♪curious music♪ [Asma VO] This is a portrait of a man bought to America to work as a slave.

His name was Mamadou Yarrow, and he was a Muslim.

He was painted in 1819 by the famous Revolutionary War portrait artist Charles Willson Peale.

This man who painted presidents decided he wanted to paint a picture of Yarrow!

[Zain VO] To pay that kind of attention to a formerly-enslaved... Black man...

This is unheard of.

When I first heard about an enslaved Muslim -- or an emancipated Muslim -- I was like, "What do you mean?"

Like, I didn't think that, you know, Muslims were in the US until later.

Even though we have a lot of evidence, the story of the African Muslims in the United States has been, for the longest time, lost, unknown.

I didn't really even know about the story when I was growing up here as an adult.

This is a story that pre-dates the founding of America.

[Talib] Pre-dates the founding of America.

♪delicate pensive music♪ [Asma VO] Much of Mamadou Yarrow's story takes place in and around Washington, DC, a city that's been my home for several years.

As a Muslim born and raised in the United States, I've always been curious about the roots of Islam in our country.

I knew the first Muslims to arrive here in significant numbers came from Africa, but I didn't realize how much of their story had been unearthed.

It appears as if between 10 to 15 percent -- some say even 30 percent -- of the enslaved Africans came from Muslim parts of West Africa.

Thousands of Muslims were enslaved in the Americas, including what became the United States.

They were part of the social, and cultural, and economic development of the Americas for half a millennium.

[Asma VO] We now know that some African Muslims left their names, preserved in plantation records and runaway slave ads.

Others left their writings.

A few left their image.

Among them was Mamadou Yarrow, also known as Yarrow Mamout.

He was painted not once, but twice.

It's one of the things that makes him stand out.

He gives us a story of what it was like to gain freedom, and then live after that, and practice as a free person.

I don't think we have any other story like that.

♪pensive curious music♪ [Asma VO] Yarrow's story has been preserved in the archives of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, in the writings of the artist who first painted him, after painting presidents, including George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.

[David] We are looking at one of 26 diaries written by Charles Willson Peale, a very important early American portrait painter -- one of the most important.

This diary goes back to 1818 to early 1819.

The diary is rather small, as you can see; it's about 58 pages of text.

The Yarrow section takes up about three and a half pages.

It's the biggest vignette in the diary from this period.

[Asma VO] Writing in December 1818, Peale describes a visit to DC, where he heard about an old African man, Yarrow, living in Georgetown in surprising circumstances.

"Mr.

Brewer said that he is comfortable in his situation, having bank stock, and lives in his own house..." [man VO] ...I shall be able to give a more particular account of him as I propose to make a portrait of him, should I have the opportunity of doing it.

[Asma VO] The diary was a vital resource for the author who played a key role in piecing Yarrow's story together, drawing on Peale's account and a wide variety of other sources, from census data to shipping records.

[James] I was here at this library many years ago, and I saw this painting by James Alexander Simpson.

Georgetown is a lily-white community, and so, to see a painting of a Black man at this library was sort of unusual.

That's what started the whole project.

Where did Yarrow come from, exactly?

[James] We don't know for sure, but he was a Fulani Muslim, and the Fulani were moving from Mali into Senegal, Guinea, and other places in West Africa at the time.

Islam comes to Africa itself via the trans-Saharan trade routes, and over North Africa, down into West Africa.

[Sylviane VO] Islam was implanted in Africa for... over 1,000 years.

The spread of Islam went hand in hand with the spread of literacy in Arabic, so there were schools for boys and girls.

There were also institutions of higher learning, and they traveled all over -- not only West Africa but to Mecca, to Egypt -- to learn.

They also are interested in not necessarily being Arab, as it were, but practicing Islam through this African sensibility.

[Asma VO] This was the world Mamadou Yarrow knew, until he reached his teens, when everything changed.

Around 1750, Yarrow and his sister were sold to British slave traders after being captured, probably in a local war.

♪♪♪ He's in a center of Islamic learning, and then -- boom, just like that -- he becomes a captive... of the slave trade.

And he becomes one of the estimated 12.5 million people... that, from 1525 to about 1867, were taken from Africa to the New World.

♪♪♪ [Asma VO] Yarrow and his sister survived the notorious Middle Passage, a grueling journey across the Atlantic that took several months.

The ship Elijah carried them to Annapolis, Maryland, where, in the summer of 1752, brother and sister were put up for sale, advertised in a local paper as pieces of property.

[James] This is a page from the Maryland Gazette, a weekly newspaper published in those days.

So it says, "Just imported, in the Elijah, directly from the coast of Africa..." [James] "...A parcel of healthy slaves consisting of men, women, and children."

So they're bringing children over as well.

[Asma] Mm.

And it will be... Is it-- [James] "Disposed of on board the said vessel..." [Asma] "...For sterling money, bills of exchange, gold, or paper currency."

♪♪♪ [Asma VO] Yarrow and his sister were separated in Annapolis.

What became of her is unclear, but Yarrow was enslaved on a tobacco plantation in Montgomery County, now the suburbs of Washington, DC.

In the decades that followed, records suggest he had a son here with an enslaved woman.

Around 1790, Yarrow's life changed again, when his enslaver brought him to Georgetown.

Today, it's one of Washington's most exclusive neighborhoods.

In Yarrow's time, it was a modest port town on the Potomac River.

♪♪♪ [Asma] How does he end up in Georgetown?

He was purchased by one of Georgetown's most famous families, The Bealls, or Bells -- Samuel, initially, who makes him his man servant, or... might be a fancy name for a valet.

I think he was smart enough to learn... how to be around... his enslaver.

It's different if you're a field hand, or you're sort of doing other kinds of chores.

That may have ever helped to preserve him from not being broken down in certain kinds of ways, as others are.

In order to make money, the Bells -- or Bealls -- liked for him to... be industrious.

They also required that he give whatever he makes to them, but they give some of the money back.

And so what type of work was Yarrow doing?

He made charcoal; he had that technique.

He sold baskets.

He also made bricks.

He commanded one and a half times what a white brick maker could.

[Asma VO] In Georgetown, Yarrow joined a growing community of Black people, both enslaved and free.

Many of them and their descendants are buried at Georgetown's Mount Zion Cemetery, established in the early 1800s.

[Asma] This graveyard gives us a glimpse into the type of community Yarrow was entering.

Yeah, we don't want you to look at him in isolation, we want you to understand that there were people -- a community of which he was part -- that shared the same kinds of goals.

[Asma] And most of these would have been Black men, -women, children-- -Black men, and we have some who may have, uh, perhaps even known Yarrow, or certainly they knew of the kind of existence that he was living because they have lived it.

[Asma] Yarrow himself, though, is not buried here, right?

[Carroll] He is not buried here.

As far as we know, he is buried in his backyard.

Haven't found him yet!

But we hope to one day, if he is there.

♪pensive music♪ [Asma VO] Yarrow spent the early 1790s working in Georgetown for his enslaver's son, Brooke, while, around him, the newly-formed nation took shape, and Washington, DC was established on the farmland next door.

What happened to Yarrow next is recorded in Peale's diary.

When Charles Willson Peale came to paint his portrait in 1819, he was so intrigued by Yarrow's story that he went to Margaret Beall, Brooke Beall's widow.

She told him it was true.

[man VO] Early in the morning, went to see some of the family who had knowledge of him for many years, whose ancestors had purchased him from the ship that brought him from Africa.

The widow Beall told me that Yarrow was always an industrious, hard-working man, and had served them faithfully for many years, and her husband, intending to build a large house in Georgetown, told Yarrow if he would be very industrious in making the bricks for that house, that when he made all the bricks, that he would set him free.

[Asma] So he obtained his freedom...

Yes.

[Asma] By essentially agreeing to make bricks?

[Carroll] The man who had contracted the promise died... before he got his freedom.

But his wife was able -- understanding what her husband's desire was -- carried through with it.

[man VO] The widow told Yarrow that as he had performed his duty, that she had made the necessary papers to set him free, and now he was made free.

[Asma] So, Yarrow becomes a free man in August of 1796?

[James] That's correct.

And he would have been what age at this point?

He was 60 years old.

60 years old to become as a free man.

Yeah, you're a slave until you're 60.

And his life started anew then.

[man VO] After Yarrow obtained his freedom, he worked hard, and saved his money until he got 100 dollars, which he put into an old gentleman's hand to keep for him.

That person died, and Yarrow lost his money.

However, he still worked as before, and raised another 100 dollars, which he put into the care of a young merchant in Georgetown, but this merchant became a bankrupt.

Yet not dispirited, he worked hard, and saved a third sum, amounting to 200 dollars.

Some friend of Yarrow advised him to buy bank stock in the Columbia Bank, and he was amongst the first who contributed to that bank.

[Asma VO] With his money, Yarrow bought a plot of land on what was then the outskirts of Georgetown -- now a quiet street named Dent Place NW.

The man who'd arrived from Africa on a slave ship was now a landholder -- one of the first Black people of any faith to own land in the DC area in his own name.

This is the record of deeds ledger book from 1800 in Washington, DC.

It's a very old book, and it's all in this... beautiful script, and this is his deed of Yarrow's house.

[Asma] 10th day of January, 1800.

Wow, okay.

And do you see Yarrow's name here?

Oh, here it is; you see his name -- Y-A-R-R-O-W. And it gives him a half lot in Georgetown; that was a piece of property 35 feet wide and 150 feet deep, so it was a big piece of property.

What did having this land allow him to do personally?

He brought his son in to live with him, brought his wife in to live with him.

So he was able to have a family in a way that so many slaves were often separated... That's correct, that's correct.

Families were broken apart.

[Asma VO] In Georgetown, Yarrow became well-known as a freed man owning property.

He was also known for his faith -- for being a Mahometan, the term sometimes used for Muslims back then.

[man VO] Yarrow has been noted for sobriety and cheerful conduct.

He professes to be a Mahometan, and is often seen and heard in the streets singing praises to God, and conversing with him, he said, "Man is no good unless his religion comes from the heart."

The acquaintances of him often banter him about eating bacon and drinking whiskey, but Yarrow says, "It is no good to eat hog, and drink whiskey is very bad."

Enslaved Africans did not lose their customs, their religions, their culture.

They continued to -- as much as they could in the confines of enslavement -- to be true to who they were.

In the picture, it seems that he kept the tradition of wearing the beard, which is something distinctive to Muslim men.

He has his head covered, so that's also something that's distinctive to Islamic practice.

[Zain VO] It was kind of a knitted thing -- not necessarily fully Islamic, as it were.

But I think there's a kind of intentionality there.

That's what's so powerful about it.

[Asma] At the time, was his faith considered... strange to people?

How is Islam interpreted?

Do we know at that time?

[Carroll] It depended on your level of education.

It depended on your level of exposure.

[Asma] But people knew that Yarrow was Muslim here in -Georgetown?

-Oh yeah!

Islam was a recognized religion.

Educated Americans would have known that there were Muslims in West Africa.

Probably also they were seeing... Muslim activity in the United States.

Some of the enslaved people maintained practices that the enslavers noticed -- right?

-- made note of, and watched.

Wearing skull caps and turbans and veils, celebrating Islamic holidays, refusing pork and alcohol.

Someone like Yarrow, he seems like an anomaly, but he's not that unusual insofar as being very religious and educated.

[Asma VO] Peale's diary reflects this apparent familiarity with Muslims in early America.

What stands out to Peale is not Yarrow's faith, but his age.

[Carol] Yarrow was supposedly 134 years old.

[Asma chuckles] Turns out he was sort of figuring his age by a different -calendar.

-[Asma, chuckling] Okay.

[Carol] Yarrow was probably 83 in this picture.

Peale was also older -- he was in his late 70s -- and he gave lectures in his museum about healthy lifestyle, and how you would be able to reach an old age.

Longevity was a theme; he had started painting older people in 1795.

But there's more going on here; there's a looking that happens in this picture, from the artist to the sitter.

I think he really appreciated who Yarrow was, his sort of power that he had, which I think comes across in the portrait; there's an intensity there.

I mean, if you look at it, it's a beautiful picture.

Charles Willson Peale talked about why he thinks that Yarrow had this kind of longevity, and he said it's because he believes that he wasn't drinking alcohol, that he was praying a lot.

Peale was thinking about Yarrow as a Muslim enslaved man, right?

And not just a Muslim enslaved man, but a devout Muslim.

[Asma VO] Peale spent only two days with Yarrow, but Yarrow seems to have made a deep impression on him.

When Yarrow died in 1823, the papers published an obituary, which Peale is thought to have written.

"Died: Yarrow, according to his account, 136 years.

It is known to all who knew him that he was industrious, honest, and moral.

He was interred in the corner of his garden, the spot where he usually resorted to pray."

When Yarrow dies, there are multiple obituaries of this man.

I counted, so far, 38, up and down the East Coast.

Wow!

Of a man who was brought here as a slave.

-[James] Right.

-Right?

[James] Right, right.

Why was so much written about him, and why were there so many obituaries?

Well, he was 140 years old.

[Asma] So they say.

[laughs] So that's newsworthy.

[Asma VO] After Yarrow's death, we find his son, Aquilla, living 45 miles northwest of Georgetown, in Washington County, Maryland.

Here, Aquilla's wife worked as a midwife, and was so popular, the community still bears the family name.

But there's no evidence the family continued to practice Mamadou Yarrow's faith.

After 1865, churches from the North really descended on the South, and there was this Christianization of people.

I think that for Muslims who were still living at the time -- and their children and grandchildren -- you know, there was probably more of an effort to be integrated, and be like everybody else.

[Terrence VO] I would see this period as... a deep tragedy to enslaved Africans.

The enslavers who were writing the history thought, "These people are without intelligence, without a soul."

The assumption is that when they came, their gods died, and then they embraced Christianity.

They did not acknowledge -- right?

-- did not name those traditions and those practices, and so we've spent the last, say, 50 years trying to undo that kind of historical undertaking, and to really figure out who exactly were these people.

Because they were there, but we never really studied them, or their writings, or their traditions.

[Asma VO] The rediscovery of Yarrow's story led archeologists to Dent Place, to excavate the site of Yarrow's house, following the lead in his obituary that he was buried in his backyard.

[Mia VO] His home wasn't on the site; there was a 1850s house that stood on the site that was destroyed by a hurricane.

When we started the project in 2015, it was an empty lot with a extent and ground pool.

[Asma VO] Significant redevelopment had removed most traces from Yarrow's time.

There was no sign of Yarrow, and little evidence of his life.

Still, the dig created a unique opportunity: a chance to give Yarrow the Muslim funeral rites, the Janazah prayer, he was unlikely to have received 200 years earlier.

[Precious VO] In 2015, the imam of Masjid Muhammad in Washington, DC, he led the Janazah prayer for Yarrow in that same spot of the yard.

And Masjid Muhammad is historically a predominantly-Black masjid -- one of the oldest in Washington, DC.

So it's pretty profound that, all these years later, that has some meaning even to the people there.

[Asma] And you led the prayer?

Yes, yes, I led the prayer.

That was an honor for me.

We did the Janazah on the land, on his residence.

We know it doesn't serve the official, but as a ceremonial to him, it would probably reach his soul.

[Mia VO] It was a beautiful event, and a way to honor Yarrow, and to shed light on Muslims, their history, and their history in America.

[Talib VO] We inherit his hopes, he inherit his dreams.

And that's the connection that we feel with him.

And this is the beauty of really what it means to be an American -- really to embrace the excellence... of the life that was here, and that is here, and that shows who we are.

[Asma VO] On Dent Place today, a new house stands on the spot where Mamadou Yarrow once lived, but his presence is commemorated with a plaque.

It's a powerful reminder of Yarrow, and the tens of thousands of other Muslims who arrived here before our nation was even founded -- a people whose history is still being written, whose stories are still coming to light.

♪uplifting pensive music♪