After the United Kingdom passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807, Freetown in the new colony of Sierra Leone became the hub of British anti-slavery activity in West Africa. The West Africa Squadron of the Royal Navy would patrol the coast looking for illegal slave-trading ships and capture them, bringing them to Freetown to undergo the legal proceedings that would see the ship impounded and the captured Africans released. However, the Africans were not returned to their homelands. Instead, they were resettled within the colony as the colony’s leaders hoped…
