Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"

Upgrading to a five. The book itself wasn’t especially compelling, but I could feel it changing me on some celular level to read it. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone else.

The depth of his loneliness almost broke me, but it took me some time to get there. He’s so matter of fact in his telling, but then again, I wish I could’ve heard his actual voice. That would’ve made a huge difference in how I imbibed this book.

My only fear from this experience is that there will be others out there who read it and walk away thinking and saying, pointing to his words, that not all slave masters were horrible people. That is a lie I’d hate to see perpetuated, because no matter how kind they might’ve been, they still only had slaves because they lacked respect for the dignity of these African lives and refused them any agency.

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relf's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

The story of one of the last enslaved people to arrive in the U.S. from Africa, on the Clotilda, in 1859, told mostly in his own words as transcribed by Zora Neale Hurston. Kossulo (American name Cudjo Lewis) was born about 1841 in what is now Benin, captured by the king of Dahomey, sold to a (by then illegal) slave trader, and smuggled to Mobile, Alabama. He was enslaved for 5+ years, until the end of the Civil War, and became a founder of Mobile's Africaville. His story is horrifying and moving, and shocked me with its immediacy--I have a great-grandfather who was born about the same time as Kossulo. And his life after slavery indicates how little has changed: his life as a "free" man included, among other tragedies, the shooting of one of his sons by a sheriff and a white lawyer who defrauded him. This was one of Zora Hurston's first works, but, because she would not permit publishers to change Kossulo's dialect (as she had heard and transcribed it) into standard English, it was not published until 2018. It's a short book, and I recommend the audiobook, beautifully and movingly narrated by Robin Miles.

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greatexpectations77's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative slow-paced

4.0

I thought the introduction was really interesting, but I'm not sure why I had a hard time getting into the story. It's very possible that I would like this more at a more focused time in the future.

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tinyflame4's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

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mcfarleyems's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative fast-paced

5.0

How do you give a rating to a book as important as this one?

This book broke my heart and took me on an important and informative journey. I learned so much about Kossula’s life, of course, but I also learned to sit in the discomfort of reading the book. I became aware of my own blind spots in history, which contributed to my own biases. Being able to read this book is a gift.

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pinkalpaca's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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crazytourists_books's review against another edition

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dark informative sad medium-paced

3.0

Is it the content I expected? No.
Is this an extremely important book for the African-American history? Yes.
Did I struggle to read it? Yes.
Did my heart ache for this man (and the thousands of others, men, women, children, like him)? Of course.
Did I like it? Unfortunately not.
Would I recommend it? Yes, it's historical, and/or laographical value is huge.

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