The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade

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    What were thought to be the remains of America's last slave ship--the Clotilda--were unearthed on a muddy river bank in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta in Alabama in 2018. These purported remains, and the artifacts from another slave ship, the São José-Paquete de Africa, are important symbols of the cultural relationship and interconnected history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, part one of a five-part series entitled Slavery: Heritage and Identity, we discuss maritime culture, the last slave ships, the atrocities of the slave trade, and the ways in which our cultural identity in the United States has been shaped by an amalgamation of cultures.

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Image
Slave Deck of the Albaroz, Prize to the Albatross

This pencil and watercolor by Lt. Francis Meynell shows Africans liberated by the British Navy. The Albanez (erroneously identified as Albaroz in the National Maritime Museum catalog) was a Brazilian vessel, captured by the Royal Navy ship, Albatross, off the mouth of the Kwanza River in 1845. Meynell was mate on the Albatross, captained at the time by Reginald Yorke. According to the NMM records, the Albatross was commissioned in 1842 and cruised African waters until 1849.

Credit
Image is in the public domain. Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International.