![]() In a bid to solidify control of this they managed to overthrow the Yalunka, renaming the area Futa Jallon. By the early 1700s Fula Muslim traders were making large profits in what are now Southern Guinea and North Eastern Sierra Leone. Today there is no single Mane group and the older lineages have mostly survived, but there are many signs of Mane culture throughout modern day Sierra Leonean life.Ī second major change in the years before British colonisation was the advance of Islam. Alie suggests that Mane dominance spread throughout a lot of what is now western Sierra Leone, but that, ultimately, local people assimilated rather than converted. Common Sierra Leonean names such as Kamara, Bangura, Kagbo (now Kargbo) and Koroma come from this period. By the 1550s they had engulfed the Temne along the West African coast and started moving inland. She travelled south with a large group of followers. In the early 1500s Queen Masarico was exiled from the Malian empire. One of the most significant documented changes in the centuries up to British colonisation came with the Mane Invasions. West Africa, as with everywhere else, has always been changing. There is an ignorant image of an eternal and unchanging ‘traditional-village’ pre-colonial Africa. Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, West Africa. Alie, a Sierra Leonean historian, presents a more comprehensive outline in A New History of Sierra Leone (Alie, 1990). ![]() The Krio are a new group, composed of the descendants of former slaves and people freed from slave trading ships, brought by the British as part of the drive to establish Freetown. The Limba are the third largest group, and are thought to be one of the oldest, originating around the Wara Wara hills of the northern interior. The two main groups, then and today, were the Mende, who are thought to have entered from the Liberian hinterland throughout the 1700s, and the Temne, who are thought to have come from Futa Jallon, in modern day Guinea, and were established along the north west coast before the 1400s. Many of the groups that make up Sierra Leone’s population today were already settled before Britain colonised. Part 1: Before Britain colonised Sierra Leone Part three describes how colonisation spread, starting with just Freetown at the beginning of the 19th century and expanding to all of Sierra Leone by the end of the century. ![]() Part two explores why Britain wanted to colonise this land in the first place. Part one looks at some of the things historians tell us about life along the Sierra Leonean coast before Britain colonised. This is the first of a three-part story about how and why the United Kingdom colonised Sierra Leone, but each part can also be read as a stand alone piece. You cannot undo 150 years of systematic destruction in just 60 years of nation building. ![]() To echo the Caribbean scholar Sir Hilary Beckles: the British were running the show in many former colonies for far longer than their independent governments to date. While there have been many issues with Sierra Leonean government since independence, the UK must also take some of the responsibility. For the next 150 years it remained under some form of British colonial rule. These two comparisons mark the visible edges of huge inequality.Ī little over 200 years ago the United Kingdom (UK) started to occupy the area that is now Sierra Leone. Today, April 27th, we celebrate the 61st anniversary of Sierra Leone’s independence from the British Empire. In the United Kingdom, it is extremely rare for a child to die (less than one in 200 children die before they are five), and the average annual income is around US$40,000.įly south just six hours, in Sierra Leone it is estimated that more than one in ten children die before they are five, and the average annual income is around US$550. Coast of Guinea and Bay of Sierra Liona, 1732.
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