Dreams of Africa in Alabama

Description:

Sylviane A. Diouf reconstructs the lives of 110 men, women, and children from Benin and Nigeria who were brought ashore in Alabama in 1860 under cover of night, recounting their capture and passage in the slave pen in Ouidah, and describing their experience of slavery alongside American-born enslaved men and women. After emancipation, the group reunited from various plantations, bought land, and founded their own settlement, known as African Town. They ruled it according to customary African laws, spoke their own regional language and, when giving interviews, insisted that writers use their African names so that their families would know that they were still alive. African Town is still home to a community of Clotilda descendants. --from publisher description

subjects: Race relations,  Slave trade,  Clotilda (Ship),  Slavery,  West Africans,  Slaves,  Social conditions,  Biography,  History,  Slavery and bondage,  Minorities,  United States,  Sklave,  Alabama,  Slave-trade,  African Americans,  Alabama, history,  Alabama, biography,  Slavery, united states, history,  Mobile (ala.),  Alabama, social conditions,  Slave ships,  Slavery, united states,  Slave trade, africa,  Slaves, united states,  Africans, united states,  United states, race relations,  Enslaved persons

Places: Mobile,  United States,  Alabama,  Mobile (Ala.)

Times: 19th century