The Freetown Colony and the Development of Legitimate Commerce in the Adjoining Territories

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Periodical article

Title:	The Freetown Colony and the Development of Legitimate Commerce in the Adjoining Territories
Author:	Ijagbemi, E. Adeleye
Year:	1970
Periodical:	Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria
Volume:	5
Issue:	2
Pages:	243-256
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Sierra Leone
Subjects:	colonists freedmen mercantile history History and Exploration colonialism Economics and Trade
Abstract:	The late eighteenth century English humanitarians (the so-called Clapham Sect) aimed at reconstructing a perfect society out of the chaos and confusion that (to them) was the Africa of their day. Christianization in the first placet would civilize the barbaroua (slave trading) Africans. In the place of the 'illegitimate' lave trade, a new system of 'legitimate' commerce, based on the natural produce of the continent, would raise the debased African to the level of civilised men. The history of the development of legitimate commerce in the territories adjoining the in 1787 founded Freetown Colony shows the illusiveness of the ideas of the humanitarians. The Colony revolutionized the traditional landlord/stranger trading relationship and transformed the cultural life of the people. The result was a confused and perplexing situation which in the later part of the nineteenth century undermined the authority of the local chiefs. As the chiefs' control weakened the power of the Colony grew. The humanitarians prepared the Colonial take-over of the present Sierra Leone in 1896. Notes.