John Tucker (merchant trader)

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John Tucker was an English slave trader for the Royal African Company from London, England.

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Slave trading

Tucker went to Gbap, Sierra Leone, in 1665 alongside Thomas Corker who was the ancestor of the Sherbro Caulkers, the most notorious slave trading family in the Upper Guinea Coast. John Tucker married a Sherbro princess and together they had many children. The Sherbro Tuckers became a powerful slave trading clan and chiefdom in Gbap and many of them went to university in Europe as early as the 18th century.

In 1694 John Tucker signed the commission for the 1694 voyage of the Amity captained by Thomas Tew.

Notes

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    Sierra Leone first became inhabited by indigenous African peoples at least 2,500 years ago. The Limba were the first tribe known to inhabit Sierra Leone. The dense tropical rainforest partially isolated the region from other West African cultures, and it became a refuge for peoples escaping violence and jihads. Sierra Leone was named by Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra, who mapped the region in 1462. The Freetown estuary provided a good natural harbour for ships to shelter and replenish drinking water, and gained more international attention as coastal and trans-Atlantic trade supplanted trans-Saharan trade.

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    Thomas DeSaille Tucker or Thomas DeSaliere Tucker was an African-born lawyer, educator, and missionary. He was the first president of the State Normal College for Colored Students, which eventually became Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.

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