Abstract
It was clear by 1781 that Britain was losing the American war, and, as the old empire crumbled, it was equally clear that some basic adjustments would take place in her relations with the overseas world. Many of those with a special interest in Africa began to turn their attention to specific projects or suggestions for a new African policy. After a period of gestation in the first years of peace, the projects began to appear in quantity. Between 1788 and 1793 (and the new war with France) a few actually materialized in a series of attempts to colonize the West African coast.
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Footnotes
Evidence given the Parliamentary Committee on Transportation, 1785, Commons Journals, XL, 959.
J. M. Gray, A History of the Gambia (Cambridge, 1940), p. 277.
F. C. C. Egerton, Angola in Perspective (London, 1957), pp. 50–51;
H. Vedder, South West Africa in Early Times (London, 1938), pp. 21, 31.
Smeathman to Knowles, 21 July 1783, printed in New Jerusalem Magazine, I, 179, 281–93 (1790).
Smeathman to Knowles, 21 July 1783, New Jerusalem Magazine, I, 293.
Memorandum of 1 August 1783, printed in Prince Hoare, Memoirs of Granville Sharp, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London, 1828), II, 11–15.
Henry Smeathman, Plan of a Settlement to be made near Sierra Leone (London, 1786).
See C. Fyfe, A History of Sierra Leone (London, 1962) for the authoritative account of the Sierra Leone settlement. Fyfe (pp. 14–15) gives a slightly less favorable view of Smeathman’s project and character.
Granville Sharp, Short Sketch of Temporary Regulations … for the Intended Settlement on the Grain Coast of Africa, near Sierra Leone (London, 1786), pp 1–11, 22–32.
G. Sharp to inhabitants of the Providence of Freedom, 16 May 1788, printed in Hoare, Memoirs of Granville Sharp, II, 104.
G. Sharp to a New York Lady, 12 January 1788, printed in Hoare, Memoirs of Granville Sharp, II, 85.
J. Matthews, A Voyage to the River Sierra-Leone … (London, 1788), pp. 21–23, 52–59, and 63.
Henry Gandy to C. B. Wadström, 17 August 1788, printed in New Jerusalem Magazine, I, 165 (1790).
See obituary by Helen Maria Williams, Monthly Magazine, VII, 462–65 (1799);
C. B. Wadström, An Essay on Colonization, Particularly Applied to the Western Coast of Africa … 2 vols. (London, 1794–1795), II, 179–181.
Wadström, Colonization, II, 185–95, 399; R. L. Tafel, Documents Concerning the Life and Character of Emanuel Swedenborg, 2 vols. (London, 1875–1877), I, 640;
T. Clarkson, History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament, 2 vols. (London, 1808), I, 488.
Plan for a Free Community Upon the Coast of Africa Under the Protection of Great Britain, but Entirely Independent of All European Laws and Government (London, 1789), p. 43. See also C. B. Wadstrõm, “Letters of a Voyage to Africa,” New Jerusalem Magazine, I, 70–73, 125–32, 157–74 (1790).
C. B. Wadström, Observations on the Slave Trade … (London, 1789), pp. 58–61; p. 60 for quotation.
[G. Sharp], Free English Territory in Africa. An Account of the District Purchased for the Settlement at Sierra Leone (London, 1790); Hoare, Memoirs of Granville Sharp, II, 82, 157–59, 172–82.
For the earlier history of these loyalist refugees, see B. Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1961), esp. pp. 158–181.
H. Thornton to John Clarkson (Private), 30 December 1791, Ad. Mss. 41262A. Sierra Leone Company, Report of the Court of Directors of the Sierra Leone Company to the General Court, 7 vols, (title varies) (London, 1791–1808), I (1791), 21–28.
H. Thornton to J. Clarkson, 14 September 1792; T. Clarkson to J. Clarkson, 17 July 1792; G. Sharp to J. Clarkson, 24 July 1792, Ad. Mss. 41262A. Sierra Leone Company, Account of the Colony of Sierra Leone From its First Establishment in [sic] 1793 … (London, 1795), pp. 74–76.
W. Wilberforce to J. Clarkson, 28 December 1791 and 27 April 1792; H. Thornton to J. Clarkson, 6 June 1792, Ad. Mss. 41262A. Undated draft of instructions to James Willis, CO 267/10. Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa, Proceedings (London, 1790), p. 204; Gray, Gambia, p. 283.
Philip Beaver, African Memoranda (London, 1805), pp. xiii–xiv; Wadström, Colonization, II, 133–34.
Wadström, Colonization, II, 168; Bulama Association to Dundas, 27 January 1794; Paul Le Mesurier to John King, 16 August 1796, CO 267/10; Andrew Johansen, Description of Bulama Island (London, 1794).
C. B. Wadström, Adresse au Corps législatif et au Directoire exécutif de la République française (Paris, 1795). There was other interest in African colonization from France in these same years, including one project to revive the Bulama idea under French sponsorship.
See Charles Le Clerc de Montlinot, Essai sur la transportation comme recompense et la deportation comme peine (Paris, 1797).
C. L. Lokke, Trance and the Colonial Question: A Study of Contemporary French Opinion, 1763–1801 (New York, 1932), pp. 174–82; Eschasseriaux, aîné, Rapport au nom de la commission chargée d’examiner l’ouvrage presenté au Conseil par le citoyen Wastrom [sic] . . . (Paris, 1798).
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Curtin, P.D. (1964). New Jerusalems. In: The Image of Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00539-0_4
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