Pretty interesting:
“Clotilda was a two-masted schooner, 86 feet (26 m) long with a beam of 23 feet (7.0 m), and a copper-sheathed hull. Meaher had learned that West African tribes were fighting and that the King of Dahomey (now Benin) was willing to sell African slaves taken in warfare. The King of Dahomey’s forces had been raiding communities in the interior, bringing slaves to the port of Whydah, which had a large slave market.
Departing on March 4, 1860, Foster sailed from Mobile with a crew of 12, including himself. In addition to supplies, he carried $9,000 in gold for purchase of slaves. He arrived in Whydah on May 15, 1860, where he had the ship outfitted to carry slaves, using materials he had transported there. He offered to buy some 125 Africans in Whydah for $100 each. They were primarily Tarkbar people taken in a raid from near Tamale, present-day Ghana. He described meeting an African prince and being taken to the king’s court, where he also observed some religious practices. According to his journal, Foster was allowed to review 4,000 captive Africans held in a warehouse, from whom he chose 125 for purchase.
As the slaves were being loaded, Foster saw two steamers off the port and ordered the crew to leave immediately, although only 110 slaves had been secured on board. He ordered Clotilda to sail without the last fifteen slaves, in order to avoid capture. After making their way for a time, they saw a ‘man of war’, but were saved when a squall came up and they could outrun the ship...
... Fearful of criminal charges, Captain Foster brought the schooner in to the Port of Mobile at night and had it towed up the Spanish River to the Alabama River at Twelve Mile Island. He transferred the slaves to a river steamboat to take further upriver, then burned Clotilda “to the water’s edge” before sinking it...”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clotilda_%28slave_ship%29
This stood out to me: “According to his journal, Foster was allowed to review 4,000 captive Africans held in a warehouse, from whom he chose 125 for purchase.”
It is interesting to note that this ‘last slave’ was brought into the US illegally. The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 (2 Stat. 426, enacted March 2, 1807) is a United States federal law that stated that no new slaves were permitted to be imported into the United States. It took effect in 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution.