autobiography
Page 787
2. Autobiography of Omar ibn Said, Slave in North Carolina, 1831. MOST of the slaves who were imported into the American colonies, and into the United States before 1808, were brought from that part of the African coast which lies east of Cape Palmas, or still further south, but a considerable number came from the regions of the Gambia and Senegal rivers. These were mostly Mandingos, but partly Fulas. The Fulas are not precisely negroes, but seem to be a mixture of negro and Berber stock, and have long been devout Mohammedans. Among them, as among the Mandingos, education, to the point of reading the Koran and writing, was not infrequent. 1
1 Mungo Park, who in 1795 travelled in this region, having for some time a local schoolmaster as his companion, describes the status of education. Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa (London, 1816), I. 468-473. See also Comte Mollien's Voyage dans l'Intérieur de l'Afrique en 1818 (Paris, 1820), II. 99.
Therefore it is not surprising that, among the American slaves, there were a certain number of literate Mohammedans; but there are only a few of whom accounts have appeared in print, and the only instance known to the present editor of an autobiographical sketch from the hand of one of them is that set forth below, from a manuscript in Arabic lent to him by its present possessor, his friend Mr. Howland Wood, curator of the American Numismatic Society, in New York. The first story of an educated Mohammedan slave in America which has come to the writer's attention is that which is set forth in the rare pamphlet entitled Some Memoirs of the Life of Job the Son of Solomon the High Priest of Boonda in Africa.2
2 By Thomas Bluett of Maryland (London, 1734). Later portions of his career are narrated by Francis Moore in his Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa (London, 1738).
This will be reprinted in one of those volumes of documents illustrating the history of the slave trade which are
2. Autobiography of Omar ibn Said, Slave in North Carolina, 1831. MOST of the slaves who were imported into the American colonies, and into the United States before 1808, were brought from that part of the African coast which lies east of Cape Palmas, or still further south, but a considerable number came from the regions of the Gambia and Senegal rivers. These were mostly Mandingos, but partly Fulas. The Fulas are not precisely negroes, but seem to be a mixture of negro and Berber stock, and have long been devout Mohammedans. Among them, as among the Mandingos, education, to the point of reading the Koran and writing, was not infrequent. 1
1 Mungo Park, who in 1795 travelled in this region, having for some time a local schoolmaster as his companion, describes the status of education. Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa (London, 1816), I. 468-473. See also Comte Mollien's Voyage dans l'Intérieur de l'Afrique en 1818 (Paris, 1820), II. 99.
Therefore it is not surprising that, among the American slaves, there were a certain number of literate Mohammedans; but there are only a few of whom accounts have appeared in print, and the only instance known to the present editor of an autobiographical sketch from the hand of one of them is that set forth below, from a manuscript in Arabic lent to him by its present possessor, his friend Mr. Howland Wood, curator of the American Numismatic Society, in New York. The first story of an educated Mohammedan slave in America which has come to the writer's attention is that which is set forth in the rare pamphlet entitled Some Memoirs of the Life of Job the Son of Solomon the High Priest of Boonda in Africa.2
2 By Thomas Bluett of Maryland (London, 1734). Later portions of his career are narrated by Francis Moore in his Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa (London, 1738).
This will be reprinted in one of those volumes of documents illustrating the history of the slave trade which are