Selim Aga - Scotland and London

Scotland and London

Selim was placed in the custody of consul Thurburn's brother John in Peterculter near Aberdeen, baptised, educated at home and in a local school. In 1846 he published autobiographical Incidents Connected with the Life of Selim Aga, written in "faultless idiomatic English"; it was reissued in 1850. In 1875, the year of Selim's death, his memoirs published in the Geographical Magazine stirred up the public who did not believe that the book was written by an African and not an educated British gentleman. Richard Francis Burton came to his former steward's defence, confirming that Selim was, in fact, an African educated in Scotland, and capable of "... briefly anything... he took all the trouble of life off my hands."

His life between 1846 and 1857 remains scarcely documented, but it is known that he fathered at least one son with a local woman. Selim's living descendants from this affair have been traced in Scotland and the United States. After leaving the Peterculter home in 1846 Selim resurfaced as a lecturer on the Panorama of the Nile at the Great Exhibition of 1851; he petitioned Lord Palmerston for Amelioration of Africa, promoted an idea of a trans-African east-west railroad to facilitate commerce, and was given an audience at the Foreign Office.