The Gallinas River in

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

reaches the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

between Cape Saint Ann and

Grand Cape Mount Grand Cape Mount is a county in the northwestern portion of the West African nation of Liberia. One of 15 counties that constitute the first-level of administrative division in the nation, it has five districts. Robertsport serves as the capital ...

. Strictly speaking, the Gallinas River is an archaic term for the Kerefe stream in modern Sierra Leone (), which lies a few miles west of the

Moa River The Moa River (Makona River) is a river in West Africa. It arises in the highlands of Guinea and flows southwest, forming parts of the Guinea–Liberia and the Guinea – Sierra Leone borders. It flows into the Southern Province of Sierra Leone ...

. However, it could be applied to any of many interconnected streams or channels into the marshy backwaters of this region. In the widest sense, the "Gallinas River" refers generally to the stretch of coast, covered by dense mangrove swamps, between the Kerefe and the

Mano River The Mano River is a river in West Africa. It originates in the Guinea Highlands in Liberia and forms part of the Liberia-Sierra Leone border. The districts through which the river flows include the Parrot's Beak area of Guinea, Liberia's Lofa ...

. The term comes from the Portuguese "Rio das Galinhas" (River of Hens), referring to

Guinea fowl Guinea fowl () (or guineahen) are birds of the family Numididae in the order Galliformes. They are endemic to Africa and rank among the oldest of the gallinaceous birds. Phylogenetics, Phylogenetically, they branched off from the core Galliforme ...

that were found by its banks. The first Portuguese explorer to reach the region was

Pedro de Sintra Pedro de Sintra, also known as Pero de Sintra, Pedro da Cintra or Pedro da Sintra, was a Portuguese explorer. He was among the first Europeans to explore the West African coast. Around 1462 his expedition reached what is now Sierra Leone and named ...

in 1461 or 1462. The name "Rio das Galinhas" is found in

Duarte Pacheco Pereira Duarte Pacheco Pereira (; c. 1460 – 1533), called the Portuguese Achilles (''Aquiles Lusitano'') by the poet Camões, was a Portuguese sea captain, soldier, explorer and cartographer. He travelled particularly in the central Atlantic Ocean we ...

's ''Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis'' (written c.1509). The term was later applied as an

exonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

to the inhabitants of the area, the Gallinas people, who dominated the coastal region between roughly the Waanji river to the west and the Mano River to the east.

Slave trade history

The area was infamous in the 1800s for its active participation in the

Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in Africa, enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Pass ...

under the Gallinas people. The Gallinas area was actually not very active in the slave trade, or any kind of trade for that matter, before this time. Its forbidding dense mangrove swamps and relatively sparse population, led the Gallinas River to be largely overlooked by European traders. During the heyday of the slave trade, the major entrepots in the region were elsewhere, notably at

Bunce Island Bunce Island (also spelled "Bence," "Bense," or "Bance" at different periods) is an island in the Sierra Leone River. It is situated in Freetown Harbour, the estuary of the Rokel River and Port Loko Creek, about upriver from Sierra Leone's ca ...

Sherbro Island Sherbro Island is in the Atlantic Ocean, and is included within Bonthe District, Southern Province, Sierra Leone. The island is separated from the African mainland by the Sherbro River in the north and Sherbro Strait in the east. It is long ...

, and Cape Mount. It is only towards the end of the 18th Century, as demand for slaves kept rising, that slave traders took an interest in previously marginal areas like the Gallinas River. Gonzalez (2021) After the British ban on the slave trade in 1808, closing down the major depots, the obscurity of Gallinas River allowed slave traders to continue their activities there. Pedro Blanco, a notorious Spanish slave trader, was based on the coast of Sierra Leone at Gallinas between 1822 and 1838. In 1840

Richard Doherty James Richard Doherty (born 19 May 1948), known as Richard Doherty, is a British military historian and author from County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Educated at St. Columb's College, he has written more than twenty books about British and ...

, the

Governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

, discovered that Fry Norman, a

Black British Black British people or Black Britons"Black Briton, N." ''Oxford English Dictionary''. Oxford UP. December 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1136579918. are a multi-ethnic group of British people of List of ethnic groups of Africa, Sub-Saharan ...

subject and her child were being held as slaves on the islands at the mouth of the Gallinas River, which prompted Lieutenant

Joseph Denman Vice Admiral Joseph Denman (23 June 1810 – 26 November 1874) was a British naval officer, most noted for his actions against the slave trade as a commander of HMS ''Wanderer'' of the West Africa Squadron. Early life Denman was born on 23 Ju ...

commanding the ''Wanderer'' to force the king both to free Norman and abolish the slave trade in his dominions. Denman promptly sailed up the Gallinas River to destroy Spanish slave barracoons.Huzzey, Richard:
Freedom Burning: Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain
'

References

Rivers of Sierra Leone {{SierraLeone-river-stub