- Aug 17, 2010
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Makandal: Black Muslims Initiated Fall of Slavery in the Americas
MAKANDAL was a Haïtian Maroon leader in Saint-Domingue, which came to be known as HAITI upon its independence.
Makandal was a Muslim from the Mandingo tribe. In ancient times, the Mandingo followed the path of Imamia (Al-Mammy). History records that among the Mandingo were Islamic Royalty known as the Shareef. The Shareef are descendants of Ahlul Bayt (AS) via Hassan & Hussein (AS).
From Sylviane Diouf’s “Servant’s of Allah”
Macandal was a field hand, employed on a sugar plantation. One day, as he was working the sugar mill, one of his hands got caught on the wheel and had to be severed. As he could no longer cut the cane, he became a cattleman, later running away. For eighteen years Macandal was at large, living in the mountains but making frequent incursions on the plantations to deliver death. He organized a network of devoted followers and taught the slaves how to make poison, which they used against their owners or against other slaves in order to ruin the slaveholders. His reputation was such that a French document of 1758 estimates—with much exaggeration, no doubt—the number of deaths he provoked at 6,000 over three years. In eighteenth-century Saint-Domingue, poison was called macandal.
An African born in “Guinea,” Macandal was in all probability a Mandingo. He came from an illustrious family and had been sold to the Europeans as a war captive. He was a Muslim who “had instruction and possessed the Arabic language very well,” emphasized nineteenth-century Haitian historian Thomas Madiou, who gathered information through the veterans of the Haitian Revolution. Macandal was most likely a marabout, for French official documents describe him as being able to predict the future and as having revelations. He was also well known for his skills in amulet making—so much so that gris-gris were called macandals. In addition, he was said to be a prophet, which indicates that he was perceived as having a direct connection to God. Thus besides being a marabout he may have been a sharif, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammed; but this is only speculation, as no evidence exists exists to confirm or inform this hypothesis.
Macandal was much more than simply a maroon leader. He had a long-term plan for the island and saw the maroons as the “center of an organized resistance of the blacks against the whites,” stressed an eighteenth-century French document. He used practical symbolism to explain his vision for Saint-Domingue, Here are the first inhabitants of Saint -Domingue, they were yellow. “Here are the present inhabitants”—and he showed the white handkerchief—“here, at last, are those who will remain the masters of the island; it is the black handkerchief.”
http://islamicblackhistory.blogspot.com/2011/06/makandal-black-muslim-contribution-to.html
MAKANDAL was a Haïtian Maroon leader in Saint-Domingue, which came to be known as HAITI upon its independence.
Makandal was a Muslim from the Mandingo tribe. In ancient times, the Mandingo followed the path of Imamia (Al-Mammy). History records that among the Mandingo were Islamic Royalty known as the Shareef. The Shareef are descendants of Ahlul Bayt (AS) via Hassan & Hussein (AS).
From Sylviane Diouf’s “Servant’s of Allah”
Macandal was a field hand, employed on a sugar plantation. One day, as he was working the sugar mill, one of his hands got caught on the wheel and had to be severed. As he could no longer cut the cane, he became a cattleman, later running away. For eighteen years Macandal was at large, living in the mountains but making frequent incursions on the plantations to deliver death. He organized a network of devoted followers and taught the slaves how to make poison, which they used against their owners or against other slaves in order to ruin the slaveholders. His reputation was such that a French document of 1758 estimates—with much exaggeration, no doubt—the number of deaths he provoked at 6,000 over three years. In eighteenth-century Saint-Domingue, poison was called macandal.
An African born in “Guinea,” Macandal was in all probability a Mandingo. He came from an illustrious family and had been sold to the Europeans as a war captive. He was a Muslim who “had instruction and possessed the Arabic language very well,” emphasized nineteenth-century Haitian historian Thomas Madiou, who gathered information through the veterans of the Haitian Revolution. Macandal was most likely a marabout, for French official documents describe him as being able to predict the future and as having revelations. He was also well known for his skills in amulet making—so much so that gris-gris were called macandals. In addition, he was said to be a prophet, which indicates that he was perceived as having a direct connection to God. Thus besides being a marabout he may have been a sharif, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammed; but this is only speculation, as no evidence exists exists to confirm or inform this hypothesis.
Macandal was much more than simply a maroon leader. He had a long-term plan for the island and saw the maroons as the “center of an organized resistance of the blacks against the whites,” stressed an eighteenth-century French document. He used practical symbolism to explain his vision for Saint-Domingue, Here are the first inhabitants of Saint -Domingue, they were yellow. “Here are the present inhabitants”—and he showed the white handkerchief—“here, at last, are those who will remain the masters of the island; it is the black handkerchief.”
http://islamicblackhistory.blogspot.com/2011/06/makandal-black-muslim-contribution-to.html