Cudjoe Lewis
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Cudjoe Lewis (ca. 1840 – 1935) is considered the last person born on African soil to have been enslaved in the US. He was captured and brought to the United States in 1860 during an illegal slave trading venture on the ship called the Clotilde. Five years later at the end of the American Civil war in 1865, slavery was abolished and Cudjoe was set free. However he did not return to Africa. He and the other Africans established a community near Mobile, Alabama now referred to as "Africatown". Cudjoe was the longest survivor of all those who were brought aboard the Clotilda and died in 1935 making him the last African American (via the transatlantic slave trade) who was born in Africa. Before he died he gave several interviews on his experiences.
[edit] External links
- Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America ISBN 0195311043 by Sylvianne Diouf.
- AfricaTown, USA. Sonny Callihan. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
- MOBILE COMMUNITY HOLDS ON TO UNIQUE AFRICAN HERITAGE