They came to the US against their will. Their descendants returned to Africa for them.

“America’s last slave ship is more intact than anyone thought,” reads a 2021 headline from National Geographic about the Clotilda. As a new Nat Geo documentary suggests, so are the descendants from that vessel.

In 1860, the schooner Clotilda became the last known ship to carry enslaved people from the west coast of Africa to the United States. In 2019, the ship was found at the bottom of the Mobile River in Alabama. The discovery revived and validated the stories and names of the 110 enslaved people on the ship that had been passed down through generations. The legacy of resistance is present in Africatown, the community they founded after emancipation. It was the vision of Clotilda’s descendants to retain their African history and identity. It is the only community founded by Africans still active in the U.S.

“Clotilda: The Return Home” began streaming on Hulu and Disney+ June 18. The documentary follows the descendants of Cudjoe Lewis and Peter “Gumpa” Lee, two Clotilda survivors, as they fulfill their ancestors’ vision of returning to Africa, which takes them