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1787–1887–1987: reflections on a Sierra Leone bicentenary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Christopher Fyfe
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Extract

Seen in the widest perspective, 1787 is only one date among the uncounted tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of years during which the present Sierra Leone has been inhabited. Archaeologists have done disappointingly little work there. But it is clear from their findings (and by implication from findings in the rest of forest-belt West Africa) that people have lived there a very long time. Though traditional historiography always tends to present the peoples of Sierra Leone as immigrants from somewhere else, the language pattern suggests continuous occupation over a very long period. As Paul Hair (1967) has shown, there has been a striking linguistic continuity in coastal West Africa since the fifteenth century. Nor is there evidence to suggest that before that period stability and continuity were not the norm.

Résumé

1787–1987: reflexions sur le bicentenaire du Sierra Leone

L'année 1987 marque le bicentenaire de la fondation de la première colonie britannique au Sierra Leone. A l'origine, une colonie destinée aux noirs libérés de l'esclavage transatlantique, elle devint un refuge et une base permanente pour les esclaves repris et sauvés des vaisseaux négriers par la marine britannique transitant dans l'Atlantique. Ils se développèrent en une communauté distincte, les Krios («Créole»), possédant leur propre culture et langue. A la fin du siècle dernier, en 1887, ils constituaient déjà un groupe social prospère, d'expression claire dont les aspirations vers un statut et des positions officielles furent reconnues par le gouvernement colonial.

En 1896, un protectorat britannique fut proclamé sur le pays voisin. Le style de gouvernement changea. Il fut désormais stratifié sur le plan racial, réservant l'autorité aux blancs. La communauté Krio fut alors méprisée. Tous les efforts furent faits pour maintenir une division stride entre elle et les peuplades du protectorat qui furent favorisées par les autorités coloniales. Au moment de l'indépendance, en 1961, le nouveau gouvernement représentait, à une écrasante majorité, les peuplades indigènes. Les Krios furent et demeurèrent des marginaux politiques.

Mais leur culture et leur langue prédominèrent. La nouvelle élite indigène adopta les normes culturelles des Krios, et la langue Krio est maintenant la langue universelle parlée sur l'ensemble du Sierra Leone. Ainsi, dans un pays fragmenté par de fortes divisions causées par des rivalriés ethniques et localisées, la langue et la culture Krio représentent la force la plus puissante vers une unité nationale.

Type
History and politics
Information
Africa , Volume 57 , Issue 4: Sierra Leone, 1787-1987 , October 1987 , pp. 411 - 421
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1987

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