Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T20:34:36.113Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Slave Trade in Nineteenth Century Temneland and the British Sphere of Influence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Kenneth C. Wylie
Kenneth C. Wylie*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Herbert H. Lehman College, City University of New York, New York City, New York
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

For centuries nearly every European who visited Sierra Leone was struck by the great potential for trade to which the area seemed geographically suited. Caravans from Kankan and Segu, and even from as far away as Bamako and Timbuctu, came down through Siguri and Faranah, passed through the dispersal points inland of the forest at Timbo, Bunban, and Samaia, and carried the gold, ivory, hides, and produce of the interior down to the tidewater towns, of Temneland (Canot 1854, p. 89). From Kambia, Mange, Port Loko, and Magbeli the trade accumulated with local produce, and the caravans ferried their goods by canoe and “Bullom Boat” to the European ships waiting off the mountainous peninsula in West Africa's deepest and largest natural harbor.

Anyone familiar with the map will note that much of Temneland is well situated to command this inland trade from the Futa Jallon and the upper Niger. The northwestern Temne control the navigable reaches of the Scarcies and of Port Loko Creek. Likewise, the southeastern chiefdoms are astride the Rokel and command the approaches to Freetown. Ijagbemi has noted how the major trade routes going inland from the coast “took a north-easterly direction, which, though hilly, was only partially forested and so afforded a relatively easy access to the interior (1970, p. 45).

Slave traders recognized the strategic value of controlling the estuaries, and some of the earliest “slave factories” were built right in the Sierra Leone River.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , September 1973 , pp. 203 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES CITED

Atkins, J. A Voyage to Guinea. London, 1735.Google Scholar
Balandier, Georges. Daily Life in the Kingdom of the Kongo. New York, 1968.Google Scholar
Canot, Captain. Twenty Years of an African Slaver. Written out and edited by Mayer, Brantz. New York, 1854.Google Scholar
Curtin, Philip. The Image of Africa. Madison, 1964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fage, John D. “Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Context of West African History.” Journal of African History, X, 3 (1969), 393–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, Allen G. B. and Fisher, Humphrey J.. Slavery and Muslim Society in Africa. New York, 1971.Google Scholar
Fyfe, Christopher. A History of Sierra Leone. Oxford, 1962.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Nicholas S. “Mandinka Social Organization.” In Hodge, Carleton T., ed. Papers on the Manding. Bloomington, 1971. Pp. 99–114.Google Scholar
Hirst, Elizabeth. “An Attempt at Reconstructing the History of the Loko People from About 1790 to the Present Day.” Sierra Leone Studies, N.S. 9 (1957), 26–39.Google Scholar
Ijagbemi, E. A. “The Rokel River and the Development of Inland Trade in Sierra Leone.” Odu, N.S. 3 (1970), 45–67.Google Scholar
Johnson, Marion. “The Cowrie Currencies of West Africa.” Journal of African History, XI, 1 (1970), 37–45. Also see Part II, XI, 3 (1970), 345-352.Google Scholar
Kup, Peter. A History of Sierra Leone 1400-1787. Cambridge, 1961.Google Scholar
Laing, C. Gordon. Travels in the Timanee, Kooranko and Soolima Countries. London, 1835.Google Scholar
Markham, C. R., ed. The Hawkins Voyages. Hakluyt Society. London, 1878.Google Scholar
Mitchell, P. L. “Trade Routes of the Early Sierra Leone Protectorate.” Sierra Leone Studies, N.S. 16 (1962), 204–217.Google Scholar
Pacheco, , Pereira, Duarte. Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis. Trans. and ed. by Kimble, George H. T. for the Hakluyt Society, No. LXXIX. London, 1937.Google Scholar
Public Records Office, C.O. 267/53. Correspondence Files. “O'Beirne's Journal of Mission to Teembo.” January 29, 1821.Google Scholar
Public Records Office, C.O. 267/66. Correspondence Files. “Governor Turner to Lord Bathurst.” December 20, 1825.Google Scholar
Rankin, Harrison. The White Man's Grave: A Visit to Sierra Leone in 1834. Vol. II. London, 1836.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodney, Walter. A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545-1800. Oxford, 1970.Google Scholar
Sierra Leone Collection, C.O. February 1886. African No. 332. Despatch from the Administrator-in-Chief, enclosing “Information Regarding the Different Districts and Tribes of Sierra Leone and its Vicinity.” (Memoranda supplied by Lawson, T. G. and “arranged and carried out” by Parkes, J. C. E..)Google Scholar
Thomas, , Northcote, W. Anthropological Report on Sierra Leone: Part I, Law and Custom of the Temne and Other Tribes. London, 1916.Google Scholar
Utting, Francis A. J. The Story of Sierra Leone. New York, 1931.Google Scholar
Wadstrom, C. B. An Essay on Colonization. London, 1794.Google Scholar
Winterbottom, Thomas. An Account of the Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone. London, 1969. (First edition published in London, 1803).Google Scholar
Wurie, A. “The Bundukas of Sierra Leone.” Sierra Leone Studies, N.S. 1 (1953), 14–25.Google Scholar