The remains were taken to the US during a revolt led by Muslim slaves

In January 1835, wearing religious robes and carrying amulets inscribed with prayers and passages from the Qur’an, hundreds of African Muslims staged the most significant urban slave revolt in the more than 350 years of slavery in Brazil.

About 600 Malês – as Muslims of Yoruba origin were known – attempted to seize control of Salvador, the capital of the Bahia state and then the country’s second most important city, but were ultimately defeated by the police, who killed 70 rebels.