Spiritual Wayfarers and Enslaved African Muslims: New insights into Yarrow Mamout, Muslim Slaves and American Pluralism

Summary

This paper will examine the encounter between Africa, Islam and American history in the antebellum period of the U.S from first hand accounts of enslaved Africans. Yarrow Mamout was a Muslim Fulani enslaved in 1752, and manumitted in 1796. He purchased property in Georgetown in 1800, and there is currently an archaeological investigation on his former property. Using original Arabic documents, this research explores the spirituality, literacy and religious tolerance of enslaved African Muslims in order to understand Yarrow’s plight. Arabic documentary sources also provide new interpretations of common religious symbolism, iconography, and American/Islamic visual motifs whose Arabic roots have gone unnoticed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Urban Public Archaeology of the Washington, D.C. Region   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 985