In 1860 on the eve of the American Civil War and 52 years after the international slave trade was outlawed in the U.S., 110 African men, women, and children arrived on the shores of Alabama in a ship called Clotilda. The captives were sold to various plantations, and the vessel was set ablaze by Timothy Meaher, the man who had chartered the illegal expedition.
One hundred sixty-two years later, filmmaker Margaret Brown has turned her lens toward the descendants of Clotilda’s survivors in her captivating documentary film Descendant. The story of the Clotilda has always been alive and well amongst the descendants of the ship’s survivors. Many of them still call Africatown, Alabama – founded in 1866 by the formally enslaved – home. When the ship’s wreckage was found in 2019, the world began to pay attention. But as Brown’s film suggests, many more questions still arise.
Continue reading at Essence.