Lomboko

Lomboko refers to a slave factory; a fortress stockade created by the infamous Spanish slave trader Pedro Blanco. It consisted of several large holding depots or barracoons for slaves brought from the interior, as well as several palatial buildings for Blanco's use, to hold his wives and concubines, and house his employees. Lomboko was scattered across several small islands at the mouth of the Gallinas river, near Sulima on the Gallinas coast. The area was controlled by Spanish slave merchants, within the then-British colony and modern-day country of Sierra Leone. By 1839, about 2,000 slaves a year were coming out of the Gallinas River, despite the fact that the slave trade had been made illegal. In 1849 a British Royal Navy expedition attacked the slave factory: all the slaves found in the fortress were freed by Royal Marines, and Lomboko was then completely destroyed.