The Last Slave-Ship

"Major Byers got trace of the only survivors...in the slave ship (Clotilda)...were personally interviewed by Major Byers." -Des Moines Register, Jan. 23, 1904

How did the survivors of the slave ship Clotilda feel about the African tribe that captured and enslaved them for shipment to the US as slaves?

In 1906, Samuel Hawkins Marshall Byers (1838-1933) would write a short, 12-page account of his interview of the surving former slaves who came to the US in the "last" slave ship to deliver slaves to the US.

In introducing his book, Byers writes:

"It seemed like talking with ghosts of a vanished people when I met at a little negro settlement on the Alabama River with the half-dozen or so still living Africans who had been captives of the last slave-ship to enter the United States. Many things can be forgotten in fortyseven years, and probably few Americans remember the story of the slave-ship Clotilde that was run into Mobile Bay and burned one dark night in 1859, and how its cargo of slaves was dumped off into the canebrakes and left, some to be picked up and sold, some to wander about and starve, and some to die of homesickness."

About the author:

Major Samuel M. Byers (1838-1933) was a poet, statesman, Civil War veteran and author of the stirring war song, "Sherman's March to the Sea," has come to an end.

Dettagli