Introducing the world to Nicholas Said

New biography reflects on the life of Black Civil War vet

Shortly after 9/11, a group of Palestinian students had some questions for an American reporter about the lives and history of Muslims in America that sent him on a decadeslong journey, researching and writing about Muslims who had been in the United States since a few years after the Mayflower came ashore, through the American Revolution and the Civil War. Dean Calbreath, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former reporter with the San Diego UnionTribune, ultimately focused on one man, featured in his new book, “The Sergeant: The Incredible Life of Nicholas Said.”

“Initially, my plan was to do a book about all of these Muslims that I encountered from history. … I actually did a whole anthology of these people that I found, looking for Muslim names,” said Calbreath, who was part of the Pulitzer-winning team that broke the story of former U.S. Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham taking more than $2 million in bribes. One of the names Calbreath searched for was Mohammed, coming across Mohammed Ali ben Said, whose name was later changed to Nicholas. “That’s how I stumbled across his name and immediately felt drawn to him because of his wit, his urbane intelligence and sense of character, and also his love of travel, his love of learning languages. These are things that I also have, and I felt very close to him.”

Said (pronounced Sy-eed) was born in the kingdom of Borno, today known as northern Nigeria, to a famed general in about the 1830s. He was the 13th of his mother’s 19 children, his mother being among the four of his father’s wives. As a young teen, he was kidnapped and sold into slavery, which would eventually lead to his traversing Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States. Here, he would join one of the first Black regiments in the Union Army, be appointed one of the first Black voting registrars in the nation during Reconstruction, work as a teacher to freed Black children and adults in the South, and tour the lecture circuit advocating for the education and equality of Black people.

Calbreath, author and retired journalist, spent 10 years composing his book on Said (which Harvard professor and historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. has called “essential reading”) and took some time to talk about his research, the incredible adventures of Said’s life, and the ways that he was surprised by Said’s life experiences and perspectives. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity. )

Q How did you find the initial information about Nicholas Said, that told you that he was someone who loved to travel and who’d learned at least nine languages?

A He actually wrote two versions of his memoirs that were both available on the internet, which was my first encounter with him. He wrote a story in The Atlantic in 1867, an 11-page article about his life where he describes his travels. He traveled through Africa, the Middle East, through Europe, the Caribbean, and he also described a number of languages that he spoke. He spoke French, Italian, German, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, English, and also Mandara and Kanuri, which were the African languages of his parents. His parents spoke two different languages because his father had captured his mother in war and she became one of his wives.

Q How did he find himself in the U.S.? What brought him here?

A For five or six years, he had been traveling through Europe as the valet de chambre — the gentleman’s gentleman — of a Russian prince. [A valet de chambre served as a kind of personal manager for their employer, taking care of appointments, attending to them during official functions, taking care of them when they were sick. They were also considered a higher class than other servants, like a footman or a butler, and were even forbidden from fraternizing with those other servants because of their class level.] He’d agreed to be with the prince for five years and ended up being with him for six years. At the end of that six years, he was in England and he told the prince, ‘Listen, it was great being with you, but I really need to get home to Africa.’ The prince was very upset and said, ‘Stay with me and I’ll give you enough money so you can retire by the age of 40.’ Nicholas was about 25 at the time and he really felt like he needed to go. He was preparing to go to Africa when a Dutch count encountered him and was looking for a gentleman’s gentleman that would accompany him and his fian-