Timeline: Sierra Leone and West Africa

1787

A party of 400 emancipated slaves and 60 Europeans settle a colony on a grant of land by King Tom, founding Granville Town, the origin of Sierra Leone.

1788

King Naimbana ratifies King Tom’s land grant.

1790-91

St. George’s Bay Company (later becoming the Sierra Leone Company) forms, assuming responsibility for the settlement.

1792

More settlers arrive # 1190 blacks from Nova Scotia, and 119 Europeans from England. Freetown is founded.

1799

The Sierra Leone Company receives a royal charter, and the governor-in-council acquires legislative powers.

1807

British Parliament declares the slave trade illegal.

1808

Sierra Leone becomes a Crown Colony, the land possessions of the company transferring to the crown. The colony is dedicated to demonstrating the principles of Christianity, civilization, and commerce. A British naval squadron enforcing the empire's ban on the slave trade begins releasing recaptured Africans in the colony. A Vice-Admiralty prize court is established in Freetown.

1810

Paul Cuffee, an African-American mariner, merchant and shipowner, visits Sierra Leone in his brig the Traveller.

1811

Cuffee returns to Freetown and organizes a cooperative trading society, the “Friendly Society of Sierra Leone.”

1816

Cuffee returns to Sierra Leone with a sawmill, merchandize, and 34 immigrants.

1820

In response to British pressure, the Americans dispatch naval vessels to the coast of West Africa to patrol for slavers. In April, the U.S.S. Cyane, a 20-gun sloop, gives chase to vessels in waters off the mouth of the Gallinas River. Six of them turn out to be slavers, fully equipped and American-owned.

Slave ship captains quickly learn to conceal American ownership while the U.S. squadron patrol the region. In 1823, the U.S. withdraws the vessels and breaks off joint efforts with Great Britain.

First group of free blacks sails for what would become Liberia.

1821

The American Colonization Society establishes a colony at Cape Mesurado, the origin of Liberia.

1825

Under Sierra Leone Governor Charles Turner, the British mount a campaign against slaving operations along the islands and peninsula Subsequent commando operations raid the Gallinas, Sherbro and Rio Pongos. On September 24, Turner signs a treaty with the coastal chiefs of Sherbro country, ceding the peninsula to the British (though the Crown does not ratify the treaty). On December 12, Turner forces a similar treaty on the chiefs of Bacca Lokkoh country, to the north. In 1826, Turner returns to Sherbro to raid slave traders. The nearby strip of coast thus comes under British control. Slaving continues, though, in the regions of the Rio Pongos and Rio Nunez in the northwest, and on the Gallinas River in the southeast.

1828

Pedro Blanco ships three slave cargoes to Havana from Gallinas # the earliest record of slaving by the figure who would eventually become the region's largest dealer.

1831

The Colony of Sierra Leone is opened to foreign trade, part of a project to wean the colony of British imperial support.

1836

June 28: A new mixed court opens in Sierra Leone to hear cases of slave trading, under the terms of an Anglo-Spanish treaty of 1835. In response to the crackdown, slave traders begin using smaller vessels, and sending trade cargoes in separate vessels.

1839

In waters off of Lomboko, the Tecora loads her cargo of over 500 slaves, among them the Africans who would revolt aboard the Amistad off the coast of Cuba. About 2,000 slaves a year are coming out of the Gallinas River during this period.

1840

Joseph Denman, a British officer in the African squadron, anchors off the Gallinas, blockading the slave traders and intercepting incoming slave-ships. Eventually Denman lands a shore party and burns the factories, liberating 841 slaves and transporting them to Freetown. A second naval expedition moves on baracoons and factories upriver.

1841

In the wake of emancipation in the British West Indies, British agents representing West Indian plantations dispatch agents to Sierra Leone to drum up laborers. Many Sierra Leone recaptives volunteer. In April, the first 612 emigrants push off, in ships bound for Jamaica, Trinidad and British Guiana.

May 12: the Albert andWilberforce sail out of Devonport for West Africa, part of an official antislavery expedition dispatched by the British government to explore the Niger River and introduce Christianity and commerce (meaning trade other than the slave trade) to the interior of Africa. By the time the expedition puts Sierra Leone in its wake six weeks later, it is carrying some three hundred emissaries of British empire and Victorian civilization, including scientists, doctors, missionaries, naval officers, and British-schooled Africans, in a flotilla of three specially-designed steamers.

British Royal Navy raids slave barracoons on Gallinas River.

1842

The survivingAmistad Africans on the Gentleman, along with Rev. William Raymond, Rev. John Steele, and two teachers. The missionaries initially locate their “Mendi Mission” near Komende (Kaw Mendi) on a tributary of the River Jong # a grant from an African king who has taken the name of Harry Tucker. Many of the Amistad Africans soon drifted away.

1849

British Royal Navy expedition destroys slave factories at Lomboko on Gallinas River.