The Cotton Tree

The Cotton Tree was a kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra) that was a historic symbol of Freetown, the capital city of Sierra Leone. The Cotton Tree gained importance in 1792 when a group of formerly enslaved African Americans, who had gained their freedom by fighting for the British during the American Revolutionary War, settled the site of modern Freetown. These former Black Loyalist soldiers, also known as Black Nova Scotians (because they came from Nova Scotia after leaving North America), resettled in Sierra Leone and founded Freetown on 11 March 1792. The descendants of the Nova Scotian settlers form part of the Sierra Leone Creole ethnicity today.

On 24 May 2023, a heavy rain storm felled the cotton tree with only the base of its enormous trunk still standing.


The Cotton Tree after the storm of May 2023.

The exact age of the Cotton Tree is unknown, but it is thought to have been about 400 years old.

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