Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"

“Oh, Lor’, I know it you call my name. Nobody don’t callee me my name from cross de water but you. You always callee me Kossula, jus’ lak I in de Affica soil!”

When Hurston calls out for Kossola, he knows it’s her because she’s the only one left who calls him by his African name. His name, “Kossola,” represents his heritage and his identity. Thus by calling him Kossola, Hurston establishes a sense of familiarity: She knows the “real” him. Meanwhile, his American name—”Cudjo”—symbolizes his bondage. Likewise, it’s a symbol of his forced assimilation into a culture that isn’t his own.

“Seeing the anguish in his face, I regretted that I had come to worry this captive in a strange land. He read my face and said, ‘Excusee me I cry. I can’t help it when I hear de name call. Oh Lor’. I no see Afficky soil no mo’!”

At many points in Barracoon, Kossola interrupts the narrative to express his grief over losing his home. Kossola’s sorrow is a fundamental element of Barracoon, as his life story involves so much loss. Hurston shows that she genuinely cares for him as a person by including these expressions of heavy emotion in the narrative rather than leaving them out.

“De ole folks dat live two hund’ed year befo’ I born don’t tell me de father (remote ancestor) rule nobody.”

In this quote, Kossola’s own speech is briefly interrupted by a parenthetical insertion. Occasionally, Hurston inserts such parentheticals to clarify something that Kossola has said. While she otherwise doesn’t interfere much with the flow of Kossola’s telling, these insertions indicate Hurston’s awareness that readers will likely be unfamiliar with Kossola’s culture and references. The parentheses—like the glossary—help to account for those gaps in the reader’s knowledge.

“So I went away and came back again the following day. I brought another gift. A box of Bee Brand insect powder to burn in the house to drive out all the mosquitoes.”

Hurston demonstrates an ethical practice of anthropology that seeks a mutual and sincere relationship with the person she’s studying, as opposed to the traditional approach that treats such subjects as objects. A fundamental part of her ethical practice is bringing gifts, such as the insect powder as well as peaches or watermelons.

“Derefore when a man kill de leopard and take de hairs before he let de king know he kill de leopard, dey kill that man. He a wicked man.”

One of the great values of Barracoon is the insight that Kossola offers into his cultural heritage and the practices in his home of Bantè. In Chapter 2, for example, Kossola describes the poisonous potential of leopard whiskers and the consequent rule that villagers had to submit hunted leopards to the king with all of the whiskers still attached. The chapter offers a detailed description of the expectations around hunting leopards and the punishment facing anyone who violated those expectations.

“What he sing? Cudjo goin’ teller you:

‘On a great day like this, we kill de

One dat is evil

On a day like this we kill de bad one

Who would command the poison one

From the leopard to kill us.

On a great day like this we kill him

Who would kill the innocent?’”

Kossola often shares the songs that people would sing in Bantè for various reasons, such as to acknowledge the execution of a criminal. By including these songs, Kossola preserves an important part of his history. Additionally, this passage illustrates Barracoon’s interest in the orality of Kossola’s narrative, as it implies that he actually sang these songs to Hurston in the moment. Seeing these words on the page and knowing that the text is transcribed encourages readers to imagine what the songs might have sounded like.

“Kossula got that remote look in his eyes and I knew he had withdrawn within himself.”

Kossola sometimes dissociates in the midst of telling his story to Hurston, often because the emotional gravity of the memories overwhelms him. This is especially true when he recounts the raid of the Dahomey soldiers on Bantè. In these moments, Hurston must be more human than anthropologist and excuse herself out of respect for Kossola.

“Then it was necessary to walk it down so he showed me over to the Old Landmark Baptist Church at his very gate, where he is the sexton.”

Kossola serves as the sexton of his church in Africa Town. This role is part of his devout Christian faith, which the text repeatedly describes. Kossola’s faith helps him endure the many hardships in his life and make more peaceful choices when he might have instead opted to fight. For example, when the lawyer defending him in his injury case against the railroad company ran away with his money, Kossola concluded that he was simply grateful to have survived the accident.

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

Although Barracoon is a nonfiction text, Hurston occasionally shows her creative writing hand. This is one such moment: She uses the watermelon as a metaphor to describe the transience of life. In addition, this metaphor foreshadows the end of Barracoon, when all of Kossola’s family members have died, leaving him alone.

“The actual meaning is, ‘When we get there we shall make our demands and if we are crossed we shall tear down the nation who defies us.’”

In addition to the parenthetical clarifications that Hurston occasionally includes for Kossola’s speech, she sometimes clarifies his words outright in a complete sentence. In this instance, she’s explaining a war song that Kossola has just sung. Her clarification is important here particularly because many of the traditional West African songs Kossola sings use metaphor and imagery rather than specifically referring to the matter at hand.

“In Americky soil I see plenty wimmins wear de peacock feather, but dey doan know what dey do. In Afficky soil a boy got to gittee plenty secrets inside dat he doan talk ‘fo’ he gittee de peacock feather.”

For Kossola, seeing American women wearing peacock feathers is unusual because back home in Africa, the peacock feather signified the coming-of-age for young men. The peacock feather represents the cultural dissonance between Kossola’s origins and his new home in the US. Just as the peacock feather has different meanings in these different places, Kossola’s life takes on a different meaning once he’s in the US.

“When de word-changer came he say, ‘Astee dis man why he put his weakness agin’ de Lion of Dahomey?’ De man changed de words for our king.”

Although Hurston sometimes clarifies Kossola’s words, she’s careful to preserve unique terminology of his that’s still intelligible. Kossola uses “word-changer,” a unique but straightforward way to describe the interpreter who helped the king of Dahomey and King Akia’on communicate. By preserving these idiosyncrasies of Kossola’s speech, Hurston disavows the racist assumptions that “standard” English speech is better.

“Kossula was no longer on the porch with me. He was squatting about that fire in Dahomey. His face was twitching in abysmal pain. It was a horror mask. He had forgotten that I was there.”

This is another instance in which Kossola dissociates while sharing a difficult memory. While Kossola is no longer speaking, Hurston takes the opportunity to instead describe his appearance. Her description uses a novelistic flourish to paint a picture of Kossola transported back to the place and time of that memory.

“I must first tell him about the nice white lady in New York who was interested in him.”

Hurston refers to Charlotte Osgood Mason, a philanthropist based in New York City who was Hurston’s patron at the time. Despite Kossola’s traumatic personal experience with malicious white people, he responds warmly to Hurston’s mention of Mason. This characterizes Kossola as kindhearted and forgiving—and speaks to his devout faith.

“When we git in de place dey put us in a barracoon behind a big white house and dey feed us some rice.”

Kossola describes his time at the House of Slaves in Gorée Island off the coast of Senegal. This location is infamous for being the final point where millions of enslaved Africans were taken on the Middle Passage, never to see their home again. Today, the House of Slaves is a museum and monument to that tragedy.

“But Cudjo see de white men, and dass somethin’ he ain’ never seen befo.’”

Kossola sees white men for the first time while held at the barracoon The House of Slaves. Following the raid on Bantè, the experience marks a shift in his life in which he’ll have many more new and unfamiliar experiences. This contrasts starkly with his youth, when every experience followed the familiar rhythm of tradition.

“Soon we git in de ship de make us lay down in de dark. We stay dere thirteen days.”

Kossola describes when he was put in the hold of the Clotilda to make the Middle Passage journey. This description of him and his fellow captives lying down in the dark evokes the iconic and painful picture of how enslaved people’s bodies were packed into the slave ship to maximize carrying capacity. The popular image dates back to the 1780s and is of the Brookes ship.

“Every landing, you unnerstand me, I tote wood on de boat. Dey have de freight, you unnerstand me, and we have to tote dat, too.”

Kossola’s speech features various idiosyncrasies, including his repetition of “you unnerstand me,” which appears to function similarly to “you know,” “um,” or even “like.” While the phrase has little bearing on the rest of his sentence, it perhaps indicates a habitual need to confirm that he’s being understood in a country where his accent is unfamiliar to many others. In addition, it raises the possibility (though the text doesn’t conclusively substantiate it) that Hurston herself had trouble understanding Kossola at times and asked him to repeat himself or clarify.

“We call our village Affican Town. We say dat ‘cause we want to go back in de Affica soil and we see we cain go. Derefo’ we makee de Affica where dey fetch us.”

The people of Africa Town are estranged from their homes back in Africa and unable to return because of financial constraints. Rather than fully assimilate into other towns, however, they choose to build their own town. This allows them to avoid living among white people, who may harm them, and local African Americans, who Kossola says would often make fun of them.

“We got married one month after we ‘gree ‘tween ourselves. We didn’t had no wedding. Whether it was March or Christmas day, I doan remember now.”

While Kossola can’t recall the season when he and his wife were married, Barracoon is the product of his remarkable gift of memory. Even as an old man, Kossola recalls details from his youth, as he tells Hurston in the beginning. Barracoon is, ultimately, the product of memory, which is a bold and unique choice for Hurston to make as an anthropologist whose work would be expected to rely more squarely on more traditionally reliable sources.

“So you unnerstand me, we give our chillun two names. One name because we not furgit our home; den another name for de Americky soil so it won’t be too crooked to call.”

Kossola and his wife give their children both American names and African names. This reminds the children of their heritage and unifies their family’s identity as quintessentially African. In addition, it’s part of Africa Town’s effort to bring Africa to them since they can’t afford to take themselves back to Africa.

“Cudjo never know whut come of de money.”

Chapter 10 is titled, “Kossula Learns About Law.” Here, Kossola learns about the law in two important ways. First, he learns about how legal proceedings work, as he hires a lawyer and participates in a trial for his train accident. Second, he learns that anti-Black racism determines the law of the land in the 19th-century US South. This is his experience when his case is first dismissed and when his lawyer manages to finally win the case but then gets away with Kossola’s money.

“He went inside to dress for the picture. When he came out I saw that he had put on his best suit but removed his shoes. ‘I want to look lak I in Affica, ‘cause dat where I want to be,’ he explained.”

Longing is a recurring theme in Barracoon. In terms of Africa, Kossola longs for his mother, his youth, and his home in Bantè. Once he’s in the US, he develops new longings for his children and wife, who eventually all die before him. Likewise, the people of Africa Town long for their homes in Africa, and they try to model their local community and families after their old traditions.