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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | 1787-1887-1987: Reflections on a Sierra Leone Bicentenary |
Author: | Fyfe, Christopher |
Year: | 1987 |
Periodical: | Africa: Journal of the International African Institute |
Volume: | 57 |
Issue: | 4 |
Pages: | 411-421 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Sierra Leone |
Subjects: | Krio history 1700-1799 1800-1899 1900-1999 History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
External links: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/1159891 https://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pao:&rft_dat=xri:pao:article:4011-1987-057-00-000023 |
Abstract: | 1787 marks a decisive break in the continuity of Sierra Leone history: during the succeeding twenty years three successive settler communities of African descent arrived - the 1787 settlers (the so-called 'Black Poor') from England, in 1792 the settlers from Nova Scotia, and in 1800 the Jamaica Maroons. Europeans usurped political sovereignty over the occupied territory, and in 1808 it came under the British Crown. For the next half century and more, a steady stream of liberated Africans were brought in and settled in what had become the Colony of Sierra Leone. Thus the first hundred years saw the establishment of the Krio community. Since the proclamation, in 1896, of a British Protectorate over the territory adjoining the Colony, the strategy of colonial rule was to keep the country divided: white was divided from black, Colony from Protectorate, tribe from tribe, and chiefdom from chiefdom. Political independence brought no structural change. Although the Krio people remained marginalized, the new elite took on many symbolic forms and beliefs of Krio culture, and Krio became a national language. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in French. |