6 Winks points to the multiple advertisements for runaways and argues that the enslaved were treated as property and 'continued to die young' (Winks, 2000, p. 53).  
In 1791, the Sierra Leone Company was formed to regularize the effort to found a colony in West Africa which would provide a 'home' for the thousands of free Black people in Britain. Under the leadership of Thomas Peters, a Black Pioneer leader who had been made false promises of government support and land grants, more than 200 of the Black settlers in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick drew up a petition that outlined their dissatisfaction with their condition and sought a remedy. The petition made its way to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Henry Dundas, who requested that the authorities in Nova Scotia address the situation and also suggested as an alternative that the settlers consider Sierra Leone as an asylum. After a flurry of meetings and negotiations, on 16 January 1792, a convoy of 15 vessels with more than 1,190 Black passengers left Halifax harbour for Sierra Leone (Walker, 1976). And they were not alone.