Abstract: | Moyamba Town, the administrative centre of Kaiyamba Chiefdom and Moyamba District is situated some 76 miles by rail from Freetown and has a population just exceeding 5,000 people. Since the turn of the century it has been one of Sierra Leone's more important inland centres, and it was there that Madam Yoko - perhaps the greatest of the Kpaa-Mende Chiefs - resided for the latter part of her reign. This article is concerned with the earliest period of Moyamba's history, from the time, (c. 1860) when the Mende 'warboys' were fighting neighbouring tribes for the recognition of their rights to settlement until the conclusion of the Hut TaxWar (1898) when British rule became more effectively felt in the hinterland. Notes, figure. |