

    Susan Jonusas

    Book 1

    By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners

    ★★★★★

    Margaret A. Burnham

    Book 1

    The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

    ★★★★★

    David Grann

    Book 1

    The Devil's Half Acre: The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South's Most Notorious Slave Jail

    ★★★★★

    Kristen Green

    Book 1

    We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys

    ★★★★★

    Erin Kimmerle