Henry Smeathman and the Quakers

In April 1787 a small fleet of ships left England on an expedition whose aim was to form a settlement in West Africa. The ships carried mainly black settlers, but the expedition had been organized by a small group of white philanthropists, with the backing of the British Government. White interest in a West African settlement was the product of a number of historical factors. Some went back to a period long before 1787 and all testify to the varying attitudes to Africa that were held in late eighteenth century Britain.

The main contact between Britain and Black Africa in the eighteenth century derived from the continuance of the Atlantic slave trade. The cruelties of the trade had long been known to those involved and in the later part of the century a growing number of British voices were raised against it. The first group to take action was the Society of Friends, or Quakers. In 1761 the London Yearly Meeting, the highest authority for British Quakers, recommended that slave dealers should be disowned, and in 1783 a Quaker committee was formed to work for the abolition of the trade, with one of its more prominent members the banker Samuel Hoare. It was a Quaker scientist, Dr. John Fothergill, who hit upon the idea of establishing a settlement on the coast of Africa as a means of undermining the slave trade. In 1771 John Millar, a Professor of Law at Glasgow University, contended that free labour was in the long run more economical than slave labour, anticipating in print the arguments of his better known friend, Adam Smith.