Barracoon

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This previously unpublished manuscript from Hurston (1891–1960) is a remarkable account of the life of Kossola, also known as Cudjo Lewis, the last survivor of the last American slave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.

November 15, 2023
Scholar Kendi adapts Hurston's account of one of the last survivors of the transatlantic slave trade. Among her many accomplishments, Hurston was a trained anthropologist, and one of her works of scholarship--based on interviews conducted in the late 1920s but not published until 2018--was the story of Cudjo Lewis, the last person to endure the Middle Passage. Although the slave trade was outlawed in 1808 in the United States, in 1859, the captain of the Clotilda secretly traveled to West Africa to purchase enslaved people. Lewis recounts his harrowing tale, including being imprisoned in an enclosure called "the barracoon" before he was sold and brought to Alabama. Lewis endured enslavement for five and a half years, until the Civil War ended. Those who came over on the Clotilda formed a community, and once it became clear they could not return to West Africa, they worked together to buy land for a village they named AfricaTown, where they built homes and a church and raised families. Kendi's adaptation provides context and clarity. The use of dialect is understandable and authentic; Kendi allows Hurston's storytelling mastery to shine through for younger readers. The relationship between Hurston and Lewis enriches the story, but it's clear that his firsthand account is the primary focus. Final art not seen. A powerful enslavement narrative from a literary icon, deftly retold for a younger audience. (Nonfiction. 8-12)

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from December 1, 2023
Grades 5-8 *Starred Review* National Book Award-winning author Kendi adapts legendary author Hurston's posthumous Barracoon for young readers. The original manuscript, unpublished until 2018, relates Hurston's lengthy interviews with Cudjo Lewis, the last known surviving person transported from Africa to the U.S. via the Middle Passage. Lewis tells his moving story in his own voice, which employs African American Vernacular English (often called Ebonics), though Kendi has changed some spellings to make the language more accessible to young readers. A lengthy introduction provides necessary context to Cudjo's story, which begins in Africa in 1859 when he, then 19, was taken captive and transported to Dahomey, where he was briefly incarcerated in the barracoons, the jails where traders kept enslaved people, before he was sold and transported to America on a miserable voyage that lasted 70 days. The story recounts his subsequent six years of slavery before he became free in 1865 and participated in the building of Africatown, which is now a historic Black community in Alabama. Cudjo's story is infrequently a happy one--his six children predeceased him and his wife then left him--and is sometimes recounted through tears. It is, nevertheless, an important historic document that provides an intimate look at slavery in America. The book, illustrated in vivid black-and-white drawings, belongs in every library.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from February 1, 2024

Gr 3-7-"The most valuable things humans receive from the past generations are not money. They are stories." Collected by Zora Neale Hurston in 1931, the tale of the "Last Black Cargo" wasn't published for 87 years because Hurston refused to alter the dialect of the formerly enslaved Cudjo Lewis. The sole living Black man kidnapped from West Africa in 1859, Cudjo survived transport to the U.S. on the final slave ship, was forced to work, and was suddenly liberated in 1865 with no resources or means to return home. A significant introduction creates the context for Cudjo's story and Hurston's fieldwork as an anthropologist to gather it. Kendi honors the tale by preserving both Cudjo's and Hurston's voices. The visual art as well as the narrative are exceptional; astonishing black-and-white images created by fine artist Lee-Johnson demand attention and create pause. Cudjo's lifelong yearning for his home and the tragic lives of his six children bring readers to his final parting with Hurston. The interviews and artistry here create of this narrative an emotional experience. VERDICT This adaptation of Hurston's beautiful, important work is a true gift. Highly recommended for all libraries.-Janet S. Thompson

Copyright 2024 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2024
In 1860, more than fifty years after the United States outlawed the slave trade, the ship Clotilda journeyed back to Alabama from West Africa, carrying kidnapped people. Years later, Hurston, renowned anthropologist, writer, and folklorist, interviewed eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis (born Oluale Kossula), who was purportedly the last survivor of the ship, at his home in Plateau, Alabama. Kendi (adapter of Hurston's Magnolia Flower, rev. 11/22, and The Making of Butterflies, rev. 5/23) has adapted the seminal work, first published in 2018, for young readers. He opens by providing thoroughly drawn context, characterizing the transatlantic human trade as the "most dramatic chapter in the story of human existence" and describing the horrific conditions under which enslaved people existed. In African American Vernacular English, or Ebonics ("I want tell-ee somebody who I is...I want you everywhere you go to tell everybody what Cudjo say"), the man shared memories of his family and community in his home village, the harrowing Middle Passage, his five-and-a-half years of enslavement, and his freedom following the Civil War during which he married, had children, and cofounded AfricaTown (later renamed Plateau). Throughout the story, his loneliness and longing to return to his native home are palpable, supplying readers with an intimate perspective on his strength to survive. Kendi illuminates these memories in a captivating narrative that exudes empathy and authenticity. Pencil and black ink drawings (unseen) accompany the text. Powerful, profound, and necessary. Pauletta Brown Bracy

(Copyright 2024 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

January 1, 2024
In 1860, more than fifty years after the United States outlawed the slave trade, the ship Clotilda journeyed back to Alabama from West Africa, carrying kidnapped people. Years later, Hurston, renowned anthropologist, writer, and folklorist, interviewed eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis (born Oluale Kossula), who was purportedly the last survivor of the ship, at his home in Plateau, Alabama. Kendi (adapter of Hurston's Magnolia Flower, rev. 11/22, and The Making of Butterflies, rev. 5/23) has adapted the seminal work, first published in 2018, for young readers. He opens by providing thoroughly drawn context, characterizing the transatlantic human trade as the "most dramatic chapter in the story of human existence" and describing the horrific conditions under which enslaved people existed. In African American Vernacular English, or Ebonics ("I want tell-ee somebody who I is...I want you everywhere you go to tell everybody what Cudjo say"), the man shared memories of his family and community in his home village, the harrowing Middle Passage, his five-and-a-half years of enslavement, and his freedom following the Civil War during which he married, had children, and cofounded AfricaTown (later renamed Plateau). Throughout the story, his loneliness and longing to return to his native home are palpable, supplying readers with an intimate perspective on his strength to survive. Kendi illuminates these memories in a captivating narrative that exudes empathy and authenticity. Pencil and black ink drawings (unseen) accompany the text. Powerful, profound, and necessary.

(Copyright 2024 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)