One of the last known survivors of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Cudjoe Lewis
Lewis c. 1914
Born
Oluale Kossola
c. 1841
Bantè, current-day Benin
Died
July 17, 1935 (aged 94/95)
Africatown, Mobile, Alabama, US
Occupation(s)
Farmer, laborer, church sexton
Known for
survivor of the Atlantic slave trade between Africa and the United States
Cudjoe Kazoola Lewis (c. 1841 – July 17, 1935), born Oluale Kossola,[1] and also known as Cudjo Lewis, was the third to last adult survivor of the Atlantic slave trade between Africa and the United States.[a] Together with 115 other African captives, he was brought to the United States on board the ship Clotilda in 1860.[3] The captives were landed in backwaters of the Mobile River near Mobile, Alabama, and hidden from authorities. The ship was scuttled to evade discovery, and remained undiscovered until May 2019.[4]
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 Historic District, the community was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.[5]
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 and author and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston. 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, who died in 1937, and Matilda McCrear, who died in 1940.[2][6]
^Diouf, Sylviane A. (October 20, 2009). "Cudjo Lewis". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Archived from the original on 9 June 2020. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
^ abDurkin, Hannah (2019). "Finding last middle passage survivor Sally 'Redoshi' Smith on the page and screen". Slavery & Abolition. 40 (4): 631–658. doi:10.1080/0144039X.2019.1596397. S2CID 150975893.
^Roche 1914, p. 120.
^JOEL K. BOURNE, JR. (May 22, 2019). "Last American slave ship is discovered in Alabama". National Geographic. National Geographic. Archived from the original on February 20, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2019.
^Teague, Matthew (June 6, 2015). "American slaves' origins live on in Alabama's Africatown". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on May 25, 2016. Retrieved May 27, 2016.
^Durkin, Hannah (2020-03-19). "Uncovering The Hidden Lives of Last Clotilda Survivor Matilda McCrear and Her Family". Slavery & Abolition. 41 (3): 431–457. doi:10.1080/0144039X.2020.1741833. ISSN 0144-039X. S2CID 216497607.
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