Overheard at National Geographic

Playback: Rooting, from Into the Depths


Listen Later

National Geographic Explorer Tara Roberts is inspired by the stories of the Clotilda, a ship that illegally arrived in Mobile, Alabama, in 1860, and of Africatown, created by those on the vessel—a community that still exists today. The archaeologists and divers leading the search for the Clotilda lay out the steps it took to find it. In this last episode of the Into the Depths podcast, which published in March 2022, Tara talks to the living descendants of those aboard the ship. She admires their enormous pride in knowing their ancestry, and wonders if she can trace her own ancestors back to a ship. She hires a genealogist and visits her family’s small hometown in North Carolina. The surprising results bring a sense of belonging to a place that she never could have imagined.

Want more?

Check out our Into the Depths hub to listen to all six episodes, learn more about Tara’s journey following Black scuba divers, find previous Nat Geo coverage on the search for slave shipwrecks, and read the March 2022 cover story.

And download a tool kit for hosting an Into the Depths listening party to spark conversation and journey deeper into the material.

Also explore: 

Dive into more of National Geographic’s coverage of the Clotilda with articles looking at scientists’ ongoing archaeological work, the story that broke the discovery of the ship, and the documentary Clotilda: Last American Slave Ship.

Meet more of the descendants of the Africans trafficked to the U.S. aboard the Clotilda, and find out what they’re doing to save Mobile’s Africatown community in the face of difficult economic and environmental challenges. 

Read the story of Kossola, who later received the name Cudjo Lewis, in the book Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” by author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston.

Learn more about the life of abolitionist Harriet Jacobs, author of “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” who escaped Edenton, N.C., through the Maritime Underground Railroad.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Overheard at National GeographicBy National Geographic

  • 4.3
  • 4.3
  • 4.3
  • 4.3
  • 4.3

4.3

9,934 ratings


More shows like Overheard at National Geographic

View all
The Documentary Podcast by BBC World Service

The Documentary Podcast

1,854 Listeners

Science Weekly by The Guardian

Science Weekly

412 Listeners

Science Quickly by Scientific American

Science Quickly

1,363 Listeners

Science In Action by BBC World Service

Science In Action

343 Listeners

Discovery by BBC World Service

Discovery

959 Listeners

A History of the World in 100 Objects by BBC Radio 4

A History of the World in 100 Objects

1,178 Listeners

TED Talks Science and Medicine by TED

TED Talks Science and Medicine

766 Listeners

The Audio Long Read by The Guardian

The Audio Long Read

819 Listeners

Unexpected Elements by BBC World Service

Unexpected Elements

359 Listeners

BBC Inside Science by BBC Radio 4

BBC Inside Science

400 Listeners

CrowdScience by BBC World Service

CrowdScience

472 Listeners

Instant Genius by Our Media

Instant Genius

73 Listeners

The Wild with Chris Morgan by KUOW News and Information

The Wild with Chris Morgan

3,266 Listeners

NASA's Curious Universe by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

NASA's Curious Universe

780 Listeners

Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller by National Geographic

Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller

479 Listeners

Into the Depths by National Geographic

Into the Depths

797 Listeners

How We Explore by National Geographic

How We Explore

198 Listeners