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GOSPELS
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Robert W. Woodruff
Library
EMORY UNIVERSITY
Special Collections & Archives
THE GOSPELS,
WRITTEN IN TIIE NEGRO PATOIS OF
ENGLISH,
WITH ARABIC CHARACTERS,
it £taue in (Sforjgia.
At a regular Meeting of the Ethnological So¬
ciety of New York, on thelSth of October,
1857, the following paper was read
is §. J)0!&p0K, 0f Sstoraft.
The manuscript, in Arabic characters, which I
now submit to this Society, is entirely unique,
and for the ethnologist, it has a peculiar inter¬
est. With my present information, it is the
only attempt ever made by a native African
Mohammedan, to use the letters of the Koran,
the first book of his religious instruction, in
transcribing the Gospel, the book of his second
instruction and conversion, and in the adopted
dialect of his land of captivity. The Moors in
4
Spain, present an analogy to this intellectual
process. The Ghristianos nuevo-s, or converted
Mussulmans, wrote the Scriptures with Arabic
characters, in the Spanish language; and
among the Mostarabes, or Christian vassals,
there were some converted to Islam, who wrote
the Koranic liturgy, with Gothic letters. There
are many manuscripts of this kind, now in the
Escurial at Madrid. I have one in my posses¬
sion. At one period of the Moorish domina¬
tion in Spain, the rival dynasties of the Almo-
ravides and Almohades, expelled the whole
mass of the Christian Mostarabes, into Africa.
The expulsion of the Moors from Spain, by the
third Philip, was prompted by the same policy.
We are assured on the authority of Sparven.
feld, that there existed among these Christian
exiles in Africa, a catechism, grammar and
dictionary, written with Gothic characters in
the Arabic language. In this case, the Spanish
Christians, had adopted the language of the
Conqueror.
5
The writer of the present manuscript, whose
Christian or American name was London, was,
I believe, a Mandingo. I have failed, however,
to obtain correct information of his origin and
early history. His master, Mr. Maxwell, of
Savannah, having removed with this faithful
servant to Florida, the enquiry could not be
pursued. To the courtesy of Mr. Maxwell's
family, I am now indebted, for this manuscript,
which after the decease ot London, was placed
in my hands. Besides these chapters of the
Gospels, it is evidence of London's piety and
the truth of his Christian confession, that he
had written a book of hymns, with Arabic let¬
ters. This has not been preserved.
There have been several educated Moham¬
medan negroes imported into the United States,
as slaves. They fell victims to the fortunes of
war, and to the law of nations as established by
themselves. In Soudan, where three fourths of
all the inhabitants are slaves, captivity and sla¬
very must be the law, of general acceptation.
6
In the early part of the last century, Prince
Job, a Mohammedan Foolah,.was liberated at
Annapolis, Maryland, and sent back to his
own land by the British Government. Being
a man in authority, he very soon adopted meas¬
ures to avenge the wrongs which he had en¬
dured in captivity. In the year 1835, Abd-er-
rachman, or Prince Paul, as he was here called,
was liberated by his master in Mississippi, and
conveyed to Liberia, under the auspices of the
Colonization Society, where he soon after died*
Abd-er-rachman professed to be allied to the
reigning family in Timbucto. In consonance
with the general assumption of the powerful,
warlike nation of Foolahs, he indignantly re¬
pelled all imputation of negro blood in his
veins. All travellers and missionaries concur
in attributing to this conquering race, and foun¬
ders of empire, intellectual and physical supe¬
riority. I have in my possession, an Arabic let¬
ter of Abd-er:rachman.
The Foolah African Omar, or Moro, as he is
?
familiarly called, is still living at Wilmington,
North. Carolina. Betwixt himself and his in¬
dulgent master, Governor Owen, there has not
existed other, than the relation of patron and
client. If the negro paradise is found in ex¬
emption from labor, Omar, with many others
of his Southern brethren, has already entered
its portals. He has rejected advantageous of-
ers to return to Africa. " White mon catchee
one time; no catchem two time." Being de¬
sirous of investigating the philologic question
of the Foolahs, which has long interested science,
I offered him liberal pay and maintenance, to
place himself under my protection, for a limited
time. He declined the offer, and I suffered the
ban of the " white mon." Omar is a good
Arabic writer, and reads the Bible in that lan¬
guage, with some correctness and intelligence. I
have received letters from him in that language,
expressing grateful sentiments towards his mas¬
ter, very creditable to his nature.
A biographic sketch of another Mohamme-
8
dan Fool ah. slave, Bul-ali (Ben-ali), may be found
in my " notes on Northern Africa" published
some years ago. This Mohammedan, the trust¬
worthy servant of Mr. Spalding of Sapelo Island,
Georgia, died recently, at an advanced age. He
adhered to the creed and to the precepts of the
Koran. He wrote Arabic, and read his sacred
book with constancy and reverence. It is un¬
derstood, that his numerous descendants, who
are Christians, buried him with the Koran,
resting on his breast. He left various written
papers, supposed to be ritual, which, I hope,
may be preserved. There is, however, on this
subject, a great superstition and reverent secre-
tiveness among his race. This sentiment, is
still a great advance, in intellectual and religious
progress, beyond the Obi practices and fetish
worship, of the Pagan negroes early imported
into this country, and of which traditional traces
may still be discovered.
Among my own servants is an excellent and
worthy Foolab, now at an advanced age, as are
9
all of the early imported Africans, who still
survive. He neither writes nor reads, never
having had in his own country the instruction
of the Moorish maalim. Among his fellow
servants, there are still living some Mandingoes,
Eboes, Goulahs and Guinea people. The same
ethnographic diversities and conditions exist
on most of the hereditary plantations of our
Southern coast.
The manuscript of London is remarkable
for precision in the use of the vowel points—
harckat of the Arabic grammar. This fact is
to be noticed, as none of the African letters
just mentioned, bear the vowel points. I infer
from this, that as London was accustomed to
use them, in making copies from the Koran,
with the same reverential sentiment, he used
the vowel points, in copying the Bible of his
adopted religion. Not having been instructed
in English grammar or analysis, he could only
write the words, as their sounds affected his ear.
Thus, his vocalization was in this wise:—First
chapter of John.
10
Fas chapta ob join.
Inde beginnen wasde wad;
ande Wad waswid Gad,
ande wad was Oad.
When this manuscript was first submitted to
me, I naturally looked for Arabic words, to be
expressed by the letters. I could detect none;
and I abandoned the interpretation. When,
however, the characters and vowels had been
carefully turned into Roman letters, I discov¬
ered by sound, what the eye had failed to per¬
ceive.
In a similar case, the same difficulty occurred
to the eminent orientalist, the Baron de Sacy.
His memoir on the subject may be found in
the fourth volume of " notices et extraits des
MSS. dans la Bibliotheque Imperiale." An
Arabic MS. had been sent to him at Paris,
from Madrid. He failed to discover a single
Arabic word; and consequently he could but
offer a conjecture. This was, that the book was
11
written in the language of the Hovas of Mada¬
gascar. Subsequently, by a process similar to my
own, it was found that the language of the
book was Spanish, and had been written by a
Clwistiano nuevo, or converted Moor.
The pride of history may not descend to
notice the fact, that a feeble wave of Moham¬
medanism and Koranic letters once reached
these shores, from Africa, bearing with it some
humble captives, and then sunk in the moving
sands. It is but little known, and may never
be recorded, that Mohammedan Moors from
Spain, were the architects of San Juan de Ulloa,
at Yera Cruz, and that an Arabic inscription
attesting this fact, still existed on the walls of
that proud fortress, not many years ago. But,
in story and in song, are preserved the high
deeds of the Moslem in Spain, and they again,
with his brilliant arts and letters, have faded
away before the Christian Knight—
" The city won fop Allah from the Giaour,
The Giaour from Othman's race, again may wrest."
12
Whilst history may record the res gesta, and the
policies of peoples, it is the province of the eth¬
nographer, to trace their geographic homes and
migrations, their fusions and filiations of races
and tongues. The African migrations to this
land, occurred in our own times, and we know
how Hayti happens to be occupied by French
negroes. But when will science explain the ex¬
istence, at this day, of a colony supposed to be
Moors, or perhaps Spanish Goths, at the port
of Galway in Ireland ? The suburb of Galway,
called Claddagh, contains such a colony of peo¬
ple, essentially distinct from the Irish in all
that constitutes distinction of race. They have
the physique of the Moor; they neither give
nor are given in marriage to the Celt; and they
have, or had, their own fueros, or municipal
laws.
The recent travels of Dr. Barth in Central
Africa, or Soudan, indicate the 10th degree of
north latitude, along the southern borders of
the river Benuive, or Tchada, as the limit of Mo-
13
hammedan influence. That was the limit of his
travels southwardly; as 10 degrees, southern
latitude, was the extreme point of Dr. Living¬
ston's explorations, Northwardly.
We may thus adopt this ethnographic for¬
mula:—that within the northern parallels of
20 and 10 degrees, the negro tribes of Africa
are Mohammedans; and are taught Arabic let¬
ters by numerous Alifoos (arifs) and Maalins:
and that, south of 30 degrees, they are Pagans,
gree-gree worshippers. To satisfy the credu¬
lous, let us suppose them to be anthropopagi.
Within this broad zone, from the Atlantic to
the Nile, the tribes are being zealously instruc¬
ted in letters and religion, by learned Maalins
and Alifoos, in mosques and mektebs. At
Sierra Leone, Liberia and Yorruba, English
and American missionaries display equal zeal,
in opposing the letters and the frith of Christi¬
anity to those of Islam. There the confluent
streams of adverse instruction meet. At Illo-
rin, our Baptist missionary, Mr. Bowen, was
14
asked by the chief for his Endjil or Gospel.
Dr. Barth was also asked for his. In all this
wide Mussulman region, the names of Moses,
David and Christ—Mousa, Daoud and Issa—
are as familiar as that of Mohammed. The
three books, Pentateuch, Psalms, and Gospels—
Tourat, Zabour and Endjil—are equally well
known. Thus, to a certain point, there is parall¬
elism between the two systems of instruction.
The British government is steadily promoting
the progress of Christian instruction by the
civilizing influence of repeated commercial ex¬
peditions. In the year 1854, Dr. Baikie of the
Royal Navy, in the command of the steamer
"Pleiad," ascended the Quorra and the Ben-
uive, and crossed the track of Dr. Barth, who
had already descended from the Mediterranean.
Dr. Baikie is, again, this year, in these rivers,
in command of a second expedition. Such are
the powerful agencies now in operation, to ele¬
vate and Christianize Africa.
An additional mode of reaching the intelli-
15
gence and heart of Africa, may be suggested.
It is thus stated in the " notes on Africa." Let
the Bible be translated into African languages
with Arabic letters. A strange alphabet is al¬
ways repulsive; and the Roman letters are pe¬
culiarly so, to the oriental eye. The teacher of
the Koran, has had ten centuries' start of the
Christian teacher, and has familiarized Central
Africa, with the oriental letters and mode of
writing, through the wants of commerce, the
service of the mosque, and the teaching of
schools.
The manuscript before us, gives much sup¬
port and confirmation to these views. An Af¬
rican, by his own unaided suggestion, has writ¬
ten the word of life, with the characters which
he had learned in his native schools, and in the
language of his adoption. Had he made a
translation into his native Mandingo tongue,
with the choice of letters, Roman or Arabic, he
would have rejected the former, as useless or
absurd. Roman letters will never prevail, or be
16
read, in Mohammedan Africa. In southern,
pagan Africa, tlie ground has not been preoc¬
cupied by an earlier instruction. There, the
Roimn alphabet may be taught, and engrafted
upon Christian doctrine.
572.96
H