Pullo.. explanation Freetown to Belmont
After Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, the Royal Navy began intercepting illegal slave ships off the West African coast, and many of the Africans rescued from those vessels, often called “recaptives”, were brought to Trinidad and settled on land just outside Port of Spain in a community that came to be known as Freetown, not because enslaved people were held there, but because it was intended as a place for liberated Africans to build new lives.
When slavery itself was fully abolished in 1838, additional formerly enslaved people moved into the same area, strengthening and expanding the settlement and helping it develop into a distinct cultural district that included notable traditions and spaces such as the Rada community and the Rada compound along Belmont Valley Road.
Over the course of the 19th century, however, the area was also associated with estates established by French settlers for coffee, cocoa, and sugar, and it was often referred to by the estate name “Belmonte” (commonly glossed as “beautiful hills”), a label that gradually gained wider use as the district urbanized and became a suburban residential area for working- and middle-class families.
By the late 1800s, “Freetown” was fading from common usage in favor of Belmont, and when the area was officially incorporated into the city of Port of Spain in 1899, it was firmly recognized as a suburb under that name, though its origins as a “free village” remain part of its living memory, reflected in street names and the enduring cultural legacy of communities such as the Rada.
Freetown Collective.
Muhammad Muwakil
Banwari Trace Archaeological Site