The gripping and affecting book tells several stories, and Raines deftly weaves them into a tight, propulsive narrative ... Raines’ narrative shines as the story reaches the present day ... The book feels especially timely when Raines assesses the controversies that continue to surround the Clotilda.
... perceptive ... This story from long ago puts into context what the new spate of lawlessness in the US is all about. Raines tells a tale of racism and greed. Anyone who imagines that attempting to circumvent democracy is a new thing has forgotten the civil war ... For many, one suspects, the most enlightening part of this sad saga occurs at the start. Some who have heard of the direct involvement of Africans in the Atlantic slave trade have suspected apologists’ propaganda. True, as with today’s drug trade, without a lucrative market among Arabs, Europeans and Americans, slavery would have collapsed much sooner. But there is no exaggerating the extent to which the rulers of Dahomey were involved in capturing fellow Africans for both enslavement and sacrifice. Its victims are estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
The book makes some missteps ... What distinguishes Raines’s book is not only the story of that discovery, but also his perspective as a river guide in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta ... Raines vividly conjures the watery landscape into which the Africans stepped, an alligator-filled swamp once thick with canebrake, now transformed by hydroelectric dams. Knowledge of these waterways also led Raines to locate the Clotilda in a place previous searchers had ignored ... Clearly, the story of the last slave ship is still far from over, and the 'extraordinary reckoning' hinted at by Raines’s subtitle has barely begun.
Raines weaves together the many complex strands of the Clotilda’s history to compelling effect, including the ways in which its discovery has impacted the descendants of the ship’s survivors ... The most powerful parts of the book explore the ship’s legacy in Africatown, a settlement near Mobile, AL, founded by emancipated survivors of the Clotilda after the Civil War ... Raines effectively blends historical research and journalism into a gripping transatlantic tale of trauma, hope, and reconciliation. An absolutely essential book.
Raines weaves an impressively multilayered story ... Raines should be commended for his dogged journalistic work locating the sunken ship, which the owners tried to destroy, as well as the descendants of those original enslaved Africans ... A highly readable, elucidating narrative that investigates all the layers of a traumatic history.
... riveting ... Raines profiles the founders of Africatown and their descendants, vividly describes the captives’ tempestuous voyage on the Clotilda and their struggle to assimilate to American society, and explains how his knowledge of the Mobile-Tensaw delta helped him locate the wreck in 2018. He also documents how the discovery has helped to foster a movement for reconciliation between the descendants of the enslaved and their captors in Africa and the U.S. The result is an evocative and informative tale of exploitation, deceit, and resilience.
