All our members are from Freeown, Sierra Leone, a country on the western tip of Africa.
Here is just a brief history of Freetown.
FREETOWN, Capital, chief port, and largest city of Sierra Leone, on the rocky Sierra
Leone Peninsula, at the seaward tip of a range of wooded hills, which were named
Serra Leôa (Lion Mountains) by the Portuguese navigator Pedro da Sintra when he explored
the West African coast in 1462.
By the 1650s the increased activity of British, French, Dutch, and Danish trading
companies ended the limited degree of Portuguese control over the coastal trade.
An English abolitionist, Granville Sharp, selected the site (south of the mouth of
the Sierra Leone River) in 1787 as a haven for African slaves, freed and destitute
in England. (They were known as the Black Poor.)
In 1792 the Sierra Leone Company assumed responsibility and helped settle slaves
from Nova Scotia who had fought for the British in the American Revolutionary War,
the Maroons, runaway slaves of Jamaica, and others from captured slave ships. They
were landed at King Jimmy's Watering Place (now a bustling marketplace).Mende and
Temne immigrants from the interior now out number their descendants, known as Creoles.
In 1821 Freetown became the seat of government for all of Great Britain's West African
possessions, a position it retained (with slight changes) until 1874. Freetown, incorporated
as a municipality in 1893, became the nation's capital in 1961.
Freetown's excellent natural harbour (an important World War II naval base) has deep-water
docking facilities at the Queen Elizabeth II Quay. Its exports include palm oil and
kernels, cocoa, coffee, ginger, and kola nuts. The city is the nation's commercial
and transportation centre; industrial enterprises are limited and include diamond
cutting, confectionary, paint and shoe enterprises, rice milling, and fish packing.
Construction of the Guma Dam has solved Freeport's long-time water problem and provided
more electrical power. Hastings Airfield (10 miles [16 km] southeast) handles domestic
flights; the international airport at Lungi is across the Sierra Leone River.
Freetown is the site of Fourah Bay College on Mount Aureol (founded 1827, part of
the University of Sierra Leone, 1969), Njala University College (1963), the Milton
Margai Teachers College at nearby Goderich (1960), a teachers college, a technical
institute, and several government and Christian and Muslim secondary schools. Fort
Thornton (1796), now the State House and residence of the president, and the House
of Representatives stand on Tower Hill.
There are several mosques and churches, notably the Anglican St. George's Cathedral
(1852). The National Museum, housed in the former Cotton Tree Railroad Station, contains
historical documents and traditional wood and stone sculptures. Pop. (1985 prelim.)
469,776. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2003.
