Yes, there were Muslims in colonial America. Some of them — not all — were Africans sold into slavery. The slave trade from Africa to the Americas began in the 1520s, and it’s estimated 10 to 15 percent of the enslaved Africans were Muslim. Enslaved Africans were pressured to convert to Christianity, and those who continued to practice Islam had to do so in secret. According to the PBS series History Detectives, “There was an enclave of African-Americans on the... Read more