Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston Page A

Joellen ElBashir, for serving as the custodian of the manuscript of Barracoon for so many years. We are also grateful to the Mobile Historical Society for providing historical documents that certify the life of Cudjo Lewis in America.
    We can never repay those who have loved and supported Zora in her quest to leave us with a cultural legacy on many levels, but we can rejoice with them in celebrating Zora’s acceptance today as one of the world’s foremost folklorists as well as a literary genius. Barracoon is a perfect example of Zora’s talent in many genres. It is a late publication, but it is timely in its instruction.
    FROM DEBORAH G. PLANT
    I am forever appreciative of the legacy of Zora Neale Hurston and grateful for her magnanimous spirit. I am thankful for the direction of Dr. Linda Ray Pratt, of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, who was there at the beginning of things with me and my investigations into the life and works of Zora Neale Hurston. It is with an abundance of gratitude that I thank the members of the Zora Neale Hurston Trust (Lois Gaston, Lucy Ann Hurston, and Nicole Green) for the opportunity to be of service in the publication of Hurston’s narrative.
    For her support and assistance, I thank my sister, Gloria Jean Plant Gilbert, who traveled with me to Africatown and captured some of the spirit of the place in the photos she took. For their expertise, direction, patience, and kindness, I offer thanks and deep appreciation to Joy Harris of the Joy Harris Literary Agency and her associate, Adam Reed; and to HarperCollins editorial director Tracy Sherrod and her assistant, Amber Oliver.
    I wish to thank those writers whose works have contributed to our knowledge about the Africans who were smuggled into the United States aboard the Clotilda , enslaved in Alabama, and who, in freedom, founded a town and left a rich heritage. I appreciate the generous spirit of Ms. Mary Ellis McClean, Kossola’s great-granddaughter who spoke with us at the Union Missionary Baptist Church (organized originally as the Old Landmark Baptist Church in 1872), of which Kossola was a founding member. I offer especial thanks to Sylviane A. Diouf andNatalie S. Robertson for their groundbreaking research and publications on “the Clotilda Africans”; and to Lynda Marion Hill for her perceptive analysis of Hurston’s efforts in writing the Barracoon narrative. I extend immense thanks and gratitude to Ms. Patrice Thybulle, my dedicated research assistant and collaborator on the Maafa Project, initiated during my tenure at the University of South Florida. I thank Howard University librarian and curator Joellen ElBashir for her assistance. And I express appreciation to my parents, Alfred and Elouise Porter Plant, and Roseann and Henry Carter for their inspiration; and I thank Phyllis McEwen, Gwendolyn Lucy Bailey Evans, Joanne Braxton, Virginia Lynn Moylan, Valerie Boyd, Cathy Daniels, Marvin Hobson, Lois Plaag, and Sam Rosales for their ongoing friendship and support.
    I honor the ancestral spirit of Oluale Kossola (Cudjo Lewis) and thank him for his poignant life story.

Founders and Original Residents of Africatown *
“AFRICAN” NAME
AMERICAN NAME
ORIGIN
Pollee/Kupollee
Allen, Pollee (Pollyon)
    Allen, Lucy
    Allen, Rosalie (Rose)
Yoruba
Monabee (Omolabi)
Cooper, Katie (Kattie)
    Dennison, James
Yoruba
    South
    Carolina
Kanko (Kêhounco)
Dennison, Lottie
    Dozier, Clara
    Ely, Horace
    Ely, Matilda
    Johnson, Samuel
    Keeby, Anna (Annie)
Yoruba
    Â 
    Alabama
    Alabama
    Â 
    Â 
Keeby, Ossa
    Gumpa
 
    Lee, (African) Peter
    Lee, Josephine
    Lewis, America (Maggie)
Hausa
    Fon
    Â 
    Â 
Abila (Abilé)
Lewis, Celia (Celie)
Yoruba
Oluale (Oloualay)
Lewis, Charles (Char-Lee)
Yoruba
Kossola (Kazoola)
Lewis, Cudjo
    Livingston, John
Yoruba
Ar-Zuma
Livingston (Levinson),
    Zuma
    Nichol, Lillie
    Nichol, Maxwell
Nupe
    Â 
    Africa/?
    Alabama
Jaba (Jabi or Jabar)
Shade, Jaybee (Jaba)
    Shade, Polly