‘Descendant’ considers a slave ship and what remains in its wake

Emmett Lewis, whose ancestor was transported on the Clotilda, says in “Descendant” that the story of the illegal slave ship has been passed down in his family. (Netflix)

Director Margaret Brown’s documentary “Descendant” is, strictly speaking, about the discovery of the Clotilda, the last known slave ship.

After it was used to illegally kidnap and enslave more than 100 Africans, the 90-foot-long schooner was sunk near Mobile, Alabama, around 1860, decades after the international slave trade was outlawed. Until recently, it laid unfound somewhere in the muddy waters of the Mobile River, a lost, 160-year-old crime scene.