John Clarkson (abolitionist)

Lieutenant John Clarkson was a Royal Navy officer, colonial administrator and abolitionist. He was the younger brother of Thomas Clarkson, one of the central figures in the British abolitionist movement. As a Sierra Leone Company agent, John Clarkson was instrumental in the founding of Freetown, Sierra Leone as a haven for chiefly formerly enslaved African Americans first relocated to Nova Scotia by British military authorities following the American War of Independence.