Prince Among Slaves

1788. The slave ship Africa set sail from the Gambia River, its hold laden with a profitable but highly perishable cargo-hundreds of men, women and children bound in chains-headed for American shores. Eight months later, a handful of survivors found themselves for sale in Natchez, Mississippi. On the slave auction block, one of them, a 26-year-old male named Abdul Rahman Ibrahima made an astonishing claim to Thomas Foster, the lantation owner who purchased him at auction: As an African prince, highly educated and heir to a kingdom, this bedraggled African's father would gladly pay gold for his return. Foster dismissed the claim as a tissue of lies.