Cudjoe Lewis

Common card · No. 237063

Cudjoe Kazoola Lewis (c. 1841 – July 17, 1935), born Oluale Kossola, and also known as Cudjo Lewis, was the third-to-last adult survivor of the Atlantic slave trade between Africa and the Americas. 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, and hidden from authorities. The ship was scuttled to evade discovery, and remained undiscovered until May 2019. 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. In old age Kossola preserved the experiences of the Clotilda captives by providing accounts of the history of the group to visitors, including...

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