Thomas Peters (Freetown)

Thomas Peters (born June 25, 1738 as Thomas Potters in what is now Nigeria , † 1792 in Freetown ) was a veteran of the Black Company of Pioneers and human rights activist . He is considered to be the founder of the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown and thus the current state of Sierra Leone .

Peters was enslaved in the Province of North Carolina and later fought alongside the Kingdom of Great Britain in the American War of Independence . As a black loyalist , he settled in Nova Scotia . He belonged to a group of influential Afro-Canadians . He is often referred to as "the first African American hero".

Life

Peters was born in what is now Nigeria to the Yoruba people . Unconfirmed information indicates that he was abducted as a child and brought to the United States as a slave .

enslavement

In 1760, Peters is said to have been captured by a slave trader and sold to the Thirteen Colonies . He was on the French ship Henri Quatre . Its new owner was in French Louisiana . After three attempts to escape, Peters was sold to an Englishman in the Southern Colonies . This was probably about William Campbell in 1776 .

American War of Independence

In the same year, Peters is said to have fled and joined the Black Pioneers. This was from , 4th Earl of Dunmore John Murray promised freedom after the voluntary service. He rose to the rank of sergeant with the pioneers and was injured twice in the war. During this time he married Sally Peters, also a slave. They had daughter Clairy (born 1771) and son John (born 1781).

Resettlement

After the war, Peters was relocated to Nova Scotia with 3000 other former African American slaves by the British who promised them freedom. You should get land and support for a year. Peters and his family lived here from 1783 to 1791, after a brief stay in Bermuda .

Dissatisfied with the land situation in Nova Scotia and the continuing discrimination by whites , Peters traveled to England in 1791 to emphasize the desire for land. He and other former slaves were able to convince the government to inhabit a new colony in West Africa . Together with John Clarkson, the brother of Thomas Clarkson , blacks should be recruited for resettlement. Upon his return to Nova Scotia, Peters began recruiting potential resettlers with the support of David George, Moses Wilkinson, Joseph Leonard, Cato Perkins, William Ash, John Ball and Isiah Limerick, among others.

More than 1100 of the 3500 or so African Americans decided to emigrate to West Africa . In 1792 they reached the port of St. George Bay. John Clarkson was named governor.

Peters died of malaria only a short time after moving as one of the first new settlers .

Reception after his death

Peters descendants are Krio , who still live mainly around Freetown today. Some of his descendants live in Canada .

In 1999, Peters was treated as a hero in a Sierra Leonean government film. In 2001, Freetown residents called for Percival Street to be named after Peters. It is where he first settled. In 2007 he was portrayed in the BBC television series Rough Crossings by Leo Wringer . In 2011 a statue was erected in honor of Peters. In 2013, in the opening speech to Parliament, he was named as one of the most prominent figures in Sierra Leonean history.

literature

• Mary Louise Clifford: From Slavery to Freetown: Black Loyalists After the American Revolution . McFarland, 2006, ISBN 978-0-7864-2557-0 .

• Bobby Gilmer Moss: African American loyalists in the southern campaign of the American Revolution . Scotia-Hibernia Press (University of Wisconsin - Madison), 2005, ISBN 978-0-9762162-0-9 , pp. 240 .
• Walter C. Rucker Jr: Encyclopedia of African American History . 2010, ISBN 978-1-85109-774-6 , pp. 377-378 .
• Lamin Sanneh: Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa . Harvard University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-674-00718-2 .
• Simon Schama : Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution . BBC Books, ISBN 0-06-053916-X .
• James W. St. G. Walker: The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870 . University of Toronto Press, 1992, ISBN 978-0-8020-7402-7 .
• Robin William Winks: The Blacks in Canada: A History . McGills University Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0-7735-1632-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas Peters (approx. 1738–1792) True Founder of Freetown. The Sierra Leone Web. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
2. ↑ Thomas Peters (1738–1792) . July 26, 2010. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Redmond Shannon: Saint John historian illuminates story of Thomas Peters, prominent black loyalist , CBC News. April 13, 2016. Accessed February 19, 2020. 
4. ^ ^{A b} Aphra Behn: Black History: Thomas Peters, Founder of Nations . March 7, 2007. Accessed February 19, 2020.
5. ↑ Shabaka Reveals The "Black Moses", Thomas Peters, America's First African-American Hero. BlackNews.com.
6. ↑ Sanneh (2001), p. 50.
7. ^ John Coleman De Graft-Johnson: African Glory: The Story of Vanished Negro Civilizations . Black Classic Press, 1986, ISBN 978-0-933121-03-4 , p. 163.
8. ↑ ^{a b c} Stewart J. Brown: The Cambridge History of Christianity (Enlightenment, Reawakening and Revolution 1660-1815) . 2006, ISBN 978-0-521-81605-2 , pp. 421 .
9. ↑ ^{a b} William Dillon Piersen: Black Legacy: America's Hidden Heritage . University of Massachusetts, 1993, ISBN 978-0-87023-859-8 , pp. 94 .
10. ↑ Massala Reffell: Echoes of Footsteps: Birth of a Negro Nation . Xlibris Corporation, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4771-3026-1 , pp. 239 .
11. ↑ ^{a b c d} James W. St G. Walker: PETERS, THOMAS . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography , Volume 4 . University of Toronto. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
12. ^ Mary Louise Clifford: From Slavery to Freetown: Black Loyalists After the American Revolution . McFarland, 2006, ISBN 978-0-7864-2557-0 .
13. ^ Peter Fryer: Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain . University of Alberta, 1983, ISBN 978-0-86104-749-9 , pp. 203 .
14. ↑ Ellen Gibson Wilson: John Clarkson and the African Advent . Macmillan Press, London 1980.
15. ↑ BBC NEWS | World | Africa | S Leone honors Africa slave campaigners
16. ^ A Tribute to Thomas Peters
17. ^ Presidential Address at State Opening of the Second Session of the Fourth Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone. Presidency Sierra Leone, 2013.