Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa

In this absorbing study, Sanneh, a historian and professor of world Christianity at Yale University, argues for the historical significance of the settlement in Freetown, West Africa, established by nearly 1,200 freed slaves in 1792 as the foundation for a powerful antislavery movement that influenced social policy in both America and Europe. Using journals, letters and other evidence gleaned from public records, he shows that freed slaves and former captives such as Olaudah Equiano, David George, Paul Cuffee and others believed that abolitionist sentiment, together with Christianity, with its theme of God-given humanity, could become an effective liberating force. While the settlements of freed slaves in Sierra Leone and, later, Liberia were often plagued with controversy, political infighting and epidemics, Samuel Ajayi Crowder, an ex-slave from Nigeria, used the models of earlier antislavery communities to build new ones in Nigeria. Sanneh suggests the zeal of the repatriated ex-slaves and their evangelical Christianity not only threatened the old traditional African tribal chieftain hierarchy, but challenged Christian practices in Europe and the New World. His comments on the reaction of leading black intellectuals of the day to the complex social questions posed by the Liberian settlement are sketchy. Yet overall, this well-documented book offers sharp historical insights on an important but often neglected chapter in the history of American slavery. (Feb.)