The last survivor of an identified slave ship and its history is remarkable



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Wreck of Clotilda, the last slave ship to arrive in the United States in 1860.

He was captured around the age of 12 in West Africa and forced aboard Clotilda, the last slave ship to arrive in the United States in 1860.

Researchers have now identified Redoshi as the last known survivor of the transatlantic slave trade, born in Africa, to her death in 1937, according to a statement released Tuesday by the University of Newcastle in Britain. Renowned Sally Smith in Alabama, she may have been 110 at the time of her death.

Until now, researchers thought that the last survivor of the transatlantic slave trade was Oluale Kossola, also known as Cudjo Lewis. According to research by Hannah Durkin, a lecturer at Newcastle University, Redoshi lived two years longer than Cudjo, who died in 1935.

Durkin said that she first saw a reference to Redoshi in Zora Neale Hurston's writings and began looking for the story of her life from other writings.

In 2018, HarperCollins published Hurston's manuscript, "Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo," 90 years after it was written. "Barracoon" detailed the life of Kossola, or Cudjo Lewis, who was only a teenager when he was captured in what is now Benin. Kossola and more than 100 Africans were forced to board the Clotilda in 1860, even though the United States banned the importation of slaves in 1808.

Clotilda, a modernized cargo ship, is illegally transporting 110 Africans to Mobile, Alabama. It was the last slave ship to arrive in the United States.

According to Durkin, Redoshi was part of the human cargo. The story of his life provides important information about the illegal slave trade and the tragedy of slavery.

"These documents add immensely to our understanding of transatlantic slavery as a lived experience," said Durkin, a professor of literature and film at the Faculty of English Literature, Language and Linguistics. 39, University of Newcastle. "We now know that his horrors lingered in the memory until 1937 and allow us to meaningfully consider slavery from an African woman's point of view." West for the first time. "

After being kidnapped and forced aboard the Clotilda, Redoshi was sold in Alabama to the owner of the plantation, Washington Smith, who also founded the Selma Bank. There, she received the name of Sally Smith.

Last year, a reporter discovered what he thought was the wreck of the Clotilda, buried in the mud along the Mobile-Tensa delta, just north of Mobile. According to historical evidence, the owners of the ship set it on fire in 1860 to conceal evidence of its illegal shipment.

In Alabama, Redoshi was forced to work for nearly five years "in the house and in the fields" at the Bogue Chitto plantation in Dallas County, Alabama.

"Her husband, known as William or Billy, was kidnapped with her and died in the 1910s or 1920s," Durkin said.

Durkin said he found information about Redoshi's life in an interview in the Montgomery Advertiser and in "Bridge Across Jordan," a memoir by Amelia Boynton Robinson.

After the proclamation of emancipation, Redoshi continued to live with her daughter in the plantation where she was enslaved until her death in 1937.

"She has had terrible traumas and separations," said Durkin, "but these texts also arouse a sense of pride and resistance, either through her efforts to own her own land in America, or through more modest acts, such as maintaining her living West African beliefs, taking care of her appearance and home, and the joy she had in meeting an African compatriot in the 1930s, helps show who she was. "

(With the exception of the title, this story has not been changed by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated thread.)

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