Which country colonised sierra leone

In fact, Bunce Island became a prime spot for the transporting of slaves to Europe and America. Through the efforts of some British philanthropists, slavery was abolished in England. A naval base was established in Freetown to intercept slave ships and also to serve as settlement for freed slaves in Few years later in , the colony officially became a British Crown Colony.

Trade commenced between the indigenes and the settlers. This paved the gateway for the British to infiltrate the protectorate- the need to extend their rule became necessary. In , a protectorate was declared.

The country then became a single entity with a shared history, culture and language called krio which evoked out of the fatua and mixed languages of various other settlers and traders. English became the official language. There is danger of encirclement by the French, busily extending their colony of Guinea to the east of Sierra Leone. During the s frontiers are agreed with French Guinea and with independent Liberia to the south. In Britain declares a protectorate over the entire region within these frontiers.

The imposition of a protectorate enrages many of the inland chiefs, unconsulted on the matter, and leads to an uprising in In the long term the chiefs retain much of their local authority under the overall British administration, and some of their number are appointed to the legislative council in Freetown.

Similarly a few descendants of the original freed slaves, known locally as Creoles, are elected to the council. After World War II this token political involvement is widely seen as inadequate. Internal self-government based on universal suffrage is introduced in In Sierra Leone becomes an independent state within the Commonwealth.

An initial few years as a functioning democracy end with the election in of an opposition party led by Siaka Stevens. From this point Sierra Leone declines into a long era of repressive rule, military coups and - by the end of the century - terrifying and violent anarchy. Siaka Stevens remains in control for eighteen years by dismantling the country's checks on the abuses of power. From Sierra Leone is a republic with himself as executive president. From it is a one-party state, increasingly crippled by high-level corruption the nation has considerable wealth of a kind easy to misappropriate, in the form of diamonds.

In Stevens retires and nominates the head of the army, Joseph Momoh, as his successor. Corruption and economic decay continue, until a coup topples Momoh in The result is a military council led by a year-old captain, Valentine Strasser.

Strasser, while trying to cope with the steady advance of the guerrillas, claims to be about to return the country to civilian rule. But before doing so he is himself toppled in another military coup, in January The new military junta honours the existing plan for imminent elections.

They are held in February and a civilian, Ahmad Kabbah, becomes president. The very earliest inhabitants of Sierra Leone were possibly the Bulom people. The 15th Century saw the Mende, Temne and Fulani peoples follow them. The Mende people, including also a small group in Liberia; speak a language of the Mande branch of the Niger-Congo family.

The Mende grow rice as their staple crop, as well as yams and cassava. Cash crops include cocoa, ginger, peanuts groundnuts , and palm oil and kernels The first peoples from Europe to explore here were the Portuguese. They gave Sierra Leone its present name, meaning "lion mountains". The coastal port of Freetown was ceded to English settlers in as a home for runaway slaves and Blacks discharged from the British Army.

In the coastal zone was colonized by the British, and in the British proclaimed a protectorate inland. Others suggest he thought the thunderstorms over the mountainous peninsula sounded like the roar of a lion. The British officially adopted the name Sierra Leone in Archaeology findings show that Sierra Leone has been inhabited for thousands of years.

Traditional historiography has customarily presented it as a people by successive waves of invaders; but the language pattern suggests that the coastal Bulom Sherbro , Temne, and Limba have been in continuous settled occupation for a long time, with sporadic immigration from inland Mende-speaking people including Vai, Loko and Mende. By , freed slaves from Nova Scotia joined the original settlers, the Maroons.