Jefferson's Muslim Fugitives

On October 4, 1807, Thomas Jefferson was handed documents written entirely in Arabic, penned by two African Muslims fleeing captivity in rural Kentucky. Jefferson's Muslim Fugitives recounts the untold story of escaped West African slaves in the American heartland whose Arabic writings reached a sitting U.S. President, prompting him to intervene on their behalf. Revealing Jefferson's lifelong entanglements with slavery and Islam, Jeffrey Einboden uncovers the lost Muslim manuscripts which circulated among Jefferson and his prominent peers, while questioning why such vital legacies from the American past have been entirely forgotten.