Alexander falcon bridge biography of christopher kennedy

Alexander Falconbridge c. In he was sent by the Anti-Slavery Society to Granville Town, Sierra Leone , a community of freed slaves, where he died a year later in Falconbridge was born around in England or Scotland, possibly Prestonpans or Bristol.

Alexander Falconbridge was born in Bristol in about He had a strong desire to become a doctor and in he became a pupil in Bristol Infirmary.

The British surgeon Alexander Falconbridge served as a ship's surgeon on four slave trade voyages between and on the ships Tartar — , Emilia , Alexander and, again, Emilia [ 2 ] before rejecting the slave trade and becoming an abolitionist. In , French naval forces captured Tartar on her second voyage to transport enslaved people, but before she had taken on any captives.

Falconbridge gained his experience on slave ships before he met the anti-slavery campaigner Thomas Clarkson [ 3 ] following which he became a member of the Anti-Slavery Society. Clarkson had a high regard for Falconbridge who on more than one occasion acted as his personal armed bodyguard whilst he gathered evidence against the slave trade.

After meeting Clarkson, Falconbridge published in An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa , [ 4 ] an influential book in the abolitionist movement.

Anna Maria Horwood was Alexander's junior by nine years.

In this book, he talked about the trade from when the ships first acquired captives from the African coast, through their treatment during the Middle Passage , to the time they were sold into hereditary bondage in the West Indies [ 5 ]. In Alexander gave verbal evidence before a House of Commons Committee. Many of them were hostile toward him. In , Falconbridge was selected by the Anti-Slavery Society to sail to Sierra Leone with his wife Anna Maria ; and his brother William, [ 7 ] with the intent of reorganising the failed settlement of freed slaves in Granville Town, Sierra Leone.

They arrived as passengers on the enslaving ship Duke of Buccleugh. On the voyage out Falconbridge had numerous drunken disputes with Captain John Malean, Duke of Buccleugh ' s master; Anna Maria would retire to her cabin during these disputes. Unfortunately, Anna Maria did not share Alexander's idealistic views about the settlement.