[2] He belonged to the Songhai ethnic group and was captured at a young age by members of the Tuareg, who sold him as a slave in Timbuktu.
Cardinal Lavigerie, archbishop of Carthage and Algiers, was impressed by Atiman's performance and arranged for him to study medicine at the University of Malta.
[2] In 1888, Atiman left on a mission with the White Fathers for Karema, on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, where he arrived in 1889.
[4] Karema was a new mission station on land recently transferred from the Congo Free State to German East Africa.
[5] He left a significant autobiographical account of his enslavement, subsequent freedom and integration into the White Fathers' mission.