Natalie Robertson (PhD 1996), Associate Professor of history at Hampton University, is pleased to announce that the story of America's last slave ship and the fate of her 110 West African captives will air on the National Geographic Channel on Monday, February 7th at 10pm (EST). The film will begin streaming on Hulu and Disney+ the following day. The film is based, in part, on her book entitled, The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Making of AfricaTown, USA: Spirit of Our Ancestors whose research was funded by the Stanley-UI Foundation and PASALA (Project for the Study of Art and Life in Africa).

This film features Dr. Robertson, who is an authority on the Clotilda smuggling crime. Dr. Robertson is one of 49 National Trust scholars who drafted the national rubric for interpreting slavery at museums and historic sites. She has taught courses on slavery at national and international institutions, including Hampton University and the Advanced Studies in England Program, affiliated with University College, Oxford. Her book-related research has received international acclaim and several awards including the National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Research Award, the Mellon Dissertation-year Fellowship, the PASALA Fellowship, the Stanley-UI Foundation Fellowship, and the United Negro College Fund Faculty Seminar Abroad Fellowship (Gorée Institute).

Based upon 15 years of primary field research, her book, The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Making of AfricaTown, USA: Spirit of Our Ancestors, chronicles the Clotilda’s fateful, illegal smuggling voyage from point of capture in the West African interior to point of disembarkation in Mobile, Alabama on the eve of the Civil War. Read her book and watch the upcoming Nat Geo film to learn how the Clotilda’s 110 West African captives survived both the middle passage and their subsequent enslavement in Alabama by building their own Africa in America.