Our heritage ... from slavery to independence

A Limba village today with its distinctive huts - they were the first to settle in Sierra Leone. More village pictures ...

It was more than 600 years ago that tribes from the African interior decided to settle in the virgin forest protected by the mountains on one side and the West coast sea on the other. They were probably ancestors of the Limbas, the oldest ethnic group in Sierra Leone.

In 1495, on what was later to become Freetown, the Portuguese built a fort as a trading post for gold, spices, ivory and slaves. Today the Limba tribespeople still call white people 'popos'.

In the seventeenth century the British paid tribal chiefs for the warehousing of mechandise - and the Royal African Company was founded in 1672 establishing trading posts on the islands of Bunce and York.

One hundred years later slavery was abolished in England and naval ships based at Freetown intercepted slave ships returning 40,000 slaves to Freetown.

A treaty was signed in 1812 which allocated French and British zones of influence in the area, but it was 1917 before the present frontiers of Sierra Leone were established. The situation in the interior was deteriorating. A protectorate was established to protect the natives from an invasion by the French from Guinea. Tribes in the North revolted when the British charged a tax on huts and then tribes from the South also rebelled culminating in a bloody defeat.

Britsh naval ships suppressed the traffic in slaves on the African coast after slavery was abolished in 1772.

Sierra Lone became known as the West African 'white empire'; key administrative posts were held by whites; the authority of the Krios (creoles) declined and during the first world war Sierra Leonean soldiers fought in Cameroon against the Germans.

Mineral extraction began after the war and by 1926 over 16,000 people were employed in the mining industry. Pay and conditions were appalling; a militant trade union movement was put down and bitterness increased as the country felt the effects of the global depresssion.

During the second world war Freetown was an important allied base and 17,000 Sierra Leoneans fought alongside the British. After the war a new colonialism ensured that a majority of natives took positions of power. On April 26 1961 Sierra Leone became an independent nation within the Commonwealth.

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