Review: Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘Barracoon’ Bridges Stories Old and New

When you sit down to read a book like Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo, you know that you are about to bear witness. If you’re like me, you might feel that doing so is both an obligation and a privilege. In a world that so often tells us that we imagine the slights against us — that slavery was abolished so long ago as to be irrelevant; and that we must look forward, not back — it’s vital that we access the history still available to us. Equally important is that we value our history and our historians. What Zora Neale Hurston did in recording Cudjo Lewis’s story is a reminder that if a light is to be shone upon our ancestors, best that we be the ones holding the light. A slave narrative in the tradition of those recorded by the Federal Writers’ Project in the 1930s might focus solely on the experience of Cudjo Lewis (known also as Kossola). Hurston’s extensive interviews, which spanned over two months, do more. They paint a picture of a life derailed and rebuilt as best as possible. The tale of Cudjo’s life begins in his beloved Africa. He tells us, through Hurston, about tribal warfare and rites of adulthood. Ultimately, his story details how he came to be enslaved and shipped to America on the last known slave ship, the Clotilda. All these words from the seller, but not one word from the sold. Brought over so close to the end of the Civil war, Lewis was not born — nor would he die — as an enslaved person. His recollections act as a bridge between Africa and…