Other Shores: a study pack

Part two: the handout

VIII. Other Shores

Not every African Muslim carried across the water came ashore in the Carolinas. Some landed in the Spanish islands, in Jamaica and Trinidad, and in Brazil, where they wrote in Arabic, petitioned to go home, and in Bahia rose in arms.

The story in brief

1. At Christmas at the beginning of the year 1522, by Oviedo’s reckoning, about twenty enslaved men on Hispaniola, most of them Wolof, rose against the admiral, Diego Colón. In 1526 a Spanish royal order forbade sending enslaved Wolof to the Indies.
2. Abu Bakr al-Siddiq was born in Timbuktu and educated at Jenne. Taken in war as a boy, he spent about twenty-seven years enslaved in Jamaica, keeping his owner’s accounts in Arabic.
3. In 1834 the magistrate R. R. Madden helped him buy his freedom, and he wrote the story of his life in Arabic.
4. Muhammad Kaba, born into a Muslim family in the Mandingo country, was held fifty-six years on one estate. He and Abu Bakr wrote to each other in Arabic in 1834.
5. In Trinidad, Jonas Mohammed Bath led a Mandingo society that saved money to buy enslaved Mandingos their freedom. In 1838 twelve Mandingo men asked to be sent home to Africa, and signed in Arabic.
6. On the night of 24 to 25 January 1835, at the end of Ramadan, Muslims led a rising of enslaved and freed Africans in Salvador, Bahia. It was put down, and the punishments were heavy.
7. In 1865 or 1866 a storm brought an Ottoman imam, Abd al-Rahman al-Baghdadi, to Brazil, where he met its African Muslims.

Dates

• 1522About twenty enslaved men of Diego Colón, most of them Wolof, rise on Hispaniola, as Oviedo records.
• 1526A Spanish royal order forbids sending enslaved Wolof, people from the Levant, or anyone raised among Moors to the Indies.
• 1777Muhammad Kaba Saghanughu is taken from West Africa to Jamaica.
• 1834In Kingston, Jamaica, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq of Timbuktu is freed and writes his life in Arabic.
• 1835African Muslims lead the Male revolt in Bahia, Brazil, during Ramadan. Lamine Kebe sails for Liberia.
• 1838Twelve Mandingo men in Trinidad petition to be sent home to Africa, and Muhammad Kaba writes an Arabic-script address for emancipation in Jamaica.
• 1865 or 1866An Ottoman imam, Abd al-Rahman al-Baghdadi, is brought to Brazil by a storm and meets its African Muslims.

People

• Muhammad Kaba Saghanughu about 1757 to after 1838Born into a Muslim family in the Mandingo country, he was taken to Jamaica in 1777 and held on one estate for more than fifty years. In 1834 he wrote to Abu Bakr al-Siddiq in Arabic, and in 1838 he wrote an address for emancipation in English words spelled in Arabic letters.
• Abu Bakr al-Siddiq born about 1794Born in Timbuktu and educated at Jenne, he was taken in war in his fourteenth year and spent about twenty-seven years in Jamaica, where he kept his owner’s accounts in Arabic. Freed in 1834, he wrote his life in Arabic and set out for home with an English traveler, who was murdered in the desert. What became of him is not known.
• Jonas Mohammed Bath nineteenth centuryA Mandingo who, enslaved, helped build Fort George at Port of Spain. He led the Muslim Mandingos of Trinidad, who saved to buy each other’s freedom, and petitioned to take his people home to Africa.
• Pacífico Licutan Salvador, 1835An aged and respected Muslim leader of Salvador, whose Muslim name was Bilal. He was held in the City Hall prison for his master’s debts when the revolt of January 1835 began, and the rebels attacked the prison to free him. He escaped the death sentence and was condemned to a thousand lashes.
• Abd al-Rahman al-Baghdadi in Brazil 1865 or 1866An imam of the Ottoman navy whom a storm brought to Brazil. He came to know the enslaved and free Muslims of African descent there, tried to teach them Islam as he understood it, and wrote an account of all he saw.

Words to know

Wolof

A people of Senegambia, in West Africa, and their language. Spanish writers of the 1500s wrote the name as gelofes or jolophes.

Mandingo

The name these records use for the Mandinka and related peoples of West Africa, many of them Muslims.

Ajami

Writing a language other than Arabic in Arabic letters, as Muhammad Kaba wrote English in 1838.

Manumission

The legal act by which an enslaved person is set free.

Apprenticeship

In the British colonies, the years of unpaid labor that came between the end of slavery in 1834 and full freedom in 1838.

Malê

A name for the African Muslims of Bahia, from Ìmàle, a Yoruba word for Muslim.

Memorial

A formal written request to a government, signed by the people who make it.

Read together

Talk about it

1. Abu Bakr kept his owner’s accounts in Arabic, and was valued so highly that his owner would not sell him. What did his learning give him, and what did it cost him?See: A scholar of Timbuktu
2. Muhammad Kaba had become a Christian, yet his letter opens in the name of God with a blessing on the Prophet. What might the two men have meant to each other?See: Letters in Arabic
3. The official translation of Kaba’s 1838 address left out his words about suffering. Why might that have happened, and why does it matter that we can read them now?See: Letters in Arabic
4. The Mandingos of Trinidad saved to buy each other’s freedom. What does that tell you about the community they made?See: The Mandingos of Trinidad
5. The court that sentenced the rebels of 1835 now publishes its own history of the revolt. What changes when an institution tells the story of its own past?See: Bahia, 1835

Try this

1. Follow the records. On the atlas, choose The Caribbean and find Hispaniola, Kingston and Port of Spain; then find Salvador, Bahia. Use the chapter to write one line about what happened at each.
2. Read a picture from 1838. Look at the picture of Spanish Town on August 1, 1838, in the chapter. Who is in the crowd, and who is on the steps? Muhammad Kaba wrote his address for that day. What might he have wanted the governor to hear?
3. Two numbers, one revolt. The historian João José Reis puts the rebels of Bahia at close to six hundred; the court’s account says about fifteen hundred. Why might two careful sources disagree, and what would you need to know to decide?

On the atlas: Hispaniola Kingston Port of Spain Salvador, Bahia

Check yourself

1. Where was Abu Bakr al-Siddiq born, and where was he educated?
2. In what language did Abu Bakr keep his owner’s accounts?
3. What did Muhammad Kaba write for the end of slavery in 1838?
4. What did twelve Mandingo men of Trinidad ask for in 1838?
5. When did the revolt in Salvador, Bahia, begin, and who led it?
6. What did the Spanish order of 1526 forbid?

From The First Refuge, ferrand.africa/teach/other-shores/. Free to print and copy for teaching.