More than 12,000 ships came

12,000 Ships from Africa/ Voyages of the Clotilda and Others, 73 x 54 inches, acrylic on canvas, 07/18/2025

Someone spoke about how about 12,000 ships brought slaves to America. On this basis, I started painting this piece to commemorate the journeys, the blood and sweat, the rough seas, and masts bellowing in the Atlantic winds. I completed the painting yesterday. All the masts, the anchors, and the lost souls of all colors are present. This is a memorial.

I had hoped to finish making this painting on time for the birthday anniversary of the City of Alexandria. Alexandria was a notable port. While working on this piece, I frequently visited the archaeological museum next to my studio at the Torpedo Factory Art Center. I searched for pictures of slave ships and other materials from that time. I saw a few images of the hulls of a ship that was excavated here in the city. There is not much material or ships to see from earlier visits to other museums here in the US.

I woke up this morning, curious about this disappearance of history.

Here are answers from Google: Between 1514 and 1866, approximately 36,000 ships were involved in transporting enslaved Africans to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to America. The Slave Voyages database documents these voyages, though it's estimated to cover about two-thirds of all slaving voyages. Only one known slave ship, the Clotilda, has been located and identified in American waters. The Clotilda was the last known ship to illegally bring enslaved Africans to the United States in 1860, arriving in Mobile, Alabama, 52 years after the international slave trade was outlawed. The ship was intentionally burned and sunk to hide the evidence of its illegal voyage. 

 While the exact number fluctuates, there are still over 2,000 Confederate symbols publicly present across the United States. These include statues, monuments, buildings, streets, and other markers that commemorate the Confederacy. 

Was this erasure the way to make peace with all the souls that were lost to this horrific trade? Several American museums have relics from the Stone Age. In my painting, while acknowledging the erasure, the vanishing, the glossing over, I wanted to bring forward the hidden story. So much blackness is hidden away. Sadly, this trend continues today.