History of Sierra Leone

The history of Sierra Leone is the history of the modern state of Sierra Leone and its colonial predecessors, i.e. the British Crown Colony and Protectorate , from which this state emerged, as well as the pre-colonial history of the peoples who lived there. Since the nucleus of Sierra Leone was a colony of freed slaves from three continents, the history of slavery and its abolition also play a decisive role in the history of the country.

Early settlement history of the Sierra Leone area

Around 1000 AD the later national territory of Sierra Leone was settled by the ancestors of today's Bullom or Sherbro, the Limba and Loko . The largest ethnic group of Sierra Leone today , the Temne , immigrated here in the 14th century. In the 15th century the mani followed , in the 17th century finally the mende and the sussu .

Then as now, Sierra Leone was predominantly covered by rainforest. It was off the great trade routes that ran through West Africa before the Europeans arrived.

Traditional power structures: The Poro Bund

In contrast to the Sahel region further north, there were no large empires in what is now Sierra Leone. Parallel to existing state or proto- state structures, however, there were various religious-political associations here over the centuries, which exercised power over people's lives to the same extent as kings and chiefs elsewhere. The most powerful of these associations was the Poro Bund . All respected adult men (outside of the Islamic areas) joined this union after a phase of instruction in the laws of the union and of community life. Structured democratically in principle, the highest ranks of the league were occupied by wealthy men and chiefs. The power of the federal government extended to everyday life, but also to political and military decisions and the control of trade. It is controversial to what extent the federal government also crossed ethnic boundaries. What is certain is that if state structures crossed ethnic boundaries, so did the respective Poro-Bund. The existence of this federation must be taken into account in all of the following remarks on history, especially inland, even if its power only became clear in 1898 in the so-called Mende-Temne war against the Creoles in a way that brought the federation into the history books as a driving force .

Contacts with Europeans and waves of immigration from the north: 1440–1787

In 1440 the first European, the Portuguese navigator Gil Eanes, reached the coast of Sierra Leone. In 1462 the Portuguese Pedro da Cintra named the area "Serra Lyoa", ie "Lion Mountains", from which the name of the current state later arose in the Spanish variant "Sierra Leone". There are different hypotheses as to how he came up with this name. He must not have seen lions there. According to one variant, he simply assumed lions in “such a wild land”, another variant says that the shape of the mountains he saw there inspired him to choose this name. The Portuguese tried to convert the locals to Christianity, and in 1459 they sent a priest to this coast who probably built the first Catholic church in West Africa south of the Sahara. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Portuguese traders competed here with French, Dutch, Spanish and British traders and pirates from various nations.

Fort Bunce in historical illustration

Since 1562 the English slave trader John Hawkins acquired the first slaves from the local Temne, the English dominated the slave trade on this coast , from 1672 the British Royal African Company . The company set up fortified bases or factories on the coastal islands of Bunce and Sherbro , the most important fort was Fort Bunce , founded in 1640 on the island of Bunce Island , the most important commodity was slaves. At the same time, large groups of Temne, Mani, Mende and Sussu immigrated to the area. These migratory movements intensified at the beginning of the 18th century, when a warlike and missionary form of Islam spread in the northern area of today's Guinea and the empire Fouta Djallon emerged. The north of Sierra Leone was increasingly Islamicized, while the missionary efforts of the Europeans on the coast had little success. In 1728 Fort Bunce was attacked and captured by Jose Lopez da Moura , an Afro-Portuguese slave trader. The island remained deserted until the mid-1740s.

"Province of Freedom": 1787 to 1789

Granville Sharp

In 1786 Granville Sharp and other abolitionists in England had founded a society for the abolition of slavery and developed a plan to resettle freed slaves in an African country. The fact that the coast of Sierra Leone was chosen by the opponents of slavery as this "province of freedom" was the result of the stories of an English entomologist named Henry Smeathman . Smeathman had studied ants on this coast for a number of years and now described them as an extremely pleasant stretch of land. The slaves released on the British Isles in 1772 as a result of the so-called Somerset Trials were chosen for settlement. In this trial, the then slave James Somerset had been confirmed that slavery in England was not based on any legal basis. All of England's slaves then had to be released - in contrast to the slaves in the British colonies, whose lot did not change. As a result of the Somerset Trials, 5,000 to 7,000 blacks lived as free people in England at the end of the 18th century, but under often dire circumstances. The British Treasury agreed to pay for the transport of the former slaves from England to Sierra Leone. The rush for this company was limited, but in 1786 600 blacks had consented to set out for Sierra Leone.

On May 10, 1787, 380 free English blacks reached the mouth of the Sierra Leone River . The English bought a piece of land from a local ruler ("King Tom") for settlement and named the place Granville Town . In the opinion of the English they had bought this land with it, but the Africans saw the agreement as a kind of lease agreement. The area turned out to be nowhere near as inviting as Henry Smeathman had described, most of the newcomers were ignorant of tropical agriculture and tropical diseases claimed many victims. Quite a few settlers disappeared as slaves in the nearby center of the slave trade on the island of Bunce . In 1789 there was also a conflict with the successor to "King Tom". The British ship Pomona under Captain Henry Savage intervened in this conflict, which ended with the destruction of "Granville Town" and the withdrawal of the last settlers on board the Pomona .

"Sierra Leone Company": 1791 to 1808

The idea of a colony for freed slaves in Sierra Leone survived this setback. In 1791 the Sierra Leone Company was founded to establish a colony of ex-slaves in Sierra Leone. The target group this time were the so-called " Nova Scotians ". These were blacks who had fought on the side of the British for the promise of release in the American War of Independence and were subsequently settled in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia . Inadequately equipped and with poor land, many of these former British fighters did not survive Nova Scotia's harsh winters. 1100 Nova Scotians, around Thomas Peters , started the journey to Sierra Leone under these circumstances and with generous promises and founded the later capital of the country, Freetown .

This second group of settlers was also unable to provide themselves with food under the adverse conditions prevailing here and was dependent on food imports from England. The Napoleonic Wars interrupted these deliveries and made the situation even worse. In 1794, Freetown was also destroyed by the French Navy. In 1800, large swathes of the Nova Scotians rebelled and passed a code of law that would de facto mean independence from England. Although the rebellion was not borne by all settlers, it would have been successful had it not been for a ship with new settlers and an escort of British soldiers that same year.

These settlers were so-called Maroons and had actually requested the transfer to Africa. They were rebels from the island of Jamaica, who had also been brought to Nova Scotia in 1796, but had rebelled against a settlement there. The Maroons were (and are) a group of descendants of runaway slaves who founded their own independent community in Jamaica. The now deported Jamaican Maroons were prisoners of the Second Maroon War of 1795/96, in which the British finally conquered the Maroon community a hundred years after its creation. The escort of these former rebels put down the Nova Scotians uprising.

By 1807 a total of 3,000 black settlers had been shipped to Freetown, half of whom were still alive that year. The others had succumbed to the harsh living conditions. The settlement colony existed under great internal problems and the management of the Sierra Leone Company continued until 1808, in which it was declared a crown colony.

Settlement history of the crown colony in the 19th century

Samuel Rowe , several times Governor of Sierra Leone between 1875 and 1888

In 1808 the small colony consisted of 2,000 settlers and around 30 to 40 white officials and traders. With the ban on the slave trade by Great Britain in 1807 and the start of regular inspection trips by British warships off the West African coast to prevent this trade, the population of the crown colony of Sierra Leone grew considerably. Liberated slaves ("recaptives") from angry slave ships were brought to the colony. Since it was thousands of kilometers away from their home for most of them, they hardly had a chance to return and stayed there. In 1825 25,000 people lived here and in 1850 40,000. In addition to the original three groups of settlers, “Poor Blacks” from Great Britain, “Nova Scotians” and exiled Maroons, tens of thousands of blacks from all countries on the west coast of Africa, from Senegal to Angola , now joined . These people spoke a wide variety of languages and had different religious and cultural backgrounds. Charles MacCarthy , Governor of the Crown Colony from 1814 to 1824, saw the opportunity to spread Western culture and Christianity among these uprooted people. He systematically settled the "recaptives" in villages in which the church and school were given the most prominent places. The villages were given typically English names such as Charlotte, Kent, Wellington or York. When groups of discharged black soldiers from the British Army from the West Indies settled here, their villages were named after events in British military history: Waterloo and Hastings were created on the coast of West Africa (one of the few place names that referred to the African homelands of those settled was the place " Congo Town "). Although the newcomers often brought with them knowledge of tropical agriculture, many did not stay in the villages because the area around Freetown was hardly suitable for agriculture. Many moved to Freetown and worked as craftsmen. Others soon began to trade with great success with the peoples of the hinterland. By 1839 two ex-slaves had become so wealthy that they were able to buy up confiscated slave ships and start trading with them on the coast.

Development of Creole and the internal structure of the Crown Colony until 1898

Many African residents of the crown colony achieved prosperity through trade and sent their children to secondary schools in Freetown or even to universities in England. In this respect, Governor MacCarthy's educational offensive was extremely successful. In 1860 a higher proportion of the children in the Crown Colony attended school than the children in the “mother country”. In 1827 a training center for teachers was established here, which achieved university status in 1876, followed by secondary schools for boys and girls in the 1840s. Education was extremely important among the colony's recaptives and settlers. However, the formerly uprooted and the original settlers soon developed their own culture and language, connecting Africa and Europe. This Creole culture was z. B. from the second half of the 19th century, although predominantly Christian, but more than the copy of Anglican or Methodist Christianity that MacCarthy had in mind. The influence of African religions was evident in the great importance of rites of passage or the maintenance of circumcision . Creole cuisine contained French, West Indian and African elements. The Creoles, only called Krios in Sierra Leone , developed their own language, Krio . Krio is an English-based Creole language with distinct African elements, especially the Yoruba language from today's Nigeria . There are also loanwords from French , Spanish and Portuguese . The Creoles of Sierra Leone made up a high proportion of those Africans who for the first time reached a certain degree of the academic or ecclesiastical ladder: They appointed John Thorpe in 1850, the first black lawyer, with James Beale Africanus Horton in 1859, the first western educated doctor, with Samuel Ajayi Crowther the first black bishop and, with Samuel Lewis, the first "knight" of the British Empire of African descent. The Anglican Church withdrew its European missionaries from Sierra Leone in 1861 - for the first time in an African colony - and handed over the entire work to Creole believers. The trade activities of the Creoles expanded from the middle of the 19th century over the entire West Africa and increasingly "recaptives" or their Creole descendants migrated back to their original home countries and founded their own communities there. In the Nigerian Abeokuta z. For example, in 1851 there were 3,000 members of the Egba , a subgroup of the Yoruba who had returned from Sierra Leone. Creoles made up the majority of missionaries among the Nigerian Yoruba and other peoples of West Africa. The Creoles often played a leading role not only in the churches of West Africa, at the end of the 19th century Creoles or “Sierra Leones” as they were called along the entire coast, had leading positions in the administrative apparatus of all British colonies in West Africa.

In Sierra Leone itself, representatives of the Creole population had been on the so-called Board of Governors of the colony since 1808. When the Creoles called for greater representation in the 1850s, a new constitution was introduced in 1863, according to which the Creoles were represented on both the Executive and Legislative Councils of the Crown Colony. In 1872, Governor Pope-Hennessy replaced the entire still European administrative apparatus of the colony with locals, i.e. Creoles, and in 1893 Freetown got its own mayor.

Relationship between crown colony and hinterland / protectorate in the 19th century

The size of the colony contrasted with the great influence of the Creoles throughout West Africa. The crown colony of Sierra Leone never covered more than the area of the peninsula of Freetown, at the foot of Mount Horton , between the settlements of Aberdeen in the north, Kent in the south and Songo in the east, including the islands of Banana Islands and Tasso , i.e. an area of approx. 40 × 30 kilometers. A tiny area compared to the so-called hinterland, which stretched many hundreds of kilometers into the jungle and along the coast and was later to form the national territory of Sierra Leone. For a long time the British had no interest in colonizing this hinterland. That only changed with the beginning of the Scramble for Africa , the race for the remaining parts of Africa that were not dominated by Europe in the 1880s. The British now penetrated inland and defined the future limits of their sphere of influence in treaties with Liberia (1886) and France (1895). In 1896 they declared the entire hinterland, which largely coincides with the territory of what is now Sierra Leone, a protectorate . The development of the Protectorate was completely different from that of the Crown Colony. In the Protectorate, the British ruled according to the concept of indirect rule . that is, they exercised their power through local rulers. The British, however, installed and removed these "chiefs" as they saw fit, with the result that people often came to power who had no traditional claims to these offices. Governor Frederic Cardew also put together a police force for the protectorate, the frontier police , which was often recruited from former slaves who now saw the opportunity to take revenge on their former masters. The Creoles came to the inhabitants of the hinterland either as representatives of the unpopular colonial power or as representatives of the Christian churches, who threatened the authority of traditional customs and structures, or as traders, who often felt they were being taken advantage of.

Mende-Temne War 1898

Bai Bureh, leader of the Temne uprising in 1898

In 1898 the British introduced a hut tax of five shillings per year and hut to finance their administration. When Bai Bureh , the ruler of a small Temn state in the northern half of the Protectorate, resisted paying the tax, the frontier police opened fire on his people. This event triggered the Mende-Temne War . Bai Bureh organized an extremely effective, six-month guerrilla war against the British police and army in the largely Islamized north, but spared European and Creole civilians. In the southern half of the Protectorate, which is predominantly inhabited by Mende, the uprising was organized by the traditional Porobund mentioned above and was directed not only against the police and the army, but against everyone associated with Freetown. This was especially true of the Creoles. Several hundred, according to other sources more than 1000 people, mostly Creoles and among them many women and children, were killed until the Porobund instructed the fighters to spare the women.

The uprising ended with the surrender and capture of Bai Bureh. Although they were the main victims of the war, most of the Creoles and the thriving Creole press of Freetown then sided with the defeated and supported their demands. Governor Cardew interpreted this Creole act as disloyalty and the British attitude towards the Creoles turned 180 degrees. If the Creoles had previously played a comfortable mediator role between the British and the Africans of the hinterland, they now found themselves caught between all stools and were viewed by both sides as traitors.

"Disempowerment" of the Creoles and stagnation in the Protectorate: 1898 to 1951

The Mende-Temne War was a welcome occasion to undo the dominant position of the Creoles in the crown colony and their great influence outside of it. Governor Cardew rejected the proposal of Creole JC Parkes, head of the Department of Native Affairs, to carry out "Indirect Rule" in the Protectorate under the supervision of Creoles. Rather, with support from London, he decreed that the administration of the Protectorate should lie exclusively in the hands of the English, while the direct exercise of power should be with the Chiefs.

The development in the Protectorate then stagnated for decades in both economic and political terms. Until 1931 there was no paved road leading inland from Freetown. The chiefs gained a new wealth of power through their connection with the British and through their role as tax collectors. "Indirect rule" here meant that a condition was preserved that had not existed before the British took control. Schooling in the Protectorate was geared towards “tribal life”, not participation in modern administration or business life. Access to British-oriented schools was largely reserved for the Chiefs' children due to the high school fees. An uprising by peasants of the Protectorate against the chiefs and colonial officials, the so-called Haidara Rebellion, was unsuccessful in 1931. Economically, there was a north-south split within the protectorate. Agricultural export products such as palm oil , coffee and cocoa were mainly produced in the south (the Mende area). But here too the production came from small producers; no class of large producers was formed. It was not until the 1930s that diamond discoveries in the east of the country and iron ore in the north led to increased economic activity in the north.

At the same time, Cardew made sure that the influence of the Creoles was suppressed in the crown colony. While in 1892 50% of the senior administrative employees were Creoles, this proportion had fallen to 10% by 1917. The victory over malaria favored these measures. Malaria had made the coast of West Africa known as the "grave of the white man" until the late 19th century. With the discovery of quinine, that changed and the European population in Sierra Leone grew steadily. Against the background of an increasingly racist attitude in Great Britain (and the rest of Europe), the Europeans in the colonies were given considerable privileges. Government departments had to be headed by a European and they could e.g. B. not be charged in courts with a Creole Juri. The attitude that the Creoles should “go back to the bush” was widespread among them. African doctors were excluded from the government health service from 1902, and in 1911 there were no more Creoles on a legislative council in any West African colony.

Creoles against majority population on the eve of independence

The different development and treatment of the two parts of the country and also Creole arrogance led to tensions between the Creoles of the Colony and the population of the Protectorate in the decades before independence. The Sierra Leone constitution of 1924 saw three elected Creoles from the Colony as representatives of the population (the highest-income 5% of the population were eligible to vote) and three chiefs appointed by the British from the Protectorate, two of them Mende and one Temne. In 1947 the British changed the system, the African representatives in the Legislative Council now consisted of four representatives of the Colony (ie Creoles) and nine members of the recently founded "Protectorate Assembly". Opposition to the Creoles led both the traditional authorities and the Western educated Mende and Temne to join forces in 1951 in the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP). Milton Margai , a Mende politician and later president of the independent Sierra Leone, was the leader of this party . In 1952, representatives of the Protectorate even called for the two parts of the country to be independent. Milton Margai said of the Creoles in the early 1950s:

"Our forefathers, I regret very much to say ... [gave] shelter to a handful of foreigners who have no will to co-operate with us and imagine themselves to be our superiors because they are aping the western mode of living, and have never breathed the true spirit of independence. ”(quoted from Webster / Boahen1984: 361,“ I regret to say that our forefathers have offered refuge to a handful of strangers who are unwilling to cooperate with us and who feel superior to us because they mimic the western way of life and have never breathed the true spirit of independence. ")

Road to independence

The constitution of 1951 provided for a legislative council with 30 members, some directly and some indirectly elected. The SLPP Milton Margais won 5 seats, as did the National Council of Sierra Leone (NC). The remaining 20 seats were either reserved for the Europeans or went to the traditional chiefs of the Protectorate. In return for guaranteeing her local privileges, Milton Margai received the chiefs' support and became Prime Minister.

In the mid-1950s, the country experienced severe unrest against the backdrop of rapid social upheaval. In February 1955 the general strike was called in Freetown and on February 11th and 12th there was a two-day uprising with looting and violence. According to the colonial authorities, 18 people died in the capital (including one police officer and 17 civilians) when police, army and auxiliary police officers (special constables) shot into the crowd. 121 injured persons are officially documented.

Hand washing of diamonds

In November of the same year there was an uprising among the people of the north against the tax burden (especially the poll tax) and against corruption and exploitation by the chiefs. The crackdown on the uprising resulted in the death of 23 demonstrators and three dead police officers. Under pressure from the British administration, Margai took action against a number of grievances. From then on, for example, chiefs were no longer allowed to draw the people of their respective territories into unpaid work in their fields. In principle, however, he did not touch the position of the chiefs. The north, meanwhile, experienced a diamond rush in the mid-1950s, which is estimated to have involved 20% of the north's male population. In 1956, the 57,000 diamond prospectors successfully protested against the government granting concessions to the Sierra Leone Selection Trust .

In 1956, universal suffrage was introduced in Sierra Leone by agreement of the colonial administration and the government. In 1958, the last British left the country's government. The People's National Party, an opposition party led by Albert Margai and Siaka Stevens , split off from the conservative SLPP under Milton Margai, which was supported by the Chiefs . In early 1960, Milton Margai tried to involve the opposition in his government. He successfully balanced the old contrasts between Colony and Protectorate, but at the same time belonging to the north or south, i.e. to Temne or Mende, gained in importance. Siaka Stevens resisted Magrai's attempts to hug, founded the All People's Congress (APC), a new, socialist-oriented party, and called for new elections before independence was already planned. Violent clashes broke out between members of the ruling party and Siakas APP, which led to the declaration of a state of emergency a few days before independence .

Independent Republic of Sierra Leone: 1960 to present

Threatened Democracy and Ethnic Contrasts: 1961–1967

The country's independence was declared on April 27, 1961. In new elections in 1962, Milton Margais SLPP won 28 of 62 seats and the opposition 20, the remaining 14 seats went to supposedly independent candidates who, however, joined the SLPP immediately after the election. Although Margai knew how to use his influence over the traditional chiefs to largely prevent the opposition from taking root in the countryside, Sierra Leone's young democracy worked. After all, the SLPP had branches in almost all districts of the country and members from all ethnic groups in the country (with the exception of the Kono , whose regional opposition party was ousted by the banishment of its leaders in 1963) and, with Siaka Stevens APC, an active opposition on the other side.

In 1964 Milton Margai died and his half-brother Albert Margai took over the post of prime minister. Albert Margais used his opportunities to act against the opposition via the chiefs or exerting influence on local courts and the media much more unabashedly. Corruption and abuse of office increased significantly. Above all, however, he used ethnic differences within the country as a means to expand his power. His appointment as prime minister had already bypassed the temne within the party. From the beginning of his term of office he relied mainly on Creoles and Mende (who made up about a third of the population), from 1967 the ruling party turned into a pure Mende organization. Government offices, high positions in administration and officer positions went predominantly to Mende. Albert Margai expressed clear sympathy for the concept of the one-party state, such as that implemented by Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana .

The 1967 elections took off and exposed the deep ethnic divisions in the country. Although the government charged representatives of the opposition under the pretext of an alleged coup attempt, had the last leading Temne officer arrested and made the election commissions with its own people as best it could, the opposition APC doubled its votes. All the seats of the north (i.e. the Temne area) and the former crown colony (i.e. the Creole area) went to the opposition APC of Siaka Stevens, the votes of the south (i.e. the Mende) went to the SLPP Margais. The APC held 32 seats, the SLPP 28. Tipped the scales again like in 1962 six “independents” who the ruling SLPP claimed against their better judgment, but this time they spoke out in favor of the opposition under Siaka Stevens. The governor general then commissioned Siaka Stevens to form the government.

Military regime 1967–1968

With the support of the SLPP , the army then launched a coup led by the commander of the armed forces , David Lansana , of a Mende. The reason for the coup was that the governor general had given the order to form a government before all the election results were available. If Albert Margai expected that he would now be reinstated as prime minister, he was mistaken. A few days after the coup, the military banished him abroad. Under Colonel Juxon-Smith , a “National Reform Council” was formed (exclusively in the hands of the Mende), which banned all parties. The military government was unwilling to hand over power to a civilian government, although a commission confirmed Stevens APC's election victory.

In April 1968 there was another coup by officers from the second row. The new rulers dissolved the “National Reform Council” and handed the government over to Siaka Stevens, who had been reappointed prime minister by the governor.

Reign of Siaka Stevens: 1968–1985

Siaka Stevens' takeover did not mean a return to democracy. Although he had elections held in March 1969, from which his APC emerged as the clear winner. But his rule was determined by corruption and violence against his critics and political opponents. State control of the diamond mines facilitated the enrichment of government members through diamond smuggling. Politics continued to focus on ethnicity. The leadership of Stevens ACP consisted mostly of members of Stevens' Limba people and Creoles. The newly formed opposition party United Democratic Party (UDP) was predominantly supported by Temne. When UDP denounced the enrichment of the ruling clique and there was violence from supporters of the two competing parties, Stevens declared a state of emergency in 1970 and arrested UDP leaders for attempted coups. In 1971 two assassinations were carried out on Stevens and Stevens had to call troops from neighboring Guinea into the country to ward off a coup by Temne officers. These troops stayed in Sierra Leone for two years. In the same year Stevens had the republic proclaimed and declared himself president. In 1974 there was another attempted coup, after which both officers and opposition politicians were executed, including the aforementioned David Lansana.

In the second half of the 1970s, Stevens transformed his APC into a unity party and quite successfully integrated politicians who had previously been in the opposition. The state apparatus was a barely concealed instrument for plundering the country. Sierra Leone's economy grew, but this growth was limited to the mining sector and the profits went into the hands of a few. In 1980 the former travel exporter Sierra Leone had to import 68,000 tons of rice. Resistance came now only in the form of demonstrating students. In 1984 student demonstrations resumed serious proportions when unemployed people and other losers in the system joined them.

In 1985, Siaka Stevens surprisingly announced his resignation as president of the country.

Momoh's Presidency and the Road to Civil War: 1985–1992

Stevens was succeeded by Major General Joseph Saidu Momoh . The ex-president kept enough strings in hand to be safe from investigations into his private enrichment during his reign. In 1986 Momoh was elected president and began a policy that was more independent from Stevens. The country's economic situation became increasingly threatening. In the late 1980s, food was scarce while privileged groups such as officials and officers received subsidized rice allotments. From March 1991 armed rebels brought parts of the country under their control and developed a terror regime there (see below).

But 1991 also brought a new constitution and a return to the multi-party system. Unrest and violence erupted in the run-up to elections scheduled for 1992.

Civil War in the 1990s

Main article: Sierra Leone Civil War

Out of dissatisfaction with the political situation as well as out of its own thirst for power, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under Foday Sankoh began an armed struggle against the government in 1991 . She was supported by Charles Taylor , warlord in the Liberian Civil War , who seized the diamond mines of Sierra Leone through the RUF and earned money from trading blood diamonds . Government armies like RUF committed human rights violations. During the civil war there were several changes of government: In 1992 Momoh was deposed by officers under Valentine Strasser , who used the mercenary company Executive Outcomes against the RUF, which at the time ruled about half of the country. Strasser was overthrown by Julius Maada Bio in 1995 . Bio held free elections in 1996 in which Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was elected President. But he was temporarily pushed out of the country by the RUF and insurgent officers. Only with the intervention of the UN mission UNAMSIL could the war be ended; its official end was announced in 2002. About 50,000 to 200,000 Sierra Leoneans were killed in the civil war.

Sierra Leone after the civil war

In the 2002 elections, Kabbah was confirmed in office, while the now-converted RUF did not gain a seat in parliament. Sierra Leone is currently in the process of coming to terms with the consequences of the civil war and promoting its economic and social development. The Special Court for Sierra Leone is supposed to hold those primarily responsible for the war crimes committed to account.
The September 2007 elections were won by Ernest Bai Koroma , candidate for the All People's Congress party .

literature

Basil Davidson: A History of West Africa 1000-1800. New edition. Longman 1978, ISBN 0-582-60340-4 .
René Frank : The first dollar coins in history - unusual colonial money in Sierra Leone (1791–1808) . Grin-Verlag, Munich, 2012, ISBN 3-656-24169-4
Joseph Ki-Zerbo : The History of Black Africa. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-596-26417-0 .
Walter Schicho: Handbook Africa. In three volumes. Volume 2: West Africa and the islands in the Atlantic. Brandes & Appel, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-86099-121-3 .
JB Webster, AA Boahen: Revolutionary Years: West Africa Since 1800 (Growth of African Civilization). Longman 1984, ISBN 0-582-60332-3 .
James W. St. G. Walker: The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783-1870. University of Toronto Press, 1992.

Web links

Commons : History of Sierra Leone - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Simon Schama, The Guardian , August 31, 2005, "Death on the Grain Coast" book excerpt, about the first attempt at settlement in 1787
Sierra Leone Web on Bai Bureh and the Mende-Temne War

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Walter Schicho: Handbook Africa: West Africa and the islands in the Atlantic . 1st edition. tape 2 . Brandes & Apsel Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 2001, ISBN 3-86099-121-3 , pp. 251-265 .
^ Peter Fryer: Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain . University of Alberta, 1983, ISBN 978-0-86104-749-9 , pp. 203 .
↑ GSGS: Sierra Leone map . In: Directorate of Colonial Surveys (Ed.): DCS 981 . 3. Edition. 6,000 / 3/54 SPC, RE London 1954.
^ Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Strike and Riots in Freetown, Sierra Leone, during February 1955 . 2nd edition (this exists in an edition of 400 copies), O / 5451 / 6.55. Government Printing Department, Freetown 1955, pp. 32 .

[:0-1] Walter Schicho: Handbook Africa: West Africa and the islands in the Atlantic . 1st edition. tape 2 . Brandes & Apsel Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 2001, ISBN 3-86099-121-3 , pp. 251-265 .

[2] Peter Fryer: Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain . University of Alberta, 1983, ISBN 978-0-86104-749-9 , pp. 203 .

[3] GSGS: Sierra Leone map . In: Directorate of Colonial Surveys (Ed.): DCS 981 . 3. Edition. 6,000 / 3/54 SPC, RE London 1954.

[4] Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Strike and Riots in Freetown, Sierra Leone, during February 1955 . 2nd edition (this exists in an edition of 400 copies), O / 5451 / 6.55. Government Printing Department, Freetown 1955, pp. 32 .