Maroon Town, Sierra Leone, is a district in the settlement of

Freetown Freetown is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educ ...

, a colony founded in West Africa by

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It ...

History

Following their defeat in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

, the British had resettled

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

s in the British colony of

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

(now a province of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

). However, many did not like the colder climate and poor treatment they received, so in 1792, 1192, about 1200 or 1800 of them emigrated to Sierra Leone. This move was welcomed by the

Sierra Leone Company The Sierra Leone Company was the corporate body involved in founding the second British colony in Africa on 11 March 1792 through the resettlement of Black Loyalists who had initially been settled in Nova Scotia (the Nova Scotian Settlers) aft ...

, which wanted to reestablish a colony, but lacked colonists. Once there, the

Nova Scotian Settlers The Nova Scotian Settlers, or Sierra Leone Settlers (also known as the Nova Scotians or more commonly as the Settlers) were African-Americans who founded the settlement of Freetown, Sierra Leone and the Colony of Sierra Leone, on March 11, 1792 ...

(as they came to be called) and Sierra Leone Company surveyors founded

. A second group, the

Jamaican Maroons Jamaican Maroons descend from Africans who freed themselves from slavery on the Colony of Jamaica and established communities of free black people in the island's mountainous interior, primarily in the eastern parishes. Africans who were ensl ...

, originally numbering just under 600 men, women and children who had surrendered following the

Second Maroon War The Second Maroon War of 1795–1796 was an eight-month conflict between the Maroons of Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town), a Maroon settlement later re-named after Governor Edward Trelawny at the end of First Maroon War, located near Trelawny Pa ...

in Jamaica, were transported to Nova Scotia in 1796. In 1800, unhappy with their new home, 550 Maroons emigrated to Freetown. The Nova Scotian Settlers had sought to obtain better treatment and more power, clashing constantly with the colonial governors and the Sierra Leone Company since first setting foot in the colony in 1792, but the timely arrival of the "battle-tested" Maroons and a detachment of 45 soldiers and two officers aboard the ship ''Asia'' enabled the authorities to put down a rebellion by some of the Nova Scotian Settlers and win the power struggle. Three rebels were tried and executed, and the other 33 or 34 prisoners were banished. The Maroons were granted land west of Settler Town, between Walpole Street and King Tom, which became known as Maroon Town. In 1822, uncomfortable worshipping in Nova Scotian chapels, the Maroons built the

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

St. John's Maroon Church, in the centre of Maroon Town. By the 1830s, the Maroons had integrated into Freetown society and become a part of the

Sierra Leone Creole people The Sierra Leone Creole people ( kri, Krio people) are an ethnic group of Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Creole people are lineal descendant, descendants of freed African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and Liberated African slaves who settled in ...

References

*''Back to Africa: George Ross and the Maroons: From Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone'', by Mavis Christine Campbell

External links

Photo postcard captioned "View of Maroon Town from Tower Hill"
{{coord missing, Sierra Leone Neighbourhoods in Freetown Populated places established by Sierra Leone Creoles Jamaican Maroons Jamaican Maroon establishments 1800 establishments in the British Empire

History

See also

References

External links