Zora Neale Hurston, Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"

Patrick Chura (University of Akron)

Ed. by Patrick Chura, University of Akron
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.5: African American Writing and Culture of the United States.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Philathia Bolton (University of Akron), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), A Yemisi Jimoh (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2018

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction

Resources

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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 27 July 2024.]

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