Gallinas River (Liberia)


The Gallinas River in Liberia reaches the Atlantic between Grand Cape Mount and Cape Saint Ann; the area was infamous in the 1800s for its active participation in the slave trade under the Gallinas people.
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, the Governor of Sierra Leone, discovered that Fry Norman, a Black British subject and her child were being held as slaves on the islands at the mouth of the Gallinas River, which prompted Lieutenant Joseph Denman 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.