William Foster sails the Clotilda to the Kingdom of Dahomey in 1860, buying 110 people from the nephew of Dahomey's king. In spite of laws forbidding further importation of enslaved peoples into the United States, Timothy Meaher, owner of a shipping business, wagers $1,000 that he can smuggle "a good number" of enslaved people across the Atlantic and into Mobile, Ala., without being caught. Told in 14 distinct voices, including that of the ship that brought them to the American shores and the founder of African Town, this powerfully affecting historical novel-in-verse recreates a pivotal moment in US and world history, the impacts of which we still feel today.īased on historical events and set between 18, Latham (D-39: A Robodog's Journey) and Waters (Dictionary for a Better World) pen an ambitious verse novel told in many voices.
At the end of the Civil War, the survivors created a community for themselves they called African Town, which still exists to this day. Their journey includes the savage Middle Passage and being hidden in the swamplands along the Alabama River before being secretly parceled out to various plantations, where they made desperate attempts to maintain both their culture and also fit into the place of captivity to which they'd been delivered. In 1860, long after the United States outlawed the importation of enslaved laborers, 110 men, women and children from Benin and Nigeria were captured and brought to Mobile, Alabama aboard a ship called Clotilda. Chronicling the story of the last Africans brought illegally to America in 1860, African Town is a powerful and stunning novel-in-verse.
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