This Day in History: 2017-04-11
In the Year 1807 – “Freed Muslim Remains in America” – Yarrow Marmout, an African slave of the Muslim faith, was set free in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood, where he lived for the
rest of his life. Marmout was an early shareholder in the Columbia
bank, which is the second chartered bank in the U.S. Today portraits
of Marmout hang in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the
Georgetown Public Library. In 1927, nearly 175 years after his arrival
to the U.S. as a slave, a descendant of his daughter-in-law’s family,
Robert Turner Ford, graduated from Harvard University.
April 12, 1847 - "First Asians Arrive in the United States" - A group of three Chinese students arrived in New York City and became the first Asians to officially enter the United States.
However, Chinese records show that Chinese Buddhist priests
traveled along the West Coast and present-day British Columbia
down to Baja California in 450 A.D. Also, Spanish records show the
existence of Chinese shipbuilders in present-day Southern California
between 1541 and 1746 and Chinese shopkeepers were already in
present-day Los Angeles when the first Anglo Americans arrived.
Though conventionally thought to have played a pivotal role in
American history only from the 19th century forward, Asians have
been in what's now considered the U.S. longer than Europeans."