KRIOS AND THEIR HISTORY

 by

 Paul Conton




I am not a historian. Indeed I had barely done any reading in the subject until just a few years ago. And quite a few people have asserted to me (despite my protestations) that I am not a Krio either! So why am I writing this story called Krios and their History? Well, because my new-found interest in history has prompted the belated realization that Krios have a superb story to tell and recently they haven’t been telling it as well or as often as they should.

 

My 13-year-old daughter blurted out to me quite recently that she didn’t like Krios. I listened in astonishment as she listed several trivial complaints against Krios, apparently the final conclusions of her immediate circle of friends. I had before this rarely, if ever, discussed the issue of tribe with her. This anecdote highlights a certain reticence on the part of Krios to highlight the positive aspects of their culture, history and contributions in the face of what seems an unstoppable tide of non-Krios into Freetown. Confronted by an avalanche Krios have withdrawn, have been afraid to speak up for their positions and their viewpoints even on those occasions when those positions and viewpoints have considerable evidence to back them up. Ultimately, this does everyone a disservice, Krio and non-Krio alike. 

 

The story of the founding of Freetown is a remarkable one and it is a story of which all Krios should be proud. It is a story Krios, indeed all Sierra Leoneans, should never tire to tell, within Sierra Leone and without. That in the face of rapacious slavery and slave trading, virulent disease, hunger, a hostile environment characterized by impenetrable forest, torrential rainfall and wild animals, attacks and destruction by neighbours, attacks and destruction by the French, in the face of all this and more, that a small band of ex-slaves could build a city that just one hundred years later was a beacon for all West Africa was a truly remarkable accomplishment. It’s an accomplishment that all Sierra Leoneans should celebrate, for as Fyfe, Fyle and Alie et al have pointed out these Freetonians came from all over the area of present day Sierra Leone and well beyond. We celebrate Granville Sharp, Lord Mansfield and William Wilberforce et al for their role in ending the slave trade, but in the same breath we should also celebrate Freetown and its people for their role in accommodating the tide of recaptives that flooded in from all over West Africa. In the entire region, no one else was doing this. Freetown provided refuge for these people, gave them areas in which to settle and found livelihoods for them or at least left them in peace to settle their own lives. Our brothers and sisters from the provinces, instead of looking upon the establishment of Freetown with resentment (as some have done for 200 years) should glorify it as the vehicle through which the scourge of slavery was abolished from all of West Africa. This kind of enlightenment and understanding can only come through patient education – it should be taught to every child in every school in Sierra Leone, but of course it is not, as my daughter’s outburst brought home most vividly to me.

 

Yet, the resettling of the recaptives, notable as it was, was not the real triumph of Freetown. The city’s crowning accomplishment was that it could take these people of disparate origins and blend them together peacefully within a relatively short period of time. Freetown, originally made up only of Nova Scotians (after the Province of Freedom had been destroyed) soon became home to more tribes than exist in Sierra Leone today. Fyfe, that most illustrious of “Sierra Leoneans”, tells us that Krus were settled in Kru Town, Foulahs in Foulah Town, people from Congo in Congo Town, Portuguese speakers in Ports Town and so on. Of course there was discrimination, as there will always be discrimination in human societies. The Nova Scotians hated the Maroons, who came after them, and they both despised the recaptives, especially when this group started to compete with them. But in a relatively short period of time all these groups were blended into a cohesive whole. Space was given for each group to grow and prosper. Education and learning was cherished, as was individual accomplishment. Gradually, within what now seems a short time, Freetown was detribalized. Peacefully. Under the relatively benevolent dictatorship and protection of the British inter-tribal tensions were minimized and Freetonians could concentrate on eaning a living anywhere within the borders of the Western Area. Individual stories abound of Settlers and recaptives alike emerging from poverty to prosperity by dint of hard work, learning and perseverance (Ezzidio, Cline, Crowther, Lawson etc, etc) By the turn of the 19th century Fyfe illustrates “the mansions owned by wealthy citizens in Freetown” and reports that, “Governor Macarthy’s dream had come true…..All along the West African coast they (Freetonians) were to be found. They were the intellectual leaders, the vanguard of political and social advance in West Africa.” High praise indeed from a neutral!

 

 



One might argue this was all due to the presence of the British. Maybe, maybe not, but even if this were so, the Freetonians of that time certainly made good use of the opportunities afforded to them, to the extent that almost from the day of their arrival they were actively looking forward to the time they would achieve self-government. When they were landed on the bush that was then Freetown, they could have sought greener pastures elsewhere, on the Bullom shores perhaps or in Koya, which were then well populated centres, but they didn’t. They set down and set out to build a city. They had been promised 30 acres; in the end they were given much less than this, but they owned it, freehold. And so they developed it. Fyfe tells us that, “it became usual for any Settler who had made a bit of money by trading to build a house to let”. As to the effect of the British presence, Fyfe tells us that in 1808 there were only about twenty or thirty European residents out of a population of almost two thousand. And there was a British presence elsewhere on the coast of West Africa.

 

When one looks at the history of the rest of Sierra Leone in the same time period there is, to be brutally frank about it, little to compare with this wonderful story, little to emulate or hold up with pride. Of course there were talented, hardworking, intelligent individuals who populated these areas – after all it was some of these same individuals who were freed in Freetown and later went on to excel - but the social systems in place did not allow them to grow as they should have. Territory was demarcated along tribal or clan lines. There was constant inter-tribal or inter-clan fighting, a never-ending struggle for territorial acquisition through conquest (not by treaty and purchase as the British did with Freetown). Conquest through mass resettlement was another favoured tactic. Leadership generally was acquired and maintained through heredity or by the best fighter, but certainly not by the best scholar. The classic pattern of trade involved the chief, as landlord, giving his blessing and protection to strangers in return for rent or commission on the strangers’ trading activities, usually in slaves, produce or timber. Slavery and slave trading was rampant (astonishingly slavery was not finally abolished by law in the provinces until 1928, some 140 years after the Province of Freedom was founded; Sierra Leone was the last of the West African colonies to do so – “The existence of slavery in Sierra Leone became an embarrassment…” – Alie, p151) along with other practices best left unmentioned. Little of permanence was built or remains – the largest provincial towns today, Bo, Kenema and Makeni, barely existed during this period. If these things are the truth as we see them, we should not be afraid to say them, especially because these truths should provide pointers to a brighter Sierra Leone for all.

 

Now why am I obsessing over 200-year-old truths when we should be looking forward? Why am I opening up old



wounds? In truth, the wounds have never healed, and the 200-year-old struggle for Sierra Leone’s soul is ongoing. Much of the socio-economic baggage from a pre-modern environment still remains as a millstone round the neck of mama Sa Lone. In 1896, at the height of Freetown’s achievements, the Protectorate was declared. In 1961 Independence was achieved. Efforts have been made to unify the country. To this point, unfortunately, we have been unable to escape our history. The country and the countryside is still carved up along tribal lines. The story since 1896 has once again been one of inter-tribal rivalry and a struggle for supremacy, albeit in somewhat modified forms, and in the 110 odd years since the Protectorate was declared there has been little of the unification process that Freetown experienced in the early to mid 1800s. I have focused here on the provincial vs Krio divide, but there is also the equally serious Mende/Temne rivalry and, less prominently a Temne/Limba contest. In this kind of environment election periods are particularly testing times and one sometimes wonders whether full blown democracy is the ideal solution. Sierra Leone leadership, particularly the intellectual leadership, needs to come together to seriously address these issues. Krios should do more to promote their own vision of Sierra Leone, for in my view, there is much in the history to back it up. It is basically the correct vision for a modern society as it was two hundred odd years ago when it was introduced on to the shores of Freetown. Given the numbers who have moved to Freetown and who will likely move here over the next few years, this vision is possibly shared by the majority of Sierra Leoneans.

 

(I would like to thank the undermentioned for my ongoing education in the history of Sierra Leone and recommend them to the interested reader.

 

Fyfe, Christopher, A short history of Sierra Leone, Longman, 0 582 60358 7

Fyle, Magbaily, A Nationalist history of Sierra Leone

Alie, Joe. A new history of Sierra Leone, Macmillan, 0 333 51984 1

Caulker-Burnett, Imodale, The Caulkers of Sierra Leone, Xlibris, 978 1 4568 0240 0

Hunter, Yema Lucilda, Road to Freedom, African Universities Press, 978 148 166 8





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