A descendant of the Clotilda slave ship—the last known vessel to bring enslaved Africans to the United States—has announced plans to seek citizenship in Benin, fulfilling a centuries-old dream rooted in family history.
The move comes after the small west African nation of Benin last year enacted a law granting citizenship to descendants of enslaved people to acknowledge the country’s complicity in the transatlantic slave trade, and promote tourism.
According to al.com, Cassandra Lewis, whose family’s legacy goes back to one of the most notorious slave ships in American history, was among the first to apply for citizenship. Lewis is the great-great-granddaughter of Kossola “Cudjo” Lewis, the most well-known of the 110 Africans forcibly brought to Alabama aboard the Clotilda from Benin. She is still awaiting word on whether she will be a new citizen of the West African nation where her family’s story began.
“They said the process would be slow,” said Lewis, 60, of Decatur, Ga., who’s been featured in West African news outlets and has met with Benin officials about citizenship. Award-winning singer Ciara, best known for chart-topping hits like “Goodies” and “Level Up,” last week became one of the first public figures to become a citizen under the new Benin law. “They said I was the sixth application, so I don’t know … we’re waiting,” said Cassandra Lewis.
She is the only known descendant of the Clotilda voyage, which occurred in 1860, to seek Beninese citizenship under the country’s new dual citizenship program. The Clotilda, which set sail from Benin, was the last known slave ship to transport abducted Africans to the United States in the 1860s. Lewis said her application was verbally approved when she visited Benin in December, but the process has since slowed due to the formation of a new committee overseeing applications. “I’m waiting on their call,” she said, referring to the Minister of Justice and other officials handling her case.
READ: Africa: Brazil-Angola Cruise Retraces Slave Trade Route to Educate and Reflect on Heritage
New opportunities
The opportunity for Beninese citizenship is something Lewis said she would not have dreamed about a decade ago. Then, the Clotilda was still part of a generational storytelling, and it received minimal attention even in Mobile where the Africatown community north of the city has long been linked to the slave ship’s survivors. “I told my brother and sister, I said, ‘I cannot believe this is happening,’” Lewis said. “I never believed in my life this would turn out this way.”
The ship’s discovery in 2019 has elevated the Clotilda’s story and increased the potential of tourism and the historic rediscovery of Africatown – the small community adjacent to the industrial Mobile River north of downtown Mobile. The community was inhabited by the survivors of the Clotilda following the Civil War in 1865. Among them was Cudjo Lewis, who provided the accounts of the ship’s history, its survivors and more to family members, historians, and authors.
“Cudjo would talk to his children and grandchildren, and my dad was with Cudjo during the first 15 years of his life,” Lewis said. “He told them the whole history. He said, ‘you do to your children the way I do to you.’ After Cudjo died, my dad grew up and he had children. And he sat us down and it’s the story that Cudjo told that we have in our heads the rest of our lives.” After the Civil War, Cudjo Lewis wanted to return to his West African village. But a return voyage never occurred, and his great-great granddaughter is motivated by that.
A scholarship in Cudjo Lewis’ name is offered in West Africa.
Cassandra Lewis, herself, was featured in a powerful National Geographic documentary last year that chronicles the descendants as they travel back to Benin, Africa, tracing their ancestral roots. “It’s my roots,” she said, referring to the Bante region of Benin where a young Cudjo Lewis lived before his village was attacked and he was taken captive by warriors led by King Glele of Dahomey. “Whenever I get to this village … once I step into Africa, it feels different,” Lewis said.
Different perspective
Not everyone related to a Clotilda survivor is as eager to embrace the dual citizenship opportunity. Jeremy Ellis, immediate past president of the Clotilda Descendants Association and a direct descendant of Kupollee (Pollee) and Rosalie (Rose) Allen, who were shipmates aboard the Clotilda, said he seeks a reconciliation with the King of Dahomey and with the Benin government. He would also like more details as to why the government is seeking dual citizenship opportunities for the descendants of enslaved people.
“I’d like to have a conversation with those implementing this to truly understand what their intent and goal is and how we can reconcile with the 110 (enslaved Africans aboard the Clotilda) specifically,” Ellis said. Benin government officials began the process last September by passing a law that grants citizenship to adults over age 18 who can trace their lineage to the slave trade. The government recently launched “My Afro Origins, the digital platform” that processes applications, according to The Associated Press. Beninese kings actively participated in capturing enslaved people to European merchants through the 1800s.
King Glele captured Africans in 1860 and sold them to Timothy Meaher, the wealthy steamship owner who brought the Clotilda into the United States more than 50 years after the transatlantic slave trade had been outlawed. Benin has been working to reconcile with its legacy of slave trading by acknowledging its role in a stance that is not shared by other African nations that participated. Alongside the national reckoning, “memorial tourism” has become a key focus of the Benin government. That activity includes reaching out to descendants and having them involved with memorials and developments recognizing the horrors of the international slave trade.
Ellis said he is more interested in meeting with descendants of the Dahomey warriors and King Glele in hopes of having a conversation with them. “So I can reconcile with them and better understand the role they are playing in this overall dual citizenship,” Ellis said. “Until that conversation happens … there is some accountability from the descendants that needs to be had.” However, Lewis is hopeful the citizenship process works out soon. She is hopeful to live within the country during the summer months. She said she was gifted 3 acres of land to build a house in a village that is about a four-hour drive to Cotonou, the country’s largest city of 780,000 people. “Once I step into Africa, it just feels different,” Lewis said. “The sky looks different to me. Even when I come home (to Georgia), I’m missing it. Then I want to go back.”
