Cudjo's own story of the last African slaver

by Zora Neale Hurston

When Captain Foster went to the stockade where the captives were imprisoned they were placed in circles composed of ten men or ten women, Foster standing in the middle. Says Cudjo: “He looked and looked and looked. Then he pointed to one and then to another.” Foster thus selected one hundred and thirty after which he got into the hammock and was conveyed across the river to the beach. Behind him marched the captives chained one behind the other. They had to wade, the water coming up to their necks.

They wore clothes made of cotton but as they stepped into the small boats which were to take them to the Clotilde the Dahomans avariciously tore their garments from them. Men and women alike were left entirely nude. This is still a great humiliation to Cudjo. He regards as great injustice the accusations of some of the American Negroes that they were naked.

The captives were put into the hold of the Clotilde. In this respect the Clotilde was better equipped than most slavers. The usual space in which the “Middle Passage” was made was from two and a half to three feet in height, and the miserable captives were stowed away very much as sardines are packed in tins without even room to sit up. The hold of the Clotilde was deep enough to permit the men of lesser stature to stand erect.

When one hundred and sixteen had been brought aboard, Foster went up into the rigging with his glasses to look about the harbor. He said that all of Dahomey’s vessels were flying black flags. He hurried down and gave orders to leave all slaves who were not yet aboard, to weigh anchor, and to get immediately under way. The treacherous Dahomans dealt also in piracy, and were making ready to head down upon the Clotilde, recapture the slaves and take Foster and crew prisoners. She made her escape, likewise evading an English cruiser.

At the end of the thirteenth day the Africans were removed from their close, dark quarters. Their limbs were so cramped and numbed they refused to obey their wills, so they were supported by some of the crew and walked about the deck until the use of their limbs returned. Says Cudjo: “We looked and looked and looked and we saw nothing but water. When we come from (which direction) we do not know, whar we go, we do not know.” One day they saw islands.

Cudjo says that on the twentieth day Foster seemed uneasy, that he climbed the mast and looked with glasses for a long time. Then he came hurriedly down, ordered the sails down, threw out the anchors, and ordered the Africans back into the hole. Thus the ship lay until night. The captives were close observers. During the voyage they seem to have been very alert. They noted the varying colors of the sea.

Foster was kind to them, though they were fed very sparingly and only a little water was given them twice a day. “Oh Loi! Oh Loi!” says Cudjo, “we so thirst! Dey gib us leetle beeta water twelve hours. Oh Loi! Oh Loi!” The water tasted sour (of vinegar, not putrid).

When the Clotilde sailed into American waters, they were put back into the hold. Three days before they landed when the Clotilde lay waiting behind the islands in the Mississippi Sound and near the lower end of Mobile Bay, a bunch of green boughs was brought to them to show that the voyage was almost at an end.

To make the hiding more secure, the Clotilde was dismasted. Then Foster got into a small boat rowed by four sailors to go to the western shore of Mobile Bay, intending to send word to Meaher that the Clotilde had arrived. His approach was regarded with suspicion by some men ashore and he was fired upon. Waving a white handkerchief, he allayed their doubts, and he offered fifty dollars for a conveyance which would take him to Mobile.

Captain Foster reached Mobile on a Sunday morning in August, 1859, his return from the Slave Coast being made in seventy days. Arrangements had long been made that a tug should lie in readiness to go at a moment’s notice down Mobile Bay to tow the Clotilde and her cargo to safety. When the news came, the pilot of the tug was attending service at St. John’s Church. Captain Jim Meaher and James Dennison, a Negro slave, hurried to the church. The three hastened down to the wharf and were soon aboard the tug. They waited for darkness to approach the Clotilde. It was made fast and the trip up the bay was begun. The last slave ship was at the end of its voyage.