Queens' College and the 'Province of Freedom'

Led by well-to-do abolitionists such as William Wilberforce and his brother-in-law, James Stephen, the African Institution was supported by many evangelically minded Queens’ members, either as subscribers or in leading roles. Founded in 1807 immediately following Britain’s abolition of slavery, the African Institution was eager to promote ‘civilisation and happiness’ as a means to ‘repair’ ‘those enormous wrongs which the natives of Africa’ had suffered. Their belief that the spread of Anglican Christianity to all Africans would improve their morals was accompanied by a similarly paternalistic worldview that invoked the ‘business of civilization’ as the means to ‘cure’ the disease of ‘indolence’ which, they argued, afflicted ‘all uncivilized people’. They proposed that the diffusion of ‘useful knowledge’ in Africa would enable ‘natives’ to become ‘industrious’ and hardworking. Greater awareness in Britain, they believed, of Africa’s ‘agricultural and commercial faculties’ would awaken for that continent the prospect of ‘legitimate’ commerce that would bring to an end the international trade in enslaved people.

Title: Fifth[-Sixth] report of the directors of the African Institution (London, 1811-12)
Shelfmark: C.27.31
Provenance: Donated by Thomas Harrison (Queens’ m. 1797).

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