Page 198 - Sale 2271 - Printed & Manuscript African Americana - March 1, 2012

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NO COPY AT AUCTION IN 25YEARS
345
(ISLAM—ISLAM IN AMERICA.) HODGSON,WILLIAM B.
The Gospels
Written in the Negro Patois of English, with Arabic Characters, By a Mandingo
Slave.
16 pages.Tall 8vo, original printed self-wrappers, sewn; front cover nearly detached,
outer leaves a trifle dusty; enclosed in a cloth chemise.Accompanied by a letter addressed
to American philologist George Phillip Krapp regarding this paper.
(Np, Ethnological Society of NewYork: 1857)
[3,000/4,000]
FIRST EDITION
,
EXCEEDINGLY SCARCE
.
While oclc locates 18 copies (most in southern
institutions), no copy has been at auction in the last 25 years.This pamphlet includes a talk given
at the Ethnological Society of NewYork in 1857 byWilliam B.Hodgson, one of the world’s leading
philologists. He had come into possession of a unique manuscript, written by a Mandingo slave
named “London,” the property of the Maxwell family of Savannah. (they later removed to Florida
where London died.) London had written a phonetic transliteration of the Gospel of Saint John into
English, usingArabic characters—the only systemic try at writing English inArabic letters up to that
point. “The manuscript of London is remarkable for precision in the use of the vowel points-harchat
of the Arabic grammar. . . I infer from this, that as London was accustomed [to the use of them], in
making copies of the Koran with the same reverential sentiment he used the vowel points in copying
the Bible of his adopted religion.” London’s phonetic rendering of the Gospel of St. John begins
“Fas Chapta ob Jon. Inde Beginnen wasde wad; andeWad waswid Gad, ande wad was Gad.”
Hodgson’s paper touches on many other Africans in the Americas practicing Islam, some of them
supposedly converting to Christianity.The noted Omar ibn Said, whose manuscript narrative was
sold in these rooms in 1996, is cited, as is the Fulah slave Bul-ali (BenAli) Muhammad, a slave
in the possession of a Mr. Spelling of Sapelo Island, who wrote the only extant book of Islamic
Law written in America and contributed several Islamic terms to the Gullah dialect of English.
ISLAM & MALCOLM X
LOTS 345-351
347