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Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua

An Enslaved Muslim of the Black Atlantic

by (author) Paul E. Lovejoy & Nielson Bezerra

Publisher
The University of North Carolina Press
Initial publish date
Apr 2025
Category
World, African Studies, Islamic Studies, Slavery
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781469682457
    Publish Date
    Apr 2025
    List Price
    $40.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781469682440
    Publish Date
    Apr 2025
    List Price
    $133.95

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Description

A literate Muslim born between 1820 and 1830 in present-day Benin, Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua was enslaved in the interior of West Africa and forcibly moved to Brazil in 1845. He escaped from slavery when his master took him to New York City in 1847. Baquaqua then fled to Haiti where he converted to Christianity. When he eventually returned to the United States, he enrolled in New York Central College. Baquaqua published his autobiography in 1854 and traveled to Liverpool, England, with the intention of returning to Africa. He apparently achieved this goal by the early 1860s, when his paper trail disappears.

Lovejoy and Bezerra's analysis of this remarkable autobiography—the only known narrative by a former Brazilian slave—illuminates what Baquaqua's home in Africa was like, examines African slavery in mid-nineteenth-century Brazil, and offers an Atlantic perspective on resistance to slavery in the Americas in the era of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

About the authors

Paul E. Lovejoy is Distinguished Research Professor and Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History at York University. Nielson Bezerra is associate professor at Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro and director of Museu Vivo do Sao Bento.

Paul E. Lovejoy's profile page

Nielson Bezerra's profile page

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