Kent Island Queen Anne's Maryland United States

Ayuba Suleiman Diallo comes from a prominent Fulbe family of Muslim religious leaders.

His grandfather had founded the town of Bondu, and he had grown up with Samba Geladio Diegui, the heir (kamalenku) to the Kingdom of Futa-Toro.

Ayuba had in 1732 become a victim of the ever-growing slave exploitation of the Senegambia region.

Ayuba and his interpreter Loumein Yoas (also known as “Lamine Jay,” “Lahamin Joy,” “Lahmin Jay,” “Lamine Ndiaye,” “Loumein Ybai,” and “Lamine Jay”) were near the Gambia River to trade slaves and paper.

While visiting some friends on their return trip, Ayuba and Yoas had been captured by invading Mandingoes.

The invaders shaved their heads to make them appear as war captives, and thereby supposedly legitimately enslavable, as opposed to their actual condition of people captured in a kidnapping raid for the specific purpose of selling slaves for financial profit.

The two men had been sold to factors of the Royal African Company.

Ayuba had subsequently persuaded English Captain Pike of his high social status, and explained his father was capable of paying ransom.

Pike had granted Ayuba leave to find someone to send word to Ayuba’s family.

Since the messenger had not returned in time, at the behest of Captain Henry Hunt, Pike’s superior, Ayuba and Loumein had been sent across the Atlantic to Annapolis, Maryland, where he was delivered to another factor, Vachell Denton.

Ayuba had then been purchased by Mr. Tolsey of Kent Island, Maryland, and initially put to work in the tobacco fields; however, after being found unsuitable for such work, he had been placed in charge of the cattle.

While in captivity, Ayuba used to go into the woods to pray.

However, after being humiliated by a child while praying, Ayuba had run away and had been captured and imprisoned at the Kent County Courthouse, where he is discovered by a lawyer, Thomas Bluett, traveling through on business.

The lawyer is impressed by Ayuba's ability to write in Arabic.

When another African who speaks Wolof, a language of a neighboring African ethnic group, is able to translate for him, it is then discovered that he has aristocratic blood.

Encouraged by the circumstances, Mr. Tolsey allows Ayuba to write a letter in Arabic to Africa.

Eventually, the letter reaches the office of James Oglethorpe, a Director of the Royal African Company.

After having the letter authenticated by John Gagnier, the Laudian Chair of Arabic at Oxford, Oglethorpe purchases Ayuba for forty-five pounds.

Oglethorpe, according to his own account, had been moved with sentiment upon hearing the suffering Ayuba had endured.