Cudjoe Kazoola Lewis is considered the last person born on African soil to have been enslaved in the United States when slavery was still lawful.

Life

Kazoola (his African name) was a native of Takon, a place north of Porto-Novo

Porto-Novo

Porto-Novo is the official capital of the West African nation of Benin, and was the capital of French Dahomey. The commune covers an area of 110 square kilometres and as of 2002 had a population of 223,552 people.Porto-Novo is a port on an inlet of the Gulf of Guinea, in the southeastern portion...

, Benin

Benin

Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...

, where he was captured, and brought to the port of Ouidah

Ouidah

Ouidah , also Whydah or Juda, is a city on the Atlantic coast of Benin.The commune covers an area of 364 square kilometres and as of 2002 had a population of 76,555 people.-History:...

. Together with more than a hundred other captured Africans, he was brought on the ship Clotilde

Clotilde (slave ship)

The schooner Clotilde was the last known U.S. slave ship to bring slaves from Africa to the United States, arriving at Mobile Bay in autumn 1859 , with 110-160 slaves. The ship was a two-masted schooner, 86 ft long by 23 ft , and it was burned and scuttled at Mobile Bay, soon after...

to Mobile, Alabama

Mobile, Alabama

Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...

, in the United States in 1860 during an illegal slave-trading venture.

When the slaves were divided among the investors in the deal, Kazoola and thirty-one other enslaved Africans were taken to the property owned by Timothy Meaher, shipbuilder and owner of the Clotilde. Due to a federal investigation, the Africans were at first left to fend for themselves. They quickly built shelters and started hunting game. While they could not lawfully be held as slaves, they were controlled by Meaher as if they were slaves. Five years later at the end of the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 in 1865, slavery was abolished, and Lewis and his people were declared to be free.

Lewis and his tribespeople requested repatriation to Africa, but this was not arranged. He and other Africans established a community at Magazine Point near Mobile, Alabama

Mobile, Alabama

Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...

 which became called Africatown

Africatown

Africatown, also known as AfricaTown USA and Africa Town, is a community in Mobile County, Alabama, located three miles north of the city of Mobile. It was formed by West Africans who were among the last known illegal shipment of slaves to the United States...

. They maintained their language and tribal customs for years and Lewis was very much a community leader, even meeting with prominent people such as Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...

. The neighborhood was also called Plateau and was eventually incorporated within Prichard, a suburb of Mobile. The suburb was later demolished in 1901, as a result of growing tensions between the blacks and the whites in the South.

Cudjoe was the longest-lived survivor of all those who were brought aboard the Clotilde and died in 1934 aged 94. He was believed to be the last African American born in Africa and brought to the United States by the transatlantic slave trade. Before he died, he gave several interviews on his experiences, including one to the writer Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance...

. During her interview in 1928, she made a short film of Cudjoe, the only moving image that exists in the Western Hemisphere

Western Hemisphere

The Western Hemisphere or western hemisphere is mainly used as a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian and east of the Antimeridian , the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.In this sense, the western hemisphere consists of the western portions...

of an African transported through the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

External links

• Sylvianne Diouf, Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America, ISBN 0195311043
• Sonny Callahan, AfricaTown, USA, Local Legacies, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
• Henry Willets, MOBILE COMMUNITY HOLDS ON TO UNIQUE AFRICAN HERITAGE, Alabama Arts, July 1993