Sierra Leone has a long and complex history of slavery. The first recorded instance of slavery in Sierra Leone was in the 16th century when Portuguese traders began to capture and enslave people from the region. This practice continued until the early 19th century when the British abolished slavery in Sierra Leone. However, the practice of slavery continued in the form of forced labor, with people being forced to work on plantations and in other industries. In the late 19th century, the British also began to recruit people from Sierra Leone to work in the mines of the Gold Coast (now Ghana). This practice continued until the early 20th century when the British abolished slavery in Sierra Leone once again.
In the early 20th century, Sierra Leone experienced a period of political instability and civil war. This led to the displacement of many people and the disruption of traditional economic activities. As a result, many people turned to illegal activities such as diamond smuggling and human trafficking. This has had a devastating effect on the country, leading to poverty, inequality, and human rights abuses. In recent years, the government of Sierra Leone has taken steps to address these issues, including the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the adoption of a new constitution.
Sierra Leone is located on the west coast of Africa, north of the equator. With a land area of 27,699 sq. mi (71,740 sq km), Sierra Leone is bordered by Guinea to the north and northeast, Liberia to the south and southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west.
There are a wide variety of ecological and agricultural zones to which people have adapted. Starting in the west, Sierra Leone has some 250 miles (400 km) of coastline, giving it both bountiful marine resources and attractive tourist potential. This is followed by low-lying dense mangrove swamps, rainforested plains, and farmland, and finally a mountainous plateau in the east, where Mount Bintumani rises to 6,390 feet (1,948 m).
During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) enslaved Africans were promised freedom if they sided with the British and many did. A group of freed slaves arrived in Sierra Leone in 1787 to form a settlement. They bought land from local Temne leaders and established the Province of Freedom near present-day Freetown. Many of the settlers died of disease in the first year. A renewed attempt at settlement was made in 1792 when about 1,100 freed slaves landed on the Sierra Leone peninsula and founded Freetown. They were joined by about 500 free blacks from Jamaica in 1800. These settlers were English-speaking, and many were literate and Christian. The new colony was controlled by the Sierra Leone Company, which forcefully held off the Temne while the settlers supported themselves by farming.
Muslim traders brought Islam, which became firmly established in the Northern Province and subsequently spread throughout the country.
In 1807, Britain outlawed the trade of enslaved Africans, and in early 1808 the British government took over Freetown from the financially troubled company, using it as a naval base for fighting the traffic of slaves. The British government, which had profited most from the transatlantic trade in captured Africans, now undertook a key role in the suppression of the trade.
Between 1808 and 1864, approximately 50,000 liberated Africans settled at Freetown. Protestant missionaries were active there, and in 1827 they founded Fourah Bay College, where Sierra Leoneans were educated and became active as missionaries, traders, and civil servants along the Sierra Leone coast and on Sherbro Island, as well as in other regions in West Africa, especially among the Yoruba people.
Colonial era
During the periods of 1821 to 1827, 1843 to 1850, and 1866 to 1874, British holdings on the Gold Coast (now Ghana) were placed under the governor of Sierra Leone. In 1863, an advisory legislative council was established in Sierra Leone. The British were reluctant to assume added responsibility by increasing the size of the colony, but in 1896, the interior was proclaimed a British protectorate, mainly in order to forestall French ambitions in the region, and the Colony and Protectorate of Sierra Leone were established.
The protectorate was ruled “indirectly” (through the rulers of the numerous small states, rather than by creating an entirely new administrative structure) and a hut tax was imposed in 1898 to pay for administrative costs. The Africans protested the tax in 1898 and fought the British. The uprisings, led in the north by Bai Bureh and in the south by Kai Londo, started in 1896 and lasted over two years. Bai Bureh was finally captured on November 11, 1898, and sent into exile in the Gold Coast, while his comrades were hanged by the British.
Under the British, little economic development was undertaken in the protectorate until the 1950s, although a railroad was built and the production for export of palm products and peanuts was encouraged.
After World War II, Africans were given more political responsibility, and educational opportunities were enlarged. In the economic sphere, mining (especially of diamonds and iron ore) increased greatly. The Creoles of the colony, who had been largely excluded from higher government posts in favor of the British, sought a larger voice in the affairs of Sierra Leone. A constitution adopted in 1951 gave additional power to Africans. However, the Creoles were a small minority in the combined colony and protectorate, and in the elections of 1951 the protectorate-based Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), led by Sir Milton Augustus Margai (a Mende), emerged victorious.
Independence
On April 27, 1961, Sir Milton Margai led Sierra Leone to independence from the United Kingdom and became the first prime minister. He died three years later and was succeeded by his brother, Sir Albert Margai, who was accused of favoring the Mende tribe. After an election in 1967, Siaka Stevens, candidate of the All People's Congress (APC) and mayor of Freetown, was declared the new prime minister. Coups and counter-coups ensued until Siaka Stevens was reinstated as prime minister. The following years were marked by considerable unrest, caused by ethnic and army disaffection with the central government.
On April 19, 1971, Parliament declared Sierra Leone to be a republic. Siaka Stevens, then prime minister, became the nation's first president. Guinean troops requested by Stevens to support his government were in the country from 1971 to 1973. Parliamentary elections were held in 1973; Stevens' APC party won 74 seats and the opposition SLPP party won 15 seats in parliament. An alleged plot to overthrow Stevens failed in July 1974. The leaders of the unsuccessful coup were tried and executed, and in March 1976, he was elected without opposition for a second five-year term as president. In 1978, a new constitution was adopted, creating a one-party state; the 1978 constitution made the APC the only legal political party in Sierra Leone.
Siaka Stevens, who had been president of Sierra Leone for 18 years, retired from that position in November 1985, although he continued his role as chairman of the ruling APC party. In August 1985, the APC named the commander of the military forces, Maj. Gen. Joseph Saidu Momoh, Stevens' own choice, as the party candidate to succeed him. Momoh was elected president in a one-party referendum on October 1, 1985. A formal inauguration was held in January 1986, and new parliamentary elections were held in May 1986. Following an alleged attempt to overthrow Momoh in March 1987, over 60 senior government officials were arrested, including First Vice-President Francis Minah, who was removed from office.
In October 1990, President Momoh set up a constitutional review commission to review the 1978 one-party constitution with a view to broadening the existing political process, guaranteeing fundamental human rights and the rule of law, and strengthening and consolidating the democratic foundation and structure of the nation. The commission, in its report presented in January 1991, recommended the re-establishment of a multiparty system of government. Based on that recommendation, a constitution was approved by Parliament in July 1991 and ratified in September; it became effective on October 1, 1991.
Sierra Leone Civil War
Corruption within the government and mismanagement of diamond and mineral resources were the main reasons civil war broke out in Sierra Leone. With the breakdown of all state structures, complemented by the effective suppression of all civilian opposition, wide corridors of Sierra Leonean society were opened up to the trafficking of arms and ammunition. Drugs also eroded national and regional security as well as facilitated crime.
In addition to these internal tensions, the brutal civil war going on in neighboring Liberia played a role in the outbreak of fighting in Sierra Leone. Charles Taylor, the then-leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), reportedly helped form the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under a former Sierra Leone army corporal, Foday Sankoh. Sankoh had met Taylor in Libya in the 1980s, during guerrilla training, and the two men quickly established a relationship. In return for helping Sankoh, Taylor was rewarded with diamonds from Sierra Leone.
On March 23, 1991, the RUF, led by Sankoh and backed by Taylor, crossed from Liberia and attacked villages in the Eastern Province. The government was unable to put up significant resistance. Within a month, the RUF controlled much of the Eastern Province. The rebels were quick to demonstrate their brutality toward the civilian population; the forced recruitment of child soldiers was also an early feature of the rebellion.
On April 29, 1992, a group of young military officers led by Capt. Valentine Strasser, apparently frustrated by the government's failure to deal with the rebels, launched a military coup, which sent President Momoh into exile in Guinea and established the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) with Col. Yahya Kanu as its chairman. Kanu was assassinated by unknown gunmen shortly after he took office. Strasser eventually took over as chairman of the NPRC.
The NPRC proved to be nearly as ineffectual as the Momoh government in repelling the RUF. More and more of the country fell to RUF fighters so that by 1995 they held much of the countryside and were on the doorsteps of the capital. The NPRC hired several hundred mercenaries. Within a month they had driven the RUF back to enclaves along Sierra Leone’s borders.
In January 1996, after nearly four years in power, President Strasser was ousted in a coup led by his minister of defense, Brigadier Julius Maada Bio. Promises of a return to civilian rule were fulfilled by Bio, who handed power over to Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, of the Sierra Leone People's Party, after presidential elections in early 1996. Kabbah's government reached a cease-fire in the war with RUF; rebel terror attacks continued, however, apparently aided by Liberia.
On May 25, 1997, a group of military officers led by Maj. Gen. Johnny Paul Koroma overthrew Kabbah. They established the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). Koroma suspended the constitution; banned demonstrations; abolished political parties; shut down all the country's private radio stations; and invited the RUF to join the government.
The United Nations imposed sanctions against the military government in October 1997, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sent in its forces, led by Nigeria. Clashes between the rebels and ECOWAS troops in the capital forced 12,000 Freetown residents to flee. In February 1998, ECOWAS troops drove the rebels out of Freetown, and President Kabbah returned to office on March 10, 1998. However, rebel forces remained firmly in control of the Northern Province, the Kono diamond field, and areas along the Liberian border.
In January 1999, over 6,000 people were killed in fighting between ECOWAS troops and the rebels in the Western Area. In March, Nigeria announced it would withdraw its forces by May. A peace accord was signed in July between President Kabbah and Foday Sankoh, leader of the RUF. The agreement granted the rebels seats in a new government and a general amnesty from prosecution. The government had largely ceased functioning effectively, however, and at least half of its territory remained under rebel control.
In October, the United Nations agreed to send peacekeepers to help restore order and disarm the rebels. The first of the 6,000-member force began arriving in December, and the Security Council voted in February 2000, to increase the UN forces to 11,000 (and subsequently to 13,000). In May, when nearly all Nigerian forces had left and UN forces were attempting to disarm the RUF in the Eastern Province, Sankoh's forces clashed with the UN troops, and some 500 peacekeepers were taken hostage as the peace accord effectively collapsed.
An 800-member British force entered the country to secure Western Freetown and evacuate Europeans; some also acted in support of the forces fighting the RUF, including Koroma's AFRC group. After Sankoh was captured in Freetown, the hostages were gradually released by the RUF, but clashes between the UN forces and the RUF continued, and in July the West Side Boys—part of the AFRC—clashed with the peacekeepers. In the same month, the UN Security Council placed a ban on the sale of rough diamonds from Sierra Leone in an attempt to undermine the funding of the RUF. In late August, senior RUF commander Sam Bockarie became head of the RUF; also, British troops training the Sierra Leone army were taken hostage by the West Side Boys but were freed by a British raid in September.
General elections scheduled for early 2001 were postponed, due to the insecurity caused by the civil war. In May 2001, sanctions were imposed on Liberia because of its support for the rebels, and UN peacekeepers began to make headway in disarming the various factions. Disarmament of rebel and pro-government militias proceeded slowly and fighting continued to occur.
End of the Sierra Leone civil war
By January 2002, most of the estimated 45,000 fighters had surrendered their weapons. As disarmament progressed, the government began to reassert its authority in formerly rebel-held areas. In a ceremony on January 18, 2002, President Kabbah declared the civil war officially over. An estimated two hundred thousand people were killed; a further two million people were displaced in neighboring countries; and thousands of people had their arms or legs hacked off by rebels by the time the war ended.
Post civil war
The Sierra Leone government asked the United Nations to help set up a Special Court for Sierra Leone, which would try “those who bear the greatest responsibility” for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the civil war. On January 16, 2002, the UN and the government of Sierra Leone signed an agreement establishing the court.
In March 2003 the Special Court for Sierra Leone issued its first indictments. Foday Sankoh, already in custody, was indicted, along with notorious RUF field commander Sam "Mosquito" Bockarie, and Johnny Paul Koroma, leader of the AFRC, among several others. On May 5, 2003, Bockarie was killed in Liberia, allegedly on orders from President Charles Taylor, who feared Bockarie’s testimony before the Special Court. Johnny Paul Koroma was also rumored to have been killed, though his death remains unconfirmed. Two of the accused died while incarcerated. On March 25, 2006, with the election of Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, then-Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo permitted the transfer of Charles Taylor, who had been living in exile in the Nigerian coastal town of Calabar, to Sierra Leone for prosecution. Two days later, Taylor attempted to flee Nigeria, but he was apprehended by Nigerian authorities and transferred to Freetown under UN guard. Taylor is now being held in The Hague, where he awaits trial before the Special Court on 11 indictments of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In a dramatic upset, Kabbah's chosen successor as president, Vice President Solomon Berewa, lost both the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2007 to the opposition All People's Congress (APC). The APC's candidate, Ernest Bai Koroma, was sworn in as the new president after being declared the winner of the runoff election by 54.6 percent to Berewa's 45.4 percent. Koroma is seen by observers as having benefited from the government's failure to deliver social services.
