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Bunce Island

A Royal African Company fort and factory in the Sierra Leone River, surveyed by William Smith in 1726, where he counted thirty-three cannon and recorded a locally reported attack by Bartholomew Roberts in 1720.

Also writtenBence Island (Smith's spelling); Bense Island; Bance Island

Bunce Island appears in William Smith's 1744 voyage as Bence Island. In 1726 the Royal African Company employed him to survey its forts, rivers, harbours and trading places from the Gambia to Whydah. His instructions required plans, draughts and prospects of the Company's forts and settlements, and specifically name Tasso Island, Bence Island and the Company's fort in the Sierra Leone River.5,6

Approaching the factory

Close under the high hills Smith found a regular depth of eight to ten fathoms. Farther out, the accompanying ship's casts shifted abruptly between eighteen fathoms, twelve, no bottom at twenty, and ten. His account describes the channel into the estuary, but does not give a measured distance from the Atlantic to Bence Island.7

At Frenchman's Bay, Captain Crocker came aboard and discussed the Company's affairs at Bence. Smith says the factory was then under the direction of Marmaduke Panwell. That is the evidence here for Panwell's connection; the surviving passage does not give his formal title.8

The fort in November 1726

Smith went up to the island on 6 November. He found a regular fortification with twenty-two heavy cannon and a battery beneath the fort wall with eleven more. The island was the governor's residence. On 7 November he began the survey and met none of the opposition he had encountered while working at the Gambia.9,10

The Company held two islands in the river. Smith describes Tasso as a large, flat island where enslaved people held by the Company worked a plantation; much of the remaining ground was wooded. Bence was the other island, occupied by the fort he had just described. The passage fixes both sites inside one Company establishment and also records the coerced labour on which it depended.11

Roberts before Bence

Smith also records an attack in 1720, six years before his visit. He says Bartholomew Roberts, commanding three ships, demanded gold dust, powder and ball from Governor Plunkett. After Plunkett refused, Roberts brought the ships before Bence and the two sides exchanged fire for several hours. When the fort ran out of shot and iron bars, Plunkett withdrew by boat and was captured.12,13

In Smith's account the pirates rifled the warehouses and sailed out on the next ebb. They left Plunkett in possession and had not greatly damaged the fort. This is the first period source found for the attack, but it is a locally gathered account rather than a Company report: Smith writes that this was what he had been told.

What the evidence does not settle

Smith establishes that the Company held the island and fort in 1726, and he supplies the fort's armament and physical setting. His text does not establish when the first English factory was built, which corporate body founded it, or the exact succession of governors. The official account of the 1720 attack, the factory establishment, its accounts and the lives of the enslaved people held there belong in the Royal African Company papers at The National Archives, series T 70. Those papers would test Smith's reported version and show how the fort changed before and after the survey.

What the evidence does not settle

Bunce Island attack, 1719-20

  • Whether pirates physically attacked Bunce Island castle in 1719-20
  • Whether Bartholomew Roberts joined the alleged attack is unclear

Founding of Bunce Island

  • Founding company is unclear; Royal African Company wasn't chartered until 1672Unverified

Bunce Island's golden-age governor

  • The identity and tenure of Bunce Island's Golden Age governors or chief agents

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. Bunce Island is a small island lying in the Sierra Leone River about twenty miles above the Atlantic at the site of present-day Freetown, chosen for a fortified factory because it lay far enough upriver to be defensible and at the head of navigation for ocean-going ships while having deep water alongside, so that vessels could load directly from the establishment; its name is unstable in the golden-age record and appears as Bence, Bense and Bance, the modern standard form being Bunce Island. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Heritage monument entry and university research materials: "Bunce Island" national monument entry, Sierra Leone Heritage (sierraleoneheritage.org), accessed 2026, for the upriver position, the name variants Bence, Bense and Bance and the deep water alongside; Gilder Lehrman Center / MacMillan Center, Yale University, Bunce Island history materials drawing on the work of Joseph Opala, for the head-of-navigation argument. The geography is carried at Probable; the instability of the name is Confirmed
  2. A fortified English slave-trading factory was established on Bunce Island about 1670. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Secondary accounts: Sierra Leone Heritage, "Bunce Island" national monument entry, and Gilder Lehrman Center / MacMillan Center, Yale University (drawing on Joseph Opala), for the founding about 1670 by English slave traders (Probable)
  3. Bunce Island was a slave-trading factory, that is a fortified shore station rather than a naval or territorial fortress, whose business was to gather, hold and ship enslaved Africans and to trade in ivory, camwood and other goods in competition with interloping traders who evaded the chartered company's monopoly, and in the golden-age decades it was one of a string of company factories along the Sierra Leone and Sherbro coast that was never strongly profitable and served as much as a sign of English commercial presence as a money-maker. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Secondary accounts: Sierra Leone Heritage, "Bunce Island" national monument entry, and Gilder Lehrman Center / MacMillan Center, Yale University (drawing on Joseph Opala), for the factory's business, the trade in ivory and camwood and the competition with interlopers (Confirmed); the same Yale materials for the post's place in the chain of Sierra Leone and Sherbro factories and for its weak profitability (Probable). The page's placing of the post inside the same chartered system as Cape Coast Castle on the Gold Coast rests on the Archive's own Cape Coast Castle record and asserts no rank or dependency between the two
  4. Bunce Island's largest years as a slaving station came after the golden age and under private ownership: from 1748 the post belonged to Grant, Oswald and Company, given in some accounts as Grant, Sargent and Oswald, whose leading partner Richard Oswald, a Scottish merchant, built direct ties with the rice planters of South Carolina and Georgia through his Charles Town agent Henry Laurens, who auctioned the people landed from the island and took a commission of about ten per cent on each sale; Sierra Leonean captives were sought by those planters for their rice-growing knowledge, and tens of thousands of Africans are estimated to have been shipped from the island across its working life; the site is a ruin today, abandoned by about 1840, designated Sierra Leone's first officially protected historic site in 1948 and cared for by the Sierra Leonean Monuments and Relics Commission, and its standing remains are the fabric of that later castle rather than of the golden-age post. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Secondary accounts: Gilder Lehrman Center / MacMillan Center, Yale University, Bunce Island history materials drawing on the work of Joseph Opala, and "Bloody Bunce: A Legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Sierra Leone," Royal Historical Society blog (Historical Transactions), 29 October 2019, for the 1748 transfer to Grant, Oswald and Company, Richard Oswald, Henry Laurens as Charleston agent, the ten per cent commission, the Rice Coast link and the scale of the trade (Probable). The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database would give a defensible range in place of these estimates. For the afterlife, Sierra Leone Heritage, "Bunce Island" national monument entry, for the abandonment by about 1840, the 1948 protection, the care of the Monuments and Relics Commission and the rebuilding after the French attacks of 1695, 1704, 1779 and 1794 that leaves the standing fabric as the later castle (Probable)
  5. Smith's instructions required him to make plans, draughts and prospects of the Royal African Company's forts and settlements. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed pp. 1-2, library lines 187-218
  6. Smith's instructions required him at Sierra Leone River to survey Tasso Island, Bence Island and the Company's fort there as he had surveyed the river and fort at Gambia. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed p. 3, library lines 248-257
  7. Smith recorded regular soundings of eight to ten fathoms close under the high hills of the Sierra Leone River, while the accompanying ship's outer track varied sharply. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed p. 38, library lines 1436-1464
  8. At Frenchman's Bay Captain Crocker gave Smith a short account of the Company's affairs at Bence Island, then under the direction of Marmaduke Panwell. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed p. 39, library lines 1474-1486
  9. On 6 November 1726 Smith went to Bence Island and described a regular fortification mounting twenty-two heavy cannon, with a lower battery of eleven more; the island was the governor's residence. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed p. 40, library lines 1510-1532
  10. Smith began his survey on 7 November and wrote that he met none of the opposition he had encountered at Gambia. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed p. 41, library lines 1541-1554
  11. Smith states that the Company held two islands in the river: Tasso, where enslaved Company labourers maintained a plantation, and Bence, where the fort stood. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed pp. 44-45, library lines 1698-1723
  12. Smith reports that Bartholomew Roberts brought three ships before Bence Island after Governor Plunkett refused his demand for gold dust, powder and ball, and that a sustained engagement followed. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed p. 42, library lines 1602-1628
  13. Smith reports that after the engagement Roberts's men rifled the warehouses, sailed out on the next ebb, and left Plunkett in possession of a fort they had not greatly damaged. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period primary source or printed calendar: Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (1744), printed p. 43, library lines 1649-1664