Sierra Leone Company

The Sierra Leone Company was the organisation involved in founding the first African American colony in Africa in 1792 through the resettlement of Nova Scotian ex-slaves who had initially been settled in Nova Scotia after the American Revolutionary War.

The Sierra Leone Company was the successor to the St George's Bay Company which had made a mostly unsuccessful attempt in 1787 to establish a free settlement for the "Black Poor" of London.

Both ventures were promoted by the anti-slavery activist Granville Sharp, who published a prospectus for the proposed company in 1790 entitled "Free English Territory in AFRICA". The prospectus made clear its abolitionist view and stated that several respectable gentlemen who had already subscribed had done so "not with a view of any present profit to themselves, but merely, through benevolence and public spirit, to promote a charitable measure, which may hereafter prove of great national importance to the Manufactories, and other Trading Interests of this Kingdom".

Amongst the early subscribers are many friends of Sharp involved in the Clapham Sect: Henry Thornton, William Wilberforce, Rev. Thomas Clarkson, Rev. Thomas Gisbourne, Samuel Whitbread