Mahommah G. Baquaqua
This engraved portrait was taken from a daguerrotype that appears on title page of Baquaqua's autobiography. Baquaqua was born in 1824 or 1830 in Djougou in the northern Bight of Benin hinterland. He was duped into slavery when in his late teens or early twenties, and from the vicinity of Dahomey and Ouidah was shipped to Brazil in the mid-1840s. He ultimately became free by jumping ship in New York City in 1847, travelled with Baptists to Haiti, and returned to the U.S. in late 1849. In 1854, he moved to Canada. His autobiography was published the same year by the abolitionist, Samuel Downing Moore, in Detroit.
Image Title
Mahommah G. Baquaqua
RegID
SI-OB-898
Date
1854
Title
Mahommah G. Baquaqua
Source
Mahommah G. Baquaqua and Samuel Moore, Biography of Mahommah G. Baquaqua: A Native Zoogoo, in the Interior of Africa. . . (Detroit: Geo. E. Pomeroy & Co., 1854), title page.
Language
English
Item sets
Portraits & Illustrations of Individuals
Spatial Coverage
South America--Brazil--Olinda
Reproduced In
Robin Law and Paul Lovejoy, eds., have prepared an annotated edition of the 1854 publication which includes additional materials written by Baquaqua (The Biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua: His Passage from Slavery to Freedom in Africa and America (Princeton, Markus Wiener, 2001). Another portrait of what appears to be a younger Baquaqua is published as a lithograph in A.T. Foss and E. Mathews, Facts for Baptist Churches (Utica, 1850), facing title page (copy located in Library Company of Philadelphia).
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Last Updated
3-Feb-16; 29-Aug-19
Identifier
baquaqua