@Regrann from @illuminaticongo - THE 'FIRST' NATION OF ISLAM - "THE BEN ISHMAEL TRIBE!" The earliest source we have on the Tribe of Ben Ishmael is Rev. Oscar C. McCulloch, "THE TRIBE OF ISHMAEL: A STUDY IN SOCIAL DEGRADATION" (1888) Another source on the "Ben Ishmael Tribe" per se is an essay by Hugo Prosper Leaming, "THE BEN ISHMAEL TRIBE: FUGITIVE NATION OF THE OLD NORTHWEST" originally published in 1977. New scholarship on this subject, including a new book and revisited primary documents, refutes the central aspects of the accepted mythology of the "Ben Ishmael tribe." Nathaniel Deutsch, "INVENTING AMERICA'S "WORST" FAMILY: EUGENICS, ISLAM, AND THE FALL AND RISE OF THE TRIBE OF ISHMAEL" (University of California Press, 2009)... all three comes from an Euro-centric point of view... in other words, racist. Nevertheless, we will put together the pieces of the puzzle the best way we can. In the late 18th/early 19th century groups of runaway slaves (African Mandinka descent) from Florida (Seminoles / Yamassees), the eastern seaboard (Tuscaroras, Cherokees), and serfs fled from Kentucky (the fewest) 'poor (so-called) whites' (indentured "servants" from Scottish-Irish [Celtic] descent) who became known as the 'Melungeons', into the Ohio Territory (Ben Ishmaelite Tribe) estimated to number about 10,000 - hence they were called "tri-racial isolates". Some of these groups had clearly been "founded" (at least partly) by Moslem maroons (escaped slaved). The Melungeons descend from Moorish "convertados" brought as slave-labor to Florida by Spain and abandoned there. The Delaware Moors, the Louisiana Turks, and the Ben Ishmael Tribe of Ohio, all reveal Islamic connections.There they inter-married with Natives (Shawnees) who had lost their land to the early colonists and had moved inland to territory set aside for them by their allied tribes. Together they formed a new tribe - called the Ben Ishmael tribe. The Ishmaelites followed an annual nomadic route through the territory, hunting & fishing, and finding work as tinkers and minstrels, carpenters and tradesmen. They were polygamists, drank no alcohol, & sang and danced to show their reverence for life. #DRALIMELBEY