
Barracoon
The Story of the Last ""Black Cargo""
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Narrated by:
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Robin Miles
About this listen
A major literary event: a never-before-published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God that brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade - abducted from Africa on the last "Black Cargo" ship to arrive in the United States.
In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview 86-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage 50 years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.
In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo's past - memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.
Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjo's unique vernacular, and written from Hurston's perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the 20th-century, Barracoon brilliantly illuminates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, Black and White, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.
©2018 The Zora Neale Hurston Trust (P)2018 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Capturing the dialect, accent, and intonation of Cudjo Lewis...presents a challenging task for narrator Robin Miles, who must deliver one of the integral aspects of Hurston's work: a reconstruction of Lewis's African and Southern accents. Miles's rendition is well done, with clear, deliberate diction that places appropriate emphasis on Lewis's emotional reactions." (AudioFile)
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Editor's Pick
Looking back
"I was so excited to learn of this never-before-published work from Zora Neale Hurston, the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God—one of my all-time favorite books—which comes more than 50 years after her death. Underscoring the importance of this literary event, Barracoon is the story of one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade, in his own words and own vernacular. From his capture in a raid in Africa to his time as a slave and then as a free man, Hurston’s interviews with Cudjo Lewis in the early 1900s give a unique look at an American history we thought we knew so well."
—Abby W., Audible Editor
People who viewed this also viewed...
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Performance
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You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays
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Overall
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Performance
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You Don’t Know Us Negroes is the quintessential gathering of provocative essays from one of the world’s most celebrated writers, Zora Neale Hurston. Spanning more than three decades and penned during the backdrop of the birth of the Harlem Renaissance, Montgomery bus boycott, desegregation of the military, and school integration, Hurston’s writing articulates the beauty and authenticity of Black life as only she could. Collectively, these essays showcase the roles enslavement and Jim Crow have played in intensifying Black people’s inner lives and culture rather than destroying it.
-
-
Robotic Reading
- By lacy stevens on 09-02-22
By: Zora Neale Hurston, and others
-
Mules and Men
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Mules and Men, some of the rich cultural heritage of black America is revealed and preserved. In the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston returned to her home town of Eatonville, Florida, to collect and record the oral histories, songs, and sermons, many dating back to slavery times, that she remembered hearing as a child. These highly metaphorical folktales, "big old lies", and powerful songs helped her to recover her history, and preserve an important part of American culture.
-
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ABRIDGED version
- By Ben on 02-06-19
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Cudjo's Own Story of the Last African Slaver
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrated by: Bobby Brill
- Length: 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Originally published in The Journal of Negro History, this fascinating and important work records the recollections of Cudjo Lewis, one of the last surviving captives of the Clotilde, the final ship to dock in the United States with a cargo of African slaves. Lewis and Zora Neale Hurston provide an ethnography of Lewis's own Togo people, detail his capture by warriors of the Kingdom of Dahomey, hardship and strife aboard the Clotilde en route to port in Alabama, and his eventual liberation.
-
Every Tongue Got to Confess
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every Tongue Got to Confess is an extensive volume of African American folklore that Zora Neale Hurston collected on her travels through the Gulf States in the late 1920s. The bittersweet and often hilarious tale, which range from longer narratives about God, the Devil, white folk, and mistaken identity to witty one-liners, reveal attitudes about faith, love, family, slavery, race, and community.
-
-
Difficult to hear so I can't rate Story fairly
- By d on 02-18-15
-
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick
- Stories from the Harlem Renaissance
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrated by: Aunjanue Ellis
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African-American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston’s "lost" Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales.
-
-
Great Writer - Great Reader
- By Avid Listener on 09-09-20
-
Dust Tracks on a Road
- An Autobiography
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dust Tracks on a Road is the bold, poignant, and funny autobiography of novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, one of American literature's most compelling and influential authors. Hurston's powerful novels of the South - including Jonah's Gourd Vine and, most famously, Their Eyes Were Watching God - continue to enthrall readers with their lyrical grace, sharp detail, and captivating emotionality.
-
-
Very nice!
- By Joi Wilson on 10-31-16
-
You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays
- By: Zora Neale Hurston, Henry Louis Gates - introduction, Genevieve West - introduction
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You Don’t Know Us Negroes is the quintessential gathering of provocative essays from one of the world’s most celebrated writers, Zora Neale Hurston. Spanning more than three decades and penned during the backdrop of the birth of the Harlem Renaissance, Montgomery bus boycott, desegregation of the military, and school integration, Hurston’s writing articulates the beauty and authenticity of Black life as only she could. Collectively, these essays showcase the roles enslavement and Jim Crow have played in intensifying Black people’s inner lives and culture rather than destroying it.
-
-
Robotic Reading
- By lacy stevens on 09-02-22
By: Zora Neale Hurston, and others
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Story
In Mules and Men, some of the rich cultural heritage of black America is revealed and preserved. In the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston returned to her home town of Eatonville, Florida, to collect and record the oral histories, songs, and sermons, many dating back to slavery times, that she remembered hearing as a child. These highly metaphorical folktales, "big old lies", and powerful songs helped her to recover her history, and preserve an important part of American culture.
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ABRIDGED version
- By Ben on 02-06-19
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Cudjo's Own Story of the Last African Slaver
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrated by: Bobby Brill
- Length: 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Originally published in The Journal of Negro History, this fascinating and important work records the recollections of Cudjo Lewis, one of the last surviving captives of the Clotilde, the final ship to dock in the United States with a cargo of African slaves. Lewis and Zora Neale Hurston provide an ethnography of Lewis's own Togo people, detail his capture by warriors of the Kingdom of Dahomey, hardship and strife aboard the Clotilde en route to port in Alabama, and his eventual liberation.
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The Life of Herod the Great
- By: Zora Neale Hurston, Deborah G. Plant - editor
- Narrated by: Blair Underwood, Robin Miles
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 1950s, as a continuation of Moses, Man of the Mountain, Zora Neale Hurston penned a historical novel about one of the most infamous figures in the Bible, Herod the Great. In Hurston’s retelling, Herod is not the wicked ruler of the New Testament who is charged with the “slaughter of the innocents,” but a forerunner of Christ—a beloved king who enriched Jewish culture and brought prosperity and peace to Judea.
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like the lion needs no weapon but himself
- By william t. on 03-25-25
By: Zora Neale Hurston, and others
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Their Eyes Were Watching God
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is the luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930s, whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to 70 years.
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perfection
- By Mel on 04-06-15
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Magnolia Flower
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrated by: Ibram X. Kendi, Sheryl Lee Ralph
- Length: 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Born to parents who fled slavery and the Trail of Tears, Magnolia Flower is a girl with a vibrant spirit. Not to be deterred by rigid ways of the world, she longs to connect with others, who too long for freedom. She finds this in a young man of letters who her father disapproves of. In her quest to be free, Magnolia must make a choice and set off on a journey that will prove just how brave one can be when leading with one’s heart.
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Beautiful Love story
- By Jaki on 07-12-23
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The Last Slave Ship
- The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning
- By: Ben Raines
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed, the Clotilda became the last ship in history to bring enslaved Africans to the United States. The ship was scuttled and burned on arrival to hide the wealthy perpetrators to escape prosecution. Despite numerous efforts to find the sunken wreck, Clotilda remained hidden for the next 160 years. But in 2019, journalist Ben Raines made international news when he successfully concluded his obsessive quest through the swamps of Alabama to uncover one of our nation’s most important historical artifacts.
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Wow. Just Wow.
- By Pinkhippiechick on 02-11-22
By: Ben Raines
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How It Feels to Be Colored Me
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrated by: Nerissa Bradley
- Length: 10 mins
- Unabridged
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How It Feels To Be Colored Me was first published in The World Tomorrow in May 1928. In this autobiographical piece that focuses on race and 1920s America, Hurston reflects on her early childhood in an all-black Florida town and her first experiences in life where she felt "different." Hurston focuses on the similarities we all share and on her own self-identity in the face of difference. "Through it all," she says, "I remain myself."
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made me tear up
- By Kayla Wilkinson on 06-08-24
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Moses, Man of the Mountain
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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In this novel based on the familiar story of the Exodus, Zora Neale Hurston blends the Moses of the Old Testament with the Moses of black folklore and song to create a compelling allegory of power, redemption, and faith.
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Barracoon: Adapted for Young Readers
- By: Zora Neale Hurston, Ibram X. Kendi
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America to be enslaved, eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis was then the only person alive to tell the story of his capture and bondage—fifty years after the Atlantic human trade was outlawed in the United States. Cudjo shared his firsthand account with legendary folklorist, anthropologist, and writer Zora Neale Hurston.
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Insightful
- By Sigma7 on 03-11-24
By: Zora Neale Hurston, and others
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Destined to Witness
- Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany
- By: Hans Massaquoi
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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What would life be like for a Black boy growing up in Nazi Germany? This unprecedented autobiography answers that question with the spellbinding true story of Hans J. Massaquoi’s life in Hamburg during the height of Hitler’s regime. Hans is the son of a Black Liberian diplomat father and a white German mother. His father returns to Africa at the beginning of the war, leaving them behind in poverty without the means to flee. Within this tense atmosphere, increasingly violent Nazi policies and Allied bombing raids make Hans and his mother’s lives a day-to-day survival struggle.
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An important story, marred by lackluster writing.
- By Christopher on 03-04-15
By: Hans Massaquoi
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Tell My Horse
- Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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Based on Zora Neale Hurston’s personal experiences in Haiti and Jamaica, where she participated as an initiate rather than just an observer of voodoo practices during her visits in the 1930s, this travelogue into a dark world paints a vividly authentic picture of the ceremonies, customs, and superstitions of voodoo.
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Collected Early Works (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin, Kenya Brome, Cary Hite, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Zora Neale Hurston is best remembered today for her work as a novelist, but she was also an accomplished dramatist, short story writer, and folklorist. That range of interests and styles is on full display in this collection.
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Incredible writing
- By Ayako E. on 02-10-25
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King: A Life
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.—and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself.
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My Time
- By Susan on 06-18-23
By: Jonathan Eig
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
- By: Harriet Jacobs
- Narrated by: Audio Élan
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, written under the pseudonym Linda Brent, details her experiences as a slave in North Carolina, her escape to freedom in the north, and her ensuing struggles to free her children. The narrative was partly serialized in the New York Tribune, but was discontinued because Jacobs’ depictions of the sexual abuse of female slaves were considered too shocking. It was published in book form in 1861.
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Another impossible narration
- By JPALJ on 06-11-18
By: Harriet Jacobs
What listeners say about Barracoon
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- Adama Efuru
- 05-16-18
important griot
I relished every word and will likely be quoting it for the next few years until everyone I know has read it. It provides an important historical perspective that needs to be HEARD.
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29 people found this helpful
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- Aasim
- 05-14-18
Wonderful performance, but...
Great story and a wonderful performance, but why have a female narrator for a male character?
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2 people found this helpful
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- JMKIII58
- 01-29-19
A magnificent read...
I highly recommend this book. Dora takes you into a world that many of us will never know. The detail to dialect and tone transport you back to the beginning of the 20th century. And a survivor of slavery who never forgot he was an African and not an American. The story telling is great. A book that everyone should read.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Pam Booth
- 10-26-18
Awesome
Zora is now one of my new found favorite writers. I enjoyed listening to this book and wish that I also had a hard copy to re read anytime.
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- Jennifer Nembhard
- 08-06-18
I found myself wanting more.
There are many lessons to learn from this account. The bridge from the past to present day is undeniable.
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- L.A.
- 12-29-18
Powerful story, book's organization not stellar.
Enjoyed the main story. But I found the order of the book's contents somewhat obstructive. While there's good information in the introduction by Deborah Plant, I would have preferred it to come after Hurston's account. I skipped over it because I was eager to get to hearing the story before having someone other than the author explain it to me as a historical text.
The narrator's performance was exemplary. She excels at presenting Lewis' accent and dialect. It was somewhat disruptive to hear the narrator shift gears to include footnotes. Fortunately that didn't happen a lot. Also the appendix creates another mood shift. It begins with a description of a game that is rather abstract. Perhaps it's something better read through a printed version than listening to it.
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- tabatha dennis
- 04-11-19
American story telling
I loved the authentic dialect. I love the rich language and the story line. I loved how his history flowed and how the timelines were presented and weaved through this book. I felt the emotions. Hearing this story read to me may have been even better than reading the book for once even though I am from the area of the MS-AL Gulf Coast, I would have missed out by page alone.
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- pjean
- 11-01-19
great read!
I really enjoyed the book, and perfect for listening! Good for historical context on how slaves were brought to USA>
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- Jennifer Elliott
- 11-11-19
Amazing
The story, Zora Neale Hurston’s genius and the fantastic narration=incredibly satisfying listen. Thank you!
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- Kimberley Carcana
- 09-01-18
great!
great book. loved it. had me wanting more at the end. the narrator was the best.
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