A Prince Enslaved in Southwest Mississippi: The Story of Abdul Rahman Ibrahima (1762-1829)

When Prince Abdul Rahman Ibrahima arrived in Natchez in 1788, he walked up a landing dock where he met Thomas Foster, a young farmer who would purchase him like cattle and keep him enslaved for forty years on a nearby plantation. Little did he or Foster know that after decades of hard labor, he would not only be free, but he would travel to Washington, D.C. and have a face-to-face meeting with the president of the United States before sailing back to West Africa.

The story of Ibrahima, who was known as the “Prince Among Slaves,” is one of the most remarkable stories to emerge from the Natchez-Adams County area. His story is a significant piece of American history that offers insight into slavery, journalism, politics, and the struggle for freedom in Mississippi. Ibrahima’s story is documented in Terry Alford’s book, Prince Among Slaves: The True Story of an African Prince Sold into Slavery in the American South (Oxford University Press, 1977). This single volume is regarded as the definitive work on Ibrahima.

This article offers an account of Ibrahima’s life history, beginning with his time in West Africa, the place of his birth. It covers his enslavement in Mississippi and the people who sought to help him gain his freedom. The article also features the actions taken by a local newspaper man that led to his freedom and his eventual voyage to Africa.

His homeland
Ibrahima was a Muslim prince who said he was born in 1762 in Timbuktu, a city in the current western African country of Mali. Ibrahima grew up in Timbo, Guinea, West Africa. His father was Ibrahima Sori, who ruled as a political and religious leader in the Futa Jallon highlands of Guinea.

Ibrahima was twelve when he left home to study in the mosques at Timbuktu and Djenne in Mali, where he excelled in many subjects. By the time he completed his education, he could read and write in Arabic and speak five African languages. When the prince returned home, he joined his father’s army, where he became a colonel at the age of twenty-six.

In January 1788, Ibrahima and his soldiers were returning home to celebrate a victory when they were ambushed by the Hebohs, a rival non-Muslim group that prevented Futa Jallon from trading with Europeans. Ibrahima was captured and sold to slave traders. Historian Sylviane A. Diouf writes, "In a bitter twist of fate, as Ibrahima was actively protecting the Atlantic slave trade, he was captured by those who were fighting against the infamous commerce."

In the late 1700s, the slave trade was popular in West Africa. Under Sori’s leadership, Futa Jallon opposed the enslavement of Muslims while embracing it for non-Muslims. Ibrahima was traded “for two flasks of powder, a few trade muskets, eight hands of tobacco, and two bottles of rum,” writes Alford.

His enslavement in Mississippi
As a captive of the slave traders, Ibrahima sailed from West Africa to the West Indies and on to New Orleans, from where he sailed north on the Mississippi River to Natchez. Ibrahima arrived in Natchez in August 1788 at the site that is known as Under-the-Hill. From there, he and his friend, Samba, who served under him in the military, were sold to a farmer named Thomas Foster for $930.

Foster took the two men up to Fort Rosalie (called Fort Panmure by the British), where he signed an agreement for the purchase. From the fort, Foster led the men behind his horse to his farm in Pine Ridge. When they reached the farm, Ibrahima told Foster that he was a prince and that his father would pay large sums of money for his return home. Foster ignored Ibrahima’s pleas, and he gave him the nickname “Prince.”

Ibrahima initially resisted his new life, but over time, he proved to be a good worker and became an overseer at Foster’s plantation. In 1791, Foster purchased a woman in her early twenties named Isabella. She and Ibrahima married on Christmas Day of 1794. The two of them would raise nine children: five sons and four daughters.
In 1807, the prince visited the marketplace in Washington, which is northeast of Natchez, to sell sweet potatoes when he saw Dr. John Coates Cox, a friend from his past. Cox, an Irishman, had sailed to West Africa in 1781. After going ashore to hunt, he became lost, ill, and later collapsed, and his ship left without him. He was rescued by the Fulani people – the people of Futa Jallon – and taken to Timbo, where Ibrahima’s father cared for him.

After Ibrahima and Cox recognized each other in Mississippi, the doctor tried for many years to obtain his freedom, but Foster refused to release him. Cox died in December 1816. After his death, his son took up the cause, but he was also unable to obtain Ibrahima’s freedom. Even so, the chance meeting in 1807 generated fame for the prince.

His quest for freedom
In the early 1820s, Ibrahima began visiting newspaper publisher and editor Andrew Marschalk in his print shop in downtown Natchez. On one of his visits, Ibrahima picked up a book and read the text that was printed in Arabic, which surprised Marschalk. Later, Ibrahima expressed an interest in writing a letter to his home country, and Marschalk agreed to help him. However, it would be a few years later before Ibrahima would write the letter. When the time came, in 1826, Ibrahima wrote a passage from the Qur’an. Marschalk took it and added a cover letter addressed to U.S. Senator Thomas Buck Reed of Natchez, who delivered the letter to Washington, D.C. The letter eventually made its way to Thomas Mullowny, the U.S. consul in Tangier, Morocco, who shared it with an official of Moroccan Sultan Abd al-Rahman II. The sultan said Ibrahima must be freed, and he would pay any price to see him returned home. Mullowny shared the sultan’s sentiment and expressed it in a letter to Washington, D.C.

Marschalk had mistakenly written that Ibrahima was a Moor and a member of the royal family of Morocco. Ibrahima did not correct him. The communications eventually involved U.S. Secretary of State Henry Clay and President John Quincy Adams.

When President Adams learned of Ibrahima’s story, he directed the State Department to write to Marschalk and ask him to determine the price Thomas Foster would accept to release Ibrahima. Foster told Marschalk that he would release Ibrahima to return to his homeland if someone was willing to pay for all the expenses. However, he said, he would do it on one condition: Ibrahima must enjoy his freedom in Africa and not in the United States, and if he could not return to Africa, then he should return as a slave to the Foster plantation.

After meeting with Foster, Marschalk wrote a letter to Clay informing him of Foster’s proposal. A few months later, he received a letter from Clay in which he stated that he and President Adams agreed to Foster’s terms. He asked Marschalk to send Ibrahima to Washington.

His voyage to Liberia
On Friday, February 22, 1828, Foster delivered Ibrahima to Marschalk’s printing office along with a deed in trust for Ibrahima. Ibrahima was sixty-six. Isabella’s freedom would be purchased later for $200.

On April 8, 1828, Ibrahima and Isabella traveled with their family to the dock under the hill. They boarded the steamboat Neptune and waved goodbye to their children, who remained enslaved. For several months after leaving Natchez, Ibrahima traveled to Washington, D.C., and Connecticut, among other places, on a fundraising campaign to help free his children. He worked with the American Colonization Society, and he met with President Adams and other government officials. He also spent time with Francis Scott Key, who wrote the text for “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, founder of the first American school for the deaf. Ibrahima raised $3,500.

In February 1829, Ibrahima and his wife boarded the Harriet near Norfolk, Virginia. It was a ship chartered by the American Colonization Society for the voyage to Liberia. Ibrahima and Isabella sailed to Monrovia, Liberia, which the American Colonization Society had created as a home for formerly enslaved Africans. While in Liberia, Ibrahima contracted a fever and died on July 6, 1829, at the age of sixty-seven. He never reached his homeland. Isabella remained in Liberia. Using the $3,500 raised by Ibrahima, the American Colonization Society purchased the freedom of Ibrahima’s sons Levi and Simon, along with Simon’s wife Hannah and their five children for $3,100. The society arranged for them to join Isabella in Liberia.

Conclusion
The story of Ibrahima is an unforgettable picture of the depravity of slavery in the United States and West Africa. It is a narrative of his unexpected journey to Mississippi and the forty years he labored as an enslaved man on Thomas Foster’s plantation. The story highlights his unbroken spirit, as well as the efforts of a few people, including government officials and activists, who worked to set him free.

Roscoe Barnes III, Ph.D., is a native of Indianola, Mississippi, and the cultural heritage tourism manager at Visit Natchez. He is an award-winning newspaper journalist and independent scholar whose research focuses on Anne Moody and the civil rights movement. Barnes’ articles have appeared in scores of newspapers, magazines, encyclopedias, and academic journals.