The Survivors of the Clotilda: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade [Paperback]

NAMED A TOP BOOK OF 2024 BY AMAZON ANDWASHINGTON POST

“Hannah Durkin lets the enslaved speak for themselves, and they tell a story not only of unimaginable suffering but also of courage and survival.”—Wall Street Journal

“The Survivors of the Clotilda, a comprehensive account of one of the most important parts of American history, is a triumph.”—Booklist(starred review)

A welcome history of defiance and survival. —Kirkus Reviews

Joining the ranks of Rebecca Skloot’sThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacksand Zora Neale Hurston’s rediscovered classicBarracoon, an immersive and revelatory history of theClotilda,the last slave ship to land on US soil, told through the stories of its survivors—the last documented survivors of any slave ship—whose lives diverged and intersected in profound ways.

TheClotilda, the last slave ship to land on American soil, docked in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in July 1860—more than half a century after the passage of a federal law banning the importation of captive Africans, and nine months before the beginning of the Civil War. The last of its survivors lived well into the twentieth century. They were the last witnesses to the final act of a terrible and significant period in world history.

In this epic work, Dr. Hannah Durkin tells the stories of theClotilda’s 110 captives, drawing on her intensive archival, historical, and sociological research.The Survivors of the Clotildafollows their lives from their kidnappings in what is modern-day Nigeria through a terrifying 45-day journey across the Middle Passage; from the subsequent sale of the ship’s 103 surviving children and young people into slavery across Alabama to the dawn of the Civil Rights mol0