Overview

In 1805, naval officer Captain Philip Beaver (1766–1813) published his African Memoranda: Relative to an Attempt to Establish a British Settlement on the Island of Bulama, on the Western Coast of Africa, in the Year 1792. Beaver’s text in this modern scholarly edition provides an absorbing testimony of his efforts to assist British colonisers in establishing their African settlement. Despite the colonial ambitions of this project, the ‘Bulama Committee’ members were reformists at heart. Their high-minded intentions in purchasing the island and settling it were to demonstrate the anti-slavery principle that propagation by ‘free natives’ would bring ‘cultivation and commerce’ to the region and ultimately introduce ‘civilization’ among them. Beaver’s journal tells the extraordinary account of how the colonists’ ambitions to benefit the African economy and set a precedent of humanitarian labour for the slave-owning lobby in Britain led to the extraordinary emigration of 275 men, women and children in order to put their humanitarian ideals into practice.

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9781839983405

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Reviews

‘Captain Philip Beaver’s utopian ambition was to end Britain’s slave trade by growing tropical pro-duce on a West African island. This excellent edition of his journal, a key document for understand-ing abolitionism, describes the outcasts who signed up for his radical republic, as well as the tragic idealism of this Romantic-era colonising enterprise.’ — Deirdre Coleman, author of Romantic Colo-nization and British Anti-Slavery ‘A fascinating account of a disastrous attempt to establish a colony of freed former slaves and poor white folk on an island off the African coast, superbly annotated and introduced by Carol Bolton. A must for anyone studying or teaching the anti-slavery movement and the history of African colonisation.’ — Tim Fulford, Professor of Eng-lish, De Montfort University

Author Information

Carol Bolton is a senior lecturer in English at Loughborough University. Her research centres on Romantic-period writing that represents travel, exploration, and colonialism.

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