In December 1927, Zora Neale Hurston travelled from New York to rural Alabama to conduct a series of interviews with the last known survivor of the last American slave ship. His name was Kossola, and his story had never fully been told.
Born circa 1840 to the Isha subgroup of the peaceful Yoruba people of West Africa, Kossola had been trained as a young man to hunt and to defend his community against bellicose enemies. At the age of nineteen, just after his initiation into manhood, he was captured in a slave-catching raid instigated by the brutal king of nearby Dahomey. He watched as his elders were murdered and his village burned. With a gang of captives, he was driven west on a journey of several days and imprisoned in the overflowing barracoons (slave stockades) at the port of Ouidah,
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Citation: Chura, Patrick. "Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 June 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41636, accessed 14 December 2024.]