An enslaved person's experiences, and their ability to hold on to language, religion, and culture depended on where on the continent they ended up, the degree to which their daily routines were controlled by their owner, and their access to those who shared their culture.

The most explicit example of an enslaved person brought to the United States maintaining their identity was Omar ibn Said. He was kidnapped from his home in Senegal and brought to South Carolina, eventually ending up in North Carolina. He was a highly educated Islamic scholar and although he appeared to convert to Christianity after more than a decade of servitude, the first chapter of his autobiography, written in Arabic, was a transcription of a passage from the Quran. His experiences, though, were atypical - his owner was reportedly generous with him and he had a relatively easy life as evidenced by the fact he lived to be nearly 100 years old.

Charles Spalding Wylly wrote about seeing enslaved men, women, and children, "fresh from the darkest Africa, some of Moorish or Arabian descent, devout Mussulmans, who prayed to Allah in the morning, noon and evening" on his grandfather's plantation in Georgia. While slavers did bring over children, based on other passages in Wylly's writing, it's most likely that he saw the descendents of his family's slaves. The grandchildren of another Muslim slave, Bilali Muhammad, gave interviews in 1939 in which they spoke about their culture and religion, which is clearly influenced by their ancestor's country of origin.

Finally, as evidence of the continuation of culture and religion, [The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor] (https://www.gullahgeecheecorridor.org/thegullahgeechee/) is maintained by descendants of enslaved people, in many cases 5th and 6th generation, who work to keep alive, and pass forward, their ancestors' culture and stories.

While there are numerous threads we can pull in today's culture and language that can be followed back to enslaved people's experiences prior to arriving on North American soil there are also numerous first-hand accounts by enslaved people, or their children, that speak to how fiercely and promptly an enslaved person's identity was erased. Frederick Douglass writes about how little he knew about his own mother, having been taken from her when he was one year old. His story was typical for most slaves born to enslaved women in America.

The book Identity in the shadow of slavery by Paul E. Lovejoy is a great read to get a better sense of how enslaved people negotiated - or were forced into - identity.