Muslim Slaves in America: 1700s-1800s

Dr. Ruthie Bethea-Sholly gives a presentation of the history of Black Muslim slaves prior to the American Civil War.

Twelve million African people were kidnapped and forcibly transported to America via the infamous transatlantic slave trade, approximately 2.4 million were Black Muslims -- followers of Prophet Muhammad. Only a handful of these Black Muslims have been identified. With the help of Library of Congress documents and original plantation records, explore the pre-slavery lives, losses, brutal sufferings of enslavement and most extraordinary achievements of several Muslims enslaved in the antebellum South prior to the American Civil War. Several of these Muslim captives had been transported from their African homeland to Maryland’s state capital of Annapolis and sold into slavery.

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