[1] The term comes from the Portuguese "Rio das Galinhas" (River of Hens), referring to Guinea fowl that were found by its banks.
The name "Rio das Galinhas" is found in Duarte Pacheco Pereira's Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis (written c.1509).
Its forbidding dense mangrove swamps and relatively sparse population, led the Gallinas River to be largely overlooked by European traders.
Pedro Blanco, a notorious Spanish slave trader, was based on the coast of Sierra Leone at Gallinas between 1822 and 1838.
[5] [6][7] 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.