Muslim Slaves: 19th-century Arabic signatures & Documents at HSP

During the 18th and 19th centuries, a number of travelers would visit the United States from the Near or Middle East, such as "Sheick Shedid Allhazar," (usually referred to simply as 'Sheick Sidi'), said to have been an 'Emir' or Prince of Syria, who visited New York & Pennsylvania, and was said to have received from the Society of Friends, "one hundred pistoles," during his Philadelphia visit in 1739.

A strange undated, undeciphered document of unknown origin, is found within the papers of Samuel Clarke Perkins (1828-1903), written partially in the Farsi dialect of Persian or Iranian, and including selections as well from the Quran, written in Arabic.

(Samuel Clarke Perkins Collection: #494, 'Miscellaneous Undated File & Folder')








A number of slaves in bondage within the United States during the 19th-century, had originally been of the Islamic faith, and were literate. One such famous individual of which much has been written, was Abduhl Rahman, who was freed under the express directions of Pres. John Quincy Adams and his Secretary of State, Henry Clay, in 1828.

Abdulrahman Ibrahim Ibn Sori had been taken in battle at the age of 26 and sold into slavery, eventually arriving in the Americas, where he served in bondage on a plantation at Natchez, Mississippi. Known by the honorific, 'Prince of Slaves,' Rahman had been educated in the famed city of Timbuctoo in Mali, West Africa.

After gaining his freedom, Rahman would make his way to Philadelphia on the way to Liberia, celebrating the New Year's celebration of 1829 in the city, as recorded by Henry Clay in his diary. A PBS documentary has been produced about the 'Prince,' as well as the biography published by Terry Alford entitled, 'Prince Among Slaves,' now available in paperback.

Two fascinating hand-written notes in Arabic, penned personally by the 'Prince of Slaves,' are found at The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, within the Simon Gratz & John F. Watson collections of manuscripts, the latter giving significant biographical detail on Abduhl Rahman's life, who would later die in 1829 at Monrovia, in Liberia.

('Abduhl Rahhaman', 'Simon Gratz Collection, Alphabetical Series, September 1, 1828)

('Abduhl Rahahman', John F. Watson's 'Annals of Philadelphia,' Mss. Am .301, Vol.1 (1829): 130)




One "autograph of a slave of General Owen," of Wilmington, North Carolina, was the son of an Arabian merchant, sold into slavery. He later became a Christian while enslaved in the United States, and was known locally as "old Uncle Monroe" by many who came to know him. This is also a part of the Simon Gratz Collection at HSP.

('Arabian,' Simon Gratz Collection, Alphabetical Series)

The Arabic texts and accounts of the lives of the above individuals, are another example of the rich and diverse materials which may be found, within the manuscript collections at The Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Red Man's Squaw: The Return of White Female Captives & their Native-American Children

Captivity narratives abound in early Colonial and post-Colonial American history. Numerous European women were captured by Native-American tribesmen for centuries, some adapting or assimilating within Indian culture, others successfully escaping bondage and thus returning to family & friends, while a few, after long abscences, were ill-received by husband, father or kin, since they had become 'with child,' by their former captors.

A requirement of the Native-Americans in 1764, after their defeat during the 'French & Indian War,' was to return all their 'white captives,' "even their own Children born from White Women." Col. Henry Bouquet would comment that same year, how he had received some 200 captives, "including the Children Born from White Women married to Savages which I have obliged them to give up." (see, Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, Vol.9: 207; Henry Bouquet to Sir William Johnson, Nov. 15, 1764)

One such captive and her daughter, were part of the family of Johan Adam Buss, all of which had been captured by the Cayuga Indians on November 6th, 1756, at Maxatawny, in Albany or Allemangel Township, in what was then Northampton County, Pennsylvania.

('List of all the People Killed...' Conrad Weiser Papers, HSP)

According to the 'baptismal records' of the 'New Bethel' or Corner Church, of Albany Township, Berks County, PA, 'Anna Eva,' a child of Adam Buss & Mariah Sarah Gerhart, had been born in 1756 during her mother's captivity, but another child, named Maria Sarah Buss, was "born in heathenism by her mother Mariah Sarah and an Indian father on....1762." After her mother's return from captivity, the child would be baptized into the Christian faith on October 4th, 1767.

Johan Adam Buss had believed his wife had died while in captivity, and when his wife Maria Sarah returned, she found her husband had remarried.

This was not an isolated case. Catherine Jager, the daughter of Cunigunda & Baltis Yager (or Yeager), of Lynn Township, Northampton County, had been taken captive in 1756, at the age of nine.

Cunigunda Jager declares in a petition to the Pennsylvania Assembly, dated for June 4th, 1766, that her daughter had remained a prisoner among the Indians until "after the last Treaty of Peace with the Indians, when she, with others, was delivered up to Sir William Johnson," and furthermore that she had paid a man to bring her daughter back to her, in the sum of ten pounds, a sum which she had borrowed.

Mrs. Jager describes herself as "a very poor widow," and her daughter as "a very unhappy young Woman, having spent in the Indian idlenesss those Days of her Life...and is now unable to support herself; and what makes her misfortune still greater, she has a Child by an Indian Man, for which other young Women look upon her with Contempt and Derision..."

(PA Archives, Vol.VII: 5883)

Cunigunda Jager asked for "the Support of her unfortunate Daughter, with her innocent Babe." The court agreed, and by September of 1767, she was receiving support in the amount of "Fifteen Pounds."

As revealed in the historical fiction of Conrad Richter's famous works, A Light in the Forest and A Country of Strangers, along with Walter D. Edmond's (author of Drums Along the Mohawk), short-story, 'Dygartsbush,' the adjustment of returning White captives to their former homes and families, was not without stress, nor often trajedy.

However, as with so many topics and events in the past, be it 'Native American Heritage Month' or otherwise, such individuals as those above, all come together in creating what has become both Pennsylvania and 'America's History' in general, truly a unique and fascinating 'tapestry of tales.'