The Alabama Public Radio news team was recently invited to take part in a public discussion on slavery in the state. I was joined on stage by William Green. He’s a member of the Clotilda Descendants Association. Green’s ancestor of one of the Africans kidnapped and transported to the Mobile area before the Civil War aboard the slave ship Clotilda. The event took place at the GulfQuest Maritime Museum, which is hosting an exhibition on slave ships. In part two of this discussion, I asked about a family member who kept the memories of the Clotilda alive…
“So I understand it was your grandmother who was kind of like the the keeper of the family history,” I asked. “On Sunday's you would get these these stories or how did that work?”
“Well, I actually knew my grandmother,” Green responded. “So she was the daughter, one of the offspring of Iona Keeby. So, she was very close to the source. And I'm third generation, 73 years old now, a number you will find so many lineage away from that. And the reason I'm so close to the source is because there was, you've come to find out some African American has a long lineage of birthing. So it could be 20 year difference between the oldest and the eldest. And that was the same case in my family, for 25 years actually, custody started early, and they had kids. So my grandmother was, was still living in Africatown. And my father, on every Sunday, he would take the little kids to visit his mother after church. So, we would go over there. Love the ones that did, and of course, as a kid, yeah. But he would love to make sure that you came to visit with his mother, every Sunday after church. And as little kids are, we she would sit down and talk to them. But look, he doesn't want to sit around here. And so we out playing. But now I'm sorry, I missed that wonderful opportunity to probably hear firsthand from her. Some of her experiences.”
“Were their stories about Mr. Keeby that you heard that are spot on, and some maybe a little on the folklore side, or what do you think,” I inquired.
“Surprisingly. And I hate to say this, I didn't have much information about Osia,” Green said. “But I've only recently learned more and more about him as the popularity of Africa town, the finding of the Clotilda that just made the news I've only learned since learned more and more about him and been educated more and more about him. Africatown. Well, I, of course, grew up in Africa town, but the things that occurred prior to my being born, so it's only recent that I'm finding out more about him.”
“Anything about it that surprises you, or is it kind of like hmmm, how about them?” I asked.
“No, it wasn't. And I think it's been reported in a number of documentaries and writings that the Africans when they organized Africatown, they were thirty two of them that actually organized an Africatown,” Green responded. “Now, people were are there were Africans, and African Americans still living in that area of 'Plateau' as it was known then."
"But the recent freed Africans had this uniqueness that they were so recent to these shores, they had a memory of Africa, and the governing and structure of their communities in Africa so that when they came and was freed, and they located in Africatown, they still had this memory," Green continued. "So they still had this this idea and structure of setting up a governing body to rule themselves in there. So, and it's been reported that Osia was considered a judge. So, he was the judge and they would handle and make out punishment and rulings on issues that came up in the community. So, I'm, I'm told that he was, was considered a judge of course, Cujoe (Lewis) was considered, I think, one of the leaders in the community because he had, I think, learned to speak more English perhaps than the others had all of them. And my older aunt tells me that she she actually knew her job and they still spoke with that heavy dialect of being from Africa.
“For the sake I know, everybody knows this, but just for the for the one person that doesn't. Slavery was outlawed the United States in 1807. The the hotel the kid, captives were brought in 1860. But then the 13th Amendment, the United States Constitution,” I inquired.
“I'm gonna clarify. just a little correction, just a correction, the importation of Africans to the shores had been outlawed in 1808,” said Green. “However, slavery of course, you, as you well know, was not outlawed until the Emancipation Proclamation, which really didn't. It was only the 13th amendment that actually freed them, because the unique thing about the Emancipation Proclamation is some of you historians will know is that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and the Confederate States, as a means of getting them to fight in the Union army. So, the Emancipation Proclamation didn't actually free the slaves is set out there was a calculated move to try in in ingest numbers into the Union Army during the Civil War.”
“But the Clotilda captives had only been here like five years before the 13th Amendment kicked in,” I mentioned.
“So well of course the 1860s The ending of the of the Civil War was when they actually spoke the quote unquote, those that had been enslaved and freed. And I'm told that the Africans that had been important and that was working for the Meaher family, that they found out about it when they own steamboats in I don't want to get it incorrect, but they own steam boats to travel between Montgomery and Mobile. And supposedly one of those boats, there were Union soldiers or something that and they told the Africans that ‘you are freed, we've won the war.’ So I'm told that the date it was April 12 1865. So we see that as our ‘Juneteeth’ if you will, for us, because that was the date that they found out that they were they were freed.”
“And Timothy Meaher being the gentleman who had bankrolled the expedition of the cloak tilde bringing the last group of residence of modern-day Benin here to the United States, right,” I clarified.
“Yeah, absolutely. But as you were saying, it had been outlawed in 1808. And here it was 1860, some 50, some years after the outlaw lowering of the importation of African to these shores, he had this grandiose idea like in many before him, because of the profit motive. You could buy Africans in Africa for $50 to $100. And get bring them back to the United States to sell and for anywhere from $1000 to $2,000. So, the clear profit motive was there. Now some of you may have heard the romanticized version that it all emanated from a bet, a drunken bet down, it's supposed to win his steamship. I think historians have proven that that has no validity whatsoever. If anything, is my supposition that it may have been a side bet because he had already planned on doing it and one of his drunken thing they may have been saying, ‘I'm bringing these Africans somebody says oh, you can do it.’ I bet as we all know this but that's my supposition. I think that backed up by some historians saying there's no record of it actually a bit. That was the impetus for him going to Africa and kidnapping and bringing these Africans to United States.”
Editor's note— GulfQuest is an underwriter of Alabama Public Radio
