Sierra Leone

History

• Prehistory

  Archaeological finds show that Sierra Leone has been inhabited continuously for at least 2,500 years, populated by successive movements of peoples from other parts of Africa. Traditional historiography has customarily presented it as peopled by successive waves of invaders, but the language pattern suggests that the coastal Bulom (Sherbro), Temne, and Limba have been in continuous settled occupation for a long time, with subsequent sporadic immigration from inland by Mande-speaking peoples, including Vai, Loko, and Mende. They organized themselves in small political units—independent kingdoms or chiefdoms—whose rulers’ powers were checked by councils. Secret societies, notably the Poro society, also exercised political power, as well as instructing initiates in the customs of the country.

  The use of iron was introduced to Sierra Leone by the 9th century, and by the end of the 10th century, agriculture was being practiced by coastal tribes. The dense tropical rainforest partially isolated the region from other West African cultures, and it became a refuge for peoples escaping violence and jihads. Sierra Leone’s dense tropical rainforest and the swampy environment was considered impenetrable; it also hosted to the tsetse fly, which carried a disease fatal to horses and the zebu cattle used by the Mande people. This environmental factor protected its people from conquests by the Mande and other African empires. This also reduced the Islamic influence of the Mali Empire but Islam, introduced by Susu traders, merchants and migrants from the north and east.

  Muslim traders brought Islam, which became firmly established in the north and subsequently spread through the rest of the country. 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.

   

• Early European Contacts

  European contacts with Sierra Leone were among the first in West Africa. In 1462, Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra mapped the hills surrounding what is now Freetown Harbour, naming the oddly shaped formation Serra Lyoa (Lioness Mountain). At this time the country was inhabited by numerous politically independent native groups. Several different languages were spoken, but there was a similarity of religion. In the coastal rainforest belt, there were Bulom-speakers between the Sherbro and Freetown estuaries, Loko-speakers north of the Freetown estuary to the Little Scarcies River, Temne-speakers found at the mouth of the Scarcies River, and Limba-speakers farther up the Scarcies. In the hilly savannah north of all of these lands were the Susu and Fula tribes. The Susu traded regularly with the coastal peoples along river valley routes, bringing salt, clothes woven by the Fula, ironwork, and gold.

  Soon after Sintra’s expedition, Portuguese traders arrived at the harbor. By 1495 they had built a fortified trading post on the coast. The Dutch and French also set up trade here, and each nation used Sierra Leone as a trading point for slaves brought by African traders from interior areas undergoing tribal wars and conflicts over territory. In 1562, the English initiated the Triangle Trade when Admiral Sir John Hawkins of the Royal Navy transported 300 enslaved Africans – acquired “by the sword and partly by other means” – to the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo on Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea area of the West Indies islands, where he sold them.

  Portuguese ships began visiting regularly in the late 15th century, and for a while, they maintained a fort on the north shore of the Freetown estuary. This estuary is one of the largest natural deep-water harbors in the world and one of the few good harbors on West Africa’s surf-battered “Windward Shore” (Liberia to Senegal). It soon became a favorite destination of European mariners, to shelter and replenish drinking water. Some of the Portuguese sailors stayed permanently, trading and intermarrying with the local people.

• The Arrival of The British

  There had been a lucrative trans-Saharan trade of slaves in West Africa from the 6th century. At its peak (c.1350) the Mali Empire surrounded the region of modern-day Sierra Leone and Liberia, though the slave trade may not have significantly penetrated the coastal rainforest. The peoples who migrated into Sierra Leone from this time would have had greater contact with the indigenous slave trade, either practicing it or escaping it. When Europeans first arrived at Sierra Leone, slavery among the African peoples of the area was believed to be rare.

  The Mane invasions of the mid-16th century had a profound impact on Sierra Leone. The Mane (also called Mani), southern members of the Mande language group, were a warrior people, well-armed and well-organized, who lived east and possibly somewhat north of present-day Sierra Leone, occupying a belt north of the coastal peoples. Sometime in the early 16th century, they began moving south. According to some Mane who spoke to a Portuguese (Dornelas) in the late 16th century, their travels had begun as a result of the expulsion of their chief, a woman named Macario, from the imperial city in Mandimansa, their homeland Their first arrival at the coast was east of Sierra Leone, at least as far away as River Cess and likely farther. They advanced northwest along the coast toward Sierra Leone, conquering as they went. They incorporated large numbers of the people they conquered into their army, with the result that by the time they reached Sierra Leone, the rank and file of their army consisted mostly of coastal peoples; the Mane was its commanding group.

  In the 17th century, Portuguese imperialism waned and, in Sierra Leone, the most significant European group became the British. By 1628, they had a “factory” (trading post) in the vicinity of Sherbro Island, about 50 km (30 mi) south-east from present-day Freetown. At that time the island was easily accessible from the coast, and elephants were still living there.[relevant? – discuss] One commodity they purchased was camwood, a hard timber, from which also could be obtained a red dye. The Portuguese missionary, Baltasar Barreira, left Sierra Leone in 1610. Jesuits, and later in the century, Capuchins, continued the mission. By 1700 it had closed, although priests occasionally visited.

• Freetown

  Following the American Revolutionary War, the British evacuated thousands of freed African-American slaves and resettled them in Canadian and Caribbean colonies and London, which gave them new lives. In 1787 the British Crown founded a settlement in Sierra Leone in what was called the “Province of Freedom”. It intended to resettle some of the “Black Poor of London,” mostly African Americans freed by the British during the war. About 400 blacks and 60 whites reached Sierra Leone on 15 May 1787. The group also included some West Indians of African descent from London. After they established Granville Town, most of the first group of colonists died, owing to disease and warfare with the indigenous African peoples (Temne and Mende), who resisted their encroachment. The 64 remaining colonists established a second Granville Town.

  After the British Parliament made the slave trade illegal in 1807, the British government took over the settlement (January 1, 1808) as a naval base against the slave trade and as a center to which slaves, captured in transit across the Atlantic, could be brought and freed. Between 1807 and 1864, when the last slave ship case was adjudicated in the Freetown courts, the British navy brought in more than 50,000 “recaptives,” also known as “liberated Africans.” Drawn from all over western Africa, these heterogeneous people lacked any common language or culture. The government, therefore, introduced a deliberate policy of turning them into a homogeneous Christian community. Protestant missionaries, along with the black pastors of Freetown churches, worked with such success that within a generation the policy was virtually fulfilled. The (Anglican) Church Missionary Society founded an institution to train teachers and missionaries, Fourah Bay College, which was affiliated to the University of Durham in England in 1876. The society also opened the boys’ and girls’ secondary schools.

  The recaptives and their children, known as Creoles (today usually rendered Krios), prospered as traders, and some entered the professions, qualifying in Britain as doctors and lawyers. Thus, they formed an educated West African elite. Notable examples include James Africanus Beale Horton, who qualified as a doctor and served as an officer in the British army and published books on medical and political subjects, and Sir Samuel Lewis, a distinguished barrister. Many Creoles sought employment opportunities in other parts of West Africa. At their suggestion, Anglican missions were founded in what is now Nigeria, where one of them, Samuel Adjai Crowther, became a bishop.

• Colonial British

  In the early 19th century, Freetown served as the residence of the British colonial governor of the region, who also administered the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and the Gambia settlements. Sierra Leone developed as the educational center of British West Africa. The British established Fourah Bay College here in 1827, which rapidly became a magnet for English-speaking Africans on the West Coast. For more than a century, it was the only European-style university in western Sub-Saharan Africa. The British interacted mostly with the Krios in Freetown, who did most of the trading with the indigenous peoples of the interior. In addition, educated Krios held numerous positions in the colonial government, giving them status and good-paying positions.

  Following the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, the UK decided that it needed to establish more dominion over the inland areas, to satisfy what was described by the European powers as “effective occupation” of territories. The colonial government made treaties of friendship with neighboring rulers and gradually acquired jurisdiction over the coastline. At the period of the European partition of Africa, frontiers were delimited with the neighboring French and Liberian governments, and a British protectorate was proclaimed in 1896 over the area within the frontier lines, though the original colony retained its status. To raise revenue to pay for administration of the protectorate, a hut tax was imposed.

  The ruling chiefs, who had not been consulted about the protectorate, objected, and a revolt broke out in 1898 under Bai Bureh. It was suppressed by the end of the year. There were no further large-scale armed risings against the British. In the protectorate, the chiefs ruled under the supervision of British district commissioners. Innovation was discouraged, and little was done to extend education. In the colony, many Creoles had held senior official posts in the 19th century and looked forward to governing themselves ultimately. After the protectorate was assumed, however, they were gradually removed from office, and the colony and protectorate were governed by British administrators.

• Struggle for Independence

  In 1924, a new constitution was put in place, introducing elected representation (3 out of 22 members) for the first time, with the first elections held on 28 October. Prominent among the Creoles demanding change were the bourgeois nationalist H.C. Bankole-Bright, General Secretary of the Sierra Leone Branch of the National Congress of British West Africa (NCBWA), and the socialist I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson, founder of the West African Youth League (WAYL). African resistance was not limited to political discussion. Sierra Leone developed an active trade union movement whose strikes were often accompanied by sympathetic rioting among the general population.

  Besides the colonial employers, popular hostility was targeted against the tribal chiefs who the British had transformed into functionaries in the colonial system of indirect rule. Their role was to provide policing, collect taxes, and obtain corvee labor (forced labor exacted from those unable to pay taxes) for the colonialists; in return, the colonialists maintained them in a privileged position over the other Africans. Chiefs not willing to play this role were replaced by more compliant ones. According to Kilson, the attitude of the Africans toward their chiefs became ambivalent: frequently they respected the office but resented the exactions made by the individual occupying it. From the Chiefs’ point of view, the dilemma of an honorable ruler faced with British ultimatums cannot have been easy.

  In November 1951, Margai oversaw the drafting of a new constitution, which united the separate Colonial and Protectorate legislatures and—most importantly—provided a framework for decolonization. In 1953, Sierra Leone was granted local ministerial powers, and Margai was elected Chief Minister of Sierra Leone. The new constitution ensured Sierra Leone a parliamentary system within the Commonwealth of Nations. In May 1957, Sierra Leone held its first parliamentary election. The Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), which was then the most popular political party in the colony of Sierra Leone, won the most seats in Parliament. Margai was also re-elected as Chief Minister by an overwhelming majority.

• Independent Sierra Leone

  On April 20, 1960, Sir Milton Margai led the Sierra Leonean delegation in the negotiations for independence at the constitutional conferences held with Queen Elizabeth II and British Colonial Secretary Iain Macleod, at Lancaster House in London. All twenty-four members of the Sierra Leonean delegation were prominent and well-respected politicians including Sir Milton’s younger brother lawyer Sir Albert Margai, trade unionist Siaka Stevens, SLPP-strongman Lamina Sankoh, Creole activist Isaac Wallace-Johnson, Paramount chief Ella Koblo Gulama, educationist Mohamed Sanusi Mustapha, Dr John Karefa-Smart, Professor Kande Bureh, lawyer Sir Banja Tejan-Sie, former Freetown Mayor Eustace Henry Taylor Cummings, educationist Amadu Wurie, and Creole diplomat Hector Reginald Sylvanus Boltman.

  On 27 April 1961, Sir Milton Margai led Sierra Leone to independence from Great Britain and became the country’s first Prime Minister. Thousands of Sierra Leoneans took to the streets in celebration. Sierra Leone retained a parliamentary system of government and was a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The leader of the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC), Siaka Stevens, along with Isaac Wallace-Johnson, another outspoken critic of the SLPP government, were arrested and placed under house arrest in Freetown, along with sixteen others charged with disrupting the independence celebration. In May 1962, Sierra Leone held its first general election as an Independent nation. The Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) won a plurality of seats in parliament, and Milton Margai was re-elected as prime minister.

  Margai was very popular among Sierra Leoneans during his time in power, most known for his self-effacement. He was neither corrupt nor did he make a lavish display of his power or status.[citation needed] He based the government on the rule of law and the separation of powers, with multiparty political institutions and fairly viable representative structures. Margai used his conservative ideology to lead Sierra Leone without much strife. He appointed government officials to represent various ethnic groups. Margai employed a brokerage style of politics, by sharing political power among political parties and interest groups; and with the powerful paramount chiefs in the provinces, most of whom were key allies of his government.

• The Civil War

  The difficulties in the country were compounded in March 1991 when the conflict in neighboring Liberia spilled over the border into Sierra Leone. Momoh responded by deploying troops to the border region to repel the incursion of Liberian rebels known as the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), led by Charles Taylor. Sierra Leone’s army came under attack not only from the NPFL but also from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by former Sierra Leone army corporal Foday Sankoh, who was collaborating with the Liberian rebels; this was the beginning of what would be a long and brutal civil war. In April 1992 Momoh was deposed in a coup led by Capt. Valentine E.M. Strasser, who cited the poor conditions endured by the troops engaged in fighting the rebels as one of the reasons for ousting Momoh. A National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) was established with Strasser as the head of state.

  Strasser was ousted in another military coup in January 1996 after it was feared that he would not transfer power to a civilian government, as originally promised. In May 1997 the country experienced yet another coup as Maj. Johnny Paul Koroma seized power. Koroma, who attributed the previous government’s failure to implement the Abidjan Agreement as the reason for the coup, formed the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), which included members of the RUF, to rule the country; President Kabbah was sent into exile. President Kabbah’s government was restored in March, but ECOMOG and government troops continued to battle rebel forces until July 1999, when another peace accord—the Lomé Agreement—was signed.

  With Sankoh doing little to rein in the rebels, a fierce battle around Freetown erupted in May 2000, during which Sankoh was captured by government forces, and the RUF was driven away from the capital by the Sierra Leonean army, with the help of British troops and pro-government militias. After Sankoh’s capture, the RUF continued to operate under Gen. Issa Sesay; other heavily armed militias also held power in the country. An official end to the civil war was declared in January 2002. By that time, it was estimated that at least 50,000 people had died, with hundreds of thousands more affected by the violence and some 2,000,000 people displaced by the conflict.

• Present day Sierra Leone

  In August 2007, Sierra Leone held presidential and parliamentary elections. They had a good turnout and were initially judged by official observers to be “free, fair and credible”. However, no presidential candidate won the 50% plus one vote majority stipulated in the constitution on the first round of voting. A run-off election was held in September 2007, and Ernest Bai Koroma, the candidate of the APC, was elected president and sworn-in the same day. In his inauguration address at the national stadium in Freetown, President Koroma promised to fight corruption and the mismanagement of the country’s resources.

  By 2007, there had been an increase in the number of drug cartels, many from Colombia, using Sierra Leone as a base to ship drugs to Europe.[81] It was feared that this might lead to increased corruption and violence and turn the country, like neighboring Guinea-Bissau, into a narco-state. President Koroma quickly amended the existing legislation against drug trafficking—inherited at independence in 1961—to address the international concerns, increasing punishment for offenders in terms of prohibitive fines, lengthier prison terms, and provision for extradition of offenders wanted elsewhere, including the United States.

  Sierra Leone’s slowly but steadily progress in recovering from more than a decade of conflict was derailed in 2014 by an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus disease that also struck the neighboring countries of Liberia and Guinea. The outbreak was traced to a patient in Guinea who had died in December 2013. The disease emerged in Sierra Leone in March or April of the next year and spread rapidly, as efforts to curtail it were hampered by public health infrastructure limitations in the country. By the time the outbreak was contained in 2016, Ebola virus disease had infected more than 14,000 Sierra Leoneans, killed almost 4,000 of them, and devastated the country’s economy.

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