Mobile River,
Tombigbee and
Alabama Rivers
In confluence,

Held onto
A rather
Ghastly secret
Laying low

On a thick
Muddy floor,
Bed of seaweed,
Under shimmering waves for generations.

Recently re-emerged, pieces of
A crime scene
No longer hidden
Under voluminous freshwater:

Clotilda.
Trade schooner.
Transporter of 110
Dahomey slaves.

Rusted, barnacled iron
Bolts, nails and spikes,
Fragments of wooden ship plank—
Clues to criminal activity

Starting out as a bet
Between 2 Southern White rich men.
They’d bet that slaves can be
Smuggled in before the law got wise.

Shipping run, round trip
From Alabama to Dahomey and back
5143 miles either way to reduce the
African to cargo one more time—

Hush-hush. Easy. Night-time
Furtive swap between schooner & steamboat,
Clotilda & Czar, before the floating
Evidence was burnt & sunken.

Naked Yoruban
War captive human
Freight deposited into swamp,
Sold to plantations.

Gentleman bettors
Never jailed,
Never punished,
Their crime—dismissed by the law.

Slavery, civil war—
Both ended.
But longing for home
Continued without cease.

Yoruban survivor’s of the Clotilda’s journey
Never owned boats, knew not the way back home
Across the wavy aquatic wild.
With money saved from cotton plantation work,

Land, lumber, nails, mortar were bought.
Buildings, houses, African traditions formed a community.
Dahomey came back into their lives
As Africatown—

 

 

W: 2.8.23

Dahomey: West African country now re-named Benin.