Cotton Tree (Sierra Leone)

Cotton Tree
Street-level view of Cotton Tree at the centre of Freetown in April 2007
Map
SpeciesKapok (Ceiba pentandra)
LocationFreetown, Sierra Leone
Coordinates8°29′14″N 13°14′08″W / 8.4872°N 13.2356°W / 8.4872; -13.2356
Height70 metres (230 ft)
Diameter15 metres (49 ft)
Date seededc. 17th century
Date felled24 May 2023 (2023-05-24)

The Cotton Tree was a kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra) that was a historic symbol of Freetown, the capital city of Sierra Leone. The Cotton Tree gained importance in 1792 when a group of formerly enslaved African Americans, who had gained their freedom by fighting for the British during the American Revolutionary War, settled the site of modern Freetown.[1][2] These former Black Loyalist soldiers, also known as Black Nova Scotians (because they came from Nova Scotia after leaving North America), resettled in Sierra Leone and founded Freetown on 11 March 1792.[3] The descendants of the Nova Scotian settlers form part of the Sierra Leone Creole ethnicity today.[1][4][2]

On 24 May 2023, a heavy rain storm felled the cotton tree with only the lower part of its enormous trunk still standing.[5]

  1. ^ a b Walker, James W. St. G. (1992). "Chapter Five: Foundation of Sierra Leone". The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783–1870. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 94–114. ISBN 978-0-8020-7402-7. Originally published by Longman & Dalhousie University Press (1976).
  2. ^ a b Taylor, Bankole Kamara (February 2014). Sierra Leone: The Land, Its People and History. New Africa Press. p. 68. ISBN 9789987160389. Archived from the original on 23 May 2024. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference LeVert2007 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Hargreaves, J.; Porter, A. (1963). "The Sierra Leone Creoles – Creoledom: A Study of the Development of Freetown Society". The Journal of African History. 4 (3, 0000539): 468–469. doi:10.1017/S0021853700004394. S2CID 162611104.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Guardian was invoked but never defined (see the help page).