Barracoon

March 15, 2018
A newly discovered work of anthropological and historical reportage by the canonical African-American writer.Cudjo Lewis (c. 1841-1935), originally named Kossola, was enslaved in America for five years. An Isha Yoruba from the town of Bantè, he arrived in Alabama as the Civil War was stirring. A student of the pioneering ethnologist Franz Boas, Hurston (Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-Tales from the Gulf States, 2001, etc.) conducted a series of interviews with Lewis toward the end of his life, in 1927, who, on learning of her interest, said, "Thankee Jesus! Somebody come ast about Cudjo! I want tellee somebody who I is, so maybe day go in de Afficky soil some day and callee my name and somebody say, 'Yeah, I know Kossola.' " The initial manuscript, a scholarly article, fell into disrepute when, in the 1970s, scholars discerned that it borrowed heavily from existing literature. This fuller manuscript derives from Hurston's original fieldwork, so that there is no question of plagiarism. Editor Plant observes that in the work, Hurston "was engaged in the process of actualizing her vision of herself as a social scientist and an artist who was determined to present Kossola's story in as authentic a manner as possible." That authenticity includes rendering his words in patois. While Hurston writes that even though Kossola's account is not strictly historical, it serves "to emphasize his remarkable memory." That mark of the griot, or West African traditional storyteller, is evident as Kossola recounts moments of resistance, as when enslaved women rose up against a vicious overseer: "dey all jump on him and lashee him wid it. He doan never try whip Affican women no mo'." Such episodes, including one in which Kossola tried to convince his former owner to give the manumitted slaves some of the land on which he worked, are historically valuable indeed, while his renderings of biblical stories and West African folktales are of ethnographic interest.We are fortunate to have this late work of Hurston's, which is sure to be widely read.

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Starred review from March 26, 2018
This previously unpublished manuscript from Hurston (1891–1960) is a remarkable account of the life of Kossola, also known as Cudjo Lewis, the last survivor of the last American slave ship. Before writing Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston was working as an anthropologist in 1927 when she traveled to Plateau, Ala., to interview 86-year-old Kossola. Returning to Plateau in 1931 for three months, Hurston documented Kossola’s life story in this short manuscript, whose brevity disguises its richness and depth. Consisting primarily of transcriptions from their conversations, Kossola recalls his capture in Africa, the Middle Passage, his five and a half years as a slave, the Civil War, the struggles following Emancipation, and the terrors after Reconstruction (his son was killed by a deputy sheriff in 1902). Kossola was 19 years old when he was sold into slavery; thus, his accounts of folkways and traditions (e.g., the decapitated heads hanging from the belts of the Dahomian warriors who captured him) offer more graphic and personal immediacy than other surviving narratives of the slave trade, like those of Equiano or Gronniosaw, who were small children at the time of their capture. While Hurston acknowledges that her account “makes no attempt to be a scientific document, but on the whole is rather accurate,” Kossola’s story—in the vernacular of his own words—is an invaluable addition to American social, cultural, and political history.

May 1, 2018

In 1927, iconic African American writer Hurston interviewed 95-year-old Cudjo Lewis, the last known survivor of the Atlantic slave trade, smuggled from Africa on the final slave ship to arrive in the United States. Astonishingly, this account of their conversations has never before been published. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

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