The Legacy of The Tarkar People
The Tarkars were a proud Afrikan - Yoruba community who lived in the rich interior of the Gulf of Guinea on the West Coast of Afrika. The community were skilled agriculturalists. They cultivated yams, greens, beans, bananas, pineapples, and other healthy vegetation. They also raised hogs, goats, sheep, chickens, and cows. Their fertile lands not only fed their own people, but also sustained trade and commerce with surrounding communities. The Tarkars thrived as stewards of the land and participated in a vibrant cultural and economic life.
In the late 1860s the community met devastation. West Afrika was being torn apart by wars, primarily fueled by European greed for Afrikan bodies fueling free labor. The Tarkars were attacked by Fulani warriors where a brutal tactic was employed: the elderly were killed while the young and able bodies were captured. The imprisoned were as young as one year old, stripped and torn from their homeland and sold into bondage.
In 1860, through documented records, the Tarkars were imprisoned in a barracoon (prison enclosure) in Ouidah, Afrika. They were purchased by the American captain William Foster who had set sail from Mobile, Alabama, May of 1860. By July of that same year, Foster’s ship, I refer to as a “floating coffin,” returned to Alabama carrying 110 Afrikan souls.
Tarkar
This map is a small replication of the depletion of human lives from the West Coast of Africa to the American Enterprise, LLC.
Although the international slave trade had been outlawed since 1808, Foster and his investors faced no punishment. Instead, there was jubilation among Mobile’s elites at their import of Afrikan souls, considered illegal human cargo.
The Resistance Was Real. Taken in Ouidah, Africa 2019
Of the 110 captives, 108 made it, and 32 were given to the primary investor Timothy Meaher, a wealthy shipbuilder and financier of the floating coffins voyage. Two voyagers on the coffin whose names have carried through time are: KuPollee (Pollee Allen) and Kazoola (Kossola, Cudjo Lewis).
On Meaher’s land at Magazine Point, three miles north of Mobile, the men and women from the floating coffin built a community of their own. From their resilience and determination they created an Afrikan community in Mobile, known as Afrika Town, today known as Africatown.
Tragedy on top of tragedy. Taken in Ouidah, Africa 2019
Africatown stands as a living testament to the Yoruba Tarkars and others who survived European brutality and carried forward the strength of a people who refused to be erased.
This site is dedicated to our common legacy, to those whose names we remember and to the countless loved ones whose identities were stolen. This site honors the past, seeks in preserving the truth and is a tribute to the Ancestors. Furthermore this site anchors Ancestral spirits, magnifies their presence, and exemplifies their endurance. The march continues as the offspring of survivors forges onward through enlightenment and remembrance.