Poetry is . . . song lyrics without the music? Writing that rhymes? A bunch of comparisons and abstract imagery that feels like a code for the reader to decipher?
The answer to all of the above is yes, but poetry encompasses much more. Poetry is a broad literary category that covers everything from bawdy limericks to unforgettable song lyrics to the sentimental couplets inside greeting cards. Poetry’s lack of rules can make it feel hard to define but is also what makes poetry enjoyable for so many to write.
If you’ve ever wondered how to write a poem, read on. Writing poetry doesn’t have to be daunting—we’re going to demystify the process and walk you through it, one step at a time.
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What is a poem?
A poem is a singular piece of poetry.
Poems don’t have to rhyme; they don’t have to fit any specific format; and they don’t have to use any specific vocabulary or be about any specific topic. But here’s what they do have to do: use words artistically by employing figurative language. With a poem, the form is as important as the function—perhaps even more so.
In contrast, prose is writing that follows the standard sentence and paragraph structure. Prose, while it takes many different forms and tones, largely mimics human speech patterns.
The purpose of a poem
Poetry expresses emotions and conveys ideas, but that’s not all it can do. Poets tell stories, teach lessons, and even communicate hidden messages through poetry. When you listen to music with lyrics, you’re listening to poetry.
When you’re writing poetry, keep your goal in mind. Are you writing to evoke emotion? To perform your poem at an open mic night? To get a good grade on your assignment? Although there aren’t any hard and fast rules for writing poetry, there are some fundamental guidelines to keep in mind:
- Show, don’t tell. The goal is to provoke an emotion in the reader.
- Less can be more. While it’s perfectly acceptable to write long, flowery verse, using simple, concise language is also powerful. Word choice and poem length are up to you.
- It’s OK to break grammatical rules when doing so helps you express yourself.
Elements of poetry
The key elements that distinguish poetry from other kinds of literature include sound, rhythm, rhyme, and format. The first three of these are apparent when you hear poetry read aloud. The last is most obvious when you read poetry.
One thing poetry has in common with other kinds of literature is its use of literary devices. Poems, like other kinds of creative writing, often make use of allegories and other kinds of figurative language to communicate themes.
In many cases, poetry is most impactful when it’s listened to rather than read. With this in mind, poets often create sound, whether to be pleasing, jarring, or simply highlight key phrases or images through words. Read this short poem “The Cold Wind Blows” by Kelly Roper aloud and listen to the sounds the letters and words make:
Who knows why the cold wind blows
Or where it goes, or what it knows.
It only flows in passionate throes
Until it finally slows and settles in repose.
Do you hear the repeated “ose” sound and how it mimics the sound of wind gusts? Poets create sound in a variety of ways, like alliteration, assonance, and consonance.
Poetry has rhythm. That’s what often makes it so attractive to set to music.
A poem’s rhythmic structure is known as its meter. Meter refers to:
- The number of syllables in each line
- The stressed and unstressed syllables in each line
These syllables are grouped together to form feet, units that make up a line of poetry. A foot is generally two or three syllables, and each combination of two or three stressed and unstressed syllables has a unique name.
You probably recognize the term iambic pentameter from English class. It comes up a lot in high school English classes because Shakespeare wrote in it frequently, and Shakespeare is frequently read in high school English classes. An iamb is a two-syllable foot where the second syllable is stressed: duh-DUH. Pentameter means that each line in the poem has five feet or ten total syllables.
Iambic pentameter is just one of the many kinds of rhythm a poem can have. Other types of feet include the trochee, two syllables where the first syllable is stressed (DUH-duh), and dactyl, three syllables where only the first is stressed (DUH-duh-duh). When a poem only has one foot per line, it’s in monometer; when there are two feet per line, it’s in dimeter; and so on.
Stressed and unstressed syllables aren’t the only way you can create rhythm in your poetry. Another technique poets frequently embrace is repetition. Repetition underscores the words being repeated, which could be a phrase or a single word. In her poem “Still I Rise”, Maya Angelou repeats the phrase “I rise” with increasing frequency as the poem progresses, changing it from “I’ll rise” in the first stanzas to a repeated “I rise” toward the ending, to emphasize her unbreakable spirit:
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
With poetry, rhythm and rhyme go hand in hand. Both create musicality in the poem, making it pleasurable to recite and listen to.
Rhymes can appear anywhere in a poem, not just at the ends of alternating lines. Take a look at all the places Lewis Carrol uses rhymes in this excerpt from “Jabberwocky”:
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
When you’re reading poetry, one of the first things you’ll likely notice is its formatting. Simply put, poems just aren’t formatted the same way as prose. Sentences end in weird places, there are blank lines between the different sections, one word might have a line all to itself, or the words might be arranged in a shape that makes a picture on the page.
One of poetry’s defining characteristics is that it doesn’t adhere to the same formatting that prose does. You (most likely) won’t find sentences and paragraphs in poetry. Instead, you’ll find stanzas, lines, and line breaks.
A stanza is the poetic equivalent of a paragraph. It’s a group of lines that (usually) adheres to a specific rhyme or rhythm pattern. For example, a quatrain is a four-line stanza in which the second and fourth lines rhyme. An isometric stanza is a stanza of any length where each line has the same meter.
Literary devices aren’t limited to prose—many, perhaps even most, poems incorporate one or more literary devices. Literary devices commonly found in poetry include:
- Figurative language
Often, poets use literary devices in conjunction with other poetic elements. One famous example of a poem that layers multiple literary devices is Margaret Atwood’s “[you fit into me]”:
you fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye
In the first stanza, Atwood uses a simile, a type of figurative language, to create an initially pleasant image: a hook and eye closure, a small metal hook that neatly fits into an appropriately sized metal loop to fasten clothing. Then the second stanza juxtaposes this with a jarring image: a fish hook plunged into an eyeball. These images together, formatted as two stark sections separated by a break, express the poem’s uncomfortable, visceral theme.
Types of poetic forms
There are many different types of poems. Some have very strict style rules, while others are classified according to the topics they cover rather than their structure. When you’re writing poetry, keep the form you’re writing in mind as you brainstorm—with forms that involve rhyming or require a specific number of syllables, you’ll probably want to jot down a list of go-to words that fit into your chosen format before you start writing.
A haiku is a three-line poem that always fits this format: The first and third lines contain five syllables and the second line contains seven syllables.
A limerick is a five-line poem that follows a strict AABBA rhyme scheme. Though they often discuss humorous subjects, this isn’t a requirement—the only requirement is that it fits this precise rhyme pattern.
A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem that was often used by Shakespeare and Petrarch. Although a sonnet’s exact rhyme scheme varies from poem to poem, each sonnet has some kind of consistent rhyme pattern.
Here’s a tip: Grammarly’sCitation Generatorensures your essays have flawless citations and no plagiarism. Try it for citing sonnets in Chicago, MLA, and APA styles.
Blank verse poetry is written in a specific meter that, as a rule, does not rhyme. Although this specific meter is often iambic pentameter, that isn’t a requirement for blank verse poetry—the only requirements are that it does not stray from its meter (whichever meter the poet chose) and that it doesn’t rhyme.
With free verse, anything goes. When you read a poem that doesn’t appear to fit any specific format, you’re reading free verse poetry.
An ode is a poem that celebrates a person, an event, or even an object. An ode uses vivid language to describe its subject.
Elegies are poems that, like odes, pay tribute to specific subjects. However, rather than being purely celebratory, an elegy is generally a reflection on its subject’s death and includes themes of mourning and loss.
How to write a poem
Writing a poem isn’t the same as writing a short story, an essay, an email, or any other type of writing. While each of these other kinds of writing requires a unique approach, they all have one thing in common: they’re prose.
Poetry isn’t prose, as we explained above. And that’s what makes it feel like the wildcard of creative writing.
With poetry, going through the standard writing process can feel like a creativity killer. That doesn’t mean you should just sit down, scrawl out a poem, and call it a day. On the contrary, when you’re writing poetry, you might find that skipping one or more stages in the traditional writing process will help you be more creative.
Of course, you might also find that following the writing process helps you explore and organize your thoughts before you start to write. The usefulness of starting with brainstorming, then moving onto outlining, then starting to write only once you’ve got an outline varies from poet to poet and even poem to poem. Sometimes, inspiration strikes and the words just start flowing out of your mind and onto the page.
Here are a few tips to help you get started and write your next poem:
1 Decide what you want to write about
Unless you’ve been assigned to write a poem about a specific topic, the first step in writing a poem is determining a topic to write about. Look for inspiration around you, perhaps in nature, your community, current events, or the people in your life. Take notes on how different things make you feel and what they drive you to think about.
Freewriting can be a helpful exercise when you’re searching for the perfect topic to write a poem about. You can use a writing prompt as a jumping-off point for your freewriting or just jot down a word (or a few) and see where your mind guides your pen, stream-of-consciousness style.
Once you have a topic and a theme in mind, the next step is to determine which kind of poem is the best way to express it.
2 Determine the best format for your topic
Your poem doesn’t have to adhere to any specific format, but choosing a format and sticking to it might be the way to go. By opting to write in a particular format, like a sonnet or a limerick, for example, you constrain your writing and force yourself to find a way to creatively express your theme while fitting that format’s constraints.
3 Explore words, rhymes, and rhythm
If you’ve decided to write your poem in a specific format, read other poems in that format to give yourself a template to follow. A specific rhythm or rhyme scheme can highlight themes and clever wordplay in your poem. For example, you might determine that a limerick is the most effective way to make your readers laugh at your satirical poem because the format feels like it has a built-in punchline.
4 Write the poem
Now it’s time to write! Whether you opt for using a pen and paper, typing on a laptop, or tapping on your phone, give yourself some uninterrupted time to focus on writing the poem.
Don’t expect to write something perfect on the first try. Instead, focus on getting your words out. Even if your lines don’t rhyme perfectly or you’ve got too many or too few syllables to fit the format you chose, write what’s on your mind. The theme your words are expressing is more important than the specific words themselves, and you can always revise your poem later.
5 Edit what you’ve written
Once you have a draft, the next step is to edit your poem. You don’t have to jump right from writing to editing—in fact, it’s better if you don’t. Give yourself a break. Then in a day or two, come back to your poem with a critical eye. By that, we mean read it again, taking note of any spots where you can replace a word with a stronger one, tighten your rhythm, make your imagery more vivid, or even remove words or stanzas that aren’t adding anything to the poem. When you do this, you might realize that the poem would work better in another form or that your poem would be stronger if it rhymed . . . or if it didn’t.
Reading your poem aloud can help you edit it more effectively because when you listen to it, you’ll hear the poem’s rhythm and quickly notice any spots where the rhythm doesn’t quite work. This can help you move words around or even completely restructure the poem.
If you’re comfortable sharing your poetry with others, have somebody else read your poem and give you feedback on ways you can improve it. You might even want to join a writing group, online or off, where you can workshop your poetry with other writers. Often, other people can spot strengths and weaknesses in your work that you might not have noticed because your perspective is too close to the poem. A more distanced perspective, as well as perspectives from readers and writers of different backgrounds, can offer up ways to make your writing stronger that you hadn’t considered before.
Give your writing extra spark
When you’re writing poetry, you’re allowed to break the rules. In fact, you’re encouraged to break the rules. Breaking the rules artistically is one of the key differences between writing poetry and writing prose.
But making mistakes isn’t the same as breaking the rules. Mistakes in your poetry, like misspelled words and incorrect punctuation, can distract readers from what you’re communicating through your words. That’s where Grammarly comes in. Grammarly catches any mistakes or tone inconsistencies in your work and suggests ways you can make your writing stronger. The outcome: writing with confidence and getting better at breaking the rules on purpose.
How to Write a Poem: A Step-by-Step Guide? ›
The basic elements of poetry include meter, rhyme, scheme, verse, and stanza. In order to dive deeper into poetry, students will first need to understand these structural elements.How do you write a poem for beginners? ›
- Read a lot of poetry. If you want to write poetry, start by reading poetry. ...
- Listen to live poetry recitations. ...
- Start small. ...
- Don't obsess over your first line. ...
- Embrace tools. ...
- Enhance the poetic form with literary devices. ...
- Try telling a story with your poem. ...
- Express big ideas.
- Brainstorm your starting point.
- Free-write in prose first.
- Choose your poem's form and style.
- Read for inspiration.
- Write for an audience of one — you.
- Read your poem out loud.
- Take a break to refresh your mind.
- Have fun revising your poem.
The basic elements of poetry include meter, rhyme, scheme, verse, and stanza. In order to dive deeper into poetry, students will first need to understand these structural elements.What is the basic poem format? ›
The basic building block of a poem is a verse known as a stanza. A stanza is a grouping of lines related to the same thought or topic, similar to a paragraph in prose. A stanza can be subdivided based on the number of lines it contains. For example, a couplet is a stanza with two lines.What is the proper format for a poem? ›
- Typically, a manuscript should start each poem on a new page. ...
- Indent lines that run across the length of the page.
- Use one-inch margins all around the page.
- Put each of your poem titles in all caps.
- Use Times New Roman or a comparable serif font.
Strong, accurate, interesting words, well-placed, make the reader feel the writer's emotion and intentions. Choosing the right words—for their meaning, their connotations, their sounds, even the look of them, makes a poem memorable. The words become guides to the feelings that lie between the lines.What is the hardest part of writing poetry? ›
The hardest part of the writing process is making time and space to write. Once I can sit with my notebook and pencil (and crayons, and other materials for making marks), I feel eased away from 'myself', like how it feels to go into water with an aching body, and move differently, without the usual pull and pain.How long should a poem be? ›
Poets should consider limiting their poems to one page—two pages at the most—when possible.What are the 3 elements of a poem? ›
- The statement and voice.
- The rhythm.
- The rhyme.
What are the 4 structure in a poem? ›
Structural elements of poems include rhyme, rhythm, meter, and form.What are 7 lines in a poem called? ›
Septet. A stanza with seven lines. This is sometimes called a “rhyme royal.”What does a 5 line poem look like? ›
Cinquain: A cinquain is a poem or five-line stanza with a rigid syllable count for each line. This modern form was invented by American poet Adelaide Crapsey.Does poetry need to rhyme? ›
Very simply, poetry does not have to rhyme. While there are many more concrete styles of rhyming poetry, poets sometimes feel that non-rhyming poetry can express ideas in ways that rhyming can't. Neither rhyming or non-rhyming poetry is better than the other--it is a matter of personal preference.What is the simplest type of poem? ›
We define short form poetry as anything 9 lines and under, or any poem that uses 60 words or less. The sonnet, for example, is a 14-line poem that often grapples with love, and though sonnets are by no means “long,” they often have abstract qualities not found in short poems.How many lines should a poem have? ›
There is no easy answer to how many lines a poem should have. There are too many variables, including the type of poem, the topic and theme, and the choices the poet makes. As clichéd as it may sound, a poem should arguably be long enough to get the poet's meaning across and no more.What is a 3 line poem format? ›
A tercet is a stanza of poetry with three lines; it can be a single-stanza poem or it can be a verse embedded in a larger poem. A tercet can have several rhyme schemes, or might not have any lines of poetry that rhyme at all.Are there rules to poetry? ›
Learning how to write a poem is debatably one of the hardest forms of creative writing to master—there are so many “rules”, but at the same time, no rules at all. It is the ultimate form of individual expression.Why do poets not use rhyme? ›
All language has a rhyme by default. But, no, poets do not have to create a specific rhythm with their words for readers to enjoy in their verse. But, many poets do this to influence the reader's enjoyment or interpretation of the text.How can I tell if my poetry is good? ›
- It Focuses on the Main Idea. ...
- Your Poetry Tells a Story. ...
- It Resonates Emotionally. ...
- It Paints a Visual Picture. ...
- The Poem Only Uses the Words It Needs. ...
- It Feels Good To Say.
What makes a poem so powerful? ›
Poetry is great at asking questions, at destabilizing and making us look things in a different way, incorporating a diversity of voices of ways of thinking. That's what poetry is for. So it's a very powerful medium for diverse voices to speak and for other people to then listen to those voices.Are poems easy to write? ›
As with any form of creative writing, poetry writing can be hard work—but it can also be enormously gratifying. With the right approach, you can easily start writing poems of your own.Is poetry writing a skill? ›
Poetry can be an acquired skill or innate talent. With formal education, almost anyone can arrange words, ideas, and emotions into poetry. However, some people are more naturally able to produce moving poetic works of art by effortlessly expressing themselves, even with no formal training.What are the problem in writing poetry? ›
Long stanzas, rhythm, punctuation, no punctuation, fragments, and repetition are just a few options a poet has when creating their masterpiece. These tools may make it difficult for a reader to understand the full meaning of a poem. Diction can also play a role with problem in understanding poetry.How to end a poem? ›
In poetry, an end-stop refers to a pause at the end of a poetic line. An end-stop can be marked by a period (full stop), comma, semicolon, or other punctuation denoting the end of a complete phrase or cause, or it can simply be the logical end of a complete thought.How do you write a poem that doesn't rhyme? ›
First, settle on a theme or event you'd like to write about. Try to set the scene in your head and go from there. Then write down some key words that relate to your story. Since you don't need to worry about matching up words and rhyming them, you should be able to incorporate most of these words in your poem.What's the shortest poem? ›
According to the Guinness Book of Records, the world's shortest poem is a one-letter poem by Aram Saroyan comprising a four-legged version of the letter "m".Why do people find poetry difficult? ›
The main obstacle to understanding poetry, whether you are talking about Keats or Shelley or Whitman or even Leonard Cohen, is our ingrained tendency to be very literal in communication. We often speak and write in extremely literal terms, because we want to make sure we are understood.What is a verse in a poem? ›
What is a Verse? A Verse is a collection of metrical lines of poetry. It is used to define the difference of poetry and prose. It contains rhythm and pattern and more often than not, rhyme.What is ABAB rhyme scheme called? ›
In an alternate rhyme, the first and third lines rhyme at the end, and the second and fourth lines rhyme at the end following the pattern ABAB for each stanza. This rhyme scheme is used for poems with four-line stanzas.
What are 4 lines in a poem called? ›
In poetry, a quatrain is a verse with four lines.What is a poem that tells a story called? ›
A narrative poem is a longer form of poetry that tells an entire story, with a beginning, middle, and end. Narrative poems contain all of the elements of a fully developed story, including characters, plot, conflict, and resolution.How long is a poem stanza? ›
The monostich is a stanza—a whole poem—consisting of just one line. After that, there is the couplet (two-line stanza), tercet (three-line stanza), quatrain (four-line), quintet (five-line), sestet (six-line), septet (seven-line), and octave (eight-line).What are easy words to rhyme? ›
- Ask- Mask – Flask – Task – Bask.
- About – Throughout – Drought – Without – Scout – Doubt – Sprout.
- Above – Glove – Dove – Love.
- Across – Loss- Cross – Toss.
- Add – Glad – Sad – Mad – Lad – Dad – Bad – Had.
- Age – Stage – Wage – Engage – Sage – Cage.
A poem or stanza with one line is called a monostich, one with two lines is a couplet; with three, tercet or triplet; four, quatrain.What are 13 lines in a poem called? ›
Rondels are 13 lines total and generally follow an ABBA ABAB ABBAA rhyme scheme.What is every line called in a poem? ›
Although the word for a single poetic line is verse, that term now tends to be used to signify poetic form more generally. A line break is the termination of the line of a poem and the beginning of a new line.How many lines is the shortest poem? ›
Haikus are the shortest poems. They only have three lines, also called a tercet. Not only do they follow a specific length, but each line also needs to have a specific number of syllables.What is a 50 line poem called? ›
Learn how to write the blitz poetic form, including rules for how to successfully write this 50-liner. Robert Lee Brewer.What is a haiku poem? ›
What is a haiku? The haiku is a Japanese poetic form that consists of three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. The haiku developed from the hokku, the opening three lines of a longer poem known as a tanka.
Do poems go in quotes? ›
Generally, shorter works (poems, song titles, chapters) go in quotation marks, and longer works (movies, books, newspaper titles) are italicized. o Books are italicized, but a chapter inside a book is in quotation marks. o The name of a TV show is italicized, but a specific episode is in quotation marks.Do poets make money? ›
Poets make commissions on books that they've published, which come from yearly stipends or one-time payments for jobs done. Poets earn royalties from book sales, but the majority of the profit goes to publishing houses (who have large overheads of course).What happens if a poem doesn't rhyme? ›
Free verse is any form of poetry that does not rely on consistent patterns of rhyme and meter. In fact, free-verse poetry doesn't have to rhyme at all. As a result, free verse tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech. However, a natural rhythm may still emerge despite the lack of a specific metrical structure.What are the four steps of poetry? ›
In this collection of poetry, Marysa takes you on a journey through the four stages; Love, Anger, Memory and Venting.
- Read the poem. The first time you approach a poem, read it to yourself. ...
- Read the poem again, this time aloud. ...
- Map out the rhyme scheme. ...
- Scan the poem. ...
- Break down the structure. ...
- Determine the form of the poem. ...
- Study the language in the poem. ...
- Study the content of the poem.
- Cliché In case you don't know, clichés are overused phrases. ...
- Melodrama. ...
- Doing Thing To Sound “Poetic” ...
- Abusing Figures of Speech like Metaphor and Simile. ...
- Your Free Verse is Prose With Line Breaks.
A poem is a singular piece of poetry. Poems don't have to rhyme; they don't have to fit any specific format; and they don't have to use any specific vocabulary or be about any specific topic. But here's what they do have to do: use words artistically by employing figurative language.What are 3 line poems that rhyme? ›
A poetic unit of three lines, rhymed or unrhymed.What does AABB mean in poetry? ›
Lines designated with the same letter rhyme with each other. For example, the rhyme scheme ABAB means the first and third lines of a stanza, or the “A”s, rhyme with each other, and the second line rhymes with the fourth line, or the “B”s rhyme together.What is the 7 elements of poetry? ›
As with narrative, there are "elements" of poetry that we can focus on to enrich our understanding of a particular poem or group of poems. These elements may include, voice, diction, imagery, figures of speech, symbolism and allegory, syntax, sound, rhythm and meter, and structure.
What are the 3 types of poems for? ›
There are three main kinds of poetry: narrative, dramatic and lyrical. It is not always possible to make distinction between them. For example, an epic poem can contain lyrical passages, or lyrical poem can contain narrative parts.How to summarize a poem? ›
- Decode the meaning and storyline.
- Examine the rhyme scheme.
- Look out for imagery.
- Consider themes and symbols.
- Analyze the poem's structure.
- Study the language.
- Get to know who the narrator is.
The 12 elements of poetry include structure, form, speaker, sound devices, figurative language, rhyme, meter, theme, tone, mood, syntax, and diction. What is the significance of diction as an element of poetry? Diction is the poet's use of language, word choice, and syntax.What are the five tips for reading poetry? ›
- Read the poem twice in a row. Take note of what you notice the second time that wasn't so apparent in your first reading.
- Don't skip over unfamiliar words. ...
- Try to identify a meter, if there is one. ...
- Notice point of view. ...
- Read the poem one more time, and this time read it aloud.


Indivisible: Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism
The story of how Daniel Webster popularized the ideals of American nationalism that helped forge our nation’s identity and inspire Abraham Lincoln to preserve the Union
When the United States was founded in 1776, its citizens didn’t think of themselves as “Americans.” They were New Yorkers or Virginians or Pennsylvanians. It was decades later that the seeds of American nationalism—identifying with one’s own nation and supporting its broader interests—began to take root. But what kind of nationalism should Americans embrace? The state-focused and racist nationalism of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson? Or the belief that the U.S. Constitution made all Americans one nation, indivisible, which Daniel Webster and others espoused?
In Indivisible, historian and law professor Joel Richard Paul tells the fascinating story of how Webster, a young New Hampshire attorney turned politician, rose to national prominence through his powerful oratory and unwavering belief in the United States and captured the national imagination. In his speeches, on the floors of the House and Senate, in court, and as Secretary of State, Webster argued that the Constitution was not a compact made by states but an expression of the will of all Americans. As the greatest orator of his age, Webster saw his speeches and writings published widely, and his stirring rhetoric convinced Americans to see themselves differently, as a nation bound together by a government of laws, not parochial interests. As these ideas took root, they influenced future leaders, among them Abraham Lincoln, who drew on them to hold the nation together during the Civil War.
As he did in Without Precedent and Unlikely Allies, Joel Richard Paul has written in Indivisible both a compelling history and a fascinating account of one of the founders of our national perspective.
Praise for INDIVISIBLE
"...a tour de force of compact narrative..." ~ Wall Street Journal
“With a lucidity of the written word to match his subject’s famed eloquence of the spoken word, Joel Richard Paul shows how Webster’s oratorical brilliance helped to define the meaning of the Union in the antebellum era.” ~ James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
“Joel Paul’s Indivisible tells the remarkable story of Daniel Webster, a towering American whose hypnotic oratory in the 19th century helped to define the character of the American nation. A stirring and monumental achievement.” ~ Congressman Jamie Raskin
“Indivisible is an impressively researched book that is also a fine example of narrative analysis and old-fashioned storytelling. With a clear-eyed assessment of Daniel Webster’s political brilliance and disappointments, Paul centers Webster in the 19th-century debate over young America’s identity. Indivisible recounts how the moderate anti-slavery Webster made nationalism a “civic religion” in a country with deep political division over questions of racial equality. Indivisible is a must-read as issues related to race and America's national identity continue to vex the country.” ~ Anita F. Hill, University Professor of Social Policy, Law and Women's Studies, Brandeis University and author of Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence.
“In this compelling narrative, Paul portrays the tragedy of the man whose devotion to “liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable” could not overcome the strident demands of slave-holders and the populist racism of whites North and South. This insightful account gives Webster his due in a cautionary tale for a nation once again struggling to sustain constitutional liberty for all its people.” ~ Robert A. Gross, Bancroft Prize-winning author of The Minutemen and Their World and The Transcendentalists and Their World
“Joel Richard Paul’s wonderful book blends episodes from the life of Daniel Webster, the silver-tongued orator who defined American national identity as “liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable” with kaleidoscopic coverage of other leaders and the events that nearly tore the country apart during the first half of the 19th century.” ~ William Taubman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Khrushchev: The Man and His Era.
“Distinguished author Joel Richard Paul has given us an elegant, highly-readable new biography of the greatly influential New England leader Daniel Webster (1782-1850). Webster was a fervent advocate of saving the national union when arguments over continuing or ending slavery were threatening to tear the republic apart. Webster favored a political compromise that ultimately failed, all masterfully explained by Paul in this gripping volume….highly recommended!" ~ James Kirby Martin, Professor of History, Emeritus, University of Houston and author of Surviving Dresden.
“Daniel Webster was never a president, general, or Supreme Court justice. But he did more than perhaps any other individual to create an American nationality. Joel Richard Paul's richly contextual biography vividly captures the flawed, brilliant leader who forged American institutions and identity around his motto, 'Liberty and Union.' From incandescent oratory to morally muddled compromises, Webster did everything he could to battle extremism and division, a struggle all too resonant in our own polarized times." ~ T.J. Stiles, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The First Tycoon and Custer's Trials
“Historian Paul (Without Precedent) examines in this intriguing study the role that 19th-century lawyer, congressman, and orator Daniel Webster played in promoting the idea of American nationalism based on the Constitution…..Full of fascinating digressions and astute analysis, this is a rewarding look at one of America’s most enduring fault lines.” ~ Publisher's Weekly
"A majestic history of “the development of American nationalism from the War of 1812 to 1852. Though Daniel Webster (1782-1852) is mentioned in the subtitle, this book is about far more than one man’s influence, significant as it was. In his latest examination of a specific period of American history, constitutional and international law professor Paul, author of Without Precedent and Unlikely Allies, fashions an impressively multilayered narrative. Focusing on a series of crucial figures and historical moments in the first half of the 19th century—e.g., the War of 1812; the Monroe Doctrine and Transcontinental Treaty, through which Secretary of State John Quincy Adams “had committed the United States to becoming a hegemon”; and the rise of Andrew Jackson’s “toxic populism”—the author shows how American citizens began to gain a sense of common community and purpose, as opposed to identifying with a particular region. As a lawyer and senator, Webster made an early impression as “a leading opponent of slavery and the voice of New England.” During the Jackson administration, he helped to lead the charge against Jackson’s “mean-spirited campaign[s] against civil servants, bankers, foreigners, and Native Americans.” Webster opposed the annexation of Texas as a needless provocation of war with Mexico and the extension of slavery into new territory. However, he also defended the property of slave owners in the case of the slave uprising aboard the Creole in 1841. That incident, coupled with his later defense of the Fugitive Slave Act, tainted his glorious reputation. Indeed, in the years to come, many believed that Webster sold his soul for Southern votes in his quest for the presidency. Following the biographical thread of “one of the most influential statesmen of the antebellum period,” Paul delivers important historical context along the way, showing how “while the Union was falling apart, our American identity was taking shape. An ambitious work that wonderfully delineates the formative years of the nation’s character." ~ Starred Kirkus Review
“Joel Richard Paul’s Indivisible: Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism is such an important read, for both the historically inclined and Dartmouth undergraduates… It is an accessible book that paints an absorbing picture of American politics in the antebellum period… Indivisible is a collection of vignette-type stories, stitched together into a thematic but largely chronological history of early American nationalism, in which history Webster regularly appears… an engaging and important work of popular history. I must confess that, in first reading the book, it seemed Webster was less a main character than a supporting player who kept popping up in odd places. However, I now recognize that this is just the point. Indeed, Webster wrought a profound impact on our nation’s self-conception by inspiring an American nationalism, and, in so doing, he helped keep the country united in the first half of the nineteenth century.” ~ Dartmouth Review
Q. Who was Daniel Webster, and why does he matter?
A. Ralph Waldo Emerson called Daniel Webster “the completest man.” Born in New Hampshire during the American Revolution, Webster grew up to be an influential congressman, senator, secretary of state, and presidential candidate and was at the center of American politics from 1812-1852 when the United States was struggling to determine the kind of nation it wanted to be. He fought slavery, Andrew Jackson, and American expansionism. He argued some of the most famous cases before the Supreme Court and earned the reputation as the “defender of the Constitution.” As secretary of state, Webster skillfully averted a third war with Britain. Perhaps most important, Webster was universally acknowledged as the greatest orator of the age, celebrated throughout Europe as well as the United States.
Q. How does Webster’s legacy resonate today?
A. We are living in a time of hostility to democratic values, pluralism, and immigration. Extreme partisanship has paralyzed Congress and infected the Supreme Court, undermining its legitimacy. Webster, too, lived in a deeply polarized time that threatened the Union. Still, he believed in the possibility of finding consensus, and his rhetoric and ideas appealed to Americans’ faith in our nation’s founding. In the process, Webster defined what it meant to be an American.
Q. What did it mean to be an American at the beginning of our republic?
A. The least self-evident truth in our Declaration of Independence were the words, “United States.” People considered themselves Virginians or New Yorkers, not Americans. We were divided by region, ethnicity, faith, and race. Our national identity did not begin to take hold until sometime after the War of 1812, more than three decades after the Declaration was signed.
Q. How did we become “American” then?
A. During the period from 1820 to 1850 competing ideas of American identity were put forth by men like Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John O’Sullivan, Walt Whitman, and Andrew Jackson. Some argued that the land made us American, that we were destined to occupy the whole continent, and that tribal nations were mere obstacles to our development. Others argued that our nation was defined by race, and there was no room for Mexicans or African Americans in a white America. Against this populist, expansionist, and racist argument, Webster popularized the idea that it was the Constitution that made all Americans one nation indivisible, regardless of race, ethnic origin, or faith. While the Union was unraveling, our national identity was taking shape. By the time the Civil War erupted in 1861, Webster’s vision of constitutional nationalism defined Americans.
Q. What’s Daniel Webster’s significance in American history?
A. Webster’s passionate and lifelong defense of the Union shaped the thinking of the men who waged the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln modeled his speeches on Webster’s, and many of his most memorable lines were chosen from Webster. The generation that fought the Civil War were taught in grade school to recite portions of Webster’s speeches extolling the virtue of the Union. Webster’s most famous line, “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable” inspired the Union’s resolve to defeat the secessionists. Even in civil war,we were now all “Americans.”
Q. What kind of man was Webster?
A. Webster was complicated. He was a brilliant orator, a passionate patriot, and a deeply flawed man. He could speak extemporaneously for hours in prose that was sheer poetry. In an age of great orators, even his rivals admitted that no one was his equal. But Webster had a dark shadow. He lived extravagantly, far beyond his means, and depended on the generosity of wealthy businessmen who in turn relied on him to support tariffs that favored their industries. He was tainted by unfounded gossip and sexual scandal, and in his later years, he drank to excess. After he endorsed the Compromise of 1850, he was vilified by his friends and died a broken man.
Q. Why did Webster’s support for the Compromise of 1850 destroy his political career?
A. Webster was an eloquent and impassioned opponent of slavery and a staunch defender of the Union. In 1850, California sought statehood, but the South did not want to admit another free state to the Union and threatened to secede. Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky approached Senator Webster with a proposed compromise that included the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which would compel the North to return fugitive slaves. Webster was torn between his hatred of slavery and his love of the Union. He understood that endorsing the fugitive slave law would cost him support in New England and end his political career, but his support would be critical to persuading other northern Whig senators to back the compromise. In the end, Webster was persuaded there was no other way to save the Union. His friends and supporters turned against him. Emerson wrote that “the word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtesan.” And John Greenleaf Whittier penned a poem titled “Icarus,” in which he wrote that “When faith is lost when honor dies, The man is dead!”
Q. If there had been no compromise, what would have happened?
A. Without the fugitive slave law, the South would likely have seceded in 1850, it would have fallen to President Millard Fillmore, rather than Lincoln, to defend the Union. Though the Compromise only succeeded in holding the Union together for a decade, during that time three important developments occurred. First, the abolitionist movement gained strength in the North. Second, the North’s armaments industry dramatically outpaced the South assuring that the North would have a military advantage over the South. Third, a whole generation of men who went on to fight the Civil War were indoctrinated in the belief that “Liberty and Union” were inextricably bound together. Webster’s rhetoric forged the resolve to defend the Union. By postponing the Civil War, the Compromise of 1850 likely saved the Union.
Q. How is this book relevant to our present day?
A. Once again issues of race and national identity are dividing us. Finding consensus seems impossible, and the institutions of government are losing legitimacy. Our political leaders are failing the test of whether to put the country before party and their own political ambition. Daniel Webster’s story demonstrates that even in these dark times of division it is possible for people of good faith to find common ground. Webster reminds us that despite our differences, the Constitution made us one nation indivisible.
Click here to download "A Conversation with Joel Richard Paul about INDIVISIBLE: The Birth of American Nationalism"
Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times
The remarkable story of John Marshall who, as chief justice, statesman, and diplomat, played a pivotal role in the founding of the United States.
No member of America's Founding Generation had a greater impact on the Constitution and the Supreme Court than John Marshall, and no one did more to preserve the delicate unity of the fledgling United States. From the nation's founding in 1776 and for the next forty years, Marshall was at the center of every political battle. As Chief Justice of the United States - the longest-serving in history - he established the independence of the judiciary and the supremacy of the federal Constitution and courts. As the leading Federalist in Virginia, he rivaled his cousin Thomas Jefferson in influence. As a diplomat and secretary of state, he defended American sovereignty against France and Britain, counseled President John Adams, and supervised the construction of the city of Washington. D.C.
This is the astonishing true story of how a rough-cut frontiersman - born in Virginia in 1755 and with little formal education - invented himself as one of the nation's preeminent lawyers and politicians who then reinvented the Constitution to forge a stronger nation. Without Precedent is the engrossing account of the life and times of this exceptional man, who with cunning, imagination, and grace shaped America's future as he held together the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the country itself.
Praise for Joel Richard Paul’s WITHOUT PRECEDENT
“I would have predicted that there was nothing worth saying about John Marshall that hadn’t already been said. I would’ve been so wrong. In every chapter of this page-turning account of Marshall’s pivotal place in our nation’s history, even the expert will learn something new. How did Joel Paul figure out, for instance, that the great Chief Justice probably suborned perjury on his brother’s part during the bizarre Marbury v. Madison trial? You owe it to yourself to read Joel Paul’s terrific book to find out.” ---- Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School
“Who was John Marshall, really? Thousands meet him anew each year solely through his published opinions. But finally, Joel Richard Paul gives us this captivating, indispensable account, painting a fascinating picture of the frontiersman, soldier, illusionist, strategist, diplomat and international lawyer who became not just the man behind Marbury, but so much more.”Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law and former Dean, Yale Law School
“Anyone interested in the law and our country’s Founders will find this book revealing and enjoyable.” Jill Abramson, former executive editor of the New York Times and co-author, Strange Justice.
"Joel Richard Paul has written a fascinating and deeply authoritative biography of one of the most overlooked but important members of the founding generation. John Marshall was a lawyer, justice, and statesman, who as much as anyone else helped shape the nation's court system and left a lasting imprint on our legal principles – and much more. Here, in Without Precedent, Marshall gets the attention he so justly deserves." Jay Winik, author, The Great Upheaval and 1944
"You don't have to be a constitutional law scholar to enjoy this lively, wonderfully engaging account of the life and times of Chief Justice John Marshall." William Taubman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, and Gorbachev: His Life and Times.
“John Marshall (1755-1835) was no patrician. The eldest of 15 children born to an impoverished Virginia farmer, he had only a few months of formal education but served as a foot soldier at Valley Forge, a commissioner to France during the XYZ Affair, secretary of state to John Adams, and finally chief justice, a post to which Adams appointed him to resist the partisans of incoming president Thomas Jefferson. As Paul (Constitutional and International Law/Univ. of California Hastings Law School; Unlikely Allies: How a Merchant, a Playwright, and a Spy Saved the American Revolution, 2008) notes, Marshall took over a court that "was regarded as nothing more than a constitutional afterthought [with]…few cases, little dignity, and no genuine authority." He bolstered the court's prestige by inventing the majority decision and produced more than 1,000 unanimous decisions during his tenure, a testimony to his skills of persuasion and compromise. Often employing a form of political judo, Marshall expanded the authority of his court and the central government by establishing fundamental constitutional principles like judicial review, taken for granted today but hotly contested in that era, to the impotent rage of his partisan opponents. In his conduct of the 1807 treason trial of Aaron Burr, Marshall infuriated Jefferson but arguably "did more to secure free expression and prevent tyranny than any other court in our history." Much of the story necessarily focuses on abstruse issues in constitutional law, but the author turns this potential narrative problem into a strength by emphasizing the politics and personal stories underlying the court's landmark cases. He cheerfully draws readers into the factual and legal complexities involved, employing an easygoing prose style that neither condescends nor bogs down in legalese. As much as Paul admires Marshall, he doesn't shrink from exposing holes in his reasoning, occasional ethically dodgy procedure, and a sometimes dismayingly amoral approach to the law. A well-informed, perceptive, and absorbing biography of a titan of American history.” -- Kirkus starred review
Paul (Unlikely Allies, 2009) brings to life the turbulent early years of the American Republic through the life of a lesser-known but long-lasting Founding Father. John Marshall was present from the beginning of the Revolution and held many roles before that of chief justice and the last of the great Federalists to serve in the federal government. Paul pays special attention to the intense partisanship and political polarization of the era, especially the feud between Marshall and his cousin Thomas Jefferson. Paul challenges the popular understanding of Marshall as a conservative roadblock and holdover from a bygone ideology at great length, describing the chief justice’s decisions from the beginning of Jefferson’s presidency and well into the administration of Andrew Jackson as central to our modern understanding of law, the political state, and foundation of the economy. This very human story should be of great interest to almost all readers. Well written and drawing on rich primary sources, WITHOUT PRECEDENT lives up to its title and will be an excellent addition to American-history collections. — James Pekoll for Booklist
Christian Science Monitor features WITHOUT PRECEDENT in its round-up of the “Best Books of February 2018,” raving: “Law professor Joel Richard Paul brings exactly the kind of perspective that a legal scholar can best provide to this engaging biography of US Supreme Court Justice John Marshall. The book’s narrative is especially strong when relating the turbulent legal and political infighting of Marshall’s years as chief justice.”
Paul (law, Univ. of California, Hastings Coll. Of the Law; Unlikely Allies) teaches constitutional linens international law, but his passion for history renders this book particularly unique and informative. As promised in the subtitle, this biography portrays Founding Father and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall (1755-1835) in historical context. Consequently, Marshall’s career as a jurist is but a portion of his life, and here readers gain a larger understanding of the man who played a fundamental role in the formation and early history of our country as well as his myriad roles as soldier, lawyer, politician, statesman, jurist, and husband. Beginning with Marshall’s service under General Washington at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War and delving into every major facet of his life and career, this eminently readable book provides a comprehensive exploration of Marshall and the culture surrounding him. In addition, Paul explicates Marshall’s major decisions as chief justice, so landmark opinions such as Marbury v. Madison and McCullouch v. Maryland receive appropriate attention and analysis. VERDICT. This masterly work elucidates the indelible imprint that Marshall made on the U.S. Constitution and its subsequent interpretation. Perfect for readers of Jean Edward Smith’s John Marshall: Definer of a Nation – Lynne Maxwell, West Virginia Univ. Coll.of Law Lib., Morgantown, Library Journal Review Feb. 15, 2018.
"In WITHOUT PRECDENT " Joel Richard Paul has crafted a scholarly but highly readable and often entertaining chronicle that embeds Marshall among the leading lights of the nation's founding generation, humanizing him along the way...(Marshall's) lasting achievements are ably served by Mr. Paul's deeply felt and penetrating biography" -- from the Wall Street Journal Feb., 17, 2018 review by Fergus M. Bordewich.
"...engrossing new biography..." -- Weekly Standard February 20, 2018 review by Gerald Russello
"Joel Richard Paul, a professor of constitutional and international law at UC Hastings College of the Law, has added a well-written and admiring biography to the long line of Marshall scholarship. The first sentence of “Without Precedent” establishes the stakes: “None of the founding generation of American leaders had a greater impact on the American Constitution than John Marshall, and no one did more than Marshall to preserve the delicate unity of the fledgling republic.” -- Kate Gailbraith, SF Chronicle, March 7, 2017
Click here to see Joel Richard Paul at the Frances Tavern in New City. Video from CSpan
How a Merchant, a Playwright, and a Spy Saved the American Revolution
UNLIKELY ALLIES is the untold true story of the secret diplomacy that won the American Revolution. In 1775, Benjamin Franklin decides to send Silas Deane—a shopkeeper who has never left Connecticut in his life and can’t speak a word of French—on a secret mission to persuade the French king to arm the Americans. Franklin thinks Deane is such an improbable secret agent that the British spies will never suspect him. Hounded by spies, betrayed by his own colleagues, and besieged by privateers, Deane succeeds with the help of Beaumarchais, a French playwright, and the Chevalier d’Eon, the French ambassador to London. The sexually ambiguous d’Eon, a military hero, French spy, and cross-dresser provides the catalyst that persuades Louis XVI to aid the Americans. Full of political intrigue, betrayal, and espionage, UNLIKELY ALLIES is a bold reinterpretation of the struggle for Independence that exposes the complexity of human motivation and the accidental path of history.
“One of the best books of 2009”
—The Washington Post
“Like it or not, the American Revolution is the gift that keeps on giving. Just when you thought no author could possibly say more on the subject, along comes a book that proves you wrong.
Oftener than not, these books repackage the lives of founding fathers or present the dramatic wartime career of some forgotten white chap relegated to the sidelines by Adams, Jefferson, and Washington. Joel Richard Paul, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of Law, aims higher and achieves something new in Unlikely Allies. …
… Unlikely Allies possesses the menacing atmospherics of an Allen Furst novel, and the intellectual verve for which Furst’s spy thrillers are justly admired. And Paul’s blessedly short chapters and razor-sharp prose make the book an ideal read for a distracted century. That is no small achievement, especially for an author who must balance, as Paul does so brilliantly, character development and historical analysis.
…Paul’s three intertwined lives tell us much about the power of personality, the complexity of human emotions, and as he put it best, “the accidental path of history.”
“…wildly entertaining history … “Unlikely Allies” is a nonfiction account, but it reads like a Monty Python movie… The wonder is, our great country came out of such undignified scheming.”
“The American Revolution was more than Minutemen and declarations. “Unlikely Allies” tells the jaw-dropping story of three remarkable but flawed players in our nation’s founding.
… this is solid, groundbreaking history, well researched and with a narrative arc that guides you through the labyrinths of Louis XV’s court, colonial insurrections and British intransigence.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Paul’s fast-paced, engaging narrative fills a gap in the historiography of the American Revolution and is essential reading for students of revolutionary diplomacy as well as general devotees of the age.”
“A rip-roaring account of the American Revolution, told from a fresh, and undeniably offbeat, perspective.”
“A tantalizing review of early American foreign policy.”
“Here comes rebel Joel Richard Paul, a professor of international and constitutional law, wieldingUnlikely Allies, a shadier version of the forging of the French-American alliance without which the United States might not exist.”
“Paul gleefully unfurl his story like a suspense thriller, dropping hints, angling cliffhangers,…Unlikely Allies is quick and fun, offering up a fresh take on a period which needs a little shaking up.”
—Sacramento Book Review, Mar 10, 2010
“Unlikely Allies is an astonishing look at the sometimes seedy side of our country’s founding-a side in which a good man doing an impossible job would be painted with the brush of “traitor,” losing his fortune, his family, his sacred honor and at last his life in service to the land he loved. Paul tells the story with the skill of a novelist, crafting a compelling tale with engaging characters, intriguing twists and a surprise ending, without having to make anything up. Now that is history!”
“An engaging and entertaining account of three of the most colorful characters involved in the American Revolution. It is hard to believe that their story is true, but it is.”
—Gordon Wood, Pulitzer Prize winner, The Radicalism of the American Revolution, and Professor Emeritus, Brown University.
“Ever tire of worshipful accounts of the Founding Fathers’ wisdom and fortitude? Then try this wonderful book about how an American businessman and two Frenchmen, a dramatist and a cross-dressing spy, came to their aid. A rollicking romp as well as a serious history, it reminds us of the role of duplicity, hypocrisy and corruption, and of human frailty and chance, in safeguarding the American Revolution.”
—William Taubman, Pulitzer Prize winner, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, and Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science, Amherst College
“Unlikely Allies is an amazing story compellingly told. I kept turning the pages in eagerness to find out what would happen next. Conspiracies abounded, and hardly anyone was what he or she seemed. If the eighteenth century in Europe was an era of Enlightenment, it was also an Age of Deception. Yet, thanks to Joel Paul’s sympathetic portrayal, Silas Deane emerges as an unsung hero of the American Revolution.”
—Robert Gross, Bancroft Prize winner, The Minutemen and their World and James L. and Shirley A. Draper Professor of Early American History, University of Connecticut
“Rollicking and surprising, this is history as it really happened—as it was made by all-too-human actors. Unlikely Allies is a lively read and an important counterpoint to Founder hagiography.”
—Evan Thomas, bestselling author, Sea of Thunder: Four Naval Commanders and the Last Sea War, and Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek.


OLUOLA KOSSOLA/CUDJO LEWIS
Cudjo Lewis is considered the last survivor of the last slave ship to enter the United States. Born around 1841 to a Yoruba family in the Banté region of Dahomey (today Benin), he was given the name Oluale Kossola (Kazoola). At age 14, Kossola began his training as a soldier and was inducted into oro, the Yoruba secret male society; by age 19, Kossola was undergoing initiation. His initiation training was cut short, however, in the spring of 1860 when soldiers from Dahomey raided Kassola’s town, killing townspeople and taking prisoners. Though he attempted escape, Kossola was among the captured to be marched to Ouidah, a port city on the Atlantic coast of Benin, and imprisoned in a slave compound. He was sold to William Foster, captain of the Clotilda, a schooner built by Foster in Mobile, Alabama and later converted into a ship capable of illegally transporting Africans as slave cargo into the United States.
Kossola was among the 110 enslaved Africans to spend an estimated 45 days aboard the Clotilda. Upon entering the Mississippi Sound on July 8, 1860, Kossola and seven other bondsmen were transferred to James Meaher, brother of Timothy Meaher. When James Meaher could not pronounce Kossola’s name, Kossola told Meaher to call him “Cudjo.” Cudjo worked on a steamship and was subject to overwork and poor living conditions for five years. On April 12, 1865, Union soldiers informed Cudjo and other slave workers on the steamboat that they were free.
Upon emancipation, Cudjo left James Meaher’s plantation and took the name Lewis. Desiring to return to Africa, he and his Clotilda captives attempted to acquire reparations in the form of repatriation or land. In 1872, after failing to receive either, Cudjo and the Mobile Africans pooled their resources and purchased land from the Meahers and other wealthy whites to form a settlement, which they named Africa Town. Cudjo resided in Africa Town for the remainder of his life. He became a citizen of the United States in 1868 and a Baptist in 1869.
In 1880, Lewis legally married Celia (Abile), a fellow Clotilda capture who had lived with Cudjo since 1866. Together they had five sons and one daughter. Cudjo worked as a shingle maker until 1902, when he was injured in a train accident. He then became the church sexton for Africa Town. In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston famously interviewed and filmed Cudjo, who, as historian Sylviane A. Diouf notes, is the “only known African deported through the slave trade whose moving image exists.” Cudjo achieved further recognition after being interviewed by numerous other writers and journalists.
Cudjo Lewis survived his fellow Clotilda companions, leaving him the last survivor of the last slave ship to enter the United States. He died on July 26, 1935 at the estimated age of 94.
Why the extraordinary story of the last slave in America has finally come to light, Afua Hirsch, The Guardian, 26 May 2018
Barracoon: The Story of the Last Slave presents the remarkable fact that there were people alive in America who had experienced abduction from Africa – being examined, displayed, traded and enslaved – well into the 20th century.
The book is the story of Cudjo Lewis; a man born Oluale Kossola in the Yoruba kingdom of Takkoi. Kossola was the last survivor of the last known slave ship to sail from the African continent to America with a human cargo. Written in the 1930s, but hidden away from a public audience until now, it is also perhaps the last great, unpublished work by the Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston.
The word “barracoon” refers to the enclosures in which captives were held on the coast before being loaded on to ships. In Kossola’s case it was the Alabama vessel the Clotilda, which played its own gruesome part in the slave trade in 1860, half a century after its official abolition, transporting 130 men and women from the west African kingdom of Dahomey – modern day Benin.
By 1931, when Hurston interviewed Kossola – sweetening him with peaches, Virginia hams and late summer melons –, he was around 90 years old, and yet able, over a period of three months, to recall his life in Takkoi in great detail; his grandfather, an officer of the king; his mother and siblings; law and justice; love and adolescence. He spoke in heartbreaking detail of watching his community annihilated during a raid by Dahomey’s female warriors, leading to his capture and enslavement, the torture of the “middle passage”, and life in 19th and 20th century Alabama. Through all these years – many more lived in America than he had spent in his African birth nation – he never let go of the unspeakable loss of his homeland. When Hurston takes his photograph, Kossola dresses in his best suit, but removes his shoes, telling her: “I want to look lak I in Affica, ’cause dat where I want to be.”
The Point of No Return monument in Ouidah, Benin. Photograph: Gallo/Getty Images
The uniqueness of the story and that of the writer who tells it are layered and intertwined. The old, poetic Kossola, generous with his parables and storytelling, is one of almost four million Africans enslaved late in the history of the transatlantic trade. And while the full history is documented in countless accounts of slave traders, merchants, plantation owners and masters, ledgers and auction records and court documents, the number of first-hand accounts of Africans forced to become Americans can be counted on two hands. It is Hurston, and perhaps Hurston alone, who could have drawn this heavy tale out of the often melancholy old man, and have the vision and skill to make it sing, in the way that Barracoon does, for reasons rooted deeply in her own life story.
Hurston was born in 1891 in Eatonville, Florida, a small town with an entirely black population, which she would later describe as “the city of five lakes, three croquet courts, 300 brown skins, 300 good swimmers, plenty guavas, two schools and no jailhouse”. She would keep close links to her hometown, despite leaving when she was just 13, and then drifting – working as a manicurist and achieving a degree part time at Howard University – until she arrived in New York in 1925. By then she was in her mid 30s (but convinced those whom she met that she was a full decade younger) and had – as she wrote later in her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road – “$1.50, no job, no friends, and a lot of hope”
Hurston began studying anthropology at Barnard College and, having received a fellowship to gather material in her home state, set about documenting African American folk traditions in towns like Eatonville, and later in the southern states, the Bahamas and Haiti. It was during this period, right at the beginning of her career, that she first met Kossola, interviewing him several times in the late 1920s. It was her first major project, but also her first major failure. An article she published about Kossola in the Journal of Negro History would be accused of plagiarism, allegations which scholars now contest, and which in any event drove Hurston to return to Alabama, to conduct the series of interviews that would form the core of Barracoon, and, this time, to do so in a manner that would cast the work beyond any doubt.
Radical approach … Zora Neale Hurston.Photograph: © Barbara Hurston Lewis, Faye Hurston, and Lois Hurston Gaston
Around this time, black art began asserting itself brazenly in an America still emerging from four centuries of slavery and legalised white supremacy, and the belief that the African had no civilisation to offer. By the time of her death in 1960, Hurston would have published more books than any other black woman in America. But it wasn’t until she caught the attention of sociologist Charles S Johnson, champion of the Harlem Renaissance and the editor of Opportunity, the official journal of the National Urban League (which published her work as well as that of Claude McKay, Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen), that she got her break.
Even within the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston’s approach was radical. Inspired by her Eatonville roots, she was instinctively compelled by the folklore, the idioms, customs, worksongs, spirituals, sermons, children’s games, folktales and practices of African American communities of the south. While other members of the black intelligentsia were celebrating racial uplift, and while hundreds of thousands fled the rural south in the “great migration”, in search of what they imagined to be progress in northern cities, Hurston was interested in “the Negro farthest down”. Her goal as an author, anthropologist and essayist, was – the scholar Karla Holloway has said – “to render the oral culture literate”.
“The unlettered Negro,” Hurston wrote, was “the Negro’s best contribution to American culture.” It was this belief which inspired Barracoon – a book in which there is little of Hurston herself, but plenty of her ideology, in capturing Kossola, a man whose culture slavery both created and destroyed. Like the language of some of Hurston’s later works – Mule Bone, the play she would write with Hughes in 1931; Mules and Men, a compilation of oral folklore in 1935; and her most famous work, the novel Their Eyes Were Watching Godin 1937 – Kossola’s narrative plays the music of history itself within its tonalities, rhythms and inflections. But the narrative, like Kossola, stands apart from Hurston’s others; his speech is more a recognisably African Creole than the African American vernacular, and despite all his decades living in America, Kossola is steeped in the thought of Africa, the world – as he calls it – “in de Affica soil”. Hurston’s fidelity to the manner and content of Kossola’s storytelling is the book’s strength. Yet within it were also contained the seeds of Barracoon’s downfall. When Hurston took the manuscript to publishers, they wanted her to anglicise his English, which she resolutely refused to do.
American slaves on a plantation in South Carolina, 1862.Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
“Hurston was not interested in, as Toni Morrison might put it, the white gaze, and how ‘they’ would perceive us,” explains Deborah Plant, a Hurston scholar who edited Barracoon. “She was interested in what was specific in African American culture, those aspects which were rooted in African tradition, African history, African civilisation, because in that authenticity lay the genius – the spirit, as Hurston describes it – that which the soul lives by.”
For Cheryl Wall, Zora Neale Hurston professor of English at Rutgers University, “this impatience with Hurston’s determination to transcribe Kossola’s speech faithfully is enormously frustrating”. It was “part of the pattern of Hurston’s life that she had to fight so hard to have her voice heard, and the voices of those whose stories she wanted to tell. We are told the dialect is too difficult. Is it really any more difficult than the dialect of Mark Twain or James Joyce? Yes it requires some extra effort, but it’s the kind of effort we usually put into a literary text without complaint.”
The irony is astounding. Kossola, a man denied his home and his voice by American racism, would have the telling of his story silenced too. Barracoon, having been met with intransigence by publishers, remained unpublished, ending up in a private collection that was passed to the archive at Howard University in 1956, where it remained inaccessible to all but a handful of scholars who read it and cited it in their work.
Hurston found her own life mirroring this cycle of narration and dispossession. After the success of her work in the 1930s and 40s, her hugely productive career spiralled downwards. She lived hand to mouth, writing articles for magazines while working at odd jobs, including one stint in Miami for an employer who saw her byline in the Saturday Evening Post and tipped off a reporter that the author was her maid. Hurston was humiliated, and spent the next decade in a series of small towns in Florida, plagued by health and money problems, until she ended up in a welfare home where she died, penniless, of heart disease in 1960.
A slave’s cabin at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Edisto Island, South Carolina.Photograph: Courtesy of NMAAHC
At the time of her death, none of her seven previously published books was in print. Neighbours collected money for her funeral and it made front page news in the local black weekly, the Fort Pierce Chronicle. But she was buried in a segregated cemetery, in an unmarked grave.
For the novelist and feminist Alice Walker, who in 1973 set out to discover what had become of Hurston, finding this grave in a “field full of weeds” was a devastating experience. “There are times,” wrote Walker, “and finding Zora Hurston’s grave was one of them, when normal responses to grief, horror and so on do not make sense because they bear no real relation to the depth of emotion one feels.” Walker was determined to restore Hurston’s legacy and reputation. She obtained a gravestone, and had it inscribed with the words: “Zora Neale Hurston – A genius of the south. Novelist. Folklorist. Anthropologist.”
Their Eyes Were Watching God, still considered Hurston’s greatest work, was soon back in circulation. That edition, by the University of Illinois Press, sold more than 300,000 copies, making it, as Wall says, “one of the most dramatic chapters in African American literary history”.
The publication of Barracoon thus represents a recovery within a recovery; the works of Hurston having been so dramatically resurrected, but this one languishing in obscurity until now. And its publication comes at an emotive moment in the African American experience – an experience loaded not just with historical trauma, but very contemporary pain. Alice Walker writes, for example, in the foreword to the book, that in reading Kossola’s story, African Americans “are struck with the realisation that he is naming something we ourselves work hard to avoid, how lonely we are too in this still foreign land”.
Karla Holloway, professor of English at Duke University, says: “The irony is that the loneliness that echoes through Kossola’s account, and that Walker so poignantly notices, is our collective legacy.
“We work hard to escape and slip past that loneliness, but inevitably we are captured, again, by the wake of slavery, a tidal wash as reliable as moonrise.”
The era of Black Lives Matter, of harassment in coffee shops, of a president who has been both overtly racist and also dismissive of racism, and of the disappointment at the first black president having been able to make little real change to poverty, criminalisation and exclusion, has produced a moment in which the struggle has never been more apparent, yet the cultural expression of that suffering has never been more visible.
Illustration by Swain, from 1835, of slaves being put into the hold.Photograph: Rischgitz/Getty Images
“I do think one of the reasons that the book is so attractive right now is that there is this longing for African Americans to have access to a pre-US life – a connection to Africa,” says Autumn Womack, an assistant professor of English and African American studies at Princeton University. “If nothing else, Barracoon announces the desire for this kind of connection, even if it’s never really fulfilled. People are searching for a vocabulary to make sense of that.”
That struggle is finding expression in film, TV and theatre that focuses on the experience of slavery; from the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave, the remake of the memorable series Roots and the multi-award-winning musical Hamilton. It is present in pop culture, with the recent phenomenon of Childish Gambino’s “This Is America”, whose video references the violent brutalisation of African Americans. There are new museums – America’s first of African American history, which opened in 2016; the Whitney Plantation, the first plantation museum on American soil; and the nation’s first memorial to the horrors of lynching, in Alabama.
It is abundant in literature too; Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and other influential books such ass Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns, which tells the story of the Great Depression in new and profound detail; Stamped from the Beginning, by Ibram X Kendi, which chronicles the lifespan of American racism; Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, radicalising readers of young adult fiction to the injustice of police killings; and Jesmyn Ward’s devastating Sing, Unburied, Sing.
The pathos of the African American experience, told with such tenderness in Barracoon, is matched by its complexity. Hurston herself remarked that in writing Kossola’s harrowing account of how the king of Dahomey profited from raiding and selling members of neighbouring kingdoms, she was deeply affected by the question of African complicity in the slave trade. “The inescapable fact that stuck in my craw,” Hurston wrote, “was my people had sold me and the white people had bought me. That did away with the folklore I had been brought up on – that white people had gone to Africa, waved a red handkerchief at the Africans and lured them aboard ship and sailed away.”
And yet Barracoon also helps deepen the understanding of the context in which slavery took place. “This idea of ‘African complicity’ is more myth than a reality,” Plant says. “Because at that point in history, there was no such thing as an ‘African’. People on the African continent did not self identify as Africans; instead there was a self identity in relation to specific ethnic groups and specific kingdoms, religions or language. So many of us don’t know, because we don’t have these nuances about our history.”
The absence of stories like Kossola’s has hardly helped bring these nuances to the fore. There are other difficult questions arising from the book about the extent to which the African American victims of slavery internalised the attitudes of their oppressors. Kossola recalls how his children in particular endured bullying from neighbouring African Americans, for having two African-born parents.
“All de time de chillun growin’ de American folks dey picks at dem and tell de Afficky people dey kill folks and eatee de meat,” Kossola recounts in Barracoon. “Dey callee my chillun ig’nant savage and make out dey kin to monkey … It hurtee dey feelings.”
“Those acculturated African Americans could have been more open, more receptive, compassionate, and they weren’t,” Plant says. “They were a source of hostility to Kossola and his community. We can explain or rationalise it, but it doesn’t justify it.” The book’s uniqueness is in its recounting of a story in which we are all equally bound up by this cycle of oppression – the former slave plagued by the trauma of losing his homeland and family, the writer whose work survived the desire of intellectuals for white approval, the reader forced to challenge their own ideas about race and the internalisation of oppression. But more than anything it brings an African past up close to an African American present, at a time of great searching. “Throughout her life, Hurston fought against this idea that there was no connection to Africa once people arrived on these shores, and everything was forgotten,” Wall says. “We know that’s not true. But a book like this really brings that to life.”
• Barracoon: The Story of the Last Slave by Zora Neale Hurston is published by HarperCollins.