numbers of Maroons no longer felt safe in Sierra Leone. Maroons Returning to Jamaica In 1839, the first Maroons made their way from Sierra Leone to Jamaica. Mary Brown and her family, which included her daughter Sarah McGale and a Spanish son-in-law, sold off their property in Sierra Leone, bought a schooner, and set sail for Jamaica. They were joined by two other Sierra Leone Maroons, Mary Ricketts and her daughter Jane Bryan. In 1841, this group found their way to Trelawny Town, now called Maroon Town, but which they still insisted on calling Cudjoe's Town. In 1841, some of the maroons returned to Jamaica to work for Jamaican sugar planters, who desperately needed workers following the abolition of slavery. Many freedmen in Jamaica wanted to cultivate their own plots rather than work on plantations, leaving a vacuum for workers, and the Jamaican planters initially turned to Sierra Leone. In 1841, the first ship to arrive in Sierra Leone looking for African workers was the Hector, and several Maroons were so desperate to leave Sierra Leone that they did not wait for the ship to dock, but rowed out to meet it in their canoes. In all, 64 Maroons left Sierra Leone for Jamaica on the Hector alone. Most Sierra Leone Maroons lived in Freetown, and between 1837 and 1844, Freetown's Maroon population shrank from 650 to 454, suggesting that about 200 made their way back to Jamaica. As many as one-third of the Maroons in Sierra Leone returned to Jamaica in the 1840s. Maroons remaining in Sierra Leone The Jamaican Maroons who remained in Sierra Leone gradually merged with the developing Sierra Leone Creole people. This was made up of immigrants and the descendants of various groups of freed slaves who arrived in Freetown between 1792 and about 1855. After abolishing the Atlantic slave trade, the British Navy posted ships off Africa to intercept slavers, and would deposit liberated slaves at Freetown. Some modern Creoles (or "Krio") still proudly claim descent from the maroons. The Creole congregation of Freetown's St. John's Maroon Church, which was built by the maroons in 1822 on what is now the city's main street, have especially emphasized their descent from the Jamaican exiles. The maroons brought their ceremonial music and dances to Sierra Leone. The ceremonial music gradually became a popular Creole music genre and became known as Gumbe music and dance (named after