Notes:

<1400 Bulom are the earliest known inhabitants of the territory,

1400 Krim and Gola people arrive

1450 Mende and Temne and the Fulani moved into the northern region.

1462 Portuguese – Pedro de Cintra built a fort on the site of Freetown. Europeans traded along the coast without formally establishing themselves. Serra Lyoa meaning “ Lion Mountains . In the sixteenth century an English sailor called it Serraliona; by the seventeenth it was Serra Leona

1787 Granville Sharp and other British abolitionists settled 400 people, formerly slaves, on a strip of land bought from Naimbana, a local chief.

1807 British parliament declares the slave trade and slavery illegal in all territories,

1807 British naval station established at Freetown, Sierra Leone and at the Spanish colony of Fernando Po, off the Nigerian coast, with responsibility for patrolling the West African coast. For several decades, a third of all British warships were assigned to this mission,

1808 Freetown became a British colony in 1808 During the next 50 years about 150,000 liberated slaves are settled here.