Primary Source Gallery – Teach Africatown

There are an abundance of sources about the Clotilda shipmates, their descendants, Africatown’s founding, and the community’s life since 1865 all over Mobile, Alabama, and the United States. This page is intended to serve as a helpful tool for finding these photographs, documents, interviews, newspaper articles and more.

We have created this live database to centralize and streamline your search for sources about Africatown. If you come across something which is not included here, please use our dropbox so that we might add it to the database.

Photographs

Cudjo Lewis with great-granddaughters, Mary & Martha Davis (1927)
Charlie Lewis (1914)
Clara Turner and Cudjo Lewis (1912)
Matilda McCrear

Cudjo Lewis in his home (1927)
Timothy Meaher (1886)
Captain William Foster (1890)
List of illustrations from Historic Sketches of the South

Newspapers

*This newspaper is in a microfilm collection at the Mobile Public Library. Please contact the Library for more access options.

The Mobile Register reports about a “brisk trade in slaves” in Dahomey (1858)
The Mobile Daily Advertiser reports Clotilda‘s illegal arrival (1860)*
Plateau community observes Kwanzaa traditions (2006)
Benin ambassador to take part in Africatown events (2002)

Oral History Interviews

Clip of interview with Lorna Gail Woods
Clip of interview with Mable Dennison
Interview with Eva Allen Jones
Interview clip of Martha West Davis

Letters, manuscripts & books

Capt. Foster's handwritten account of the Clotilda's voyage between Mobile and Ouidah — Capt. Foster’s account of Clotilda’s voyage
(written 1890)

Handwritten letter between enslavers concerning people brought as slaves on the Clotilda — Capt. Foster’s account of Clotilda’s voyage
(written 1890)

Title page of the book Historic Sketches of the South by Emma Langdon Roche (1914) — Historic Sketches of the South by Emma Langdon Roche (1914)

Cover of Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston (1931) — Historic Sketches of the South by Emma Langdon Roche (1914)

Maps & legal documents

Clotilda‘s journey
Map of Cudjo’s home & kidnapping
U.S. vs. Byrnes Meaher, U.S. vs. John Dabney, and U.S. vs. William Foster (1860)
Map of Africatown based on a map drawn by Albert Murray in the 1950s/60s