African Institution

The African Institution was founded in 1807 after Britis abolitionists succeeded in ending the slave trade based in the United Kingdom. The Institution was formed to succeed where the former Sierra Leone Company had failed—to create a viable, civilized refuge for freed slaves in Sierra Leone, Africa.

History

Where the Sierra Leone Company sought first to convert the native population through evangelism, the African Institution aimed to improve the standard of living in Freetown first.[1]

The leaders of the African Institution were James Stephen and William Wilberforce.[2] The Duke of Gloucester, nephew of King George III, acted as the Institution's first president, and was joined by clergymen and aristocrats.[3] Leading Quaker families also became supporters.[4]

Paul Cuffe

The Institution showed close interest in working with Paul Cuffe, an African-American entrepreneur. In 1810–1 they approached the British government, requesting a land grant in Sierra Leone for him.[5]

The African merchants of Freetown, Sierra Leone, were however prevented from getting ahead, by the tight monopoly which the British merchant company Macaulay and Babington held over the Sierra Leone trade.[6] On 7 April 1811 Cuffe met with the foremost black merchants of the colony, including the successful John Kizell. They penned a petition to the African Institution, stating that the colony's greatest needs were for settlers to work in agriculture, commerce and whaling; and that these three areas would facilitate growth for the colony best. Upon receiving this petition, the members of the Institution agreed with their findings.[7] Cuffe and these merchants together founded the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone, a local mutual-aid merchant group dedicated to furthering prosperity and industry among the free peoples in the colony and loosening the stranglehold that English merchants held on trade.[8]

1732 map of Sierra Leone and the coast of Guinea

Indian Ocean

The Institution took action in negotiating with Said bin Sultan, Sultan of Muscat and Oman to reduce the prevalence of slavery in his possessions, which included Zanzibar. This was in 1820, some five years after the East India Company had become involved with the Sultan, through the Governor of Bombay, Sir Evan Nepean. In 1821, Ralph Darling who was Governor of Mauritius also took steps against the slave trade.[9][10]

Reports

The Committee of the African Institution produced a series of annual Reports, from 1807 to 1824.[11]

A Special Report was produced in 1815 to rebut an attack on the Institution by Robert Thorpe.[12] The seventh annual report had noted a deterioration of conditions in Sierra Leone, yet had made upbeat comments about all involved. Concerned parties—William Allen and John Clarkson—expressed disquiet, while Thorpe made unmeasured criticisms, pamphleteering and targeting Zachary Macaulay. Henry Brougham headed an internal enquiry at the beginning of 1814, with Wilberforce, Macaulay and Thomas Clarkson. The outcome was that Thomas Perronet Thompson, governor in Sierra Leone and at odds with leading evangelicals, who had already been removed in 1810, was roundly criticised.[13][14]

Anti-Slavery Society (1823)

The Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions, usually known as the "Anti-Slavery Society", was set up in 1823. Its leadership overlapped substantially with that of the African Institution. It involved James Cropper and Thomas Babington Macaulay, and was somewhat more open in approach.[15]

Dormancy and demise

The Twentieth Report (1826) of the Institution concentrated on being informative, rather than summarising activity or raising funds. Wilberforce had retired. By about 1828 such activism as came from the underlying group was in practice being run by the Anti-Slavery Society.[16]

References

  1. ↑ Thomas, p 140, note 15
  2. ↑ James Stuart Olson; Robert Shadle (1996). Historical Dictionary of the British Empire. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-313-29366-5.
  3. ↑ Thomas, Lamont D. Paul Cuffe: Black Entrepreneur and Pan-Africanist (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988) pp. 32–33
  4. ↑ Clare Midgley (2 August 2004). Women Against Slavery: The British Campaigns, 1780-1870. Routledge. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-134-79880-3.
  5. ↑ Junius P. Rodriguez (26 March 2015). Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World. Routledge. p. 156. ISBN 978-1-317-47180-6.
  6. ↑ Thomas, p. 44–51
  7. ↑ Thomas, p. 80
  8. ↑ Thomas, pp. 53–54 and Harris, Sheldon. Paul Cuffe: Black America and the African Return (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972) p. 55
  9. ↑ Cynthia Brantley (1981). The Giriama and Colonial Resistance in Kenya, 1800-1920. University of California Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-520-04216-2.
  10. ↑ African Institution (1821). Report of the Directors of the African Institution Read at the Annual General Meeting: On the .. p. 63.
  11. ↑ Philip D. Curtin (1973). The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780-1850. Univ of Wisconsin Press. pp. 138 note 33. ISBN 978-0-299-83025-0.
  12. ↑ Robert Finch (1816). Taylor Institution to the University. p. 341.
  13. ↑ Ellen Gibson Wilson (25 November 1980). John Clarkson and the African Adventure. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 180–1. ISBN 978-1-349-04675-1.
  14. ↑ Turner, Michael J. "Thompson, Thomas Perronet". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/27280. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  15. ↑ Wayne Ackerson (1 January 2005). The African Institution (1807–1827) and the Antislavery Movement in Great Britain. E. Mellen Press. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-7734-6129-1.
  16. ↑ Wayne Ackerson (1 January 2005). The African Institution (1807–1827) and the Antislavery Movement in Great Britain. E. Mellen Press. pp. 215 and 218. ISBN 978-0-7734-6129-1.

Further reading

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