Movement(s) in Elizabeth Helen Callender Melville’s travel letters from Sierra Leone

Abstract

Bought by British activists of the abolitionist cause in the late 18th century to shelter Black survivors of the slave trade, Sierra Leone as a territory was marked by the political movement of abolitionism, and by the import of colonial settlers, including Melville. When Sierra Leone became a British colony, it was populated by freed slaves and poor Blacks from Britain. In the nineteenth century, settlers such as Melville and her husband had to discover the history of the place they were colonizing. The feeling of superiority subsided, they acclimated and eventually adopted a hybrid identity. Melville’s travel letters and diary reveal that she first appreciated the fauna and flora, then the local food, and confronted with slavery, she became aware of the European brand of savagery, far mor noxious than errant drumming and funny gaits or laziness. Melville also experienced prejudice upon returning home, when she felt and was made to feel like an African, rather than a British or Scottish subject.