Muslim Slaves, Immigration, & American Islamicism

Workshop Information

TAH NC participants met at UNCW for the first workshop of the year, "Muslim Slaves, Immigration, & American Islamicism."

The Content Session was led by Dr. Herbert Berg, Professor of Islam and Judaism at UNCW.

Workshop Agenda

Image: Ambrotype of Omar ibn Said. From the North Carolina Collection, Photographic Archives, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Documenting the American South. Click image to enlarge.

Resources for Omar ibn Said

• Omar ibn Said, Slave in North Carolina - Documenting the American South provides some great primary resources pertaining to Omar ibn Said, and other Muslim Slaves in America (see below). For a brief introduction to Omar ibn Said read this excerpt from Documenting the American South:

Omar Ibn Said (1770-1864), a slave and Arabic scholar, was born in Futa Toro (now a part of the Republic of Senegal) of an aristocratic Moslem family. Educated in Koranic schools, he was a teacher and tradesman for about fifteen years and purportedly made a pilgrimage to Mecca during the period 1790-1805. In 1807 he was found guilty of an unspecified crime and sold by his people, the Fulas, to an American slave trader. Taken to Charleston, S.C., Omar was among the last Africans to reach the United States prior to the outlawing of the overseas slave trade at the end of 1807. After working for two years as a slave in Charleston and on a South Carolina rice plantation, he escaped in 1810 and made his way to Fayetteville, N.C., near which he was recaptured. When efforts to find his legal owner proved unavailing, he became the property of General James Owen of Bladen County. At Owen's Cape Fear River estate called Milton, Omar was taught English and converted to the Christian religion, joining the First Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville in 1820. Read more of this introduction...

• Autobiography of Omar ibn Said, Slave in North Carolina, 1831. Ed. John Franklin Jameson. From The American Historical Review, 30, No. 4. (July 1925), 787-795.
• A short biography of Omar ibn Said from The Christian Advocate, July 1825
• An account of meeting Omar ibn Said from The African Repository and Colonial Journal July 1837
• View a sample of Omar ibn Said's Arabic handwriting
• An account of Omar ibn Said from North Carolina University Magazine September, 1854
• Portait of Omar ibn Said
• Ambrotype of Omar ibn Said
• An account of Omar ibn Said's manuscript from The Wilmington Chronicle January 27, 1847
• An account of Omar ibn Said included in David Brown's The Planter...

Resources for Other Muslim Slaves in America

• Abdul Rahman Ibrahima - From African Prince to Mississippi Slave: Abdul Rahman Ibrahima - from Documenting the American South
• Nicholas Said - Nicholas Said, 1836-1882, Enslaved African Muslim - from Documenting the American South
  • Summary of Nicholas Said's Autobiography
  • Nicholas Said's Autobiography
• Mahommah Baquaqua - Slave Narrative from Documenting the American South
  • Summary of Mahommah Baquaqua's Narrative
  • Mahommah Baquaqua's Narrative
• "Job," or Hyuba Jallo - Slave Narrative of "Job," or Hyuba Jallo from Documenting the American South
  • Summary of Hyuba Jallo's Narrrative
  • Hyuba Jallo's Narrative

Resources for Islam in America