“The Clotilde was taken directly to Twelve-Mile Island—a lonely, weird place by night.” There Captain Foster and the Meahers awaited the R. B. Taney, “named for Chief Justice Tainey” of the Dred Scott decision fame. Some say it was the June instead of the Taney.23 “[L]ights were smothered, and in the darkness quickly and quietly” the captives were transferred from the Clotilda “to the steamboat [and] taken up the Alabama River to John Dabney’s plantation below Mount Vernon.” They were landed the next day, and left in charge of the slave, James Dennison.24
“At Twelve-Mile Island, the crew of Northern sailors again mutinied. Captain Foster, with a six shooter in each hand, went among them, discharged them, and ordered them to ‘hit the grit and never be seen in Southern waters again.’ They were placed aboard the tug” and carried to Mobile. One of the Meahers bought them tickets “and saw that they boarded a train for the North. The Clotilde was scuttled and fired, Captain Foster himself placed seven cords of light wood upon her. Her hull still lies in the marsh at the mouth of Bayou Corne and may be seen at low tide. Foster afterwards regretted her destruction as she was worth more than the ten Africans given him by the Meahers as his booty.”25
The Africans were kept at Dabney’s Place for eleven days: being only allowed to talk “in whispers” and being constantly moved from place to place.
At the end of the eleventh day clothes were brought to them and they were put aboard the steamer Commodore and carried to The Bend in Clark County, where the Alabama and the Tombigbee rivers meet and where Burns Meaher had a plantation.
There they were lodged each night under a wagon shed, and driven each morning before daybreak back into the swamp, where they remained until dark.26
“Meaher sent word secretly to those disposed to buy. They were piloted to the place of concealment by Jim Dennison. The Africans were placed in two long rows,” men in one row, women in the other. Some couples were bought and taken to Selma.27 The remainder were divided up among the Meahers and Foster, Captain Jim Meaher took thirty-two (sixteen couples); Captain Burns Meaher took ten Africans; Foster received ten; and Captain Tim Meaher took eight.28 Finally, after a period of adjustment, the slaves were put to work. Before a year had passed, the war of Secession broke out. With the danger from interference from the Federal Government removed, all the Africans not sold to Selma were brought to the Meaher plantations at Magazine Point.
Nevertheless, the Meahers were tried in the federal courts 1860–61 and fined heavily for bringing in the Africans.29
The village that these Africans built after freedom came, they called “African Town.” The town is now called Plateau, Alabama. The new name was bestowed upon it by the Mobile and Birmingham Railroad (now a part of the Southern Railroad System) built through [the town]. But still its dominant tone is African.
With these things already known to me, I once more sought the ancient house of the man called Cudjo. This singular man who says of himself, “Edem etie ukum edem etie upar”: The tree of two woods, literally, two trees that have grown together. One part ukum (mahogany) and one part upar (ebony). He means to say, “Partly a free man, partly free.” The only man on earth who has in his heart the memory of his African home; the horrors of a slave raid; the barracoon; the Lenten tones of slavery; and who has sixty-seven years of freedom in a foreign land behind him.
How does one sleep with such memories beneath the pillow? How does a pagan live with a Christian God? How has the Nigerian “heathen” borne up under the process of civilization?
I was sent to ask.
It was summer when I went to talk with Cudjo so his door was standing wide open. But I knew he was somewhere about the house before I entered the yard, because I had found the gate unlocked. When Cudjo goes down into his back-field or away from home he locks his gate with an ingenious wooden peg of African invention.
I hailed him by his African name as I walked up the steps to his porch, and he looked up into my face as I stood in the door in surprise. He was eating his breakfast from a round enameled pan with his hands, in the fashion of his fatherland.
The surprise of seeing me halted his hand between pan and face. Then tears of joy welled up.
“Oh Lor’, I know it you call my name. Nobody don’t callee me my name from cross de water but you. You always callee me Kossula, jus’ lak I in de Affica soil!”
I noted that another man sat eating with him and I wondered why. So I said, “I see you have company, Kossula.”
“Yeah, I got to have somebody stay wid me. I been sick in de bed de five month. I needa somebody hand me some water. So I take dis man and he sleep here and take keer Cudjo. But I gittee well now.”
In spite of the recent illness and the fact that his well had fallen in, I found Cudjo Lewis full of gleaming, good will. His garden was planted. There was deep shade under his China-berry tree and all was well.
He wanted to know a few things about New York and when I had answered him, he sat silently smoking. Finally, I told him I had come to talk with him. He removed his pipe from his mouth and smiled.
“I doan keer,” he said, “I lakee have comp’ny come see me.” Then the smile faded into a wretched weeping mask. “I so lonely. My wife she left me since de 1908. Cudjo all by hisself.”
After a minute or two he remembered me and said contritely, “Excuse me. You didn’t do nothin’ to me. Cudjo feel so lonely, he can’t help he cry sometime. Whut you want wid me?”
“First, I want to ask you how you feel today?”
Another muted silence. Then he said, “I thank God I on prayin’ groun’ and in a Bible country.”
“But didn’t you have a God back in Africa?” I asked him.
His head dropped between his hands and the tears sprung fresh. Seeing the anguish in his face, I regretted that I had come to worry this captive in a strange land. He read my face and said, “Excusee me I cry. I can’t help it when I hear de name call. Oh, Lor’. I no see Afficky soil no mo’!”
Another long silence. Then, “How come you astee me ain’ we had no God back dere in Afficky?”
“Because you said ‘thank God you were on praying ground and in a Bible country.’ ”
“Yeah, in Afficky we always know dere was a God; he name Alahua, but po’ Affickans we cain readee de Bible, so we doan know God got a Son. We ain’ ignant—we jes doan know. Nobody doan tell us ’bout Adam eatee de apple, we didn’t know de seven seals was sealee ’gainst us. Our parents doan tell us dat. Dey didn’t tell us ’bout de first days. No, dass a right. We jes doan know. So dat whut you come astee me?”
I temporized. “Well, yes. I wanted to ask that, but I want to ask you many things. I want to know who you are and how you came to be a slave; and to what part of Africa do you belong, and how you fared as a slave, and how you have managed