Descendant

Descendant’s Review – The Last Slaver Ship, Netflix documentary about the descendants of the slaves who traveled on the last slave ship.

The United States is an endless jumble of tales lurking in the relatively recent past, some happier and others more dramatic. In particular, the history of the African American population is full of cruel and cruel pages, obviously linked to the slavery that for decades saw the black population at the service of unscrupulous individuals, in a repression that still hides in the folds of racism and the contradictions of an egalitarian society only on paper.

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Descendant – The Last Slaver Ship: A shot from the film

As we tell you in the review of Descendant – The last slave shipthis new documentary landed as an original in the catalog Netflix leads us to the discovery of one of the many forgotten tragedies, relating to the discovery of the Clotilda, that is the last slave ship of which we have memory that, according to word of mouth, would have sunk in 1860 with the remains that would be found in the water of the river Mobile. Timothy Meaher, slaver in command of the boat, in fact set fire to it to hide its traces – the American civil war had in fact decreed its victors and racial segregation had been abolished – and to this day the mystery of where it was located is remained so. At least up to the events told in these two hours of viewing …

Today like yesterday

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Descendant – The Last Slaver Ship: A scene from the film

But in this investigative film it is possible to focus attention on various background elements, starting with the zoning suffered by the region in which the descendants of that dramatic shipwreck live and the interests of the large chemical companies, unscrupulous in poisoning more or less consciously those who live in those areas outside the big cities.
Because that of Africatown, a ghetto-town populated precisely by the heirs of those who lost their lives over a century and a half ago, is a community where people huddle together, not only desiring to have justice for their present but also to obtain answers on that common past never lived, heavy as a boulder until the revelation that triggers the heart of the operation, that is the actual discovery of the Clotilda.

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Between past and future

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Descendant – The last slave ship: a moment from the film

A story already brought to the headlines in the early 1930s by the one considered as the first African American director, or Zora Neale Hurston, who captured the direct testimony of Cudjo Lewis, one of the few survivors of the shipwreck. In Descendant – the ultimate slave ship her colleague Margaret Brown brings the story to the attention of the general public, trying to ponder a picture as complete as possible through interviews, testimonies and archive footage.
It follows a chronological order that traces the various turns in the investigations, with different manifestations and meetings by the direct parties involved and the intervention of the expert team of divers that finally allows that work of reconciliation of an entire community with what suffered by their ancestors.

The two faces of history

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Descendant – The Last Slaver Ship: A still from the film

To try to be as objective as possible, an attempt was also made to contact the descendants of Meaher himself, who however refused any comment on the story. Descendant – The latest slaver ship remains in any case a complete and open to many nuances work, filled with a profound spirituality that shines through the citizens of Africatown, ready to start a new life after taking off a burden. A new beginning full of possibilities and hope – the choice to teach the children of the community to dive underwater is significant in this sense – to definitively close a page that has been open for too long and be able to fight for sadly contemporary new battles.

Conclusions

The director Margaret Brown listens with her sober and delicate style to the stories of those directly involved, leaving their stories to entertain the public, led to the discovery of a tragic story buried in a past not to be forgotten. As we told you in the review of Descendant – The Last Slaver Ship, this documentary takes us to discover the history of the community of Africatown, where the inhabitants are still looking for answers on the fate of the Clotilda, considered as the last slave ship. And he accompanies us with them in the analysis of the wreck, for a discovery that becomes a key to reconciliation and a reason for hope towards new social battles to be fought.

Because we like it

  • A tragic story that deserved to be told.
  • The style of the documentary measures ways and times in the best way.

What’s wrong

  • A partial rhetoric peeps out at times.

Descendant – The last slave ship, the review: an intense doc on a forgotten story