freysmith

When trying to comprehend the awful legacy of slavery, most modern people have pointed out that Africans were just as much a part of the slave trade as Europeans were.  This is a significant misconception that has a historic basis—in that historically this was a misconception in the past, as well.  Rather than taking all of the blame, European slave traders allowed themselves to believe that they were only a minor part in the entire African trade of guns and goods for slaves.  After all, if the Africans were willingly giving up “their own people,” what was happening with the slave trade was not entirely wrong.  The story of one individual in this cultural melee provided important insight into this question.  Did Africans send “their own people” into slavery?           

Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (also know, in the west, as Job ben Soloman), son of a prominent Muslim cleric (or Marabout) from the Senegambia region of Africa, was the central player in a very unique transatlantic transaction.  Ayuba was born in 1703 among the Fula (or Fulani) people in an area called Bondou.  He was born into a very wealthy, literate, and pious household.  As an adult, Ayuba’s household included, “two wives, three children, a substantial herd of cattle, and a large retinue of slaves.”(Campbell, p. 2) The journey that Ayuba made was not one that would have been unfamiliar to him—it’s just that he wouldn’t have expected to be on the other end of the tether.  Ayuba’s home region was one that had not originally seen a large role in the transatlantic slave trade—most European traders, who were in Senegambia when he was born, were more interested in trading European wares for gum (a by-product of the sap of Acacia trees) found in the region.  However, by the 1730’s upheavals in the area led to an increase in slave trading in that region.  Unfortunately, for Ayuba, this was just when he happened to take on a trading mission for his father. 

Ayuba was supposed to bring some items, as well as two slaves to the English ship, the Arabella in order to trade for paper.  Paper “was precious to Marabouts, whose income chiefly derived from the sale of gris gris, tiny slips of paper inscribed with Koranic verses, which were packed in leather pouches and worn as talismans.” (ibid, p. 2) Ayuba was not new to such dealings; however this trade ended in a unique situation for Ayuba.  When Ayuba was not able to settle on an agreeable price with the ship’s captain, a man named Pike, he sent some members of his entourage back to his father—a 200 mile overland journey.  While awaiting their return, Ayuba and his interpreter, a Fula man by the name of Loumein Yoai, ventured across the Gambia into the Mandingoe territory.

Once they reached a town the men succeeded in trading their slaves for twenty-eight head of cattle.  They then set out for their home, unaware that they were followed by a group of Mandinke men. At a resting point they made the mistake of setting down their arms (swords and pistols), they were promptly captured.  They were brought back to the Arabella, this time in captivity.  Their heads and beards were shaved in order to make them look like prisoners, and they were promptly sold to Captain Pike.  Pike, who recognized his quarry, did allow Ayuba to attempt to redeem himself through his father.  However, Pike did not feel it necessary to wait long and left before the ransom (a shipment of slaves) arrived. 

After months of surviving the harsh “Middle Passage,” Ayuba arrived in Annapolis—there he was auctioned off to a planter named Tolsey.  The shock of the passage was too much for Ayuba, however, and he languished at a number of tasks set out by his new master.  In despair, with no means of communicating with anyone around him, Ayuba ran away.  After just a few days Ayuba was captured and brought to a local jail.  It is, surprisingly, in this jail that Ayuba’s luck began to change.  The jail, next door to a local tavern, became a scene of mirth for local onlookers, curious about the strange new African held there.  Luckily, for Ayuba, one of the onlookers was a local attorney, Thomas Bluett.  Bluett decided that this man was no common slave, and attempted to find out what he could about Ayuba.  Part of the reasoning, according to Bluett, was that Ayuba struck him as a man of means and bearing.  Part of this reaction may have also had something to do with the fact that Fula people were part of a legacy of cross marriages between the Berber people, to the north.  This left the Fula people with tawny skin and curly hair—quite unlike the dark skin and crinkly hair of most enslaved Africans.  In an attempt to communicate, Ayuba jotted down a few lines of Arabic, amazingly which could be interpreted by an old African slave in the neighborhood.  After discovering Ayuba’s tale Bluett (with the permission of Ayuba’s new master, Tolsey) encouraged Ayuba to write to his father, in Africa, in order to redeem himself. 

The letter, unfortunately, did not make it to Africa—however it did find its way to London were it was viewed by James Oglethorpe.  Oglethorpe, (a philanthropist and founder of the colony of Georgia—which did not legalize slavery until 1750) immediately posted a bond for the purchase of Ayuba.  Ayuba then found himself on a ship bound for England, with Thomas Bluett as his tutor.  He did not meet Oglethorpe (who had left for Georgia), but he was quickly adopted by the English gentry.  It was at this point that Bluett penned the narrative of Job ben Soloman.  While being feted in London, Ayuba was made an honorary member of The Gentlemen’s Society of Spalding, an association to which Isaac Newton and Alexander Pope belonged.  He was also introduced to the Royal Family, whereupon Queen Caroline presented him with a watch.  While in London Ayuba forged many friendships which would last his lifetime—he also forged a business partnership with the Royal Africa Company.  The Royal Africa Company, which received its charter in 1672, was the main company from which enslaved Africans were transported to the new world. 

After a year in England, Ayuba boarded a Royal African Company slave ship to return to Africa—an amazing journey came full circle, first transported out of Africa with nothing but his clothes, then brought back on the same kind of ship carrying presents (including paper).  In a good faith gesture, the Royal African Colony began a new policy in the enslavement of Muslim Africans.  Any Muslim slave acquired by the company would be given the chance to “redeem themselves upon paying two other good slaves for one.”(ibid, p. 7)

 Once home, Ayuba began a career with the Royal Africa Company.  One of the first actions in his redemptive freedom was the purchase of a female slave (and two horses). On the face of it, this story would seem unbelievable to a modern reader.  Once redeemed, Ayuba seemed to have committed a most hypocritical action.  Instead of berating his former enslavers, he worked for them.  At this juncture the modern reader has truly traveled to that foreign country of “the past.”  Our modern sensibilities do not allow us to understand how a man who received an unexpected freedom could act in such a way.  In light of Ayuba’s actions, one might say that what we did in the West was not so bad, given the fact that Ayuba enslaved one of “his own people” (before and after his own enslavement).  This view, however, is (and was) erroneous.  Ayuba had not enslaved someone he would have viewed as an equal—he would have justified his actions in exactly the same way Europeans justified their own.  If you compare earlier forms of slavery to the system Ayuba was used to, you find many similarities.  The most common facet in historic bondage was the idea of enchaining “the other.”  The Hebrew were not Egyptians, The Egyptians were not Roman, John Smith was not Turkish, etc…  In the time period in which Ayuba was first enslaved, this was the common viewpoint of the European slave trader—the African was, in general, an “other”.  The perception that we use today, encapsulates all Africans as a group that allowed themselves to sell “their own” to others in slavery.  This again, is not exactly as it truly was.  Our views today are actually an “artifact of the centuries long encounter between Africa and the West.”(ibid, p. 10)   Our views would have made little sense to Ayuba.

European traders in Africa truly understood a great many of the complexities of the continent, they also understood how to press these differences to their own advantage.  The gun that Ayuba set down before he was captured was highly symbolic—it was brought to Africa by European traders as a means to assist different Africans with the capture of “others.” The Africa of the past (and today) was a “dizzyingly diverse continent, with more than two thousand mutually unintelligible languages and a virtually infinite array of ethnic, political, and religious identities and rivalries.”(ibid, p. 10)   The men who sold Ayuba were not his people, the woman he bought was not from his culture, and the Africans who assisted the Europeans in the slave trade were not selling “their own people.” 

This story is important in that it provides insight into what happened in the transatlantic slave trade.  If we look at the African leg of the journey in the light of people selling “their own”, we continue to use a historically racist point of view.  If we begin to understand that the story is much more complex, we could start to understand a truly thorny and tragic point of history.

 Sources: 

Campbell, James T.  Middle Passages. The Penguin Press, New York 2006

Painter, Nell Irvin.  Creating Black Americans:  African-American History and It’s Meanings, 1619 to the Present.  Oxford University Press, US 2006

2009-03-1111:06:33 

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