Protectorate Administration
After the Hut Tax war large British military forces toured the country and successfully intimidated the people. The Frontier Police were transformed into an army battalion and made part of the West African Frontier Force in 1901. Two hundred or more of the chiefs involved were arrested, eighty-three of the Mende among them being hanged for the multiple murders. The arrests provided the British with the opportunity to ensure that only men they considered loyal were chiefs. Although no hierarchical order might previously have existed, the leaders of more important groups were styled paramount chiefs; in each area less important groups were to be headed by chiefs and subchiefs administratively subordinate to the paramount chief.
The Protectorate was divided into five districts. A British district commissioner acted as overseer of the paramount chiefs in his district and as judge in serious crimes. Minor crimes and most civil matters were left to traditional systems. A single court to deal with crimes involving nonnatives was also created to serve the entire Protectorate. The chiefs were responsible for maintenance of order, recruitment of labor for public works, and collection of taxes. They worked under strong incentives: those who cooperated were rewarded with a share of the increased taxes they collected, educational opportunities for their children, and other benefits; those who opposed the district commissioner, even if attempting to defend the legitimate interests of their people, were removed. Little additional effort was made to change the local system until 1937.
Ownership of all land continued to be vested communally in the tribe, and its allocation for use was controlled by the chiefs. This helped to preserve the traditional order and kept Europeans and Creoles from owning any property in the Protectorate. It was also an example of the many distinctions between Colony (where land had long been held in individual freehold) and Protectorate. Economic development was spurred by the rapid completion in 1908 of the railroad to Pendembu on the country’s eastern fringe. It was a slow, narrow-gauge line that never succeeded in running at a profit. Nevertheless its construction, coinciding with the final ending of intertribal warfare, led to almost immediate reorganization of the economy. It provided a route for high-volume produce — palm nuts, kola nuts, rubber, and rice — which the interior had been capable of producing but could not earlier move to markets except as headloads along narrow trails. Between the end of the revolts and 1912 exports had tripled, and the government’s revenue from customs taxes had gone up even more. Palm oil and kola nuts were the mainstays of the country’s economy, and the income from their sale went largely to local small-holders since no plantations existed.
In 1937 Sierra Leone adopted the administrative system being utilized in northern Nigeria. The changes made involved primarily the financing of services within the chiefdoms. Each chiefdom, officially labeled a Tribal Authority, was to have its own budget and some local powers of taxation to replace the traditional income of the chiefs. Chiefs were placed on salary and allowances. The Protectorate government, restyled the Native Administration, was to be financed by the existing dwelling tax (which the 1898 war had not ended) and a head tax as well as the income from local courts. The new system was opposed by many chiefs, however, and was only instituted piecemeal across the country, nearly half the chiefdoms being without treasuries after World War II.
The attitude of the home government remained that the Colony and Protectorate must support their own administrations without British funds and that development should be left to private interests. This general philosophy was strengthened in practice by the effects of the depression of the 1930s and the subsequent economic burden on Great Britain of World War II. As a result government services remained very limited.
Sierra Leone, however, suffered less than many African countries during the worldwide depression because the loss of markets for its agricultural produce was made up for by the discovery of major diamond deposits in 1930 and the opening of a large iron mine near Port Loko in 1933. By 1938 the two mineral products constituted 65 percent of the country’s exports.
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