Early British Connections
There was already a well-established British factory near Sherbro Island in 1628. This and other British posts established by the British Royal African Company (BRAC) after 1660 had a checkered history over the next 150 years. Despite the fact that several of the BRAC posts were turned into apparently formidable forts, most were sacked by opposing forces, either ships of other European powers or African chiefs angered by some acts of the traders. The strongest of the forts, on Bunce (or Bence) Island near Sherbro Island, mounted fifty guns behind a strong stone facade. Nevertheless it was captured by an African force led by rival Afro-Portuguese traders in 1728.
After its defeat, the British Royal African Company (BRAC) withdrew from Sierra Leone, temporarily ending official British connections with the country. Several agents of the company remained behind, however, along with other Englishmen and married into powerful local chieftaincies along the coast and on the islands south of the Sierra Leone Peninsula. At least four of the resulting Afro-European families — Caulkers, Tuckers, Clevelands, and Rogers — were to continue to play a significant role in their areas into the twentieth century.
These families and others, although they were frequently to oppose later British government policy and colonial expansion, maintained personal ties in England. They as well as some of the coastal chiefs sent their children there for education, often under the guidance of the English firms that were their trading partners.
Private British companies continued to trade from posts along the southern coastal inlets. The Bunce Island fort was restored by a London company, only to be sacked by the French navy in 1779 during the American Revolution. The remains of the fort still stood nearly 200 years later.
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