Sierra Leone

=== Colonial era (1800–1961) ===

{{Main|Sierra Leone Colony and Protectorate}}

The colonial era saw Sierra Leone evolving under British rule, with a unique settlement pattern composed of displaced Africans following the [[abolition of the slave trade]]. Sierra Leone developed as an educational center in West Africa, with the establishment of [[Fourah Bay College]] in 1827, attracting English-speaking Africans from across the region.

The settlement of Sierra Leone in the 1800s was unique in that the population was composed of displaced Africans who were brought to the colony after the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807. Upon arrival in Sierra Leone, each ''recaptive'' was given a registration number, and information on their physical qualities would be entered into the Register of Liberated Africans. Oftentimes the documentation would be overwhelmingly subjective and would result in inaccurate entries, making them difficult to track. In addition, differences between the Register of Liberated Africans of 1808 and the List of Captured Negroes of 1812 (which emulated the 1808 document) revealed some disparities in the entries of the recaptives, specifically in the names; many recaptives decided to change their given names to more [[anglicised]] versions which contributed to the difficulty in tracking them after they arrived in Sierra Leone.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Schwarz|first=Suzanne|date=5 January 2013|title=Reconstructing the Life Histories of Enslaved Africans: Sierra Leone, c. 1808–19|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267884583}}</ref>

In the early 19th century, Freetown served as the residence of the British colonial governor of the region, who also administered the [[Gold Coast (British colony)|Gold Coast]] (now [[Ghana]]) and the [[Gambia]] settlements. Sierra Leone developed as the educational centre of [[British West Africa]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Daniel|last=Paracka |year=2003|title=The Athens of West Africa: A History of International Education at Fourah Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-94795-4}}</ref> The British established [[Fourah Bay College]] 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]]. [[Samuel Ajayi Crowther]] was the first student to be enrolled at Fourah Bay.<ref name=JHK>{{cite book|last1=Kopytoff|first1=Jean Herskovits|title=A Preface to Modern Nigeria: The "Sierra Leonians" in Yoruba, 1830–1890.|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|pages=35}}</ref> Fourah Bay College soon became a magnet for [[Sierra Leone Creole people|Creoles/Krio people]] and other Africans seeking higher education in British West Africa. These included Nigerians, Ghanaians, Ivorians and many more, especially in the fields of [[theology]] and education. Freetown was known as the "[[Athens]] of Africa" due to the large number of excellent schools in Freetown and surrounding areas.<ref>Nwauwa, Apollos O. (2003) Book review: "The Athens of West Africa: A History of International Education at Fourah Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone by Daniel J.  Paracka Jr. New York: Routledge". ''[[Comparative Education Review]]'', Vol 49(4). [https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/498200 Archived]. Retrieved 29 October 2021.</ref>

The British interacted mostly with the Krio people in Freetown, who did most of the trading with the indigenous peoples of the interior. Educated Krio people held numerous positions in the colonial government, giving them status and well-paying positions. Following the [[Berlin Conference]] of 1884–1885, the British decided that they needed to establish more dominion over the inland areas, to satisfy what was described by the European powers as "effective occupation" of territories. In 1896 it annexed these areas, declaring them the Sierra Leone Protectorate.<ref name="harris40">Harris, David (2012), [https://books.google.com/books?id=B5RxmwC6aNwC&pg=PA1 ''Civil War and Democracy in West Africa: Conflict Resolution, Elections and Justice in Sierra Leone and Liberia''], I.B. Tauris, p. 40.</ref> With this change, the British began to expand their administration in the region, recruiting British citizens to posts and pushing Krio people out of positions in government and even the desirable residential areas in Freetown.<ref name="harris40"/>

[[File: Bai Bureh.jpg|thumb|upright=0.99|[[Bai Bureh]], Temne leader of the [[Hut Tax War of 1898]] against British rule]]
During the British annexation in Sierra Leone, several chiefs in the northern and southern parts of the country were resisting the "hut tax" imposed by the colonial administrators but they used diplomacy to achieve their goal. In the north, from 1820 to 1906, there was a Limba chief named Almamy Suluku who ruled his territory for many years, fighting to protect his territory, while at the same time using diplomacy to trick the protectorate administrators while sending fighters to assist [[Bai Bureh]], a prominent Temne chief in [[Kasseh]] who was fighting against the imposition of the "hut tax" by the colonial administrators. The war was later known as the [[Hut Tax War of 1898|Hut Tax War]]. Another prominent figure in Sierra Leone history is Bai Sherbro ({{circa|1830–1912}}). Bai Sherbro was a chief and warrior on Bonthe Island, in the southwestern part of the country. He, like Bai Bureh, resisted the British. Sherbro also sent fighters to assist Bai Bureh in the fight against the British. Sherbro was influential and powerful and the British greatly feared him. Bai Sherbro was captured and with Bai Bureh, exiled to the Gold Coast (modern Ghana).

[[Nyagua]] ({{circa| 1842}}–1906), also known as the "Tracking King", was a fierce king who captured many districts and many people came to join him for protection. Nyagua also resisted the British. Realizing that he lacked sufficient strength, he resorted to diplomacy. At the same time, he sent warriors to assist Bai Bureh in fighting against the British. The British later captured Nyagua, and he was also exiled to the Gold Coast. [[Madam Yoko]] ({{circa| 1849}}–1906) was a brilliant woman of culture and ambition. She employed her capacity for friendly communications to persuade the British to give her control of the Kpaa Mende chiefdom. She used diplomacy to communicate with many local chiefs who did not trust her friendship with the British. Because Madam Yoko supported the British, some sub-chiefs rebelled, causing Yoko to take refuge in the police barracks. For her loyalty, she was awarded a silver medal by [[Queen Victoria]]. Until 1906, Madam Yoko ruled as a paramount chief in the new British Protectorate. It appears that she committed suicide at the age of fifty-five, perhaps due to the loss of support from her own people.

[[File:SierraLeoneP016.tiff|thumb|Moa River Bridge, Sierra Leone. [[Alphonso Lisk-Carew|Lisk-Carew Brothers]], Freetown, Sierra Leone]]
The British annexation of the Protectorate interfered with the sovereignty of indigenous chiefs. They designated chiefs as units of local government, rather than dealing with them individually as had been the previous practice. They did not maintain relationships even with longstanding allies, such as Bai Bureh, who was later unfairly portrayed as a prime instigator of the Hut Tax War.<ref name="Abraham">{{cite journal |title = Bai Bureh, The British, and the Hut Tax War |last = Abraham |first = Arthur |journal = [[The International Journal of African Historical Studies]] |issn = 0361-7882 |volume = 7 |issue = 1 |year = 1974 |pages = 99–106 |doi = 10.2307/216556 |jstor = 216556}}</ref>

[[File: British Expeditionary Force in Freetown, 1919.jpg|thumb|British [[West Africa Campaign (World War I)|West African Campaign]] troops in Freetown, 1914–1916. Published caption: "British expeditionary force preparing to embark at Freetown to attack the [[German Cameroons]], the main object of the attack being the port of [[Douala|Duala]]. Auxiliary native troops were freely used in African warfare."]]
Colonel [[Frederic Cardew]], military governor of the Protectorate, in 1898 established a new tax on dwellings and demanded that the chiefs use their people to maintain roads. The taxes were often higher than the value of the dwellings, and 24 chiefs signed a petition to Cardew, stating how destructive this was; their people could not afford to take time off from their subsistence agriculture. They resisted payment of taxes, tensions over the new colonial requirements and the administration's suspicions towards the chiefs, led to the Hut Tax war of 1898, also called the Temne-Mende War. The British fired first; the northern front of mainly Temne people was led by Bai Bureh. The southern front, consisting mostly of [[Mende people]], entered the conflict somewhat later, for other reasons.

[[File: Bai Bureh (1898).jpg|thumb|Temne leader Bai Bureh seen here in 1898 after his surrender, sitting relaxed in his traditional dress with a handkerchief in his hands, while a Sierra Leonean [[Royal West African Frontier Force|West African Frontier Force]] soldier stands guard next to him ]]
For several months, Bureh's fighters had the advantage over the vastly more powerful British forces but both sides suffered hundreds of fatalities.<ref>[http://www.sierra-leone.org/Heroes/heroes5.html History], Sierra-leone.org, Retrieved 17 January 2007.</ref> Bureh surrendered on 11 November 1898 to end the destruction of his people's territory and dwellings. Although the British government recommended leniency, Cardew insisted on sending the chief and two allies into [[exile]] in the Gold Coast; his government hanged 96 of the chief's warriors. Bureh was allowed to return in 1905, when he resumed his chieftaincy of Kasseh.<ref name="Abraham"/> The defeat of the Temne and Mende in the Hut Tax war ended mass resistance to the Protectorate and colonial government, but intermittent rioting and labour unrest continued throughout the colonial period. Riots in 1955 and 1956 involved "tens of thousands" of Sierra Leoneans in the Protectorate.<ref>Killson, Martin (1966), ''Political Change in a West African State: A Study of the Modernization Process in Sierra Leone'', Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, pp. 60; also pp. 106, 107, 110, 111, 186–188 on other riots and strikes.</ref>

[[File: The Royal Navy during the Second World War A24465.jpg|thumb|African Naval ratings march past the Governor of Sierra Leone, [[Hubert Craddock Stevenson|Sir Hubert Stevenson]].]]
Domestic [[Slavery in Africa|slavery]], which continued to be practised by local African elites, was abolished in 1928.<ref>{{cite web |author=The Committee Office, House of Commons |url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmintdev/923/923m21.htm |title=House of Commons – International Development – Memoranda |publisher=Publications.parliament.UK |date=6 March 2006 |access-date=17 June 2014 |archive-date=22 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150722035235/http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmintdev/923/923m21.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> A notable event in 1935 was the granting of a monopoly on mineral mining to the [[Sierra Leone Selection Trust]], run by [[De Beers]]. The monopoly was scheduled to last 98 years. Mining of diamonds in the east and other minerals expanded, drawing labourers there from other parts of the country.

In 1924, the UK government divided the administration of Sierra Leone into Colony and Protectorate, with different political systems constitutionally defined for each. The Colony was Freetown and its coastal area; the Protectorate was defined as the [[hinterland]] areas dominated by local chiefs. Antagonism between the two entities escalated to a heated debate in 1947, when proposals were introduced to provide for a single political system for both the Colony and the Protectorate. Most of the proposals came from leaders of the Protectorate, whose population far outnumbered that in the colony. The Krios, led by [[I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson|Isaac Wallace-Johnson]], opposed the proposals, as they would have resulted in reducing the political power of the Krios in the Colony.

In 1951, [[Lamina Sankoh]] (''born'': Etheldred Jones) collaborated with educated protectorate leaders from different groups, including [[Sir]] [[Milton Margai]], [[Siaka Stevens]], Mohamed Sanusi Mustapha, [[John Karefa-Smart]], Kande Bureh, Sir [[Albert Margai]], [[Amadu Wurie]] and Sir [[Banja Tejan-Sie]] joined together with the powerful [[paramount chiefs]] in the protectorate to form the [[Sierra Leone People's Party]] or SLPP as the party of the Protectorate. The SLPP leadership, led by Sir Milton Margai, negotiated with the British and the educated Krio-dominated colony based in Freetown to achieve independence.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sierra-leone.org/Heroes/heroes8.html|title=Sierra Leone Web – Sierra Leonean Heroes – Achievement of Independence|website=www.sierra-leone.org}}</ref> Owing to the astute politics of Milton Margai, the educated Protectorate elites were able to join forces with the [[paramount chiefs]] in the face of Krio intransigence. Later, Margai used the same skills to win over opposition leaders and moderate Krio elements to achieve independence from the UK.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.newafricanmagazine.com/special-reports/country-reports/sierra-leone-a-nation-reborn/how-independence-was-won |title=How Independence Was Won |publisher=Newafricanmagazine.com |access-date=19 March 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029212925/http://www.newafricanmagazine.com/special-reports/country-reports/sierra-leone-a-nation-reborn/how-independence-was-won |archive-date=29 October 2013}}</ref>

In November 1951, Margai oversaw the drafting of a new constitution, which united the separate Colonial and Protectorate legislatures and provided a framework for [[decolonisation]].<ref name="advocate">[http://www.advocatenations.org/html/sierra_leone.html Advocate Nations of Africa: Sierra Leone] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141205062710/http://www.advocatenations.org/html/sierra_leone.html |date=5 December 2014 }}</ref> In 1953, Sierra Leone was granted local ministerial powers and Margai was elected [[Chief Minister]] of Sierra Leone.<ref name="advocate"/> The new constitution ensured Sierra Leone had a parliamentary system within the [[Commonwealth of Nations]].<ref name="advocate"/> In May 1957, Sierra Leone held its first parliamentary election. The SLPP, which was then the most popular political party in the colony of Sierra Leone as well as being supported by the powerful paramount chiefs in the provinces, won the most seats in Parliament and Margai was re-elected as Chief Minister by a landslide.