From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family

From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family. By James H. Johnston. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012. Pp.'[x], 302. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-8232-3950-4.)

Most historians of American slavery have probably seen Charles Willson Peale's compelling 1819 portrait of an elderly African-born man named Yarrow Mamout. In From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family, James H. Johnston recounts the story of Yarrow Mamout's life and traces some of Yarrow's descendants into the twentieth century. The book begins by examining Yarrow's West African origins, his Muslim faith, his enslavement as a teenager, and his voyage across the Atlantic to Maryland. Purchased in 1752 by Samuel Beall, a prominent Maryland planter, Yarrow served Beall until the latter's death in 1777, when he became the property of Samuel's son Brooke Beall, a Georgetown merchant. In this urban milieu, Yarrow was often hired out, and he was able to...