I did not see the initial post on Muslims, but I believe that the
assertion that the majority of slaves brought to North America
during the colonial periods is incorrect. However, it is likely that
historians have underestimated the numbers of Muslims actually
brought to North America. There is evidence of Muslims in North
America in colonial records, but their numbers are limited and they
probably came from the Senegambia.
Michael A. Gomez addressed the issue of Muslims in America in an
article in the *Journal of Southern History*, LX (November, 1994) 4,
671- 710. Gomez analyzes the regions of the African coast from where
Muslims could have been exported and concludes that Muslim slaves
could have accounted for "thousands, if not tens of thousands," but
does not offer a more precise estimate.
In colonial Louisiana inventories, a minority of slaves were
Muslims. Nevertheless, in Louisiana, as elsewhere, it is important to
remember that first generation African Muslims, though a small
minority, would have likely exerted an influence greater than their
number. Further, the presence of Muslims had important ramifications
for intra-slave relations. There was considerable tension between
Muslims and non-Muslims in Africa, and there is every reason to
believe that this continued in some for in North America.
As yet there exists little work on Muslims in North America. See
Allan Austin's *African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Sourcebook*
(New York, 1984) Austin describes many of the same persons as Philip
Curtin's *Africa Remembered*. Also, Paul Lovejoy's "The Central
Sudan and the Atlantic Slave Trade" in Robert Harms, et al. ed.
*Paths to the Past* (Atlanta, 1994) deals with the export of Central
Sudanic Muslims to the New World.