Descendant is an investigative socio-cultural documentary released on Netflix, on 21st October. This documentary about the legacy of an illegal slave ship won the Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at Sundance. It is a Higher Ground and Night Tide production, in association with Two One Five Entertainment. Directed by Margaret Brown (known for The Order of Myths, and The Great Invisible)
The documentary’s subjects are direct descendants of the Clotilda survivors who banded together to buy a plot of land and establish the community of Africatown. It will also follow Africatown community leaders as they try to figure out how to best honour their ancestors, share their stories and do right by their neighbours. It has a runtime of about 1 hour and 49 minutes long.
-Descendant Review Contain Some Spoilers-
Documentary filmmaker Margaret Brown returns to her hometown of Mobile, Alabama to document the search for and historic discovery of The Clotilda, the last known ship to arrive in the United States, illegally carrying enslaved Africans. After a century of secrecy and speculation, the 2019 discovery of the ship turns attention toward the descendant community of Africatown.
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It presents a moving portrait of a community actively grappling with and fighting to preserve its heritage while examining what justice looks like today. On July 9, 1860, more than 100 captive Africans were brought to the shores of Mobile, Alabama, on a ship named the Clotilda, under cover of darkness.
The international slave trade had been made illegal in the US in 1808, but human trafficker Timothy Meaher made a bet that he could get around the law with his ship. 110 people from the West African country now known as Benin were illegally transported to Mobile, Alabama, aboard the Clotilda, a ship that was burned by its owner, Timothy Meaher, to cover up his crimes.
Once the smuggled captives got to Alabama, they were sold into slavery. After the Civil War, a number of them worked together to purchase the land that would eventually become Africatown. The documentary traces the ongoing stories of Africatown’s current residents.
Many of them kept their history alive through word-of-mouth until the belated publication in 2018 of Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon. It presents an oral history of Cudjoe Lewis, one of the last surviving passengers of the Clotilda. However, it took 90 years for the book to get published, after the acclaimed author first conducted her interviews.
The reason for that was, a narrative of it being a myth or just a folklore legend was created by the people who brought these slaves to America and to save themselves from being persecuted for it, they threatened the slaves to keep the stories to themselves. So these stories remained within the community, passing on from generation to until modern encroachment threatens to diminish all the history there is.
One of the biggest pieces of evidence in proving that the Clotilda survivors are telling the truth is the wrecked ship parts, which took more than 100 years to be located and recovered due to the ship captain and Meaher’s false testimonies. They never wanted the ship to be found. But more than the ship, the descendants only want their history to be validated and to live a healthy life.
Summing Up: Descendant
What the creator wants to show through this documentary is the unknown history of her community but also how events that unfolded more than a century ago continue to have lasting repercussions several generations later. The community is still suffering due to the actions of the Meaher family.
The family own some big estates in the region and they have been given to factories, which release harmful chemicals, into the air and water, making the residents sick and suffering from cancer or ultimate death. But it doesn’t really stop there, as these factories are slowly encroaching on the community lands, destroying the remains of their ancestors.
The people of the community say it’s not about punishing someone because the one who started it all is long dead. It’s about acknowledging what happened and validating the lost history of the people. The past can’t be changed but what’s happening right now, can certainly be rectified and made into a better place for everyone.
Descendant is currently streaming on Netflix.
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