Ayuba Suleiman Diallo

Ayuba Sulieman Diallo and William Ansah Sessarakoo were captured by slave traders in West Africa but gained their freedom when members of the British elite learned of their high social status. Diallo (left), was the scion of a prominent Muslim family. He was kidnapped in 1730 and sold to a Maryland tobacco planter. News of his plight eventually reached James Oglethorpe, director of the Royal African Company. Oglethorpe brought Diallo to England, where benefactors raised money for his passage home in 1733. Seventeen years later, The Gentleman’s Magazine retold his story in this illustrated article.