Cotton Tree

This massive cotton tree was first documented in 1787. Free black settlers from the Americas landed ashore and walked up to the towering tree. The travel weary settlers, in a foreign land, rested under the tree for awhile. The settlers then decided to hold a thanksgiving service at the tree. They sang, worshipped, and gave thanks to God for delivering them to a "free and new" land. The site and the tree still holds religious significance with many coming to give thanks and make offerings to their ancestors who's roots in Sierra Leone may have come from the party that held the thanksgiving at the tree.

The cotton tree is one of the most notable landmarks in Freetown. Its historical significance and symbolism in the story of the black settlers, the creole populace, and Sierra Leone as whole makes it a very important site. The ability to see this grand tree and rest under it, as the early free black settlers did, provides a unique perspective. The cotton tree makes the history of the Freetown settlement tangible because it has stood the same for hundreds of years.

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Pybus, Cassandra. "From Epic Journeys of Freedom Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty." Callaloo 29, no. 1 (2006): 114-30. Accessed December 3, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3805698.

Schama, Simon. Rough Crossings: Britain, The Slaves and the American Revolution. New York, New York: HarperCollins , 2006.