🧵 10/10 Help Complete the project
These stories deserve to be told.

You can help finish the book 4,000 Years of African American History - and download the first chapters.

📘 blackdemographics.com/downloads/th...

🧵 9/10 This Is How It Happened

Abdul Rahman’s story shows how millions ended up on slave ships.

It was a cycle:
• War
• Demand for captives
• Guns traded for slaves

Most Black Americans today descend from people trapped in that system; victims, royalty, soldiers, farmers-

🧵 8/10 To the U.S. South

He landed in New Orleans and was sold in Natchez, Mississippi to Thomas Foster for $930.

Like him, many came from Upper Guinea and Senegambia, including Fula, Mandinka (Mandingo), Bambara, Susu, and Yalunka, 35%+ of Africans brought to North America.

🧵 7/10 The Ambush

In 1788, Abdul Rahman was ambushed while escorting captives.

He was wounded, captured, and sold, along with 50 of his own soldiers.

He later boarded the slave ship The Africa, which carried 170 captives bound for the Americas.

The prince became cargo.

🧵 6/10 His Job: Escort the Enslaved

By his 20s, he was leading 2,000 mounted soldiers.

He protected supply lines and escorted war captives toward coastal forts.

He worked the same pipeline that would bring many Black Americans to South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana.

🧵5/10 Why the Trade Grew

Captives weren’t just sold.

They were exchanged for guns.

European muskets and gunpowder made the next battle easier.

Slavery, warfare, and weapons became a cycle.

Abdul Rahman helped guard that cycle… until it turned on him.

🧵4/10  They Enslaved Others

Abdul Rahman’s father led a holy war that targeted non-Muslim groups like the Yalunka, Susu, and Mandinka

Soldiers who surrendered became war captives

As European hunger for enslaved labor grew, more and more captives were taken to meet the demand

🧵 3/10 – State Built on War

Futa Jallon was founded in 1725 through a Fulani jihād.

Under Abdul Rahman’s father (1751–1784), it became a powerful Islamic state

This was the peak of African exports from Upper Guinea.

Captives were marched to the coast- many bound for the U.S.

🧵 2/10  The Royal Setup

Abdul Rahman was born in 1762 in Timbuktu, raised in Fouta Jallon (now Guinea).

His father became ruler in a new Islamic state there.

As a boy, he studied in Timbuktu. Fluent in Arabic, Fula, Yalunka, Mandinka, Bambara.

Student - prince - soldier

Unemployment for Black women is catching up to Black men while unemployment for White women is down

Black women are the hardest hit.

More: blackdemographics.com/2025-jobless...

6/6 - Key practices in the Second Middle Passage:
-Auctions posted with legal language.
-People categorized by origin, skill, work experience.
-Financial chain connecting Southern markets to Northern banks, mills, refineries.
The largest US forced migration in early U.S. history.

5/6– This auction lists enslaved people relocated from Alabama to New Orleans, a common east-to-west route.
The expansion of cotton in Alabama and Mississippi supplied Northern industry and international trade, making these auctions part of a national economic system.

4/6 - Credit terms were often used in these sales, with enslaved people serving as collateral.
Northern banks, including firms in New York, financed loans and purchased securities backed by enslaved people, linking Southern auctions directly to Northern capital markets.

3/6 – Sugar plantations in Louisiana required large labor forces. This poster advertises people by work skill, typical of auctions in the 1850s.
Much of the sugar harvested entered Northern refineries in cities like New York and Philadelphia.

2/6 – New Orleans was the largest slave market in the United States by the 1830s. This 1859 poster reflects the public structure of auctions.

Cotton grown by enslaved labor sold here was shipped to Northern textile mills and exported abroad.