# Sierra Leone - the different angles of return  
The project for a 'return' to Africa ${ }^{1}$ was the first of its kind. ${ }^{2}$ The founding of the Province of Freedom in 1787 posed a risk to British abolitionism, and even more so to travellers. Its creator, Granville Sharp (1735-1813) had the support of philanthropists, Quakers, charities, parliamentarians, bankers and educated people, such as William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano and Hannah More, all of whom banked on non-forced labour and colonization (OjukutuMacauley and Rashid, 2013, p. 80). ${ }^{3}$ The Province of Freedom, the first modern colony in Africa, established on the west coast peninsula of the Rokel and Bankasoka River estuaries, had to demonstrate the viability of an agricultural alternative to slavery. In terms of a return from slavery, it was also to represent a 'promised land' for those who, scattered by the slave trade, stayed in English ports or (formerly) British North American colonies (Land, 2013). It is worth noting that the process of protecting the black settlers (or the 'returned') from slave trafficking had its shortcomings in terms of their reintegration into the local Temne, Mende or Sherbro groups and of the deportation of 'undesirables' (Shyllon, 1977; Kandé, 1998).  
This colony was initially financed by the British Government and by private funds, then managed by the Sierra Leone Company from 1791 to 1808 and finally taken over by the Crown. It was intended for the 'Black Poor' of England and the Black Loyalists of the United States of America who, when first being shipped, were left behind in England or in Nova Scotia after the United States War of Independence, becoming either 'Black Poor' or Nova Scotian. The Maroons of Jamaica were also liberated via Nova Scotia, in addition to the 'recaptives', or 'liberated Africans' who were seized on slave ships in 1807.  
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[^0]:    1 The term 'the Returned' may indeed be understood in its active or passive sense.