Home
HISTORY
Posted by Chester Morton / Wednesday 1 May 2019 / No comments
The peopling of Sierra Leone
THE PEOPLING OF SIERRA LEONE
Introduction
The term “peopling” refers to the mixture or intermingling of
various groups of people within the space of their culture and tribes in an exceedingly
explicit settlement. The “peopling” of Sierra Leone, therefore, merely refers to how the various people mixed, mingled, reticulated and interacted by methods such
as communication, migration, and intermarriages.
History of the creation of Sierra Leone
Information about those who settled in Sierra Leone in the 13th
and 14th century is hazy but archaeology has shed a little light on
the period and historians are able to deduce that the region may probably have
been populated around 2500 B.C. Fifteenth-century Portuguese records show that
a certain Pedro Da Sintra, a sailor, gave Sierra Leone its name judging from
the mountainous coastline. This was possible because Pedro Da Sintra was the
man who mapped the region in 1462.
There are 17 or 18 ethnic groups in Sierra Leone, depending
on which historian one interacts with. However, they all agree that there were
indigenous ethnic groups in existence before the advent of the colonialists.
Each of the ethnic groups is believed to have come from somewhere except the
Limba, who have maintained that they were the original settlers of the region.
Indeed, the Limba do not have any history of migration according to their oral
tradition.
Historical evidence shows that the Mane people, arriving from
the Liberian hinterlands in the middle of the 16th century, invaded
the coastal areas of Sierra Leone and may have subjugated almost the entire
indigenous ethnic groups. In the course of time, they mingled with the local
people. This is the present day Mende ethnic groups and constitutes the largest
in Sierra Leone.
The second largest ethnic group is the Temne whose historical
tradition traced their origin to Futa Jalon. This claim has been challenged by
some historians like Dr. Ijagbani, on the grounds that they may have claimed
links to Futa Jalon for prestigious reasons. Other traditions claimed that they
entered Sierra Leone in the 15th century through the North-East. By
the 18th century, they had organized themselves into an important
political group.
The Lumba ethnic group makes up the third largest group in
Sierra Leone. They do not have any oral tradition of migration to their present-day location. They maintain that they have been in Sierra Leone from the
beginning of time. They are believed to have first settled around the Wara-wara
hills in the north before later spreading northward and southward in the 16th
century. Today, they can be found in all the five districts in the north of
Sierra Leone.
Another ethnic group in Sierra Leone, albeit small, about 2%
of the entire population, is the Creole ethnic group. This is a collection of descendants
of freed African slaves, West Indian and liberated African slaves. They settled
in the area between 1787 and 1885. Their settlement was a result of a combination of reasons, including but not limited to abolition of the slave trade and the
establishment of a colony by the British, supported by slave abolitionists.
These are the various people who make up the nation of the Republic of Sierra Leone today. As a British colony, they fought and gained
independence in 1961.
<<Back to Home Page
Go to other topics in History>>
Go to the list of other subjects>>
Related Posts