West African Muslims in Colonial and Antebellum South Carolina

West African Muslims in Colonial and Antebellum South Carolina is a historical study of the presence of enslaved West African Muslims in colonial and antebellum South Carolina.

This book synthesizes existing material about enslaved West African Muslims and adds new cases, details, and insights that existing studies of enslaved Muslims in the United States have not explored. No other study of enslaved Muslims in North America has focused exclusively on South Carolina or explored their presence within the context of its distinctive history, such as the lucrative rice industry. This cutting-edge volume sheds new light on the religious history of the United States and challenges the contemporary “Judeo-Christian” paradigm.

West African Muslims in Colonial and Antebellum South Carolina integrates and uncovers cases of enslaved West African Muslims in South Carolina’s colonial and antebellum history through an in-depth analysis of runaway slave ads, work-house notices, slave auction notices, plantation records, and estate records, among other materials.