Latest / The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History / The 1787 British Settlement of Sierra Leone
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked a lot about resistance — the revolts, the Maroon communities, the legal battles. But there's another thread in this story that we haven't touched: the attempt to build a free Black settlement in Africa itself, even while the slave trade was still booming. I'm talking about Sierra Leone. Luna: Wait — the British colony that later became Freetown? I know the name from the Amistad episode. Lucas: Exactly. But the story starts earlier, in 1787, with a very strange coalition. You had Granville Sharp — who we've met through the Zong and Somersett cases — and a group of abolitionists who called themselves the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor. They were responding to a crisis in London: thousands of Black Loyalists, freed slaves who had fought for Britain in the American Revolution, were now destitute on the streets of London. Lucas: The committee's solution was to repatriate them to West Africa — specifically, to a piece of land on the Sierra Leone peninsula. They called it the 'Province of Freedom.' The idea was that these settlers would build a self-governing Christian community and prove that Africans could thrive without slavery. Luna: So it was both a humanitarian mission and a political statement. Lucas: Exactly. And you know, if this episode is worth the price of a coffee to you, that's the link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's what keeps these deep dives ad-free. Luna: It really does help us keep going episode after episode. Lucas: So in May 1787, three ships — the Atlantic, the Belisarius, and the Vernon — sailed from Portsmouth with about 411 settlers: 311 Black men, 41 Black women, and some white artisans and their families. They arrived in Sierra Leone, and from the start, everything went wrong. Luna: What happened? Lucas: First, the land they'd been granted — through a treaty with the local Temne chief, King Tom — was swampy and unhealthy. Disease hit immediately. Within a few months, over a hundred settlers died of fever and dysentery. Then there was conflict with the Temne, who felt cheated by the treaty's terms. And the administration was a mess: the white supervisors were corrupt or incompetent. Lucas: By 1789, the settlement had collapsed. The surviving settlers scattered, some living with nearby Temne villages, others eking out a living on the coast. The Province of Freedom was a graveyard. Luna: So that was the end of it? Lucas: Not quite. Because around the same time, there was another group of Black Loyalists — this time in Nova Scotia. After the American Revolution, about 3,000 Black Loyalists had been granted land there, but the conditions were terrible: rocky soil, broken promises, and racial discrimination. So their leader, a man named Thomas Peters, decided to take action. Luna: Thomas Peters — I don't think I've heard of him. Lucas: He was remarkable. Peters had been born in Nigeria, enslaved, fought for the British during the war, and after the war settled in Nova Scotia. In 1790, he traveled to London to petition the government for better treatment for Black Loyalists. There, he met Granville Sharp and the abolitionist circle. Lucas: Sharp saw an opportunity to revive the Sierra Leone project. He convinced the British government to fund a new settlement, and this time, the settlers would be from Nova Scotia. The Sierra Leone Company was formed, and a naval lieutenant named John Clarkson — brother of Thomas Clarkson — was put in charge of transporting the settlers. Luna: So the second wave was more organized? Lucas: Much more. In January 1792, 15 ships carrying 1,196 Black Nova Scotians arrived in Sierra Leone. They founded the town of Freetown, named for their new beginning. John Clarkson was a capable leader, but tensions quickly arose between the settlers and the company administration. Lucas: The settlers were mostly farmers and artisans, and they expected self-government based on English common law. The company, however, treated them as wards, imposing taxes and regulations without consent. The settlers, led by Peters and other veterans, pushed back. Luna: And Peters — what happened to him? Lucas: He died just a few months after arriving, probably of malaria. But his legacy lived on. The Nova Scotian settlers became the backbone of Freetown's population. They built churches, schools, and a distinct culture — the Krio people, their language, their architecture, all trace back to these settlers. Lucas: The Sierra Leone experiment was messy, often brutal, but it was also the first large-scale attempt to establish a free Black society in Africa. It became a beacon for abolitionists and a symbol of what could be possible. And it directly influenced later efforts, like the American Colonization Society's settlement of Liberia. Luna: So even though it started as a disaster, it ended up being a foundation for something lasting. Lucas: Exactly. The Province of Freedom failed, but Freetown endured. And the story of that first settlement — the hopes, the failures, the resilience — it's a crucial part of the larger narrative of the struggle against slavery. It shows that the fight wasn't just about ending the trade, but about building a new world. Luna: I'm glad we finally got to this story. It puts the resistance we've talked about in a whole new light. Lucas: It does. And it reminds us that the people who fought for freedom weren't just reacting to oppression — they were actively creating alternatives. That's a powerful thing to remember.