The oldest capital founded by American slaves - Freetown.

So here we have the Sierra Leonean dollar, nominal - 1. The year of issue of this coin is 1997, mint: British Pobjoy Mint, Tadworth, England. The coin is dedicated to the golden wedding of Elizabeth II with Prince Philip.

Portuguese voyagers gave the name Serra Lyoa (“Lion Mountains”), later corrupted to Sierra Leone, to the mountainous peninsula at the mouth of the Rokel (Seli) River where, from the 15th century onward, European traders congregated near the site of present-day Freetown under the protection of African rulers, who welcomed them for the commercial opportunities they provided — namely, the exchange of imported manufactured goods for ivory and slaves to be employed across the Atlantic.

A group of freed slaves arrived in Sierra Leone from England in 1787 to form a settlement. It failed but was revived by the Sierra Leone Company, a commercial company sponsored by English opponents of the slave trade. Black settlers who had liberated themselves from American slavery were brought over from Nova Scotia and built a new settlement, named Freetown. In 1800 “Maroons”, free blacks from Jamaica, were also brought in. These settlers were English-speaking, and many were literate and Christian.

After the British Parliament made the slave trade illegal in 1807, the British government took over the settlement in January 1, 1808 as a naval base against the slave trade and as a centre to which slaves, captured in transit across the Atlantic, could be brought and freed.