Question and Answer with Co-Executive Producer Alexander Kronemer
1. What inspired you to do PRINCE AMONG SLAVES?
The trauma of 9/11 sent people to their churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship. This is one of the most important roles that religion plays in people’s lives. It provides comfort, psychological healing and answers in times of challenge and fear. But what happens when a person experiences terrible personal trauma and is prevented from receiving that source of comfort? I was at a service in a mosque that had many African Americans in attendance that I suddenly wondered about the spiritual lives of the enslaved Africans. What role did religion play in easing the trauma of sudden enslavement?
I soon learned that for most, being taken to a foreign land cut them off from the ability to practice the various indigenous African religions that they followed, since many of them required being in physical contact with special holy places back home. Among those who were Muslim-and statistics vary widely about that number; hundreds of thousands seems likely- it was at least possible for some to maintain their faith, since Islam is a very portable religion. I wondered if the experience of enslavement causes someone to lose their faith, especially if they were once a Prince.
That question arose again when my colleague Michael Wolfe came across a book about one such man, titled Prince Among Slaves. Clearly, this was a powerful story of the human spirit that also made an important contribution to our understanding of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and America’s role in it. I learned that while it was a story about a particular man and his rather unique circumstances, it was also a very universal story, heartbreaking as all stories about slavery are, but also ultimately a testament to the human spirit. In other words, it was a story that needed to be brought to wide public attention in the way that only film can do. And so Michael and I started this project.
2. What message would you like audiences who see PRINCE AMONG SLAVES to come away with?
This is a historical documentary, and in the beginning it was for me primarily a fascinating story from the past. In its broad outlines, it reads more like a fairytale than actual events: a prince falls from power and becomes enslaved. As a slave he loses his previous arrogance and learns to be patient and caring. When he finally is acknowledge as royalty, instead of acting like a king, he becomes a father desperately trying to also win the freedom of his children. It is a very powerful, you could say, archetypical story.
But when another national trauma named Katrina hit our country, it was apparent that all of us can lose everything overnight. In those moments, we seek for religious comfort, but also for models to help guide us. I realized that this was not just a story from the past, but a model for any of us who experience the sort of "fall from grace" that he did. I wouldn't call his a story of hope, because he didn't, in the end, free most of his children, and even if he had, millions of other enslaved Africans never had the chance. So it's not a story of hope, in the sense that it says that things will always work out in the end. Rather, its message is that whatever else that can be taken from you, no one can rob you of your dignity. And dignity alone can sustain you. People in far less dire circumstances than slavery often lose the dignity that he maintained. Remember this man, and remember your dignity: that is the message I would like people to come away with.
3. Production-wise, what makes PRINCE AMONG SLAVES so special?
Credit has to be given to Bill Duke, who crafted the powerful reenactment scenes, and to Andrea Kalin, who is producing and directing this film. Andrea has brought a great sensitivity to the story-telling approach. She has a non-linear style that departs from usual documentary story-telling. In the end, the film is an experience that is more cinematic and more informative than is often the case. PRINCE AMONG SLAVES says as much in its silent passages, of which there are several, as it does when scholars are helping audiences understand the story better.
4. During your research for the PRINCE AMONG SLAVES, what surprised you most about early West African as well as early American societies?
There were many surprises. First, I had no idea how well developed and advanced African societies were during this period. I was flabbergasted to learn that Abdul Rahman's father controlled a country larger than the United States at that time, that his army numbered more men than George Washington's and that more people could read and write than in several European countries. The image I had grown up with of Africa as a "primitive" society during this period was absolutely wrong. As an elderly African American woman said to me, after I made a public presentation about the project in its early days, "Too often we think that the story of African Americans begins at zero, with enslavement. The story doesn't begin there, but in freedom and greatness. It begins with the loss of something."
I also learned, to my surprise, that these countries were so powerful that no European ever could have successfully robbed the continent of so many people. Most of the captives sold to slavers were sold by warring African countries. What stimulated that warfare was the vicious economic calculus of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Because of the huge demand for slave labor in the New World, European slave traders would barter with African countries, offering guns and other weapons in return for captives. If you and your country were seeking to defend yourself from others, you needed these guns, so you sold captives, which only caused your rival to do the same to you, and so on and so forth. It plunged West Africa into a state of general warfare that lasted nearly 100 years and pretty much destroyed the social fabric. As one of the scholars says in the film, the trans-Atlantic slave trade was an economy that made the world go around, just as the oil economy does today. It is easy for us to look back on these people, accusing them of moral failings for participating in that economy, but one has to wonder if some future generation will not look back on us with the same accusation?
5. PRINCE AMONG SLAVES gives us a glimpse into what it may have been like for African Muslims who were enslaved. Why did you feel it was important to touch on this in the film?
This is a story about many things, about the human spirit, about early America, about slavery and the societies of Africa. It is also a story about Islam. Because of contemporary Middle East politics, we tend to view Islam through the reverse end of a telescope, as it were, reducing a global religion with a 1,400 year history to a political and military encounter with its most radical voices. It would be like trying to understand Christianity through the history of the KKK. In fact, the story of Islam is diverse, valuable, and mostly about other things than contemporary events. It is a story about Indonesia, China, India, Spain, Russia, and Africa. Yet, we rarely hear any of those stories. In this case, PRINCE AMONG SLAVES tells a small sliver of the African story, but one that is very important for Americans to know, not only for intellectual reasons, but because this man, Abdul Rahman, Prince of Futa Jallon, is an important person to know, ethically, morally, personally. Knowing him enriches our understanding of the human spirit and offers an important lesson about what matters in life. At the very least, this is a story about a heroic Muslim that has nothing to do with contemporary political conflicts. That alone makes it a story worth knowing something about.