Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"

Born Oluale Kossola but taking the name Cudjo Lewis in the US, Kossola is the main subject of Barracoon. He narrates most of the book, within Hurston’s overarching framing narrative. He was born around 1841 in the nation of Takkoi, in the town of Bantè, “the home to the Isha subgroup of the Yoruba people in West Africa” (15). He lived there until 1860, when the Dahomey army raided his hometown. At just 19, he was captured by Dahomey soldiers and brought to the coast to be sold into slavery. Taken via slave ship to the US, Kossola lived in bondage for five and a half years in Plateau-Magazine Point until Union soldiers set him free among other enslaved Africans during the Civil War. He lived the rest of his life in Africa Town (now Plateau), near Mobile, Alabama. He died in 1935.

While Barracoon brims with Kossola’s firsthand account, Hurston sometimes had trouble getting him to speak at all. The 21st-century editor Plant writes, “Hurston complained in Dust Tracks on a Road of Kossola’s reticence” (25). When Kossola was willing, he was good natured. In Chapter 1, Hurston describes him as “full of gleaming, good will” (47). He was an animated storyteller, as Hurston’s descriptions of his gestures convey, and was deeply affected by his difficult past and sentimental about his family, always speaking warmly about his late wife and children. While the tragedy he endured sometimes made it impossible for him to continue speaking—forcing Hurston to leave and return another day—his life story is incredibly important historically and culturally. By the time of his interviews, he was one of the last living Africans who survived capture and, after being held in the barracoons at The House of Slaves, the Middle Passage journey. He was enslaved, lived through the Civil War and the unreconstructed South, and endured the racism of the Jim Crow laws. While these many experiences led others to interview him before Hurston, none did so as extensively as Hurston did in constructing Barracoon. His story is a testament to the many horrific events and practices that were swiftly becoming history.

Mason (1854-1946)—born Charlotte Louise Van Deer Quick—was an American socialite and philanthropist who served as a patron to many African American writers and artists during the Harlem Renaissance. In 1927, Mason became Hurston’s patron too, funding her travel to Alabama for her interviews with Kossola for Barracoon. Hurston periodically apprised Mason of her progress—and put Kossola and Mason in contact. In Chapter 6, Kossola asks Hurston to write to Mason on his behalf: “I want you to write her a letter in de New York. Tell her Cudjo say a thousand time much oblige. I glad she send you astee me whut Cudjo do all de time” (89). Mason encouraged Hurston in her research for and writing of Barracoon as well as Mules and Men (1935). In addition, Mason provided financial support for Kossola and even corresponded directly with him.

Mason came into contact with many popular African American figures, including Langston Hughes, Alaine Locke, Claude McKay, and Aaron Douglas during the Harlem Renaissance because she was interested in supporting Black creative production. However, while works like Barracoon owe much to Mason’s support, her patronage had a tendency to be overbearing. Mason was sometimes controlling—for instance, trying to dictate who and where Langston Hughes visited. Likewise, she “made Hurston sign a contract that forbade her from publishing any material without Mason’s express permission” (Charlotte Mason, Encyclopedia Britannica). This conflict led to Hurston’s no longer being under Mason’s patronage by 1932.

Plant is the editor of the first published edition of Barracoon in 2018 through Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins publishers. Plant is a writer and independent scholar of African American and Africana Studies. She has also written biographies of both Hurston (Every Tub Must Sit on Its Own Bottom: The Philosophy and Politics of Zora Neale Hurston, 1995) and Alice Walker (Alice Walker: A Woman for Our Times, 2017). She holds a PhD in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and worked for several years as Associate Professor at the University of South Florida, where she helped found the Department of Africana Studies and served as department chair for five years.

Plant’s scholarly background and expertise made her an ideal editor for the posthumous publication of Hurston’s work in Barracoon. Being familiar with Hurston’s body of work and her philosophy and politics—as the biography’s title indicates—Plant produced a text that remained true to Hurston’s objectives in completing the work. In the process of editing Barracoon, Plant closely examined Hurston’s notes and changed as little as possible. In her introduction, Plant notes, “Minor edits to the text were made in relation to the mechanics of typography, for purposes of clarity, or in the correction of apparent typos. Otherwise, the text remains as Hurston left it” (28).