最后一艘美国奴隶船在阿拉巴马州被发现

Officials: Last Slave Ship from Africa Found in Alabama

Researchers reportedly have found wreckage² from the last ship known to bring enslaved people from Africa to the United States. U.S. historical officials say the discovery took place off the southern coast of Alabama.

The Alabama Historical Commission announced the discovery. It said last Wednesday in a statement that remains³ of the ship Clotilda were identified and confirmed near Mobile, Alabama after months of study.

The Clotilda was purposely sunk the year before the Civil War to hide evidence of its illegal trip. The wreckage had not been seen since.

Lisa Demetropoulos Jones is executive director of the commission. She said the ship’s passage represented one of the darkest periods of modern history, and the wreck¹ offers physical evidence of slavery.

In 1860, the wooden ship illegally transported 110 people from what is now the west African nation of Benin to Mobile. The Clotilda was then taken into waters north of the port and burned to avoid being found.

The enslaved Africans were later freed and settled a community that is still called AfricaTown USA or Africatown. But no one knew where the Clotilda was.

A living relative of one of the Africans who was brought on the ship said she got chills when she learned of the findings.

“I think about the people who came before us who labored⁴ and fought and worked so hard,” said Joycelyn Davis. She is the sixth-generation granddaughter of African captive Charlie Lewis.

In 2018, a news reporter from the Mobile area discovered wooden remains of what was first thought to be the Clotilda. But the wreck was found to be from another ship. Still, public interest in the story led to a new search last year that found another wreck now confirmed as the ship.

Officials did not say how much of the ship is left or what might happen to the remains. But the size and construction of the wreck appear to be those of the Clotilda, the commission said. And it contains building materials such as locally grown trees and metal pieces. There are also signs of fire.

Ocean archaeologist James Delgado said in a statement that the physical and scientific evidence “powerfully suggests that this is Clotilda.”

Officials said they are working on a plan to secure the area where the ship was found.

The United States banned the importation of enslaved people in 1808. But smugglers continued to sail the Atlantic Ocean with wooden ships full of people. Southern plantation⁶ owners demanded workers for their cotton fields.

During that time, plantation owner Timothy Meaher made a bet that he could secretly bring a ship of Africans across the ocean, historian Natalie S. Robertson said. The Clotilda sailed from Mobile to western Africa, where it took possession of the captives and brought them to Alabama.

“They were smuggling⁷ people as much for defiance⁸ as for sport,” Robertson said.

The Clotilda arrived in Mobile in 1860 and was quickly sunken north of Mobile Bay. It was there that researchers worked to identify the ship.

The Africans spent the next five years enslaved during the Civil War. They were freed only after the southern states had lost. Unable to return home to Africa, about 30 of them used money earned from working in fields and homes and on ships to buy land from the Meaher family. They settled in a community that is known to this day as Africatown.

Officials said they plan to present a report on the findings at a community center in Africatown later this week.

I'm Alice Bryant.

Words in This Story

chills – n. a sudden cold feeling in the body caused a (good or bad) emotional reaction to something

construction – n. the way something is built or made

smuggler⁵ – n. to move (someone or something) from one country into another illegally and secretly

plantation – n. a large area of land especially in a hot part of the world where crops are grown

bet – n. an agreement in which people try to guess what will happen and the loser must give something (such as money) to the winner

defiance – n. a refusal to obey something or someone

1 wreck   

n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难

参考例句：

• Weather may have been a factor in the wreck.天气可能是造成这次失事的原因之一。
• No one can wreck the friendship between us.没有人能够破坏我们之间的友谊。

2 wreckage   

n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏

参考例句：

• They hauled him clear of the wreckage.他们把他从形骸中拖出来。
• New states were born out of the wreckage of old colonial empires.新生国家从老殖民帝国的废墟中诞生。

3 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

4 labored   

adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转

参考例句：

• I was close enough to the elk to hear its labored breathing. 我离那头麋鹿非常近，能听见它吃力的呼吸声。 来自辞典例句
• They have labored to complete the job. 他们努力完成这一工作。 来自辞典例句

5 smuggler   

n.走私者

参考例句：

• The smuggler is in prison tonight, awaiting extradition to Britain. 这名走私犯今晚在监狱，等待引渡到英国。
• The smuggler was finally obliged to inform against his boss. 那个走私犯最后不得不告发他的首领。

6 plantation   

n.种植园，大农场

参考例句：

• His father-in-law is a plantation manager.他岳父是个种植园经营者。
• The plantation owner has possessed himself of a vast piece of land.这个种植园主把大片土地占为己有。

7 smuggling   

n.走私

参考例句：

• Some claimed that the docker's union fronted for the smuggling ring.某些人声称码头工人工会是走私集团的掩护所。
• The evidence pointed to the existence of an international smuggling network.证据表明很可能有一个国际走私网络存在。

8 defiance   

n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗

参考例句：

• He climbed the ladder in defiance of the warning.他无视警告爬上了那架梯子。
• He slammed the door in a spirit of defiance.他以挑衅性的态度把门砰地一下关上。