Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 July 6

= July 6 =

Slave ship Lawrence
There's an article in today's Wall Street Journal regarding a controversy over the Clotilda, supposedly the last slave ship to reach the United States, in around 1859-60. A historian, Erik Calonius, claims that the slave voyage was a hoax, and the last slaver to reach the US was actually the Wanderer in 1858.

Our article on the Clotilda does not mention the controversy, which may be fair enough; Calonius himself seems to acknowledge that this is the standard narrative and it wasn't clear to me from the article how much traction the theory has gotten in the historian community.

But one point caught my eye: The article says that Booker T. Washington claimed that the last slave ship to reach Mobile, Alabama was the Lawrence, in 1862 (later than both the above dates). I can't find the Lawrence in our list of slave ships, and my Googling has not turned up much. Does anyone know anything about this Lawrence? --Trovatore (talk) 19:27, 6 July 2024 (UTC)


 * People exist today directly descended from both Clotilda slaves and Clotilda enslavers, so I don't really understand how anyone who's watched The Order of Myths could think it's a hoax... AnonMoos (talk) 20:26, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The article goes into some detail (not a lot, but some) on Calonius's reasons for thinking it was a hoax. I'm not qualified to evaluate that aspect of it, at least not without a lot more work than I actually plan to put into it. --Trovatore (talk) 20:34, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The Story of Slavery p. 17. It might be worth investigating Cornelia Lawrence 1854 New York for Lawrence, Giles & Co. She apparently hauled passengers Liverpool to New York but burned 2 Nov. 1858 in Mobile Bay under mysterious circumstance while carrying a cargo of hay? Pretty thin tho. fiveby(zero) 02:19, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Oops article is referring to Washington in ‘’The Story of the Negro’’ p. 104 Two different stories and each seems unlikely. fiveby(zero) 03:56, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks, 5/0. While Washington makes an unqualified claim that slaves were landed in 1862, it's surrounded by various "It is said" and "I have been told" kind of anecdotes, so I agree this doesn't seem like much to go on. --Trovatore (talk) 05:40, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It seems extremely unlikely. Mobile was under blockade in 1862, and the Confederate efforts to get cargo through it relied heavily on the British Empire both to build ships in the UK and harbour them in the Caribbean. Hard to see them risking winding up the Brits by trying to ship slaves, or using up valuable cargo space that could be used to ship military supplies. Chuntuk (talk) 08:38, 11 July 2024 (UTC)