1. Cudjoe Lewis 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.
Cudjoe Lewis was born as Kossola or Oluale Kossola, around 1841 in West Africa.
Cudjoe Lewis's father was Oluwale and his mother Fondlolu; he had five full siblings and twelve half-siblings through his father's other two wives.
Cudjoe Lewis was purchased by James Meaher, for whom he worked as a deckhand on a steamer.
Cudjoe Lewis's captors were Fon, a branch of that language cluster.
Historian Diouf posits that the surname "Cudjoe Lewis" was a corruption of his father's name Oluale, sharing the "lu" sound; in his homeland, the closest analog to what speakers of American English understood as a surname would have been a patronymic.
On September 30,1872, Cudjoe Lewis bought about 2 acres of land in the Plateau area for $100.00.
Cudjoe Lewis allowed his daughter-in-law Mary Wood Lewis, his grandchildren and eventually her second husband Joe Lewis to remain in their house in the compound.
Cudjoe Lewis worked as a farmer and laborer until 1902, when his buggy was damaged and he was injured in a collision with a train in Mobile.
Cudjo Kazoola Cudjoe Lewis became a naturalized American citizen on October 24,1868.
Cudjoe Lewis used the American legal system in 1902 after being injured in the buggy-train collision.
Cudjoe Lewis described their capture in Africa, enslavement, and lives in Africatown.
In 1927 Cudjoe Lewis was interviewed by Zora Neale Hurston, then a graduate student in anthropology who became a folklorist.
Cudjoe Lewis was interviewed by journalists for local and national publications.
Cudjo Cudjoe Lewis died on July 17,1935, and was buried at the Plateau Cemetery in Africatown.