Grant, Sargent, Oswald & Company, which oversaw a thriving slave trade from Bunce Island in Sierra Leone to North America. The transatlantic slave trade continued to transport millions of enslaved Africans, including those from Sierra Leone, across the Atlantic during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries; ultimately, roughly 12.5 million slaves where brought to the Americas this way. However, the rise of abolitionist movements in the Western world in the late 18th and early 19th centuries led to various European and American governments passing legislation to abolish the slave trade. The slave trade in Sierra Leone underwent a marked decline during the 19th century, though domestic slavery would persist until the 20th century. The Province of Freedom (1787–1789) Conception of the Province of Freedom (1787) In 1787, a plan was established to settle some of London's "Black Poor" in Sierra Leone in what was called the "Province of Freedom". This was organised by the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor, founded by British abolitionist Granville Sharp, which preferred it as a solution to continuing to financially support them in London. Many of the Black Poor were African Americans, who had been given their freedom after seeking refuge with the British Army during the American Revolution, but also included other West Indian, African and Asian inhabitants of London. The Sierra Leone Resettlement Scheme was proposed by entomologist Henry Smeathman and drew interest from humanitarians like Granville Sharp saw it as a means of showing the pro-slavery lobby that black people could contribute towards the running of the new colony of Sierra Leone. Government officials soon became involved in the scheme as well, although their interest was spurred by the possibility of resettling a large group of poor citizens elsewhere. 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". Establishment, destruction and re-establishment (1789) The area was first settled by 400 formerly enslaved Black Britons, who arrived off the coast of Sierra Leone on 15 May 1787, accompanied by some English tradesmen. They established the Province of Freedom or Granville Town on land purchased from local Koya Temne subchief King Tom and regent Naimbanna II, a