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

by Hannah Durkin

Overview

Joining the ranks of Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Zora Neale Hurston’s rediscovered classic Barracoon, an immersive and revelatory history of the Clotilda, 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.

The Clotilda, 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 the Clotilda’s 110 captives, drawing on her intensive archival, historical, and sociological research. The Survivors of the Clotilda follows 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 movement in Selma; from the foundation of an all-Black African Town (later Africatown) in Northern Mobile—an inspiration for writers of the Harlem Renaissance, including Zora Neale Hurston—to the foundation of the quilting community of Gee’s Bend—a Black artistic circle whose cultural influence remains enormous.

An astonishing, deeply compelling tapestry of history, biography, and social commentary, The Survivors of the Clotilda is a tour de force that deepens our knowledge and understanding of the Black experience and of America and its tragic past. 

The Survivors of the Clotilda includes 30 artworks and photographs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063072992
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	01/30/2024
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	45,272
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Dr. Hannah Durkin is a historian specializing in transatlantic slavery and African diasporic art and culture. She holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Nottingham and a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism from Leeds Trinity University. She has taught at Nottingham and Newcastle universities, and recently served as a Guest Researcher at Linnaeus University in Sweden. She is an advisor to the History Museum of Mobile, which is working to memorialize the Clotilda survivors, and was the keynote speaker at Africatown’s 2021 Spirit of Our Ancestors Festival founded by the Clotilda Descendants Association. She is the recipient of more than a dozen academic prizes, including a prestigious Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship. She lives in the southeast of England.

Editorial Reviews

★ 11/13/2023

Historian Durkin (Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham) provides a sweeping history of the survivors of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land in America. In 1860, more than 50 years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed, 110 captives were transported to Alabama by a consortium of wealthy white men. Durkin depicts in harrowing detail their kidnapping and the destruction of their village in what is now Nigeria, the horrific Atlantic crossing, their tormented experiences as enslaved people, and their building of new lives in post–Civil War Alabama. A community founded by the survivors just north of Mobile, called African Town (later Africatown), had laws and customs that preserved the inhabitants’ Yoruba traditions. In Gee’s Bend, another town where survivors settled, residents came to specialize in a celebrated style of African-inspired quilt-making. Durkin tracks the survivors’ descendants, uncovering how some were early participants in the civil rights movement, and how the art and folklore they created was influential during the Harlem Renaissance. Durkin’s in-depth view is based largely on the survivors’ own words and perspectives (some lived into the 20th century and related their stories to various writers, most notably Zora Neale Hurston), and is woven together with her extensive archival research. It’s a stirring saga of resilience that sheds new light on Black life in postbellum America. Photos. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"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 sweeping history of the survivors of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land in America....Durkin’s in-depth view is based largely on the survivors’ own words and perspectives (some lived into the 20th century and related their stories to various writers, most notably Zora Neale Hurston), and is woven together with her extensive archival research. It’s a stirring saga of resilience that sheds new light on Black life in postbellum America." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A highly recommended sweeping saga. Based on a rich archive that includes the survivors’ own stories, one of which became the basis for Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon, this title provides a human history of enslaved people and a portrait of the postbellum South." — Library Journal (starred review)

"A welcome history of defiance and survival." — Kirkus Reviews

"In The Survivors of the Clotilda, the historian 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

"[Durkin] cuts through the myths around this notorious story while keeping a tight focus on the 103 surviving young adults and children, whose lives were forever changed by displacement, family separation and enslavement....This authoritative work will be appreciated by anyone looking for a comprehensive account of one of history’s most infamous moments." — BookPage

"In recent years, British historian Hannah Durkin has made headlines with her discoveries about survivors of the slave ship Clotilda. Now she has delivered a landmark book mapping out not just a handful of such stories, but an entire tragic diaspora....The latest addition to the growing shelf of literature on the Clotilda will be eye-opening even for anyone who has read every preceding work." — AL.com

"[The Survivors of the Clotilda] is without a doubt the best book ever written about that voyage and its afterlives." — Times Literary Supplement (London)

From the Publisher

★ 12/22/2023

The Clotilda was the last ship of enslaved people to travel between Africa and the United States. It carried 110 people from Ouidah, Benin, to Mobile, AL, in the summer of 1860. History Museum of Mobile advisor Durkin (Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham) records the ship's history and the personal accounts of enslaved people to portray the postbellum United States. She begins with vivid details on the kidnapping of the last enslaved Africans sent to the U.S. Their docking in Mobile Bay, AL, becomes the dominant focus of the book. Durkin documents the stories of 103 survivors, from their enslavement on plantations up through the creation of a self-sufficient community called Africa Town. She uses individual biographies to frame what life was like for Black Americans in Alabama after their liberation, and she connects those profiles to the larger shifts in the South, including a link to the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott. VERDICT A highly recommended sweeping saga. Based on a rich archive that includes the survivors' own stories, one of which became the basis for Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon, this title provides a human history of enslaved people and a portrait of the postbellum South.—John Rodzvilla

Library Journal

2023-09-28
Transcontinental trauma and its legacy.

Of the 10.7 million Africans displaced to the Americas between the 16th and late 19th centuries, 103 landed in Alabama in July 1860 on the Clotilda. Infamous as the last slave ship to arrive in the U.S., the Clotilda has been the subject of several recent histories and a documentary, which, along with rich archival sources, inform British historian Durkin’s vivid recounting. In searing detail, she relates the circumstances of the Africans’ capture by Dahomeyan kidnappers, the cruelty they endured as enslaved people, and their valiant efforts to assert their West African heritage when they finally were freed. After a long incarceration in Africa as they waited for slave buyers to arrive, family members were forcibly separated—mothers from infants, husbands from wives—and those chosen were stripped and crammed into the ship’s hold for a horrific ocean journey. Although the slave trade had been outlawed in the U.S. since 1808, bans were poorly enforced. A group of pro-slavery conspirators funded the voyage; a wily captain navigated the ship to avoid detection; and when the crew threatened mutiny, they were bribed and threatened into submission. With the Africans offloaded, the Clotilda was set on fire, and its human cargo hidden on a plantation. Although the trafficking scheme soon became known, government officials failed to find the Africans or prosecute the conspirators. One by one, enslavers came to make their purchases. Durkin depicts the “incessant labour and violence” and the culture of virulent racism they found as freed men and women. Nevertheless, they endured: Some established a “self-sufficient community” they called Africa Town. They defied white efforts to keep them from voting, and they married, owned land, and raised families. Generations later, their descendants became active in the civil rights movement. The book includes maps, photos, and artwork.

A welcome history of defiance and survival.

Kirkus Reviews