[edit]
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Freetown.
The area around the Sierra Leone estuary has been inhabited for millennia. The earliest known group in the area was the Bullom people. In the 1540s and 50s, the Mane people invaded the area and established their own chiefdoms, integrating into the local Bullom. In January 1568, the English slave raider John Hawkins helped the Mane king Flansire destroy Bonga, headquarters of the rebellious chief Falma. Bonga was a town of around 10 000 people located in the area that would become Freetown.
Province of Freedom (1787–1789)[edit]
The area was settled in 1787 by 400 formerly enslaved black people sent from London, England, under the auspices of the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor, an organisation set up by the English merchant and philanthropist, Jonas Hanway, and the British abolitionist, Granville Sharp. These black people were African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, Africans, Southeast Asians, and black people born in Great Britain. They established the 'Province of Freedom' and the settlement of Granville Town on land purchased from local Koya Temne subchief King Tom and regent Naimbana. The British understood the purchase meant that their new settlers had the land "for ever." Although the established arrangement between Europeans and the Koya Temne included provisions for permanent settlement, some historians question how well the Koya leaders understood the agreement, as they had a different conception of the uses of property.[citation needed]
Disputes soon broke out. King Tom's successor, King Jimmy, burnt the settlement to the ground in 1789. Alexander Falconbridge was sent to Sierra Leone in 1791 to collect the remaining Black Poor settlers, and they re-established Granville Town around the area now known as Cline Town, Sierra Leone near Fourah Bay. These 1787 settlers did not formally establish Freetown, even though the bicentennial of Freetown was celebrated in 1987; formally, Freetown was founded in 1792.
Freetown settlement and the Colony of Sierra Leone (1792–1808)[edit]
In 1791, Thomas Peters, an African American who had served in the Black Pioneers, went to England to report the grievances of the black population in Nova Scotia. Some of these African Americans were ex-slaves who had escaped to the British forces who had been given their freedom and resettled there by the Crown after the American Revolution.
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Freetown.
The area around the Sierra Leone estuary
Land grants and assistance in starting the settlements had been intermittent and slow.[citation needed]
During his visit, Peters met with the directors of the Sierra Leone Company and learned of proposals for a new settlement at Sierra Leone. Despite the collapse of the 1787 colony, the directors were eager to recruit settlers to Sierra Leone. Lieutenant John Clarkson, RN, who was an abolitionist, was sent to Nova Scotia in British North America to register immigrants to take to Sierra Leone for a new settlement.[citation needed]
Tired of the harsh weather and racial discrimination in Nova Scotia, more than 1,100 former American slaves chose to go to Sierra Leone.[citation needed] They sailed in 15 ships and arrived in St. George Bay between 26 February – 9 March 1792. Sixty-four settlers died en route to Sierra Leone, and Lieutenant Clarkson was among those taken ill during the voyage. Upon reaching Sierra Leone, Clarkson and some of the Nova Scotian 'captains' "dispatched on shore to clear or make roadway for their landing". The Nova Scotians were to build Freetown on the former site of the first Granville Town, where jungle had taken over since its destruction in 1789. Its surviving Old Settlers had relocated to Fourah Bay in 1791.[citation needed]
At Freetown, the women remained in the ships while the men worked to clear the land. Lt. Clarkson told the men to clear the land until they reached a large cotton tree (Ceiba pentandra). After the work had been done and the land cleared, all the Nova Scotians, men and women, disembarked and marched towards the thick forest and to the cotton tree, and their preachers (all African Americans) began singing "Awake and Sing of Moses and the Lamb."[citation needed]
In March 1792, Nathaniel Gilbert, a white preacher, prayed and preached a sermon under the large Cotton Tree, and Reverend David George, from South Carolina, preached the first recorded Baptist service in Africa. The land was dedicated and christened 'Free Town,' as ordered by the Sierra Leone Company Directors. This was the first thanksgiving service.[citation needed]
John Clarkson was sworn in as first governor of Sierra Leone. Small huts were erected before the rainy season. The Sierra Leone Company surveyors and the settlers built Freetown on the American grid pattern, with parallel streets and wide roads, with the largest being Water Street. On 24 August 1792, the Black Poor or Old Settlers of the second Granville Town were incorporated into the new Sierra Leone Colony, but remained at Granville Town.[citation needed]
In 1793, the settlers sent a petition to the Sierra Leone Company expressing concerns about the treatment that they were enduring. The settlers in particular objected to being issued currency that was only redeemable at a company owned store. They also claimed that the governor, a Mr. Dawes, ruled in an almost tyrannical fashion, favoring certain people over others when ruling the settlement. The writers then argued that they had not received the amount of land that Lt. Clarkson had promised them on leaving Nova Scotia. The letter expressed anxiety that the company was not treating them as freemen, but as slaves and requested that Lt. Clarkson return as governor.
Freetown survived being pillaged by the French in 1794, and was rebuilt by the settlers. By 1798, Freetown had between 300 and 400 houses with architecture resembling that of the United States – stone foundations with wooden superstructures. Eventually this style of housing, built by the Nova Scotians, would be the model for the 'bod oses' of their Creole descendants.
In 1800, the Nova Scotians rebelled. The colonial authorities used the arrival of about 550 Jamaican Maroons to suppress the insurrection. Thirty-four Nova Scotians were banished and sent to either the Sherbro or a penal colony at Gore. Some of the Nova Scotians were eventually allowed back into Freetown. After the Maroons captured the Nova Scotian rebels, they were granted their land. Eventually the Maroons had their own district, which came to be known as Maroon Town.
Freetown as a Crown Colony (1808–1961)[edit]
Freetown in 1803
Temne people attacked the colony in 1801 and were repulsed. The British eventually took control of Freetown, making it a Crown Colony in 1808. This act accompanied expansion that led to the creation of Sierra Leone.
From 1808 to 1874, the city served as the capital of British West Africa. It also served as the base for the Royal Navy's Eastern Squadron, which was charged with enforcing the ban on the slave trade. When the squadron liberated slaves on trading ships, they brought most to Sierra Leone, and Freetown in particular; thus, the population grew to include descendants of many different peoples from all over the west coast of Africa. The British also situated three of their Mixed Commission Courts in Freetown.
The Freetown Lodge No. 1955 was the first Orange Lodge formed in Africa. It was established by the British and Irish settlers in the capital. Missionaries taught locals about Protestant Christianity and evangelism.
Freetown in 1856
The liberated Africans established the suburbs of Freetown Peninsula. They were the largest group of immigrants to make up the Creole people of Freetown. The city expanded rapidly. The freed slaves were joined by West Indian and African soldiers, who had fought for Britain in the Napoleonic Wars and settled here afterwards. Descendants of the freed slaves who settled in Sierra Leone between 1787 and around 1885, are called the Creoles. The Creoles play a leading role in the city, although they are a minority of the overall Sierra Leone population.
In the 1890s, ethnic tension flared between Lebanese residents and traders and the various native ethnicities of Sierra Leone, which led to Lebanese shops being destroyed in cities including Freetown.
During World War I Freetown became a base for operations of British forces in the Atlantic. Warships came into the port to resupply and German merchant vessels captured in the region were also sent there.
During World War II, Britain maintained a naval base at Freetown. The base was a staging post for Allied traffic in the South Atlantic and the assembly point for SL convoys to Britain. An RAF base was maintained at nearby Lungi airfield. British fighter aircraft which were shipped into Freetown port, were carried on the Sierra Leone Government Railway to Makeni to be assembled and flown to Egypt.
Civil war, 1990s to early 2000s[edit]
Main article: Siege of Freetown
The city was the scene of fierce fighting in the late 1990s during the Sierra Leone Civil War. It was captured by ECOWAS troops seeking to restore President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah in 1998. Later it was unsuccessfully attacked by rebels of the Revolutionary United Front.
Mudslide disaster, 2017[edit]
Main article: 2017 Sierra Leone mudslides
In the early morning on 14 August 2017, after much heavy rain, part of Mount Sugar Loaf on an edge of Freetown collapsed in a huge mudslide which drowned over 300 people in Regent town. Deforestation has been blamed for the landslide.
Sierra Leone fuel tanker explosion, 2021[edit]
Main article: 2021 Sierra Leone fuel tanker explosion
On 5 November 2021, a fuel tank truck collided with another truck in Freetown, resulting in an explosion killing at least 99 and injuring around 100.
