Kossula / Cudjo Lewis

Kossula is, obviously, the most important person in the text of Barracoon. The narrative is shaped around the oral history he relates to Hurston. It follows him from a youth of five to an old man, having weathered many storms and personal hardship in between. Most of the narrative focuses on his coming of age in Africa, and the difficulties he faced in post-bellum America, with the time of his captivity, journey to America, and enslavement forming a brief portion in the middle of the text.

Zora Neale Hurston

Hurston, a writer and anthropologist, is an integral yet mostly quiet member in the text of Barracoon. She writes the nonfiction narrative in the first person point of view, offering small amounts of context and descriptive detail to her conversations with Kossula, but she privileges his point of view by the sheer amount of dialogue she...