What makes the City of Freetown so historic?
The global impact of historic events and historic figures that took place in this tiny African city on the West Coast of Africa, reaches as far back as the abolition era and to people of African descent on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. It has served as a settlement testament to its name, Freetown, for West and Central Africans, African Americans, West Indians, and others of African descent in Europe. The history of Freetown weaves a thread through every aspect of the global modern black experience during the last 300 years.
Maroon Town: Established by Jamaican Maroons Who Arrived in Freetown in 1800
The Maroons from Jamaica arrived in Freetown in the year 1800, less than 10 years since the American Settlers had arrived from Nova Scotia. About 600 Maroons, including women and children settled around parts of central Freetown with their households. They later named...
Grammar School: The Oldest Secondary School in West Africa, est. 1845
The Grammar School set the tone for secondary education throughout Sierra Leone and West Africa, particularly because for twenty years it was the only secondary school in West Africa. By 1849 its roll included pupils from the entire sub-region of West AfricaBy the...
Last Christmas in Nova Scotia, America and their Hopes of a Better and Brighter New Year in Sierra Leone, Africa.
Recreating our story across generations: Our story: recounting our ancestors’ courageous stories from a hopeful spring in New York in 1783 to a thanksgiving under the Cotton Tree in Freetown in March 1792, 230 years ago. In telling this story, if I start with the...
York Village: A Peninsula Village Established in 1819 for Liberated Africans
During the early to mid-1800s, several villages were established around the Freetown Peninsula and other areas around the city. These villages were established primarily to settle Africans who had been freed from slave ships on the Atlantic Ocean. Many of the Africans...
1,196 Black Settlers from America Sailed on 15 Ships from Nova Scotia, Canada to Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1792
In the year 1792, almost 1200 black Settlers from America and Canada arrived on the shores of Sierra Leone. They cleared the land and named the new free black settlement Freetown. Up to that moment, it was the single most largest exodus of black people from the West...
Exploring Two of the Oldest Churches in Freetown: Built in the 1700s
Taking a pre-planned solo tour through two of the oldest streets in Freetown, I stopped by two of the oldest Churches in Freetown. Zion Methodist Church was originally built in 1792 on Wilberforce Street, followed by Rawdon Street Chapel, now known as College Chapel...
The Historic 19th Century Board “Bod Ose” Houses in Freetown
Despite the fact that many of these board houses are in decaying condition, the aesthetic of them not being touched or maintained allow visitors and passers by to view the building and its raw history. The wooden structures built by freed Americans slaves that still...
Fourah Bay College: The Oldest Westernized University in Sub-Saharan Africa
This historic college had its early beginnings in the Peninsula village of Leicester as the Church Missionary Society (CMS) Institution.African American and South Carolina native, Rev. Edward Jones became the first black Principal of Fourah Bay College in the 1840s,...
Zion Methodist Church: Built in 1792, a Freetown Church Celebrates its 230th Year
Zion Methodist Church Wilberforce Street was established in Sierra Leone in 1792, with a settler congregation that included Huntingdonians arriving from Nova Scotia- Canada, and America. Today, the church remains a fixture of living history in the heart of the capital...