Abd ar-Rahman Ibrahima was a Fulbe Fulani prince from Timbo, the
capital of Futa Jallon, a region in what is today the Republic
of Guinea in West Africa. He was very well educated, having
studied at the university in Timbuktu. He was captured and sold
to transatlantic slave traders in 1788. Forced into bondage, he
was brought to Natchez and made a manager of other enslaved
people on a plantation. He was a devout Muslim, and a letter he
wrote in Arabic made its way to the sultan of Morocco.
Befriended by several influential people, including Henry Clay,
a United States senator from Kentucky, he bought his own freedom
after 40 years of slavery. Once free, he tried unsuccessfully to
raise the money to liberate his nine children. Ibrahima and his
wife returned to Africa and lived in Liberia for a short time
before he died. Jean-Baptiste LeMoynede Bienville, the brother
of the French Canadian explorer Pierre LeMoyned’Iberville was
with his brother’s crew that explored the Gulf of Mexico coast
in 1699. The brothers