King's Yard/King's Gate

This is the site of King's Yard. The still standing King's Gate was the entry to a facility where recently liberated slaves were dropped off. In 1807 the British government outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire and began enforcing their views on slave trade in the waters around the continent of Africa. The Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron interdicted slave ships and liberated nearly 150,000 slaves. The West Africa Squadron was stationed in the Freetown Estuary and upon returning from anti-slaving operations they'd release the recently liberated slaves at King's Yard. King's Yard processed liberated slaves and offered some medical treatment. In the 1880s it was converted to a hospital which it still is today

King's Gate is the remaining structure that many of the liberated slaves walked through. The significance of this site is paramount to the origins of liberated slaves that made up part of the Creole(Krio) populace in Freetown. King's Yard saw thousands of liberated slaves be released from bondage and as free men and women. These liberated slaves had origins in numerous areas from across Africa which influenced Freetown's culture as these people intermingled among the populace.

Anderson, Richard. "The Diaspora of Sierra Leone's Liberated Africans: Enlistment, Forced Migration, and "Liberation" at Freetown, 1808-1863." African Economic History 41 (2013): 101-38. Accessed December 3, 2020. http://www.jstor.org.univsouthin.idm.oclc.org/stable/43863308.

Schwarz, Suzanne. "Reconstructing the Life Histories of Liberated Africans: Sierra Leone in the Early Nineteenth Century." History in Africa 39 (2012): 175-207. Accessed October 30, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23471003.

UNESCO, Office of the Minister of Tourism and Cultural Affairs. “The Gateway to the Old King's Yards.” The Gateway to the Old King's Yards - UNESCO World Heritage Centre, January 6, 2012. https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5746/.