Sierra Leone

“ Sierra Leone, as a mission field, is free from some of the most serious difficulties which retard the progress of the Gospel among the Natives and in South Africa. Its chief advantages consist in its freedom from war; in the absence of white Colonists; and in the accumulating progress of civilization. Its inhabitants possess such a unity of races, such a social equality, as to prevent hostile collisions on account of color. ”

“ In studying the social conditions prevalent amongst the Sierra Leonese proper, it should be remembered that they are sprung, not only from representatives of almost every tribe along the seaboard, and even in the far interior, but also to a large extent from the freedmen and runaways of Nova Scotia and London, besides many maroons of Jamaica, who were settled here under the auspices of the Sierra Leone Company towards the close of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. ”

“ CHARLES. "Between Liberia and Sierra Leone are Sherboro' Bay and Yawry Bay. Sierra Leone, or 'Mountains of the Lioness,' is so unhealthy that we should not live long if we went there."
MRS. WILTON. "You are right, Charles. It was established as a colony in 1787, for the express purpose of laboring to civilize the Africans. All the cargoes of the recaptured slavers are taken there, and every comfort and convenience afforded to the unfortunate negroes. But it is so extremely unhealthy that Europeans can scarcely carry out their plans, and death mows them down in the midst of their usefulness." ”

“ It is this fact, which causes such mournful waste of life in the new settlements in the United States and in south western Canada, and the settlers therefore cannot be too diligent, in removing all decaying vegetation, and all stagnant moisture as far as possible from their vicinities, before the heats of autumn.
But Sierra Leone is in fact a glorious spot—glorious in beauty, moderately fertile—with one of the finest harbors in the world; replete with the grandeur and beauty of the tropics; and ready to become salubrious, as soon as the causes of death can be removed. ”

“ The passengers were all at the tail end of their spirits, for Sierra Leone is the definite beginning of the Coast to the out-goer. You are down there when you leave it outward bound; it is indeed, the complement of Canary. Those going up out of West Africa begin to get excited at Sierra Leone; those going down into West Africa, particularly when it is the wet season, begin to get depressed. ”

“ Sierra Leone (75) , a British maritime colony since 1787, on the W. coast of Africa, having a foreshore of 180 m. between Rivières du Sud (N.) and Liberia (S.) ; includes the peninsula of Sierra Leone proper with its densely-wooded Sugar-Loaf Mountain, and a number of coast islands, and stretches back to a highland eastern frontier ill defined; the climate is hot, humid, and unhealthy; has been called "The White Man's Grave"; is fertile, but not well exploited by the indolent negro population, half of whom are descendants from freed slaves ”

“ Commercially the importance of Sierra Leone is small as compared with its easterly neighbours, the Gold Coast Colony with its hinterland Dependencies of Ashanti and the Northern Territories, and the huge new Colony of Nigeria made up of three older Colonies, but of all our West African Colonies Sierra Leone is probably the best known to the British public, and with the fine harbour and important coaling station at Freetown, its capital, Sierra Leone is a valuable link in the great chain of Imperial communication. ”

“ The slave factor soon after left the coast, and the neighboring chiefs holding a council, and finding that two of the settlers of Sierra Leone had aided their enemies, determined upon destroying the settlement. They proceeded legally and deliberately, just as more enlightened people do. A formal notice was solemnly sent of their dreadful purpose to Sierra Leone, and three days were allowed the inhabitants for removal. The settlers had no alternative. ”

“ Servants in shoals presented themselves, begging 'mas'er' to take them down coast. In vain. The Sierra Leone man is handier than his southern brother; he can mend a wheel, make a coffin, or cut your hair, operations which in other places must remain wanted. ”

“ Sierra Leone as it exists to-day is, owing to segregation and up-to-date sanitation, comparatively healthy for Europeans. The progress of the Colony has been phenomenal during the last fifteen years, and the credit is chiefly due to two energetic and far-seeing Governors in the persons of Sir Frederick Cardew and Sir Leslie Probyn, who foresaw the great benefit that would accrue by opening up the Protectorate, and this has been done by building lines of railway into the rich palm-kernel belts and encouraging the natives to gather the natural products of the country for export. ”

“ CHAPTER II Bush scenery — A night at Bo — The Frontier Force at Daru — Mendi and Kissy carriers — Cotton-growing — Secret societies — Poro and Bundu societies — Marriage customs — The Liberian frontier.
THE country of Sierra Leone consists of two parts: the colony and the protectorate. The colony is mountainous, and runs out in a peninsula from the protectorate or hinterland. Roughly speaking, the colony is the civilized part, and the protectorate is in West African parlance the “Bush.” ”

“ Hence when the leading chiefs have a spite at a man and wish to rid themselves of him, they elect him king. Formerly, before a man was proclaimed king of Sierra Leone, it used to be the custom to load him with chains and thrash him. Then the fetters were knocked off, the kingly robe was placed on him, and he received in his hands the symbol of royal dignity, which was nothing but the axe of the executioner. It is not therefore surprising to read that in Sierra Leone, where such customs have prevailed, “except among the Mandingoes and Suzees, few kings are natives of the countries they govern. ”

“ Schools, places of worship, agriculture, and the habits of civilized life were established. Sierra Leone, therefore, now presents itself as the medium of civilization for Africa. And, in this latter point of view, it is worth all the treasure which has been lost in supporting it; for the Slave Trade, which was the great obstacle to this civilization, being now happily abolished, there is a metropolis, consisting of some hundreds of persons, from which may issue the seeds of reformation to this injured continent ”

“ The origin of the connection between our colony at Sierra Leone, and the natives of the Boollam territory is very interesting, and will form an appropriate introduction to a sketch of Lieutenant Maclean's visit during the election of a King.
In the year 1804, the colony of Sierra Leone was attacked by the Native Powers, and a body of blacks to the northward of the Boollam territories was put in motion for the purpose of assisting the other native tribes in overwhelming the white population at Freetown. ”

“ Sierra Leone contains many sable families—Lumpkins, Lewis, Pratt, Ezidio, Nicols, Macarthy, are a few of their patronymics,—against whom it is useless for a stranger to contend and come off scot and lot free. ”

“ One sees more different kinds of black people in Sierra Leone than in any other port [24] along the Coast; Senegalese and Senegambians, Kroo boys, Liberians, naked bush boys bearing great burdens from the forests, domestic slaves in fez and colored linen livery, carrying hammocks swung from under a canopy, the local electric hansom, soldiers of the W.A.F.F., the West African Frontier Force, in Zouave uniform of scarlet and khaki, with bare legs; Arabs from as far in the interior as Timbuctu, yellow in face and in long silken robes ”

“ Of these, altogether not less than sixty thousand have, at different times, been introduced; yet, with the original colonists—the Novascotians, Canadians and the Maroons from Jamaica—the whole do not now extend [Pg 76] beyond forty-five thousand; still, Sierra Leone has long been a focus of good emanations. It embraces a territory small compared with Liberia. The government is repressive of native energy, on account of the constant superintendence of white men, and the subordination of the colony to a distant and negligent government. ”

“ The number of slaves sent out is said to have been four hundred males and sixty women. As a settlement, Sierra Leone has met with indifferent success, and it has been attacked more than once by the French and the neighbouring Ashantees. ”

“ Thus, in 45 years after the founding of Sierra Leone, and 24 after the abolition of the slave-trade, was the basis of this mission broadly and securely laid. Since that period it has been extended eastward to Badagry, Abbeokuta, and Lagos. In connection with all these missions, but chiefly in Sierra Leone, the Episcopal Church, in 1850, had 54 seminaries and schools, 6,600 pupils, 2,183 communicants, and 7,500 attendants on public worship. Of the teachers in the schools at Sierra Leone, it is worthy of remark, that only five were Europeans, while fifty-six were native Africans. ”

“ He is the horror of Europeans; the merchants of the Gaboon river prefer forfeiting the benefits of the African Steam Ship Company to seeing themselves invaded by this locust tribe, whose most beautiful view is apparently that which leads out of Sierra Leone. At Lagos and Abeokuta, Sierra Leone has returned to his natural paganism, and has become an inveterate slave-dealer, impudently placing himself under native protection, and renegading the flag that saved him from life-long servitude. ”

“ In the Royal African corps now serving at Sierra Leone there are three companies of black men, enlisted from the slaves obtained from the numerous slave trading vessels which have at different times been condemned as prize upon that coast. Among these there are several natives of Tombuctoo, Haoussa, Bornou and other countries even more distant; some of them having been brought from parts of Africa so remote as to have been two, three and four moons upon their journey to the coast. ”

“ The beneficent views of the Sierra Leone Company have been unaccountably perverted, and have been the distorted instruments in prolonging, rather than extirpating, the barbarism of the African: it is therefore a subject of great regret to the benevolent supporters of this establishment, that an unprofitable expenditure of their property is the only existing perpetuity of their humane interference. ”

“ Seeing, then, that, as before noticed, one thousand and seventy slave-vessels were captured, and of the slaves who were not dead, a great proportion were landed at Sierra Leone, and that the whole population of that colony, although established for nearly sixty years, does not amount to more than forty-five thousand souls, young and old, it may be conceived what a fearful waste of life has arisen even from deliverance. ”

“ I recommend one administration under the patronage of Government, in the Sierra Leone river, to guard against a want of unity in the number of petty establishments that may otherwise exist on the coast, which from jealousies and interests varying in different directions, produce operations of a contradictory nature, and the first necessary step, is to be well acquainted with the character and dispositions, of the natives, and the localities of the maritime situations; for without combined enterprises, I venture to predict we are now excluded from the commerce of Africa. ”

“ Besides this, I have had a prejudice that that field God had given to the freed and cultivated men of Sierra Leone—that they were better fitted to the evangelization of the Niger than we; that we, with our peculiarities, bred amid American institutions, might prove a disturbing element to the great work, for which, by blood, training, lingual capacity, and the sympathy of character and habits they were peculiarly fitted; and that our governmental proclivities might jar with what seems a manifest providence ”

“ Granville Sharp sent off a vessel laden with provisions, different materials, and about thirty-nine artificers, to establish a colony at Sierra Leone. This colony, whose principal settlement was afterwards at Free-town, had for its basis principles entirely philanthropic. The colonists were to employ themselves in the cultivation of the lands and the civilization of the Africans, while the slave trade was to be totally renounced amongst them. ”

“ The founders of Sierra Leone, contemplated removing those only who were really in distress in England from providential circumstances, or who, being Africans, were anxious to return to their native country: holding those who chose to remain, as honored and as welcome in England as any of the rest of its inhabitants. ”

“ The liberty secured to the citizens of Liberia, extends to all 50their relations, personal, social, political. The people of Sierra Leone, enjoy but two of these elements of progress. They have personal freedom and a fair degree of social equality, but are deprived of the third—political equality—which, above all, exerts the most potent influence to stimulate the intellectual faculties of men. The young convert in the seminary at Sierra Leone, doubtless, finds great encouragement to mental improvement, in the prospect of becoming a teacher, or in entering the ministry ”

“ The rest of the population of this colony consists almost [Pg 88] entirely of negroes who have been recaptured from slave ships, and brought to Sierra Leone in the lowest state of misery, debility and degradation: naked, diseased, destitute, wholly ignorant of the English language, in this wretched, helpless condition, they have been suddenly made free, and put into possession at once of the rights and privileges of British subjects. All these instances of sudden emancipation have taken place in a colony where the disproportion between black and white is more than a hundred to one. ”