In 1808, the Unites States banned the importation of slaves, effectively putting an end to the transatlantic slave trade. Or so the history books have it, although the residents of Mobile, Ala.’s Africatown neighborhood know otherwise: Human trafficking continued for decades more. More than half a century later, in 1860, many of their ancestors were smuggled into the port city aboard a ship called the Clotilda by white men who’d wagered they could get away with it — and did, destroying the evidence. With no ship and no manifest, federal investigators dropped their case against the culprits, Timothy Meaher and Capt. William Foster, even though the proof was there all along, told and retold by the survivors and their families.
Director Margaret Brown honors those voices in her stunning Sundance-winning documentary “Descendant,” distinguishing between what passes for history (the version written by those in power) and the painful reality eyewitnesses have...
Director Margaret Brown honors those voices in her stunning Sundance-winning documentary “Descendant,” distinguishing between what passes for history (the version written by those in power) and the painful reality eyewitnesses have...
- 10/21/2022
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
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