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IV. The Establishment of the Sierra Leone Protectorate and the Insurrection of 18981

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

J. D. Hargreaves
J. D. Hargreaves
Affiliation:
Lecturer in History, University of Aberdeen
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Extract

The Colony of Sierra Leone originated in settlements of freed slaves on the West African coast carried out on the initiative of British philanthropists in the later eighteenth century. For over a century, British responsibility was as far as possible restricted to the small mountainous peninsula on which Freetown stands, and to certain nearby islands; but influence was inevitably obtained over nearby coast and hinterland, and during the nineteenth century some additional territories were incorporated in the Colony, though not always brought under effective administration. In 1896 the remaining regions not conceded to be under French or Liberian influence were proclaimed a British Protectorate; which also included, for administrative purposes, certain chiefdoms formerly part of the Colony. In this period, therefore, the term ‘Colony’ is applied to the peninsula and islands originally settled, with a few predominantly tribal areas around the river Sherbro; the term ‘Protectorate’ to territories the size of Ireland, which form the great bulk of the area marked ‘Sierra Leone’ on a modern map, and whose social organization was at this time exclusively tribal. At the beginning of 1898 British officials began to collect a House Tax which had been imposed on three of the five districts of the Protectorate. In February, resistance to the tax by certain Temne chiefs developed into open warfare in the north, and at the end of April a series of savage attacks took place on British and American subjects, mostly of African birth and descent, among the Mende and Sherbro people further south. These two outbreaks constitute the insurrection to be studied in this paper.

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Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , 1956 , pp. 56 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1956

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References

2 Cardew to Chamberlain, Conf[idential], 28 May 1898.

3 C.R., esp. i, pp. 52–4, 104–6; 11, paras. 862ff., 2421–8, 3328–32.

4 This word has an interesting but complicated semantic record. It is used here interchangeably with the contemporary meaning of ‘Sierra Leonean’: to mean an inhabitant of the Colony, almost certainly descended on one side at least from one of the various groups of liberated slaves, but in any case regarding himself and behaving as a ‘civilized’ inhabitant of British territory rather than as a member of any local tribe.

5 Memo, by Fairtlough, 3 Aug. 1911, enclosed in Harcourt to Merewether, 81 Conf. 10 Oct. 1911; enclosures in Merewether to Harcourt, Conf. 94, 20 Dec. 1911.

6 C.R. 11, paras. 2237, 2900, 4516–7, 5665.

7 C.R. II, paras. 5154, 5481; missionary statements enclosed in Cardew to Chamberlain, Conf. 28 May 1898, and largely reproduced in C.R. 1, pp. 104, 139–42.

8 See ‘The Evolution of the Native Affairs Department’ by Hargreaves, J. D. in S[ierra] L[eone] S[tudies], n[ew] s[eries], no. 3 (Dec. 1954), pp. 168–84.Google Scholar

9 Taylor, A. J. P., ‘Prelude to Fashoda’, in English Historical Review (Jan. 1950).Google Scholar

10 E.g. C.O. 267/409, minute by Sir R. Meade on Cardew to Ripon, Conf. 38, 23 May 1894. The following list gives the appointments of the chief officials of the Colonial Office mentioned in this paper:

Permanent Under-Secretary of State: Sir Robert H. Meade (1892–97); Sir Edward Wingfield (1897–1900).

Assistant Under-Secretary (charged with West African affairs): Sir John Bramston (1876–97); Mr R. L. Antrobus(1898–1909).

Principal Clerks in the West African Department: Sir A. W. L. Hemming (1879–96); Mr R. L. Antrobus (1894–96); Mr W. H. Mercer (1896–1900).

11 C.O. 267/409, Cardew to Ripon, Conf. 45, 9 June 1894. Reprinted (like most of the despatches cited in this section) in the Confidential Print, African (West) 533, C.O. Nov. 1897.

12 Minutes by Bramston and Meade in C.O. 267/409; Ripon to Cardew, Conf., 12 Sept. 1894.

13 Pope Hennessy to Kimberley, 31 Dec. 1872.

14 Cf. Cardew to Chamberlain, Conf. 28 May 1898, paras. 14–16.

15 Cardew to Ripon, Conf. 36, 10 May 1895.

16 C.O. 267/422, Cardew (in England) to C.O., 20 Aug. 1895, with minute by Chamberlain, 3 Sept. 1895. Cf. his minute on Cardew, Conf. 58, 2 Dec. 1896 (C.O. 267/426.).

17 For the discussion, see Cardew to C.O., 22 July 1895; Bramston to Administrator, 16 Oct. 1895; Cardew to Chamberlain, 257, 16 Sept.; to Bramston, pte., 16 Sept.; to Chamberlain, Conf. 28 Sept. 1896; Chamberlain to Cardew, Conf. 17 Nov.; 269, 9 Dec.; Conf. 11 Dec. 1896; Conf. 23 Feb. 1897; Cardew to Chamberlain, 99, 30 April 1897; Chamberlain to Cardew, 128, 6 July 1897: also the original Protectorate Ordinance of 16 Sept. 1896.

18 Cardew to C.O., 22 July 1895; cf. his address to Legislative Council, 8 Sept. 1896.

19 See Hailey, , Native Administration in the British African Territories (London, 1951), IV, pp.6–12Google Scholar; Perham, , Native Administration in Nigeria (Oxford, 1937).Google Scholar

20 Cardew to Chamberlain, 99, 30 April 1897; M.P. Conf. ii/1897, Sharpe to Col. Sec., 25 April 1897, esp. paras. 14–17.

21 Cardew to Ripon, 32, 26 Jan. 1895, and enclosure by Alldridge.

22 Cf. Lugard's discussion of the powers of Nigerian Provincial Courts in chs. 27 and 28 of The Dual Mandate (Edinburgh, 1922).Google ScholarPubMed

23 Minutes by Bramston: on Cardew, 22 July 1895 (C.O. 267/422), and on Cardew 312, 6 Nov. 1896 (C.O. 267/427).

24 C.O. 267/427, Cardew to Chamberlain, Conf. 69, 31 Dec. 1896, and minutes.

25 Cardew, Conf. I, 1 Jan. 1897; C.R. I, pp. 11–15, 90–2; ii, pp. 559–65 and passim.

26 M.P. Conf. 11/1897, Sharpe to Col. Sec. 25 April 1897, paras. 7, 8.

27 Chamberlain to Cardew, 269, 9 Dec. 1896; Cardew to Chamberlain, 5, 7 Jan. 1897.

28 Minutes on Cardew to Chamberlain, Conf. 43, 28 Sept. 1896; Chamberlain to Cardew, Conf. 17 Nov.; Cardew to Chamberlain, Conf. 61, 14 Dec. 1896; Chamberlain to Cardew, Conf. 23 Feb. 1897.

29 Cardew to Chamberlain, Conf. 23, 9 April 1896, para. 7.

30 Chamberlain to Cardew, Conf. 61, 14 Dec. 1896; C.R. 1, p. 95; cf. Kingsley, Mary, West African Studies (London, 1901), pp. 434–7.Google Scholar

31 Lawson served in the departments of the Colonial Surveyors at Freetown, Cape Coast and Lagos between 1867 and 1886. After retiring he made himself unpopular with the government for interfering in native affairs, and his claim to have rights of succession, through his mother, to the chieftaincy of Koya was not supported. Nevertheless, he acted as Regent there for two years. M.P. (N.A.) 206/98; C.R. ii, pp. 85 ff.; and on his father, S.L.S. (n.s.), iii, pp. 171–7.

32 C.O. 267/433, Caulfield to Chamberlain, 161, 20 July 1897, with minute by Chamberlain, 16 April 1898. Chamberlain to Caulfield, 162, 27 Aug. 1897. The petition is printed in C.R. 11, pp. 575–9. Cf. Chamberlain's more contemptuous reference to the petition in the House of Commons on 9 May 1898.

33 S.L.S. (n.s.), 1, pp. 51–2; C.R. 11, paras. 2592–603, 2648.

34 N.A.L.B., Parkes to Col. Sec, Conf. 6, 26 Oct. 1897 (M.P. Conf. 76/97 not found).

35 C.O. 267/434, minute on Cardew to Chamberlain, 262, 8 Dec. 1897.

36 Cardew to Chamberlain, Conf. 49, 8 Dec. 1897; Conf. 28 May 1898. Documents in C.R. 11, pp. 584–90. M.P. (N.A.) 374/97, Temne chiefs to Parkes, 18 Nov. 1897.

37 M.P. (N.A.) Conf. 4/97.

38 N.A.L.B., Parkes to Col. Sec., Conf. 11, 22 Dec. 1897.

39 On the Poro see McCulloch, M., Peoples of the Sierra Leone Protectorate (London, 1952)Google Scholar, and the works there cited.

40 N.A.L.B., Parkes to Cardew, Conf. 2, 3 May 1897; M.P. (N.A.) 173/97; and a M.P. of 1910 preserved at Bonthe.

41 Cardew to Chamberlain, Conf. 49, 8 Dec. 1897; Cardew to D.C.s, Local Conf. 44, 22 Nov. 1897.

42 Cardew to Ripon, Conf. 47, 13 June 1894; Cardew, Local Conf. 34, 58, 18 May, 13 Aug. 1894.

43 Hood to Col. Sec., 10 Jan. 1898, M.P. Conf. 9/98.

44 Cardew to O.C. Troops, Karene, Local Conf. 36, 48, and Secret, 15 March, 25, 29 April 1898; M.P. Conf. 40/98.

45 M.P. Conf. 9/98; M.P. N.A. 78/98; C.R. ii, paras. 7754–8.

46 M.P. N.A. 33, 34, 47, 117/98.

47 M.P. N.A. 112/98; M.P. Conf. 47, 60/98.

48 M.P. N.A. 78/112, 73/98. Probably still more was paid in April, though the return seems to have been lost in the rising. Fairtlough, writing in 1911, put the total received in the District by the end of April at £3000.

49 Stories attributing supernatural powers to Bai Bureh circulated widely. Cardew thought they were spread by the Freetown press; Captain Wallis, by itinerant Mohammedan morimen; possibly neither knew the whole truth. C.R. I, paras. 1327ff., 3126–9; Wallis, C. B., The Rise of our West African Empire (London, 1903)Google Scholar; S.L.S. (n.s.), 1, p. 33; cf. Stuart, J., The Zulu Rebellion of 1906 (London, 1913), pp. 114–15, 199–201.Google Scholar

50 M.P. Conf. 52/98. Despatches from Panguma reached Freetown in ten days.

51 Cardew to Chamberlain, 275, 30 Nov. 1898; C.R. passim; and oral traditions.

52 The figure generally given—1000—is too high; it does not seem to have originated in any authoritative contemporary estimate, for none was made (C.R. I, p. 51 n.). The following figures (condensed from an enclosure to Merewether to Harcourt, Conf. 94, 26 Dec. 1911) refer only to those murders committed in early May 1898 for which someone was put on trial before the circuit judge. There were doubtless several for which no one was tried; but the administration was in a mood for strong measures, and great efforts were made to put someone on trial for all known murders, even if an acquittal followed. I doubt whether the total of murders was as much as double that given below.

53 Garvin, J., Life of Joseph Chamberlain, III (London, 1934), p. 203Google Scholar; this view is borne out by examination of the C.O. 267 series.

54 C.O. 267/437, General Wood to Selborne, c. 5 May 1898; C.O. 267/438, Cardew to Chamberlain, Conf. 35, 9 May 1898.

55 C.O. 267/437, minutes by Chamberlain on Cardew's telegrams 5, 18 Mar.

56 C.O. 267/437, minutes on Cardew's telegrams 2, 4 April, and Conf. despatches 14, 17, 24, of 5, 12 Mar. and 5 April.

57 C.O. 267/433, Chamberlain, minute of 16 April 1898 on Caulfield 161, 20 July 1897; C.O. 267/443, minute on letter from Manchester Chamber of Commerce, 14 April, 1898; cf. minutes on C.O. 267/438, Cardew's telegrams 21, 25 April, 1898.

58 C. O. 267/443, minute on Parity. Question of 3 May 1898.

59 C.O. 267/443, minute on letter from Manchester Chamber of Commerce, 2 May; Chamberlain to Cardew, tel. 8 May.

60 C.O. 267/438, Cardew to Chamberlain, tel. 9 May; Conf. Despatch, 28 May; and minutes.

61 C R 11, Cardew to Chamberlain, 30 Sept. 1898; C O 267/440, Cardew to Chamberlain, Conf 28 Nov, Chalmers to Wingfield, 11 Nov 1898, and minutes.

62 H R Fox Bourne, ‘The Sierra Leone Troubles’ in the Fortnightly Review (1898), p. 216, cf. C O 267/444, A P S to C O, 10 Oct 1898 M Kingsley to Nathan, 8 Mar., 28 Aug. 1899, cit Gwynn, S, The Life of Mary Kingsley (London, 1932), pp. 217–29.Google Scholar

63 CO 267/443, M[anchest]er and L[iver]pool C[hamber] of C[ommerce] to CO, 16, 23 June 1898 For a general note on the Chambers and West African policy, see S L S (n s ), p 46.

64 Kingsley, op. cit. pp. 262–3.

65 E.g. C.O. 267/435, minute by Antrobus on letter of M/er C. of C. 7 July 1897; C.O. 267/443, minute by Chamberlain on L'pool C. of C. 18 May 1898.

66 Cardew to C.O., tel. 9 May; Conf. desp. 28, 31 May; desp. 177, 6 Sept. 1898. C.O. 267/443; M/er C. of C. to C.O. 15 April, tel. 9 May, C.O. 267/450; L'pool C. of C. to C.O. 15 Aug. 1899, M/er C. of C. to C.O. 16 Aug. 1899.

67 M.P. Conf. 102/1898. The circular is printed in C.R. 1, pp. 144–8, with the replies of Sharpe and Fairtlough. Fairtlough's reply was released by the Colonial Office for publication in The Times of 25 Oct.; cf. protests of the President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and the Secretary of the Aborigines Protection Society, in letters printed on 4 Nov.

68 C.R. I, pp. 69 ff.

69 C.R. 1, pp. 35, 41, 45; cf. pp. 98, 101–2.

70 Cardew to Chamberlain, 275, 30 Nov. 1898; Wallis, op. cit. p. 89; S.L.S. (n.s.), I, pp. 37f.; Cardew Conf. 52, 6 July 1898 (giving Madame Yoko's view).

71 C.R. 1, esp. sections 179–96.

72 C.R. I, p. 170.

73 C.O. 267/450, Chalmers to C.O., 21 Jan. 1899, and minutes.

74 Executive Council minutes, 7 May 1898; Cardew to Chamberlain, 155, 4 Aug.; 177, 6 Sept.; 286, 7 Dec; Conf. 95, 15 Dec. 1898; Conf. 3, 9 Jan. 1899.

75 C.O. 267/450, minute of 20 April 1899.

76 C.O. 267/450, minutes of 22 Feb.–22 April 1899; Nathan to Antrobus, 27 May 1899.

77 C.O. 267/450, Chamberlain, minute of 22 April 1899.

78 C.O. 267/450, minutes of 22 Feb.–22 April 1899.

79 C.O. 267/448, minutes by Antrobus, Selborne, and Chamberlain, on Cardew to Chamberlain, 297, 16 Oct. 1899.

80 C.R. I, pp. 60–6, 109–14, 168. Cardew to Chamberlain, Conf. 27, 13 April; Conf. 28 May; Conf. 68, 23 Aug. 1898; M.P. Conf. 102/98. Cf. Fairtlough to Col. Sec, 4 Aug. 1898, C.R. 1, pp. 145–6.

81 C.O. 267/438, Cardew to Chamberlain, Conf. 28 May 1898, and minutes.