Granville Town/Cline Town

Cline Town is one of the early freed slave settlements in Freetown. Cline Town is named for Emmanuel Kline a liberated slave who purchased many properties in the area. Cline Town was initially called Granville Town which was founded in 1787 by the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor, a British charity based in London. The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor coordinated and funded the transportation of free blacks in Britain to the current Cline Town area. Many of these poor, freed blacks were black loyalists forced from the United States after the American Revolution. These poor blacks that resided in Britain after the American Revolution were the first to officially settle in Freetown. These initial settlers were joined by black Canadians, former American slaves and black loyalists that took refuge in Canada after the American Revolution.

The area of current day Cline Town was the earliest site of a freed slave settlement in Freetown, a city founded for the purpose of freed slaves. This settlement helped facilitate the further settlement and development of Freetown. Without this freed slave settlement backed by British efforts, the colonial interests in current Sierra Leone would've been stifled. These freed black settlers were a form of pseudo-colonialism because they helped the colonial effort and were under the control of the British colonial machine.

Clifford, Mary Louise. From Slavery to Freetown : Black Loyalists after the American Revolution. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1999.

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

Walker, J. W. “PETERS, THOMAS,” Dictionary of Canadian biography (Vol. 4). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1979.