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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 November 2007
This study examines Nyarroh, a woman chief situated at the cusp of colonial penetration in what is today southern Sierra Leone. Nyarroh ruled a large, strategically located town and its surrounding villages from about 1880 to 1914. The documents which outline her public life have not previously been explored, yet they reveal the flexibility of gendered notions of political power and leadership in the region. Her life story allows us to look backward to precolonial Mendeland and forward to the colonial era, to consider the extent to which women's leadership and prerogatives were maintained or re-invented through colonial penetration and the nascent colonial state.
1 General treatments of African women considered the many examples of high-ranking women in African political systems as early as Denise Paulme's edited work, Women of Tropical Africa (Berkeley, 1963). But more recent collections or general histories have addressed various aspects of this topic as well: for example Marcia Wright's contribution to Teresa A. Meade and Merrye E. Weisner-Harlis (eds.), A Companion to Gender History (Williston VT, 2004); Jean Allman, Susan Geiger and Nyakanisi Musisi (eds.), Women in African Colonial Histories (Bloomington, 2002); Iris Berger and E. Frances White, Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: Restoring Women to History (Bloomington, 1999), Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, African Women: A Modern History, trans. Beth G. Raps (Boulder CO, 1997); and Flora Kaplan (ed.), Queens, Queen Mothers, Priestesses and Power: Case Studies in African Gender (Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences, 810) (New York, 1997).
2 The foregoing references are drawn from chapters in Kaplan (ed.), Queen Mothers, Priestesses and Power: Edna G. Bay, ‘The kpojito or “queen mother” of precolonial Dahomey: towards an institutional history’, 19–40; Flora E. S. Kaplan, ‘Iyoba, the queen mother of Benin: images and ambiguity in gender and sex roles in court art’, 73–102; Helen K. Henderson, ‘Onitsha woman: the traditional context for political power’, 215–44; Sandra T. Barnes, ‘Gender and the politics of support and protection in precolonial West Africa’, 1–18.
3 Coquery-Vidrovitch, African Women: A Modern History, 35; Berger and White, Women in Sub-Saharan Africa, 85–6, 88–9, 94.
4 Carol P. Hoffer [MacCormack], ‘Madam Yoko: ruler of the Kpa Mende confederacy’, in Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (eds.), Woman, Culture and Society (Stanford, 1977). Professor MacCormack is best known for numerous articles discussing the Sande women's initiation society as the central institution supporting female power in Mende and Sherbro life. But see ‘Mende and Sherbro women in high office’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 6 (1972), 151–64, for her wide-ranging discussion of female chiefs in Sierra Leone.
5 Allman et al., Women in African Colonial Histories, 3.
6 Ibid. The introduction to the Allman et al. edited volume seeks to interrogate numerous assumptions regarding the encounters of African women and European colonialisms.
7 Most of the information about Nyarroh presented in this paper is taken from official correspondence published as Parliamentary Papers by the Great Britain House of Commons 1886–9, entitled ‘Correspondence respecting disturbances in the Native Territories adjacent to Sierra Leone’. For the year 1886, vol. xlvii, I have used Command Papers 4642, 4840 and 4905. For 1887, vol. lx, I have used Command Papers 5236 and 5740. These papers were published in bound volumes by His Majesty's Stationer in London in 1909 and reprinted by University Microforms in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1963. I consulted the volumes located in the Memorial Library of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
8 Arthur Abraham, Mende Government and Politics Under Colonial Rule (Freetown, 1978), 249–68. See also ‘Women chiefs in Sierra Leone: a historical reappraisal’, Odu, 10 (July 1974), 30–44, for Abraham's most pointed attack on the legitimacy of female chieftaincy.
9 Abraham, ‘Women chiefs’, 38, 40.
10 Abraham, Mende Government and Politics Under Colonial Rule, 249–65.
11 Carol P. Hoffer [MacCormack], ‘Acquisition and exercise of political power by a woman paramount chief of the Sherbro people’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Bryn Mawr, 1971); see also fn. 4.
12 Christopher Fyfe, History of Sierra Leone (London, 1962), 293.
13 Abraham, Mende Government and Politics Under Colonial Rule, 33–4.
14 Alpha M. S. Lavalie, ‘History and development of the institution of Mende chieftaincy from the pre-colonial period to independence: a case study from Kenema district’ (BA dissertation, University of Sierra Leone, 1976), 14.
15 Ibid. 27–31.
16 The most detailed discussion of this topic is found in Kenneth Little's anthropological study of the Mende, The Mende of Sierra Leone (London, 1951).
17 Abraham, Mende Government and Politics Under Colonial Rule, 264.
18 Ibid. 258; Abraham, ‘Women chiefs in Sierra Leone’, 32.
19 See an essay by Igor Kopytoff in Oyèrónké Oyèwúmi (ed.), African Gender Studies: A Reader (New York, 2005), 127–44, for a discussion of flexibility in the definition of gender in African societies.
20 Sierra Leone Archives, Records of Paramount Chiefs (1899), 177.
21 See Abraham, ‘Women chiefs’, 37 fn. 37.
22 Adam Jones, From Slaves to Palm Kernels: a History of the Gallinas Country (West Africa), 1730–1890 (Wiesbachen, 1983), 15–16, 120–2, 144–7; Parliamentary Papers (hereafter PP) 1886, LXVII (C 4642:10) no. 13, Rowe to Secretary of State (hereafter SS), 6 April 1885; ibid. (C 4642:52) no. 38, Rowe to SS, 18 July 1885.
23 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:17) no. 16, enc.1, Festing to Rowe, 14 April 1885.
24 Ibid.
25 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:20) no. 17, enc., Peel to Rowe, 21 April 1885.
26 Ibid.
27 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:19) no. 17, Rowe to SS, 24 April 1885.
28 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:64) no. 38, enc. 10, Rowe to Peel, 22 April 1885.
29 ‘[The boys] carry with them 20lbs. of tobacco for you which you can make a present to Queen Nyarroh, and one case of gin, and one piece white cloth, and one handkerchief as a present to her’. PP 1886 lxvii (C 4642:64), Rowe to Peel, 22 April 1885.
30 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:66) no. 38, enc.13, Peel to Rowe, 25 April 1885.
31 Thomas J. Alldridge, The Sherbro and Its Hinterland (London, 1901), 166.
32 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:19), Rowe to SS, 24 April 1885.
33 PP 1888, LXVII (C 4905:19), Rowe to Peel, 30 March 1886.
34 ‘Beyond the Gallinas country there lies that hitherto unknown tract of country but lately penetrated by His Excellency, Sir Samuel Rowe, known as the Barrie Country: seldom if ever visited by Europeans and hardly ever by Sierra Leone traders. The position of its principal town, Bandazuma, as a trading centre, renders it of such importance to the commercial community that it cannot but be said to be peculiarly fortunate that it has been opened to commerce in these trying times. From it there are roads to the Toonchia country rich in palm kernels and palm oil, the Wenday and Gowrah and other districts beyond as yet uninvaded by traders; it is within easy access of both Yonnie and Mesmah in the Kittam and is not very distant from Sulimah … Rich in produce which its people would gladly exchange for European products, it is undoubtedly one of the finest markets which has for some time presented itself, and which it is to be hoped, now that peace has been restored to the district, and it has been opened to the traders of all nationalities, will not long remain undeveloped … It is said that not far inland of it, is a district known as the Conyah country, where horses run wild, and every thing is plentiful; in time, perhaps, enterprising men of commerce might tap even this region from it; at present, however, to get in the thin edge of the wedge in the Barrie country at Bandazuma is what is required, and that which awaits to be done’. PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:69) no. 38, enc. 19, Sierra Leone Church Times, 17 June 1885.
35 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:49) no. 37, Rowe to SS, 17 July 1885.
36 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:21–7, 43–61).
37 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4905:5, 8) Peel to Rowe, 9 Jan. 1886 and 21 Jan. 1886; author's interview with A. B. M. Jah, Pujehun, 26 May 1981.
38 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4905:8) Peel to Rowe, 21 Jan. 1886.
39 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4905:9) Peel to Rowe, 24 Jan. 1886; ibid. (C 4642:101) no. 66, enc., Peel to Rowe, 20 Dec. 1885.
40 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:23) no. 19, Rowe to the Earl of Derby, 4 May 1885.
41 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:102) no. 6, enc., Peel to Rowe, 20 Dec. 1885.
42 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:102) no. 66, enc., Peel to Rowe, 20 Dec. 1885.
43 PP 1886, LXVII (C 5540:53) no. 28, enc. 2, Peel to Rowe, 10 April 1886.
44 Alldridge, The Sherbro and Its Hinterland, 166.
45 Ibid. 169.
46 Ibid. 170.
47 Ibid. 259–60.
48 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:55–6) no. 38, enc. 1, Lavannah Agreement, 16 May 1885.
49 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4840:25) no. 17, enc. 5, Rowe to Mackavoray of Tikonkoh, 21 Jan. 1886.
50 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4905:3) Peel to Rowe, 7 Dec. 1885; PP 1887, LX (C 5236:47) Conversation between Rowe and Momo Jah, 6 Feb. 1887.
51 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:67) no. 38, enc. 17, Festing to Rowe, 29 May 1885.
52 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4905:18) Peel to Rowe, 22 March 1886.
53 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:45) no. 36, enc. 1, Rowe to SS, 17 July 1885.
54 Little, The Mende, 37; also J. Bokari, ‘Mende warfare’, Farm and Forest (April–June), 104. ‘It is worth mentioning that if a chief desired to call for a cessation of hostilities between two forces, he would send as his representative a woman of fair coloured skin (nyaha gowale) with a white cloth (kula-gole) a gun (kpande) and salt (kpolo) to plead on his behalf’. See George Thompson, Thompson in Africa (New York, 1852), 130, 138–41, for a description of an unnamed woman ‘ambassadress’ who was traveling from town to town trying to settle the war in the Kaw Mendi country near the Bum River in the 1840s.
55 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:16) no. 16, enc. 1, Festing to Rowe, 14 April 1885; PP 1886, LXVII (C 4840:27) no. 17, enc. 9, Mackaia to Rowe, 27 Feb. 1886.
56 PP 1886, LXVII (C 4642:20) no. 17, enc., Peel to Rowe, 21 April 1885.
57 PP 1887, LX (C 5236:118) no. 88, enc. 3, Statement of William Dixon, a trader of Bandasuma, sworn before the Civil Commandant at Sulimah, 5 May 1887.
58 PP 1887, LX (C 5236:159) no. 117, enc. 1, Mackavoreh to Hay, 16 July 1887.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
61 Ndawa had executed at least two male chiefs: one named Joya, who had been captured and whose town, Panderu, Ndawa had plundered, and the other named Sele, a town chief who had angered him. Arthur Abraham, Introduction to the Precolonial History of Mende in Sierra Leone (Lewiston NY, 2003), 99, 119.
62 PP 1887, LX (C 5236:159) no. 117, Hay to Holland, 1 Aug. 1887.
63 PP 1887, LX (C 5236:152] no. 117, enc. 2, Report of Privates Parkyns and Johnson who were dispatched with an Official Letter to Chief Marcofolie of Tikonko on 1st June 1887, 2 July 1887.
64 PP 1887, LX (C 5236:118–19) no. 88, enc. 4, Dixon to Commandant, 2 May 1887.
65 PP 1889, LVI. 853 (C 5740:89).
66 The death of Ndawa is described by Abraham in Precolonial History of Mende, 98–100, and reported in an 1889 dispatch from Sgt. Ben Johnson. Sierra Leone Archives, Aborigine's Minute Papers (1889) no. 209, Sgt. Johnson to Captain Le Poer, 28 Oct. 1889.
67 Alldridge, The Sherbro and Its Hinterland, 166–7.
68 Ibid. 259–62; Sierra Leone Archives, Records of Paramount Chiefs (1899), 177; author's interview with A. B. M. Jah, Pujehun, 26 May 1981.
69 The introduction to Karen Offen, Ruth Roach Pierson and Jane Rendall, Writing Women's History: International Perspectives (Bloomington, 1991), sets out a roadmap for historians attempting to articulate a feminist epistemology of the discipline.
70 A. B. C. Sibthorpe, The History of Sierra Leone (New York, 1971, edited with a new introduction by Robert W. July [London, 1906]), 108.
