West Africa: Famine of 1738-56

Thousands of Africans have been transported from the Senegambian coast, the west African region of the interior of modern Benin, and from the coast of modern Angola to Louisiana from 1718 to 1750. 

The geographic and perhaps linguistic similarities of many African captives in Louisiana does not necessarily imply a common heritage.

Religion is one significant difference among many of the Africans who were sold to the Americas from Senegal.

It is historically difficult to determine the religious beliefs of slaves, but it is likely that some, if not many, slaves from Senegal were Muslims.

Many were certainly captives taken in the religious wars that had engulfed the region from Futa Djallon to Futa Toro and Futa Bundu (modern Upper Niger River) in the early eighteenth century, as the inland territories of the African continent from which slaves are captured for transportation and sale in Louisiana is enormous.