Born in Africa as Oluale Kossula, he died in America in 1935 as Cudjoe Lewis.
Ouale Kossula is widely recognised as the last known person born in Africa to have been captive in the United States. He was the final male survivor of the American ship Clotilda, which illegally transported captives from Africa to America in 1860. Kossula passed away on July 26, 1935, at approximately 94 years old. Four years prior to his death, he recounted his life story to Zora Neale Hurston. When Hurston submitted his account to publishers in 1931, her work was rejected, in part because she preserved Kossula’s narrative in his own dialect.
Hurston, who spent three months interviewing Kossula, recalled that when she first greeted him by his African name, tears of joy filled his eyes. When she expressed her desire to hear his life story, she wrote, “His head was bowed for a time. Then he lifted his wet face: ‘Thankee Jesus! Somebody come ast about Cudjo! I want tellee somebody who I is, so maybe dey go in de Afficky soil some day and callee my name and somebody dere say, ‘Yeah, I know Kossula.’” Hurston described Kossula as “the only man on Earth who has in his heart the memory of his African home; the horrors of a slave raid; the barracoon; the lenten tones of slavery; and who has 67 years of freedom in a foreign land behind him.”
Kossula was born in present-day Benin, West Africa, to Oluale and his second wife, Fondlolu. The second of four children, he also had twelve step-siblings. Kossula belonged to the Yoruba people, specifically the Isha subgroup, whose traditional homeland is the Banté region in eastern Benin.
At fourteen, Kossula began training as a soldier. He was also initiated into the Oro, a secret Yoruba male society responsible for maintaining order within the community. At nineteen, he fell in love with a young woman he met at the market, and, encouraged by his father, underwent the initiation rites required for marriage.
In April 1860, while Kossula was still in training, the army of the King of Dahomey attacked his town. The king and many townspeople were killed, while the survivors were taken captive. Kossula later recalled, “I call my mama’s name. I beg the men to let me go find my folks. The soldiers say they got no ears for crying.” As he was led away, he saw Dahomey warriors carrying the severed heads of his people and watched as they smoked the heads to keep them from spoiling in the heat: “We got to set dere and see de heads of our people smokin’ on de stick.”
Kossula, along with more than a hundred other captives, was taken to the port of Ouidah. After three weeks confined in the barracoon, he was sold. “De [European] man lookee and lookee. He lookee hard at de skin and de feet and de legs and in de mouth. Den he choose.” Upon boarding the Clotilda, he and the others were stripped of their clothing: “I so shame! We come in de ’Merica soil naked and de people say we naked savage.”
Kossula endured a harrowing transatlantic journey, describing it as one “of thirst and sour water,” with the ocean seeming to “growl lak de thousand beastes in de bush.” The Clotilda—the last known captive ship to reach the United States—arrived in Mobile, Alabama, on Sunday, July 8, 1860, under cover of darkness. By this time, the importation of African people had been illegal in the United States for nearly 52 years. According to some accounts, Captain Tim Meaher of Mobile had wagered $100,000 with a northern businessman that he could successfully smuggle people into America despite the ban.
Although police were alerted to the illegal shipment and charged Meaher with illegal possession of captives, he managed to hide the captives and erase any evidence of their presence before authorities arrived to make the arrest. Meaher owned land outside Mobile known as Magazine Point, which was surrounded by swamp and accessible primarily by boat. This remote location allowed him to conceal the newly arrived Africans from law enforcement. Without physical evidence, the case was dismissed in January 1861. Kossula and his fellow captives were forced into de facto captivity by Meaher, his brothers, or their associates. Kossula was purchased by James Meaher, for whom he worked as a deckhand on a steamer. It was during this period that he became known as “Cudjoe Lewis.” He later explained that he chose the name “Cudjoe,” a day-name commonly given to boys born on a Monday, as an alternative after James Meaher struggled to pronounce “Kossula.”
According to Kossula, on April 12, 1865, “De Yankee soldiers dey come down and eatee de mulberries off de trees. Dey say, ‘You free, you doan b’long to nobody no mo’.” He recalled the joy of freedom: “We so glad we makee de drum and beat it lak in de Affica soil.”
After their emancipation, Kossula and his companions sought to return to Africa and attempted to raise enough money for the journey home. When this proved impossible, Kossula, who continued working in Meaher’s lumber mill, eventually saved enough to purchase a two-acre plot in Magazine Point for $100 in 1872. There, he helped establish a new community known as Africatown—now called Plateau—in Mobile, Alabama. Kossula became a respected leader, serving as the sexton of the church they built and earning the affectionate title “Uncle Cudjo.” Community members often came to him for wisdom, seeking “a parable.” He even met with distinguished figures such as Booker T. Washington.
Kossula married Abila, who had also survived the Clotilda voyage. Together they had six children—five sons and one daughter. In honour of their heritage, they gave each child an African name, “because we not furgit our home,” as well as an American name “that wouldn’t be too crooked to call.” Tragically, five of their children died young, either from illness or accident.
By the early 1920s, all of Kossula’s shipmates from the Clotilda had passed away, making him the sole survivor of the 116 Africans brought to America on the ship. In his later years, he gained recognition as journalists and writers recorded his story and shared it with a wider public. However, it was Zora Neale Hurston who truly allowed him to recount his entire life in a comprehensive, book-length narrative.
In 1928, during her interview with Kossula, Zora Neale Hurston filmed a short segment of him—the only known moving image in the Western hemisphere of an African survivor of the transatlantic Maafa. Kossula always longed to return to his homeland, telling Hurston, “I lonely for my folks.” Ultimately, he was laid to rest among his family in the Africans’ cemetery, which opened in 1876. Today, a tall white monument marks his grave.
Kossula’s biography, entitled Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” by Zora Neale Hurston, was finally published in May 2018.
Source:
http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org-face/Article.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/barracoon-cudjo-lewis-zora-neale-hurston-last-slave-ship-survivor-book-life-story-published-a8335776.html
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/19/zora-neale-hurston-study-of-last-survivor-of-us-slave-trade-to-be-published
https://allthatsinteresting.com/cudjo-lewis/
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3 comments
Thank you for this history.
THIS IS AN AWESOME PIECE! The National Geographic channel or The Smithsonian channel presented this piece during Black History Month. Thank you so very much for repeating it. Our young people need to know this as 1935 was only 83 yrs ago, and our “slave roots” are still very close to the surface.
Thank you for this informative and heart wrenching authentic account of Oluale Kossula who so rightly deserved to have his story told according to his recollection. Zora Neale Hurston’s coverage was remarkable in that it ensured a lasting record of those events that will impact future generations with the knowledge of our ancestors’ innate strength and perseverance.