Christopher Fyfe (1920 - 2008) is the acknowledged authority on Sierra Leonean history. His books have served as a reference for generations of historians, writers and students. In his work as Sierra Leone government archivist (1950 - 1952) and, later, researcher and university lecturer, he uncovered countless details about Sierra Leone's early history and brought to light  much information that would doubtless have remained  well and truly hidden without his intervention. His major work, A History of Sierra Leone, covers the period from the founding of the Colony to the end of the nineteenth century, making full use of the unparalleled access he had to the primary sources of that era. And yet even the Great Fyfe has been influenced over the years by a dose of political revisionism.

Fyfe's A Short History of Sierra Leone, for many years a prescribed secondary school text in Sierra Leone, was published in at least two editions, 1962 and 1979. Sometimes described as a Krio-phile, Fyfe certainly referenced nineteenth and twentieth-century Freetown and its Krio population liberally in his 1962 edition. Three chapter headings include the word 'Creole' (this was the accepted spelling in 1962): Chapter 18, titled "The Creoles emerge", Chapter 22, "The Creole Achievement" and Chapter 29,  "The Creoles Lose Power", This in addition to chapters dealing with the early Settlers and Recaptives: Chapter 8, titled "The Nova Scotian Rebellion and the Temne War" and Chapter 13, "The Rise of the Recaptives". By 1979 all but one of these Chapter headings have been expunged. Chapter 8 becomes "Temne under Pressure", Chapter 18, "Freetown at mid-Century,  Chapter 22, "Preparing for Self-Government" and Chapter 29, "The White Empire".  This change of emphasis can, perhaps, be justified. After all , the book is titled A Short History of Sierra Leone, not A Short History of the Krio. Why should the history of the Krio, 2% of the population, dominate a book that is supposed to reflect the history of the whole country and will be read by generations of young, impressionable schoolchildren all over the country? Surely, it's only fair to shift the focus to what was happening elsewhere? Fyfe MIGHT have argued in defense of his 1962 version that indeed he did cover quite extensively events taking place around the peninsula during the period, but the fact is that before a protectorate was declared by the British government in 1896 over territory outside the Western Area, before this time, Freetown and the peninsula were Sierra Leone. And the Ministry of Education in Freetown MIGHT have replied that this argument is nothing but a humbug. Sierra Leone today refers to the enlarged territory, not to the territory it represented pre 1896. Thus, the country's history texts should cover adequately this entire area rather than just one portion of it. A government and Ministry of Education now dominated by non-Krios, very much unlike the situation in 1962, might perhaps have made this point to Fyfe and his publishers, Longman, UK. Or perhaps Fyfe and Longman came to this conclusion independently and made the changes in the 1979 edition all by themselves. Even so, their conclusion may not have been uninfluenced by their  desire to sell their history book to the new people in power at the Ministry of Education in Freetown, the chief market for this book.

So far so good. What's in a chapter heading? However, of course, changes continue in the actual text. In 1962, in Chapter 22, p.120, Fyfe wrote:

Glorious praise indeed of the Krio, presumably genuine and research-based. In 1979, however, in Chapter 22, p.100 Fyfe felt the need for a little revision. Here is what he wrote:

Now this is a slippery slope on to very dangerous ground. Factually, it is not out-and-out inaccurate. No statement in the latter paragraph can be challenged as false. But the impression given to those young, impressionable minds about the entirety of Sierra Leone and Sierra Leoneans is very, very different from that which Fyfe intended in 1962 when he referred to a small fraction of the entire country. In actual fact, outside the Western Area then, educational achievement in the rest of the country was very low, completely the opposite situation to what might be inferred from Fyfe's revision. One might call the revision a valiant attempt to promote national consciousness and unity, but is this the legitimate province of historians? It's a difficult question, especially when the target audience is the young mind. Writers of national histories the world over face this problem, especially when their books are intended for the school market, which usually requires vetting by education authorities. American history texts have difficulties with America's history of slavery, Japanese texts are accused of ignoring atrocities committed against the Chinese during World War II, etc, etc.

In fairness to Mr Fyfe, perhaps battered at the time by the winds of African nationalism, politics and Independence, it should be acknowledged that even in the 1979 edition the examples of educational and professional achievement he cites in this very chapter before the summation above are all Krio from Freetown, consistent with his 1962 phrasing.  Historians, like all the rest of us, are not immune to the multiple pressures, political, economic, social, and professional among others, of society.

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