Introduction: The Slave Trade and the Arrival of Islam
Islam in North America is now a fact and the three million Muslims living in this part of the world provide definite proof of its establishment in the pluralistic democratic societies of Canada and the United States.
The history of this religion can be traced back several centuries. There are scholars who believe that the earliest encounters of Islam with the New World predate the age of Columbus. Working on certain literary fragments of Arab writers of pre-Columbian times, in western Sudan, these scholars maintained that an expedition was outfitted and sent out by Abu Bakr and Mansa Kankan Musa who ruled the ancient empire of Mali. This hypothesis about pre-Columbian Muslim arrival in the New World was also supported by Harvard University Professor Leo Wiener, who argued in the 1920s that Arabo-Islamic and Mande influences began during this period. Instead of relying on Arabic literary fragments to develop his case for a pre-Columbian Muslim arrival in the New World, Leo Wiener based his conclusions on linguistic evidence derived from an analysis of the languages in Mexico and areas of Mande peoples in West Sudan. Though Wiener wrote a longer study arguing his point, he failed to convince the mainstream American historians. To most of these scholars, the arrival of Islam dates back to the slave trade when many African Muslims began to arrive on the American shores. Allan D. Austin has done an excellent job of bringing together all the available literary fragments which deal with the life and experiences of Muslim slaves in North America. This work shows that many of the Muslims who came to America were literate and had some knowledge of the Qur’an and Islamic teachings. Apart from the much celebrated Kunta Kinteh whose saga has been fictionalised and immortalised by his descendant, Alex Haley, there were men like Ayub Ibn Sulayman Diallo, Yarrow Mamout (which should read Yorro Mahmud), Muhammad Bah and others whose stories were recorded by contemporary writers.The case of Yorro Mahmud is a good example and illustration of the life and condition of some of the Muslim slaves who came to America. Although Allan D. Austin has given us a useful account ofhis life and times, as described in the diary of Charles Willson Peale, my research has led me to the State of Maryland archival data which confirmed the existence of one Yarro (most probably our Yorro Mahmud) who was freed on 22 August 1796 by Upton Beall (not Bell as stated in Allan Austin’s volume). This state document also reveals that assessments for Georgetown, 1809-19, listed negro Yorrow as a tax payer. An examination of the records at the National Archives should tell us which land in Georgetown was owned by Yorro Mahmud.
Another interesting piece of information about Yorro is the order of manumission which he asked his owner to write. In the State of Maryland archival record entitled Montgomery County LRG no. 385 (1796), Yorro’s master, Upton Beall, wrote the following:
At the request of Yorro the following manumission is recorded this 22nd day of August 1796 to wit know all men by these presents [sic] that I Upton Beall of Montgomery County and State of Maryland do manumit and set free negro Yorro from this day forward to act for himself as a free man in all things given under my hand and seal this 22nd day of August, anno domini seventeen hundred and ninety six
Upton Beall Clerk
What is striking about this order of manumission is the fact that the executor was not the Clerk of Court at the time. Yet, in looking into the will of this former slave master, we find that he freed two blacks listed simply as Mary and Hope.
From the limited data given in Charles Willson Peale’s diary, we now know that Yorro was a pious and devout Muslim who abstained from the consumption of pork and alcohol. He was said always to be an industrious hard-working man. He saved up his money and bought property in Georgetown, although he lost his first savings of one hundred dollars when the young merchant to whom he had entrusted it went bankrupt.
This event did not make him despair. Rather he opened an account with the Columbia Bank and managed to save up to 200 dollars. It was with this money that he purchased land in Georgetown.In looking at the Islamic experience during the slave trade, one finds that Yorro Mahmud’s biography provides much food for thought and comparative analysis. His experience in Maryland shows how a young African Muslim got sold into slavery in the Americas in the 1720s and then worked his way to freedom almost seventy-six years later. Assuming that Yorro was a boy of fourteen when he landed in the US, he would have been ninety years old when Upton Beall signed his order of manumission. However, if Yorro was really aged thirty-four years instead of fourteen as his owners and their friends believed, then he was 133 years old when he sat for the portrait for Peale.
Equally fortunate but much more lucky in terms of ultimate relationship with slavery in America was Ayub Ibn Sulayman Diallo, the Bun du prince who was captured and brought to America as a slave in 1730. Prince Ayub’s saga is quite a story. Being fluent in Arabic and well grounded in Qur’anic studies, he impressed many people around him. He tried to escape several times but without success. However, once his master knew of his religious background he decided to let Ayub practise his religion with greater ease. Taking advantage of his less oppressive situation he wrote a letter in Arabic to his father asking that he be ransomed. This was not to happen until 1733, when all arrangements were finalised and he set sail for England. There he was well received and he had the opportunity to associate with British royalty. From England Prince Ayub found his way back to Bundu.
Another Muslim whose experience is useful to the student of the Islamic movement in America is Abdur Rahman. Son of Ibrahima Sori Mawdo, second Almamy of the Futa Jallon, this African Muslim member of a Fulbe ruling class became a slave in nineteenth-century America.
His story is told in Terry Alford’s Prince Among Slaves (1977). Dr Austin’s study, African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Sourcebook (Garland Publishing Company, New York, 1984), provides the sources from which Alford started his study. What is interesting about Abdur Rahman (erroneously Anglicised as Abdul Rahahman) is that he managed to escape the humiliations of American slavery through the assistance of Americans who had had contact with him and his family in Africa. Like Diallo, he was captured as a young man in his mid-twenties. Like Diallo also, he kept his faith in Islam throughout his stay in America. What is, however, striking about Abdur Rahman was the drama surrounding his release from American captivity. Having been recognised and identified by Dr Cox in Natchez, Mississippi, Abdur Rahman was the subject of many efforts by his friends to set him free. Before Dr Cox passed away in 1816 he had not only befriended the young Fula prince, but had also made a number of people aware of his plight. In October 1826, Abdur Rahman, outraged by a heartless decision to sell his daughter, sent a letter in Arabic to the Sultan of Morocco asking for his assistance. This Muslim ruler intervened on behalf of Abdur Rahman and the American President obliged. This led to the ransom and freedom of Abdur Rahman. He secured his manumission from Mr Thomas Forster, who accepted no official remuneration but insisted on the condition that Abdur Rahman return to Africa. This man, who had arrived in America in his mid-twenties, served for almost forty years as a slave before his departure at the age of sixty-five. The tragedy of this Muslim prince’s life was that at the moment of liberation, he found himself free but members of his family were still in slavery. He succeeded in securing the freedom of his wife but failed to carry with him other members of his family. This certainly was a blow and the poor man died on his way to an historical reunion with his long-lost kin in Futa Jallon.Besides these three remarkable Muslim slaves, there were others who were neither as lucky as Ayub and Abdur Rahman who returned to Africa, nor fortunate enough to gain freedom for the rest of their days in America. But regardless of this fundamental difference between the ‘fortunate slaves’ and the ‘condemned slaves’, the fact remains that these early Muslims in North America heralded the rise of Islam in American society. Though none of them left descendants who practise Islam, the legacy and history of their battle to remain Muslim on American soil now serve as a source of inspiration to Afro-Americans who flock to the Islamic caravan.