Yarrow Mamout

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Yarrow Mamout
Portrait of Yarrow Mamout (Muhammad Yaro), 1819. Charles Willson Peale.jpg
Portrait of Yarrow Mamout (Muhammad Yaro), 1819 by Charles Willson Peale
Personal details
Bornc. 1736
DiedJanuary 19, 1823

Yarrow Mamout (c. 1736 – January 19, 1823) was a literate Fulani Muslim whose claims to fame are several. His is one of only three portraits by major artists of anyone who came to America on a slave ship. Freed in 1796, Yarrow (his surname) became an entrepreneur and property owner in Georgetown. He was the most well-known, well-liked, and trusted African American there when nearby Washington, D.C. became the capital of the United States in 1800.[1]

Early life[]

Yarrow Mamout, was enslaved and taken to Annapolis, Maryland, from West Africa in 1752 at age 16 on the slave ship Elijah". His native tongue was Fulani, and he later learned Arabic and English. His signature on a deed is in English and Arabic.

Slavery[]

Samuel Beall purchased Yarrow upon his arrival on the Elijah on June 4, 1752. The Bealls were a prominent family in Maryland. Samuel Beall owned sixty-three properties in his lifetime. In addition, he was the sheriff of Frederick County, a justice of the peace, and a leader in the American Revolution in the Maryland colony. He also acquired the skills to locate and build water mills, which he had on several of his properties. For example, he was the first to put a mill along Rock Creek in Washington at the site of what later became known as Pierce Mill. In 1764, he moved with Yarrow to the farm Kelly's Purchase near Sharpsburg, Maryland. The house there became a Union field hospital during the Battle of Antietam and still stands. Beall was a partner in the nearby Antietam Ironworks, probably because of his knowledge of mills. By this time, Yarrow was serving as his body servant, a position of trust that enabled him to meet other noted men who were fomenting revolution. Upon Beall's death in 1777, his son Brooke inherited Yarrow and took him to the Beallmont farm west of Potomac, Maryland. Yarrow sired a son, Aquilla Yarrow, with a slave woman on an adjacent property in 1787. By this time, Brooke Beall had opened an import/export business in Georgetown, and Yarrow lived and worked there. While still technically a slave, Yarrow worked for (was rented out to) prominent men in Georgetown. Although Beall collected the money for Yarrow's work, he credited at least some of it to an account he kept for Yarrow. When Beall died in 1796, his widow fulfilled her husband's promise and gave Yarrow his freedom. He was sixty years old.

Life in freedom[]

Once free, Yarrow began making money for himself. His son Aquilla was still a slave, so Yarrow purchased his freedom and had the boy move in with him. In 1800, Yarrow acquired a half lot in Georgetown, now 3324 Dent Place NW. He saved his earnings and bought stock in the . The ownership was probably through a nominee since the Black Codes limited a Black person's legal protections. Yarrow was a jack of all trades, including a charcoal maker, a stevedore, and a basket weaver. He was also the best brick maker in the town, earning one and a half times what a white brick maker could. He had many white friends who were businessmen and lawyers to advise him on legal and financial matters. Thus, he sold his stock in the Columbia Bank before it went bankrupt. He then loaned some of that money to a white merchant, taking back a deed of trust as a security interest. After Yarrow died, the merchant stopped paying on the loan, but years later, Yarrow's niece Nancy Hillman, the daughter of a sister, won a lawsuit over the deed of trust that gave her the remaining principal plus interest. By the time of his death, Yarrow had become the best-known and trusted African American in Georgetown. On Christmas Eve, he led the Black community in caroling at the homes of wealthy white families. They were expected to reward the carolers with monetary gifts the next morning with Yarrow being the person entrusted with collecting and distributing the money.

Portraits[]

Portrait of Yarrow Mamout by James Alexander Simpson, Peabody Room, Georgetown public library.

There are two known portraits of Yarrow, painted by James Alexander Simpson and Charles Willson Peale. While visiting Georgetown in 1819, Peale was told about Yarrow by Joseph Brewer and William Marbury, who were relatives of his first wife Rachel Brewer. They said Yarrow owned a house and lot and bank stock and was said to be 140 years old. He wasn't. He was eighty-three, just slightly older than Peale, but Peale seemed to believe him. Thus, in painting Yarrow, Peale was motivated by a scientific interest in Yarrow's claimed age and by this Black man's remarkable achievements. Peale took the portrait back to Philadelphia where he owned a museum and put it on display. Simpson painted his portrait in 1822 and displayed it briefly at the Columbian Museum in Washington, D.C.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Johnston, James H. (2012). From slave ship to Harvard : Yarrow Mamout and the history of an African American family. New York: Fordham University Press. ISBN 978-0-8232-3953-5. OCLC 795705237.
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