am a descendant of slaves from the African diaspora, who survived the deadly and evil Trans-Atlantic slave trade and offloaded on the Caribbean Island of St. Lucia. As a child and through migration to the United States I frequently sought to answer the following…
“What part of Africa were my ancestors stolen from?”
“In my lifetime would I ever plant my feet on the soil of Africa, the ‘Motherland’?”
Little did I know that God would answer this immigrant girl’s prayers in December 2022, 31 years after I left my island home and the only connection to my ancestral roots and culture. This 14-day trip to Botswana changed me and gave me a deeper thirst to find my roots and simultaneously, a deeper hatred against the evils of slavery and sin in general.
God used this experience upon my return to arrest my attention when I came across Descendant a Higher Ground and Netflix documentary, directed by Margaret Brown. The documentary focuses on the 2019 discovery in Alabama, of the sunken wreck of the rumored “illegal” last slave ship to arrive in the United States, the Clotilda.
So, on July 9, 1860, sixty years after the legislative prohibition, the Clotilda illegally carried off 110 people from the country now known as Benin to Mobile, Alabama. To cover up his criminal activity, Meaher had the ship burned miles away from where he off-loaded the Africans headed for the auction block, in the hollows of darkness.
This film, Descendant significantly and simultaneously encapsulates the consequences of evil and its continuing domino effect down through the years. This story reminded me of a quote from 1934’s The Hope of the Race by Frank L. Peterson. In this little book, the precursor to Message, he states:
“Every act of sin has its influence upon the sinner, and whatever we do has a corresponding effect upon the lives of others. The sowing of seed has its harvest. The committing of sin has its fruit-bearing season.”
His quote then drew my attention to volume 1 of the Conflict of the Ages series by Ellen Gould White named, The Spirit of Prophecy. Chapters entitled “The Fall of Satan” and “The Temptation and Fall”, although published in 1870, maintain their relevance today. This is because they provide clarity to the questions we ask, even while reading the story of the slave ship Clotilda and its passengers:
- “Why is there so much evil in the world?”
- “Why is evil unchecked and allowed to win?”
Well, the hatred, killings, selfishness and hardening of hearts are some of the consequences we sometimes explain as chaos, but I would like to offer another root cause: Sin, and the one is to blame, Satan, the father of sin. Through obedience to Satan instead of to God, the first man Adam fell, thus spreading bitter death to all mankind like a plague. The Apostle Paul in Romans 5:12 (ESV) states this event clearly: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…”
“But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.
And thankfully we are blessed to witness the uncovering of hidden proofs of evils and lawlessness. We get to experience the beginning of Jesus Christ’s justice here on Earth, and to taste the sweetness of vindication in our lives. The descendants of the survivors of the Clotilda kept their story alive through the art of storytelling and media documentation when able to; and the “Descendant” documentary finally introduced the world to the residents of Africatown (formally AfricaTown USA and Plateau), a historic community found about three miles north of downtown Mobile, Alabama. Keeping true to His promise in Luke 12:2-3 (ESV) Jesus continues to bring His words alive!
“Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.”
Netflix staff writer Roxanne Fequiere in her article “Deep Dive Everything You Need to Know About ‘Descendant’” said, “The film shows how events that unfolded more than a century ago continue to have lasting repercussions several generations later.”
Timothy Meaher’s attempts to conceal his crime by sinking the ship, later attempts to blow up the remains, and further attempts to divert the search for the ship all failed. Now, 160 years and many attempts later to find the sunken wreckage, divers found it in May 2019.
I close this ode to the vindicating work of Jesus Christ in the experiences of His children with this prayer for the reader, over any circumstance in your life in which you may feel that the bitterness of sin threatens to hide the truth forever.
I pray that you will see the love and careful attentiveness of Jesus Christ in your own circumstances and believe that no matter how long sin seems to hide in darkness, God’s light of justice will never allow the darkness to win, and in time, His light of love and His righteous judgment will shine through any crevice revealing the truth. I pray that His truth will turn the bitterness of sin into a sweet taste of justice. Amen!
