Sierra Leone - Ethnic Group Profiles
Ethnic groups, such as the Susu, Vai, and Kissi, whose major distribution is in neighboring countries are not very important numerically, whereas the three biggest groups, the Temne, Mende, and Limba, are concentrated mainly inside Sierra Leone. Thus another factor that frequently colors interethnic relations in African countries — that of ethnic loyalties reaching beyond national borders — is missing.
Creoles
Creoles are chiefly the descendants of Africans who were captured, enslaved, and later returned to the continent at different periods. The first group of about 400 freed former domestic servants and disbanded soldiers who had been living in abject poverty in England were settled near present-day Freetown in 1787. In 1792 they were joined by about 1,000 freed slaves who had fought for the British in the American Revolution and had been unsuccessfully settled in Nova Scotia and in 1800 by about 500 people originally from Jamaica, the so-called Maroons. The three groups came to be known as Settlers. All of them had learned English, and a modified version called Krio became their common language. The term Krio is also often used to designate the Creoles.
In the years between 1807, when Great Britain outlawed the slave trade, and the 1870s, when the transatlantic slave trade was finally ended, some 74,000 people were taken from illegal slave ships and landed at Freetown. These recaptured or liberated peoples, as they were called, had never lived on another continent, shared neither language nor country of origin, and had nothing in common with the Settlers and very little with each other, except the trauma of their capture and subsequent liberation. They eventually adopted the customs of the Settlers and intermarried with them, together forming the bulk of the group known as Creoles. The only exception was a group of Yoruba originally from eastern Nigeria who arrived in the 1820s and who never lost their identity. Called Aku from the first syllable of their greeting, they were still a small distinct group in the 1970s. They were devout Muslims in contrast to the Christian Creoles, and many of them continued to speak Yoruba.
The term Creole was used officially at the time of the 1911 population count and by 1930 had come to designate anyone who had adopted the Creole way of life, including migrants from the interior who had setded in the Colony. Being a Creole meant being a Christian, living monogamously, generally adopting an English name, and following a European pattern of living. Creoles sent their children to Fourah Bay College, which had been founded in 1827; they served inland as missionaries, teachers, and administrative officers; they became wealthy traders; and in the nineteenth century they lived on equal terms side by side with the Europeans. They were a dominant, westernized elite that differed sharply from the tradition-bound peoples of the interior.
Their situation began to change, imperceptibly at the time of the establishment of the Protectorate in 1896 and noticeably in 1904 when Europeans began to move to an exclusive settlement on Hill Station after the discovery that the mosquito carries malaria.
In time British rather than Creoles began filling the medical, legal, and military jobs in the Protectorate. After the railroad to Pendembu was completed in 1908, European firms, as well as Syrians and Lebanese, began trading in the interior, eventually displacing the Creoles and destroying an important economic base for the dominant Creole position. The changes brought about by the world wars, the beginning of political activity, and the extension of the franchise to the people of the Protectorate in 1951 led irrevocably to the loss of Creole prerogatives. There might at one time have been as many as 80,000 Creoles in Sierra Leone, but in the 1963 census only 41,783 designated themselves as such, possibly an indication that many had decided to stress their African antecedents and to reject the British cultural heritage that had been their pride. In the 1970s, however, because of their generally superior educational qualifications, they con .nued to hold a disproportionately large number of jobs in the civil service, judiciary, and professions.
Ninety percent of Creoles lived in the Western Area, where they were outnumbered only by the Temne. Most are settled in Freetown and its surrounding area, but they also live in the towns and villages of the Sierra Leone Peninsula and on Sherbro Island and the Banana Islands.
Mende
The Mende are concentrated in the southern part of the country immediately beyond the coastal zone and extend across the border into Liberia. The Mende are said to have migrated to their present location in the seventeenth century, probably as the result of population movements originating in the Fouta Djallon highlands of Guinea. They displaced and assimilated other peoples in the course of their southward migration. The British made contact with the Mende only in 1876, when the former began reaching beyond the coastal area into the hinterland. In the 1970s the Mende constituted the majority of the population of Bo, Moyamba, Pujehun, and Bonthe districts of Southern Province and of Kailahun and Kenema districts of Eastern Province.
The Mende have never constituted a cohesive nation, but their cultural characteristics and a rich oral tradition mark them off as a separate people. On the basis of dialectal and cultural variations, three major groupings may be distinguished. About 20 percent are Kpa-Mende (kpa means different) and reside in the west. They have a strong military tradition, and their warriors, who distinguished them- selves in battles with the Temne, were renowned throughout Mende-land. The Kpa-Mende have a social institution, the Wunde society, that is not found among other Mende.
Another 35 percent are middle or Sewa Mende, so called because of their proximity to the Sewa River. They pride themselves on speaking the purest Mende. The remaining 45 percent are the Ko-Mende or Kolo-Mende in the north of Mendeland, who have been influenced culturally and linguistically by the Kissi and other neighbors. All Mende engage in cultivation, which they supplement by gathering palm products and fishing. They keep livestock largely for ceremonial purposes.
Temne
The Temne were the second largest group in Sierra Leone, after the Mende, at the time of the 1963 census but, because of their higher birthrate, were probably the largest group in the mid-1970s. The main body of the Temne lives between the Little Searcies and Sewa rivers in an area stretching eastward from the coast. One extension of the group reaches into the area inhabited by their neighbors the Limba, dividing them into two groups. The Temne constitute the majority of the population of the districts of Port Loko, Kambia, the southern half of Bombali, and Tonkolili — all in Northern Province. They are also found in great numbers in the mining areas of all three provinces and in the Western Area.
According to their tradition, they were driven into the coastal forests by Susu and other Mende speakers. They were reported already in their present area when the early Portuguese explorers arrived. The Freetown area was in their hands when the British purchased it in 1788. The Temne constitute the largest single group in Freetown, which in the 1970s they continued to regard as their territory. The Temne are cultivators who grow rice, groundnuts (peanuts), cassava, millet, and other crops. They also fish and gather palm products. Those living in the northwestern chiefdoms have been influenced by Islam; those in the southeastern chiefdoms are predominantly adherents of indigenous religious systems.
Limba
The Limba live in a territory of about 1,900 square miles between the Little Searcies and Rokel rivers in Kambia, Bombali, Koinadugu, and Tonkolili districts of Northern Province. They have no memory of earlier migrations and may well be indigenous to the region, in which they were reported living in the late sixteenth century. It has been suggested that they occupied much of the northern Sierra Leone at an earlier time but were pushed aside by Temne, Koranko, and Yalunka. In the southern part of their area, western and eastern Limba are separated from each other by the Temne and Lokko. Their traditional home is the Wara Ware Chiefdom in Koinadugu District, where the guardian of all the Limba is believed to be living on a hill to which the spirits of all dead Limba chiefs are said to return.
Before the establishment of roads and schools and the development of mining, the Limba were isolated from the Colony and the coastal peoples, and they tended to look northward to the people in the Fouta Djallon who had once ruled over them and with whom communication was easier than with the forest people of the south.
The Limba are ricegrowers and palm wine tappers, the latter as migrants to other parts of Sierra Leone. Although largely faithful to indigenous religious beliefs, they greatly respect Islam, the religion of the Madingo and Fullah living among them.
Kono, Vai, and Gallinas
The Kono are concentrated in Kono District in Eastern Province. They entered Sierra Leone as peaceful hunters, probably in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Their traditional home is in Guinea, where numbers of them live and where a hill called Konno Su is still remembered as the burial place of an early Kono chief. According to their oral tradition they had frequent wars with the Temne, Koranko, and Mende, although many Kono have become Mende speakers. They have migrated little, possibly because of extensive diamond mining in their area.
The Vai, many of whom are Muslims, are closely related to the Kono and are said to have first migrated with them from the interior. They live mainly in Pujehun District of Southern Province. They are distinguished by having their own script, which is still in use among the Vai in Liberia. Part of their region at the estuaries of the Moa and Mano rivers is called Gallinas, the name given to the inhabitants by early European explorers and traders. A small subgroup, concentrated mainly in the Yakemo Kpukumu Krim Chiefdom and otherwise indistinguishable from the Vai, still call themselves Gallinas and were counted separately in the 1963 census.
Koranko
The Koranko (Kuranko) occupy the south of Koinadugu and the north of Tonkolili districts in Northern Province. Within their area hvc dialects of Koranko are spoken and are sufficiently different from other to identify a speaker’s place of origin. Mary more of them live in the Kissidougou region of Guinea among the Madingo, to whom they are distantly related. They are said to have been driven south as a result of activities by Muslim Songhai emperors against pagan neighbors. In the past the Koranko fought intermittent ly with the Kono, to whom, however, they once gave refuge when the Kono were attacked by the Mende.
Sherbro and Krim
The Sherbro live along the Atlantic coast, mainly in Bonthe and Moyamba districts. They were called Bullom in the earliest Portuguese accounts, and the name still applies to their language, to the shore west of Freetown, and to the Sherbro living in the north of Sierra Leone Peninsula. The Sherbro have no tradition of earlier migrations and may have been the original inhabitants of the area. They were strongly influenced by Christian missions. Only a few adopted Islam.
The Krim, a branch of the Sherbro, live between them and the Vai in Pujehun and Bonthe districts. They are cultivators and fishermen who speak a Bullom dialect.
Susu and Yalunka
Most Sierra Leonean Susu live in Kambia, Bombali, and Port Loko districts of Northern Province, but the bulk of the Susu are located across the border in Guinea, where they play a predominant economic and political role. They speak a language that is almost indistinguishable from that of the Yalunka. This close linguistic relationship supports a theory that the Susu and Yalunka were at some time one people in the Fouta Djallon, that they were separated by Fullah invaders, and that the Susu moved southward, absorbing other people in the process. They were frequently mentioned by European writers from 1500 on as occupying the hinterland between the Pongo River estuary and the Little Searcies River immediately behind the coastal peoples. The Susu are primarily cultivators, mainly of rice and millet; theyare also traders and are well known for their work in leather, gold, and other metals. Most are Muslims.
The Yalunka (Dialonke, Jallonke) are considered by some scholars simply a branch of the Susu. They are said to be indigenous to the south and central part of the Fouta Djallon, which the Fullah named after them. During the holy war, or jihad, that began around 1725 most were reduced to serfdom by the Fullah. A few accepted Islam and remained free. Other Yalunka left, settling in various areas including the northern part of Koinadugu District in Northern Province, where they are separated from the Susu by a small wedge of territory inhabited by the Limba.
Their main activity is cultivation, but they also raise a few animals and engage in trade. There exists among them an endogamous caste of ironsmiths, whose women are potters, and a special caste of professional bards. In the mid-twentieth century most Yalunka had become Muslims.
Fullah
The Fullah belong to a large ethnic groups spread throughout much of West Africa from Senegal to Lake Chad. Outsiders usually refer to them as Peul in French-speaking countries and as Fulani in most English-speaking areas. They call themselves Fulbe (sing., Pullo) or some variant of that name. The Sierra Leone census lists them as Fullah. About half live in Bombali and Koinadugu districts of Northern Province, and the rest are scattered throughout the country. Most are either herdsmen or itinerant merchants and teachers of the Koran. Some, however, are settled herders.
Their ultimate place of origin is still at issue, but their nomadic ancestors are thought to have come from the area north of the Senegal River and to have moved gradually south and east during the last 400 or 500 years. They were entering the Fouta Djallon region of Guinea before the sixteenth century, but their heaviest immigration occurred in the seventeenth. They lived among the sparsely settled indigenous cultivators and hunters, such as the Susu and Yalunka, with whom they seemed to have had amicable relations. Nomads and settled cultivators developed a symbiotic relationship that was advantageous to both.
By the end of the eighteenth century a Fullah (Peul) theocracy controlled the Fouta Djallon. Its treatment of unbelievers in the area set in motion further migrations. Sometime in the latter half of the nineteenth century, Fullah pastoralists began to encroach on Sierra Leone, a process that accelerated in the twentieth century. These Sierra Leonean Fullah still look to the Fouta Djallon as their traditional home.
Minority Rights Group International (MRG) states that Sierra Leone is home to 178,400 people of Fula/Fulbe/Fulani ethnicity, or 2.9% of the population, who live mainly in the north. International Crisis Group (ICG) reports that the Fula, also referred to as Peul, or Fulani, are “an historic trading and cattle-herding diaspora with networks across West Africa”. Although Fula have lived in Sierra Leone for centuries, particularly large numbers migrated from Guinea in the 1960s and 1970s, “many without formal naturalisation”. Fula in Sierra Leone are thus “often considered „strangers? by settled, land-owning groups”.
Nevertheless, the Fula “community has since grown and prospered”. In 1996, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) similarly reported that “the Fula have historically been merchants and traders, with origins from the neighbouring state of Guinea. As such, the Fula are viewed by some nationals as being exploitative outsiders in control of certain economic domains”.
Lokko
The strongest concentration of the Lokko (Loko) is found in Bombali District, which they share mainly with the Temne and Limba. Port Loko District is not their home but is named for the Lokko slaves shipped through the river port of that name. The Lokko have been strongly influenced by the Temne, whose social institutions are similar. Their language has been modified by Temne, and Lokko immigrants in Freetown often designate themselves Temne. In rural areas many Lokko live under Temne chiefs. The majority adhere to indigenous beliefs, but an increasing number are converting to Islam.
Madingo
The Madingo (usually called Mandingo elsewhere but also referred to as Madinka, Malinke, and Wangara) are one of the three most important groups among the cluster of linguistically and culturally related people called the Manding or, in French, Mandingue. They are distributed among several West African countries, mainly Guinea, Mali, and Ivory Coast, in an arc of some 800 miles from the mouth of the Gambia River in the northwest to the interior of Ivory Coast in the southeast. The other two groups are the Bambara, who live mainly in Mali, and the Dioula, who are known are traders over a large part of West Africa.
The ancestors of almost all the Manding were once united in the great Mali empire, the successive capitals of which were located in the traditional heartland known as Mande or Mandin on the upper Niger River between Bamako in Mali and Siguiri in present-day Guinea. Many moved farther into Guinea beginning about the fifteenth century as the Songhai empire expanded westward. The Madingo eventually adopted Islam in large numbers in the late 1880s. Cultiva- tors, traders, and religious teachers entered Sierra Leone from Guinea in small groups at different times. Their strongest concentration is in Kono District, but like the Fullah the Madingo are scattered through- out Sierra Leone. A Madingo community of considerable size has long been settled in Freetown.
Kissi and Gola
The Kissi live along the eastern border of Kailahun and Kono districts of Eastern Province where the frontiers of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone meet. The majority are in Guinea and lesser numbers in Liberia. Their original home was the southern part of the Fouta Djallon in Guinea, from where they were driven out by the Yalunka in the seventeenth century.
Originally they practiced shifting cultivation of fundi (a variety of millet), which accounts for widespread deforestation in their areas. In the eighteenth century they adopted the practice of rice cultivation from their eastern neighbors. When Asian varieties were introduced during the second half of the nineteenth century, the Kissi fully launched into cultivation of rice, for which they use the Madingo word malo. Planting the rice in the bottom of marshy valleys or on deforested hillsides, they have become famous as expert growers. Others refer to them as the people of the ricefields. Young Kissi men work in Freetown as domestic servants or become seamen, but they remain attached to their villages and almost always go back there to live.
Most of the Gola, who are linguistically related to the Kissi, live in Liberia, but small groups have settled in Makepele Chiefdom of Pujehun District. In the mid-sixteenth century the Gola were middlemen in the slave trade, transferring slaves from groups farther inland to the coastal Vai, who exchanged them for goods from European slave traders.
Kroo
The Kroo (Kru), most of whom live in Liberia, are a seafaring people who work all along the West African coast on ships and docks. They began coming to Freetown before the end of the eighteenth century to look for work on board ships. By the 1860s some began to set- tle there, and about twenty years later they were joined by Kroo women. The Kroo speak a language unrelated to that of any other Sierra Leoneans. They are well known for their discipline, capacity for hard work, and solidarity. Although they also participated actively in the slave trade, they are said never to have allowed anyone of their own ethnic group to be sold into captivity.
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