Province of Freedom (1787): The Sierra Leone Resettlement Scheme

The Province of Freedom was a scheme to settle Black Londoners and others on the coast of Sierra Leone in West Africa, beginning when the first settlers arrived in May 1787. Promoted by the abolitionist Granville Sharp and funded by the British government, it was meant to create a free, self-governing community. The first settlement collapsed within two years, but it led directly to the founding of Freetown in 1792 by Black Loyalists from Nova Scotia.

Background: the Black Poor of London

In the 1780s London had a visible community of poor Black residents. Many were former slaves from North America who had joined the British during the American Revolutionary War in return for promises of freedom, and who had been evacuated after Britain’s defeat. Others were sailors and former servants, some freed by the uncertain legal position that followed the Somerset case.

In early 1786 a group of philanthropists, including Jonas Hanway, formed the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor to provide food and medical help. They soon looked for a longer-term solution. A naturalist named Henry Smeathman, who had lived on the Sierra Leone coast, proposed a settlement there; after Smeathman died in 1786, the plan was taken up by the committee and the government, with Granville Sharp drafting rules for self-government.

Sharp imagined a “Province of Freedom” with its own laws, land for every settler and a system of mutual responsibility based on ancient English frankpledge. The government agreed to pay for transport and supplies, partly from humanitarian motives and partly to remove the poor from London’s streets.

Preparing the expedition

The scheme was controversial from the start. Many Black Londoners feared they might be re-enslaved in Africa, a real danger on a coast where slave traders were active, including at the British fort on nearby Bunce Island. Recruitment was slower than planned.

Olaudah Equiano, the formerly enslaved writer, was appointed commissary in charge of stores in late 1786. He reported that supplies were inadequate and that an agent was cheating the settlers, and he was dismissed in March 1787. He later described the affair in his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative.

The ships Atlantic, Belisarius and Vernon, escorted by the sloop HMS Nautilus under Captain Thomas Boulden Thompson, finally sailed in April 1787 after delays. Numbers are uncertain, but around 400 to 460 people set out, including Black men and women, some white women who were wives or partners of Black settlers, and a few white artisans and officials. Dozens died before reaching Africa.

Granville Town, 1787–1789

The settlers arrived in May 1787 at the Sierra Leone River. Captain Thompson arranged a treaty with a local Koya Temne ruler, known to the British as King Tom, for a strip of land on the peninsula. The settlers named their town Granville Town after Sharp.

The timing was disastrous. The rainy season began soon after they landed, crops could not be planted in time, and fevers and dysentery spread. Within the first year roughly a third or more of the settlers had died, and others left to work for slave traders or nearby trading posts. The local Temne leader Naimbana later disputed the terms of the land sale, and a revised agreement was made in 1788.

In late 1789 a quarrel involving British sailors and the Temne led to reprisals, and a local ruler known as King Jimmy burned Granville Town. The remaining settlers scattered.

The Sierra Leone Company and the Nova Scotians

Sharp and his allies did not give up. In 1791 they founded the Sierra Leone Company, a commercial company with abolitionist directors, including Henry Thornton and William Wilberforce. Alexander Falconbridge, a former slave-ship surgeon, was sent to gather the surviving settlers into a new small town.

At the same time, Thomas Peters, a Black Loyalist living in Nova Scotia, travelled to London in 1790–1791 to complain that Black Loyalists there had not received the land they had been promised. The company offered them passage to Sierra Leone. John Clarkson, a naval lieutenant and brother of Thomas Clarkson, organised the move.

On 15 January 1792 fifteen ships left Halifax carrying about 1,190 people. Around 65 died on the way, and the fleet arrived in late February and March 1792. The newcomers cleared land and founded Freetown, close to the old Granville Town site.

The Nova Scotians had their own leaders and strong religious communities, mainly Methodist, Baptist and Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion congregations, often led by Black preachers such as David George. They expected to own their land freely and to govern themselves, and they were disappointed when the company imposed quit-rents and kept power in the hands of white officials. Thomas Peters himself died of fever in Freetown in 1792, only months after arriving.

Myths and facts

A persistent story claims that the white women among the first settlers were prostitutes who had been made drunk and forced aboard in London. Historians who have studied the passenger lists, such as Stephen Braidwood, have found no reliable evidence for this; most of the women appear to have been the wives or partners of Black settlers.

Another common belief is that the scheme was simply a plan to deport Black people. Some officials did see it as a way to clear London’s streets, but the settlers went voluntarily, and many of them, along with Sharp, regarded it as a genuine chance to build a free community. Its failure owed more to poor planning, disease and conflict over land than to any single motive.

Later history

Freetown’s early years were also difficult, marked by disease, disputes over land and rents, and tension between settlers and company officials. A rebellion by some settlers in 1800 was suppressed with the help of Jamaican Maroons, who had been deported from Jamaica to Nova Scotia and then to Sierra Leone.

The settlement was also attacked in September 1794, when a French naval squadron, at war with Britain, plundered and burned much of Freetown. The settlers rebuilt the town, and the company continued to govern it, though it never made the profits its investors had hoped for.

Sierra Leone became a British Crown colony on 1 January 1808. After Britain abolished the slave trade, the Royal Navy brought tens of thousands of Africans freed from captured slave ships to Freetown, and their descendants, together with the Nova Scotian and Maroon settlers, formed the Krio community.

Timeline

• 1786: The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor is formed in London.
• 1787, March: Olaudah Equiano is dismissed as commissary.
• 1787, April: The settlers sail on the Atlantic, Belisarius and Vernon with HMS Nautilus.
• 1787, May: Arrival at the Sierra Leone River; Granville Town is founded.
• 1789: Granville Town is burned in a conflict with local Temne.
• 1791: The Sierra Leone Company is founded.
• 1792, 15 January: Fifteen ships leave Halifax, Nova Scotia, with Black Loyalist settlers.
• 1792, March: Freetown is founded.
• 1808, 1 January: Sierra Leone becomes a British Crown colony.

Why it matters

The Province of Freedom was the first attempt by British abolitionists to create a free Black settlement in Africa. It failed in its original form, but it gave rise to Freetown, shaped the history of modern Sierra Leone and showed both the idealism and the paternalism of early anti-slavery reformers.