A year before the Civil War, an Alabama businessman set out to win a bet with friends. The international slave trade had been outlawed for decades, but he wagered he could smuggle slaves from Africa to the United States without being caught. They unloaded the slaves and set the boat on fire in the muddy banks of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, the evidence of their illicit voyage, and the last known American slave ship, never to be found. A reporter in Alabama wrote in an article published on Tuesday that he may have found the wreckage on the shore of a swampy island in the delta. “So I’d say very compelling, for sure.” The story of the Clotilda has held a significant spot in the history of slavery in the United States, which abolished it in 1865.

Source: thestar January 24, 2018 19:41 UTC