Rarely have past and present mingled in a documentary the way they do in “Descendant,” a nonfiction account of the last known ship to bring African captives to the American South for enslavement.

Details on the Documentary

Margaret Brown’s “Descendant,” which recently premiered at the virtual Sundance Film Festival, chronicles the discovery of the ship, a 90-foot-long wooden schooner that was secretly burned and sunk near Mobile, Alabama, after it was used to illegally take and enslave 100 Africans on a trip across the Atlantic in the mid-19th century, decades after the international slave trade had been outlawed.

“Descendant” closely documents the finding of the Clotilda, which was confirmed in 2019. For locals, it’s a long overdue affirmation of a long-obscured history that for a century was little spoken of. The Mobile River site is effectively a 160-year-old crime scene of America’s original sin, where in 1860 Timothy Meaher, their enslaver, and the ship’s captain, William Foster, submerged the evidence. But Brown’s expansive, ruminative documentary is more focused on the questions of heritage, history and justice that the Clotilda unravels for its descendants and the community of Africatown, the town outside Mobile created by many of those enslaved from the Clotilda.  “The story of the ship is just the tip of the iceberg,” Brown said in an interview. “It’s not even really the story. The ship is kind of like the inciting incident.”

A Legacy

Brown grew up in Mobile, and has previously documented its racial histories. Her 2008 film “The Order of the Myths” thoughtfully depicted the segregated tradition of Mardi Gras while also delving into the history of Africatown and the Clotilda. “Stanley Nelson once said, ‘It’s time for white filmmakers to make movies about their ancestors.’ Like: Stop making movies about our ancestors. And that really resonated with me,” says Brown. “’Order of Myths’ is kind of like white anthropology. I thought this movie would be more like that. That’s not what it wanted to be. At a certain point was like: I think this untold story is the story.”

Debuting at Sundance

 “Descendant,” which is up for sale at Sundance, was made by Participant Media, the socially-minded production company behind films like “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Spotlight” and “John Lewis: Good Trouble.” A virtual Sundance has put a damper on many movies that might have had their moment before a packed theater, but it’s especially painful for those involved with “Descendant.” While there are a number of projects about the Clotilda and its legacy upcoming — a planned museum, a National Geographic special, a new book by Raines — the standing ovation “Descendant” and its subjects would have surely received would have been a deserved moment of recognition.

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