Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a
country in West Africa, on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It
borders Guinea and Liberia.
The area is 72 thousand km². The
capital is the city of Freetown.
Etymology
The toponym
originated in the 15th century. The name of the coast was given in
1461 by the Portuguese navigator Peru di Sintra, who named the
mountain ledge "Serra da Lioa" (port. Serra da Leoa) - "the ridge of
the lioness." In a distorted form, "Sierra Leone" (Spanish Sierra
Leone) - "lion mountains", this name appeared on Spanish maps, while
there is no reason to associate it with lions that do not live in
this area. Some linguists have suggested that the toponym could have
appeared due to the lion-like roar of the surf or the wind in the
mountains. In 1961, the country declared independence under the
established name of Sierra Leone.
The history of Sierra Leone as a colonial possession dates back to
the 15th century; as an independent state since 1961.
Pre-colonial period
Archaeological finds show that the territory of
Sierra Leone has been inhabited by people for at least about 2,500
years. Around the 9th century, the inhabitants of this region began to
use iron, and about a thousand years ago, the tribes living near the
ocean coast switched to the development of agriculture. Dense
rainforests isolated these lands from other pre-colonial African
cultures and contributed to the spread of Islam. Today, about 78% of the
population are Muslims.
The first documentary sources on the
history of Sierra Leone date back to the 16th century. According to the
information contained in them, during the Middle Ages, various African
tribes that competed with each other lived on the territory of Sierra
Leone. In particular, the large peninsula, in the northwest of which
Freetown is today, was originally inhabited by the Sherbro and Crane
tribes. By the 15th century, feudal relations began to take shape among
the inhabitants of modern Sierra Leone, but the traditions of slavery
continued to be preserved. There is an assumption that the Bullom
people, who now make up the majority of the population of the state,
reached the shores of Sierra Leone by sea, but this hypothesis has not
yet been confirmed.
During the period of mass migrations of
African peoples across the mainland, most of the peninsula was gradually
occupied by representatives of the Temne people, as well as the small
tribe of Limba [en]. Prior to this, the Temne's place of residence was
the Futa-Jalon Plateau, from where they were forced out by the Susu and
Dyalonke. The most developed people were the Fulbe (Fula). The Fula
traded among themselves and with other tribes, mainly in finely crafted
iron, salt, clothing, and gold.
Portuguese colonization
Arrival of the Europeans
The territory of modern Sierra Leone was one
of the first in West Africa, mastered by Europeans. The first
inhabitants of Europe to set foot on this land were the Portuguese. When
they landed on the peninsula, there were no states either on it or on
the mainland adjacent to it, but only separate politically independent
tribal associations existed. Their representatives spoke similar, but
different languages, and did not have a common religion.
In 1462,
the Portuguese founded a number of small trading posts on the developed
lands, and also invented the name for the peninsula they discovered -
"Sierra Leone", which in Portuguese meant "Lion Mountains". As the
colonists moved deeper into the continent, this name spread to the
entire territory that the country occupies today. The steatite figurines
known as “nomoli” also belong to this period, which were made in the
16th century by order of Portuguese merchants and, presumably, were
entirely exchanged for European goods.
Sierra Leone's harbor,
being one of the most convenient in North West Africa, soon made it a
favorite destination for European sailors. In 1662, the British built
the first fort in Sierra Leone.
Slave trade
Prior to the
arrival of Europeans in Sierra Leone, the slave trade was virtually
non-existent. Guyanese historian Walter Rodney found records of the
first Portuguese travelers in Sierra Leone, which mentioned only one
type of slavery among the locals. According to Rodney, the Portuguese
tended to keep detailed and meticulous records, especially in relation
to trade, so it was extremely unlikely that they would remain silent or
ignore any important event related to the slave trade. The specific type
of slavery mentioned in the Portuguese records was as follows: a person
who, for one reason or another, is forced to flee from the power of his
ruler, can ask for protection from another ruler, while becoming his
"slave". However, such a person had the right to free labor and,
probably, could rise in status over time.
If the Africans
themselves had no interest in acquiring slaves, then with the Europeans
everything was completely different. Since the beginning of the 17th
century, Portuguese, English, Dutch and French ships have repeatedly
come to Sierra Leone. They exported natives and then sold them as slaves
in the West Indies, North and South America. Initially, they did this by
kidnapping, raiding West African lands, but over time they found that
the leaders of the local tribes were ready to cooperate with them.
Trading in slaves, tribal leaders often had not only material benefits,
but also got rid of the least desirable tribesmen. As a rule, slaves
were exchanged for rum, fabrics, beads, firearms and other products
brought by Europeans.
Thus, until the 18th century in West
Africa, including Sierra Leone, the slave trade had only an export
character. Tribal leaders began to conduct slave trade among themselves
somewhat later than with Europeans. In addition to them, foreigners also
traded in labor. It was not until the end of the century that the
African leaders managed to seize the initiative: many had entire states
of "domestic" slaves. According to the assumption of the American
anthropologist M. McCulloch, about 15% of the representatives of the
largest Mende tribal group in Sierra Leone, which at that time amounted
to about 560,000 people, were “domestic” slaves.
The English followed the Portuguese in the middle of the 16th
century.
Arrival of settlers
Depiction of the British fort on
Bunce Island (1727)
At the end of the 18th century, a slave ship
en route to America was shipwrecked off the British Isles. Several
hundred Africans ended up in Liverpool. According to the laws of Great
Britain, they could not be recognized as slaves on British soil, as a
result of which they were declared free. To spare these people from
starvation, several English philanthropists formed the "Committee for
the Liberation of the Unfortunate Blacks" to help both them and other
victims of the slave trade. They proposed to create in Africa the
Province of Freedom, where all the freed slaves could settle. The
founder of the committee, Sharp, gathered 351 Africans in Liverpool and,
with the help of his acquaintances, transported them to West Africa.
In May 1787, English ships moored on the shores of the Sierra Leone
peninsula. Here, in its northern part, Sharp acquired a piece of land
from the Temne leader Naim Bana, on which the former slaves settled. A
few years later, another large group of Africans (1131 people) from
Canada (“black loyalists”) were brought to the peninsula, who had
previously fought on the side of Great Britain in the war against the
United States and received freedom for this. Initially, they were given
land in Nova Scotia, but the Africans themselves preferred to move to
warm Africa. After the arrival of the second group of settlers in Sierra
Leone, the settlement of Freetown (eng. "city of the free"), the future
capital of Sierra Leone, was founded by the joint forces of the freed
slaves. The management of the settlement passed into the hands of the
English colonial Sierra Leone Company.
It is from these settlers
that the current population of Freetown, the Creole, originates. Due to
the fact that the vast majority of Africans did not remember their
tribal affiliation and native language, their language became Krio - a
modified version of the English language with a significant admixture of
African words. Today, Krio is the official language of Sierra Leone.
19th century in Sierra Leone
Creoles gradually gained a dominant
position in Sierra Leone. In 1796, the Creoles who inhabited Freetown
for the first time opposed the election of whites to the Freetown
council. In 1800, Creole riots forced the British to establish an
elected municipality and a Creole jury in Freetown.
In 1808,
Freetown and its environs officially came under the authority of the
British Crown. During the 19th century, the British gradually occupied
the entire territory of the modern state of Sierra Leone, overcoming the
resistance of the French. Thanks to the British, there was a leap in the
development of Sierra Leone. In particular, in 1827, the oldest
university in West Africa, Fourah Bay University, was established in
Freetown.
The population was replenished with slaves freed from
slave ships. From 1819 to 1866, an American-British commission worked in
Freetown, which considered cases of captured ships flying American and
British flags, which were suspected of being in the slave trade. The
commission considered 535 cases, freeing more than 55 thousand slaves.
During the 19th century, the local population repeatedly rebelled
against the British. So, in February 1898, Africans in the vicinity of
the city of Port Loko refused to pay taxes, the leader of the Loko tribe
named Bai-Bure gathered 3 thousand fighters and unleashed hostilities
against the British. As a result, by the end of the year, more than 2
thousand rebels were killed, 96 of their leaders were executed, however,
the British also suffered serious losses: 160 people were killed and
more than 260 were wounded.
In 1896, a British protectorate was
established over Sierra Leone. As a result, local tribal leaders became
officials of the British colonial administration. The final borders with
the colonial possessions of France - England's main rival in the
colonization of the African continent - were established in 1904, with
Liberia - in 1911.
world wars
British Expeditionary Forces in
Freetown (1919)
Since the beginning of the 20th century, the
development of the mining industry began in Sierra Leone, the intensive
construction of roads, including railways, and urban settlements were
created. In 1928, the British officially banned "domestic" slavery, but
in reality this ban meant almost nothing.
Both during the First
and during the Second World War, military operations were not conducted
on the territory of Sierra Leone. During the First World War, due to the
fact that Africa was colonized mainly by the powers of the Entente,
there was no threat of attack from the German colonies in relation to
Sierra Leone. The closest German colonial possession to Sierra Leone was
Togoland, but almost immediately after the declaration of war, it was
occupied by British troops. During World War II, the next military
conflict took place in 1940 in Senegal (Senegalese operation), when the
troops of Vichy France managed to repel the attack of the forces of the
Anti-Hitler coalition.
Declaration of Independence
In 1951, Milton Margai, the first
native medical doctor in the Protectorate, founded the Sierra Leone
People's Party (SLPP). She represented the interests of the Mende
people, conservative tribal leaders and prosperous merchants. The main
opposition force against the SLPP was the All People's Congress (AC) led
by Siaka Stevens, initially formed by dissidents from the SLPP,
dissatisfied with its pro-British orientation. The VC enjoyed support
among the population of the northern regions of Sierra Leone, primarily
the Temne and Limba peoples, as well as small traders and hired workers
from different parts of the protectorate.
While most of the
African colonies organized the struggle for independence, the
inhabitants of Sierra Leone were not going to separate from the mother
country, but in the end the colony nevertheless received sovereignty: in
1961, Sierra Leone became a dominion within the Commonwealth of Nations,
and later The SLPP, led by Milton Margai, won the first elections in
independent Sierra Leone. Margai died in a plane crash on April 28,
1964, and then his brother Albert Margai became prime minister and head
of the party.
Period of coups
According to the results of the
1967 elections, the All People's Congress won the majority of seats in
the House of Representatives (unicameral parliament). Siaka Stevens was
asked to form a government, but this did not happen: on March 21, 1967,
a military coup led by General Lansana took place in the country, and on
March 23 it was followed by another military coup. As a result, the
"National Council for Transformation" (NRC), headed by General E.
Jackson-Smith, came to power. Margai was arrested. On April 17, 1968, a
group of junior officers led by Patrick Conte overthrew the SNP and
restored civilian rule to the country. On April 26, Stevens formed a
15-member coalition government. It included 6 representatives of the All
People's Congress, 4 representatives of the NSPL and 5 independents.
In March 1969, by-elections to the parliament were held in Sierra
Leone. Their results allowed Siaka Stevens to form a one-party
government, which, however, failed to achieve political stabilization.
In 1970, a state of emergency was introduced in Sierra Leone, and on
March 23, 1971, when another military coup was attempted in the country,
led by Army Commander General Bangura, Stevens was forced to seek help
from the government of Guinea. Parts of the Guinean army were in Sierra
Leone for two years.
April 19, 1971 Sierra Leone was proclaimed a
republic, Stevens became president.
In 1973, SLPP candidates were
excluded from the general election, but in 1977, when mass
demonstrations forced the government to hold snap elections, the party
managed to win a number of seats in parliament. Then Siaka Stevens said
that in the event that a one-party system is not introduced in Sierra
Leone, the country will fall apart due to tribal strife. In 1978, a new
constitution was adopted in the state, which provided for the
establishment of one-party rule by the All People's Congress. This
constitution was approved by the majority of parliamentarians and the
population of the country in an urgent national referendum. Stevens was
elected president for a seven-year term.
Elections held in 1982
and 1985 on a one-party basis were accompanied by abuses, political
assassinations and the non-election of many former deputies to the new
parliament. At the end of 1985, President Stevens retired at the age of
82 and handed over the presidency to 41-year-old Major General Joseph
Said Momo. In the same year, his appointment was approved by Parliament.
In 1986, under a one-party system, general parliamentary elections were
held.
Widespread unrest and acts of civil disobedience that swept
the country in 1990 forced the government to hold a popular referendum
in 1991, which called for a return to a multi-party system. A new
constitution was soon drafted, but Sierra Leone was never destined to
return to a constitutional and democratic form of government.
In the early 1990s, a group of Libyan-trained radicals, with the
support of Liberian rebel leader Charles Taylor, created the
Revolutionary United Front (RUF), which waged war against successive
governments in the country for the next decade. The civil war, which in
essence was a combination of RUF actions and government responses, was
characterized by extreme cruelty and mass atrocities against the
civilian population. The practice of amputating limbs against persons
whom the RUF considered their enemies became widespread.
As a
result of a military coup in 1992, the country was headed by the
National Interim Ruling Council (since July 1992 - the Supreme State
Council). 27-year-old Captain Valentine Melvin Strasser, who became the
youngest head of state in the world at that time, was appointed its
head. On January 17, 1996, Strasser's regime was in turn overthrown by
another group of young officers, led by Brigadier General Julius Maada
Bio.
Despite the ongoing civil war, in 1996 the country held
multi-party parliamentary elections. In the first round, the Sierra
Leone People's Party, led by Ahmed Tijan Kabbah, won the support of 36%
of voters. In second place was the United National People's Party of
John Caref-Smart (23% of the vote). Eleven other political organizations
also participated in the first free multi-party elections since 1967.
In 1997, against the background of ongoing fighting with the rebels
in the countryside, a military coup was carried out in Sierra Leone, as
a result of which a junta led by Major Johnny Paul Koroma came to power.
Nevertheless, the military forces of the peacekeeping contingent of the
countries of the region, led by the Nigerian, stood up for the deposed
President Kabbah. In 1999 and 2000, rebels from the United Revolutionary
Front tried to storm Freetown, but in both cases, peacekeepers,
supported by Kabbah loyalists, managed to repel attacks on the capital.
Modernity
In 1999, with the active mediation of the UN and the
countries of the region, a peace treaty was concluded between the rebels
and the legitimate government. President Kabbah was reinstated,
representatives of the RUF entered the government, and its leader Fodey
Sankoh became vice president of the country. However, many rebels
continued to fight, after which the UK and Guinea sent troops to Sierra
Leone. The remnants of the RUF suffered a series of defeats and soon
ceased hostilities.
In 2002, Kabbah again won the presidential
election, but in 2007 the election was won by the representative of the
All People's Congress, Ernest Bai Koroma, who was re-elected for a
second term in November 2012. In 2018, according to the results of the
next presidential election, the leader of the opposition Sierra Leone
People's Party, Julius Maada Bio, became the president of the country.
The river network of Sierra Leone is highly developed. The main
rivers are the Big Scarsies (Kolente), Little Scarsies (Kaba), Roquel,
Jong, Mabole, Seva, Moa and Makona. There are many convenient bays on
the coast, in particular, the port of Freetown.
Minerals -
diamonds, bauxite, iron, gold and rutile (mineral, titanium dioxide).
The climate is subequatorial, hot and humid, with a dry winter
season (November-April) and a humid summer season (May-October). On the
coast, in Freetown, the average temperature of the warmest month is + 29
° C, the coldest - + 24 ° C, the average annual rainfall is 2740 mm, and
inland, in Bo, respectively + 31 ° C, + 21 ° C and 2770 mm of
precipitation.
A strip of mangroves stretches along the coast.
The main type of vegetation is tall-grass savanna with thickets of
shrubs and isolated baobab trees. Moist equatorial forests, preserved
only on the eastern slopes of mountains and hills and in the south,
occupy less than 5% of the country's area.
In the coastal zone,
coconut trees are grown, and in the savannas, oil palms. Ceiba, or
cotton tree, teak, pink and ebony, cola grow in the forests.
The
animal world consists of many species of birds, mammals include
elephant, buffalo, leopard, antelope, zebra, hyena, wild boar, various
monkeys, hippos, reptiles - crocodiles, snakes, lizards. Scorpions are
found everywhere, a lot of insect species - from the malarial mosquito
to large beautiful butterflies and swamp dragonflies. Barracudas and
sharks are found in estuaries and coastal waters.
Political
structure
When Sierra Leone gained independence on April 27, 1961,
legislative and executive power in the country was in the hands of the
Parliament and the Cabinet of Ministers, and the British monarch,
represented by the Governor General, was considered the nominal head of
state. Following constitutional amendments in 1971, Sierra Leone was
proclaimed a republic with executive power vested in the president.
In 2000, Tony Blair sent 1,500 British troops to Sierra Leone, who
took over the defense of the country's capital, Freetown, from the rebel
army of the Revolutionary United Front. On May 30, 2007, Tony Blair was
solemnly proclaimed Paramount Chief of Sierra Leone. The new title
formally gives Tony Blair the right to sit in the Parliament of Sierra
Leone. Thus, according to The Daily Telegraph, the country's authorities
noted his role in ending the civil war.
According to the
Economist Intelligence Unit, the country was classified as a hybrid
regime in 2018 on the Democracy Index.