The Autobiography Of Omar Ibn Said: The Only Known U.S. Slave Narrative Written In Arabic

The autobiography of Omar ibn Said, the only known narrative by an American slave written in Arabic, is now on digital display at the Library of Congress.

The manuscript and more than 40 other related documents were obtained by the library in 2017 and provide a unique perspective on the history of slavery in America.

Said was an educated Muslim man living in West Africa before he was captured by a large army and taken to the U.S., where he was sold in Charleston, South Carolina, according to Ala Alryyes, a professor at Queens College CUNY. Said escaped and ran north, where he was arrested near Fayetteville, North Carolina. He was purchased by the governor’s brother.

"His first few years of slavery in South Carolina were miserable," Alryyes tells Here & Now's Lisa Mullins, "but after he escaped, his life became easier."

Said isn’t an anomaly because he was a literate Muslim slave. In fact, Alryyes notes, it’s possible that about 10 percent of slaves in the U.S. were literate and from Muslim regions.

Alryyes says the American Colonization Society — a group that believed slaves should be manumitted and sent back to Africa — encouraged Said to write his narrative in 1831. In August of that year, Nat Turner, a slave in Virginia, led a bloody rebellion that killed as many as 60 people and instilled fear throughout the South.