An address celebrating emancipation delivered in August 1838 in Jamaica by a former slave and apprentice originally from West Africa.
Creator: Muhammad Kabā Saghanughu
Date of Creation: 1838
Place of origin: Jamiaca
Measurements: 14” x 14”, 1 page
Materials: Ink on paper, with cutout of printed text affixed with tape
Process by which it was made: Handwritten
Current location: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), Belfast.
Further Reading
Elizabeth A. Dolan and Ahmed Idrissi Alami, “Muhammad Kabā Saghanughu’s Arabic Address on the Occasion of Emancipation in Jamaica,” The William and Mary Quarterly 76.2 (2019): 289-312.
Elizabeth A. Dolan and Ahmed Idrissi Alami, “Emancipation address as creole testimony: Muhammad Kabā Saghanughu, a formerly enslaved Muslim in Jamaica,” Slavery & Abolition 41.2 (2020):1-21.
Paul E. Lovejoy and Yacine Daddi Addoun, “Muhammad Kabā Saghanughu and the Muslim Community of Jamaica,” in Paul E. Lovejoy (ed.), Slavery on the Frontiers of Islam (Princeton: Markus Wiener, Publisher, 2004): 201-20.
Paul E. Lovejoy, Jihād in West Africa during the Age of Revolutions (Athens, Ohio, 2016).
Ghada Osman and Camille F Forbes, “Representing the West in the Arabic Language: The Slave Narrative of Omar Ibn Said,” Journal of Islamic Studies 15.3 (2004): 331-343.
Information contributed by Elizabeth A. Dolan and Ahmed Idrissi Alami.