Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T10:37:04.095Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Landlord and Stranger: Change in Tenancy Relations in Sierra Leone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

V. R. Dorjahn  and
Christopher Fyfe
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The relations between a stranger who leaves his home to settle in a distant chiefdom in Sierra Leone and his landlord have for centuries been guided by customary rules. They are of interest to the anthropologist studying contemporary society, and to the historian who can sometimes elucidate from them otherwise obscure incidents in the past. In this article we describe the landlord-stranger relationship as it exists in Sierra Leone today, then give examples of how it has been applied at earlier periods.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , November 1962 , pp. 391 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1962

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

1 Little, K. L., The Mende of Sierra Leone (1948), 8z.Google Scholar

2 Dorjahn, Unpublished field-notes, 1954–1955.Google Scholar

3 This is not to say that economic considerations do not enter into a prospective landlord's thinking. A man short of labourers will take almost any tenant so as to gain help in making his farm.Google Scholar

4 A Temne man looks first to his father's patrilineage, makas, for land and then, if need be, to his mother's patrilineage, makara.Google Scholar

5 Thomas, N. W., Anthropological Report on Sierra Leone (1916), 170. It is inferred that grantor and landlord are synonymous.Google Scholar

6 Little, op. cit. 93.Google Scholar

7 Banton, Michael, West African City (1917), 91 and 93.Google Scholar

8 This suggests, of course, that what was collected never was placed in the Native Administration treasury.Google Scholar

9 For a discussion in an official source, see the 1955 Report on the Administration of Provinces, 4.Google Scholar

10 Matthews, John, A Voyage to the River Sierra-Leone (1788), 142–143.Google Scholar

11 Winterbottom, Thomas, An Account of the Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone (1803), i, 127–128.Google Scholar

12 Zachary Macaulay Papers, Huntington Library, San Marino, California, Macaulay's Journal, 30 July 1793.Google Scholar

13 Winterbottom, op. cit. 214.Google Scholar

14 Owen, Nicholas, Journal of a Slave-Dealer (ed. Martin, E.), 1930, 69.Google Scholar

15 Zachary Macaulay's Journal, loc. cit.Google Scholar

16 Public Record Ofiice—W.O. 1/352, letter enclosed in Macaulay, 5 Sept. 1803.Google Scholar

17 Public Record Oflice–C.O. 270/5, minute of Council, 20 July 1797.Google Scholar

18 Public Record Office–C.O. 267/290 Blackall 6, 14 Jan. 1867 enc.Google Scholar

19 Public Record Office–C.O. 267/192 Macdonald 104, 4 June 1846.Google Scholar

20 Public Record Oflice–C.O. 267/301 Kennedy 133, 23 June 1869 enc.Google Scholar