Omar

[Jamez McCorkle in the title role of the opera “Omar,” by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels, at Spoleto Festival USA last year. Credit: Leigh Webber/Spoleto Festival USA. Offered by the New York Times]

Having read about the Atlantic slave trade quite recently, noticed at reference 1, I picked up on the piece in the latest number of the NYRB at reference 2, a piece about a slave call Omar ibn Said, enslaved as a result of a tribal war in Senegal, living to be 93, as a higher grade slave, not exactly a pet but certainly a curiosity, in North Carolina. Dying in 1863, shortly before emancipation.

The piece was primarily about an opera based on his story, but what caught my attention was the fact that he was an educated Muslim from Senegal, a class seemingly attracted to the endemic wars against non-Muslims and so apt to end up being sold to slavers. Ball suggests that as many as 10% of the 12 million or so Africans taken to the Americas might have been Muslims, with the central and southern parts taking rather more than what became the US.

I had always thought, without bothering to inquire, that black Americans converting to Islam and taking Muslim names was an affectation, a reaction against the dominant white culture - but there is clearly a bit more to it than that.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/04/out-of-africa.html.

Reference 2: Tell Your Story, Omar - Edward Ball, NYRB - 2023.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhiannon_Giddens. An interesting lady, presently to be found in Limerick.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Abels. Provided some of the musical muscle.

Reference 5: https://leighwebber.com/. For the snap above.