Sierra Leone Creole people

Hundreds of thousands of people living in the West African nation of Sierra Leone in the twenty-first century are considered Creole, or Krio. Creoles are distinct for their cultural and linguistic mores but are also defined by their unique origins. Creoles were formerly enslaved Africans who had escaped or been liberated from the Americas, Europe, or even enslavers’ ships sailing on the Atlantic Ocean. They subsequently returned to Africa where they lived in the Freetown settlement in Sierra Leone.

The first settlers arrived in the late 1780s, and ever-increasing numbers continued to call Freetown their home through the 1860s, often through the physical or financial assistance of British abolitionists and, later, the British Royal Navy and government. Ultimately, British officials colonized Freetown along with the rest of Sierra Leone. They imposed European-style education and various homogenization techniques. These resulted in a loss of traditional diversity, but also contributed to a great boost in professional and economic success among Creoles of Sierra Leone.

Background

Sierra Leone is a small nation located along the western coastline of Africa, bordering Guinea and Liberia. It features Atlantic Ocean harbors ringed by hills, the source of the country’s name, which is derived from a Portuguese term meaning “Lion Mountains.” People have lived in the area now known as Sierra Leone for millennia. In the 1400s, European traders and explorers frequented its harbors. European familiarity with, and interest in, the area grew in the coming centuries.

Local rulers accepted European manufactured goods in exchange for ivory and enslaved Africans, many of whom would be sent across the Atlantic Ocean to America. In that way, Sierra Leone became a hub of the international trade in enslaved people. However, beginning in the 1780s, it reversed to become an important symbol and center of the abolitionist movement, or the movement to abolish slavery.

Overview

In 1787, a group of formerly enslaved people traveled from England to Sierra Leone, hoping to create their own settlement. This attempt floundered, but the idea gained traction. British abolitionists formed the Sierra Leone Company in the late 1700s, an organization that worked to bring formerly enslaved people from other parts of the world to Sierra Leone, where they could restart their lives. Although the Sierra Leone Company would go bankrupt by the first decade of the 1800s, it was an important milestone in the effort against slavery and the creation of modern Sierra Leone.

A group of escaped and/or liberated people from North America gathered in Nova Scotia following the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). Many of them had been liberated from American enslavers by British forces during the war and had joined the British army to fight against the Americans. When the Americans ultimately gained the upper hand and won the war, they pushed British armies as well as their liberated African allies into Nova Scotia.

From Nova Scotia, many of these Africans gained transportation to Sierra Leone to find a new home. Once there, they founded the settlement of Freetown, which remains the capital of Sierra Leone. Around the 1800s, freed enslaved Africans from Jamaica joined the settlement. They brought with them familiarity with the English language, literacy, and the Christian religion. These settlers, and those who would follow them, became known as the Creoles of Sierra Leone. (In modern times, Creole is often rendered as Krio.)

In 1807, Britain declared the trading of enslaved people illegal, and set out many policies to thwart the practice throughout Britain’s wide sphere of influence. The following year, British officials assumed control over Freetown. They converted the settlement’s harbors into a base from which British Royal Navy ships could police the nearby waters and confiscate ships carrying enslaved passengers.

They also kept the Freetown community open to new arrivals, including those enslaved people rescued from ships in the Atlantic. Over the course of fifty-seven years of this activity, British sailors and officials liberated about fifty thousand enslaved people, who were invited to live in the ever-growing Freetown community.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the settlement had grown markedly and could be seen as a major success in international abolitionism. As a community, Freetown was a melting pot of people: those who had been enslaved and shipped out of Africa, and many who had labored in several distant parts of the world before their liberation and resettlement in Freetown. The result was a blend of cultures, languages, and religions that British authorities felt was unmanageable to govern.

Officials thereby began an official program of converting the people of Freetown into Christians and promoting the widespread acceptance of English. In a short time, this program restructured the face of Freetown from a potentially chaotic melting pot into a much more homogenized unit. Many groups of people in Freetown prospered, particularly the Creoles, many of whom became well-educated merchants, traders, and businesspeople.

While raising the socioeconomic status of Sierra Leone, Creoles also moved to many other parts of Africa, and some moved to Europe, the Americas, and other parts of the world, thus returning to the places that their ancestors had forcefully been taken to many generations earlier. Many bring aspects of their Sierra Leonean culture with them. For example, they continue with their traditional dietary staples such as rice, okra, plantain, beans, and foofoo (or fufu), which is a dough or paste made of pounded cassava.

One of the defining features of the Creole is their unique language, Krio. Although English is the official language of Sierra Leone, Krio is the mother tongue and the most common form of language in Freetown and much of the country. Krio is strongly based on English, so much so that many outsiders believe it is merely an English dialect. However, it also incorporates many elements of West African languages.

Bibliography

Bangura, Joseph J. The Temne of Sierra Leone: African Agency in the Making of a British Colony. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Bennett, Melissa and Iyamide Thomas. “Meet the Krios of Sierra Leone.” Museum of London, Docklands, 26 Sept. 2019, www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/meet-krios-sierra-leone-docklands. Accessed 13 June 2023.

“Krio.” Indiana University Center for Language Technology, 2023, celt.indiana.edu/portal/Krio/index.html. Accessed 13 June 2023.

“Sierra Leone.” Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, 6 June 2023, www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/sierra-leone/. Accessed 13 June 2023.

“The Sierra Leone Creole People.” Creole Heritage Organization-California, cho-ca.org/the-krios-an-abridged-history. Accessed 13 June 2023.

“The Story of Sierra Leone’s Krio People - In Pictures.” BBC News, 5 Oct. 2019, www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-49726461. Accessed 13 June 2023.

Valpa, Ana. “Krio or Sierra Leonean Creole.” Medium.com, 26 Apr. 2020, agvalpa.medium.com/krio-or-sierra-leonean-creole-d703b1846de4. Accessed 13 June 2023.