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Last known slave ship to arrive in the U.S. is a decayed “crime scene” that should stay underwater, experts say
The last known U.S. slave ship is too “broken” and decayed to be extracted from the murky waters of the Alabama Gulf Coast without being dismembered, a task force of archaeologists, engineers and historians announced following a yearslong investigation.
The task force headed by the Alabama Historical Commission said Thursday that the Clotilda, the last ship known to transport enslaved Africans to the United States, had been broken in half by a large vessel and severely eroded by bacteria. The 500-page report says that the “responsible” way to memorialize the ship is to protect it under the water where it was discovered in 2019.
“There is no other site in the world that presents such physical evidence as the Clotilda,” said James Delgado, a lead marine archeologist on the investigation who said the priority was preserving that physical evidence. “The Clotilda is the scene of the crime, so everything we did was in that crime scene investigation manner.”
The wooden schooner at the heart of the investigation was commissioned in 1860 by Timothy Meaher, one year before the Confederacy was created and decades after the importation of slaves was made punishable by death in 1808. Captained by William Foster, the ship traveled to West Africa and illegally smuggled 110 Africans back to Alabama. Foster then attempted to burn and sink the ship to hide the crime.
SEARCH, Inc./Alabama Historical Commission
After the Civil War freed the survivors of the Clotilda, historical records show 32 of them bought land from Meaher and established what is now Africatown, formally known as Plateau, about 3 miles north of Mobile.
As “60 Minutes” reported last year, Africatown is now the only surviving community in America founded by Africans. Some of their descendants still call it home.
The ship’s remains stayed, unidentified in the brackish Mobile River until 2019. On Thursday, the task force presented photos of some charred remains of the hull that were extracted throughout the investigation – evidence that supported the story documented by historians and community members for decades.
Before the state-funded $1 million investigation, it was unclear how well the ship had weathered the over 160 years under water. Some had hoped it was intact enough to be fully excavated and turned into a museum on land.
“Museums have power, and that ship loses its power if it is sitting in the water,” said Ben Raines, a former local reporter who wrote a book about the Clotilda.
Raines said that he is still optimistic that the ship could be excavated and turned into a museum because the task force said that option is still scientifically and technically possible. Raines said that a museum would be a significant resource to all descendants of the enslaved in the U.S. and could bring much needed revenue to the Africatown community. Many residents in attendance at Thursday’s meeting expressed a similar sentiment.
Delgado didn’t rule out that option, but said that process would require the ship to be disassembled “piece by piece, nail by nail,” and could compromise some of the remaining physical clues about the experiences of the enslaved people aboard.
That key historical evidence includes the lower hull where the enslaved Africans were held in captivity. Deep water dives revealed the confined chambers where 110 people were held remain mostly intact.
“It’s very chilling”
The president of the Clotilda Descendants Association, Jeremy Ellis, became visibly emotional when Delgado shared details of the compartment where his ancestors were kept.
“Since we’ve been able to learn more about what they really experienced and how small that cargo hold was and how on top of each other they were, it’s very chilling,” said Ellis, who is in his early 40s and a sixth-generation descendant of Clotilda survivors Pollee and Rose Allen. “And it makes me want to continue the effort of reconciliation and healing for the descendants.”
Instead of an excavation, the report recommended a plan that would preserve the structure underneath the water by installing large pillars around the ship to protect it from other ships and vessels. The ship is submerged in a designated Wildlife Management Area and the town is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which means the process will require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to get federal permitting to install the protections. Representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers who have been integral to the investigation said the process could be resolved in a matter of months as long as there aren’t serious conflicts between the environmental protections and the needs of the ship.
The ship’s discovery in 2019 reignited a longstanding debate over how to address the harrowing legacy of the Clotilda, especially for the direct descendants of the survivors. The Meaher family still has millions of dollars in real estate holdings in the area, as well as parks and roads that bear the family name.
Last summer, descendants of enslaved Africans and descendants of the slave owner who bankrolled their voyage to America sat down together in a historic meeting to talk about reconciliation, after years of effort to set up a meeting.
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Zora Neale Hurston’s bestselling book “Barracoon” documents the life of Cudjo Lewis, the Clotilda’s last surviving enslaved African. Released in 2018, “Barracoon” includes stories about Lewis’ upbringing in Africa, experiences aboard the slave ship and during his enslavement, and his part in finding Africatown. Lewis died in 1935 at the age of 94.
As a result, Africatown and the Clotilda are frequently cited in the national conversation about reparations.
Ultimately the task force said that the underwater preservation plan would only protect the structure for an estimated 100 years before it fully succumbs to erosion. They added the timeline could be shortened by climate change, which will likely affect the levels, temperatures and salinity of the water around the ship.
But many descendants said they are OK with letting the ship stay underwater.
Veda Robbins, 55, is also a sixth-generation descendant of Pollee and Rose Allen. Robbins grew up in nearby Mobile but clearly remembers going to her great aunt’s house in Africatown in her childhood. Robbins married in the local Africatown church and later baptized her children there.
Robbins said that the ship doesn’t matter as much as the need to revitalize the Africatown community, which has been ravaged by environmental contamination and disinvestment since its inception.
“I don’t want to see a ship taking up space in the community that could be used for housing and things for the community itself,” Robbins said. The population of the unincorporated town has dwindled significantly to just under 2,000 people.
Robbins echoed the official position of the Clotilda Descendants Association: Ultimately, the ship is less important than the stories of the people who survived it, along with the descendants who are already struggling to keep the Africatown community intact.
Bela Karolyi, the charismatic if polarizing gymnastics coach who turned young women into champions and the United States into an international power, has died. He was 82.
A spokesperson for USA Gymnastics confirmed to CBS News by email that Karolyi died Friday. No cause of death was given.
Karolyi and wife Martha trained multiple Olympic gold medalists and world champions in the U.S. and Romania, including Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton.
Ron Jenkins/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
“A big impact and influence on my life,” Comaneci, who was just 14 when Karolyi coached her to gold for Romania at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, posted on Instagram.
The Karolyis defected to the United States in 1981 and over the next 30-plus years became a guiding force in American gymnastics, though not without controversy. Bela helped guide Retton — all of 16 — to the Olympic all-around title at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles and memorably helped an injured Kerri Strug off the floor at the 1996 Games in Atlanta after Strug’s vault secured the team gold for the Americans.
Karolyi briefly became the national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics women’s elite program in 1999 and incorporated a semi-centralized system that eventually turned the Americans into the sport’s gold standard. It did not come without a cost. He was pushed out after the 2000 Olympics after several athletes spoke out about his tactics.
It would not be the last time Karolyi was accused of grandstanding and pushing his athletes too far physically and mentally.
During the height of the Larry Nassar scandal in the late 2010s — when the disgraced former USA Gymnastics team doctor was effectively given a life sentence after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting gymnasts and other athletes with his hands under the guise of medical treatment — over a dozen former gymnasts came forward saying the Karolyis were part of a system that created an oppressive culture that allowed Nassar’s behavior to run unchecked for years.
Still, some of Karolyi’s most famous students were always among his staunchest defenders. When Strug got married, she and Karolyi took a photo recreating their famous scene from the 1996 Olympics, when he carried her onto the medals podium after she vaulted on a badly sprained ankle.
Despite losing his boxing match to Jake Paul, Mike Tyson in a social media post Saturday said he had “no regrets” to getting “in ring one last time.”
The boxing legend was defeated by social media star Jake Paul in a highly anticipated fight on Friday night with an age difference of over three decades between the two contenders.
Netflix said Saturday that 60 million households worldwide tuned in to watch the match. The two fighters went eight full rounds, with each round two minutes long. Paul defeated Tyson by unanimous decision and the 27-year-old upset boxer and 58-year-old former heavyweight champion hugged afterward.
Paul was expected to earn about $40 million from the fight, and Tyson was expected to take around $20 million for the fight, according to DraftKings and other online reports.
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Tyson said on his social media that “this is one of those situations when you lost but still won. I’m grateful for last night.”
The fight almost didn’t happen after Tyson experienced an ulcer flare-up while on a plane in March. He addressed his illness Saturday, writing that he “almost died in June.” He said he had eight blood transfusions and “lost half my blood and 25lbs in hospital and had to fight to get healthy to fight so I won.”
Tyson retired from boxing in 2005 after a 20-year career. He last fought in a 2020 exhibition match against former four-division world champ Roy Jones Jr.
“To have my children see me stand toe to toe and finish 8 rounds with a talented fighter half my age in front of a packed Dallas Cowboy stadium is an experience that no man has the right to ask for. Thank you,” he said.
Alex Sundby and
contributed to this report.
In their final meeting, China’s leader Xi Jinping told U.S. President Biden that his nation was “ready to work with a new administration,” as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take over.
The two leaders gathered Saturday on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Mr. Biden was expected to urge Xi to dissuade North Korea from further deepening its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. It marked their first in-person meeting since they met in Northern California last November.
Without mentioning Trump’s name, Xi appeared to signal his concern that the incoming president’s protectionist rhetoric on the campaign trail could send the U.S.-China relationship into another valley.
“China is ready to work with a new U.S. administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-U.S. relationship for the benefit of the two peoples,” Xi said through an interpreter.
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Mr. Biden, meanwhile, spoke in broader brushstrokes about where the relationship has gone and reflected not just on the past four years, but on their long relationship.
“Over the past four years, China-U.S. relations have experienced ups and downs, but with the two of us at the helm, we have also engaged in fruitful dialogues and cooperation, and generally achieved stability,” he said.
Mr. Biden and Xi, with top aides surrounding them, gathered around a long rectangle of tables in an expansive conference room at Lima’s Defines Hotel and Conference Center.
There’s much uncertainty about what lies ahead in the U.S.-China relationship under Trump, who campaigned promising to levy 60% tariffs on Chinese imports.
Bobby Djavaheri, president of Los Angeles-based Yedi Houseware Appliances — which manufactures its products in China — told CBS News in an interview this week that such tariffs “would decimate our business, but not only our business. It would decimate all small businesses that rely on importing.”
Trump has also proposed revoking China’s Most Favored Nation trade status, phasing out all imports of essential goods from China and banning China from buying U.S. farmland.
Already, many American companies, including Nike and eyewear retailer Warby Parker, have been diversifying their sourcing away from China. Shoe brand Steve Madden says it plans to cut imports from China by as much as 45% next year.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden administration officials will advise the Trump team that managing the intense competition with Beijing will likely be the most significant foreign policy challenge they will face.
It’s a big moment for Mr. Biden as he wraps up more than 50 years in politics. He saw his relationship with Xi as among the most consequential on the international stage and put much effort into cultivating that relationship.
Mr. Biden and Xi first got to know each other on travels across the U.S. and China when both were vice presidents, interactions that both have said left a lasting impression.
“For over a decade, you and I have spent many hours together, both here and in China and in between. And I think we’ve spent a long time dealing with these issues,” Mr. Biden said Saturday.
But the last four years have presented a steady stream of difficult moments.
The FBI this week offered new details of a federal investigation into Chinese government efforts to hack into U.S. telecommunications networks. The initial findings have revealed a “broad and significant” cyberespionage campaign aimed at stealing information from Americans who work in government and politics.
U.S. intelligence officials also have assessed China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine.
And tensions flared last year after Mr. Biden ordered the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States.
