Clotilda (slave ship)

High school (ages 12+)
History & Culture

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/clotilda-slave-ship

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the vessel type?Two-masted schooner
2. What is the dimensions?86 feet (26 m) in length, 23 feet (7.0 m) beam
3. What was the Clotilda and why is it important?The Clotilda was a two‑masted schooner that secretly carried about 110 enslaved Africans to Mobile Bay in 1859 or 1860. It was the last illegal slave ship to the United States, showing how some people still broke the law to keep slavery alive.
4. Why did the Clotilda sink and burn after arriving?The captain and crew set the ship on fire and scuttled it to hide evidence of the illegal importation and avoid legal punishment.

Schooner: A sailing vessel characterized by at least two masts, typically rigged fore-and-aft.
Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves: U.S. federal law enacted in 1807 that banned the international slave trade effective January 1, 1808.
Scuttled: The act of deliberately sinking a vessel, often to prevent its capture or to conceal it.
Transatlantic Slave Trade: The forced migration of millions of Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to be sold into slavery in the Americas.