Regions with significant populations | |
---|---|
Ivory Coast Liberia Sierra Leone | |
Ghana | 34,000 [1] |
Liberia | 209,993 [2] |
Sierra Leone | approx. 16,000 [3] |
Languages | |
Kru, Bété, Liberian English, Ivorian French, Sierra Leone English, Kriol, French, Bassa, , Nouchi, Dida, , Guéré, Nyabwa, Krumen language, Ahizi, Godié, Krio | |
Religion | |
Christianity, African traditional religions, Sunni Islam | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Bassa, Jabo, Krahn, Grebo |
The Kru, Krao, Kroo, or Krou are a West African ethnic group who are indigenous to western Ivory Coast and eastern Liberia. European and American writers often called Kru men who enlisted as sailors or mariners Krumen. They migrated and settled along various points of the West African coast, notably Freetown, Sierra Leone, but also the Ivorian and Nigerian coasts. [4] The Kru-speaking people are a large ethnic group that is made up of several sub-ethnic groups in Liberia and Ivory Coast. In Liberia, there are 48 sub-sections of Kru tribes, including the Jlao Kru. [5] These tribes include Bété, Bassa, Krumen, Guéré, Grebo, Klao/Krao, Dida, Krahn people and Jabo people.
During the Atlantic slave trade, Kru people were considered more valuable as traders and sailors on slave ships than as slave labor, and Kru oral traditions strongly hold that they were never enslaved. [6] To ensure their status as “freemen,” they initiated the practice of tattooing their foreheads and the bridge of their nose with indigo dye to distinguish them from slave labor. [7] [8] Many were called Krumen by Europeans, and hired as free sailors on European ships in both the slave trade and trade in goods. The Kru sailors were famous for their skills in navigating and sailing the Atlantic. Their maritime expertise evolved along the west coast of Africa where they made a living as fishermen and traders. Knowing the in-shore waters of the western coast of Africa, and having nautical experience, they were employed as sailors, navigators and interpreters aboard slave ships, trading ships, and American and British warships used against the slave trade. [6] [9]
The Kru history is one marked by a strong sense of ethnicity and resistance to occupation. In 1856 when part of Liberia was still known as the independent Republic of Maryland, the Kru along with the Grebo resisted Maryland settlers' efforts to control their trade. They were also infamous amongst early European slave raiders as being especially resistant to the slave trade.
Oral tradition remains the most important key to the origin of the Kru. Traditions recorded in the mid nineteenth century by James Connelly relate that the Kru communities that lived along the shore of what is today southern Liberia and the reputed core settlement of the Kru came down to the coast from the interior "some three generations back — say one hundred to one hundred fifty years..." from an original place he called Claho. Coming down the Poor River they "learned the value of salt" and founded the town of Bassa. They subsequently moved again to Little Kroo, and then were subsequently joined by more Kru-speaking communities from the interior. [10] These events likely occurred in the 18th century and are believed to be connected to more intensive European interest in trade in the region at this time. [11] The original settlers from the interior eventually established five towns: Little Kroo, Setra Kroo, Kroo-Bar, Nana Kroo and King Will's Town, that came to be regarded as their home district, though soon other offshoots developed along the coast, and particularly in Freetown, Sierra Leone. [12] [13] However, these accounts are often biased because of Europeans' lack of understanding the Kru language; for example, the term "Bar" or "bah" would signify a river mouth, rather than the proper name of a town. The towns listed by European and American authors are often Anglicized; Settra Kru's name in the Klao language is actually Welteh. Many debates over Kru origins and settlement persist today, including the oft-cited origin of the Kru name as originating in a ship's "crew." In actuality, the title "Kru" comes from an Anglicized version of the Kru term for their own tribe: Klao.
From the late eighteenth century onward, Kru men (from whence the term Krumen derives) began working on European ships. By the 1790s the inhabitants of their original region were being hired as free sailors on European ships. [14] As the so-called "legitimate trade" replaced the slave trade in the nineteenth century and as trade along the West Africa coast increased, many Kru sailors signed on to the new vessels as seamen. In the process there developed Kru communities around all the major trading factories of the coast, from Sierra Leone around to the mouth of the Congo River. [15]
A number of Kroomen (between 20 and 30) are buried in the Seaforth Old Burial Ground in Simon's Town, South Africa, where their graves can still be seen, and Kroomen is the name used to describe them on their gravestones. [16] They were active in the Royal Navy from 1820 to as late as 1924; for example, HMS Thistle landed a camp party with 12 Krumen in Elephant Bay in June of that year. Many Kroomen joined the dockyard staff, while others remained on board RN ships as seamen. They were given Westernized or diminutive names by the men on the ships, Tom Ropeman, Bottle of Beer, and Will Cockroach amongst them. [17] They were clearly commonly employed, and the names bestowed were not original, since the cemetery contains for example the remains of Tom Smith Number 1, to distinguish him from another Tom Smith.
Kru sailors were organized as small companies under a headman. They would paddle in small canoes as far as a dozen miles out to see to meet ships as they arrived and negotiated their employment on the spot. Headmen often carried credentials from previous stints of employment in boxes or other containers, and negotiations were conducted rapidly. During the earlier part of the nineteenth century foreign observers often gave the Kru high praise for their honesty, courage, efficiency and willingness to do hard work. Later observers, however, had more disparaging comments to make, though either way, few ships plied African waters without many Kru sailors on board. [18]
Although initially Kru men were interested only in sailor's work, in time some took up land based employment doing all sorts of work in the many trading factories that grew up all along the African coast from Sierra Leone to the mouth of the Congo River. They were also recruited as soldiers and common laborers, some traveling as far as India and the Malayan peninsula to the east. Krumen workers served French employers in the French attempt to dig the Panama Canal, others were employed in Jamaica. [19] Others formed communities in the UK, like the Kru town in Liverpool. [20]
In the late nineteenth century, reports described the Kru as divided into small commonwealths, each with a hereditary chief whose duty was simply to represent the people in their dealings with strangers. This remains the case in many enclaves today. Power was vested in the elders, who wore as insignia iron rings on their legs. Their president, who held religious authority as well, guarded the national symbols, and his house was sanctuary for offenders until their guilt is proved. Personal property was held in common by each family. Land also was communal, but the rights of the actual cultivator ceased when he failed to farm it. [21]
The first descriptions of core group of Kru religion were done by missionaries, notably James Connolley, [22] But these accounts can also be augmented by more detailed accounts of the Grebo of nearby Cape Palmas who were linguistically and culturally related. The central elements of the spiritual universe of this region included a figure identified by missionaries as a high, creator God, named Nyesoa, spirits or deities associated with territories, familial spiritual guardians or the souls of the departed who remained near by and could influence events.
In some areas of Liberia, these spiritual entities were contacted through a class of people called deya, who underwent long and specialized training and apprenticeship to take up their office. They addressed problems both medical and spiritual using pharmaceutical and spiritual remedies. [23] [24]
Wilhelm Bleek classified the Kru language with the Mandingo family, and in this he was followed by R. G. Latham; S. W. Koelle, who published a Kru grammar (1854), disagreed. [21] Now Kru is considered a primary branch of the Niger-Congo family.
The Kru are one of the many ethnic groups in Liberia, comprising 7% of the population. Theirs is also one of the main languages spoken. The Kru are one of the main indigenous group players in Liberia's socio-political activities.
Notable ethnic Krus include the 25th President of Liberia George Weah, who is of mixed Kru, Gbee, Mano, and Bassa heritage, as well as his predecessor, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is of mixed Kru, Gola, and German ancestry. Dr. George Toe Washington, former Armed Forces Chief of Staff of Liberia and ambassador to the United States, Canada, and Mexic, is of Kru and Grebo ancestry. Football star William Jebor is exclusively of Kru background. [25] [26] [27] Mary Broh, the former mayor of Monrovia, is of mixed Kru and Bassa ancestry. And Didwho Twe, a judge and politician who ran for President of Liberia in 1951, was of Kru heritage. [28]
Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean to its south and southwest. It has a population of around 5.5 million and covers an area of 43,000 square miles (111,369 km2). The official language is English. Over 20 indigenous languages are spoken, reflecting the country's ethnic and cultural diversity. The capital and largest city is Monrovia.
Liberia is a country in West Africa founded by free people of color from the United States. The emigration of African Americans, both freeborn and recently emancipated, was funded and organized by the American Colonization Society (ACS). The mortality rate of these settlers was the highest among settlements reported with modern recordkeeping. Of the 4,571 emigrants who arrived in Liberia between 1820 and 1843, only 1,819 survived (39.8%).
As of 2006, Liberia had the highest population growth rate in the world. This has declined since, however, and stood at 2.37 percent in 2023.
The Kru languages are spoken by the Kru people from the southeast of Liberia to the west of Ivory Coast.
Monrovia is the administrative capital and largest city of Liberia. Founded in 1822, it is located on Cape Mesurado on the Atlantic coast and as of the 2022 census had 1,761,032 residents, home to 33.5% of Liberia’s total population. Its largely urbanized metro area, including Montserrado and Margibi counties, was home to 2,225,911 inhabitants as of the 2022 census.
Liberian English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Liberia. Four such varieties exist:
The Bassa people are a West African ethnic group primarily native to Liberia. The Bassa people are a subgroup of the larger Kru people of Liberia and Ivory Coast. They form a majority or a significant minority in Liberia's Grand Bassa, Rivercess, Margibi and Montserrado counties. In Liberia's capital of Monrovia, they are the largest ethnic group. With an overall population of about 1.05 million, they are the second largest ethnic group in Liberia (18%), after the Kpelle people (26%). Small Bassa communities are also found in Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.
The West Africa Squadron, also known as the Preventative Squadron, was a squadron of the British Royal Navy whose goal was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa. Formed in 1808 after the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act 1807 and based out of Portsmouth, England, it remained an independent command until 1856 and then again from 1866 to 1867.
The term Krumen refers to historical sailors from the Kru people group living mostly along the coast of Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire. One theory, advanced in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, was that the term Kru or Krumen derived from Klao, which is the name of the Kru in their language. Their numbers were estimated to be 48,300 in 1993, of whom 28,300 were in Côte d’Ivoire. They are a subgroup of the Grebo and speak the Krumen language.
Joseph James Cheeseman was the 12th president of Liberia. Born at Edina in Grand Bassa County, he was elected three times on the True Whig ticket. Cheeseman was educated at Liberia College.
Jabo is the self-designation of an ethnic group located in the southeastern part of the Republic of Liberia in West Africa. They have also sometimes referred to themselves as Gweabo or Nimiah tribe.
The Grebo or Glebo people are an ethnic group or subgroup within the larger Kru group of Africa, a language and cultural ethnicity, and to certain of its constituent elements. Within Liberia members of this group are found primarily in Maryland County and Grand Kru County in the southeastern portion of the country, but also in River Gee County and Sinoe County. The Grebo population in Côte d'Ivoire are known as the Krumen and are found in the southwestern corner of that country.
Seedies and Kroomen were African sailors recruited locally into the British Royal Navy in the 19th and early 20th century.
A new civil war began in 1999 when a rebel group backed by the government of neighboring Guinea, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), emerged in northern Liberia. By the spring of 2001, they were posing a major threat to the Taylor government. Liberia was now engaged in a complex three-way conflict with Sierra Leone and the Guinea Republic. By the beginning of 2002, both of these countries were supporting the latest addition to the lexicon of Liberian guerrilla outfits – Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), while Taylor was supporting various opposition factions in both countries. By supporting Sierra Leonean rebels, Taylor also drew the enmity of the British and Americans.
Cape Mesurado, also called Cape Montserrado, is a headland on the coast of Liberia near the capital Monrovia and the mouth of the Saint Paul River. It was named Cape Mesurado by Portuguese sailors in the 1560s. It is the promontory on which African-American settlers established the city now called Monrovia on 25 April 1822.
Krumen is a dialect continuum spoken by the Krumen people of Liberia and Ivory Coast. It is a branch of the Grebo languages, a subfamily of the Kru languages and ultimately of the Niger–Congo languages. It had 48,300 speakers in 1993. The main varieties are:
An independence referendum was held in Liberia on 27 October 1846. The result was 52% in favor, with independence being declared on 26 July 1847.
Sierra Leone is home to around sixteen ethnic groups, each with its own language. In Sierra Leone, membership of an ethnic group often overlaps with a shared religious identity. According to the 2004 census Temne is the largest ethnic group in Sierra Leone.
Laurence Bropleh is a Liberian Politician, Diplomat, United Methodist clergyman, lawyer, former Cabinet-Level government official, and business executive. Bropleh was Minister of information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism of the Republic of Liberia in the administration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. He is the owner of a farm in Grand Bassa County and Law Practice on United Nations Drive in Monrovia. Bropleh received primary education in Liberia and advanced degrees including a Ph.D. in the United States.
Didwho Welleh Twe was a Liberian politician. He became a representative in the Liberian legislature and a presidential candidate in the 1951 Liberian general election. A review of his life shows that he was an advocate of Liberian native rights and the first Liberian of full tribal background to officially and openly seek the Liberian presidency. From 1847 to 1980, the country was ruled by descendants of free people of color and former slaves from the United States known as Americo-Liberians. The descendants constituted less than ten percent of the population.
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