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1-Page Summary of Barracoon
Overall Summary
Zora Neale Hurston starts the narrative by introducing her purpose in writing it. She says that slavery is one of the most dramatic chapters in human history and many people have written about it, but almost none of them were slaves. As such, she’s interviewing Cudjo Lewis to hear his side of the story.
The author gives background information on the men who bought Cudjo and brought him to America in 1859, decades after the international slave trade was abolished in America. The three brothers—Jim, Tim, and Burns Meaher—who own a shipyard in Alabama finance the expedition, sending Captain Bill Foster in the ship Clotilda to buy slaves from Dahomey. He meets with Prince Behanzin of Dahomey to select 130 slaves from a barracoon (stockade). This is because they are at war with their neighbors so they sell them as slaves when defeated. They were hidden on a plantation for 70 days before returning to America where they sold some of them but divided most among themselves. However, just one year later Civil War begins and all former slaves are freed under its terms; they band together into Africatown which is now known as Plateau. Cudjo Lewis still lives there today.
Hurston is immediately accepted by Cudjo because she addresses him by his African name, Kossula. She wants to know everything he remembers about Africa and begins to ask him questions. He tells her that the family he grew up with wasn’t rich, but they lived in a compound surrounded by other families. His grandfather had multiple wives who all selected their own husbands and arranged marriages for them.
Hurston begins to visit Cudjo regularly, bringing him gifts like peaches. One day, he tells her about how his tribe punished people who did bad things. The king’s punishment was a long ceremony where the man was tried in front of everyone and then executed by a group of young men dancing around him and singing songs before cutting off his head. Another time, someone who murdered another person was tied up to the dead body until he died from exposure.
Cudjo is excited to become a man and look forward to getting married. However, he’s captured in an attack by the neighboring kingdom of Dahomey. He witnesses people being killed by soldiers who are ruthless in their killing of elderly people; he himself is taken captive with other young and healthy villagers. For days they’re marched towards Dahomey where Cudjo will be sold as a slave for his labor on plantations or wherever else his new owners choose to put him.
Cudjo and the villagers are confined to a barracoon in Dahomey for three weeks. During that time, they have no communication with other captives because of language barriers. Eventually, Cudjo sees white men for the first time. A group of 130 people is taken from the barracoon to ships. They remain in the hold without food or water for thirteen days before being allowed on deck. The trip takes seventy days until they reach Alabama where Cudjo and other villagers must sneak through swamps to avoid suspicion by local government officials who oversee them at plantations owned by Meahers brothers (three).
Cudjo is sold to Captain Jim’s plantation. His work is difficult and the agricultural methods are different than what he’s used to. He appreciates that Captain Jim treats his slaves better than his brothers, providing them with adequate clothes and shoes. The only thing that upsets him about being enslaved is that it means he can’t go home again. For years after the Civil War breaks out, US soldiers reach Mobile and inform Cudjo and other slaves working on a boat in the harbor that they’re now free people who can go wherever they want.
