'Barracoon: The Story of the Last ?Black Cargo?' by Zora Neale Hurston narrates the life story of Cudjo Lewis, who was captured from Africa and brought to America on the last known slave ship, the Clotilda. delves into Cudjo's experiences before, during, and after slavery, highlighting his yearning for home, the love for his family, and the challenges he faced in America. Through Cudjo's own words and dialect, Hurston vividly portrays his journey from enslavement to freedom, including the establishment of Africatown post-Civil War.
not only provides a firsthand account of enslavement but also sheds light on life in Africa before enslavement, the establishment of Africatown, and the impact of slavery on individuals and communities. Hurston's writing style, capturing Cudjo's authentic voice and emotions, offers a poignant and informative narrative that educates readers about a lesser-known aspect of American history.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings include themes of violence, death, trauma associated with slavery, cultural displacement, and grief.
From The Publisher:
New York Times Bestseller
TIME Magazine's Best Nonfiction Book of 2018
New York Public Library's Best Book of 2018
NPR's Book Concierge Best Book of 2018
Economist Book of the Year
SELF.com's Best Books of 2018
Audible's Best of the Year
BookRiot's Best Audio Books of 2018
The Atlantic's Books Briefing: History, Reconsidered
Atlanta Journal Constitution, Best Southern Books 2018
The Christian Science Monitor's Best Books 2018
"A profound impact on Hurston's literary legacy."-New York Times
"One of the greatest writers of our time."-Toni Morrison
"Zora Neale Hurston's genius has once again produced a Maestrapiece."-Alice Walker
A major literary event: a newly published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, with a foreword from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade-abducted from Africa on the last "Black Cargo" ship to arrive in the United States.
In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.
In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo's past-memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.
Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjo's unique vernacular, and written from Hurston's perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth-century, Barracoon masterfully illustrates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.
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After reading this book, I feel this should be modern required reading for all black people since it tell the true first hand account of Oluale Kossola (aka Cudjo Lewis) a passenger on the last slave boat from Africa to America, his experience as a slave and his life as a free man.
Zora Neale Hurston is initially sent to Plateau-Magazine Point, Alabama on behalf of a benefactor in order to get Kossola’s story since he’s the last known surviving African from the slave ship Clotilda.
Hurston establishes a relationship with Kossola in 1926 and the book that follows are interviews created by the continuation of their friendship. Through Hurston’s patience when interacting with Kossola, the reader is given an unique opportunity to see life through the eyes of an African man who is forced to become an American slave and is then freed from slavery yet discarded and forced to make a way for himself in a strange land.
The story begins with Koosola telling Hurston of his lineage and progresses into him developing in a strong young man who is preparing to become a soldier and get married when his village is eradicated and he and others are taken as slaves.
As he finds himself on the slave ship, he is mourning the loss of his family and the life he has know in Africa. Once they ship arrives in America, the ship has to be hidden (since bringing slaves from Africa is illegal). When there is no longer a danger of the ship being discovered, the slaves are taken off the ship, stripped naked of their African clothing and forced into slavery.
Koosola was enslaved for five years and six months before him and the other slaves were freed. Although the former Africans wanted to return to Africa, upon realizing that it would cost too much money, Kossola and others decide to buy land and create their own community called Africatown.
The last portion of the book focuses on Koosola’s life as a free man including his marriage, the birth of his six children and what happened to his children. While his story is heartbreaking to read at times, it is
uplifting considering that despite being ripped from his homeland, family and his culture, he manages to create and rebuild this is an unfamiliar land. This book tells a story that has been long unheard of and I for one and glad that Hurston was able to share his story with the world.
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Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”?
About the Author:
Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist. An author of four novels (Jonah's Gourd Vine, 1934; Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937; Moses, Man of the Mountain, 1939; and Seraph on the Suwanee, 1948); two books of folklore (Mules and Men, 1935, and Tell My Horse, 1938); an autobiography (Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942); and over fifty short stories, essays, and plays. She attended Howard University, Barnard College and Columbia University, and was a graduate of Barnard College in 1927. She was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, and grew up in Eatonville, Florida. She died in Fort Pierce, in 1960. In 1973, Alice Walker had a headstone placed at her gravesite with this epitaph: "Zora Neale Hurston: A Genius of the South."
Alice Walker won the Pulitzer Prize and an American Book Award for her novel The Color Purple. She has written numerous poems, essays, and short stories, including her most recent book, The Way Forward is With a Broken Heart. Originally published in 1974, Langston Hughes: American Poet was Alice Walker's first book for children. This picture book biography is now back in print with a new author's note and beautiful new illustrations. Ms. Walker lives in Northern California.
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