Video from John Immerwahr
African Americans in Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
" This video reviews five of the most important 19th-century works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that are created by African Americans or that tell an important story about African American life. For more of my YouTube videos about the Philadelphia Museum of Art go to: johnimmerwahr.org/projects/" from the video introduction
"Yarrow (or Yaro or Yeru) Mamout (or Muhammad, Marmoud, or Mamadou) came to this continent as a slave in 1752. He was a Fulani, the nomadic tribe of Muslim Africans that ranged over all of West Africa, predominately in what is now Senegal and Guinea. Yarrow was sixteen years old when he was enslaved, being taken from the Guinea coast to Maryland. We do not and cannot know much about his African life, as Yarrow left no record. However, in 1819, Charles Wilson Peale painted this portrait of him and wrote an obituary for him when he died, telling all he knew about Yarrow and his American life. Subsequently, he is referenced in most books about the Muslim experience in the United States, an anomaly as a slave with portraits..." from the article: Portrait of Yarrow Mamout: An Early American Muslim
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