MOBILE, Ala. – The remains of a wooden vessel found near Mobile, Alabama, may be the last slave-carrying ship to land in the United States.
Experts say the wreckage could be the Clotilda, which was burned after delivering African captives to Mobile in 1860.
The remains were found by a reporter who covers the coast for Al.com.
The wreck is normally covered by water in the lower Mobile-Tensaw Delta. It was recently exposed by unusually low tides and examined by archaeologists.
The Clotilda delivered 110 captives to Mobile in 1860 in the last known instance of a slave ship landing in the United States. The captain took the ship up the delta and burned it; the human cargo became slaves.
The wreckage is located near the area where the Clotilda's captain wrote about scuttling the ship.