Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor
The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor was a charitable organisation founded in London in 1786 to provide sustenance for distressed people of African and Asian origin.
Lord Dunmore's Proclamation resulted in several thousand black slaves running away from the estates of Patriots, and they fought on the side of the British.
[6] On 5 January 1786, an announcement appeared in the Public Advertiser that Mr. Brown, a baker in Wigmore Street, Cavendish Square, was to "give a Quartern Loaf to every Black in Distress, who will apply on Saturday next between the Hours of Twelve and Two".
The effort attracted some prominent figures from London's financial elite: George Peters, Governor of the Bank of England, Thomas Boddington, the noted philanthropist and slave owner, John Julius Angerstein, General Robert Melville.
[7] On 14 February The Morning Herald remarked: The example of the Duchess of Devonshire, in contributing to the relief of the poor Blacks, has had a salutary effect.
The Committee soon organised two venues for regular distribution of alms: the White Raven tavern in Mile End and the Yorkshire Stingo, in Lisson Grove, Marylebone.
There was also a sick house set up in Warren Street, where 40-50 men needing medical attention were provided for with indoor relief.
In providing clothes so that men could get work as sailors, some of the committee members were simply applying the same charitable methods they had used in organisations such as the Marine Society.
[10] William Pitt the Younger, prime minister and leader of the Tory party, had an active interest in the Scheme, because he saw it as a means to repatriate the Black Poor to Africa, since "it was necessary they should be sent somewhere, and be no longer suffered to infest the streets of London".
[citation needed] However, even though the Committee signed up about 700 members of the Black Poor, only 441 boarded the three ships that set sail from London to Portsmouth.
[12] The authorities, with the support of the Committee, sought to force beggars from the streets of London to join the program, in order to make up for the hundreds who refrained from boarding.
Many black Londoners were no longer interested in the scheme, and the coercion employed by the committee and the government to recruit them only reinforced their opposition.
[13][14] In January 1787, Atlantic and Belisarius set sail for Sierra Leone, but bad weather forced them to divert to Plymouth, during which time about 50 passengers died.
Black settlers were captured by unscrupulous traders and sold as slaves, and the remaining colonists were forced to arm themselves for their own protection.
[20] Eventually, the organisers of the Sierra Leone Resettlement Scheme turned to Nova Scotia, and recruited Black Pioneers there to repopulate the colony.
