Sylviane Anna Diouf

Tromelin, Indian Ocean, home of the shipwrecked Africans

Ruins of the houses

Places and people I find interesting. Subject to change...

Zumbi, maroon leader of Palmares. Salvador, Brazil

The New Africans and the Snow

May 16, 2009

Tags: illegal slave trade

Dreams of Africa in Alabama relates the last episode of the illegal slave trade to the US. Here's another striking example of the introduction of young Africans, more than three decades after the interdiction.

NEW NEGROES. The New Orleans papers, twelve or twenty days ago, gave an (more…)

Love Story

May 16, 2009

Tags: slavery, African, illegal slave trade

A simple and beautiful love story from slavery times. Robert Solomon's father had been brought to the South during the illegal slave trade. Solomon spoke his father's language and since he was born in 1864 and may have lived into the 1950s this is another example of African Americans speaking an African language less than 50 years ago, just as was the case with some of the children of the Clotilda Africans.

"My father was African.... My mother was a Cherokee Indian. Her name was Alice Gamage. I was born in 1864... [M]y father stole my mother one night. He couldn't understand them and he was afraid of her people.... When I got up any size I (more…)

Selected Works

Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America
In a tale worthy of a novelist, Sylviane Diouf provides a well-researched, nicely written, and moving account of the last slave ship to America, whose 110 captives arrived in Mobile in 1860 and, after the war, created their dream of Africa in Alabama. Howard Jones, author of Mutiny on the Amistad
Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas
Thorough and ambitious. William and Mary Quarterly
Fighting the Slave Trade: West African Strategies
Readers are presented with a wide range of evidence to show how Africans fought against slavery as well as the slave trade. Canadian Journal of History
In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience
A groundbreaking look at [the] bigger picture has been unveiled in a project called "In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience." The Washington Post
Selected Book Chapters & Articles
Invisible Muslims: The Sahelians in France* The West African Paradox* Manding in the Americas* Sadaqa Among African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas
Bintou's Braids
Bintou’s hair is short and fuzzy, but she wants beautiful braids “with gold coins and seashells” like the big girls, but everyone says no. The New York Times
Kings and Queens of Africa
Young readers will enjoy this fascinating look at [some] brave leaders. Children's Literature
Growing Up in Slavery
Destroys the stereotype of the happy, ignorant slave child. Booklist

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