Return to Africa Sierra Leone

1
Return to Africa - Sierra Leone

• Patricia Clark
• CAN 217
• African-Canadian Studies
• Seneca College

2
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade

• 1787 - The Society for the Abolition of the Slave
  Trade - founded by a small, mainly Quaker group
  led by Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846)
• 1807 - passing of the Abolition of the Slave
  Trade Act - promoted by William Wilberforce,
  member of parliament (and of the Society)

Thomas Clarkson - oil portrait by Carl Friedrick
Von Breda, 1788

• 1833 - Emancipation Act passed in British
  parliament, abolishing slavery in British
  colonies
• 1834, August 1 Emancipation Day throughout the
  British Empire

William Wilberforce - oil portrait by Sir Thomas
Lawrence, 1828
3
The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840
Thomas Clarkson addressing the convention
By Benjamin Robert Haydon 1841 oil on canvas,
117 in. x 151 in. (2972 mm x 3836 mm)Given by
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1880 to
the the National Portrait Gallery
4
The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840
Thomas Clarkson, aged 80, addressing the
convention
The convention drew over 500 delegates, including
the liberated slave Henry Beckford in the
foreground of the painting The artist Hoyden
later wrote of his painting, a liberated slave,
now a delegate, is looking up to Clarkson with
deep interest this is the point of interest in
the picture, and illustrative of the object in
painting it, the African sitting by the
intellectual European, in equality and
intelligence.
5
Olaudah Equiano

• Born in 1745, the son of an Ibo elder of
  Essaka, in todays northeastern Nigeria
• Kidnapped by slave traders at the age of 11,
  enslaved for
• While enslaved to a British Royal Naval
  Officer, travelled to Halifax and Cape Breton
  Island
• Was the first political leader of Britains
  black community
• Played an important role in the abolition of
  slavery
• Published a popular autobiography

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Olaudah Equianos Autobiography 1793
His autobiography was an important element of the
anti-slavery movement, reprinted 14 times by 1800.
7
Granville SharpeBritish Philanthropist
Abolitionist

• 1787 - Sharp helped found the Society for
  the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
• 1787 - published his pamphlet, A Summary View
  of the Slave Trade and of the Probable
  Consequences of Its Abolition.
• Assisted the "Black Poor" of Britain
• Invested 1,700 to support the Province of
  Freedom in Sierra Leone from 1787 to 1789
• After the British abolition of the slave trade
  in 1807, Sharp helped form the Society for the
  Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery.
• Died on July 6, 1813, before the end of slavery
  in the British Empire (1834)

8
The Sierra Leone Settlement, 1787

• In 1786, the British government appointed
  Olaudah Equiano as a Commissioner in a project of
  the Sierra Leone Company to resettle poor black
  people from London in Sierra Leone. However,
  Equiano resigned from the controversial project
  before the expedition set sail in April 1787.
  Granville Town, the Province of Freedom was a
  disaster.
• In 1792, The Black Loyalists from Nova Scotia
  New Brunswick founded a second settlement
  Freetown on the same site.

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Sierra Leone West Africa
Sierra Leone between Guinea and Liberia
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Sierra Leone
The site of the Sierra Leone Company's
settlements Province of Freedom in 1787 and
Freetown in 1792
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Old Photos of Freetown, Sierra Leone

• http//www.sierra-leone.org/pc-historic47.html

"Temne Chiefs and Followers" H.C. Luke
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View of Freetown, Sierra Leone, circa 1792
This watercolour view of the harbour at Freetown
shows some of the 15 vessels that made the
voyage from Nova Scotia during the winter of
1792. Courtesy of Robert G. Kearns, private
collection, Toronto.
13
Freetown, 1798Six years after the arrival of the
Black Loyalists
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Sierra Leone Average Rainfall

• LUNGI, SIERRA LEONE
• Weather station is at about 8.61N 13.20W.
  Height about 25m / 82 feet above sea level.
• Rainfall (mm)
• Jan Feb Mar Apr May
  Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct
  Nov Dec Year
• 8.5 6.3 22.3 79.8 235.4
  439.9 827.4 864.0 642.4 301.8
  136.9 33.1 3,590.6
• TORONTO, CANADA 
• Weather station is at about 43.70N 79.40W.
  Height about 116m / 380 feet above sea level.
• Rainfall (mm)
• Jan Feb Mar Apr May
  Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct
  Nov Dec Year
• 68.1 59.5 66.3 64.7 71.1
  68.3 77.0 70.0 73.3 61.6
  69.5 67.2 817.5
• ACCRA, GHANA
• Weather station is at about 5.60N 0.10W. Height
  about 68m / 223 feet above sea level.
• Rainfall (mm)
• Jan Feb Mar Apr May
  Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct
  Nov Dec Year
• 14.6 28.5 57.0 89.8 135.7
  198.7 50.0 18.5 43.4 64.1
  33.8 20.1 753.1

http//people.senecac.on.ca/patricia.clark/Sierra
Leone-rain.htm
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Map of Freetown
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Traditional Colonial Housing
A colonial period house in Freetown, Sierra
Leone.
A thatched hut in a village on the south coast of
Sierra Leone. Such traditional buildings stay
cooler than those with zinc roofs and cement
walls and floors but require more maintenance.
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Old Photos of Freetown, Sierra Leone

• http//www.sierra-leone.org/pc-historic47.html

Freetown's Giant Silk Cotton-Wood Tree.
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Old Photos of Freetown, Sierra Leone

• http//www.sierra-leone.org/pc-historic47.html

Portion of Government Wharf Paris Co. 
Letter dated 13 July 1917.
Howe Street, Freetown
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Old Photos of Freetown, Sierra Leone

• http//www.sierra-leone.org/pc-historic47.html

"Big Market on Saturday, Freetown."