The Sailor's Return: Moral Capital and Millenarian Fantasy in the Founding of Sierra Leone

The first settlers that Britain sent to Sierra Leone in the 1780s were predominantly “black” sailors (mainly African-American veterans of the recently ended war, but also lascars from South Asia). These out-of-work sailors from diverse backgrounds had been driven to beg for food and shelter on the streets of London. Many destinations were considered for these so-called “Black Poor” (including the Bahamas, where re-enslavement would have been the likely outcome), but the consensus that they certainly did not belong in Britain is interesting in itself.  It has been noted that Britain sought “moral capital” by advocating the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade; the fate of the emancipated, of course, was a more contentious matter.  Sailors possessed their own kind of “moral capital” as war veterans, and in 1786—the same year that the British government became the sponsor for shipping the “Black Poor” overseas—a movement was afoot to resettle other impoverished sailors in model villages in the north of Scotland. My paper concerns the debate over where African-descended sailors really belonged, what they deserved, and why.  I consider the writings of Olaudah Equiano and Granville Sharp, whose support for the Sierra Leone plan was informed by their (divergent) readings of the Book of Revelations. I also consider the majority of the Black Poor, whose refusal to board the Africa-bound ships seems to reflect their belief that they had every right to remain in Britain.