Abolition in Sierra Leone : re building lives and identities in nineteenth century West Africa Inhaltsverzeichnis: Introduction. Sierra Leone: African Colony African Diaspora Liberated African Origins and the Nineteenth Century Slave Trade Their Own Middle Passage: Voyages to Sierra Leone Particulars of Disposal: Life and Labor after Liberation Liberated African Nations: Ethnogenesis in an African Diaspora Kings and Companies: Ethnicity and Community Leadership Religion Return and the Making of the Aku The Cobolo War: Islam Identity and Resistance Conclusion. Retention or Renaissance Krio Descendants and Ethnic Identity. The history of Sierra Leone is one of departures and arrivals. Between 1581 and 1867 European slave traders carried away an estimated 389 000 Africans from the regions in and around what now constitutes the country of Sierra Leone. In the late eighteenth century as Britain began contemplating the legal abolition of the slave trade Sierra Leone became the destination for a reverse migration of enslaved Africans and their descendants who sought to return from the Americas. Between 1787 and 1800 more than two thousand formerly enslaved men women and children sailed from Britain Nova Scotia and Jamaica to populate a nascent colony financed by British abolitionists and like minded businessmen. On the coast of West Africa these three waves of colonists hoped to create what abolitionist Granville Sharp called a province of freedom.