William Gwinn (Guinn, Guin) (born 1755) was an

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

from Boston, Massachusetts. He was one of the first black Americans to participate in the

antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ...

American Back-to-Africa movement under the auspices of Captain

Paul Cuffe Paul Cuffe, also known as Paul Cuffee (January 17, 1759 – September 7, 1817) was an American businessman, whaler and abolitionist. Born free into a multiracial family on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts, Cuffe became a successful merchant and ...

's 1815 voyage to

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...

Early life

Little is known of Gwinn's early life. Presumably he was previously enslaved to the Massachusetts Gwinn family or had immigrated from the Southern states after being emancipated. By the early 1800 he was a free black and lived in antebellum Massachusetts. He was listed in the 1810 census as a resident of Boston Ward 1 in

Suffolk County, Massachusetts Suffolk County is located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 797,936, making it the fourth-most populous county in Massachusetts. The county comprises the cities of Boston, Chel ...

. He was described as being of the '

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

order' and as being "from Boston" by Paul Cuffe.

Emigration to Sierra Leone

The journey

In 1815 and at age sixty, Gwinn decided to immigrate with his fifty-six-year-old wife Elizabeth and seventeen-year-old daughter Nancy Gwinn to Sierra Leone. The Gwinn family was one of eight families to emigrate to Sierra Leone under the auspices of Captain

. Cuffe, a man of Native American and African American ancestry, had visited Sierra Leone in 1811 to assess whether he'd like to immigrate there. His Native American wife, however, did not want to leave the land of her ancestry. He returned four years later with 38 African Americans. The emigrants, mainly Bostonians, were the first black Americans to immigrate on a large scale directly from the United States to Africa. The Gwinns traveled in Cuffe's ''Traveller'' to Sierra Leone and did not pay for expenses. They were expected to work on Governor Charles MacCarthy's farm once they arrived in Sierra Leone. According to records in the Massachusetts Historical Society, William Gwinn traveled to Sierra Leone "with his wife and two Children."

Settlement

The group arrived in Sierra Leone about the end of January or early February. Cuffe wrote to the African Institution in London's William Allen on April 1, 1816, to let him know that homesteads had been acquired for the settlement. Gwinn worked a 10-acre farm with 5 families from Boston. 29 people that were going to work the 10 acres together included: * Thomas Jarvis, his wife and five children. Jarvis was about 50. * Peter Wilcox, his wife and five children. Wilcox was about 40. * Robert Rigsby, his wife and one child * William Guinn, his wife and daughter Another settler was David George, a Baptist preacher who had escaped enslavement and then traveled to Nova Scotia before emigrating to Sierra Leone. The same year, Gwinn's daughter Nancy married George Davis, the African born son of

parents who had immigrated via

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

(under the auspices of

John Clarkson John Gibson Clarkson (July 1, 1861 – February 4, 1909) was a Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. He played from 1882 to 1894. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Clarkson played for the Worcester Ruby Legs (1882), Chicago White Stocking ...

) to found

Freetown, Sierra Leone Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educational and po ...

in 1792.

Integration with 1792 Nova Scotian Settlers

Most of the 38 emigrants integrated with the original founders (known as the

Settlers A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a pioneer. Settle ...

of the Colony of Sierra Leone who had arrived in 1792).

Later years and descendants

Little is known of what became of Gwinn himself; however a letter from other colonists indicated that 'Friend Gwinn' had a lost a leg since arriving in Sierra Leone. Gwinn likely settled in Settler Town as that was where the original "

American emigrants American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

reside." The Gwinns have descendants in Sierra Leone and the United States through the union of George Davis I to Miss Nancy Gwinn in 1816.

References

Sources

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gwinn, William 1755 births 18th century in Boston 19th century in Boston American emigrants to Sierra Leone People from colonial Boston 18th-century American slaves Methodists from Massachusetts African-American history in Boston Cultural history of Boston 19th-century deaths 19th-century American slaves People of colonial Massachusetts