Sierra Leone

=== Jamaican Maroons and Liberated Africans ===
{{Main|Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone|Sierra Leone Liberated Africans}}

The Sierra Leone Company, controlled by London investors, refused to allow the settlers to take [[fee simple|freehold]] of the land. In 1799 some of the settlers revolted. The Crown subdued the revolt by bringing in forces of more than 500&nbsp;[[Jamaican Maroons]], whom they transported from [[Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town)]] via Nova Scotia in 1800. Led by Colonel [[Montague James]], the Maroons helped the colonial forces to put down the revolt, and in the process the [[Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone]] secured the best houses and farms.<ref>Schama, Simon, ''Rough Crossings'' (London: 2005), pp. 380–383.</ref>

On 1 January 1808, [[Thomas Ludlam (colonial administrator)|Thomas Ludlam]], the Governor of the Sierra Leone Company and a leading abolitionist, surrendered the company's charter. This ended its 16&nbsp;years of running the Colony. The British Crown reorganised the Sierra Leone Company as the [[African Institution]]; it was directed to improve the local economy. Its members represented both British who hoped to inspire local entrepreneurs and those with interest in the Macauley & Babington Company, which held the (British) monopoly on Sierra Leone trade.<ref>Harris, Sheldon H. (1972), ''Paul Cuffe: Black America and the African Return'', New York: Simon and Schuster, pp. 32–33, especially note 15 on p. 140.</ref>

At about the same time (following the Slave Trade Act 1807 which abolished the slave trade), Royal Navy crews delivered thousands of formerly enslaved Africans to Freetown, after liberating them from illegal slave ships. These [[recaptives|Liberated Africans]] or ''recaptives'' were sold for $20 a head as apprentices to the white settlers, Nova Scotian Settlers, and the Jamaican Maroons. Many Liberated Africans were treated poorly and even abused because some of the original settlers considered them their property. Cut off from their various homelands and traditions, the Liberated Africans were forced to assimilate to the Western styles of Settlers and Maroons. For example, some of the Liberated Africans were forced to change their name to a more Western sounding one.<ref name="Suzanne">Schwarz, Suzanne (2021) [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23471003 Reconstructing the Life Histories of Liberated Africans: Sierra Leone in the Early Nineteenth Century]. ''[[History in Africa]]'', Vol. 39 (2012), pp. 175–207 (33). ''[[Cambridge University Press]]''. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23471003 Archived]. Retrieved 27 October 2021.</ref> Though some people happily embraced these changes because they considered it as being part of the community, some were not happy with these changes and wanted to keep their own identity. Many Liberated Africans were so unhappy that they risked the possibility of being sold back into slavery by leaving Sierra Leone and going back to their original villages.<ref name="Suzanne"/> The Liberated Africans eventually modified their customs to adopt those of the Nova Scotians, Maroons and Europeans, yet kept some of their ethnic traditions.<ref name=Dixon>{{cite book|last1=Dixon-Fyle |first1=Mac |last2=Cole |first2=Gibril Raschid |chapter=Introduction |year=2006 |title=New Perspectives on the Sierra Leone Krio |location=New York |publisher=Peter Lang |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WGiRuAG8K5wC |isbn=978-0-8204-7937-8 |pages=2–3 |quote=A substantial part of this ex-slave population was Yoruba, but members of ethnic groups from other regions of the Atlantic (Igbo, Efik, Fante, etc) were also very much in evidence in this coterie of Liberated Africans. Individuals from ethnic communities indigenous to Sierra Leone were significantly represented among the Liberated Africans [...] Many a Temne, Limba, Mende, and Loko resident of Freetown, influenced by local European officials and missionaries, would come in time to shed their indigenous names, and cultural values, to take on a Creole identity which gave them a better chance of success in the rarefied Victorian ambience{{sic}} of a progressively westernized Freetown society.}}</ref> As the Liberated Africans became successful traders<ref name="Suzanne"/> and spread Christianity throughout West Africa, they intermarried with the Nova Scotians and Maroons, and the two groups eventually became a fusion of African and Western societies.<ref name=Dixon />{{rp|3–4, 223–255}}

These [[Liberated Africans in Sierra Leone|Liberated Africans]] were from many areas of Africa, but principally the west coast. Between the 18th and 19th century, freed African Americans, some [[Americo Liberian]] "refugees", and particularly [[Afro-Caribbean]]s, mainly Jamaican Maroons, also immigrated and settled in Freetown. Together these peoples formed the [[Sierra Leone Creole|Creole/Krio ethnicity]] and an [[English-based creole languages|English-based creole]] language ([[Krio language|Krio]]), which is the [[lingua franca]] and [[de facto]] [[national language]] used among many of the ethnicities in the country.<ref name=Thayer>{{cite book|last=Thayer|first=James Steel |year=1991 |title=A Dissenting View of Creole Culture in Sierra Leone|pages= 215–230}} https://www.persee.fr/doc/cea_0008-0055_1991_num_31_121_2116</ref><ref name=Browne-Davies>{{cite book|last= Browne-Davies|first=Nigel |year=2014 |title=A Precis of Sources relating to genealogical research on the Sierra Leone Krio people}} Journal of Sierra Leone Studies, Vol. 3; Edition 1, 2014 https://www.academia.edu/40720522/A_Precis_of_Sources_relating_to_genealogical_research_on_the_Sierra_Leone_Krio_people</ref><ref name=Walker>{{cite book|last=Walker |first=James W |year=1992 |chapter=Chapter Five: Foundation of Sierra Leone |title=The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783–1870 |location=Toronto |publisher=University of Toronto Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/blackloyalistsse0000walk/page/94 94]–114 |url=https://archive.org/details/blackloyalistsse0000walk |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-8020-7402-7}}, originally published by Longman & Dalhousie University Press (1976).</ref><ref name="Taylor">{{cite book |last=Taylor |first=Bankole Kamara |title=Sierra Leone: The Land, Its People and History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I__jAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA68 |date=February 2014 |publisher=New Africa Press |isbn=9789987160389 |page=68}}</ref>