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History
In autumn of 1859, the schooner Clotilde (or Clotilda), under the command of Captain William Foster, arrived in Mobile Bay carrying a cargo of African slaves, numbering between 110 and 160 slaves.[1] Captain Foster was working for Timothy Meaher, a wealthy Mobile shipyard owner and shipper, who had built the Clotilde in 1856.[1] Local lore relates that Meaher bet some "Northern gentlemen" that he could violate the 1807 law (passed 2 March 1807,[1] took effect 1 January 1808) without getting caught. The Clotilde was a 2-masted schooner, 86-ft (26-m) long and 23-ft (7-m) wide, with a copper hull.[1] Meaher had learned that West African Tribes were fighting, and that the King of Dahomey was willing to trade Africans for US$50 each in the Kingdom of Whydah, Dahomey.[1] Foster arrived in Whydah on May 15, 1859, and he bought the Africans from several different tribes and headed back to Mobile.[1]
When the Clotilde arrived from Africa, Federal authorities had already been alerted to the illegal scheme. Captain Foster, fearful of the criminal charges, arrived at night, transferring his cargo to a riverboat, then burning the Clotilde before sinking it.[1] The African slaves were distributed to those having a financial interest in the Clotilde venture, with Timothy Meaher retaining 30 of the Africans on a property near Mobile.[1]
Cudjo (aka Cudjoe) Lewis was among the slaves retained near Mobile.[1] Mobile was in the Deep South and blacks, Africans or native-born people, occupied the bottom rung in a racial hierarchy.[1] The Africans brought on the Clotilde could not be legally enslaved; however, they were treated as chattel. Cudjo among the 30 were "illegally" the property of Meaher. The American Civil War ended six years after the illegal enslavement of the Africans brought aboard the Clotilde.[1] When freed, the Africans settled in Plateau, Alabama, a poor rural community just north of Mobile, calling their community "Africatown".[1] They adopted their own rules and leaders, and they established the African Church. The group worked hard: the women used their agricultural skills to raise and sell crops, and the men worked in mills for $1 a day, saving money to purchase the land. When possible, they avoided the whites.[1]
Cudjo Lewis (African name, Kazoola)[1][2] was the last survivor of the Clotilde journey. In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston, the African American writer, interviewed Lewis for the Journal of Negro History: [1] Reporters often interviewed him, and he told stories about the civil wars in West Africa and the losing side being sold into slavery.[1] His group were West African; they were the Tarkar people.[1] Cudjo related how he had been captured by warriors from neighboring Dahomey, taken into Whydah, and imprisoned within a slave compound. He had been sold by the King of Dahomey to William Foster and then transported to the U.S.[1] The Tarkar people asked to be repatriated, but were denied, and instead, tried to recreate a homeland in Mobile. The group continued speaking their native language and used African gardening or cooking techniques, trying to retain their West African culture.[1]
For several years, Cudjo Lewis served as a spokesman for the Tarkar people of Africatown.[1] He was visited by many prominent blacks, among them Booker T. Washington. Cudjo Lewis eventually came to believe that Africans had to adopt the new country, even though their white countrymen had treated them brutally.[1] In Africatown, the Union Baptist Church has the Cudjo Lewis Memorial Statue. In 1997 there was a campaign to have the community declared a historical site.[1] Cudjo Lewis died in 1935 at the age of 94.[1]
Archaeological searches continue for the wreck of the Clotilde.[1]
See also
- The Wanderer (slave ship) - another slave ship that arrived November 1858.
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac "Question of the Month: Cudjo Lewis: Last African Slave in the U.S.?", by David Pilgrim, Curator, Jim Crow Museum, July 2005, webpage: Ferris-Clotilde.
- ^ a b c d e "Black Travel - Soul Of America | Home" (historic sites), Soul of America, 2007, webpage: SoulofAmerica-6678.
References
- "Question of the Month: Cudjo Lewis: Last African Slave in the U.S.?", by David Pilgrim, Curator, Jim Crow Museum, July 2005, webpage: Ferris-Clotilde.
External links
- "Last Slave Ship Docks at Mobile", eNotes.com, 2008, webpage: eNotes-Last-slave-ship-docks-Mobile.
- James D. Lockett, "The Last Ship That Brought Slaves from Africa to America: The Landing of the Clotilde at Mobile in the Autumn of 1859", The Western Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 22, 1998, webpage: Questia-source.
