I stumbled across a strange name in an American Historical Society Journal footnote: the Ben Ishmael Tribe out of Ohio Valley. The article was about settlements in Illinois in the early 19th century but it gave no further information about that name. So, I dug around. First on the web and then in the library. What I discovered was a strange little story from the American past - a past that seems largely forgotten.
What I write below has been taken, mostly, from Gone to Croatan: Origins of North American Dropout Culture, an edited volume by Ron Sakolsky and James Koehnline published in 1993.
I had always assumed that some of the slaves brought to Southern plantations from West Africa would have been Muslims - Islam being a heavy presence in North and West Africa as early as the 8th century. The beginnings of the Nation of Islam, always read to me as operating on that foundational myth of Muslim slaves. The name, Ben Ishmael, hence immediately struck to me as Banu Ismail - literally, the Sons of Ismail but better translated as the Tribe of Ismail. Gone to Croatan confirmed my hypothesis. Ben Ishmael were a collective of thousands of runaway slaves, Native Americans and “poor whites” who created a nomadic colony in the Kentucky Hills in 1790. They lived far from settled communities (for obvious reasons) and were forced out of inhabited lands at a regular pace. When Kentucky farmlands became slave-farms, they moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. From Cincinnati they were driven out, tracing a settlement pattern through Indiana and finally to various small towns in Illinois (mostly southern parts). Cities like Mahomet, Mecca, Morocco and Cairo bear the names of some of these settlements.
They remained nomadic in nature - their 350 mile triangular migration route stretched northwest from Indianapolis to the Kankakee River south of Lake Michigan, south through easten Illinois (Urbana-Champaigne) and Decatur and finally, due east, back to Indianapolis. They make an entrance in James Fenimore Cooper’s 1872 novel The Prairie as the family of a man called Ishmael Bush [though the tribe is “mostly” white in the book].
The tribe became a persecuted - and prosecuted - minority as the regions continued to be settled and the ‘morality’ began to be enforced. Their nomadic lifestyle, rather syncretic religion, free-loving, free-economy ways were often at clear odds to the majority. One, Oscar Carleton McCulloch 1843-1891, high on the fumes of Eugenics wrote a pamphlet on the Tribe that suggested forcible sterilization and incarceration for their members. The pamphlet, published in 1880, was only the second in the United States applying Eugenic science on a population. You can see some photos at the Eugenics Archive.
The Ishmaelites disappear from historical memory after the Indiana Laws for sterilization of feeble-minded and subhuman families went into effect in 1907.
I was still curious as to what their relationship was with Islam or more specifically the Nation. They seem to have carried some notions of sacred Islamic sites and totemic nomenclature but little evidence of ritual or belief seems apparent. The founding mythology of Nation of Islam obviously owes a lot to the Ben Ishmael history. But their larger impact was on the cultural memory of Black America struggling to survive out of slavery. Some anthropologist needs to study the songs and sites of the Ben Ishmael Tribe. Maybe they have. I don’t know. I just found this fascinating and thought…I’d share.
Furthermore: who are these people that I found at BoomBox.net? And what does it all have to do with the crescent on the South Carolina flag? Marlowe?
I am the product of whites, blacks and reds living together in the Kentucky hills. My aunt has sickle cell and I have two cousins born with afros. These people have been called by various names over the years–melungeon (malun jinn) and black dutch, among others.
Their line is formed from various branches which came together in the isolation of Appalachia, where they originally congregated for safety. Some are the descendants of escaped slaves, some of Indians, some of Muslim Spanish/North African shipwreck survivors, some of criminal Scots-Irish white trash. The important thing to note is that for almost a hundred fifty years–that’s five generations or so, none of these people had the luxury of prejudice. They literally screwed themselves into one color.
The gentry considered them less than human for years, and had it not been for their remote mountain homes, supposed evil powers and ways with black magic, they would’ve been the recipients of more vitriol than they were.
The supposed “black magic” I think refers to syncretistic hill religion borne of distant memories of great grandma speaking of how there is no god but god, etc. Modern white pentecostalism owes its quarrels with The Catholic Church and the trinity–especially its insistence on a unified godhead–to these memorial echoes.
The group to whom Sepoy refers is but one poor group of these melungeons, with a particularly strong tie to the distant parent faith.
Some of those who remain in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia are “rediscovering” thier roots instead of trying to hide or lose them; they’re down with identity politics and not into apologizing for their multiracial identity. They’re bolstered by the generally decent work of a responsible amateur scholar named Brent Kennedy, who has worked with groups as diverse as the Turkish and Libyan governments, which are interested in proving Muslims have been on the continent as long as Jews and Christians.
Addenda: During the post-war labor migrations, these ideas would have been of great interest to blacks living in Dearborn, who were then just getting to know their Lebanese neighbors. W.D. Fard, the Founder of NOI, was coincidentally not black. He did, however rise amidst this influx of immigrants from abroad and down south.
As for the South Carolina flag, I can only speculate. There should be a history of the South Carolina state flag somewhere on the net.
You done good, my friend. now, how come you haven’t turned this into a novel yet? if you parlay enough of the low Islam, high masonry aspects of this story, you have a blockbuster on your hands. Two words for you: Dan Brown. You know we hate him but we gotta give him props for turning Art History 101 into billions of dollars.
Dear Marlowe,
I am doing my own research on the Tribe of Ben-Ishmael with the Indiana State Library. One aspect of my research concerns the infamous Revernd Jim Jones, and his shadowy-origins. It struck me that he did his early social-work in the depressed areas of Indianapolis–site of the Ishmaelite-ghettoes. He always said he had “Indian-origins,” and this seems like something an outsider (or was he?) would say to the descendents of Ishmaelites. Any help would be greatly-appreciated, this a neglected-area of research.
Dear Friend:
Thank you so much for the work you are doing in the history of the Ben Ishmael folk; it is much appreciated andm uch needed. We do hope that you continue your invaluable work in this area, and that Allah bless you and promote your every endeavor.
Sincerely yours,
(Rt. Rev.) Sotemohk A. Beeyayelel
Bishop of New Jersey, Morish Orthodox Church in America;
Rector, Hakim Bey Diocesan Theological Seminary;
President & Vice Chancellor, Alamut College
Pemberton Township, New Jersey
I am currently doing research on Ishamelite related topics (Hakim Bey, links to anarchism, free thought, human rights).
[…] Muslim slaves, Africans, mulatto’s, moors and all largely disappear from the main streams of American historiography, even as fears of rebellions, miscegenation and […]
I am a filmmaker and have been doing a little research myself - for documentary about Islam and Hip Hop. In my research, I found a book by Michael Muhammad Knight Titled, “The 5 Percenters”. He does a great job of briefly revealing the history of the Ben Ishmaels. It is a great read. Anyone interested in talking in detail about this subject hit me up.
Peace,
Sean Fahey
Endless Eye
Chicago IL
http://www.endlesseye.org