Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, informally Salone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea to the northeast. Sierra Leone has a tropical climate with a diverse environment ranging from savanna to rainforests, a total area of 71,740 km2 (27,699 sq mi) and a population of 7,092,113 as of the 2015 census. The capital and largest city is Freetown. The country is divided into five administrative regions which are subdivided into sixteen districts.
Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educational and political centre, as it is the seat of the Government of Sierra Leone. The population of Freetown was 1,055,964 at the 2015 census.
Creole people are ethnic groups which originated during the colonial era from racial mixing mainly between West Africans as well as some other people born in the colonies, such as Europeans and sometimes South Asian and Native American peoples; this process is known as creolisation. Creole peoples vary widely in ethnic background and mixture and many have since developed distinct ethnic identities. The development of creole languages is sometimes mistakenly attributed to the emergence of creole ethnic identities; however, they are independent developments.
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. Krio is the primary language of communication among Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad. The language is native to the Sierra Leone Creole people or Krios,, and is spoken as a second language by millions of other Sierra Leoneans belonging to the country's indigenous tribes. English is Sierra Leone's official language, while Krio, despite its common use throughout the country, has no official status.
Fernandinos are creoles, multi-ethnic or multi-racial populations who developed in Equatorial Guinea and the former Spanish Guinea. Their name is derived from the island of Fernando Pó, where many worked. This island was named for the Portuguese explorer Fernão do Pó, credited with discovering the region.
West African Pidgin English also known as Guinea Coast Creole English is a West African creole language lexified by pidgin English and local African languages. It originated as a language of commerce between British and African slave traders during the period of the Atlantic slave trade. As of 2017, about 75 million people in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea use the language.
The Liberated Africans of Sierra Leone were illegally enslaved Africans rescued from slave ships intercepted by anti-slaving patrols in the Atlantic Ocean and near coastal trading stations on the African Coast after 1808. Born and enslaved throughout West and West Central Africa, the rescued Africans were liberated by British naval courts or bilateral tribunals established in Freetown, capital of the Sierra Leone Colony and Protectorate. Following liberation, most liberated Africans were then consigned to a variety of unfree labor apprenticeships in Freetown and the interior. Some Africans liberated in Freetown were later resettled as agriculturalists or colonial militiamen in British colonies in Guyana and the West Indies. Approximately 3,000 were forcibly migrated to British settlements along the Gambia River. Smaller numbers were settled in Liberia, a colony established by the United States.
The Sherbro people are a native people of Sierra Leone, who speak the Sherbro language; they make up 1.9% of Sierra Leone's population or 134,606. The Sherbro are found primarily in their homeland in Bonthe District, where they make up 40% of the population, in coastal areas of Moyamba District, and in the Western Area of Sierra Leone, particularly in Freetown. During pre-colonial days, the Sherbro were one of the most dominant ethnic group in Sierra Leone, but in the early 21st century, the Sherbro comprise a small minority in the nation. The Sherbro speak their own language, called Sherbro language.
Waterloo is a city in the Western Area of Sierra Leone and the capital of the Western Area Rural District, which is one of the sixteen districts of Sierra Leone. Waterloo is located about twenty miles east of Freetown. Waterloo is the second largest city in the Western Area region of Sierra Leone, after Freetown. The city had a population of 34,079 in the 2004 census, and 55,000 as per a 2015 estimate.Waterloo is part of Freetown metropolitan area.
The Krio Descendants Union or (formerly) the Creole Descendants Union is an offshoot of the 'Settlers' Descendants Union' which was founded to unite the Creole people and the Oku people during the decolonisation era. The Krio Descendants Union was founded as the Creole Descendants Union by George T.O. Robinson, a Creole civil servant who served as the first President of the organisation. The organization's current president is Mrs. Cassandra Garber, who was a former teacher at the Freetown Secondary School for Girls. In Freetown, Sierra Leone the union is called the 'Krio Descendants Yunion' in the Krio and it is abbreviated as KDY.
The Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone were a group of just under 600 Jamaican Maroons from Cudjoe's Town, the largest of the five maroon towns in Jamaica, who were deported by British forces following the Second Maroon War in 1796, first to Nova Scotia. Four years later in 1800, they were transported to Sierra Leone.
Christopher Fyfe was a Scottish historian most noted for his work on Sierra Leone in West Africa.
Thomas Alexander Leighton Decker or Tommy Decker OBE was a Sierra Leonean linguist, poet, and journalist. He is best known for his work on the Krio language and for translating Shakespeare's Julius Caesar into the Krio language. Decker argued forcefully that the Krio language was not merely a patois but a legitimate language. Because Decker argued that Krio was not a patois, his contributions and revisions to the Krio language greatly influenced and added to the revival and appreciation of the language.
Mandinka people of Sierra Leone is a major ethnic group in Sierra Leone and a branch of the Mandinka people of West Africa. Most Sierra Leonean Mandingo are the direct descendants of Mandinka settlers from Guinea, who settled in the north and eastern part of Sierra Leone, beginning in the late 1870s to the 1890s under the rule of prominent Mandinka Muslim cleric Samori Ture. Also later a significantly large population of Mandinka from Guinea migrated and settled in Eastern Sierra Leone and Northern Sierra Leone in the early to mid 20th century. The Mandingo people of Sierra Leone have a very close friendly and allies relationship with their neighbors the Mandingo people of Guinea and Liberia, as they share pretty much identical dialect of the Mandingo language, tradition, culture and food.
Mohamed Saccoh, better known by his stage name K-Man, is a Sierra Leonean rapper and one of the most famous musicians from Sierra Leone. K-Man is known for his soft rap tone. He raps mainly in English and the Krio language as well as occasionally in the Mandinka language.
Sierra Leonean Americans are Americans who are descended from Sierra Leoneans. The population of Sierra Leonean Americans is relatively large and consists, according to surveys of 2013, of 21,538 people. are descended also from Sierra Leonean slaves who were exported to the United States since the 18th until the early 19th century, so the number of people with that heritage should be much higher. So, the number of slaves from present Sierra Leone exported to present United States exceeded the 25.000 people. A peculiar group of people of partially Sierra Leonean descent in United States is that of the Gullah, who, descendants of slaves, fled their owners at the end of the 18th and early 19th century and they established in parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and the Sea Islands, areas in which, even today, they retain their cultures. Moreover, according to the American Community Survey, there are 34,161 Sierra Leonean immigrants living in United States.
Asi Florence Peters Mahoney is a Gambian Creole or "Aku" author and historian, and was the first Gambian woman to be awarded a PhD.
Gloucester is a mountainous village in the Western Area Rural District of Sierra Leone. Gloucester lies approximately five miles east of Freetown, and close proximity to the towns of Regent and Leicester.
The Sierra Leone Creole people is an ethnic group in Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Creole people are descendants of freed African American, West Indian, and Liberated African slaves who settled in the Western Area of Sierra Leone between 1787 and about 1885. The colony was established by the British, supported by abolitionists, under the Sierra Leone Company as a place for freedmen. The settlers called their new settlement Freetown. Today, the Sierra Leone Creoles comprise 1.3% of the population of Sierra Leone.
The Oku people or the Aku Marabout or Aku Mohammedans are an ethnic group primarily the descendants of educated, liberated Yoruba Muslims from Southwest Nigeria, who were released from slave ships and resettled in Sierra Leone as liberated Africans or came as settlers in the mid-19th century. Some Oku historically have intermarried since then with the ethnic Creole people. The Creole were primarily descendants of African-American former slaves, as well as some from Jamaica, and slaves liberated from illegal slave trading in the 19th century. The Oku people primarily reside in the communities of Fourah Bay, Fula Town, and Aberdeen and the official cemetery primarily used by the Oku people is the Aku Mohammedan Cemetery.
