Sky Eclat
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 17, 2012
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Due to the nature of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the practices of American slave owners, enslaved Africans brought to the U.S. lost much of their connection to the West African cultures from which they originated.
Cudjo Kossola Lewis, the last known survivor of the Atlantic slave trade, bridged this gap by connecting his traditional African culture to his horrible experience as a slave, and in the process became an icon among writers and academics in the 1930s trying to better understand the full story of slavery in the United States.
At age 19, Oluale Kossola was preparing for marriage in his native West African village when he was captured by warriors from a rival tribe and sold into slavery.
It was 1860 — a half-century after the U.S. had outlawed “international trafficking of African peoples.” But a wealthy Alabama ship operator and slaveholder named Timothy Meaher wanted to prove that he could still smuggle kidnapped Africans into the country and organized an expedition to do just that. Kossola was among more than 110 Africans captured and detained for weeks in a barracoon, or holding pen, in what is now Benin. They were put on the Clotilda to endure a harrowing six-week passage across the Atlantic Ocean.
The ship was burned upon arrival in Alabama to hide evidence of its illegal cargo. The Africans were taken to Plateau, just north of Mobile, and Kossola became Cudjo Lewis. He lived in slavery for five years.
They were on the ship for 70 days, and they were in the hold for 13 days before they even got a chance to stretch their limbs,” says Garry Lumbers, a descendant of Lewis. “Can you imagine the things that they went through?”
The late Harlem Renaissance writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston gives us a detailed account of Lewis’ torturous journey from Africa to Alabama in "Barracoon: The Story of the Last 'Black Cargo,'" published last year.
“It’s a singular work. It’s a treasure that represents so much of our national and international history,” says Deborah G. Plant, editor of "Barracoon". “There’s not much information when it comes to the lives and experiences of African peoples prior to their enslavement in America. … Rarely is there a first-person account of that part of our history. So Cudjo’s narrative is rare.”
Cudjo Kossola Lewis, the last known survivor of the Atlantic slave trade, bridged this gap by connecting his traditional African culture to his horrible experience as a slave, and in the process became an icon among writers and academics in the 1930s trying to better understand the full story of slavery in the United States.
At age 19, Oluale Kossola was preparing for marriage in his native West African village when he was captured by warriors from a rival tribe and sold into slavery.
It was 1860 — a half-century after the U.S. had outlawed “international trafficking of African peoples.” But a wealthy Alabama ship operator and slaveholder named Timothy Meaher wanted to prove that he could still smuggle kidnapped Africans into the country and organized an expedition to do just that. Kossola was among more than 110 Africans captured and detained for weeks in a barracoon, or holding pen, in what is now Benin. They were put on the Clotilda to endure a harrowing six-week passage across the Atlantic Ocean.
The ship was burned upon arrival in Alabama to hide evidence of its illegal cargo. The Africans were taken to Plateau, just north of Mobile, and Kossola became Cudjo Lewis. He lived in slavery for five years.
They were on the ship for 70 days, and they were in the hold for 13 days before they even got a chance to stretch their limbs,” says Garry Lumbers, a descendant of Lewis. “Can you imagine the things that they went through?”
The late Harlem Renaissance writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston gives us a detailed account of Lewis’ torturous journey from Africa to Alabama in "Barracoon: The Story of the Last 'Black Cargo,'" published last year.
“It’s a singular work. It’s a treasure that represents so much of our national and international history,” says Deborah G. Plant, editor of "Barracoon". “There’s not much information when it comes to the lives and experiences of African peoples prior to their enslavement in America. … Rarely is there a first-person account of that part of our history. So Cudjo’s narrative is rare.”
