The number of interesting characters in Africa’s history pre-slavery could fill up volumes of books or populate movie theaters with Marvel-esque film franchises. Unfortunately, a lot of this history has gone unrecognized by the Western world in large part due to the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which involved the kidnapping and trafficking of millions of Africans from their homes to the New World. It’s estimated that 12.5 million captives were brought from Africa to the Americas between 1525 and 1866. That means families were forever broken, knowledge was lost, and communities were deprived of parts of their identities.
It’s worth noting that some of the entries in this section include enslaved African Americans who differ in opinion about their treatment in slavery. As you’ll read, some actually liked their owners, whereas several more disliked their masters. The differences in opinion must be put in context; some who speak of less-than-horrific experiences can only do so because they happened to have owners who were kinder than most. These types of masters, however, were the exception, and the overarching effect on slavery in the US perpetuated a system of racism that is so entrenched, we still feel its effects today.
Some slaves’ gentler accounts also have to do with the wealth and status they had before becoming enslaved. Some of the following slaves were royals in their countries of origin. As such, they might believe they were enslaved because they were wrongly thought of as being part of a lower class, not just because they were Black. As you’ll read, one formerly enslaved man even became a slave trader once he was freed and was able to return to Africa.
With that said, every slave listed below has a history that we should learn from. Regardless of their personal stances, their narratives and experiences have helped America move forward toward a more just society.
Transatlantic Survivors
Enslaved Black Americans were faced with hardship and abuse simply because of their skin. Incredibly, many were able to rise above adversity and accomplish great feats. One of those Black Americans who rose to notoriety during slavery’s grip on the country was Abdulrahman Ibrahim ibn Sori.
Sori was a prince of Fouta Djallon in Guinea and, with a command of two thousand men, was responsible for protecting Guinea’s coast and economic interests when he was captured in 1788 and enslaved in the US for forty years. His title of “Prince” became a source of petty humor for those who couldn’t believe a Black man could be royalty. Sori’s enslavement brought him to Natchez, Mississippi, and, after realizing escape was impossible, he set about earning his freedom by becoming an integral part of the life of his new master, the uneducated Thomas Foster. Thanks to Sori’s knowledge of cotton, a native crop of his home country, Foster became one of the South’s largest cotton producers. As for Sori, his power earned him limited freedom on the plantation, which allowed him to grow and sell his own vegetables.
After gaining relative freedom and building a family with his wife, Foster’s midwife Isabella, Sori was recognized by a random traveler, British surgeon John Cox. Decades before, Sori and his family had helped Cox when he was shipwrecked off the coast of Guinea. Intent on paying Sori back for his kindness, Cox made it his duty to spend the rest of his life buying back Sori’s freedom. Even though the surgeon’s efforts didn’t pan out, Sori became a celebrity due to the story, and he used his status, as well as the country’s racism, for his own advantage: he allowed America to believe he was a Moroccan citizen who was wrongly captured.
Morocco was considered different from the remainder of Africa (including West Africa, where many slaves were from). Why was America so friendly with Morocco? Because the Moroccan government was one of the first nations to recognize the US as an independent nation in the late 1700s. Sultan Sidi Muhammad Ben Abdullah extended the proverbial olive branch to create an alliance with America to establish peaceful trade. This explains why Sori felt it was in his best interest to pretend to be Moroccan; if America believed the lie, they would fear ruining trade relations—and Sori would be set free. The almighty dollar is often more powerful to the corrupt than actual human decency.
And so, out of fear of worsening the country’s relationship with Morocco, Secretary of State Henry Clay ordered for Sori’s release.
His battle to earn the release of his children proved unfruitful, and, even though he did make it to Africa—he arrived in Monrovia after his decades-long battle to return home—he died at age sixty-seven, after contracting a fever from his journey. Tragically, he never reached his homeland or saw his children again.
Thomas Peters was born Thomas Potters and was rumored to have been an African royal kidnapped and enslaved in North Carolina, but little did anyone know that he would become a founding father of an African country. Enlisted as a Black Loyalist in the Black Company of Pioneers, Peters fled his enslavement with the British during the Revolutionary War. When he arrived in Nova Scotia, Canada, he also became notable for his recruitment of Black settlers in the Canadian province to join him in establishing a colony for free Blacks in Sierra Leone, Africa, called Freetown. Freetown is now the largest city and capital of Sierra Leone.
Absalom Jones,born enslaved, founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), a denomination that is immensely popular today, with seven thousand congregations and a membership of at least 2.5 million. Jones was born into slavery in Sussex County, Delaware, and asked for help to learn how to read. With this education, his owner Benjamin Wynkoop brought him to Philadelphia to serve as a clerk and handyman in a retail store. This allowed Jones to work for himself and keep his pay. During his time as a clerk, he also attended a Quaker-run school, where he learned writing and math.
His earnings allowed him to purchase the freedom of his wife, Mary Thomas, in 1770, and he eventually earned his own freedom through manumission. During his life, he became a businessman owning several properties, and he also organized the Free African Society with his friend Richard Allen. The organization helped those in need, such as orphans, the infirm, widows, and those who needed help with burial expenses. The two were pastors and, because of their charitable efforts, increased their congregation to the point that they were able to create “The African Church,” an offshoot of the Free African Society.
Archer Alexander was a former slave who is immortalized in the Emancipation Memorial at St. Louis’s Lincoln Park. He was born into slavery in Virginia and was moved to St. Louis with his master before he was sold to another master in Missouri. He eventually became a source of information to Union troops before the Civil War, warning them that a train trestle they were looking to use was sabotaged by Confederate sympathizers. Suspected as the leak, slavers caught up with him, but he broke free and managed to escape back to St. Louis.
He became a part of writer Greenleaf Eliot’s life after his wife hired Alexander as a servant. Eliot’s personal credo said he wouldn’t return a fugitive slave to a former master, so he managed to keep Alexander safe until Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, allowing him, his wife Louisa, and one of their daughters, Nellie, to be reunited shortly before Louisa’s death. Alexander later remarried, but she, too, died one year before Alexander’s death in 1880.
While Alexander was alive, his life story as a Union spy compelled Eliot to write his biography, The Story of Archer Alexander: From Slavery to Freedom. Sculptor Thomas Ball also utilized Alexander’s visage as a model for the freed slave in the Emancipation Memorial. Here’s the story of how Alexander became the model: The Western Sanitary Commission, which helped victims of the Civil War, began a fundraising campaign to build a statue after a freed woman gave them five dollars toward building a monument to President Abraham Lincoln. As a person affiliated with the group, Eliot met with Ball about