Timothy Meaher

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Timothy Meaher
Born1812
Whitefield, Maine, US
DiedMarch 3, 1892
Mobile, Alabama, US
Occupationslave trader

Timothy Meaher (1812 – 3 March 1892) was a wealthy Irish-American slave trader, businessman and landowner.[1][2] He owned the slave-ship Clotilda.[1][3] He was responsible for the last illegal transport of slaves from Africa to the United States in 1860.[4]

Slave trade[]

The illegal capturing and transporting of slaves was made as a bet to see if Meaher could avoid the 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves.[1] Meaher reportedly described the bet as "a thousand dollars that inside two years I myself can bring a shipful of niggers right into Mobile Bay under the officers' noses."[5] Meaher sold some of the slaves but took the rest to work for his brother and himself.[6] Meaher had its captain, William Foster (1825 - 1901), burn and Clotilda in Mobile Bay, attempting to destroy evidence of their joint lawbreaking. The wreck was located in 2019.[2]

The slaves were freed in 1865, but Timothy Meaher refused to help them return home or provide reparations.[7][6] He sold them some land where they created the slave colony of Africatown.[7] The United States government attempted to charge Meaher, but due to factors such as difficulty proving the crime and the Civil War, he was never prosecuted.[1] However in 1890, two years before his death, Meaher bragged in a newspaper interview about his slave trading.[2]

Death and legacy[]

Timothy Meaher died on 3 March 1892 in Mobile, Alabama. He is buried at the Catholic Cemetery in Toulminville, Alabama.[8] The Meaher family is still prominent in Alabama, with Meaher State Park bearing the name, as well as a Meaher Avenue running through Africatown.[1] The family has refused to make any statement "about their ancestor’s crime" or release his personal papers.[7][9]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d e Reeves, Jay (8 February 2019). "Descendants from last US slave ship gathering in Alabama". AP NEWS. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  2. ^ a b c Raines, Ben (23 January 2018). "Wreck found by reporter may be last American slave ship, archaeologists say". AL.com. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  3. ^ "The Last American Slave Ship". The Coastal South. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  4. ^ Zanolli, Lauren (26 January 2018). "'Still fighting': Africatown, site of last US slave shipment, sues over pollution". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  5. ^ Diouf, Sylviane A. (2009). Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America. Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-19-972398-0.
  6. ^ a b Little, Becky. "Descendants of Last Slave Ship Still Live in Alabama Community". HISTORY. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  7. ^ a b c Tabor, Nick (2 May 2018). "Africatown and the 21st-Century Stain of Slavery". Intelligencer. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  8. ^ Diouf, Sylviane A. (2009). Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America. Oxford University Press. p. 183. ISBN 9780199723980.
  9. ^ Smith, Kiona N. (2 August 2019). "What will happen to the last slave ship in the US?". Ars Technica. Retrieved 4 August 2019.

Further reading[]

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