Cudjoe Kazoola Lewis ( – July 17, 1935), born Oluale Kossola,
and also known as Cudjo Lewis, was the third to last adult survivor of the
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
between Africa and the United States. Together with 115 other African captives, he was brought to the United States on board the ship ''
Clotilda'' in 1860. The captives were landed in backwaters of the Mobile River near
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 cens ...
, and hidden from authorities. The ship was
scuttled
Scuttling is the deliberate sinking of a ship. Scuttling may be performed to dispose of an abandoned, old, or captured vessel; to prevent the vessel from becoming a navigation hazard; as an act of self-destruction to prevent the ship from being ...
to evade discovery, and remained undiscovered until January 2018.
After the Civil War and emancipation, Lewis and other members of the ''Clotilda'' group became free. A number of them founded a community at Magazine Point, north of Mobile, Alabama. They were joined there by others born in Africa. Now designated as the
Africatown
Africatown, also known as AfricaTown USA and Plateau, is a historic community located three miles (5 km) north of downtown Mobile, Alabama. It was formed by a group of 32 West Africans, who in 1860 were included in the last known illegal shi ...
Historic District, the community was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 2012.
In old age Kossola preserved the experiences of the ''Clotilda'' captives by providing accounts of the history of the group to visitors, including Mobile artist and author
Emma Langdon Roche
Emma Langdon Roche (March 26, 1878 – April 5, 1945) was an American writer and artist, best known for her work ''Historic Sketches of The South'' (1914).
She was the first writer to publish a book based on interviews with Cudjoe Lewis, also kn ...
and author and folklorist
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on Hoodoo (spirituality), hoodoo. The most ...
. He lived to 1935 and was long thought to be the last survivor of the ''Clotilda'', until historian Hannah Durkin identified two longer-lived ''Clotilda'' survivors, who made the voyage as children:
Redoshi
Redoshi ( 1848 – 1937) was a Beninese woman who was kidnapped and smuggled to the U.S. state of Alabama as a girl in 1860. Until a later surviving claimant, Matilda McCrear, was announced in 2020, she was considered to have been the last s ...
, who died in 1937, and
Matilda McCrear
Matilda McCrear (c. 1857 – January 1940) was the last known living survivor in the United States of the transatlantic slave trade and the ship '' Clotilda''. She was a Yoruba who was captured and brought to Mobile, Mobile County, Alabama, a ...
, who died in 1940.
Early life and enslavement
![Map of Cudjo Lewis' Capture in Africa](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Map_of_Cudjo_Lewis%27_Capture_in_Africa.jpg)
He was born as ''Kossola'' or ''Oluale Kossola'' (Americans would later transcribe his given name as "Kazoola"), around 1841 in West Africa. Analyzing names and the other words attributed to the Africatown founders, historian
Sylviane Diouf
Sylviane Anna Diouf is a historian and curator of the African diaspora. She is a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Brown University and a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Coalition of Site ...
has concluded that he and most other members of the Africatown community belonged to the
Yoruba
The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...
people from the
Banté region of
Benin
Benin ( , ; french: Bénin , ff, Benen), officially the Republic of Benin (french: République du Bénin), and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north ...
. Lewis's father was Oluwale (or Oluale) and his mother Fondlolu; he had five full siblings and twelve half-siblings through his father's other two wives.
Interviewers
Emma Langdon Roche
Emma Langdon Roche (March 26, 1878 – April 5, 1945) was an American writer and artist, best known for her work ''Historic Sketches of The South'' (1914).
She was the first writer to publish a book based on interviews with Cudjoe Lewis, also kn ...
and
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on Hoodoo (spirituality), hoodoo. The most ...
, and those who used their work, referred to Lewis and his fellow-captives as "Tarkars," based on his account. Diouf believes that the term "Tarkar" might have come from a misunderstanding of the name of their local king, or the name of their village.
In April or May 1860, his village was attacked and Lewis was taken prisoner by
female warriors led by King
Glele
Glele, or Badohou (died December 29, 1889), was the tenth King of Dahomey, ruling from 1858 until his suicide in 1889.
Life
Badohou, who took the throne name Glele, is considered (if Adandozan is not counted) to be the tenth King of the Aja king ...
of
Dahomey
The Kingdom of Dahomey () was a West African kingdom located within present-day Benin that existed from approximately 1600 until 1904. Dahomey developed on the Abomey Plateau amongst the Fon people in the early 17th century and became a region ...
, during an annual dry-season raid for slaves. Along with other captives, he was taken to the slaving port of
Ouidah
Ouidah () or Whydah (; ''Ouidah'', ''Juida'', and ''Juda'' by the French; ''Ajudá'' by the Portuguese; and ''Fida'' by the Dutch) and known locally as Glexwe, formerly the chief port of the Kingdom of Whydah, is a city on the coast of the Repub ...
and sold to Captain William Foster of the ''Clotilda'', an American ship recently built in
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 cens ...
, and owned by businessman
Timothy Meaher
Timothy Meaher (1812 3 March 1892) was a wealthy Irish-American human trafficker, businessman and landowner. He built and owned the slave-ship '' Clotilda'' and was responsible for illegally smuggling the last enslaved Africans into the United S ...
. The importation of slaves into the United States had been illegal since 1808, but slaves were still routinely smuggled in from
Spanish Cuba.
Some reports allege that Meaher fully intended to break the law, and that he had bet a businessman $100,000 that he could successfully evade the prohibition on the
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
.
In a similar situation, the owners of the ''
Wanderer
Wanderer, Wanderers, or The Wanderer may refer to:
* Nomadism, Nomadic and/or itinerant people, working short-term before moving to other locations, who wander from place to place with no permanent home, or are vagrancy (people), vagrant
* The Wan ...
,'' which had illegally brought enslaved people to Georgia in 1858, were indicted and tried for
piracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...
in a U.S. Federal court in Savannah in May 1860, but were acquitted by the jury.
By the time the ''Clotilda'' reached the Mississippi coast in July 1860, the
United States Federal Government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 ...
had been alerted to its activities, and Timothy Meaher, his brother Burns, and their associate John Dabney were arrested and charged with illegal possession of the captives. However, there was a gap of almost five months between the end of July 1860, when summonses and writs of seizure were issued against the Meahers and Dabney, and mid-December when they received them. During the intervening period the captives were dispersed and hidden, and without their physical presence as evidence, the case was dismissed in January 1861.
Until the end of the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
(1861–65), Lewis and his fellows lived as ''de facto'' slaves of Meaher, his brothers, or their associates. Lewis was purchased by James Meaher, for whom he worked as a deckhand on a steamer. During this time he became known as "Cudjo Lewis." He later explained that he suggested "Cudjo," a
day-name commonly given to boys born on a Monday, as an alternative to his given name when James Meaher had difficulty pronouncing "Kossola."
The name "Cudjo" sounds similar to "Kodjoe", a popular name in
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
, where it is also given to those born on Monday. Cudjoe or Kudzo is the alternate name besides Kodzo, given to male children among the Gbe speaking tribes stretching from South eastern Ghana to south western Nigeria. His captors were Fon, a branch of that language cluster. Historian Diouf posits that the surname "Lewis" was a corruption of his father's name Oluale, sharing the "lu" sound; in his homeland, the closest analog to what speakers of
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
understood as a surname would have been a
patronymic
A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor.
Patronymics are still in use, including mandatory use, in many countries worldwide, alt ...
.
Life in Africatown
Establishment of Africatown
![Cudjoe Abache](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Cudjoe_Abache.jpg)
During their time in slavery, Lewis and many of the other ''Clotilda'' captives were located at an area north of Mobile known as Magazine Point, the Plateau, or "Meaher's hammock," where the Meahers owned a mill and a shipyard. Although only three miles from the town of Mobile, it was isolated, separated from the city by a swamp and a forest, and easily accessible only by water.
After the
abolition of slavery
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
and the end of the Civil War, the ''Clotilda'' captives tried to raise money to return to their homeland. The men worked in lumber mills and the women raised and sold produce, but they could not acquire sufficient funds. After realizing that they would not be able to return to Africa, the group deputized Lewis to ask Timothy Meaher for a grant of land. When he refused, the members of the community continued to raise money and began to purchase land around Magazine Point. On September 30, 1872, Lewis bought about two acres of land in the Plateau area for $100.00.
They developed
Africatown
Africatown, also known as AfricaTown USA and Plateau, is a historic community located three miles (5 km) north of downtown Mobile, Alabama. It was formed by a group of 32 West Africans, who in 1860 were included in the last known illegal shi ...
as a self-contained, independent black community. The group appointed leaders to enforce communal norms derived from their shared African background. They also developed institutions including a church, a school, and a cemetery. Diouf explains that Africatown was unique because it was both a "black town," inhabited exclusively by people of African ancestry, and an enclave of people born in another country. She writes, "Black towns were safe havens from racism, but African Town was a refuge from Americans."
Writing in 1914, Emma Langdon Roche noted that the surviving founders of Africatown preferred to speak in their own language among themselves. She described the English of adults as "very broken and not always intelligible even to those who have lived among them for many years." However, the residents also adopted some American customs, including Christianity. Lewis converted in 1869, joining a Baptist church.
Marriage and family life
During the mid-1860s Lewis established a common-law relationship with another ''Clotilda'' survivor, Abile (Americanized as "Celia"). They formally married on March 15, 1880, along with several other couples from Africatown. They remained together until Abile's death in 1905.
They had six children, five sons and a daughter, to each of whom they gave both an African name and an American name.
Their eldest son, Aleck (or Elick) Iyadjemi (which translated from
Yorùbá means "I suffered"), became a grocer; he took his wife to live in a house on his father's land. Diouf describes this arrangement as a
Yorùbá -style "family compound." Another son, Cudjoe Feïchtan, was fatally shot by a black sheriff's deputy in 1902.
Lewis outlived his wife and all of his children. He allowed his daughter-in-law Mary Wood Lewis, his grandchildren and eventually her second husband Joe Lewis (no relation) to remain in their house in the compound.
Lewis worked as a farmer and laborer until 1902, when his buggy was damaged and he was injured in a collision with a train in Mobile. As he was unable to work at heavy labor, the community appointed him as sexton of the church. In 1903 it took the name of the Union Missionary Baptist Church.
Participation in American institutions
Although native-born American former slaves became citizens upon the passage of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and ...
in July 1868, this change in status did not apply to the members of the ''Clotilda'' group, who were foreign-born. Cudjo Kazoola Lewis became a
naturalized American citizen
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...
on October 24, 1868.
Lewis used the American legal system in 1902 after being injured in the buggy-train collision. When the
Louisville and Nashville Railroad
The Louisville and Nashville Railroad , commonly called the L&N, was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States.
Chartered by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1850, the road grew into one of the ...
refused to pay damages, he hired an attorney, sued the railroad, and won a significant settlement of $650.00. The award was overturned on appeal.
Role as storyteller and historian
In the first quarter of the 20th century, Lewis began to serve as an informant for scholars and other writers, sharing the history of the ''Clotilda'' Africans, and traditional stories and tales.
Emma Langdon Roche
Emma Langdon Roche (March 26, 1878 – April 5, 1945) was an American writer and artist, best known for her work ''Historic Sketches of The South'' (1914).
She was the first writer to publish a book based on interviews with Cudjoe Lewis, also kn ...
, a Mobile-based writer and artist, interviewed Lewis and the other survivors for her 1914 book ''Historic Sketches of the South.'' She described their capture in Africa, enslavement, and lives in Africatown. They requested that she use their African names in her work, in the hope that it might reach their homeland "where some might remember them."
By 1925, Lewis was thought to be the last African survivor of the ''Clotilda''; he was interviewed by educator and folklorist
Arthur Huff Fauset
Arthur Huff Fauset (January 20, 1899 – September 2, 1983) was an American civil rights activist, anthropologist, folklorist, and educator. Born in Flemington, New Jersey, he grew up in Philadelphia, where he attended Central High School.
...
of Philadelphia. In 1927 Fauset published two of Lewis' animal tales, "
T'appin's magic dipper and whip" and "T'appin fooled by Billy Goat's eyes," and "Lion Hunt," his autobiographical account about hunting in Africa, in the ''Journal of American Folklore.''
![Detail of Cudjoe Lewis marker](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Detail_of_Cudjoe_Lewis_marker.jpg)
In 1927 Lewis was interviewed by
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-1900s American South and published research on Hoodoo (spirituality), hoodoo. The most ...
, then a graduate student in anthropology who became a folklorist. The next year she published an article, "Cudjoe's Own Story of the Last African Slaver" (1928). According to her biographer
Robert E. Hemenway, this piece largely plagiarized Emma Roche's work, although Hurston added information about daily life in Lewis' home village of Banté.
In 1928 Hurston returned with additional resources; she conducted more interviews with Kossula, took photographs, and recorded what was thought to be the only known film footage of an African who had been trafficked to the United States through the slave trade. Based on this material, she wrote a manuscript, ''Barracoon,'' which Hemenway described as "a highly dramatic, semifictionalized narrative intended for the popular reader."
After this round of interviews, Hurston's literary patron, philanthropist
Charlotte Osgood Mason
Charlotte Osgood Mason, born Charlotte Louise Van der Veer Quick (May 18, 1854, Franklin Park, New Jersey – April 15, 1946, New York City), was an American socialite and philanthropist. She contributed more than $100,000 to a number of African- ...
, learned of Lewis and began to send him money for his support. Lewis was also interviewed by journalists for local and national publications.
Hurston's book ''
Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"'' was not published until 2018, in an annotated edition.
Legacy
Cudjo Lewis died on July 17, 1935, and was buried at the Plateau Cemetery in Africatown. Since his death, his status as one of the last survivors of the ''Clotilda,'' and the written record created by his interviewers, have made him a public figure of the history of the community.
*In 1959 a memorial bust of Lewis was erected in front of Africatown's Union Missionary Baptist Church atop a pyramid of bricks that had been made by the ''Clotilda'' captives. It was made on behalf of the Progressive League of Africatown.
*In 1977 the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now the
Association for the Study of African American Life and History
The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) is an organization dedicated to the study and appreciation of African-American History. It is a non-profit organization founded in Chicago, Illinois, on September 9, 1915 ...
) commemorated Lewis and the ''
Clotilda'' group.
*Around 1990 the City of Mobile and Mobile alumnae chapter of
Delta Sigma Theta
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. () is a historically African American sorority. The organization was founded by college-educated women dedicated to public service with an emphasis on programs that assist the African American community. Delta ...
sorority erected a commemorative marker for Lewis in the Plateau Cemetery.
*In 2007 two African filmmakers donated a bust of Lewis to the Africatown Welcome Center. It was severely damaged by vandalism in 2011.
*In 2010, archaeologists from the
College of William and Mary
The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III a ...
excavated Lewis' homesite in Africatown, along with those of two other residents, to search for artifacts and evidence of African practices in the founders' daily lives in the United States.
*''
Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"'', Zora Neale Hurston's account of Lewis' life, was published for the first time in 2018.
See also
*
List of slaves
Slavery is a social-economic system under which people are enslaved: deprived of personal freedom and forced to perform labor or services without compensation. These people are referred to as slaves, or as enslaved people.
The following is a ...
*
List of the last surviving American slaves
Slavery existed in the United States since European colonizers brought Africans to English North America in Jamestown in 1619 (still at the time of the Thirteen Colonies), until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Consti ...
*
Yoruba Americans
Yoruba Americans (') are Americans of Yoruba descent. The Yoruba people are a West African ethnic group that predominantly inhabits southwestern Nigeria, with smaller indigenous communities in Benin and Togo.
History
The first Yoruba people ...
Notes
References
* Felix Kuadugah- contributor Child naming among Gbe speaking tribes
Bibliography
*
*
*
External links
* Zora Neale Hurston
1928 film footage(first 40 seconds may depict Cudjo Kossola Lewis), YouTube.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Cudjoe
1840s births
1935 deaths
African slave trade
American people of Beninese descent
19th-century American slaves
Beninese-American history
People from Mobile, Alabama
American people of Yoruba descent
Yoruba slaves
People from Collines Department
African-American farmers
American farmers
Yoruba farmers
African-American historians
Yoruba historians
Burials in Alabama
19th-century American people
20th-century American people
Baptists from Alabama
19th-century Baptists
20th-century Baptists
African-American Christians
Yoruba-American history
American historians
Academics from Alabama
20th-century African-American people
Naturalized citizens of the United States