Download A brief time line of the early history of Sierra Leone - UNIMAK

Sierra Leone – Pre History
Fragments of prehistoric pottery from Kamabai, now Bombali District, Rock
Shelter and a Nomoli carving, often used in fertility rites
It is now widely agreed that people have been living in what we now know as Sierra
Leone since at least 2500 BC. Pieces of pottery and tools have been found in both the
Kono and Koranko regions of modern Sierra Leone that have been dated to this period of
pre-history.
The people who made these items are thought to have joined together in small
communities. By the arrival of the Portuguese communities of Baga, Bullom, Krim and
Vai were living in the south, whilst in the north communities of Temne, Limba and Loko
are known to have lived and farmed. Further east both the Kissi and the Kono people had
self- contained communities.
Those living in what we now call Sierra Leone were subject to a number of invasions,
such as that by the Manes. With the arrival of western and other external influences the
ethnic groups began to move closer together.
There are now at least 17 different ethnic groups living in Sierra Leone. They are divided
into three different linguistic groups – Mande, Mel and others
The Mane Invasion
Walter Rodney wrote that
‘the Mane invaders of Sierra Leone comprised two principal elements —a ruling élite
originating in the southern section of the Mande world of the Western Sudan, and
numerical forces drawn from the area around Cape Mount. The first stage of movement
took place in the first half of the sixteenth century, carrying Mande clans to the Liberian
coast from the region around Beyla and perhaps even from the hinterland of modem
Ghana. There then followed a number of incursions into Sierra Leone during the third
quarter of the sixteenth century.
A new ruling class was established in Sierra Leone and adjacent regions, bringing
increased exploitation and causing the destruction of the indigenous ivory-carving skills.
On the other hand, the Manes brought improved military techniques and advances in the
manufacture of iron and cloth. They also profoundly influenced religious and social
patterns, particularly with respect to the secret societies of the area.
In the early 18th century Fulani and Mande-speaking persons from the Fouta Djallon
region of present-day Guinea converted numerous Temne of N Sierra Leone to Islam.
Portuguese sailors, Alvaro Fernandez (1447) and Pedro Da Cintra (1462), were among
the first European explorers to detail their adventures along the coast of Sierra Leone.
Slave Port – West Africa - 1750
Located near present day Freetown, the Rokel estuary was established as an important
source of fresh water for sea traders and explorers. Over the next 30 years, sea traders
opened a trading post for trading goods such as swords, kitchen and other household
utensils in exchange for beeswax and fine ivory works. By the mid 1550’s, slaves
replaced these items as the major commodity.
Though the Portuguese were among the first in the region and their language formed the
basis for trade, their influence had diminished by the 1650’s. English, French, Dutch and
Danish interests in West Africa had grown. Trade was established through coastal
African rulers who prohibited European traders from entering the interior. Rent and gifts
were paid for gold, slaves, beeswax, ivory and cam wood.
British traders of the Royal African company established Forts along the coast for trading
in 1672 but the British did not have monopoly on the area. Rival European nations
attacked the Forts. Admiral de Ruyter is noted to having sacked Tasso Island in 1664 as a
reaction to the maltreatment of Dutch traders. In 1728, Afro-Portuguese traders captured
the New Royal African Company’s fort at Bunce Island.
A brief time line of the early history of Sierra Leone
1460 - Pedro da Cintra, a Portuguese explorer, first called the region Sierra Leone
(meaning Lion Mountains) when he visited its coast.
1462 - Portuguese explorer Pedro da Cintra mapped the hills surrounding what is now
Freetown Harbour, naming the oddly shaped formation Serra Lyoa (Lion Mountains)
1462 - Cidade Velha (Old City) was founded as Cape Verde's original capital.
1463 - Sierra Leone was known to the Portuguese as early as AD 1463, and shortly
afterwards became a centre of the Negro slave trade
1482 - Portuguese colonists found bananas growing in Africa, in the present- day
countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Gambia. The Portuguese took suckers from
mature plants and brought them to their colonies in the Canary Islands.
Jul 8, 1497 - A fleet set sail from the Tagus River and they headed for the Cape Verde
Islands then continued south to Sierra Leone.
Sep 7, 1502 - At Sierra Leone one of the caravels, no longer seaworthy, was abandoned
and burned; after a fortnight's rest ashore, the party went on in the other two ships to the
Azores, and thence after some further delay to Lisbon.
1505 - Early in the sixteenth century, in the year 1505, an army of Temnes came
southwards, led by Farama Tami, who defeated the Lokkos and Limbas, and after driving
out the Capez, occupied the south bank of the River Sierra Leone.
1513 - The next group of people to influence the culture of Puerto Rico were the African
slaves brought from countries such as Sudan, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast
in 1513. These slaves were brought to the country to work the plantations.
Aug 10, 1519 - The little fleet, composed of the La Trinidad, commanded by Magellan
himself, the San Antonio, Victoria, Santiago, and Concepcion, left San Lucas, the port of
Seville, on August 10, 1519, and mapping a course along the African coast and past the
Canary Islands
1520 - Sometime in the year 1520 a Spanish explorer, Vasquez de Allyon found a cluster
of islands off the coast of South Carolina. The very fertile ground, aesthetics,
temperature, humidity, and diseases of those islands resembled that of Western Africa.
Oct 1562 - John Hawkins and Thomas Hampton, in October, 1562, fitted out three
vessels, the largest a hundred and twenty tons, and sailed with a hundred men for Sierra
Leone.
Sep 1563 - And so, with prosperous success, and much gain to himself and the aforesaid
adventurers, he came home, and arrived in the month of September, 1563." Next year
with 170 men in four ships Hawkins again captured as many Sierra Leone natives as he
could carry.
Jan 1568 - Hawkins' account does not say how many slaves he hoped to load, but he was
very disappointed when, after hunting along the coast as far as Sierra Leone, he had taken
only a hundred and fifty by January 1568.
1582 - From the early sixteenth century, Islanders carried out extensive trade with the
mainland, from the Petite Cote to Sierra Leone. In 1582, Andrade wrote that along the
entire coast from Sierra Leone to S. Domingos, "There are many Portuguese who carry
out trade, some are involved in slavery.’’
1619 - The first ship carrying Africans arrived to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. Estimates
are that 20 Africans who were snatched from the Western part of Africa, the area where
Gambia, Ghana, Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast are, were aboard that fateful ship.
1635 - Two Spanish ships carried West African peoples captured from the Yoruba, Ibo,
and Ashanti tribes of what are now Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. Both vessels were
shipwrecked near St. Vincent, an island north of Venezuela in the Lesser Antilles.
.
1664 - There was a conflict between the Dutch and British in 1664. Then the Dutch
decided to destroy all slave forts/Castles built by the British in the West Coast of Africa.
The Captain in charge was De Ruyther.
1666 - In 1666 the Sieur Villault de Bellefons tells us that the river from Cabo Ledo, or
Cape Sierra Leone, had several bays, of which the fourth, now St. George's, was called
‘Baie de France’.
1672 - The Portuguese in the late seventeenth century still traded extensively in Cacheo
and the Great Scarcies River; this left the English little option but to settle in the Gambia
and Sierra Leone. The Royal African Company, founded in 1672, was soon established.
1678 - The first from Jean Barbot, describes various peoples along the coast of present day Sierra Leone in 1678. Barbot states that during every new moon, the Temne abstain
from all work and do not let strangers stay with them. Otherwise their maize would grow.
Some suggested further reading
http://www.jstor.org/pss/217053 - the influence of Islam in Sierra Leone
http://lucy.kent.ac.uk/csacpub/waldie/ch2a.html#p24 - the arrival of the Fula people in
Sierra Leone