Why the extraordinary story of the last slave in America has finally come to light

[Judi Lynn]

Afua Hirsch
Sat 26 May 2018 05.59 EDT

(Click for image.)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/26/why-the-extraordinary-story-of-the-last-slave-in-america-has-finally-come-to-light#img-1

Oluale Kossola was taken from the Yoruba kingdom of Takkoi to Alabama in the 19th century.
Photograph: Courtesy of McGill Studio Collection, The Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library,
University of South Alabama


Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon was written in the 1930s, but has only just been published. Why has it taken so long for the remarkable story of Oluale Kossola to be made public?

“We stand as living monuments,” wrote the historian Len Garrison, of the black British descendants of slavery and empire. “For those who are afraid of who they must be, are but slaves in a trance.” For Garrison, the idea of the African diaspora as “living monuments” was to some extent figurative. But a new book makes it literal. Barracoon: The Story of the Last Slave presents the remarkable fact that there were people alive in America who had experienced abduction from Africa – being examined, displayed, traded and enslaved – well into the 20th century.

The book is the story of Cudjo Lewis; a man born Oluale Kossola in the Yoruba kingdom of Takkoi. Kossola was the last survivor of the last known slave ship to sail from the African continent to America with a human cargo. Written in the 1930s, but hidden away from a public audience until now, it is also perhaps the last great, unpublished work by the Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/26/why-the-extraordinary-story-of-the-last-slave-in-america-has-finally-come-to-light

[sheshe2]

1. I bought it a few days ago.

I have only had time to read the forward.

The Story of the Last Slave presents the remarkable fact that there were people alive in America who had experienced abduction from Africa – being examined, displayed, traded and enslaved – well into the 20th century.

Yes, well into the 20th century. Have you read Slavery By Another Name? A very hard yet enlightening book as this one will be.

Thanks Judi.

[Judi Lynn]

3. What a deep shame our culture has whitewashed this truth. Thanks for the book suggestion. n/t

[sheshe2]

5. Here.

Slavery by Another Name is a 90-minute documentary that challenges one of Americans’ most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery in this country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. The film tells how even as chattel slavery came to an end in the South in 1865, thousands of African Americans were pulled back into forced labor with shocking force and brutality. It was a system in which men, often guilty of no crime at all, were arrested, compelled to work without pay, repeatedly bought and sold, and coerced to do the bidding of masters. Tolerated by both the North and South, forced labor lasted well into the 20th century.
For most Americans this is entirely new history. Slavery by Another Name gives voice to the largely forgotten victims and perpetrators of forced labor and features their descendants living today.

http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/home/

Documentry and book. It will break your heart.

[cyclonefence]

2. Bullwhip Days: the Slaves Remember: An Oral History

available at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Bullwhip+Days was a WPA project during the 1930s. I am amazed that it is not better known.

Twenty-nine surviving slaves told their stories to an interviewer, who is never intrusive; you realize there is someone asking questions when the narrator says something like "Now you ask me about what we had to eat..." Illustrated with photographic portraits of the narrators and other pictures. These are slaves speaking in their own words, describing their own lives as chattel; an invaluable resource.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is basic, essential reading for anyone interested in race relations in the United States.

[Judi Lynn]

4. It IS so strange it hasn't been more publicized. It needs to be. It's valuable. Thanks. n/t

[bobbieinok]

7. Some yrs ago there was a university online repository of slave narratives. Don't remember where

Some of the worst stories were by mothers whose children died because the mothers were not given time to feed them or tend them when they were ill.

There were also stories of slaves who would attend church services approved by the 'masters' and would then later meet in secret to hold their own services with preaching of the liberation and freedom they took from the Bible narrative.

I was remindered of their desparate need to keep their services hidden from the white masters when Hannity warned/threatened that maybe 'we'd' better look into what treasonous stuff was being taught in Black Liberation Theology. This was after various black religious leaders had tried to explain that Obama's minister's preaching content/style was within the context of the message of liberation in that theology.

[bobbieinok]

6. Stopped reading comments to article b/c seemed like many pursuing thei own agendas

[3Hotdogs]

8. I recall reading that contractors for the T.V.A. found people in Arkansaw who were being held as

slaves. They hadn't heard about the Civil War.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread Judi Lynn

[csziggy]

10. The NPR review of it was wonderful - and they recommended the audio book

Apparently the audio book recreates the patois of Oluale Kossola as Zora Neale Hurston wrote it.

'Barracoon' Offers A Vivid, First-Hand Account Of Slavery In America
6:06

May 8, 20182:59 PM ET
Heard on Fresh Air

Maureen Corrigan
Fresh Air

The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"

by Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker and Deborah G. Plant
Hardcover, 208 pages

"I want to know who you are and how you came to be a slave." That was one of the first questions that Zora Neale Hurston asked 86-year-old Cudjo Lewis when she traveled from New York to Mobile, Ala., to interview him in the summer of 1927.

Back then, Hurston was studying anthropology at Columbia University and doing fieldwork, collecting black folklore and historical data. Cudjo Lewis was already known to those who cared about black history. He was the last known living person who could recount first-hand the experience of having been taken captive in Africa and transported on a slave ship to the United States.

Cudjo spent years in slavery and after the Civil War helped found a settlement called Africatown near Mobile. That's where Hurston interviewed him over a three-month period, coaxing Cudjo into talking about the past with gifts of peaches, ham and watermelon.

The short book-length manuscript Hurston produced in 1931 was called Barracoon, named after those structures — like holding pens or stockades — where captured Africans were confined before being loaded onto ships.

With audio of the interview: https://www.npr.org/2018/05/08/609399133/barracoon-offers-a-vivid-first-hand-account-of-slavery-in-america

[Behind the Aegis]

13. I reccommend the audio version too!

My husband and I listened to it on our way home, and yes, the accents and patois make it very interesting and engaging. It is about 3 hours.

Listen to it! It is great!

[csziggy]

14. I don't normally listen to audio books

Since I read faster than I can listen. But I do have trouble reading dialect - such as Mark Twain used to write - so I suspect the audio book of Barracoon would be much more satisfying.

I'll get my husband to get it on his phone - that way the next time we drive down to visit my Mom we can listen. Three hours is just about the perfect length for that drive!

[MosheFeingold]

11. There are still slavery in America, and the world

Not legal ones, mind you, but still slaves, generally West African, nonetheless. For example:

https://newsone.com/3796116/texas-couple-enslaved-west-african-girl/

http://www.houstonpress.com/news/katy-couple-charged-in-bizarre-servant-slavery-case-8141487

Worldwide, it's much worse. There are, literally, more people in slavery today than at any time in human history:

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19831913

[Behind the Aegis]

12. Excellent book.

My husband and I had the audible version and listened to it on our way back to Oklahoma. It was very good and engaging. I liked "hearing it" because it was read with affectations and was very good.

The audible version is about 3 hours. It is well worth it!!