Across the Water: a study pack

Part two: the handout

IV. Across the Water

Among the millions of Africans carried into slavery in the Americas were Muslims: people who could read, who fasted when they could, who wrote prayers in Arabic on whatever came to hand. Some of their pages survive.

The story in brief

1. Among the millions of Africans carried into slavery in the Americas were Muslims, many from Senegambia, Futa Toro and Futa Jallon. Their numbers cannot be known precisely.
2. By a commonly cited estimate, as many as four in ten of the Africans brought to what became the United States first landed at Charleston.
3. Omar ibn Said, a scholar from Futa Toro, was brought to Charleston in 1807. Jailed in Fayetteville, he wrote on the walls of his cell in Arabic. In 1831 he wrote his life in Arabic.
4. On Sapelo Island, Georgia, Bilali Muhammad wrote thirteen pages of Islamic law from memory, mainly from the Risala of Ibn Abi Zayd of Kairouan.
5. Islanders in the 1930s remembered grandparents who prayed on mats and made rice cakes called saraka, from sadaqah, charity.
6. Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima and Yarrow Mamout all came to be free. A letter Ibrahima wrote in Arabic brought his case to the secretary of state and the president.
7. In Bahia, Brazil, in January 1835, during Ramadan, enslaved and freed African Muslims rose in revolt.

Dates

• 1528Estevanico, an enslaved man from Azemmour in Morocco, lands in Florida with a Spanish expedition.
• 1733Ayuba Suleiman Diallo is freed in England and painted by William Hoare. He goes home in 1734.
• 1788Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima is captured in Futa Jallon and sold to Natchez.
• 1790The South Carolina House hears the petition of the free Moors.
• 1807Omar ibn Said arrives in Charleston.
• 1819Charles Willson Peale paints Yarrow Mamout in Georgetown.
• 1828Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima is freed after about forty years.
• 1831Omar ibn Said writes his autobiography in Arabic in North Carolina.
• 1835African Muslims lead the Male revolt in Bahia, Brazil, during Ramadan. Lamine Kebe sails for Liberia.
• 1854Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua publishes his biography in Detroit.
• 1863Omar ibn Said dies in Bladen County, North Carolina.
• 1940Drums and Shadows records Sapelo Islanders’ memories of ancestors who prayed on mats and made saraka.
• 2019The Library of Congress puts the Omar Ibn Said Collection online.
• 2023The opera Omar wins the Pulitzer Prize for Music, and the International African American Museum opens in Charleston.

People

• Ayuba Suleiman Diallo about 1701 to 1773Captured in 1730 and sold in Maryland. A letter he wrote in Arabic led to his release. He was freed in England in 1733, sat for William Hoare, and sailed home in 1734.
• Yarrow Mamout about 1736 to 1823Brought to Maryland about 1752, freed about 1796, a homeowner in Georgetown by 1800. Charles Willson Peale painted him in 1819.
• Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima about 1762 to 1829A prince of Futa Jallon, captured in 1788 and enslaved for about forty years in Mississippi. Freed in 1828, he died in Liberia the next year.
• Omar ibn Said about 1770 to 1863A scholar taken to Charleston in 1807. In 1831 he wrote his life in Arabic, the only known surviving autobiography of its kind in America, opening it with verses from the Quran.
• Bilali Muhammad died about 1857Head driver on Sapelo Island, Georgia, who wrote thirteen pages of Maliki law in Arabic from memory. His descendants still live on the island.
• Lamine Kebe freed by 1834A schoolteacher enslaved for about thirty years. Before sailing for Liberia in 1835 he described the schools of his homeland to an American who wrote the account down.
• Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua born about 1824Enslaved in Brazil, he reached New York on his master’s ship in 1847, escaped with the help of antislavery friends, and published his biography in Detroit in 1854.

Words to know

Futa Toro and Futa Jallon

Regions of West Africa, in today’s Senegal, Mauritania and Guinea, that many enslaved Muslims came from.

Autobiography

A person’s life written by that person. The Library of Congress calls Omar’s, written in Arabic in 1831, the only known surviving autobiography of an enslaved person written in Arabic in America.

Head driver

An enslaved man put in charge of the work of others on a plantation. Bilali was head driver on Sapelo, over hundreds of people.

Saraka

Rice cakes made on Sapelo and given to children. The word comes from sadaqah, charity.

Moors

The name used in Europe and America for Muslims of North Africa. In 1790 four men and their wives who called themselves free Moors, subjects of the emperor of Morocco, petitioned the South Carolina House.

Primary source

Something made at the time by the people involved, such as Omar’s manuscript or Bilali’s thirteen pages.

Read together

Talk about it

1. Omar wrote his life in Arabic, a language his owners could not read. What might a person say in a language no one around them can read?See: Omar ibn Said
2. Bilali wrote pages of Islamic law from memory, decades after he left school. What do you know well enough to write down from memory?See: Sapelo Island
3. On Sapelo, grandparents made saraka for the children each year. What do your family’s customs carry from further back than anyone remembers?See: Sapelo Island
4. The chapter refuses to give a confident number for how many enslaved Africans were Muslim. Why is it honest to say “we do not know”?See: How many
5. Several of these places are in the Carolinas and Georgia. Which is closest to you, and what would you go there to see?See: Go and see

Try this

1. Read a manuscript. Open Omar ibn Said’s manuscript on the Library of Congress website and look at the first page. Even without reading Arabic, what can you tell about the person who wrote it? Then read his words in English on this site’s In their own words page.
2. Look at the portraits. On the Lives page, look at Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima and Yarrow Mamout. What did each painter or engraver choose to show? What would each man have wanted shown?
3. Give saraka. Make or bring something small to share, and give it as charity, the way Sapelo’s grandparents did.
4. Plan a visit. Choose the International African American Museum in Charleston, the Omar ibn Said marker in Fayetteville, or Sapelo Island by ferry from Meridian, Georgia, by reservation. The Carolina trail page has addresses, hours and booking details. Check them again before you go, and go as a guest.

On the atlas: Futa Toro Senegambia Charleston Georgetown County Fayetteville Sapelo Island Natchez Maryland and Georgetown Salvador, Bahia

Check yourself

1. Where was Omar ibn Said from, and in what year was he brought to Charleston?
2. In which town was Omar jailed, and what did he write on the walls?
3. In what year did Omar write his autobiography, and in what language?
4. What did Bilali Muhammad write from memory?
5. What word does saraka come from, and what does it mean?
6. Who was freed in 1828 after about forty years enslaved near Natchez?
7. What happened in Bahia in January 1835?

From The First Refuge, ferrand.africa/teach/across-the-water/. Free to print and copy for teaching.