When few enslaved people in the United States could write, one man wrote his memoir in Arabic

The 1831 narrative by Omar ibn Said is the only known surviving slave account of its kind.

By Michael E. Ruane January 20 at 8:00 AM
As a slave, he was called “Morro” or “Uncle Moreau.”

A dignified man in his 60s, he was small in stature, unfit for hard work and had been enslaved for almost a quarter-century. He spoke limited English.

But his real name was Omar ibn Said. He had been a Muslim scholar in West Africa, where he was abducted in 1807. And in 1831, when few enslaved people in the United States could read or write, he wrote what is thought to be the only surviving slave narrative of its kind, in Arabic.

The Library of Congress announced last week that it had acquired the famous memoir, along with a trove of related documents, from a noted African American collector and posted them online.

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