Sierra Leone - History
The history of Sierra Leone for most of the last three centuries has comprised two different stories. One was that of the indigenous people, most of whom migrated into present-day Sierra Leone during this period from adjacent territories. The other was of the arrival of people on the coast by sea — first European explorers, then merchants and slave traders, and finally people of African origin returning from other parts of the world who were joined by the released slaves taken from ships captured on the Atlantic.
There was an interplay between the indigenous people and foreign elements beginning with the impact of transatlantic slave trade on the African communities. Nevertheless to a significant degree their histories remained as different as their cultures until both came together in the middle years of the twentieth century.
As Sierra Leone lay outside the realms of the early empires of sub-Saharan West Africa, little is known of its history before the fifteenth century. The present-day population includes a minority, concentrated along the coast, whose ancestors have occupied the country for a thousand years or more. The majority, however, are descendants of groups that arrived in several waves between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. These people were pushed southward by political events and population movements in the empires to the north. One major migration coincided with the arrival of the first European explorers in the second half of the fifteenth century.
These first Europeans were followed by traders who rapidly became the agents of the trade in human lives between African rulers and transatlantic shippers. By the late sixteenth century the area had be- come a source of supply for slaves shipped to work the plantations of the New World. This trade continued to dominate the economy and affect the stability of the region until well into the nineteenth century.
By the 1780s the inhumanity of transatlantic slavery had begun to impress itself on some Englishmen. Partly as a result, a colony of former slaves from England, Nova Scotia, and Jamaica, all of whom had adopted Western ways, was established between 1789 and 1800 under British control on the Sierra Leone Peninsula. After the British government outlawed the slave trade in 1807, thousands of Africans who had been enslaved along the Atlantic coast of Africa were recaptured en route to the Americas by the British navy and released in Freetown, adding considerably to the colony's population. These “re-captives” joined the original black settlers to form a new society along Western lines although with African features.
By the second half of the nineteenth century this Creole society was highly educated, even in comparison to England. Its economy was based on public service for, and trade with, the rest of Great Britain's West African dependencies, including the rest of Sierra Leone, where Great Britain remained the primary European influence but did not rule.
The changing interests of European nations in the 1880s and 1890s set off a great race to divide Africa among their colonial empires. Great Britain finally proclaimed a protectorate over the mainland of Sierra Leone in 1896 but retained the Colony on the peninsula as a separate entity. Unfortunately for the Creoles the new British nationalism was accompanied by a belief that only the British were qualified to guide and rule the indigenous peoples. Thereafter the Creoles were excluded from the posts of power and influence they had previously held. Their self-esteem and society suffered a major decline.
British rule over the Protectorate was intended to make as little change as possible in the existing order, leaving direct rule to the traditional chiefs. Gradually, however, peace, improved markets for produce, and the education brought by white and Creole missionaries made major changes below the surface of the tribal societies.
After World War II Great Britain’s desire to lighten its burden of colonial rule coincided with the demand for self-government that spread from the Creole community to the educated minority in the Protectorate. This minority formed political links to the paramount chiefs (to whom they were often related), dominating the electoral rolls as self-government was granted and independence approached — both freely given by the British in advance of local pressures. The Creoles meanwhile found themselves a minority voice in what they regarded as their own country because they were only a small portion of the population. They never obtained the political power to which they aspired. Their education and other advantages enabled them, however, to hold offices of power in public service occupations and in the economy.
After independence was received on April 27, 1961, major political contest continued among members of the Protectorate elite. The backing of the chiefs had been all that was needed for political success. Gradually, however, voices of other elements in Protectorate society began to be heard. Sir Milton Margai, an educated Mende from the south, had been the major organizer of the Protectorate’s politics and Sierra Leone’s first prime minister. He died in 1964 and was succeeded by his half brother, Albert Margai, who had not always been aligned with him and who was to prove less successful as a leader. In the March 1967 parliamentary election their Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), which suffered from accusations of tribalism and too close an association with the chiefs, was defeated at the polls. The winner was the All People's Congress (APC), led by Siaka Stevens.
An element of the military intervened on Margai’s behalf but was immediately overthrown by a second military coup; its perpetrators assumed power temporarily but held it for over a year. They in turn were overthrown by a third military coup led by the army’s enlisted men, who quickly restored civilian rule and brought Stevens back to power.
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