Murray Town, Sierra Leone

Murray Town is a suburb in Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown. The Amputees and War Wounded Association is based here arising from the local camp for such people. The Sierra Leone Grammar School is also located here.^[1] Murray Town contains many colonial style board houses dating back to the turn of the 20th century.^[2]8°30′N 13°16′W / 8.500°N 13.267°W / 8.500; -13.267

History

Murray Town was founded in April 1829 to provide accommodation for liberated enslaved Africans, who had been brought to Freetown by the British Royal Navy West Africa Squadron.^[3]: 122 It originally housed three hundred and twenty six liberated Africans, under the management of a former African soldier of the Royal African Corps. It was constructed as four wide streets.^[4]

Famous people

• Thomas Leighton Decker, linguist, poet and Krio language revisionist.

References

1. "Murray Town Community Freetown". West African Medical Missions. West African Medical Missions. from the original on 8 May 2016. Retrieved 29 April 2016.
2. O'Reilly, Finbarr. "Colonial-era wooden buildings decay in Sierra Leone". Reuters/MSNBC. Archived from the original on 4 January 2013. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
3. Sanneh, Lamin (2009). Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa. Cammbrideg, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
4. "Negores in Africa". The Tourist: A Literary and Anti-slavery Journal. 1 (44): 331. 1833.