Thomas Bluett (16901749) was a British

judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

Annapolis, Maryland Annapolis ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Maryland and the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...

. Bluett gained lasting renown by the encounter with an African slave, Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, in 1731. While in

jail A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

in Annapolis, Ayuba was visited by Thomas Bluett. Thomas became impressed with him and, through another

slave Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

acting as interpreter, wrote Ayuba's biography "Some Memoirs of the Life of Job, the Son of Solomon, the High Priest of Boonda in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

; Who was a Slave About Two Years in Maryland; and Afterwards Being Brought to England, was Set Free, and Sent to His Native Land in the Year 1734", which was published in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

1734. Bluett died in 1749.

External links

The Bluett Family
(Bibliotheca Augustana) 1690s births 1749 deaths British colonial judges in the Americas People of colonial Maryland {{Maryland-stub