The ship is “too broken” and “too decayed” to be evacuated, archaeologists say.
The task force headed by the Alabama Historical Commission determined that the Clotilda, the last ship known to transport enslaved Africans to the United States, was too decayed to be extracted from the Mobile River. According to the 500-page report, researchers recommend that the best way to memorialize the ship is to keep it underwater.
“There is no other site in the world that presents such physical evidence as the Clotilda,” marine archeologist James Delgado told The Associated Press.
He continued, “Clotilda is the scene of the crime, so everything we did was in that crime scene investigation manner.”
After the Civil War, 32 freed survivors of Clotilda purchased land just outside of Mobile and established Plateau Village, now known as Africatown.
William Foster took the ship West Africa, where he illegally smuggled 110 Africans back to Alabama. Upon his return, he attempted to burn and sink the ship to hide the evidence of his crime.