the first ethnic group to settle in sierra leone
Sierra Leone is located on the west coast of Africa, north of the equator. This list may not reflect recent changes ( learn more ). d.setTime(d.getTime() + 60 * 60 * 24 * 2 * 1000);
Their main activity is cultivation, but they also raise a few animals and engage in trade. About half live in Bombali and Koinadugu districts of Northern Province, and the rest are scattered throughout the country. They eventually adopted the customs of the Settlers and intermarried with them, together forming the bulk of the group known as Creoles. Although largely faithful to indigenous religious beliefs, they greatly respect Islam, the religion of the Madingo and Fullah living among them. The majority of the Temne support the All People's Congress. The Mende predominate in the Southern Province and Eastern Sierra Leone (with the exception of Kono District). It has been suggested that they occupied much of the northern Sierra Leone at an earlier time but were pushed aside by Temne, Koranko, and Yalunka. The much smaller Vai are primarily found in Kailahun and Pujehun Districts near the border with Liberia. It is the only Black state in Africa never subjected to colonial rule and is Africa’s oldest republic. They also fish and gather palm products. In 1792 they were joined by about 1,000 freed slaves who had fought for the British in the American Revolution and had been unsuccessfully settled in Nova Scotia and in 1800 by about 500 … Their original home was the southern part of the Fouta Djallon in Guinea, from where they were driven out by the Yalunka in the seventeenth century. The Sierra Leone census lists them as Fullah. Ethnic groups in Sierra Leone… 
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The ancestors of almost all the Manding were once united in the great Mali empire, the successive capitals of which were located in the traditional heartland known as Mande or Mandin on the upper Niger River between Bamako in Mali and Siguiri in present-day Guinea. Creoles sent their children to Fourah Bay College, which had been founded in 1827; they served inland as missionaries, teachers, and administrative officers; they became wealthy traders; and in the nineteenth century they lived on equal terms side by side with the Europeans. They primarily occupy the capital city of Freetown and its surrounding Western Area. The small but significant Krio people (descendants of freed African American, West Indian and Liberated African slaves who settled in Freetown between 1787 and about 1885) make up 1.3% of the population. Sierra Leone - British Colony. The Kuranko are believed to have begun arriving in Sierra Leone from Guinea in about 1600 and settled in the north, particularly in Koinadugu District. The Mandika are predominantly found in the east and the northern part of the country. Fula in Sierra Leone are thus often considered strangers? They were frequently mentioned by European writers from 1500 on as occupying the hinterland between the Pongo River estuary and the Little Searcies River immediately behind the coastal peoples. Sierra Leone has been a source of and destination for refugees. Next in proportion are the Kono, who live primarily in Kono District in Eastern Sierra Leone. Thus another factor that frequently colors interethnic relations in African countries that of ethnic loyalties reaching beyond national borders is missing. There exists among them an endogamous caste of ironsmiths, whose women are potters, and a special caste of professional bards. They have strong relationship with the Fullaa and Susu they are also widely spread in West Africa, being the third African Muslim to accept Islam after the Fullaa and Medingo. fishing. The vast majority of Kissi are Christians. On the whole, Sierra Leone is dominated by its two largest ethnic groups. 03-05-2017 19:11:06 ZULU. Most Sierra Leonean Susu live in Kambia, Bombali, and Port Loko districts of Northern Province, but the bulk of the Susu are located across the border in Guinea, where they play a predominant economic and political role. In the southern part of their area, western and eastern Limba are separated from each other by the Temne and Lokko. The largest contest within Sierra Leone's political culture centres upon the competition between the ethnic Temne in Sierra Leone's north-west, and the Mende in Sierra Leone's south-east.[1]. The Kpa-Mende have a social institution, the Wunde society, that is not found among other Mende. The only exception was a group of Yoruba originally from eastern Nigeria who arrived in the 1820s and who never lost their identity. Descendants of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Fulani migrant settlers from the [Fuuta Jaloo, Fuuta Tooro], regions of Guinea, Senegal, Mali, and Mauritania. In rural areas many Lokko live under Temne chiefs. The original Portuguese name, Serra Lyoa (“Lion Mountains”), referred to the range of hills that surrounds the harbour. Krio culture reflects the Western culture and ideals within which many of their ancestors originated - they also had close ties with British officials and colonial administration during years of development. Although Fula have lived in Sierra Leone for centuries, particularly large numbers migrated from Guinea in the 1960s and 1970s, many without formal naturalisation. A similar ethnic group of Americo-Liberians are the Sierra Leone Creole people, who shared similar ancestry and related culture. The vast majority of Krios are Christians, though with a significant Muslim minority. The Yalunka (Dialonke, Jallonke) are considered by some scholars simply a branch of the Susu. Their traditional home is in Guinea, where numbers of them live and where a hill called Konno Su is still remembered as the burial place of an early Kono chief. var script = document.createElement("script");
The third largest ethnic group are the Limba at around 6.4% of the population. Its treatment of unbelievers in the area set in motion further migrations.
Sierra Leone’s civil war internally displaced as many as 2 million people, or almost half the population, and forced almost another half million to seek refuge in neighboring countries (370,000 Sierra … The Sherbro have no tradition of earlier migrations and may have been the original inhabitants of the area. Like the neighbouring Temne, the Loko are Muslim majority. tle there, and about twenty years later they were joined by Kroo women. The Limba are ricegrowers and palm wine tappers, the latter as migrants to other parts of Sierra Leone. Being a Creole meant being a Christian, living monogamously, generally adopting an English name, and following a European pattern of living. Sierra Leonean Creole or Krio is an English-based creole language that is lingua franca and de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone.Krio is spoken by 87% of Sierra Leone's population and unites the different ethnic groups in the country, especially in their trade and social interaction with each other. Home to 16 ethnic groups, Sierra Leone has unified, rich and diverse cultures that have existed in the country for over 2,000 years. After the railroad to Pendembu was completed in 1908, European firms, as well as Syrians and Lebanese, began trading in the interior, eventually displacing the Creoles and destroying an important economic base for the dominant Creole position. In 1787, the first group of about four hundred men and women arrived from Great Britain. The Vai are largely Muslim. There might at one time have been as many as 80,000 Creoles in Sierra Leone, but in the 1963 census only 41,783 designated themselves as such, possibly an indication that many had decided to stress their African antecedents and to reject the British cultural heritage that had been their pride. Remnants of the extensive original forest cover survive in the Gola Forest Reserves, in the southeastern hill country near the Liberian border. The Temne are cultivators who grow rice, groundnuts (peanuts), cassava, millet, and other crops. They were reported already in their present area when the early Portuguese explorers arrived. The dense forests protected Sierra Leone from African pre-colonial empires and Islamic colonization. Like the Fula, the Mandinka are virtually all Muslims. Young Kissi men work in Freetown as domestic servants or become seamen, but they remain attached to their villages and almost always go back there to live. Before the establishment of roads and schools and the development of mining, the Limba were isolated from the Colony and the coastal peoples, and they tended to look northward to the people in the Fouta Djallon who had once ruled over them and with whom communication was easier than with the forest people of the south. Originally they practiced shifting cultivation of fundi (a variety of millet), which accounts for widespread deforestation in their areas. They are also found in great numbers in the mining areas of all three provinces and in the Western Area. Native to Sierra Leone, they have occupied Sherbro Island since it was founded. 3210. The Krim, a branch of the Sherbro, live between them and the Vai in Pujehun and Bonthe districts. Only a few adopted Islam. They began moving into Sierra Leone slowly and peacefully in the eighteenth century. Americo-Liberians trace their ancestry to free-born and formerly enslaved African Americans who emigrated in the 19th century to become the founders of the state of Liberia. Sierra Leone’s current Vice President, Dr. Juldeh Jalloh, is a Fula by tribe. One of the first ethnic groups to become educated according to Western traditions, they have traditionally been appointed to positions in the civil service, beginning during the colonial years. The largest ethnic group is the Mende at 32.2% of Sierra Leone's population. In time British rather than Creoles began filling the medical, legal, and military jobs in the Protectorate. }
With a land area of 27,699 square miles (71,740 square kilometers), it is slightly smaller than the state of South Carolina. The first European contact with West Africa was in Sierra Leone. The Madingo eventually adopted Islam in large numbers in the late 1880s. The Kru are also primarily found in Kailahun and Pujehun Districts near the border with Liberia. In the past the Koranko fought intermittent ly with the Kono, to whom, however, they once gave refuge when the Kono were attacked by the Mende.
They were probably the ancestors of t he Limbas, the oldest ethnic group in Sierra Leone, the coastal Bulom (Sherbro), Tine, the Mande-speaking people including Vai, Loko and Mende. The Mende are predominantly found in the Southern Province and the Eastern Province, while the Temne are found primarily in the Northern Province and the Western Area, including the capital city of Freetown. Other minority ethnic groups are the Kuranko, who are related to the Mandingo, and are largely Muslims. The main body of the Temne lives between the Little Searcies and Sewa rivers in an area stretching eastward from the coast. The Kono are descendants of migrants from Guinea; today their workers are known primarily as diamond miners. Sierra Leone's former president Ernest Bai Koroma is the first ethnic Temne to be elected to the office. They were a dominant, westernized elite that differed sharply from the tradition-bound peoples of the interior. Sierra Leone’s founding dates back to 1787 when several waves of freed black settlers originating from England, Nova Scotia, and Jamaica all arrived in the area. The Krio have traditionally dominated Sierra Leone's judiciary and Freetown's elected city council. The Kissi live along the eastern border of Kailahun and Kono districts of Eastern Province where the frontiers of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone meet. Pages in category "Ethnic groups in Sierra Leone". His father was a Yalunka paramount chief of Solima, a prosperous chieftaincy. They continue to be influential in the civil service. The Yalunka, also spelled Jallonke, Yalonga, Djallonké, Djallonka or Dialonké, are a Mande people who have lived in the Djallon, a mountainous region in Sierra Leone, Mali, Senegal, Guinea Bissau and Guinea Conakry West Africa over 520 years ago. In the mid-twentieth century most Yalunka had become Muslims. All of them had learned English, and a modified version called Krio became their common language. They are cultivators and fishermen who speak a Bullom dialect. The Kono are primarily diamond miners and farmers. Overwhelmingly, they are Muslim, although a few Christian Temne exist. Sierra Leone's third president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, and Sierra Leone's first Vice President Sorie Ibrahim Koroma were both ethnic Mandingo. The Kroo speak a language unrelated to that of any other Sierra Leoneans. By: Sankara Kamara* In July this year, the West African state of Liberia celebrated 170 years of nationhood. The Susu are primarily cultivators, mainly of rice and millet; theyare also traders and are well known for their work in leather, gold, and other metals. Most of the Gola, who are linguistically related to the Kissi, live in Liberia, but small groups have settled in Makepele Chiefdom of Pujehun District. Other Yalunka left, settling in various areas including the northern part of Koinadugu District in Northern Province, where they are separated from the Susu by a small wedge of territory inhabited by the Limba. Their language has been modified by Temne, and Lokko immigrants in Freetown often designate themselves Temne. Called Aku from the first syllable of their greeting, they were still a small distinct group in the 1970s. During Sierra Leone's colonial era thousands of Limbas migrated to the capital city of Freetown and its Western Area. Their traditional home is the Wara Ware Chiefdom in Koinadugu District, where the guardian of all the Limba is believed to be living on a hill to which the spirits of all dead Limba chiefs are said to return. The Madingo (usually called Mandingo elsewhere but also referred to as Madinka, Malinke, and Wangara) are one of the three most important groups among the cluster of linguistically and culturally related people called the Manding or, in French, Mandingue. The three groups came to be known as Settlers. Its capital city is Monrovia, named after U.S. President James Monroe. Cultiva- tors, traders, and religious teachers entered Sierra Leone from Guinea in small groups at different times. The Temne predominate in the Northern Sierra Leone and the areas around the capital of Sierra Leone. The Temne constitute the majority of the population of the districts of Port Loko, Kambia, the southern half of Bombali, and Tonkolili all in Northern Province. Most are Muslims. Their ultimate place of origin is still at issue, but their nomadic ancestors are thought to have come from the area north of the Senegal River and to have moved gradually south and east during the last 400 or 500 years. Nomads and settled cultivators developed a symbiotic relationship that was advantageous to both. During the 16th, 17th, and 18th century, many Limba people were shipped to North America as slaves. They entered Sierra Leone as peaceful hunters, probably in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Kru predominate in the Kroubay neighbourhood in the capital Freetown. Part of their region at the estuaries of the Moa and Mano rivers is called Gallinas, the name given to the inhabitants by early European explorers and traders. This unique culture is descended from previously enslaved people who settled in Sierra Leone from 1787 to the late 19th century. The Sierra Leone Fula people settled in the Western Area region of Sierra Leone more than sixty years ago as settlers from mainly the Fuuta Jaloo Region that expanded to northern Sierra Leone (Kabala, Bombali). As a result, a significant number of Limbas can be found in Freetown and its surrounding Western Area. Many moved farther into Guinea beginning about the fifteenth century as the Songhai empire expanded westward. Minority Rights Group International (MRG) states that Sierra Leone is home to 178,400 people of Fula/Fulbe/Fulani ethnicity, or 2.9% of the population, who live mainly in the north. The largest ethnic group is the Mende at 33.2% of Sierra Leone's population. The next largest group, the Mende, make up 31% of the population. A significant number of the Sierra Leone Fula population are found in all regions of Sierra Leone as traders, and many live in middle-class homes. About 20 percent are Kpa-Mende (kpa means different) and reside in the west. They were strongly influenced by Christian missions. Within their area hvc dialects of Koranko are spoken and are sufficiently different from other to identify a speakers place of origin. The name Yalunka literally means "inhabitants of the Jallon (mountains)." Liberia, country along the coast of western Africa, bordered by Sierra Leone, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, and the Atlantic Ocean. In the mid-sixteenth century the Gola were middlemen in the slave trade, transferring slaves from groups farther inland to the coastal Vai, who exchanged them for goods from European slave traders. These recaptured or liberated peoples, as they were called, had never lived on another continent, shared neither language nor country of origin, and had nothing in common with the Settlers and very little with each other, except the trauma of their capture and subsequent liberation. The Temne constitute the largest single group in Freetown, which in the 1970s they continued to regard as their territory. They are said to be indigenous to the south and central part of the Fouta Djallon, which the Fullah named after them. By the end of the eighteenth century a Fullah (Peul) theocracy controlled the Fouta Djallon. According to Lake and Rothschild, (1996) ethnic conflict is a sign of a weak state or a state embroiled in ancient loyalties. Ninety percent of Creoles lived in the Western Area, where they were outnumbered only by the Temne. The Temne were the second largest group in Sierra Leone, after the Mende, at the time of the 1963 census but, because of their higher birthrate, were probably the largest group in the mid-1970s. The Sierra Leonean-Lebanese community are primarily traders and they mostly live in middle-class households in the urban areas, primarily in Freetown, Bo, Kenema, Koidu Town and Makeni. Another 35 percent are middle or Sewa Mende, so called because of their proximity to the Sewa River. They live mainly in Pujehun District of Southern Province. The country owes its name to the 15th-century Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra, the first European to sight and map Freetown harbour. The Sherbro live along the Atlantic coast, mainly in Bonthe and Moyamba districts. The Temneare the largest. They are virtually all Muslims. They have a strong military tradition, and their warriors, who distinguished them- selves in battles with the Temne, were renowned throughout Mende-land. In 1767, Granville Town was founded in Sierra Leone and it became the world’s first settlement for freed slaves in Africa and in the world. The Kissi live further inland in South-Eastern Sierra Leone. The first group of about 400 freed former domestic servants and disbanded soldiers who had been living in abject poverty in England were settled near present-day Freetown in 1787. The Temne are thought to have come from Futa Jallon, which is in present-day Guinea. Some, however, are settled herders. The Mende have never constituted a cohesive nation, but their cultural characteristics and a rich oral tradition mark them off as a separate people. script.setAttribute("onerror", "setNptTechAdblockerCookie(true);");
The Loko in the north are native people of Sierra Leone, believed to have lived in Sierra Leone since the time of European encounter. Sometime in the latter half of the nineteenth century, Fullah pastoralists began to encroach on Sierra Leone, a process that accelerated in the twentieth century. In 1792 they were joined by about 1,000 freed slaves who had fought for the British in the American Revolution and had been unsuccessfully settled in Nova Scotia and in 1800 by about 500 people originally from Jamaica, the so-called Maroons. Nevertheless, the Fula community has since grown and prospered. Many of the large shopping centers in Sierra Leone are owned and run by the Fula community. In 1996, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) similarly reported that the Fula have historically been merchants and traders, with origins from the neighbouring state of Guinea. When conditions in Nova Scotia proved to be unfavorable for the Black Loyalists there, Sierra Leone was offered as … (function(src){var a=document.createElement("script");a.type="text/javascript";a.async=true;a.src=src;var b=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];b.parentNode.insertBefore(a,b)})("//experience.tinypass.com/xbuilder/experience/load?aid=bYdYZQml5V"); Ethnic groups, such as the Susu, Vai, and Kissi, whose major distribution is in neighboring countries are not very important numerically, whereas the three biggest groups, the Temne, Mende, and Limba, are concentrated mainly inside Sierra Leone. The Mende are concentrated in the southern part of the country immediately beyond the coastal zone and extend across the border into Liberia. Many youth from the Kono ethnic group use the Krio language as the primary language of communication with other Sierra Leonean ethnic groups.