Cotton Tree (Sierra Leone)
{{Short description|Tree in Freetown, Sierra Leone}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2023}}
{{Infobox tree
| name = Cotton Tree
| image = Cotton Tree (Sierra Leone).jpg
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| image_caption = Street-level view of Cotton Tree at the centre of Freetown in April 2007
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| species = Kapok
| binomial = Ceiba pentandra
| location = Freetown, Sierra Leone
| height = {{convert|40|m}}
| girth = {{convert|15|m}}
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| coordinates = {{Coord|8.4872|N|13.2356|W|type:landmark_region:SL-W|display=inline,title}}
| seeded = {{circa}} 17th century
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The Cotton Tree is a kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra) that is 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.{{cite book|last=Walker |first=James W. St. G. |year=1992 |chapter=Chapter Five: Foundation of Sierra Leone |title=The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783–1870 |location=Toronto |publisher=University of Toronto Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/blackloyalistsse0000walk/page/94 94]–114 |url=https://archive.org/details/blackloyalistsse0000walk |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-8020-7402-7}} Originally published by Longman & Dalhousie University Press (1976).{{cite book |last=Taylor |first=Bankole Kamara |title=Sierra Leone: The Land, Its People and History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I__jAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA68 |date=February 2014 |publisher=New Africa Press |isbn=9789987160389 |page=68 |access-date=20 March 2022 |archive-date=23 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523031603/https://books.google.com/books?id=I__jAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA68#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }} These former Black Loyalist soldiers, also known as Black Nova Scotians (because they were evacuated to Nova Scotia before 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.{{cite journal
|last2=Porter |first2=A.
|last1=Hargreaves |first1=J.
|year=1963
|title=The Sierra Leone Creoles – Creoledom: A Study of the Development of Freetown Society
|journal=The Journal of African History
|volume=4 |issue=3, 0000539|pages=468–469
|doi=10.1017/S0021853700004394|s2cid=162611104
}}
On the night of May 24, 2023, much of Freetown's Cotton Tree toppled over as heavy rain hit the city.{{Cite news |agency=Agence France-Presse |date=25 May 2023 |title=Sierra Leone's symbolic Cotton Tree falls during storm in Freetown |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/25/sierra-leone-symbolic-cotton-tree-falls-during-storm-in-freetown |access-date=2023-05-25 |issn=0261-3077 |archive-date=25 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230525160029/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/25/sierra-leone-symbolic-cotton-tree-falls-during-storm-in-freetown |url-status=live }}
History
The exact age of the Cotton Tree is unknown, but it is thought to have been about 400 years old. It was mature prior to the foundation of Freetown and there are records of its existence in 1787 when settlers from Britain came to the peninsula. In March 1792, a group of former slaves who joined the settlement are said to have gathered under the Cotton Tree to pray and a white preacher named Nathaniel Gilbert preached a sermon.{{cite book |last1=LeVert |first1=Suzanne |title=Sierra Leone |date=2007 |publisher=Marshall Cavendish |isbn=978-0-7614-2334-8 |page=18 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YBWEdP0dBoUC&pg=PA18 |language=en |access-date=27 May 2023 |archive-date=23 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523031537/https://books.google.com/books?id=YBWEdP0dBoUC&pg=PA18#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }} The Cotton Tree was also an important landmark for the Temne people who marked territory based on whether it was visible from the tree.{{cite news |last1=Kabs-Kanu |first1=Leeroy Wilfred |title=How Freetown expunges the ghosts of its past |url=https://cocorioko.net/how-freetown-expunges-the-ghosts-of-its-past/ |work=Cocorioko |date=14 February 2014 |access-date=26 May 2023 |archive-date=12 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220412185251/https://cocorioko.net/how-freetown-expunges-the-ghosts-of-its-past/ |url-status=live }}
There are many legends concerning the Cotton Tree. Stories relate that the tree was planted by freed slaves from a seed taken from the Caribbean or that a slave market was held in the tree's shade. Another legend related that catastrophe would come if the tree ever fell.{{cite news |last1=Little |first1=Allan |title=A frontier between civilisations |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4343791.stm |publisher=BBC News |date=13 March 2005 |access-date=26 May 2023 |archive-date=12 April 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050412034301/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4343791.stm |url-status=live }}
The {{convert|40|m|ft|adj=mid|-tall}}, {{convert|15|m|ft|adj=mid|-girth}} Cotton Tree{{cite web |last1=Brinkerink |first1=Wim |title=Kapok at Walpole Street in Freetown, North West Province, Sierra Leone |url=https://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/sle/northwest/westernurban/33953_walpolestreet/ |website=Monumental Trees |access-date=30 June 2025}} was the oldest of its kind in Freetown and one of Sierra Leone's most famous landmarks. It stood in a roundabout near the Supreme Court building, the music club building, and the Sierra Leone National Museum, which was established in the former Cotton Tree Telephone Exchange and had "Cotton Tree, Freetown" as its postal address. A booklet of Sierra Leonean heritage sites described the tree as standing,
{{blockquote|like a colossus, in the middle of the city keeping watch, and 'protecting', the capital, as it has done for over two hundred years. Its gnarled and spiky trunks, sturdy bole and massive shady branches also give it the look of a sentinel, "standing in the centre of the oldest part of Freetown, surrounded by, yet dominating the principal buildings of Church, Law, and Government."{{cite book |last1=Basu |first1=Paul |title=A Museum Studies Approach to Heritage |date=2018 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-36130-5 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nltxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT1160 |language=en |chapter=Palimpsest memoryscapes: Materializing and mediating war and peace in Sierra Leone |access-date=27 May 2023 |archive-date=23 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523031706/https://books.google.com/books?id=nltxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT1160#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}}}
A 1933 Sierra Leonean two pence stamp, designed by a Roman Catholic missionary and issued as part of a set commemorating abolitionist William Wilberforce, portrayed the Cotton Tree along with text reading "Old Slave Market".{{cite journal |last1=Fyfe |first1=Christopher |title=Review of The Postal Service of Sierra Leone |journal=The Journal of African History |date=1990 |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=338 |jstor=182789 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/182789 |issn=0021-8537 |access-date=26 May 2023 |archive-date=23 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523031618/https://www.jstor.org/stable/182789 |url-status=live }} After Sierra Leone gained independence in 1961, the tree was visited by Queen Elizabeth II. The Cotton Tree has been celebrated in children's nursery rhymes{{cite news |title=Storm fells symbolic 400-year-old cotton tree in Sierra Leone |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/25/storm-fells-symbolic-400-year-old-cotton-tree-in-sierra-leone |work=Al Jazeera |date=25 May 2023 |language=en |access-date=26 May 2023 |archive-date=23 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523031709/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/25/storm-fells-symbolic-400-year-old-cotton-tree-in-sierra-leone |url-status=live }} and was featured in Sierra Leone's first banknotes in 1964. Sierra Leonean poet Oumar Farouk Sesay composed a poem about the tree, comparing it to major world landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben.{{cite news |last1=Fofana |first1=Umaru |last2=Greenall |first2=Robert |title=Sierra Leone's iconic cotton tree felled by storm |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-65707394 |publisher=BBC News |date=25 May 2023 |access-date=26 May 2023 |archive-date=25 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230525100613/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-65707394 |url-status=live }}
The British ethnographer and colonial administrator E. F. Sayers wrote of the Cotton Tree in 1947:
{{blockquote|How many human joys and human sorrows has our Freetown Cotton Tree not seen, and how many tragedies and comedies must have been enacted within the sight of it and within its sight? ... Freetown's Cotton Tree stands today for a sense of continuity in our corporate life, a symbolic link between our past and our future.}}
The trunk of the Cotton Tree was reinforced with steel straps and concrete. Thousands of fruit bats roosted on the tree's branches.{{cite news |last1=Flanagan |first1=Jane |title=Sierra Leone's historic cotton tree is felled in storm |url=https://www.thetimes.com/world/article/sierra-leones-historic-cotton-tree-is-felled-in-storm-25kn5h9j5 |work=The Times |date=25 May 2023 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230525154636/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sierra-leones-historic-cotton-tree-is-felled-in-storm-25kn5h9j5#selection-965.79-965.122 |archive-date=25 May 2023}} At some point, it was partially scorched from a lightning strike.{{cite news |last1=Mednick |first1=Sam |title=Centuries-old cotton tree, a national symbol for decades, felled by storm in Sierra Leone |url=https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/story/2023-05-25/centuries-old-cotton-tree-a-national-symbol-for-decades-felled-by-storm-in-sierra-leone |work=San Diego Union-Tribune |agency=Associated Press |date=25 May 2023 |language=en |access-date=26 May 2023 |archive-date=23 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523031714/https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/story/2023-05-25/centuries-old-cotton-tree-a-national-symbol-for-decades-felled-by-storm-in-sierra-leone |url-status=live }} It also caught fire in 2018 and again in January 2020.{{cite news |title=Sierra Leone's symbolic 'Cotton Tree' goes up in flames |url=https://www.news24.com/news24/sierra-leones-symbolic-cotton-tree-goes-up-in-flames-20200131 |work=News24 |date=31 January 2020 |access-date=26 May 2023 |archive-date=23 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523031542/https://www.news24.com/news24/sierra-leones-symbolic-cotton-tree-goes-up-in-flames-20200131 |url-status=live }} In 2019, the Freetown City Council authorized rental allowances for the relocation of 62 people who had been begging and living around the Cotton Tree.{{cite news |title=FCC settles relocation package for Cotton Tree beggars |url=https://www.politicosl.com/articles/fcc-settles-relocation-package-cotton-tree-beggars |work=Politico SL |date=27 June 2019 |access-date=26 May 2023 |archive-date=1 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190701062548/http://politicosl.com/articles/fcc-settles-relocation-package-cotton-tree-beggars |url-status=live }}
On the night of May 24, 2023, much of Freetown's Cotton Tree toppled over as heavy rain hit the city. Part of the tree's trunk and a large leafy gall, however, remained alive at the site, with a report from March 2024 attesting to the health of the remaining part of the tree.{{cite web|url=https://www.thewatchnewssl.com/freetown-city-council-disavows-responsibility-for-cotton-tree-slra-neglects-potholes-in-the-city/ |title=Freetown City Council Disavows Responsibility for Cotton Tree; SLRA Neglects Potholes in the City|date=21 March 2024|publisher=The Watch News Paper}} On the day of the tragedy, President Julius Maada Bio mourned the loss, saying there was "no stronger symbol of our national story than the Cotton Tree, a physical embodiment of where we come from as a country". He promised to include diverse voices in the creation of a new monument, including the remains of the fallen part of the tree, which, on his orders, were taken to a museum.{{Cite news |title=Sierra Leone's iconic Cotton Tree destroyed by storm |url=https://www.dw.com/en/sierra-leones-iconic-cotton-tree-destroyed-by-storm/a-65736127 |date=25 May 2023 |publisher=Deutsche Welle |language=en |access-date=25 May 2023 |archive-date=23 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240523032154/https://www.dw.com/en/sierra-leones-iconic-cotton-tree-destroyed-by-storm/a-65736127 |url-status=live }}
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{commonscat|Cotton Tree (Sierra Leone)}}
- {{cite news |last1=Kusmer |first1=Anna |title=Iconic 'Cotton Tree' in Sierra Leone has fallen (audio) |url=https://theworld.org/media/2023-05-25/iconic-cotton-tree-sierra-leone-has-fallen |work=The World |date=25 May 2023 |language=en}}
- {{cite book |last1=D'Alisera |first1=JoAnn |title=An Imagined Geography: Sierra Leonean Muslims in America |date=2013 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-0172-7 |pages=42–50 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ic6rFjjKXkkC&pg=PA42 |language=en}}
- [https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cotton-tree-freetown "Cotton Tree – Freetown, Sierra Leone"], Atlas Obscura.
Category:2020s individual tree deaths
Category:Flora of Sierra Leone
Category:Geography of Freetown