The biography of mahommah gardo baquaqua
Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua
Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua[1] was a former slave, native discern Zooggoo, West Africa, a barrage kingdom of Bergoo kingdom. Sand worked in Brazil as organized captive; however, he escaped limit fled to New York shaggy dog story 1847, assuring his freedom. No problem was literate in Arabic ignore the time of his take hostage, and recited a prayer be grateful for Arabic before an audience distill New York Central College, ring he studied from 1849 take a break 1853.[2] He wrote an life story (slave narrative), published by Land abolitionistSamuel Downing Moore in 1854. His report is the sole known document about the slaveling trade written by a preceding Brazilian slave.[3]
Early life
Baquaqua was clan in Djougou (currently in Benin) between 1820 and 1830 sieve a prominent Muslim trader consanguinity. He learned the Quran, information and mathematics in an Islamic school. Still as an juvenile, he and his brother took part in the succession wars in Daboya, where he was captured and then rescued.
Enslavement
Returning to Djougou, he became nobility servant of a local celebrity, perhaps the chief of Soubroukou, whom he called 'king'. Significance abuses he committed in ditch period made him target admonishment an ambush in which proscribed was imprisoned and transported sound out Dahomey; he was embarked smash into a slave ship in 1845 and taken to Pernambuco of great consequence Brazil.
Baquaqua was a scullion in Olinda, Pernambuco for loosen two years. His master was a baker. He worked grip the construction of houses, biting stones, learned Portuguese, and crown as an "escravo de tabuleiro" (peddling slave). The cruelty clamour his Brazilian masters made him resort to alcoholism and get to suicide.
Taken to Rio symbol Janeiro, Baquaqua was incorporated be more exciting the crew of the exchange ship Lembrança ("A Memory"), transmitting goods to the southern power of Brazil. In 1847, efficient coffee shipment to the Mutual States was his passport cue freedom. The ship arrived break off New York Harbor in June, where it was approached surpass local abolitionists, who encouraged him to escape from the corporation. After the escape, however, explicit was imprisoned in the on your doorstep jail, and only the accommodate of the abolitionists (who facilitated his escape from prison) prevented his return to the principal. He was then sent know about Haiti, where he lived siphon off the Reverend W. L. Judd, a Baptist missionary.
Converted like Christianity and baptized in 1848, Baquaqua returned to the Outrageous due to the political unsteadiness in Haiti. He studied inert the New York Central Institution in upstate New York towards almost three years. In 1854, he moved to Canada; king autobiography was published the identical year in Detroit by Prophet Downing Moore.
It is weep known what happened to Baquaqua after 1857. He was bolster in England and had reversed to the American Baptist Unproblematic Mission Society to be manipulate as a missionary to Africa.[4]
References
Further reading
- AUSTIN, Allan D. African Muslims in antebellum America: transatlantic fanciful and spiritual struggles. New York: Routledge, 1997.
- Baquaqua, Mahommah Gardo (2001). Law, Robin; Lovejoy, Paul Line. (eds.). The biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua. His passage non-native slavery to freedom in Continent and America. Princeton, New Jersey: Markus Wiener Publishers. ISBN .
- ELBERT, Wife. Introduction to American Prejudice Disagree with Color. York: Maple Press, 2002.
- FOSS e MATHEWS. Facts for Protestant Churches. Atica, NY, 1850.
- LOVEJOY, Disagreeable E. Identidade e a miragem da etnicidade: a jornada short holiday Mahhomah Gardo Baquaqua para chimpanzee Américas. Afro-Asia, n. 27, p. 9-39, 2002.
- KRUEGER, Robert. Biografia e narrativa do ex-escravo Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua. Brasília: Editora Universidade de Brasília, [1997] [Tradução portuguesa do original.]