Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"

by Zora Neale Hurston

Those who love us never leave us alone with our grief. At the moment they show us our wound, they reveal they have the medicine.

We are being shown the wound.

We see a man so lonely for Africa, so lonely for his family, we are struck with the realization that he is naming something we ourselves work hard to avoid: how lonely we are too in this still foreign land: lonely for our true culture, our people, our singular connection to a specific understanding of the Universe.

Here is the medicine: That though the heart is breaking, happiness can exist in a moment, also.

Perhaps our planet is for learning to appreciate the extraordinary wonder of life that surrounds even our suffering, and to say Yes, if through the thickest of tears.

Much of his life was “a sequence of separations.”3 Sweet things can be palliative.

As with the other interviews, Kossola hoped the story he entrusted to Hurston would reach his people, for whom he was still lonely. The disconnection he experienced was a source of continuous distress.

The dialect was a vital and authenticating feature of the narrative. Hurston would not submit to such revision.

Zora Neale Hurston was not only committed to collecting artifacts of African American folk culture, she was also adamant about their authentic presentation.

Hurston was simultaneously working and learning, which meant, ultimately, that she was not just mirroring her mentors, but coming into her own.

“In writing his story,” says Hill, “Hurston does not romanticize or in any way imply that ideals such as self-fulfillment or fully realized self-expression could emerge from such suffering as Kossula has known.

The narrative space she creates for Kossola’s unburdening is sacred.

Zora Neale Hurston, in her still listening, assumes the office of a priest. In this space, Oluale Kossola passes his story of epic proportion on to her.

“Lord, give my people, who have suffered so much, the strength to be great”

The African slave trade is the most dramatic chapter in the story of human existence. Therefore a great literature has grown up about it. Innumerable books and papers have been written. These are supplemented by the vast lore that has been blown by the breath of inarticulate ones across the seas and lands of the world.

Of all the millions transported from Africa to the Americas, only one man is left.

GOD, I forgot how much I loved Zora Neale Hurston's writing style

“[W]hole nation[s] are transported, exterminated, their name to be forgotten, except in the annual festival of their conquerors, when sycophants call the names of the vanquished countries to the remembrance of the victors.”

The only man on earth who has in his heart the memory of his African home; the horrors of a slave raid; the barracoon; the Lenten tones of slavery; and who has sixty-seven years of freedom in a foreign land behind him.

How does one sleep with such memories beneath the pillow? How does a pagan live with a Christian God? How has the Nigerian “heathen” borne up under the process of civilization? I was sent to ask.

I want tellee somebody who I is, so maybe dey go in de Afficky soil some day and callee my name and somebody dere say, ‘Yeah, I know Kossula.’

When you hungry it is painful but when de belly too full it painful too.

The ham was for him. For us I brought a huge watermelon, right off the ice, so we cut it in half and we just ate from heart to rind as far as we were able.

You can really tell where her background of an anthropologist comes into play. You give a gift to pay for the gift you're being given. There's something almost holy about it.

Watermelon, like too many other gorgeous things in life, is much too fleeting.

I beg dem, please lemme go back to my mama,

I in de last boat go out. Dey almost leavee me on de shore. But when I see my friend Keebie in de boat I want go wid him. So I holler and dey turn round and takee me.

“Our grief so heavy look lak we cain stand it. I think maybe I die in my sleep when I dream about my mama.

Derefo’ we make Gumpa de head. He a nobleman back in Dahomey. We ain’ mad wid him ’cause de king of Dahomey ’stroy our king and sell us to de white man. He didn’t do nothin’ ’ginst us.

Cap’n Tim, you brought us from our country where we had lan’. You made us slave. Now dey make us free but we ain’ got no country and we ain’ got no lan’! Why doan you give us piece dis land so we kin buildee ourself a home?’

I ain’ goin’ to beat you.’

And after all they'd been through, this was probably such a relief to hear

It too crooked lak Kossula.

One name because we not furgit our home; den another name for de Americky soil so it won’t be too crooked to call.

Maybe, I doan pray right, you unnerstand me, ’cause he die while I was prayin’ dat de Lor’ spare my boy life.

“Well, after while, you unnerstand me, one day he say he go ketchee some fish. Somebody see him go t’wards de Twelve Mile Creek. Lor’, Lor’! He never come back.”

Oh Lor’! I good to my chillun! I want dey comp’ny, but looky lak dey lonesome for one ’nother. So dey hurry go sleep together in de graveyard. He die holdin’ my hand.

De wife she de eyes to de man’s soul. How kin I see now, when I ain’ gottee de eyes no mo’?

“De nexy month my Aleck he die.

Jesus, this poor man can't catch a break

I am sure that he does not fear death. In spite of his long Christian fellowship, he is too deeply a pagan to fear death. But he is full of trembling awe before the altar of the past.

Narratives like Kossola’s, of which there are but a few, describe the Maafa, the violent uprooting of bodies, the devastation of societies, and the desolation of souls.

“After seventy-five years,” writes Hurston, “he still had that tragic sense of loss. That yearning for blood and cultural ties. That sense of mutilation.”

It was Meaher’s dream to own land and become wealthy and to use slave labor to do it. He believed it was his birthright.

110 people were stolen from their homes because of a white man's ego...

Africatown was their statement about who they were, and it was a haven from white supremacy and the ostracism of black Americans. The bonds the Africans created in the barracoons, on the ships, and in servitude were the source of their survival and resilience, and the foundation of their community.