Clotilda: Last Known Illegal Slave Ship Lands Africans in Alabama

In July 1860, the schooner Clotilda smuggled 110 Africans kidnapped from the Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin) to Mobile Bay, Alabama — the last known illegal slave landing in the United States. The ship's owner Timothy Meaher had bet he could successfully import Africans despite the 1820 law making the trade piracy. The Africans were distributed among several planters. After the Civil War, survivors were not assisted in returning to Africa. They founded Africatown, a community north of Mobile that survived into the 20th century. The Clotilda was burned and sunk by its captain to destroy evidence; it was located by archaeologists in 2019.