Granville Sharp Defends Jonathan Strong, 1767

Granville Sharp (November 10, 1735 - July 6, 1813) was one of the first English campaigners for the abolition of the slave trade. In 1765, Sharp met Jonathan Strong, a young black slave from Barbados who had been so badly beaten by his master, David Lisle, a lawyer, that he had been cast out into the street as useless. The Sharps paid for his treatment and, when he was fit enough, found him employment with a Quaker apothecary friend of theirs. In 1767, Lisle saw Strong in the street and had him kidnapped and sold to a planter called James Kerr. Strong was able to get word to Sharp, and in a court attended by the Lord Mayor and the Coroner of London, Lisle and Kerr were denied possession of Strong. Jonathan Strong was free, even if the law had not been changed, but he only lived for five years as a free man, dying at 25. Sharp formulated the plan to settle black people in Sierra Leone, and founded the St. George's Bay Company, a forerunner of the Sierra Leone Company. His efforts led to both the founding of the Province of Freedom, and later on Freetown, Sierra Leone. He dies in 1813, at the age of 77, and a memorial of him was erected in Westminster Abbey

Restrictions Only for Ireland and United Kingdom

1700s 1767 Abolition Abolitionist Anti-slavery Antislavery Campaigner Chattel Crusader Eighteenth Granville Lisle Sharp

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