U.S. slave ship descendants gather at ‘Africatown’

Описание: (8 Feb 2019) The years have been hard on Africatown USA.
Established by the last boatload of Africans abducted into slavery and shipped to the United States just before the Civil War, the coastal Alabama community now shows scarcely a trace of its founders.
The population has plummeted; many of the remaining homes are boarded up and rotting.
But after years of watching the steady decline, descendants of the freed slaves who established Africatown are trying to create new ties and, perhaps, rebuild a community that's in danger of fading away.
Relatives of the 110 people who were kidnapped in West Africa, shipped to the U.S. on a bet and sold into slavery are organizing a get-together called the "Spirit of Our Ancestors" festival, set for Feb. 9.
Africatown's founders were shipped to the United States on a wager rooted in antebellum obstinacy.
A U.S. law banning the importation of slaves had taken effect in 1808, but smugglers continued plying the Atlantic with wooden ships full of people in chains.
With Southern resentment of federal control near a peak, Alabama plantation owner Timothy Meaher made a bet that he could bring a shipload of Africans across the ocean, said historian Natalie S. Robertson.
The schooner Clotilda sailed from Mobile to what is now Benin in western Africa, where it picked up captives and returned them to Alabama, evading authorities during a tortuous, weeks long voyage.
The Clotilda arrived in Mobile in 1860 and was quickly burned and scuttled in delta waters north of Mobile Bay.
The group formed a self-sufficient society with a chief, a court system, churches and a school that became Mobile County Training School, where the festival will be held. Africatown's peak population was estimated at more than 10,000.
Today, lying about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) north of downtown Mobile, the unincorporated area has about 1,800 residents.
Few signs of the original residents of Africatown remain - just graves and a chimney from the home of Peter Lee, or Gumpa, who was appointed chief after its founding.
In front of a church founded by the freed slaves sits a bust of Cudjo Lewis, who was the last surviving African from the last slave ship voyage to America when he died in 1935.
While Africatown was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012, plans to make it a major tourist attraction have gone nowhere.
The closest thing to a museum is a room at the school where Lorna Woods, a relative of Davis, sometimes shows off quilts, shackles and other items passed down through her family.
Displaying the Clotilda at Africatown could be a boost, but the burned remains of the ship haven't been located.
Wreckage that some thought might be the Clotilda turned out last year to be from another vessel. Investigators in December scoured another, smaller wreck but said they haven't determined whether it is the last slave ship.
The continuing search for the ship and plans for the upcoming gathering have created new interest among Africatown descendants, and area native Anderson Flen hopes something good will come of it all. Flen, 68, lives in Atlanta, but returns regularly to Africatown and maintains a home there.

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