After emancipation, these Africans wished to go back to their own country, but they had no means. They concluded to save and said to their wives: “Now we want to go home and it takes a lot of money. You must help us save. You see fine clothes—You must not crave them.” The wives promised and answered: “You see fine clothes and new hats—now don’t you crave them either. We will work together.” They found that they could save almost nothing. They talked among themselves of how Meaher had brought them from their native land and how now they had neither home nor country. Cudjo was always the spokesman. He would present their case to Meaher.
Soon after he was cutting timber just back of where the schoolhouse now stands, Captain Tim Meaher came along and sat upon a felled tree. Cudjo saw his opportunity and stopped work, all his emotions in his face.
The Captain looked up from the stick he was whittling and asked: “Cudjo, what makes you so sad?”
“I grieve for my home,” said Cudjo.
“But you got a good home.”
“Captain Tim, how big is Mobile?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never been to the four corners, Cudjo.”
“If you give Cudjo all Mobile, that railroad, and the banks of Mobile, Cudjo does not want them, for this is not home.”
Cudjo in relating this breaks down in tears, saying “Oh Loi! Oh Loi!”
“Captain Tim, you brought us from our country where we had land and home. You made us slaves. Now we are free, without country, land or home. Why don’t you give us a piece of this land and let us build ourselves an African Town?”