Review by Booklist Review
Scholars have written books about the Clotilda--a ship that carried over 100 people of African descent to Alabama in 1860 to enslave them--most notably Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon, released in 2018. British historian Durkin begins with Cudjoe Kazoola Lewis, whose story Hurston recorded in 1928, detailing how Lewis and other residents of his town, Tarkar, were kidnapped from the Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day southern Benin). But Durkin also goes into great depth to highlight the stories of many of the other previously unknown Clotilda survivors. Her text answers questions about the conditions on the ship, the enslaved people's religious beliefs, the plantations they were sent to, and how they survived their unspeakably cruel enslavement. She discusses how many of the survivors helped Lewis build Africatown, just north of Mobile, and who formed a very special community for years after the Civil War ended. Durkin's book fills in many of the gaps about West Africa and Alabama in the 1860s, and focuses on the survivors of the Clotilda instead of the white men who illegally built the ship. The Survivors of the Clotilda, a comprehensive account of one of the most important parts of American history, is a triumph.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Historian Durkin (Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham) provides a sweeping history of the survivors of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land in America. In 1860, more than 50 years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed, 110 captives were transported to Alabama by a consortium of wealthy white men. Durkin depicts in harrowing detail their kidnapping and the destruction of their village in what is now Nigeria, the horrific Atlantic crossing, their tormented experiences as enslaved people, and their building of new lives in post--Civil War Alabama. A community founded by the survivors just north of Mobile, called African Town (later Africatown), had laws and customs that preserved the inhabitants' Yoruba traditions. In Gee's Bend, another town where survivors settled, residents came to specialize in a celebrated style of African-inspired quilt-making. Durkin tracks the survivors' descendants, uncovering how some were early participants in the civil rights movement, and how the art and folklore they created was influential during the Harlem Renaissance. Durkin's in-depth view is based largely on the survivors' own words and perspectives (some lived into the 20th century and related their stories to various writers, most notably Zora Neale Hurston), and is woven together with her extensive archival research. It's a stirring saga of resilience that sheds new light on Black life in postbellum America. Photos. (Jan.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
London-based Nigerian narrator Tariye Peterside delivers a superb, nuanced performance of Durkin's (Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham) latest. An historian with an academic focus on the transcontinental transportation of enslaved people, Durkin also advises the History Museum of Mobile in Mobile, AL. Drawing upon the museum's archives, which provide extensive information about the descendants of the Clotilda, the last ship known to have transported enslaved people to the United States, Durkin interweaves firsthand accounts from the Clotilda's 110 captives with archival research and social commentary. As she relates the survivors' stories, Peterside seamlessly switches between accents and dialects, channeling the survivors' words with a storyteller's tone. Anger is palpable when injustices are related, such as when individuals were shorted pay for their crops and goods or when voting rights were blatantly infringed upon. This production builds on Zora Neale Hurston's research on the Clotilda in Barracoon. It also goes into more detail about what happened to the enslaved after they were freed than Ben Raines's The Last Slave Ship. VERDICT An intriguing, meticulously researched look at the legacy of the Clotilda with a focus on the descendants' experiences in postbellum America.--Stephanie Bange
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Transcontinental trauma and its legacy. Of the 10.7 million Africans displaced to the Americas between the 16th and late 19th centuries, 103 landed in Alabama in July 1860 on the Clotilda. Infamous as the last slave ship to arrive in the U.S., the Clotilda has been the subject of several recent histories and a documentary, which, along with rich archival sources, inform British historian Durkin's vivid recounting. In searing detail, she relates the circumstances of the Africans' capture by Dahomeyan kidnappers, the cruelty they endured as enslaved people, and their valiant efforts to assert their West African heritage when they finally were freed. After a long incarceration in Africa as they waited for slave buyers to arrive, family members were forcibly separated--mothers from infants, husbands from wives--and those chosen were stripped and crammed into the ship's hold for a horrific ocean journey. Although the slave trade had been outlawed in the U.S. since 1808, bans were poorly enforced. A group of pro-slavery conspirators funded the voyage; a wily captain navigated the ship to avoid detection; and when the crew threatened mutiny, they were bribed and threatened into submission. With the Africans offloaded, the Clotilda was set on fire, and its human cargo hidden on a plantation. Although the trafficking scheme soon became known, government officials failed to find the Africans or prosecute the conspirators. One by one, enslavers came to make their purchases. Durkin depicts the "incessant labour and violence" and the culture of virulent racism they found as freed men and women. Nevertheless, they endured: Some established a "self-sufficient community" they called Africa Town. They defied white efforts to keep them from voting, and they married, owned land, and raised families. Generations later, their descendants became active in the civil rights movement. The book includes maps, photos, and artwork. A welcome history of defiance and survival. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
