As a member of a Muslim family in the West African hinterland, Baquaqua had learned to write in Arabic and to speak the Mozarabic dialect of Spanish. He learned Portuguese in Brazil and, most likely, some French and Haitian Creole during his two years in Haiti. In upstate New York he learned enough English to read and write letters and, in 1854, he published his autobiography in Detroit, Mich., with the help of his editor Samuel Moore. At the time that he finished his biography, Baquaqua was living in Chatham in Canada West, now Ontario, which was one of the main endpoints of the Underground Railroad system helping escapees from slavery in the southern United States to find safety. In early 1855, six months after the biography was published, he moved to Great Britain, where he remained until at least 1857. We do not know what happened to him thereafter, although he did reveal in a number of letters that he was planning to return to Africa and it does seem possible that he went to Lagos, the Niger Delta or even Liberia (Fisher, 1933, p. 73).  
![img-4.jpeg](img_ref_5)
figure 1. Itinerary and portrait of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua  
Source: (left) Map by Mariana Tiné, World Geodetic System; (right) A. T. Foss and Edward Mathews, Facts for Baptist Churches (Utica, NY, 1850)  
Baaquaqua was born in around 1824 in the town of Djougou in the north of modern-day Benin. Located between the Sokoto caliphate to the east, the Asante empire to the west and the kingdom of Dahomey to the south, Djougou was a major hub of the 'savanna trade' - an east-west axis for trade in kola nuts, gold, salt, fabrics and enslaved people. Caravans rested in and around the town, exchanging goods and procuring supplies, and people from other regions - even the Maghreb, including Morocco - circulated in the streets or built homes there. The trade routes also served to spread ideas and Islam.