Job, Son of Solliman Dgiallo, High Priest of Bonda in the Country of Foota, Africa

Job Ben Solomon (c. 1701—1773), also known as Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, was Muslim, literate in Arabic and slave owner. He was Muslim, literate in Arabic and a slave owner. He was Fulbe (or Fulani, Peule) and born in Bundu in the Fuuta Jallon in the Senegambia region. On a trade mission hundreds of miles from his homeland to sell two enslaved people to the British, he was captured, sold to an English captain and shipped from the Gambia River to Annapolis, Maryland, where he worked on tobacco farms for about a year. After, he went to England and ultimately found employment with the Royal African Company in Gambia, where he died in 1773 at about 72 years old. The engraving shown here is based on an oil painting done in 1733 by the British painter William Hoare (1701-1773). It is the earliest known British oil portrait of a person of African birth. The painting is currently owned by the Qatar Museums Authority, but housed at the National Portrait Gallery, London. For key references to accounts of Ben Solomon's life, see Jerome S. Handler, Survivors of the Middle Passage: Life Histories of Enslaved Africans in British America, Slavery & Abolition, vol. 23 (2002), p. 49, fn 5. Another engraving of him was published in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 20 (1750), facing p. 272. See also image gentmag in this website.