William Gwinn

William Gwinn (Guinn, Guin; c. 1755–?) was an African American from Boston, Massachusetts. He was one of the first African-Americans to participate in the antebellum American Back-to-Africa movement under the auspices of Captain Paul Cuffe's 1815 voyage to Sierra Leone.

Early life Little is known of Gwinn's early life. Presumably, he was previously enslaved to the Massachusetts Gwinn family or had immigrated from the Southern states after being emancipated. By the early 1800s, he was a free black and lived in antebellum Massachusetts. He was listed in the 1810 census as a resident of Boston Ward 1 in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. He was described as being of the 'Methodist order' and as being "from Boston" by Captain Paul Cuffe. Cuffe, a man of Native American and African American ancestry, had visited Sierra Leone in 1811 to assess whether he'd like to immigrate there. His Native American wife, however, did not want to leave the land of her ancestry.

The emigrants, mainly Bostonians,

The same year, Gwinn's daughter Nancy married George Davis, the African-born son of African American parents who had immigrated via Nova Scotia (under the auspices of John Clarkson) to found Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1792.

Integration with 1792 Nova Scotian Settlers Most of the thirty-eight emigrants integrated with the founders (known as the Settlers of the Colony of Sierra Leone, who had arrived in 1792).

Later years and descendants Little is known of what became of Gwinn himself; however, a letter from other colonists indicated that 'Friend Gwinn' had lost a leg since arriving in Sierra Leone. Gwinn likely settled in Settler Town as that was where the original "American emigrants reside."

The Gwinns have descendants in Sierra Leone and the United States through the union of George Davis I to Miss Nancy Gwinn in 1816.