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In 1771 Joseph Banks and other wealthy collectors sent a talented, self-taught naturalist to Sierra Leone to collect all things rare and curious, from moths to monkeys. Henry Smeathman's expedition to the West African coast, which coincided with a steep rise in British slave trading in this area, lasted four years during which time he built a house on the Banana Islands, married into the coast's ruling dynasties, and managed to negotiate the tricky life of a 'stranger' bound to his landlord and local customs. In this book, which draws on a rich and little-known archive of journals and letters, Coleman retraces Smeathman's life as he shuttled between his home on the Bananas and two key Liverpool trading forts-Bunce Island and the Isles de Los. In the logistical challenges of tropical collecting and the dispatch of specimens across the middle passage we see the close connection between science and slavery. We also see the hardening of Smeathman's attitude towards the slaves, a change of sentiment which was later reversed by four years in the West Indies. The book concludes with the 'Flycatcher' back in London - a celebrated termite specialist, eager to return to West Africa to establish a free, antislavery settlement.

Naturalists --- Slavery --- Abolition of slavery --- Antislavery --- Enslavement --- Mui tsai --- Ownership of slaves --- Servitude --- Slave keeping --- Slave system --- Slaveholding --- Thralldom --- Crimes against humanity --- Serfdom --- Slaveholders --- Slaves --- Colonies --- History --- Smeathman, Henry, --- Smeathman, --- Travel. --- Homes and haunts. --- Sierra Leone --- S'erra Leone --- Serra Leôa --- Republic of Sierra Leone --- Republik Sierra Leone --- Sierra Leona --- República de Sierra Leona --- République de Sierra Leone --- Repubblica della Sierra Leone --- Сьерра-Леоне --- Республика Сьерра-Леоне --- Respublika Sʹerra-Leone --- Republika ng Sierra Leone --- Cộng hòa Sierra Leone --- Xi-ê-ra Lê-ôn --- 塞拉利昂 --- Sailali'ang --- Saila Li'ang --- シエラレオネ --- Shierareone --- シエラ・レオネ --- Shiera Reone --- Social conditions --- Enslaved persons --- slavery, science, and empire --- late eighteenth-century traveling naturalist --- Atlantic slavery --- biography --- Isle de Los --- 18th-century West Africa --- tropics --- British slave trading --- cultures of collecting in the 18th century --- new archives for Henry Smeathman --- Banana Islands --- 18th-century West Indies --- Joseph Banks --- Bunce Island --- subaltern natural history --- history of African slavery --- Middle Passage --- 18th-century natural history, slavery, and colonization --- 18th-century Sierra Leone --- termites