Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” was written by Zora Neale Hurston in the early 1930s, based on fieldwork done in the late 1920s. While parts of it appeared in different formats, it was never published a complete manuscript until 2018.
It’s a remarkable book, telling the story of Kossula, a man taken from his home in West Africa as a young teen, brought to America as a slave, and now living as a free man in a small town. Kossula, re-named Cudjoe Lewis in America, was part of the final known slave shipment to reach American shores.
His story is tragic and compelling: he was sold to slave traders by another African tribe, lived under the brutal oppression of slavery, and then saw his beloved wife and children all die once he was a “free man.” Hurston tells all of this in Kossula’s own words as much as she can, adding to it only light touches of her own style of anthropological observation.
It’s really simple, I think: if this interests you, you’ll find Barracoon remarkable and thought-provoking; if it doesn’t, you won’t pick it up in the first place.
There is one matter that should also be mentioned: there is a bit of controversy around the text. It looks very much like Hurston borrowed heavily–to the point of probably qualifying as plagiarizing, although this is a matter of dispute–earlier writing in the manuscripts that turned into Barracoon. It’s complicated, and unclear as to Hurston’s motivations or rationale. Equally unclear–and quite relevant–is the fact that it’s not know if Hurston’s original draft was intended for publication before it was converted into a magazine article.