AFRICAN TOWN

A fictionalized account of the last slave ship to bring captives from Africa to the United States.

Despite the U.S. ban on the importation of enslaved labor, plantation owner Timothy Meaher bet that he could bring in a shipload of Africans. In 1860, a ship called the Clotilda, under the leadership of Capt. William Foster, sailed from Mobile, Alabama, to the kingdom of Dahomey. There, Foster purchased 110 people—including a 2-year-old girl—who had been captured by the king’s soldiers. Fourteen voices, including that of the ship, tell the tale of that journey across the Middle Passage and the years following their enslavement, first in the Alabama swamps, then on plantations, and finally in the free settlement of African Town (later renamed Africatown). The highly personal stories in verse reveal the different aspects of this illegal trade and the impact on both the Black enslaved people and the White crew members. Most well known is Kossola, who was long thought to be the last known survivor of the Atlantic slave trade. Latham and Waters use a different poetic form for each narrator, giving each a distinct personality. The Africans’ attempts to hold true to their home cultures and traditions—most were Yoruba—as they try to adapt to their new reality come across most powerfully.

Enhanced by rich backmatter, this is a strong addition to literature about slavery.