Bai Bureh
Bai Bureh (born February 15, 1840 in Kasseh , Port Loko district , † August 24, 1908 ibid) was an African ruler of the Kingdom of Koya , warlord and military leader of the Temne and Loko peoples . In 1898 he became known during the so-called Mende-Temne War , which opposed the introduction of a hat tax by the British colonial government.
Life
Bai Bureh was trained as a warrior as a teenager in the village of Gbendembu in northern Sierra Leone, where he already showed his qualities as a warrior and was given the honorary name Kebalai (German: someone who never gets tired of waging war). After returning to his home village, he was appointed ruler there. In the following 20 years he became known for his military successes throughout the north of the country, with which he wanted, among other things , to enforce a pure Islam and proven African traditions. In 1882 he fended off an incursion by warriors of the Susu people from the area of today's Guinea into the area of Kambia in the north of today's Sierra Leone. He restored the old order to the Kambia and gave them back their land. Due to his political and military successes, he was crowned chief of all of what is now northern Sierra Leone in 1886 .
Conflicts with the colonial power
Following the agreements of the West Africa Conference from 1884 to 1885, the British colonial power continued to expand its influence in Sierra Leone in the 1890s, and in 1898 introduced a tax based on the number of rooms in native houses. This tax was to be used to cover administrative costs and to build roads and bridges. Bai Bureh refused to raise hat tax for his sphere of influence . With his warriors, who were recruited from the peoples of the Temne , Loko , Limba , Kissi and Kuranko, Bai Bureh was able to interrupt the communication routes between the individual bases of the British in northern Sierra Leone outside the capital Freetown in February 1898 . The colonial government caused great damage to the insurgents through the use of scorched earth methods . The uprising lasted until November of the same year and collapsed very soon after Bai Bureh was arrested by units of the West African Regiment in Port Loko.
Bai Bureh was exiled to the British colony of the Gold Coast , now part of Ghana . In 1905 he returned to his homeland and spent the years there until his death in 1908 as Chief of Kasseh. His grave , which has been a national monument since 2016 , is in the Port Loko district .
literature
- Michael Crowder and LaRey Denzer: Bai Bureh and the Sierra Leone Hut Tax War of 1898 in: Robert Rotberg and Ali Mazrui: Protest and Power in Black Africa . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1970, pp. 169-212.
- Arthur Abraham: Bai Bureh, The British, and the Hut Tax War . The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Boston University African Studies Center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Vol. VII, No. 1, 1974, pp. 99-106.
Web links
- About Bai Bureh (English)
- Comment on Bai Burehs Life (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bureh, Bai |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Sierra Leonean chief and warrior |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 15, 1840 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kasseh , Port Loko District , Northern Province , Sierra Leone |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 24, 1908 |
| Place of death | Kasseh , Port Loko District , Northern Province , Sierra Leone |