A Reassessment of U.S.–Sierra Leone Historical Interdependence

[A Renewal Research Project | December 7th, 2025]

Abstract

This article examines the founding of Freetown, Sierra Leone, through the lens of African American history and the American plantation system. It argues that the Black Loyalists who established Freetown in 1792 were deeply embedded in the social, political, and economic structures of early America, having been enslaved by some of the most powerful architects of the United States, including signers of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. By tracing the enslaved lives of key Sierra Leonean founders to specific American plantations and political figures, this article offers a reinterpretation of the American Revolution’s global consequences and provides a foundation for rethinking U.S.–Sierra Leone relations today. Ultimately, the paper contends that Sierra Leone’s origins constitute a form of “reverse founding,” where the legacy of the United States paradoxically contributed to the birth of an African nation.

Introduction

The founding of Sierra Leone has traditionally been framed as a British abolitionist experiment, yet the origins of the colony’s most influential settlers lie not in Britain but in the United States. The 1,196 African Americans who established Freetown in 1792 were formerly enslaved people who had fled American plantations during the Revolutionary War and sought refuge with the British. Their names appear in The Book of Negroes (1783), the most detailed ledger of free Black Loyalists evacuated from the nascent United States. Many of these individuals were enslaved by prominent American political figures whose role in the origins of Sierra Leone remains understudied in the scholarly literature.

This paper identifies the major African American founders of Sierra Leone and explicitly links them to the American slave masters and plantations from which they escaped. It contributes a new, historically grounded account of how the early United States—through its slave economy, political institutions, and revolutionary upheaval—unexpectedly shaped the emergence of a West African polity.

Literature Review

Foundational scholarship on the Black Loyalists includes Walker’s The Black Loyalists, Pybus’s Epic Journeys of Freedom, and Schama’s Rough Crossings.^1 These works document how Black Loyalists moved from the American South to Nova Scotia and then to Sierra Leone. However, only limited attention has been paid to the explicit identities of the American enslavers of Sierra Leone’s most prominent founders.

Similarly, scholarship on Sierra Leone’s early history—Pachai, Wyse, and Fyfe—emphasises the British colonial dimension but generally underexplores the American political context of the settlers’ origins.^2 Meanwhile, studies in U.S. slavery and political history have highlighted the extent of slaveholding among American Founders (Morgan, Olwell, Frey), but rarely connect these systems directly to the formation of Sierra Leone.^3

This article situates Sierra Leone’s founding population within the broader historiography of American slavery, demonstrating that the colony’s origins cannot be divorced from the institutions and individuals shaping early U.S. history.

African American Founders and Their American Slave Masters

This section identifies the major Sierra Leone founders and connects them to identifiable American slave masters and plantations using primary sources, including The Book of Negroes, plantation records, settler memoirs, and Sierra Leone Company documents.

(i) Boston King: Enslaved by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (Signer of the U.S. Constitution)

Boston King’s Memoirs (1798) detail his enslavement on the Santee River plantation of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.^4 Pinckney was a framer of the U.S. Constitution, a Revolutionary War general, and a prominent South Carolina planter. King later became one of Sierra Leone’s most influential settlers, a Methodist minister, and the author of the most extensive autobiography of any Black Loyalist.

(ii) Henry Washington: Enslaved by John Rutledge (Governor and U.S. Chief Justice)

The Book of Negroes lists Henry Washington as “formerly the property of John Rutledge,” the future Chief Justice of the United States.^5 Washington escaped during the British occupation of Charleston and ultimately resettled in Sierra Leone in 1792.

(iii) Founders from Middleton Place: Enslaved by a Signer of the Declaration of Independence

Several Sierra Leone settlers—including Francis Way, Daniel Payne, Grace Ball, and Betty Lemmon—originated from plantations owned by Declaration signer Arthur Middleton.^6 The Middleton estate, situated along the Ashley River, was one of the most prominent slave plantations in the American South.

(iv) Founders from the Horry Plantations: Enslaved by Daniel Horry

Jacob Gibbs, Peter Mammy, Cudjo Mammy, Eve Boston, and Doll Proctor are documented as former slaves from plantations owned by Daniel Horry, a South Carolina legislator and rice planter.^7 Their migration appears in evacuation lists and Sierra Leone Company muster rolls.

(v) Founders from Lynch Plantations: Enslaved by Declaration Signer Thomas Lynch Jr.

Caleb Johnson and Prince George appear in the Book of Negroes as formerly enslaved on plantations belonging to Thomas Lynch Jr., another Declaration signer.^8 Their resettlement in Freetown adds to the cumulative evidence linking the American Revolution’s political leadership directly to Sierra Leone’s founding population.

(vi) Founders Enslaved by Governor Rawlins Lowndes and Governor William Campbell

Anthony Thompson and Anne Copeland originated from Lowndes plantations, while Simon Watts and Stephen Leonard were enslaved by William Campbell, the royal governor of South Carolina.^9 These connections highlight the breadth of U.S. political elite involvement in the origins of Sierra Leone.

Plantation Geography and the Atlantic Framework

The plantations connected to Sierra Leone’s founders were concentrated in the South Carolina Lowcountry, an area deeply tied to West African rice cultivation traditions. This agricultural connection explains why many founders were highly skilled labourers valuable to the British and later to Sierra Leone’s early economy.

The geographic clustering also reveals that Sierra Leone’s founders were not a random sample of African Americans—they represented a specific cultural-historical corridor between the Gullah-Geechee region and the emerging Krio identity in West Africa.

Conclusion

The African Americans who founded Sierra Leone were deeply embedded in the political world of the early United States. Enslaved by signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, governors, judges, and legislators, they carried American histories—of oppression, rebellion, and liberation—into the Atlantic world. Their settlement in Sierra Leone represents not only an early chapter of African diasporic return but also an unacknowledged legacy of American state formation. Recognising this relationship transforms our understanding of both countries and underscores the intertwined fates of their histories.

Bibliography

1. Walker, James W. St. G. The Black Loyalists. University of Toronto Press, 1992.
2. Pachai, Bridglal. The Making of Northern and Southern Sierra Leone. Longman, 1976.
3. Morgan, Philip. Slave Counterpoint. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
4. King, Boston. “Memoirs of the Life of Boston King.” The Methodist Magazine, 1798.
5. The Book of Negroes. British National Archives, CO 217/54–55.
6. Middleton Papers. Middleton Place Foundation Archives.
7. Horry Family Papers. South Carolina Historical Society.
8. Lynch Family Papers. Clemson University Archives.
9. Lowndes Family Papers; Campbell Papers, National Records of Scotland.