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| Author | Irene Latham Charles Waters |
|---|---|
| Genre | Fiction |
Publication date | 2022 |
Africa Town is a 2022 fiction novel written by Irene Latham and Charles Waters. [1] [2] [3] It tells the story of the Clotilda , the last known ship to bring enslaved people to the United States. [3]
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.
The Middle Passage was the stage of the Atlantic slave trade in which millions of enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas as part of the triangular slave trade. Ships departed Europe for African markets with manufactured goods, which were then traded for slaves with rulers of African states and other African slave traders. Slave ships transported the slaves across the Atlantic. The proceeds from selling slaves were then used to buy products such as furs and hides, tobacco, sugar, rum, and raw materials, which would be transported back to Europe to complete the triangle.
The Union-Castle Line was a British shipping line that operated a fleet of passenger liners and cargo ships between Europe and Africa from 1900 to 1977. It was formed from the merger of the Union Line and Castle Shipping Line.
The Noon Gun has been a historic time signal in Cape Town, South Africa since 1806. It consists of a pair of black powder Dutch naval guns, fired alternatingly with one serving as a backup. The guns are situated on Signal Hill, close to the centre of the city. The sight seeing point is officially permanently closed, and public entrance is unattainable.
Signal Hill, or Lion's Rump, is a landmark flat-topped hill located in Cape Town, next to Lion's Head and Table Mountain.
Safmarine, short for South African Marine Corporation, and latterly South African Marine Container Lines, was a South African shipping line, established in 1946, which offered freight transport services with cargo liners and container ships. It was bought by Maersk Line in 1999, and was fully integrated into that company in 2020. It also operated passenger vessels and specialised cargo ships.
The Ton class were coastal minesweepers built in the 1950s for the Royal Navy, but also used by other navies such as the South African Navy and the Royal Australian Navy. They were intended to meet the threat of seabed mines laid in shallow coastal waters, rivers, ports and harbours, a task for which the existing ocean-going minesweepers of the Algerine class were not suited.
SMS Seeadler was an unprotected cruiser of the Bussard class, the third member of a class of six ships built by the German Kaiserliche Marine. Her sister ships included Bussard, the lead ship, along with Falke, Condor, Cormoran, and Geier. Seeadler was built at the Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig in late 1890, launched in February 1892, and commissioned in August of that year. Intended for colonial service, Seeadler was armed with a main battery of eight 10.5-centimeter (4.1 in) guns and had a top speed of 15.5 knots.
The area known today as Cape Town has no written history before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias in 1488. The German anthropologist Theophilus Hahn recorded that the original name of the area was '||Hui !Gais' – a toponym in the indigenous Khoi language meaning "where clouds gather."
The Port of Cape Town, South Africa, is situated in Table Bay.
The Battle of Blaauwberg was a successful British amphibious operation during the War of the Third Coalition which lasted from 8–18 January 1806 and resulted in the capture of the Dutch Cape Colony. After defeating their Batavian opponents, the British signed a treaty under the Treaty Tree in Woodstock, Cape Town which established Britain's control over the Cape Colony. The colony later became a permanent part of the British Empire following the Congress of Vienna that marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1814. Due to establishing permanent British rule over the Cape Colony, the battle would have many ramifications for southern Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A bi-centennial commemoration of the battle was held in January 2006.
HMS Thames was a Mersey-class protected cruiser built for the Royal Navy (RN) in the 1880s. The ship was placed in reserve upon her completion in 1888 and was converted into a submarine depot ship in 1903. She was sold out of the navy in 1920 and was purchased by a South African businessman to serve as a training ship for naval cadets under the name SATS General Botha. The ship arrived in South Africa in 1921 and began training her first class of cadets in Simon's Town the following year. General Botha continued to train cadets for the first several years of World War II, but the RN took over the ship in 1942 for use as an accommodation ship under her original name. She was scuttled by gunfire in 1947 and is now a diveable wreck.
The schooner Clotilda was the last known U.S. slave ship to bring captives from Africa to the United States, arriving at Mobile Bay, in autumn 1859 or on July 9, 1860, with 110 African men, women, and children. The ship was a two-masted schooner, 86 feet (26 m) long with a beam of 23 ft (7.0 m).
Africatown, also known as AfricaTown USA and Plateau, is a historic community located three miles (5 km) north of downtown Mobile, Alabama. It was formed by a group of 32 West Africans, who in 1860 were bought and transported against their will in the last known illegal shipment of slaves to the United States. The Atlantic slave trade had been banned since 1808, but 110 slaves held by the Kingdom of Dahomey were smuggled into Mobile on the Clotilda, which was burned and scuttled to try to conceal its illicit cargo. More than 30 of these people, believed to be ethnic Yoruba, Ewe, and Fon, founded and created their own community in what became Africatown. They retained their West African customs and language into the 1950s, while their children and some elders also learned English. Cudjo Kazoola Lewis, a founder of Africatown, lived until 1935 and was long thought to be the last survivor of the slaves from the Clotilda living in Africatown.
SAS Somerset was a Bar-class boom defence vessel of the South African Navy, formerly preserved as a museum ship in Cape Town. It was scrapped in April 2024. Formerly HMS Barcross, it operated in Saldanha Bay, was transferred to South Africa Naval Forces during World War II, and was purchased by South Africa in 1947.
HMSAS Parktown was a minesweeping whaler of the South African Naval Services that was sunk during the Second World War. She was built as the whaler Southern Sky for the Southern Whaling and Sealing Company in 1929 and sold in 1936 to the Union Whaling Company, acquiring the new name Sidney Smith. She was requisitioned on 8 August 1940 as HMSAS Parktown and was converted to sweep magnetic mines. She arrived at Tobruk on 10 June 1942 just in time to take part in the evacuation of Allied forces. She was the last ship to leave Tobruk harbour prior to its capitulation to German forces on 20 June 1942. Parktown embarked 60 troops and took a tug in tow outside the harbour. Her reduced speed led to her being attacked by German E-boats, most probably German E-boats from Derna. Gunfire from the motor boats destroyed the bridge, ruptured the boiler, killed or wounded half of the men on board and led to on-board ammunition exploding, causing her to finally stop moving and setting the ship on fire. She was finally sunk on the evening of 21 June 1942 by an Allied MTB which had arrived to pick up survivors.
SMS Leipzig was a German flush-deck steam corvette, the lead ship of the Leipzig class, named after the 1813 Battle of Leipzig. She was built for the Kaiserliche Marine in the 1870s, being laid down in early 1875, launched in September that year, and commissioned into the fleet in May 1877. She had one sister ship, SMS Prinz Adalbert. Intended for long cruises abroad, the ship was fitted with a full ship rig to supplement her steam engine if coal was unavailable. She carried a battery of twelve 17 cm (6.7 in) guns.
The MV Treasure oil spill occurred on 23 June 2000, when the ship sank six miles off the coast of South Africa while transporting iron ore from China to Brazil. The ship was carrying an estimated 1,300 tons of fuel oil, some of which spilled into the ocean, threatening the African penguin populations living on nearby islands. Cleanup efforts began promptly after the incident with particular attention being paid to salvaging the penguin communities.
SAS Transvaal was one of three Loch-class frigates in the South African Navy (SAN). She was built as HMS Loch Ard (K602) for the Royal Navy during World War II, but was transferred to the SAN in 1944 before completion and renamed as HMSAS Transvaal. The ship was completed shortly after the German surrender in May 1945 and did not participate in the war.
SS New Bern Victory was a cargo Victory ship built during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding program. The New Bern Victory (MCV-639) was a type VC2-S-AP2 Victory ship built by Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyards. The Maritime Administration cargo ship was the 639 ship built. Her keel was laid on January 15, 1945. She was launched on March 8, 1945 and completed on March 31, 1945. The 10,600-ton ship was constructed for the Maritime Commission. The American Export Line and later the Isthmian Steamship Company operated her under the United States Merchant Marine act for the War Shipping Administration. Named for the city of New Bern, North Carolina.
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