America's Last Slave Ship (Full Episode) — Drain the Oceans — National Geographic

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: On the 9th of July 1860, under the cover of darkness, a schooner slips into Mobile Bay on the Alabama coast. She's called Clotilda, and she's carrying illegal cargo. Human beings, 109 enslaved men and women, the last consignment of African captives ever to reach the United States. But this will be her final voyage. That night, she disappears and is never seen again. The story of the Clotilda marks a defining moment in the disturbing history... ...the transatlantic slave trade. [00:01:11] Speaker 2: Life was brutal. It was violent. It was constant. People lived their entire lives under fear of punishment. It was probably as close as we've come to producing Hell on Earth. [00:01:29] Speaker 1: Today, nearly 160 years since her mysterious disappearance... ...a group of maritime archaeologists are searching for the Clotilda. Here, on the Mobile River. Very few slave ships have ever been found. But in Alabama, and in sites all around the planet... archaeologists are making discoveries... ...finding physical evidence... ...of a trade that sees 12 million Africans... ...carried to the New World in chains. But these wrecks also lay bare a story of hope... ...revealing acts of rebellion and dramatic escapes... ...rewriting the history of America. The story of the United States... [00:02:24] Speaker ?: The story of the United States... The story of the United States... ...of America. The story of the United States... [00:02:31] Speaker 3: "Fifty-two years after the United States Congress... ...banned Americans from being involved in the slave trade... ...a group of people in Mobile decided to place a bet." [00:02:47] Speaker 4: "The bet was maybe a million dollars equivalent today... ...that we can go over to Africa and bring back slaves... ...right under the U.S. marshal noses." "Just a drunken night, and they decided to make a bet." [00:03:11] Speaker 1: In 1860, the importation of enslaved Africans into America... ...is strictly forbidden... ...though slavery itself remains legal in many states. But ship owner Timothy Mayer is prepared to take the risk. He sends one of his vessels... ...the Clotilde, to Ouida... ...in modern-day Benin... ...on a mission... ...to buy human beings. West Africa has for centuries... ...been at the rotten heart of the slave trade. "Jotilde's captain negotiates a fee for his living cargo... ...$12,500... ...or $375,000 in today's money. In America, they will be worth $5 million." After a six-week voyage... ...Clotilde returns to Alabama... ...and disappears. Finding this ship... ...could transform our understanding of the last days of slavery. So for decades, archaeologists have been desperate to track her down. James Delgado is leading a major new investigation. He knows it will be an immense challenge. [00:04:49] Speaker 3: What you're contending with... ...is a hot, humid environment... ...in and out of the water. But also, to be clear, we're in a bayou. There are gators. There are water moccasins. So you're always mindful... ...that the environment you're working in... ...is not necessarily a welcoming one. [00:05:17] Speaker 1: Based on Clotilde's last known position... ...the team focuses upon the Mobile-Tensau River Delta... ...a vast region of wetlands... ...a few miles north of the city of Mobile. ...and discovers that one stretch of the bayou... ...has never been scanned with modern equipment. [00:05:37] Speaker 3: This little bend in the river... ...was the only one where no one had looked. [00:05:45] Speaker 1: Using underwater sonar... ...they search for any sign of a wreck. [00:05:53] Speaker 5: All right, so there's your bow. Here. [00:05:56] Speaker 1: It soon throws up a frenzy of hits. [00:05:59] Speaker 3: This area was full of wrecks. It was a ship graveyard. [00:06:06] Speaker 1: The team identifies 12 possible targets. Clotilde is known to be an 86-foot-long wooden ship. So the archaeologists can eliminate anything larger... ...and anything made of metal. [00:06:21] Speaker 5: It's almost as if we're right in the center of the vessel. We are. We are in the center. [00:06:26] Speaker 3: Target 10 turned out to be an iron or steel-hulled sailing ship... ...that had been cut down. Target 1 also appeared to be one of those. [00:06:37] Speaker 1: In the end, just one target remains. [00:06:42] Speaker 3: Target 5 was a wooden wreck. Not only was it a wooden wreck... ...but the sonar showed it to have about the right kind of shape... ...I expected for the bow. [00:06:52] Speaker 1: They focus all their efforts on Target 5. [00:06:55] Speaker 5: The bow's right here. That's the bow. [00:07:01] Speaker 1: It looks promising, but to find more evidence... ...they must plunge into these murky waters. One of the dive team is Kamal Siddiqui... ...lead instructor of Diving with a Purpose... ...a group dedicated to protecting the remains of slave ships. [00:07:21] Speaker 6: This was actually the Clotilda. Clotilda being the last vessel to bring Africans into the U.S. That is absolutely profound. [00:07:35] Speaker 1: This is about more than archaeology. Many people living on the banks of the Mobile River today... ...are direct descendants of the captives on board Clotilda. [00:07:48] Speaker 7: Some of the people that were on that ship would never see their family again. Their lives were turned upside down. We need to know what happened to that ship. Finding the Clotilda, it would bring closure... ...and it opens up the why, how, and when. [00:08:18] Speaker 1: Conditions for diving are terrible. So the search proceeds slowly. [00:08:26] Speaker 6: In the water, he was giving feedback on what he was basically feeling, not seeing. The visibility was a bit challenging. [00:08:36] Speaker 1: The divers can barely see their hands in front of their faces... ...and must rely on touch to find their way. This is archaeology by braille. [00:08:47] Speaker 5: I'm just trying to slowly kind of feel my way around. Nice and careful. [00:08:53] Speaker 8: How's your vids down there any better? Six inches. Okay, six inches of vids heard. [00:08:59] Speaker 1: Maritime archaeologist Alex DeCaro communicates with the dive team, guiding them to the site. [00:09:06] Speaker 5: Okay, you're on a tree, you're about 15 feet southwest of your booty drop. [00:09:14] Speaker 1: Maneuvering through thick mud, the diver approaches the wreck. [00:09:23] Speaker 5: It's monstrous and large. [00:09:25] Speaker ?: Large. Large. [00:09:26] Speaker 9: It feels all wood. Oh yeah, it's all wood. Okay. [00:09:30] Speaker 1: Reaching through the dark waters, the divers lay their hands on something important. [00:09:39] Speaker 3: Okay, let me take a look. [00:09:46] Speaker 1: It's a large wooden centerboard. A crucial part of mid 19th century sailing ships. Especially fast schooners like the Clotilde. A centerboard is a retractable keel that's lowered to give extra stability when sailing on open water. In a shallow river, it can be raised up, leaving greater clearance beneath the ship. [00:10:20] Speaker 6: When that centerboard was found or discovered, it was significant. It was a huge, of course, morale booster. [00:10:28] Speaker 1: Their discovery helps the team calculate the size of the wreck. It's 13 feet long, meaning it must belong to a vessel about 80 feet in length. And from shipping records, the team already knows that Clotilde is an 86 foot long golf schooner. It's a possible match. Wooden fragments from the site could also help explain its identity. So the team bags up samples for laboratory analysis. But what they really need to do is see the wreck site in its entirety. Now, using their sonar data, it's possible to punch through the darkness. Pulling the plug on the murky Mobile River to open up a world hidden for over a century and a half. Revealing an astonishing sight. The bones of a spectacular wooden wreck. Her bow is high and immediately visible, while her hull lists slightly to port. Her stern lies buried in several feet of mud. Given how long the wooden hull has been here, it's remarkable so much survives. And buried beneath the silt, traces of something unusual. This wreck may look like a schooner, but most gulf schooners have a shallow hold. This one is huge. More like a hold found in large, ocean-going ships. Could this be an important clue? [00:12:49] Speaker 3: The typical gulf schooner of that time had a low, flat hull for navigating in the shallow waters of the Gulf. Clotilde was built bigger and deeper. [00:13:00] Speaker 1: Clotilde's design means she can carry a large human cargo. Finding such a hold on the wreck is another piece of encouraging news. But still not enough to make a positive idea. [00:13:19] Speaker 3: The number one thing you have to remember in shipwreck archaeology is the most difficult game to play. It's called pin the name on the wreck. [00:13:28] Speaker 1: Before they can pin the name Clotilde to this wreck, the team must go back armed with every tool at its disposal. To scour every last inch of this site for clues. The tiniest detail might provide vital evidence that this really is America's last slave ship. The search for Clotilde, America's last slave ship, is important because slave ship finds are so rare. Less than 10 have ever been identified. That's why an intriguing story over one and a half thousand miles away in Costa Rica creates huge excitement. Not one, but two unidentified wrecks. According to local legend, they are slave ships. But are these rumors true? [00:14:41] Speaker 8: The locals have known about them for many, many years. They could be slave ships, but they didn't know the names of the vessels or when they'd actually wrecked. [00:14:53] Speaker 1: Archaeologist Lynn Harris is leading an expedition to find out more. Together with her team, she heads for the coast, 15 minutes from the nearby town of Capuita. Local fishermen guide them to where they think the first of the wrecks lies. Around 800 feet off the shoreline. [00:15:21] Speaker 10: It is really unraveling a mystery. These shipwrecks are particularly intriguing. [00:15:28] Speaker 1: But the usually crystal clear Caribbean waters have been churned up by recent storms. They can't see anything from the surface. And the team has no scanning equipment with them. Visibility is poor. And at first, there's no sign of a ship. [00:16:02] Speaker 9: This is really bad today because of the rain falls and the river coming out. [00:16:19] Speaker 1: After two hours underwater, Lynn finds something. [00:16:27] Speaker 9: The cannon appears to be muzzle loading, typical of the 1700s, the right period for a slave ship. [00:16:47] Speaker 1: But to understand these ships' true purpose, Lynn needs a clearer picture of what's beneath these swirling waters. And by using the data collected at the site, that's now possible. As the ocean disappears from around the first wreck, the sea floor emerges into the Caribbean sunlight. At first, there's barely any trace of a ship. But then, the sea floor is a little bit of a ship. But then, clearly visible, two intact anchors. And 160 feet away, something striking. Lots more cannon. 10 of them, along with what could be more, buried in the silt. The archaeologists think they may have fallen to the ocean floor as the ship broke apart. By measuring their landing points, they can get an idea of the size of the vessel they were on. And it's big, around 118 feet long. That's the right size for a slave ship. And it's armed with multiple cannon. Both important clues. [00:18:22] Speaker 3: The rule of thumb on a slave ship was you would carry armament. To protect yourself when you went off the coast in case somebody came along. To try to interfere with your business or to take your ship. [00:18:39] Speaker 1: But there's a problem. This site is hundreds of miles from the main slave trade routes. From the very start of the transatlantic slave trade in the 16th century, slave ships set out from Europe. Then sail over 3,000 miles to West African ports that trade in enslaved people. [00:19:07] Speaker 2: The captains of slave ships are men who do multiple things. They're sea captains. Sometimes they're pirates. Sometimes they're people engaged in wars. But they're also salesmen. They have to be able to barter on the coast of West Africa. Sell the goods they've got for as many Africans. [00:19:26] Speaker 1: At these African ports, they load up with captives. As many as 700 on the biggest ships. And carry them to the new world where they will be sold and set to work. The whole cruel enterprise comes about because plantations make more money when the labor is unpaid. [00:19:50] Speaker 2: The land is in the Americas. The demand is in Europe. And the free labor, the cheap labor, the slave labor is in Africa. [00:19:59] Speaker 1: The slave ships return to Europe from the new world, laden with cargoes of sugar, rum, and cotton. All produced by enslaved people on plantations. This whole network becomes known as the slave trade triangle. And Lynne's wreck site is 500 miles away from it. There's nothing in the first wreck to explain what it's doing here. So Lynne turns her attention to the second site. Just over half a mile away. Once again, there's no sign of the wooden hull of a sailing ship. The only thing Lynne can find amid the mud and the silt is a single yellow brick. It's not a promising start. But there's more evidence hidden on the sea floor. And we can reveal it by draining away the Caribbean Sea. [00:21:18] Speaker ?: And we can reveal it by the way of the way of the sailor. [00:21:25] Speaker 1: Not just one yellow brick. But a trail of them. Leading to an incredible sight. A vast pile of bricks. Tens of thousands of them. All neatly stacked. Lynne concludes that they were in the hold of a ship that has long since rotted away. And are now the only visible remains. So can the bricks unlock the identities of both ships? And help prove a link to slavery? [00:22:08] Speaker 9: Lynne takes a closer look. [00:22:24] Speaker 1: In the early 1700s, different nations favor different styles of brickwork. And these seem Scandinavian. [00:22:33] Speaker 8: We looked through archaeological ports and tried to estimate the dimensions of a Danish brick, which was different to the Dutch bricks and the English bricks and the Spanish bricks. And they seem to fit into the Danish brick more than any other. [00:22:52] Speaker 1: Danish bricks suggest Danish ships. So Lynne digs deeper. She uncovers documents belonging to the Danish West Indies Company, mentioning two Danish ships lost in 1710. Their last reported sighting is at Punta Cahuila, the exact place where the yellow bricks are lying on the seabed. The Danish records show that both vessels are carrying bricks for the repair of a fort at St. Thomas, a notorious sugar plantation in the Caribbean. The Archives also make clear that when they are lost, both ships are also carrying a full cargo of enslaved Africans. What can this astonishing discovery reveal about the reality of life aboard a slave ship? In Costa Rica, archaeologist Lynne Harris has identified two extraordinary wrecks, rare examples of early slave ships. The bigger one, heavily armed with 24 cannon, is called the Fredericus Hortus. It's 144 feet long, carrying a cargo of yellow bricks and 433 African captains. The other is the Christianus Quintus. It's smaller, at 118 feet, with a crew of 60 and 373 enslaved Africans. Using contemporary records and data from the dive, we can reconstruct exactly how these floating prisons appeared and how they worked as they set sail on their final fateful voyage in 1710. [00:25:11] Speaker 11: People have herded below deck. They are often chained together. The conditions on the ships are squalid. You can smell the slaver coming. [00:25:29] Speaker 1: Air grills around the hull offer extra ventilation to keep the human cargo alive. Above deck is a barricado, a wooden barrier that divides the ship in two ships to protect the crew in case the enslaved try to fight back. Mounted near the captain's cabin, menacing swivel guns intended not to fire against other ships, but to rake the deck and cut down any rebellious captains. In October 1709, the two Danish slave ships set out for the Caribbean island of St. Thomas. But after five months of sailing, they find themselves 1,200 miles off course and desperately low on supplies. By February 18th, 1710, disease, dehydration and starvation have already claimed the lives of 135 Africans on board the two ships. They seek refuge near shore at Kakwila, where, amid a raging storm, both crews abandon ship. The fate of the enslaved men and women on board is a mystery. But local legend maintains that some manage to escape and find a new home among the indigenous community here. If so, it's a narrow escape from a life of endless toil on the plantations. By the 19th century, more than 150 years after the trade first began, around 4 million African captives are laboring on giant prison farms across the Caribbean and American South. [00:27:44] Speaker 12: Being demanded to work from sunup to sundown, being rationed food and water, being told when they could go to the bathroom. The future was really grim. [00:27:58] Speaker 11: It is a forced labor system that devoured children and decimated families. [00:28:11] Speaker 2: The people who ran this system ran it with terror. People were just whipped. People were mutilated. Bits of people's bodies were strung up. They were heads on posts. [00:28:30] Speaker 1: Many captives try to escape the plantations, but get caught, and terrible punishments, or death, will follow. And for those who do make it out, finding their way out of the South is far from easy. [00:28:46] Speaker 4: So, you're going to a place unknown, not knowing the language. You had to hide out in swamps, a limited amount of food. Just the not knowing what was your next step. [00:29:02] Speaker 1: Safety lies in the anti-slavery states of the North, such as Pennsylvania and New York, or in Canada. In the middle of Lake Michigan, one breathtaking wreck may help explain how a lucky few managed to cross half a continent to seal their freedom. It's next to impossible to reach the North without the helping hand of a secret organization called the Underground Railroad. A clandestine network of individuals prepared to risk their own lives aiding runarounds. Members guide those fleeing slavery through a series of back roads and safe houses towards freedom. [00:30:01] Speaker 11: Whether they're hiding in the false bottom of a wagon, whether they're men who are dressing up as women, whether they're women who are cutting off their hair and being men, they've actually gotten themselves into freedom, but not necessarily into safety. [00:30:19] Speaker 1: Some of the most important Underground Railroad routes cut across the Great Lakes. [00:30:24] Speaker 13: This would have been one of the last legs of the journey for them. And they potentially were only hours away from knowing what true freedom was like. [00:30:37] Speaker 1: Everything about the Underground Railroad is secret, which means evidence of it is hard to come by. But on Lake Michigan, a team of archaeologists is looking for a ship that may play a vital part. If they're right, she will be one of the first so-called "freedom runners" ever discovered. Their target is named the home. She's one of countless lake schooners, the workhorses of the Great Lakes in the mid-19th century. Rumored to be part of the Underground Railroad, she sinks in October 1858, somewhere between Manitowoc and Chicago. Archaeologist Mallory Haas prepares to dive on what she believes to be the home's last resting place. [00:31:37] Speaker 13: We're about six miles off Sheboygan, Wisconsin in Lake Michigan. [00:31:46] Speaker ?: It's just amazing. [00:32:03] Speaker 13: I was really, really emotional seeing it for the first time. It was just amazing. Out of the gloom came this beautiful vessel in perfect condition. [00:32:19] Speaker 1: It's a spectacular sight, sitting upright in 170 feet of water. But is it really the home? And did escaping captives use it in their final run for freedom? In the Great Lakes, maritime archaeologists are investigating a unique wreck. Trying to discover if it's a rare example of a freedom runner. A ship used to smuggle escaped slaves across the Great Lakes. Now, with data gathered from the lake bed, it's possible to drain these waters. And revealed the home of a wooden sailing ship, 84 feet long. She's clearly an early lake schooner, like the ship the team is searching for, the home. And she's in remarkable condition. But there is one unusual thing about the wreck. A large impact hole in the home. Evidence that she likely collided with another vessel on the busy lake. Archaeologist Mallory Haas thinks this could be important. [00:33:59] Speaker 13: You can see the remnants and the wood pushing inwards, showing where both vessels came to impact. [00:34:08] Speaker 1: Mallory turns to newspaper reports from the time. She finds a story of a collision that takes place in exactly this part of the lake on October 19th 1858. It describes a vessel loaded with wood and cedar posts, taking a blow to her starboard bow. And the name of the ship, the home. But are the rumors true? Does she help people fleeing slavery to reach freedom? Can the drained wreck provide the answer? Her forward cargo hold is large, eight feet long by six and a half feet wide. Enough room for several people to hide inside. Alongside her official cargo of lumber. Remarkably, some stray timbers can still be seen today. But there's nothing to distinguish her from any other lake schooner. And for a ship that might be carrying runaways, that's important. Draw attention and her captain would face arrest. With no firm evidence on the lake bed, the team delves into archives for any scrap of information. And remarkably, finds records of the routes taken by home's captain, James Nugent. Between April 8th and October 14th, 1848, he makes regular journeys between two ports on Lake Erie, Buffalo and Sandusky. [00:36:05] Speaker 11: We know Sandusky is a huge underground railroad port. And here's Buffalo. [00:36:10] Speaker 13: Right, and that was a really large port for the home as well. Oh, really? Yeah. [00:36:18] Speaker 1: Both ports are known escape points for fleeing captives and form part of the underground railroad. [00:36:27] Speaker 11: So if you were to plot all of Nugent's movements, you would probably hit every single underground railroad port that there is. [00:36:37] Speaker 1: The team also finds records showing that from 1850 onwards, Captain Nugent is plying a new trade route into Canada. It's another important clue. Because in 1850, there's a dramatic change to America's slavery laws. Under intense pressure from the South, Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act. In a cruel twist, all escaped slaves must now be returned to their legal owners, even if they are settled in one of the northern free states. [00:37:17] Speaker 11: People are being seized. People who have been free for five and ten years are suddenly being hunted down and dragged back into slavery. [00:37:26] Speaker 1: So now there's only one place left to run. Is Captain Nugent carrying captives fleeing to safety in Canada? The team digs further into his background and stumbles on a remarkable clue. A journal entry published by a Great Lakes Historical Society after Nugent's death. [00:37:57] Speaker 14: That party of fugitive slaves was carried to Canada, concealed in the hold of a sailing vessel by a lake captain, a man with a conscience and a heart. For many years past, a well-known, honored citizen. [00:38:13] Speaker 1: It's proof that Nugent helped people escape from slavery. So his ship, the Home, is a rare and astonishing piece of physical evidence, connecting us directly to the final desperate years of slavery in America. It's a crime scene. [00:38:36] Speaker 11: And in the United States, we have wiped that crime scene clean of all evidence. There are no clues, because we have gotten rid of them in this country. [00:38:52] Speaker 1: Ships like the Home help around 40,000 captives to freedom and a new life in Canada. Her wreck is a unique reminder of good deeds in a time of violence and despair. Tension is building between north and south. Civil war is coming. But before it does, slavers sneak one final consignment into Alabama. And in Mobile, archaeologists are trying to identify the ship that they use. The Clotilda, the last ship to carry African captives to the USA. For 160 years, her resting place has been a mystery. Archaeologists have found a wreck on the bottom of the Mobile River that could be heard. It's the same size. It's built of the same type of wood. And it's close to Clotilda's last reported position. But all of this could be nothing more than coincidence. The team needs something else to help nail her identity. They head back to the wreck site to look for more evidence. This time, they're deploying the very latest technology, as well as results from the laboratory. Can they close this case? The team lowers a 3D high-resolution scanner to the riverbed. [00:40:55] Speaker 5: Just keep lighting it out, Mary. Pretty sloppy here. [00:41:01] Speaker 1: It should give them a much more detailed view of the wreck. [00:41:06] Speaker 5: The sector scan takes a 360-degree view of anything that's exposed above the bottom. We should be about 100 feet after the bow, the exposed portion of the wreck. [00:41:22] Speaker 1: New data starts to emerge, immediately giving them a better understanding of the wreck. Inside the remarkable drained landscape, the details of the ship come into sharper focus, revealing what's been learned through the survey and in the laboratory in perfect detail. Right down to the individual planks that once formed the ship's structure. But that's not all. Using the new data, we can zoom in to see intriguing black marks on the ship's centerboard. Burn marks. This ship has been on fire. [00:42:16] Speaker 3: This vessel had gone through a fire, and a hot enough fire, to have taken wood and burned it at high temperature, leaving, instead of a thick oak frame, something that looked almost like a carbonized bit of charcoal. [00:42:33] Speaker 1: The team turns to the log of Captain William Foster, in command of Clotilda on the day she disappears. [00:42:43] Speaker 3: At 12 Mile Island, I transferred my slaves to a river steamboat and sent them up to the canebrake to hide. [00:42:52] Speaker 1: He's delivered his cargo and won the ship owners their multi-million dollar bet. But he has one more thing to do. [00:43:02] Speaker 3: I then burned my schooner to the water's edge and sank her. [00:43:10] Speaker 1: The reason why Foster burns his ship is simple. [00:43:16] Speaker 3: Captains understood that slave trading is equal to piracy and punishable by death. [00:43:25] Speaker 1: As Clotilda sinks beneath the waters, any incriminating evidence is consumed by the flames. The dark, secret remnants settle on the riverbed, lost from view for 160 years, but not forever. [00:43:44] Speaker 3: You take a look at all of that, and you say, well, short of finding a name, it all starts to match. [00:43:57] Speaker 1: This must be Clotilda. To identify the wreck of America's last slave ship is an astonishing achievement. And it stirs up strong feelings. [00:44:14] Speaker 6: It was very emotional, just being on the site. It puts you in that place. You begin to think about the people and the incredible suffering that they went through. Now, I have to admit, you know, it brought some tears to the eyes. [00:44:34] Speaker 1: Just months after Clotilda sinks, the bitter war between North and South begins. When it eventually ends, four long years later, the Clotilda's captives, along with the enslaved in every state in America are free, finally, from bondage. Clotilda survivors seek a return to Africa. But they're unable to fund their passage home. Instead, some choose to build a community on the banks of the Mobile River. It's still here today, Africa Town. [00:45:20] Speaker 6: They created this space, I'll call Africa Town, out of a sense of survival to create space that they can call home. [00:45:34] Speaker 1: Lorna Woods is a direct descendant of one of the captives on board Clotilda. [00:45:41] Speaker 7: These shackles are a legacy passed down through generations. They are heavy. These chains represent being bound down. [00:46:04] Speaker 12: We needed something to validate where we came from, who we are, and that ship gave us that connection. I mean, I even get emotional now when I think about the fact that they said we found the ship. You could feel the energy of our elders talking to us and said we knew the day would come. We knew this day would come. [00:46:33] Speaker 6: The whole African slave trade was a crime against humanity. And the Clotilda is a critical piece of evidence. But we have to make sure that those that try to erase it from history, that that never happens, that that never happens. We never erase this story from history. [00:47:03] Speaker ?: We never erase it from history.