Editing History of Sierra Leone (section)

==The Province of Freedom (1787–1789)==
{{main|Granville Town, Province of Freedom}}
[[File:Wesleyan Institution, King Tom's Point, Sierra-Leone, Western Africa (November 1846, p.122, III) - Copy.jpg|thumb|260px|Wesleyan Institution, King Tom's Point, Sierra Leone, 1846<ref name=Offering1846>{{cite journal|title=Wesleyan Institution, King Tom's Point, Sierra-Leone, Western Africa|journal=Wesleyan Juvenile Offering|date=November 1846|volume=III|page=122|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0VkEAAAAQAAJ|access-date=17 November 2015}}</ref>]]

=== Conception of the Province of Freedom (1787) ===
[[File:Wesleyan Institution, King Tom's Point (May 1853, X, p.57) - Copy.jpg|thumb|260px|Wesleyan Institution, King Tom's Point (May 1853, X, p.57)<ref name="Juvenile1853a">{{cite journal|title=Wesleyan Institution, King Tom's Point|journal=The Wesleyan Juvenile Offering: A Miscellany of Missionary Information for Young Persons|date=May 1853|volume=X|page=57|url=https://archive.org/details/wesleyanjuvenil19socigoog|access-date=29 February 2016|publisher=Wesleyan Missionary Society}}</ref>]]
In 1787, a plan was established to settle some of London's "Black Poor" in Sierra Leone in what was called the "Province of Freedom". This was organised by the [[Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor]], founded by British abolitionist [[Granville Sharp]], which preferred it as a solution to continuing to financially support them in London. Many of the Black Poor were African Americans, who had been given their freedom after seeking refuge with the British Army during the American Revolution, but also included other West Indian, African and Asian inhabitants of London.<ref>Michael Siva, "Why did the Black Poor of London not support the Sierra Leone Resettlement Scheme?", ''History Matters Journal'', Vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter, 2021), p. 25.</ref>

The Sierra Leone Resettlement Scheme was proposed by entomologist [[Henry Smeathman]] and drew interest from humanitarians like [[Granville Sharp]] saw it as a means of showing the pro-slavery lobby that black people could contribute towards the running of the new colony of Sierra Leone. Government officials soon became involved in the scheme as well, although their interest was spurred by the possibility of resettling a large group of poor citizens elsewhere.<ref>{{Cite news|date=31 August 2005|title=Freed slaves in Sierra Leone|language=en-GB|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/aug/31/race.bookextracts|access-date=20 September 2020|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> William Pitt the Younger, prime minister and leader of the Tory party, had an active interest in the Scheme, because he saw it as a means to repatriate the Black Poor to Africa, since "it was necessary they should be sent somewhere, and be no longer suffered to infest the streets of London".<ref>Michael Siva, "Why did the Black Poor of London not support the Sierra Leone Resettlement Scheme?", ''History Matters Journal'', Vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter, 2021), p. 35.</ref>

=== Establishment, destruction and re-establishment (1789) ===
The area was first settled by 400 formerly enslaved Black Britons, who arrived off the coast of Sierra Leone on 15 May 1787, accompanied by some English tradesmen. They established the Province of Freedom or Granville Town on land purchased from local [[Koya Temne]] subchief [[King Tom]] and regent [[Naimbanna II]], a purchase which the Europeans understood to cede the land to the new settlers "for ever". The established arrangement between Europeans and the Koya Temne did not include provisions for permanent settlement, and some historians question how well the Koya leaders understood the agreement. Half of the settlers in the new colony died within the first year. Several black settlers started working for local slave traders. The settlers that remained forcibly captured land from a local African chieftain, but he retaliated, attacking the settlement, which was reduced to a mere 64 settlers  comprising 39 black men, 19 black women, and six white women. Black settlers were captured by unscrupulous traders and sold as slaves, and the remaining colonists were forced to arm themselves for their own protection. King Tom's successor King Jemmy attacked and burned the colony in 1789.<ref>Michael Siva, "Why did the Black Poor of London not support the Sierra Leone Resettlement Scheme?", ''History Matters Journal'', Vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter, 2021), p. 45.</ref>

[[Alexander Falconbridge]] was sent to Sierra Leone in 1791 to collect the remaining Black Poor settlers, and they re-established Granville Town (later renamed [[Cline Town]]) near [[Fourah Bay]]. Although these 1787 settlers did not establish Freetown, which was founded in 1792, the bicentennial of Freetown was celebrated in 1987.<ref>Shaw, Rosalind, ''Memories of the Slave Trade: Ritual and the Historical Imagination in Sierra Leone'' (2002), [[University of Chicago Press]], p. 37.</ref>

After establishing Granville Town, disease and hostility from the indigenous people eliminated the first group of colonists and destroyed their settlement. A second Granville Town was established by 64 remaining black and white 'Old settlers' under the leadership of St. George Bay Company leader, Alexander Falconbridge and the St. George Bay Company. This settlement was different from the Freetown settlement and colony founded in 1792 by Lt. [[John Clarkson]] and the Nova Scotian Settlers under the auspices of the Sierra Leone Company.