They were plundered by the Dutch in 1664, the French in 1704, and pirates in 1719 and 1720.
Though the Muslim Fula first cohabited peaceably with the peoples already at Fouta Djallon, around 1725 they embarked on a war of domination, forcing the migration of many Susu, Yalunka, and non-Muslim Fula. Susu—some already converted to Islam—came south into Sierra Leone, in turn displacing Limba from north-west Sierra Leone and driving them into north-central Sierra Leone where they continue to live.
In 1728, an overly aggressive Company governor united the Africans and Afro-Portuguese in hostility to him; they burnt down the Bunce Island fort and it was not rebuilt until about 1750.
In 1728, an overly aggressive Company governor united the Africans and Afro-Portuguese in hostility to him; they burnt down the Bunce Island fort and it was not rebuilt until about 1750.
The French wrecked it again in 1779. During the 17th century the Temne ethnolinguistic group was expanding.
Over 10 million captured Africans were shipped to the Caribbean Islands and the Americas and many more died during the raids, the long marches to the coast and on the infamous middle passage due to the inhumane conditions in slave ships. ==The Province of Freedom (1787–1789)== === Conception of the Province of Freedom (1787) === In 1787, a plan was established to settle some of London's "Black Poor" in Sierra Leone in what was called the "Province of Freedom".
Although these 1787 settlers did not establish Freetown, which was founded in 1792, the bicentennial of Freetown was celebrated in 1987. After establishing Granville Town, disease and hostility from the indigenous people eliminated the first group of colonists and destroyed their settlement.
King Tom's successor King Jemmy attacked and burned the colony in 1789. Alexander Falconbridge was sent to Sierra Leone in 1791 to collect the remaining Black Poor settlers, and they re-established Granville Town (later renamed Cline Town) near Fourah Bay.
The Nova Scotians were to build Freetown on the former site of the first Granville Town which had become a "jungle" since its destruction in 1789.
King Tom's successor King Jemmy attacked and burned the colony in 1789. Alexander Falconbridge was sent to Sierra Leone in 1791 to collect the remaining Black Poor settlers, and they re-established Granville Town (later renamed Cline Town) near Fourah Bay.
John Clarkson and the Nova Scotian Settlers under the auspices of the Sierra Leone Company. ==Freetown Colony (1792–1808)== === Conception of the Freetown settlement (1791) === The basis for the Freetown Colony began in 1791 with Thomas Peters, an African American who had served in the Black Pioneers and settled in Nova Scotia as part of the Black Loyalist migration.
Peters travelled to England in 1791 to report grievances of the Black Loyalists who had been given poor land and faced discrimination.
(Though they built Freetown on Granville Town's former site, their settlement was not a rebirth of Granville Town, which had been re-established at Fourah Bay in 1791 by the remaining Old Settlers.) Clarkson told the men to clear the land until they reached a large cotton tree.
Although these 1787 settlers did not establish Freetown, which was founded in 1792, the bicentennial of Freetown was celebrated in 1987. After establishing Granville Town, disease and hostility from the indigenous people eliminated the first group of colonists and destroyed their settlement.
This settlement was different from the Freetown settlement and colony founded in 1792 by Lt.
George Bay between 26 February and 9 March 1792.
After this difficult work had been done and the land cleared, all the settlers, men and women, disembarked and marched towards the thick forest and to the cotton tree, and their preachers (all African Americans) began singing: On 11 March 1792, Nathaniel Gilbert, a white preacher, prayed and preached a sermon under the large Cotton Tree, and Reverend David George preached the first recorded Baptist service in Africa.
The Sierra Leone Company surveyors and the settlers built Freetown on the American grid pattern, with parallel streets and wide roads, with the largest being Water Street. On 24 August 1792, the Black Poor or Old Settlers of the second Granville Town were incorporated into the new Sierra Leone Colony but remained at Granville Town.
It survived being pillaged by the French in 1794, and was rebuilt by the Nova Scotian settlers.
Eventually the Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone had their own district at the newly named Maroon Town. The Maroons were a free community of blacks from Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town) who had been resettled in Nova Scotia after surrendering to the British government followed the Second Maroon War of 1795–6.
By 1798, Freetown had 300–400 houses with architecture resembling that of the American South, with 3- to 4-foot stone foundations and wooden superstructures.
Eventually this style of housing (brought by the Nova Scotians) would be the model for the 'bod oses' of their Creole descendants. === Settlement by Jamaican Maroons and freed slaves-in-transit (1800) === In 1800, the Nova Scotians rebelled and it was the arrival of over 500 Jamaican Maroons which caused the rebellion to be suppressed.
They were joined by West Indian and African soldiers who settled in Sierra Leone after fighting for Britain in the Napoleonic Wars. === Intervention and acquisition of the hinterland (1800s–1895) === In the early 1800s, Sierra Leone was a small colony extending a few kilometres (a few miles) up the peninsula from Freetown.
The Atlantic slave trade had a significant impact on Sierra Leone, as this trade flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries, and later as a centre of anti-slavery efforts when the trade was abolished in 1807.
They had petitioned the British government for settlement elsewhere due to the climate in Nova Scotia. After the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron was stationed in Freetown to intercept and seize ships participating in the illegal slave trade.
The slaves that were held on these vessels were released into Freetown and were called 'Captured negroes', 'Recaptives' or 'Liberated Africans'. ===Slave trade outlawed=== Britain outlawed the slave trade throughout its empire on 29 March 1807 with the Slave Trade Act 1807 and the British Navy operating from Freetown took active measures to stop the Atlantic slave trade.
In the decades following Britain's prohibition of the slave trade in 1807, the treaties sometimes also required chiefs to desist from slave-trading.
However, the institution of slavery itself continued to be practised in the British Empire until it was abolished in the 1830s. ==Colonial era (1808–1961)== === Establishment of the British Crown Colony (1808) === In 1808, the British Crown Colony of Sierra Leone was founded, with Freetown serving as the capital of British West Africa.
During the 18th century, there was a thriving slave trade from Sierra Leone to the plantations of South Carolina and Georgia where their rice-farming skills made them particularly valuable. Britain and British seafarers—including Sir Francis Drake, John Hawkins, Frobisher and Captain Brown—played a major role in the transatlantic trade in captured Africans between 1530 and 1810.
It may first have occurred under coastal chiefs in the late 18th century: For example, in the late 18th century, chief William Cleveland, an anglo-scott had a large "slave town" on the mainland opposite the Banana Islands, whose inhabitants "were employed in cultivating extensive rice fields, described as being some of the largest in Africa at the time". The existence of an indigenous slave town was recorded by an English traveler in 1823.
In 1826, Governor Turner led troops to the Bum–Kittam area, captured two stockaded towns, burnt others, and declared a blockade on the coast as far as Cape Mount.
Fourah Bay College, established in 1827, rapidly became a magnet for English-speaking Africans on the west coast.
In 1829, the colonial authorities founded the Sierra Leone Police Corps.
However, the institution of slavery itself continued to be practised in the British Empire until it was abolished in the 1830s. ==Colonial era (1808–1961)== === Establishment of the British Crown Colony (1808) === In 1808, the British Crown Colony of Sierra Leone was founded, with Freetown serving as the capital of British West Africa.
Where possible, local enemies of the party being attacked were invited by the British to accompany them as allies. In the 1880s, Britain's intervention in the hinterland received added impetus because of the "Scramble for Africa": an intense competition between the European powers for territory in Africa.
In 1890, this force was divided into the Civilian Police and the Frontier Police. The British developed a modus operandi which characterised their interventions throughout the century: army or frontier police, with naval support if possible, would bombard a town and then usually torch it after the defenders had fled or been defeated.
In 1895, Britain drew borders for Sierra Leone which they declared to be their protectorate, leading to armed resistance and the Hut Tax War of 1898.
Most of these were not, however, treaties of cession; they were in the form of cooperative agreements between two sovereign powers. In January 1895, a boundary agreement was signed in Paris, roughly fixing the line between French Guinea and Sierra Leone.
In Sierra Leone, for example, the Mende, Temne and Creoles remain as rival power blocs between whom lines of fission easily emerge. === Establishment of the British Protectorate and further land acquisition (1895) === In August 1895, an Order-in-Council was issued in Britain authorising the Colony to make laws for the territory around it, extending out to the agreed-upon boundary (which corresponds closely to that of present-day Sierra Leone).
On 31 August 1896, a Proclamation was issued in the Colony declaring that territory to be a British Protectorate.
The Protectorate Ordinances (passed in the Colony in 1896 and 1897) abolished the title of King and replaced it with "Paramount Chief".
The Protectorate Ordinances (passed in the Colony in 1896 and 1897) abolished the title of King and replaced it with "Paramount Chief".
In 1895, Britain drew borders for Sierra Leone which they declared to be their protectorate, leading to armed resistance and the Hut Tax War of 1898.
A British officer who observed one of these fortifications around the time of the 1898 Hut Tax war ended his description of it thus: He also said that English artillery could not penetrate all three fences. At that time, at least among the Mende, "a typical settlement consisted of walled towns and open villages or towns surrounding it." After the invasions, the Mane sub-chiefs among whom the country had been divided began fighting among themselves.
To the chiefs, these reductions in their power and prestige were unbearable. ===Hut Tax War – Temne and Mende uprisings (1898)=== When attempts were made to collect the house tax in 1898, the chiefs and their people rose up: first in the north, led by a dominant Temne chief called Bai Bureh, and then in Mende country to the south.
The two risings together are referred to as the Hut Tax War of 1898, though they had quite different characteristics. Bai Bureh's forces conducted a disciplined and skillfully executed guerrilla campaign which caused the British considerable difficulty.
The 1920 union is renamed the Railway Workers' Union. 1926.
In 1924, a new constitution was put in place, introducing elected representation (3 out of 22 members) for the first time, with the first elections held on 28 October.
Abraham says that in most cases, "subject, servant, client, serf, pawn, dependent, or retainer" would be more accurate. Domestic slavery was abolished in Sierra Leone in 1928.
He also says that "singularly little change followed the 1928 decree; a fair number of slaves returned to their original homes, but the great majority remained in the villages in which their former masters had placed them or their parents." Export slavery remained a major business in Sierra Leone from the late 15th century to the mid-19th century.
Antagonism between the two entities escalated to a heated debate in 1947, when proposals were introduced to provide for a single political system.
In the 1950s, a new constitution united the Crown Colony and Protectorate, which had previously been governed separately.
Later, Margai used the same skills to win-over opposition leaders and moderate Krio elements for the achievement of independence. In November 1951, Margai oversaw the drafting of a new constitution, which united the separate Colonial and Protectorate legislatures and—most importantly—provided a framework for decolonization.
In 1953, Sierra Leone was granted local ministerial powers, and Margai was elected Chief Minister of Sierra Leone.
These culminated in the Protectorate-wide riots of 1955–1956, which were suppressed only by a considerable slaughter of peasants by the army.
In May 1957, Sierra Leone held its first parliamentary election.
Sierra Leone gained independence from the United Kingdom on April 27, 1961 and became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
Margai employed a brokerage style of politics by sharing political power between political groups and the paramount chiefs in the provinces. ===Sir Albert Margai administration (1964–1967)=== Upon Sir Milton Margai's death in 1964, his half-brother, Sir Albert Margai, was appointed as Prime Minister by parliament.
Within hours of taking office, Stevens was ousted in a bloodless military coup led by the commander of the army, Brigadier General David Lansana, a close ally of Sir Albert Margai who had appointed Lansana to the position in 1964.
In 1967, riots broke out in Freetown against Sir Albert's policies.
He had the police and the army on his side and nothing could have prevented him from achieving his ambition to hold on to power, but he chose not to and called for free and fair elections. ===Three military coups (1967–1968)=== The APC narrowly won a small majority of seats in Parliament over the SLPP in a closely contested 1967 Sierra Leone general election, and APC leader Siaka Stevens was sworn-in as Prime Minister on 21 March 1967 in Freetown.
The group constituted itself as the National Reformation Council (NRC) with Juxon-Smith as its chairman and Governor-General. ==Stevens government and one-party state (1968–1985)== Stevens assumed power in 1968 with a great deal of hope and ambition.
He removed the SLPP from competitive politics in general elections, some believed, through the use of violence and intimidation. To maintain the support of the military, Stevens retained the popular John Amadu Bangura as the head of the Sierra Leone Armed Forces. After the return to civilian rule, by-elections were held (beginning in autumn 1968) and an all-APC cabinet was appointed.
In November 1968, unrest in the provinces led Stevens to declare a state of emergency. Many senior officers in the Sierra Leone military were greatly disappointed with Stevens' policies, but none could openly confront Stevens.
In January 1970, Bangura was arrested and charged with conspiracy and plotting to commit a coup against the Stevens government.
He was [on 29 March 1970 in Freetown.
Although these 1787 settlers did not establish Freetown, which was founded in 1792, the bicentennial of Freetown was celebrated in 1987. After establishing Granville Town, disease and hostility from the indigenous people eliminated the first group of colonists and destroyed their settlement.
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