Cudjo's own Story of the Last African Slaver by Zora Neale Hurston

About four miles above Mobile, at the mouth of the Chickasabogue Creek / (now called Three Mile Creek), on red clay bluffs, on the Old Telegraph / Road, but now reached by the new Bay Bridge Road and Craft Highway, / is African Town. The site was once and still is to a large extent the / possession of the Meaher Brothers, Tim, Lim and Burns; these men had / a mill and shipyard at the mouth of the creek and built vessels for / blockade running, river trade and filibustering expeditions.[1]

The three Meaher brothers were natives of Maine. They had associated / with them in business one Captain Foster, born of English parentage / in Nova Scotia. He was the actual owner of the _Clotilde_. She was / selected because of her fleetness to make the voyage for a cargo of / slaves.

Once on the African Coast, there was little trouble in procuring a / cargo of slaves; for it had long been a part of the trader's policy to / instigate the tribes against each other and in this manner keep the / markets stocked. News of the trade was often published in the papers. / An excerpt from _The Mobile Register_ of Nov. 9, 1858, said: "From the / West Coast of Africa we have advice dated Sept. 21st. The quarreling / of the tribes on Sierra Leone River rendered the aspect of things very / unsatisfactory. The King of Dahomey was driving a brisk trade in slaves / at from fifty to sixty dollars apiece at Whydah. Immense numbers of / Negroes were collected along the Coast for export. " Foster, with a / crew of Northern men, sailed directly for Whydah.

The slaves who made up the cargo of the _Clotilde_ were captured by / Dahomey's warriors and women warriors (perhaps Amazons), Cudjo, or more / accurately, Kujjo Lewis says in this manner. In the early part of the / nineteenth century one of the Dahomey kings organized a battalion of / women warriors.

For a long time the King of Dahomey and his tribe had been raiding the / weaker and more peaceful tribes that lay within striking distance of / his empire. They lived by war and slavery. The King of Dahomey's house / was built of skulls. They made war upon Togo.

Togo was "many days from the water. " About fourteen, Cudjo / estimated.[2] The people of the Togo were a peaceful, agricultural / people, raising hogs, goats, sheep, chickens, and a few cows. They / planted corn, beans and yams. Plenty of bananas and pineapples grow / wild. The most important natural resource was the palm tree. They / produced palm oil, their greatest industry. They made cord for all / purposes by twisting strips of palm leaves. They made cloth from the / fibre, and beer from the nuts. The men and women tilled the fields / alike and held property in common. There was no hunger, no poverty.

Their methods of farming are interesting. A plot of ground is tilled / by the tenant for seven years. By that time the fertility is about / exhausted and they choose another plot. The yams are produced from / the eye of the seed as we do our white potatoes. The vines grow very / long, so they are poled like string beans. The earth is hilled up about / the shoot and the weeds kept away until it gets a start. "Then," says / Cudjo, "we go way, we come back, push, dig de dirt -- great beeg yam like / keg, nail keg. We cut off vine with little piece of yam and cover it / up again. Another beeg yam. Whole family couldn't eat at one time. For / seven years don't need no new seed, it keep making yams."

A sort of melon grows on tall plants and is eaten with salt as one / does cantaloupe, but it grows very much larger. It is without doubt / the melon tree found everywhere in the tropics, probably of the papaya / family. Beer is also made from bananas and is used as commonly as the / "vin rouge" of France.

Foods are roasted and boiled. The roasting and boiling is done over / and among the coals, but the boiling is done over the fire in clay / pots. There is a definite fire place -- built in. Three clay pillars or / pot-rests about eighteen inches high are molded of clay and allowed to / dry. The fire is built among these posts and the pot rested on them.

The drinking of milk is unknown to them. They eat almost no / domesticated beef. They eat goat flesh, chicken, hogs, deer, and other / game, as they are great hunters. Elephants are hunted for ivory, but / the flesh is never eaten. This is a staple however with cannibal / tribes. Hogs are prepared by taking brown sage and burning off the / hair, then washing the skin thoroughly. The animal is usually roasted / whole very much as we barbecue. This was probably the origin of the / barbecue in America. The word, however, is derived from a native name / in Guiana.

The houses of these Africans are cylindrical and built of clay. They / are thus weather-tight and fireproof. A circular trench is dug and the / walls built up about two feet high and eighteen inches thick. This is / left to dry. Then they add another two feet and let it dry. This is / kept up until the house is about eight feet high. A series of notches / are made at the top to receive the rafters. The center pole is a tall, / straight palm tree. Slight niches are cut in this to receive the / rafters, one end is laid through the notches at the top of the wall, / and the other fitted into the niches in the center pole and bound with / palm cord. The ends in the notches are bound and cemented with clay. / When this dries it is very strong and durable. Then the roof is laid / with grass. A kind of long leafy grass like wheat stalks is used, the / rafters having been grilled over with young saplings bound with palm / cord. The grass is bound on the lower edges of the roof first and the / next course overlaps this as ordinary shingles are laid to shed water / until the entire roof is covered. A very watertight roof results.