Note: This post deals with a Black Nubian child who was “gifted” to Peter Albrecht’s great-great-great-grandfather Friedrich Heinrich Albrecht von Preußen (1809-1872) during the latter’s “Oriental Journey” in 1843. Because this post allows me to examine so many different historical and ancestral topics, I thought I would present it to readers.
Related Post:
In anticipation of an upcoming trip my wife and I are planning to Egypt to visit the pyramids and other archaeological remains there, I’ve been reading a 2003 book by Dr. Zahi Hawass, entitled “Secrets from the Sand.” Dr. Zawass is an eminent Egyptian archaeologist, Egyptologist, and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs. (Figure 1)
Among the many things I learned in reading this book is that the world-famous bust of Nefertiti which is on display at the Neues Museum in Berlin and which I once saw in person, was discovered in 1912 in Amarna, Egypt by the German-Jewish archaeologist Dr. Ludwig Borchardt. The surname caught my attention because my pediatrician was named Dr. Lilo Borchardt, so naturally I wondered whether they might have been related. I investigated this, discovered there is a remote ancestral connection between the two, and found the interconnection intriguing enough to mention to my friend Peter Albrecht von Preußen, whom I’ve talked about multiple times in recent posts. It was then that Peter told me the more absorbing tale I’m about to relate to readers about a Black Nubian child named “Sabac el Cher” who was “gifted” in 1843 to his great-great-great-grandfather, Friedrich Heinrich Albrecht von Preußen (FHA) (1809-1872) (Figure 2), during a trip the prince took to areas that are part of the Middle East.
While the young child was never a slave, nonetheless, the story harkens back to the colonial era, and what was considered appropriate at the time. Clearly the subject of this post is tangential to my own family history but is engrossing enough for me to share this unusual bit of history with readers.
Given the rather extensive details I’m about to provide, it is worth telling readers at the outset the sources of the information. Beginning on the 4th of July and lasting through the 31st of October 2023, as part of its Black History Month celebration, the “Stiftung Preussische Schlösser & Gärten In Berlin-Brandenburg,” the Foundation of Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg, is drawing attention to the history and achievements of Black people. This includes an exhibition on four Blacks who came to Prussia via the enslavement trade and had a connection to the Prussian Royal family or are depicted in paintings in Prussian palaces. To reiterate, Sabac el Cher is known principally because he appeared in several paintings that were displayed in Prussian palaces but did not arrive through enslavement, though this may be a distinction without a difference. Some of the details provided below are drawn from the Foundation of Prussian Palaces’ blog and exhibit catalog.
There is a brief entry in Wikipedia about August Sabac el Cher with limited details. August’s son, Gustav Albrecht Sabac el-Cher, who became a successful military bandmaster, was the subject of a Stern Plus magazine account and some of the particulars presented below are drawn from this write-up; many of the specifics in the article were drawn from a book by Gorch Pieken and Cornelia Kruse entitled “Preußisches Liebesglück: Eine deutsche Familie aus Afrika,” as well as an interview with one of August Sabac el Cher’s descendants. Additionally, I was able to locate several documents on ancestry.com that fill in a few holes. But, by far the source of most information on August Sabac el Cher and his descendants is drawn from the oral history handed down to Peter Albrecht (Figure 3) from his ancestors that he has graciously shared with me.
With the above as a backdrop, let me tell readers what is known about Sabac el Cher, or August Albrecht Sabac el Cher as he was named by FHA following his arrival in Prussia and subsequent baptism. Sabac el Cher is believed to have been born in 1836 in Kurdufan, today’s Sudan. (Figure 4) His given name is unknown. A high Egyptian official, Vizier Mehmet Ali, “gifted him” to Prince Albrecht of Prussia in February 1843 while the prince was on his “Oriental Journey.” The child was purportedly seven years old at the time. Prince Albrecht named the boy Sabac el Cher, which sounds in Arabic something like “Good morning,” among the few words Prince Albrecht knew. Sabac el Cher accompanied the prince on his journey which took him through areas that are today part of Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, and Turkey.
The history of how Sabac el Cher is believed to have fallen into the hands of Vizier Mehmet Ali is intriguingly indirectly related to Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt and Syria between 1798 and 1801; this campaign was instigated to defend French trade interests and to establish scientific enterprise in the region. As a trivial aside, on the scientific front this is the expedition that led to the discovery of the renowned Rosetta Stone, which we all learned about in grade school.
When the French withdrew from Egypt in 1801, tensions between the Ottoman and the local Mamluk beys (governors) once again increased. At the time, a Muhammad Ali Pasha, born in 1769 in Macedonia, then part of the Ottoman Empire, was stationed there. He had fought bravely in the Battle of Abukir (1799) on behalf of the Ottoman sultan against the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt. Following the French withdrawal and the vacuum left behind, between 1801 and 1805, Muhammad Ali used the Albanian troops at his disposal to take advantage of the conflict between the Mamluk, English, and Ottoman forces to consolidate power. In 1805, at the behest of the Ottomans, he initiated a series of mass executions.
He then built on the popular anti-Ottoman and Mamluk sentiment and gained the support of the Egyptian elite to force the Ottoman authorities to appoint him governor of Egypt, which was still under their control. Having compelled the sultan in Istanbul to acknowledge his regional authority, Muhammad Ali then proceeded to do away with his local rivals. In 1811, he permanently eliminated the Mamluk threat to his power by inviting them to a celebration at the Cairo Citadel where he had them all assassinated. Muhammad Ali ruled Egypt from 1805 to 1849 and is known as “the Founder of Modern Egypt.”
It appears that in 1821 Muhammad Ali successfully invaded the region of Darfur to wrest control of the area for the Ottoman Empire or to quell local unrest. His occupational forces captured around 20,000 Sudanese soldiers who they marched back to Cairo intending to turn them into slaves for his military; only 3,000 of them survived, the remainder having perished from starvation, thirst, illness, and exhaustion.
Local unrest in the Sudan apparently continued. According to oral accounts, Sabac el Cher was the son of a Bedouin sheik in Nubia (Figure 5), today part of central Sudan, who was killed in battle with Egyptian troops. When Sabac was examined by a royal court doctor upon his arrival in Prussia in 1843, the doctor determined he was about seven years old so “decided” his date of birth was 1836. It is likely his father went to war against the Egyptian occupational forces around this time. Following his father’s death, possibly also his mother’s, the Egyptians took Sabac to Cairo. As the son of a tribal chief, Sabac was likely treated with privilege by the conquering Egyptians, and purportedly enrolled in the royal cadet school in Cairo.
Sabac el Cher appears to have been “gifted” to FHA during an audience he had with the Vizier Mehmet Ali in 1843 in Khan Yunis, a city in today’s southern Gaza Strip. (Figure 6) How Sabac arrived there is unknown. According to Pieken and Kruse, “It was by no means uncommon in Egypt at that time to give black children to European travelers of rank as a gesture of hospitality.” In those days, slave markets in the Middle East were rather common and it was not unusual for Europeans to purchase domestic servants in these bazaars.
Accompanying FHA on his 1843 “Oriental Journey” was a gifted 22-year-old painter named Johannes Rabe (1821-1894) (Johannes Rabe (Maler) – Wikipedia). Several of his works from this trip depict Sabac el Cher, including one of him in Damascus (Figures 7a-b), a second of Sabac el Cher seated atop a camel (Figure 8), and another of him in Khan Yunis. The one in Khan Yunis shows FHA’s tent camp outside the city, and in the foreground can be seen a young Sabac lighting FHA’s very long pipe. (Figure 9)
I surmise that FHA picked up the habit of smoking this very long-stemmed Turkish tobacco pipe, known as a “chibouk,” on his trip to the Middle East. The stem of the chibouk generally ranges between 4 and 5 ft., much longer than the Western churchwarden pipes. In a painting Johannes Rabe rendered at the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais in Berlin after FHA’s return to Prussia, a young Sabac can again be seen tending to FHA’s chibouk. (Figure 10)
Yet another of Johannes Rabe’s paintings show FHA atop a horse with the pyramids of Giza outside Cairo as a backdrop. (Figure 11)
The first written mention of Sabac el Cher was recorded by Georg Erbkam in his “Diary of my Egyptian Journey, 1842-1843.” Erbkam was an architect and part of a research expedition commissioned by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who happens to have been FHA’s older brother. On the 7th of April 1843 the two groups met up while traveling in Egypt, and Erbkam noted the following: “Two servants [Mr. Amandus Strömer (Fourier) (see below) and Mr. Deubner (Butler)] and a cook [Mr. Hauptner] of the prince also followed; as well as a little black Nubian boy whom the prince had received as a gift from a governor above.” Rabe’s painting outside Khan Yunis suggests FHA’s entourage consisted of more than three other people besides the prince and Sabac, though most were probably local porters, helpers, camel drivers, and interpreters. (see Figure 9)
I will apologize in advance for what I’m about to discuss, but for serious researchers the ensuing may be mildly interesting. I should preface what I’m about to say by telling readers that I would never have learned about the following if not for Peter Albrecht’s help. Unbeknownst to me the Kingdom of Prussia, the largest of the states that eventually coalesced into Germany in 1871, used to publish an annual guide, “Das Handbuch über den Königlich Preußischen Hof und Staat,” “The Handbook on the Royal Prussian Court and State.”
For most people of plebian origins like me, one might never have cause to look at such a handbook. However, if one happens to be interested in the staff of such-and-such members of the royalty in former times, such as FHA, the guide can be useful. It identifies by name a royal individual’s court marshall, secretary, doctor, stable master, steward, cook, sommelier or wine steward, gardener, butler, nanny, etc. (Figure 12) So, in the case of the 1844 handbook, the name of FHA’s so-called “Hof-Fourier” was given, a man by the name of “[Amandus] Strömer.” (Figure 13) “Hof” means “Royal Court,” while a “Fourier” at the Prussian courts managed the accommodations of houseguests staying at the castle or when the royal traveled would secure overnight quarters and food for the lord. Accompanying FHA on his Oriental Journey we know was his Hof-Fourier [Amandus] Strömer. He is likely one of the figures that Johannes Rabe painted during the Middle Eastern trip, as is possibly his cook “Hauptner” seen serving FHA wine in the painting of the tent camp at Khan Yunis.
August Albrecht Sabac el Cher’s name never appears in the aforementioned “Handbook on the Royal Prussian Court and State” as an employee of FHA because he was supposedly not a member of Prussia’s upper or lower nobility and/or a member of the Prussian military, the only people who could officially be listed in the Handbook. More on this below.
I hasten to emphasize the above is likely to be of limited interest to most genealogists, but one never knows.
Peter surmises that upon FHA’s return to Prussia following his Oriental Journey he likely immediately had Sabac el Cher baptized into the Lutheran Church of which he was a member; this would have been administered by a Mr. Heym, Schlossprediger zu Camenz, Castle Preacher from Kamenz. Among Lutherans, newborns in the 1800s were typically baptized within two weeks after birth; obviously, in the case of Sabac el Cher the first opportunity to do so would have been upon his arrival in Prussia in 1843. It was at this time that Sabac el Cher was given his formal name, “August Albrecht Sabac el Cher.”
This information would normally have been recorded in the so-called Court Books of the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais in Berlin. (Figure 14) The Court Books recorded all births, baptisms, confirmations, weddings, deaths, etc. at the Royal Court, along with the names of the individuals involved; even the deaths of beloved family pets were recorded. Separate service books (Dienstbucher) or accounting ledgers would only have recorded the reason for an expense, such as a baptism. All these books were apparently moved to the von Preußen estate in Schloss Kamenz [Kamieniec Ząbkowicki Palace] in Silesia in the 1930s, then disappeared at the end of World War II when they were either destroyed or removed by the invading Soviet Army.
Contrary to Peter Albrecht’s understanding from his family’s oral accounts that Sabac el Cher was baptized soon after his arrival in Prussia in 1843, probably no later than September 1843, a summary page found on MyHeritage drawn from one of two rolls of microfilm (i.e., 70276 or 70277) at the LDS Genealogical Library in Salt Lake City claims he was christened on the 22nd of April 1852. (Figure 15) These films are not available on-line, so August’s baptism date has yet to be confirmed.
Thomas Röbke, author of the Stern Plus article about August Sabac el Cher’s son, claims the first mention of “Sabac el chel,” as his name is recorded, in on the 28th of May 1851 in the service books of the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais; he is identified as a “lakai,” a lackey. More on this below. Peter Albrecht is dubious the service books are the source of this temporal information since their existence cannot be confirmed. Moreover, this detailed type of information would have been recorded in Court Books rather than the accounting ledgers.
FHA had three children with his first wife Princess Marianne of the Netherlands, and, according to Peter Albrecht, Sabac el Cher was treated as a full-fledged member of the family in the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais and lived together with his adopted siblings. Following FHA’s divorce from Marianne in 1848, he purchased Schloß Albrechtsberg in Dresden and moved there permanently with August. (Figure 16) August also maintained a residence in Berlin at the Albrecht-Palais, as FHA had to travel there frequently.
August Sabac el Cher’s medal bar with his seven decorations survives. (Figure 17) I asked an acquaintance, Dr. Tilo Wahl, who helped me enormously when I was researching Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck, my eminent ancestor from Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland], for help in identifying them. Besides being a family physician, Dr. Wahl is a phalerist, a person who studies medals and awards. According to Tilo, the medal bar consists of the following decorations:
1.) Eisernen Kreuz 2. Klasse 1870 am weißen Band ( https://www.ehrenzeichen-orden.de/deutsche-staaten/eisernes-kreuz-2-klasse-1870-fur-kampfer.html )
2.) Medaille des Roten Adlerordens ( https://www.ehrenzeichen-orden.de/deutsche-staaten/roter-adler-orden-medaille-2-form-1871.html )
3.) Hohenzollern-Denkmünze für Nichtkämpfer ( https://www.ehrenzeichen-orden.de/deutsche-staaten/hohenzollern-denkmunze-fur-nichtkampfer-1848-1849-vergl-oek-17962.html )
4.) Erinnerungskreuz 1866 für Nichtkämpfer ( https://www.ehrenzeichen-orden.de/deutsche-staaten/erinnerungskreuz-fur-nichtkampfer-1866.html )
5.) Kriegsdenkmünze 1870 für Nichtkämpfer ( https://www.ehrenzeichen-orden.de/kaiserreich/kriegsdenkmunze-fur-nichtkampfer-18701871.html )
6.) Kriegsdenkmünze 1864 für Nichtkämpfer ( https://www.ehrenzeichen-orden.de/deutsche-staaten/kriegs-denkmunze-1864-fur-nichtkampfer.html )
7.) Krönungsmedaille 1861 ( https://www.ehrenzeichen-orden.de/deutsche-staaten/kronungsmedaille-am-band-1861.html )
Interested readers can click on the hyperlinks to learn more about August’s decorations. I will briefly recap what Dr. Wahl concluded from the awards August was given. These decorations confirm that August Sabac el Cher took part as a non-combatant and likely as FHA’s attendant in the German Revolutions of 1848-49; the Second Schleswig War of 1864 against Denmark; the 1866 Austro-Prussian War; and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. August was also awarded an Iron Cross in 1870, but, unfortunately, his name does not appear on the surviving list of recipients. August was present when Wilhelm I was crowned the King of Prussia in 1861 and was given a medal for this; Wilhelm I incidentally went on to become the first German Emperor when Germany became a country in 1871 and ruled from 1871 until his death in 1888. And, finally, the medal in the second position, the Roten Adlermedaille, was a merit decoration given to lower ranking servants.
Thomas Röbke notes the following about Sabac el Cher: “. . .his alleged ‘exoticism’ also plays an important role and fits into a courtly tradition: ‘As in many places in Europe, it had become fashionable in German princely houses since the 17th century to surround oneself with ‘dark-skinned’ pages or lackeys,’ according to Pieken and Kruse. ‘Precious, colourful and extravagantly dressed,’ they are proudly presented as ‘chamber carrots.’ Incidentally, the courtly pallor, the ideal beauty of the time, is to be particularly emphasized by the contrast.”
Peter Albrecht makes an additional point. Since there was officially no slavery in Prussia, there were very few Blacks there compared to the United States. For this reason, Sabac el Cher would have been an “attraction” in a military tattoo (i.e., a military tattoo is a performance of music or display of armed forces in general), particularly when he marched in his native Egyptian military attire.
Thomas Röbke makes numerous mentions of Sabac el Cher as a “lackey,” which has obvious pejorative connotations. Interestingly, in official documents, such as in his 1867 marriage certificate, August self-identifies as a lackey. Peter Albrecht is convinced that August led a “double life.” To the outside world, he presented himself as nothing more than a low-level servant, while in his private life in the Prussian Court he would have been considered a cherished member of FHA’s family who accompanied FHA as an attendant on his numerous military forays. According to Peter, he would have been protected and enjoyed considerable status at the court and received a salary.
There is evidence to support the fact that FHA officially adopted August as his son which, if true, would have elevated him to the rank of an aristocrat. The proof of this comes from the marriage register church book from the Dreifaltigkeitskirche (Trinity Church) in Berlin where August Albrecht Sabac el Cher married Anna Marie Jung (Figure 18) on the 24th of November 1867. This was a Protestant Church in East Berlin that opened in August 1739 and was destroyed in November 1943. The church books survive and line number 216, column 5 from the book of 1867 states that FHA gave his permission as father of the groom for August to marry (Figures 19a-b); the marriage register confirms that August was then living at Wilhelm Straße 102, which is the address of the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais. Only family members and their guests were allowed to live and stay at the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais.
There would have been implications if in fact FHA formally adopted August as one of his sons. First, as previously mentioned, August would have been elevated in status to the rank of an aristocrat. As an aristocrat, August could then theoretically have been named in the “Handbook on the Royal Prussian Court and State” as an employee of FHA. Because August’s name never appears in the Handbook this may have been FHA’s effort to avoid ruffling the feathers of members of the nobility who would have been “offended” by August’s exalted status.
FHA himself was in a tenuous position because after he and Marianne divorced, he remarried a person of “lower nobility,” and was in a so-called “morganatic marriage.” This is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which in the context of royalty or other inherited title prevents the principal’s position or privileges being passed to the spouse, or any children born of the marriage. In FHA’s case, this would have been moot since he had three children born of a royal marriage who would presumably have had precedence in terms of inheriting royal privileges. To further confuse readers, technically, as an aristocrat, August’s marriage to Anna would also have been a morganatic marriage since she was not an aristocrat.
August and Anna went on to have three children, Gustav (b. 1868), Elise (b. 1869) (Figure 20), and Gertrud (b. 1875), the last of whom died as a young child in 1880. According to Peter Albrecht, FHA is said to have had great affection for August and his grandchildren. Gustav (Figure 21) enjoyed great success as a military bandmaster and conductor.
August received his naturalization certificate on the 25th of October 1882 (Figures 22a-b), issued by the Royal Prussian Police at the headquarters of the Berlin Police, less than three years before his death on the 21st of September 1885 (Figure 23a-b), supposedly from stomach cancer. This certificate officially made August a Prussian and German citizen at the same time and served as a birth certificate allowing him to receive his military pension.
REFERENCES
Black History Month – Schwarze Menschen Am Preussischen Hof. 4 July-31 Oct. 2023, Stiftung Preussische Schlösser Und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin-Brandenburg.
Erbkam, Georg Gustav: Tagebuch meiner egyptischen Reise. Teil 3. Ägypten, 1844-1845.
Hawass, Zahi. Secrets from the Sand: My Search for Egypt’s Past. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 2003.
Hawass, Zahi. Zahi Hawass’s Secret Egypt. Laboratoriorosso, 2019.
Pieken, Gorch and Cornelia Kruse. Preußisches Liebesglück: eine deutsche Familie aus Afrika. Propyläen, 2007
Röbke, Thomas. (2022, February 2). From slave to officer to bandmaster: the German history of the Sabac el Cher family. Stern Plus.