Imani Fencers Foundation

ABRAHAM HANNIBAL

(1670 - 1761)

General Abraham Hannibal was born in 1670 in Eritrea, East Africa. As a young child he was stolen from his parents and sold in to slavery. He ended up in Turkey. In parts of Europe the fate for black people was much kinder than that of the millions who were sold into the trans-Atlanic slave trade, as the story of Abraham Hannibal shows. Abraham was taken to Russia where Tsar Peter (Peter the Great) and his wife Christina Queen of Poland adopted him.When Abraham was a young man, his bilogical parents found him and told him his real name was Ibrahim Hannibal and he was a descendent of the carthaginian Empire. Alike his namesake Hannibal, the great African military genius who lived around 200 bc, Abraham also became a military genius.

Tsar Peter sent Abraham to France to learn mathematics and engineering from the highest educationl insitutes. During Abraham's studies, war broke out between France and Spain and in 1718, he joined the French army to gain access to the best military engineering program and was captured bt the Spanish army. He was released in 1722 and promoted to lieutenanat and continued to study mathematics and engineering in france for anther year. he returned to Russia the following year and his advanced training enabled him to apply and successfully aquire posts frist as an engineer and than as a mathematics tutor for one of the Tsar's private guard units.

Abraham was sent to Siberia for three years to complate an engineering project. During this time he built a fortress and led several construction projects where he became a master engineer. he complated his srvice in Siberia in 1733 and returned to the court in 1741.

Abraham had 11 childern, most of whom became members of the Russian rayalty, he was the great grandfather to one of Russia's great men, Alexander Pushkin the poet and father of modern Russian literature.

Aberaham died around 1761