Africatown
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Africatown Historic District
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Abandoned house in Africatown
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| Location | Roughly bounded by Jakes Ln., Paper Mill, & Warren Rds., Chin, & Railroad Sts., Mobile, Alabama |
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| Coordinates | 30°44′7″N 88°3′31″W / 30.73528°N 88.05861°WCoordinates: 30°44′7″N 88°3′31″W / 30.73528°N 88.05861°W |
| NRHP Reference # | 12000990 |
| Added to NRHP | December 4, 2012 |
Africatown, also known as AfricaTown USA and Plateau, is a community located three miles (5 km) north of downtown Mobile, Alabama. It was formed by West Africans who were among the last known illegal shipment of slaves to the United States. These people created their own community and retained their customs and language following the American Civil War.
Africatown had its beginnings in an 1860 plan by some wealthy slavemasters and their friends to see if they could evade the law and import slaves from Africa. They bet each other they could elude federal authorities. Timothy Meaher, a shipbuilder and landowner; his brother Byrnes Meaher, John Dabey and others invested money to hire a crew and captain for one of Meaher's ships to go to Africa and bring back laborers for slaves.
They used Timothy Meaher's ship Clotilde under Captain William Foster. It sailed in 1860 from Ghana, West Africa for its final destination of Mobile, more than half a century after the slave trade had been outlawed by the United States in 1808. Over 100 Africans were aboard, having been sold into bondage by the King of Dahomey. Dahomey warriors raided a village near the city of Tamale in Ghana, and took the survivors to Whydah, now Benin, where they were put up for sale. The captured tribesmen were sold for $100 each to William Foster, captain of the Clotilde.
In July 1860, the Clotilde entered Mobile Bay and approached the port of Mobile. Captain Foster loaded the slaves onto a riverboat and sent them ashore; he set fire to the Clotilde to hide the evidence of its captives. The Africans were distributed among the parties who had invested in the venture. Federal authorities learned of this illegal activity and prosecuted Meaher and his partners. The 1861 federal court case of US v. Byrnes Meaher, Timothy Meaher and John Dabey did not find enough evidence to convict Meaher. The case was dismissed. The start of the American Civil War was believed to have been important in the government's dropping the case.
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