The secrets of a slave ship in an Alabama swamp

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 26 December 2022

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Journalist Ben Raines went in search of a sunken ship with a dark history.

A phone call out of the blue had set him on his hunt for the Clotilda, an American vessel that had illegally transported enslaved West African people to the US. On arrival it had been burnt, and hidden deep in the Alabama swamp. The story of the ship and its passengers had been kept alive by generations of people descended from those who had been enslaved. But these inherited histories were shrouded in secrecy, fear, and silence - seldom spoken of outside that community. So, when Ben dived into the swamp to find the Clotilda, it was more than a shipwreck that bubbled to the surface. Emily Webb speaks to Ben Raines and descendant Garry Lumbers about their intertwining stories.

Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Emily Webb and Olivia Lynch-Kelly Editor: Munazza Khan

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about what goes into making one.
0:06.5	I'm Sadata Sese, an assistant commissioner of podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:11.1	I pull a lot of levers to support a diverse range of podcasts on all sorts of subjects,
0:16.0	relationships, identity, comedy, even one that mixes poetry, music and inner city life.
0:22.4	So one day I'll be helping host develop their ideas, the next fact-checking, a feature,
0:28.3	and the next looking at how a podcast connects with its audience.
0:32.3	And maybe that's you.
0:33.6	So if you like this podcast, check out some others on BBC Sounds.
0:38.4	The Darkest Rising from the BBC World Service.
0:42.1	The powers of the dark are reaching out now steadily and stealthily all over this world.
0:48.4	Find out more at the end of this podcast.
1:05.1	In America's deep south, a story has been passed on from generation to generation.
1:12.7	It's about a group of enslaved people brought over to the US illegally in a ship that was then burned in a remote swamp. You have giant cypress trees that actually grow right up out of the water, and they're draped
1:17.5	with Spanish moss that grows and hangs down from the trees several feet. This was July in the summer,
1:23.9	in Alabama, so it's 95 degrees. And in the swamp, the noise is thunderously loud of all the
1:30.7	insects and frogs and things. They're mating and buzzing and the air just throbs at night.
1:39.9	They arrived up into this giant swamp. They're forced onto one of the steamboats.
1:44.5	And then about an hour later, they're taken off the steamboat as they watch the ship that brought them here burning in the distance as they drive away from it.
1:54.9	It's Emily Webb here, and this is the Lives Less Ordinary podcast from the BBC World Service.
2:03.6	Ben Raines is a reporter from the city of Mobile in Alabama.
2:08.0	His dad was a journalist as well, and his work took the family all over,
2:12.2	even moving to London when Ben was a teenager.
	...

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