There Has Never Been an America Without Muslims

Scholars estimate that at least 10 percent of the slaves brought over from West Africa were Muslim. In just one example out of thousands, in 1528, a Muslim man named Estevancio the Moor landed in what is now Florida. He was a slave of Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and they both accompanied the Spanish conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez on his expedition to the New World. Estevancio explored not only Florida but also Arizona, before he was killed in 1539 by the Zuni in what is now New Mexico. Two centuries later, in 1730, a Muslim slave named Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, also known as Job ben Solomon, was brought as a slave to Annapolis, Maryland, and his story was told by Thomas Bluett in a narrative published in London in 1734. Solomon stepped on American soil two years before George Washington was even born.