In 1808, the Unites States banned the importation of slaves, effectively putting an end to the transatlantic slave trade. Or so the history books have it, although the residents of Mobile, Ala.’s Africatown neighborhood know otherwise: Human trafficking continued for decades more. More than half a century later, in 1860, many of their ancestors were smuggled into the port city aboard a ship called the Clotilda by white men who’d wagered they could get away with it — and did, destroying the evidence. With no ship and no manifest, federal investigators dropped their case against the culprits, Timothy Meaher and Capt. William Foster, even though the proof was there all along, told and retold by the survivors and their families.
Director Margaret Brown honors those voices in her stunning Sundance-winning documentary “Descendant,” distinguishing between what passes for history (the version written by those in power) and the painful reality eyewitnesses have...
Director Margaret Brown honors those voices in her stunning Sundance-winning documentary “Descendant,” distinguishing between what passes for history (the version written by those in power) and the painful reality eyewitnesses have...
- 10/21/2022
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Early in Margaret Brown’s exquisite new documentary “Descendant,” Africatown, Al resident Joycelyn Davis calls out the possible narrative pitfalls of chronicling the recovery of the Clotilda, the last known slave ship to arrive in the United States in 1860 — 50 years after the international slave trade was abolished. Just after a town hall in which marine archeologist Dr. James Delgado and his team introduce efforts aimed at recovering the long-lost ship, Davis remarks, “I don’t want the momentum of the story to be focused on the ship” before pausing to consider the influx of attention, money, and, ultimately, confrontations that could come with the Clotilda’s discovery.
Continue reading ‘Descendant’ Review: Stunning Documentary Presents a Layered History of the Clotilda Slave Ship and Africatown [Sundance] at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Descendant’ Review: Stunning Documentary Presents a Layered History of the Clotilda Slave Ship and Africatown [Sundance] at The Playlist.
- 1/22/2022
- by Christian Gallichio
- The Playlist
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