Emma Langdon Roche

Emma Langdon Roche (March 26, 1878 – April 5, 1945)[1][2] was an American writer and artist, best known for her work Historic Sketches of The South (1914).

She was the first writer to publish a book based on interviews with Cudjoe Lewis, also known as Kazoola, a survivor of the Middle Passage.

He was born in Africa and had been taken captive, sold into slavery and transported to Alabama onboard the Clotilde (or Clotilda), the last known illegal Atlantic slaver to bring slaves to the United States.

[4] The book features Roche's discussion of the development of slavery in the United States from the colonial period.

It also features material from her interviews with Cudjoe (Kazoola) Lewis, who was among the survivors of Africans taken captive and sold into slavery in 1860, and brought to Alabama on board the Clotilda.

For instance, Zora Neale Hurston, then a student in anthropology, interviewed Cudjo Lewis and other Africans in Alabama as part of her research.

In 1980, Robert E. Hemenway's biography of Hurston addressed this issue further, and he compared the texts at length, giving full credit to Roche for her account.