“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” — James Baldwin
This powerful documentary originated from a 2008 Sundance film entitled Order of Myths; a story of segregated Mardi Gras featuring descendants of a white ship owner and black slaves, the same genetic lines featured in this story.
Although the import of slaves into the United States was outlawed in 1808, it was local myth or forbidden secret, that a ship owned by the Meaher family, Clotilda, smuggled in 110 captured African natives in 1860, unloaded them, burned the ship in the channel and kept many of the slaves on his own land near Mobile, Alabama.
Residents of "Africa Town" are known to be descendants of those very slaves. An amazing insight is that this group of people were only enslaved for 5 years in contrast to all the others around them, who had been born into captivity for generations. These slaves had lived most of their life as free people and had vivid memories of Africa, their culture and their life before the ship - the last ship carrying enslaved Africans - brought them to America. It gave them a totally different spirit, sense of self and heritage, and a deep longing for their native land.
Descendant is about the community, the oral history which has been passed down for generations, the National Geographic search and discovery of the ship, and plans for the future. It it a well-organized, beautifully filmed, and creatively told story.