The story of the Clotilda is a fascinating one on its own and the author of this book played a key role in bringing much of that story to the surface. Clotilda was considered to be the last slave ship that brought slaves from Africa to the United States. It happened long after that was legal and the descendants of that voyage have worked tirelessly to keep those stories alive.
Ben Raines is a journalist and local river guide, so maybe he was the best person equipped to find the wreck of this ship, which was burned and sank after the cargo of slaves was unloaded in Alabama. The story of the search, though, took up only the last quarter or so of the book.
Raines spent much of the rest of the story telling the story of the voyage itself. That's a noble effort, to be sure. The problem is much of that story has already been told by people better equipped to do so.
The story of one of Clotilda's survivors was the subject of the fascinating book Barracoon. A man named Cudjo who was brutally taken from his home in a horrific raid lived to tell his story after the Middle Passage and after emancipation. He and the other survivors established Africatown and lived to tell their stories. That book, I read in an afternoon. I could not stop reading the story of this man and all he had been through - from his perspective. Slave Ship felt like a Cliff's Notes retelling of that story and the story of some of the other survivors. Because that book wasn't entirely about them, the most impactful messages fell flat.
If you're interested in the personal stories and anguish of the slaves who survived the Clotilda, I recommend Barracoon.
Note: I just discovered this story is the subject of a documentary called Descendant.
One descendant says in the trailer, "It's not about the ship."
Perhaps start there instead.
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