Chapter IX: Sierra Leone

ITS DISCOVERY AND SITUATION.--NATURAL BEAUTY.--FOUNDING OF A
NEGRO COLONY.--THE SIERRA LEONE COMPANY.--FEVER AND
INSUBORDINATION.--IT BECOMES AN ENGLISH PROVINCE--CHARACTER
OF ITS INHABITANTS.--CHRISTIAN MISSIONS, ETC.

Sierra Leone was discovered and named by Piedro de Cintra. It is a peninsula, about thirty miles in length by about twenty-five in breadth, and is situated 8° and 30' north latitude, and is about 13-1/2° west longitude. Its topography is rather queer. On the south and west its mountains bathe their feet in the Atlantic Ocean, and on the east and north its boundaries are washed by the river and bay of Sierra Leone. A range of mountains, co-extensive with the peninsula,--forming its backbone,--rises between the bay of Sierra Leone and the Atlantic Ocean, from two to three thousand feet in altitude. Its outlines are as severe as Egyptian architecture, and the landscape view from east or west is charming beyond the power of description. Freetown is the capital, with about twenty thousand inhabitants, situated on the south side of Sierra Leone River, and hugged in by an amphitheatre of beautiful hills and majestic mountains.

"On the side of the hill [says Mr. Reed] which rises behind
the town is a charming scene, which I will attempt to
describe. You have seen a rural hamlet, where each cottage
is half concealed by its own garden. Now convert your linden
into graceful palm, your apples into oranges, your
gooseberry-bushes into bananas, your thrush which sings in
its wicker cage into a gray parrot whistling on a rail; ...
sprinkle this with strange and powerful perfumes; place in
the west a sun flaming among golden clouds in a
prussian-blue sea, dotted with white sails; imagine those
mysterious and unknown sounds, those breathings of the
earth-soul, with which the warm night of Africa rises into
life,--and then you will realize one of those moments of
poetry which reward poor travellers for long days and nights
of naked solitude."[101]

In 1772 Lord Mansfield delivered his celebrated opinion on the case of the Negro man Sommersett, whose master, having abandoned him in a sick condition, afterwards sought to reclaim him. The decision was to the effect that no man, white or black, could set foot on British soil and remain a slave. The case was brought at the instance of Mr. Granville Sharp. The decision created universal comment. Many Negroes in New England, who had found shelter under the British flag on account of the proclamation of Sir Henry Clinton, went to England. Free Negroes from other parts--Jamaica, St. Thomas, and San Domingo--hastened to breathe the free air of the British metropolis. Many came to want, and wandered about the streets of London, strangers in a strange land. Granville Sharp, a man of great humanity, was deeply affected by the sad condition of these people. He consulted with Dr. Smeathman, who had spent considerable time in Africa; and they conceived the plan of transporting them to the west coast of Africa, to form a colony.[102] The matter was agitated in London by the friends of the blacks, and finally the government began to be interested. A district of about twenty square miles was purchased by the government of Naimbanna, king of Sierra Leone, on which to locate the proposed colony. About four hundred Negroes and sixty white persons, the greater portion of the latter being "women of the town,"[103] were embarked on "The Nautilus," Capt. Thompson, and landed at Sierra Leone on the 9th of May, 1787. The climate was severe, the sanitary condition of the place vile, and the habits of the people immoral. The African fever, with its black death-stroke, reaped a harvest; while the irregularities and indolence of the majority of the colonists, added to the deeds of plunder perpetrated by predatory bands of savages, reduced the number of the colonists to about sixty-four souls in 1791.

The dreadful news of the fate of the colony was borne to the philanthropists in England. But their faith in colonization stood as unblanched before the revelation as the Iron Duke at Waterloo. An association was formed under the name of "St. George's Bay," but afterwards took the name of the "Sierra Leone Company," with a capital stock of one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, with such humanitarians as Granville Sharp, Thornton, Wilberforce, and Clarkson among its directors. The object of the company was to push forward the work of colonization. One hundred Europeans landed at Sierra Leone in the month of February, 1792, and were followed in March by eleven hundred and thirty-one Negroes. A large number of them had served in the British army during the Revolutionary War in America, and, accepting the offer of the British Government, took land in this colony as a reward for services performed in the army. Another fever did its hateful work; and fifty or sixty Europeans, and many blacks, fell under its parching and consuming touch.[104] Jealous feuds rent the survivors, and idleness palsied every nerve of industry in the colony. In 1794 a French squadron besieged the place, and the people sustained a loss of about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Once more an effort was made to revive the place, and get its drowsy energies aroused in the discharge of necessary duties. Some little good began to show itself; but it was only the tender bud of promise, and was soon trampled under the remorseless heel of five hundred and fifty insurrectionary maroons from Jamaica and Nova Scotia.

The indifferent character of the colonists, and the hurtful touch of the climate, had almost discouraged the friends of the movement in England. It was now the year 1800. This vineyard planted by good men yielded "nothing but leaves." No industry had been developed, no substantial improvement had been made, and the future was veiled in harassing doubts and fears. The money of the company had almost all been expended. The company barely had the signs of organic life in it, but the light of a beautiful Christian faith had not gone out across the sea in stalwart old England. The founders of the colony believed that good management would make the enterprise succeed: so they looked about for a master hand to guide the affair. On the 8th of August, 1807, the colony was surrendered into the hands of the Crown, and was made an English colony. During the same year in which this transfer was made, Parliament declared the slave-trade piracy; and a naval squadron was stationed along the coast for the purpose of suppressing it. At the first, many colored people of good circumstances, feeling that they would be safe under the English flag, moved from the United States to Sierra Leone. But the chief source of supply of population was the captured slaves, who were always unloaded at this place. When the English Government took charge of Sierra Leone, the population was 2,000, the majority of whom were from the West Indies or Nova Scotia. In 1811 it was nearly 5,000; in 1820 it was 12,000; it 1833 it was 30,000; in 1835 it was 35,000; in 1844 it was 40,000; in 1869 it was 55,374, with but 129 white men. On the 31st of March, 1827, the slaves that had been captured and liberated by the English squadron numbered 11,878; of which there were 4,701 males above, and 1,875 under, fourteen years of age. There were 2,717 females above, and 1,517 under, the age of fourteen, besides 1,068 persons who settled in Freetown, working in the timber-trade.

With the dreadful scourge of slavery driven from the sea, the sanitary condition of the place greatly improved; and with a vigorous policy of order and education enforced, Sierra Leone began to bloom and blossom as a rose. When the slaver disappeared, the merchant-vessel came on her peaceful mission of commerce.

The annual trade-returns presented to Parliament show that the declared value of British and Irish produce and manufactures exported to the West Coast of Africa, arranged in periods of five years each, has been as follows:--

EXPORTS FROM GREAT BRITAIN.

1846-50 . . . £2,773,408; or a yearly average of £554,681
1851-55 . . . 4,314,752; " " " 862,950
1856-60 . . . 5,582,941; " " " 1,116,588
1861-63 . . . 4,216,045; " " " 1,405,348

IMPORTS

The same trade-returns show that the imports of African produce from the West Coast into Great Britain have been as follows. The "official value" is given before 1856, after that date the "computed real value" is given.

Official value, 1851-55 . . . £4,154,725; average, £830,945
Computed real value, 1856-60 . . 9,376,251; " 1,875,250
" " " 1861-63 . . 5,284,611; " 1,761,537

The value of African produce has decreased during the last few years in consequence of the discovery of the petroleum or rock-oil in America. In 1864 between four and five thousand bales of cotton were shipped to England.

It is to be borne in mind, that under the system which existed when Sierra Leone, the Gambia, and Gold Coast settlements were maintained for the promotion of the slave-trade, the lawful commerce was only £20,000 annually, and that now the amount of tonnage employed in carrying legal merchandise is greater than was ever engaged in carrying slaves.[105] W. Winwood Reade visited Sierra Leone during the Rebellion in America; but, being somewhat prejudiced against the Negro, we do not expect any thing remarkably friendly. But we quote from him the view he took of the people he met there:--

"The inhabitants of the colony may be divided into four
classes:--

"First, The street-venders, who cry cassada-cakes, palm-oil,
pepper, pieces of beef, under such names, as _agedee_,
_aballa_, _akalaray_, and which are therefore as
unintelligible as the street-cries of London. This is the
costermonger type.

"Second, The small market-people, who live in frame houses,
sell nails, fish-hooks, tape, thread, ribbons, etc., and who
work at handicrafts in a small way.

"Third, The shopkeepers, who inhabit frame houses on stone
foundations, and within which one may see a sprinkling of
mahogany, a small library of religious books, and an almost
English atmosphere of comfort.

"Lastly, The liberated Africans of the highest grade, who
occupy two-story stone houses enclosed all around by
spacious piazzas, the rooms furnished with gaudy richness;
and the whole their own property, being built from the
proceeds of their ... thrift."

When England abolished the slave-trade on the West Coast of Africa, Christianity arose with healing in her wings. Until slavery was abolished in this colony, missionary enterprises were abortive; but when the curse was put under the iron heel of British prohibition, the Lord did greatly bless the efforts of the missionary. The Episcopal Church--"the Church of England"--was the first on the ground in 1808; but it was some years before any great results were obtained. In 1832 this Church had 638 communicants, 294 candidates for baptism, 684 sabbath-school pupils, and 1,388 children in day-schools. This Church carried its missionary work beyond its borders to the tribes that were "sitting in darkness;" and in 1850 had built 54 seminaries and schools, had 6,600 pupils, 2,183 communicants, and 7,500 attendants on public worship. It is pleasant to record that out of 61 teachers, 56 _were native Africans!_ In 1865 there were sixteen missionary societies along the West Coast of Africa. Seven were American, six English, two German, and one West-Indian. These societies maintained 104 European or American missionaries, had 110 mission-stations, 13,000 scholars, 236 schools, 19,000 registered communicants; representing a Christian population of 60,000 souls.

The Wesleyan Methodists began their work in 1811; and in 1831 they had two missionaries, 294 members in their churches, and 160 pupils in school. They extended their missions westward to the Gambia, and eastward toward Cape Coast Castle, Badagry, Abbeokuta, and Kumasi; and in this connection, in 1850, had 44 houses of worship, 13 out-stations, 42 day-schools, 97 teachers, 4,500 pupils in day and sabbath schools, 6,000 communicants, 560 on probation, and 14,600 in attendance on public worship. In 1850 the population of Sierra Leone was 45,000; of which 36,000 were Christians, against 1,734 Mohammedans.

Sierra Leone represents the most extensive composite population in the world for its size. About one hundred different tribe are represented, with as many different languages or dialects. Bishop Vida, under direction of the British Parliament, gave special attention to this matter, and found not less than one hundred and fifty-one distinct languages, besides several dialects spoken in Sierra Leone. They were arranged under twenty-six groups, and yet fifty-four are unclassified that are distinct as German and French. "God makes the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder thereof he will restrain." Through these numerous languages, poor benighted Africa will yet hear the gospel.

Some years ago Dr. Ferguson, who was once governor of the Sierra Leone colony, and himself a colored man, wrote and an extended account of the situation there, which was widely circulated in England and America at the time. It is so manifestly just and temperate in tone, so graphic and minute in description, that we reproduce it _in extenso_:--

"1. Those most recently arrived are to be found occupying
mud houses and small patches of ground in the neighborhood
of one or other of the villages (the villages are about
twenty in number, placed in different parts of the colony,
grouped in three classes or districts; names, mountain,
river, and sea districts.) The majority remain in their
locations as agriculturists; but several go to reside in the
neighborhood of Freetown, looking out for work as laborers,
farm-servants, servant to carry wood and water, grooms,
house-servants, etc.; others cultivate vegetables, rear
poultry and pigs, and supply eggs, for the Sierra Leone
market. Great numbers are found offering for sale in the
public market and elsewhere a vast quantity of cooked edible
substances--rice, corn and cassava cakes; heterogeneous
compounds of rice and corn-flower, yams, cassava, palm-oil,
pepper, pieces of beef, mucilaginous vegetables, etc.,
etc., under names quite unintelligible to a stranger, such
as _aagedee_, _aballa_, _akalaray_, _cabona_, etc., etc.,
cries which are shouted along the streets of Freetown from
morn till night. These, the lowest grade of liberated
Africans, are a harmless and well-disposed people; there is
no poverty among them, nor begging; their habits are frugal
and industrious; their anxiety to possess money is
remarkable: but their energies are allowed to run riot and
be wasted from the want of knowledge requisite to direct
them in proper channels.

"2. Persons of grade higher than those last described are to
be found occupying frame houses: they drive a petty trade in
the market, where they expose for sale nails, fish-hooks,
door-hinges, tape, thread, ribbons, needles, pins, etc. Many
of this grade also look out for the arrival of canoes from
the country laden with oranges, _kolas_, sheep, bullocks,
fowls, rice, etc., purchase the whole cargo at once at the
water-side, and derive considerable profit from selling such
articles by retail in the market and over the town. Many of
this grade are also occupied in curing and drying fish, an
article which always sells well in the market, and is in
great request by people at a distance from the water-side,
and in the interior of the country. A vast number of this
grade are tailors, straw-hat makers, shoemakers, cobblers,
blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, etc. Respectable men of
this grade meet with ready mercantile credits amounting from
twenty pounds to sixty pounds; and the class is very
numerous.

"3. Persons of grade higher than that last mentioned are
found occupying frame houses reared on a stone foundation of
from six to ten feet in height. These houses are very
comfortable; they are painted outside and in; have piazzas
in front and rear, and many of them all round; a
considerable sprinkling of mahogany furniture of European
workmanship is to be found in them; several books are to be
seen lying about, chiefly of a religious character; and a
general air of domestic comfort pervades the whole, which,
perhaps more than any thing else, bears evidence of the
advanced state of intelligence at which they have arrived.
This grade is nearly altogether occupied in shopkeeping,
hawking, and other mercantile pursuits. At sales of prize
goods, public auctions, and every other place affording a
probability of cheap bargains, they are to be seen in great
numbers, where they club together in numbers of from three
to six, seven, or more, to purchase large lots or unbroken
bales. And the scrupulous honesty with which the subdivision
of the goods is afterwards made cannot be evidenced more
thoroughly than this: that, common as such transactions are,
they have never yet been known to become the subject of
controversy or litigation. The principal streets of
Freetown, as well as the approaches to the town, are lined
on each side by an almost continuous range of booths and
stalls, among which almost every article of merchandise is
offered for sale, and very commonly at a cheaper rate than
similar articles are sold in the shops of the merchants.

"Two rates of profit are recognized in the mercantile
transactions of the European merchants; namely, a wholesale
and retail profit, the former varying from thirty to fifty
per cent, the latter from fifty to one hundred per cent. The
working of the retail trade in the hands of Europeans
requires a considerable outlay in the shape of shop-rent,
shopkeepers' and clerks' wages, etc. The liberated Africans
were not slow in observing nor in seizing on the advantages
which their peculiar position held out for the successful
prosecution of the retail trade.

"Clubbing together, as before observed, and holding ready
money in their hands the merchants are naturally anxious to
execute for them considerable orders on such unexceptionable
terms of payment while, on the other hand, the liberated
Africans, seeing clearly their advantage, insist most
pertinaciously on the lowest possible percentage of
wholesale profit.

"Having thus become possessed of the goods at the lowest
possible ready-money rate, then subsequent transactions are
not closed with the expense of shop-rents, shopkeepers' and
clerks' wages and subsistence, etc., etc., expenses
unavoidable to Europeans. They are therefore enabled at once
to undersell the European retail merchants, and to secure a
handsome profit to themselves; a consummation the more
easily attained, aided as it is by the extreme simplicity
and abstemiousness of their mode of living, which contrast
so favorably for them with the expensive and almost
necessary luxuries of European life. Many of this grade
possess huge canoes, with which they trade in the upper part
of the river, along shore, and in the neighbouring rivers,
bringing down rice, palm-oil, cam-wood, ivory, hides, etc.,
etc., in exchange for British manufactures. They are all in
easy circumstances, readily obtaining mercantile credits
from sixty pounds to two hundred pounds. Persons of this and
the grade next to be mentioned evince great anxiety to
become possessed of houses and lots in old Freetown. These
lots are desirable because of their proximity to the
market-place and the great thoroughfares, and also for the
superior advantages which they allow for the establishment
of their darling object,--'a retail store.' Property of this
description has of late years become much enhanced in value,
and its value is still increasing solely from the annually
increasing numbers and prosperity of this and the next
grade. The town-lots originally granted to the Nova-Scotian
settlers and the Maroons are, year after year, being offered
for sale by public auction, and in every case liberated
Africans are the purchasers. A striking instance of their
desire to possess property of this description, and of its
increasing value, came under my immediate notice a few
months ago.

"The gentlemen of the Church Missionary Society having been
for some time looking about in quest of a lot on which to
erect a new chapel, a lot suitable for the purpose was at
length offered for sale by public auction, and at a meeting
of the society's local committee, it was resolved, in order
to secure the purchase of the property in question, to offer
as high as sixty pounds. The clergyman delegated for this
purpose, at my recommendation, resolved, on his own
responsibility, to offer, if necessary, as high as seventy
pounds; but to the surprise and mortification of us all, the
lot was knocked down at upward of ninety pounds, and a
liberated African was the purchaser. He stated very kindly
that if he had known the society were desirous of purchasing
the lot he would not have opposed them; he nevertheless
manifested no desire of transferring to them the purchase,
and even refused an advance of ten pounds on his bargain.

"4. Persons of the highest grade of liberated Africans
occupy comfortable two story stone houses, enclosed all
round with spacious piazzas. These houses are their own
property and are built from the proceeds of their own
industry. In several of them are to be seen mahogany chairs,
tables, sofas, and four-post bedsteads, pier-glasses,
floor-cloths, and other articles indicative of domestic
comfort and accumulating wealth.

"Persons of this grade, like those last described, are
almost wholly engaged in mercantile pursuits. Their
transactions, however, are of greater magnitude and value,
and their business is carried on with an external appearance
of respectability commensurate with then superior pecuniary
means: thus, instead of exposing their wares for sale in
booths or stalls by the wayside, they are to be found in
neatly fitted-up shops on the ground-floors of their stone
dwelling houses.

"Many individual members of this grade have realized very
considerable sums of money,--sums which, to a person not
cognizant of the fact, would appear to be incredible. From
the studied manner in which individuals conceal their
pecuniary circumstances from the world, it is difficult to
obtain a correct knowledge of the wealth of the class
generally. The devices to which they have recourse in
conducting a bargain are often exceedingly ingenious; and to
be reputed rich might materially interfere with their
success on such occasions. There is nothing more common than
to hear a plea of poverty set up and most pertinaciously
urged, in extenuation of the terms of a purchase, by persons
whose outward condition, comfortable well-furnished houses,
and large mercantile credits, indicate any thing but
poverty.

"There are circumstances, however, the knowledge of which
they cannot conceal, and which go far to exhibit pretty
clearly the actual state of matters: such as, _First_, the
facility with which they raise large sums of cash prompt' at
public auctions. _Second_, the winding up of the estates of
deceased persons. (Peter Newland, a liberated African, died
a short time before I left the colony: and his estate
realized, in houses, merchandise, and cash, upward of
fifteen hundred pounds.) _Third_, the extent of their
mercantile credits. I am well acquainted with an individual
of this grade who is much courted and caressed by every
European merchant in the colony, who has transactions in
trade with all of them, and whose name, shortly before my
departure from the colony, stood on the debtor side of the
books of one of the principal merchants to the amount of
nineteen hundred pounds, to which sum it had been reduced
from three thousand pounds during the preceding two months.
A highly respectable female has now, and has had for several
years, the government contract for the supplying of fresh
beef to the troops and the naval squadron; and I have not
heard that on a single occasion there has been cause of
complaint for negligence or non-fulfilment of the terms of
the contract. _Fourth_, many of them at the present moment
have their children being educated in England at their own
expense. There is at Sierra Leone a very fine regiment of
colonial militia, more than eight-tenths of which are
liberated Africans. The amount of property which they have
acquired is ample guaranty for their loyalty, should that
ever be called in question. They turn out with great
alacrity and cheerfulness on all occasions for periodical
drill. But perhaps the most interesting point of view in
which the liberated Africans are to be seen, and that which
will render their moral condition most intelligible to those
at a distance, is where they sit at the Quarter Sessions as
petty, grand, and special jurors. They constitute a
considerable part of the jury at every session, and I have
repeatedly heard the highest legal authority in the colony
express his satisfaction with their decisions."

But this account was written at the early sunrise of civilization in Sierra Leone. Now civilization is at its noonday tide, and the hopes of the most sanguine friends of the liberated Negro have been more than realized. How grateful this renewed spot on the edge of the Dark Continent would be to the weary and battle-dimmed vision of Wilberforce, Sharp, and other friends of the colony! And if they still lived, beholding the wonderful results, would they not gladly say, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel"?

FOOTNOTES:

[101] Savage Africa, p. 25.

[102] Précis sur l'Établissement des Colonies de Sierra Léona et de Boulama, etc. Par C.B. Wadström, pp. 3-28.

[103] Wadström Essay on Colonization, p. 220.

[104] This led to the sending of 119 whites, along with a governor, as counsellors, physicians, soldiers, clerks, overseers, artificers, settlers, and servants. Of this company 57 died within the year, 22 returned, and 40 remained. See Wadström, pp. 121, _sq._

[105] See Livingstone's Zambesi, pp. 633, 634.