The African Institution in 1807 after Britain abolitionists succeeded in ending slavery in Great Britain. The Institution was formed to succeed where the former Sierra Leone Company had failed - to create a viable, civilized refuge for freed slaves in Sierra Leone, Africa. The nephew of King George III, the Duke of Gloucester, acted as the African Institution's first president, and was joined by many notable clergymen and aristocrats.[1] Where the Sierra Leone Company sought first to convert the native population through evangelism, the African Institution aimed to improve the standard of living in Freetown first.[2]
The black merchants of Freetown, Sierra Leone, were prevented from getting ahead, though, by the tight monopoly which the British merchant company Macauley & Babington held over the Sierra Leone trade.[3] On Sunday, April 7, 1811, American black entrepreneur Paul Cuffe met with the foremost black merchants of the colony, including the successful John Kizell. They penned a petition for the African Institution delineating that the colony's greatest needs were for settlers to work in agriculture, merchanting and the whaling industry, that these three areas would facilitate growth for the colony best. Upon receiving this petition, the members of the Institution agreed with their findings.[4] Cuffee and these African merchants together founded the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone as a local mutual-aid merchant group dedicated to furthering prosperity and industry among the free peoples in the colony and loosening the stranglehold that the English merchants held on trade.[5]