The list of Sierra Leone Creole people is an incomplete list of notable individuals of Creole ethnicity and ancestry. The Sierra Leone Creole people, who are also referred to as (Krio : Krio people), are the descendants of African-Americans, Jamaican Maroons and Liberated Africans who settled in Freetown between 1787 and around 1885. [1] [2] [3]
This list is ordered by category of human endeavour. Persons who have a Wikipedia article containing references showing that they are of Sierra Leone Creole descent, and have made significant contributions in two fields, are listed in both of the pertinent categories, to facilitate easy look-up.
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 1,347,559 as of the 2024 census.
The Sierra Leonean Creole or Krio is an English-based creole language that is the lingua franca and de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Krio is spoken by 96 percent of the country's population, and it 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, and has also heavily influenced Sierra Leonean English. The language is native to the Sierra Leone Creole people, or Krios, a community of about 104,311 descendants of freed slaves from the West Indies, Canada, United States and the British Empire, and is spoken as a second language by millions of other Sierra Leoneans belonging to the country's indigenous tribes. Krio, along with English, is the official language of Sierra Leone.
Fourah Bay College is a public university in the neighbourhood of Mount Aureol in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Founded on 18 February 1827, it is the first western-style university built in Sub-Saharan Africa and, furthermore, the first university-level institution in Africa. It is a constituent college of the University of Sierra Leone (USL) and was formerly affiliated with Durham University (1876–1967).
Cassandra Garber is a notable Creole and is the current president of the Krio Descendants Union, which was founded by George T.O. Robinson. She was a former teacher and headmistress at the Freetown Secondary School for Girls in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Clifford Nelson Fyle was a Sierra Leonean academic and author, known for writing the lyrics to the Sierra Leone National Anthem.
Professor Akintola Josephus Gustavus Wyse was an ethnic Sierra Leone Creole and Professor of History at Fourah Bay College in Freetown, Sierra Leone, until his death in October 2002. Wyse was the author of H.C. Bankole-Bright and Politics in Colonial Sierra Leone 1919-1958 and The Krio of Sierra Leone: An Interpretive History. He also chaired the Public Services Commission of Sierra Leone until his death.
Thomas Alexander Leighton 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.
Sierra Leonean Americans are an ethnic group of Americans of full or partial Sierra Leonean ancestry. This includes Sierra Leone Creoles whose ancestors were African American Black Loyalists freed after fighting on the side of the British during the American Revolutionary War. Some African Americans trace their roots to indigenous enslaved Sierra Leoneans exported to the United States between the 18th and early 19th century. In particular, the Gullah people of partial Sierra Leonean ancestry, fled their owners and settled in parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and the Sea Islands, where they still retain their cultural heritage. The first wave of Sierra Leoneans to the United States, after the slavery period, was after the Sierra Leone Civil War in the 1990s and early 2000s. According to the American Community Survey, there are 34,161 Sierra Leonean immigrants living in the United States.
Raymond Sarif Easmon was a prominent Sierra Leonean doctor known for his acclaimed literary work and political agitation.
Robert Benjamin Ageh Wellesley Cole, was a Sierra Leonean medical doctor who was the first West African to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a Constitutional Republic in West Africa. Since it was founded in 1792, the women in Sierra Leone have been a major influence in the political and economic development of the nation.
Robert Smith FRCSE (1840–1885) was a Sierra Leonean medical doctor who served as an Assistant Colonial Surgeon in Sierra Leone during the late nineteenth century. Smith was the first African to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh after completing his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh.
Macormack Charles Farrell Easmon, OBE, popularly known as M. C. F. Easmon or "Charlie", was a Sierra Leone Creole born in Accra in the Gold Coast, where his father John Farrell Easmon, a prominent Creole medical doctor, was working at the time. He belonged to the notable Easmon family of Sierra Leone, a Creole family of African-American descent.
The Saro, or Nigerian Creoles of the 19th and early 20th centuries, were Africans that were emancipated and initially resettled in Freetown, Sierra Leone by the Royal Navy, which, with the West Africa Squadron, enforced the abolition of the international slave trade after the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act 1807. Those freedmen who migrated back to Nigeria from Sierra Leone, over several generations starting from the 1830s, became known locally as Saro(elided form of Sierra Leone, from the Yoruba sàró). Consequently, the Saro are culturally descended from Sierra Leone Creoles, with ancestral roots to the Yoruba people of Nigeria.
The Sierra Leone Creole people are an ethnic group of Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Creole people are descendants of freed African-American, Afro-Caribbean, 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 are 1.2 percent of the population of Sierra Leone.
The Oku people or the Aku Marabout or Aku Mohammedans are an ethnic group in Sierra Leone and the Gambia, primarily the descendants of marabout, liberated Yoruba people who were released from slave ships and resettled in Sierra Leone as Liberated Africans or came as settlers in the mid-19th century.
The Colony and Protectorate of Sierra Leone was the British colonial administration in Sierra Leone from 1808 to 1961, part of the British Empire from the abolitionism era until the decolonisation era. The Crown colony, which included the area surrounding Freetown, was established in 1808. The protectorate was established in 1896 and included the interior of what is today known as Sierra Leone.
The Easmon family or the Easmon Medical Dynasty is a Sierra Leone Creole medical dynasty of African-American descent originally based in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The Easmon family has ancestral roots in the United States, and in particular Savannah, Georgia and other states in the American South. There are several descendants of the Sierra Leonean family in the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as in the Ghanaian cities of Accra and Kumasi. The family produced several medical doctors beginning with John Farrell Easmon, the medical doctor who coined the term Blackwater fever and wrote the first clinical diagnosis of the disease linking it to malaria and Albert Whiggs Easmon, who was a leading gynaecologist in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Several members of the family were active in business, academia, politics, the arts including music, cultural dance, playwriting and literature, history, anthropology, cultural studies, and anti-colonial activism against racism.
The Awoonor-Renner family or Awunor-Renner family is a Sierra Leone Creole medical, legal, and commercial dynasty with branches of the family in Ghana. The Awoonor-Renner, Awoonor-Wilson, Awoonor-Gordon families are branches of the Awoonor-Williams family that originated from Waterloo, Sierra Leone, and derived "Awoonor" from the Awuna territory in Keta. The Awoonor-Renner family has produced several distinguished doctors, lawyers, and businessmen in Sierra Leone, Ghana, and the United Kingdom. Alongside families such as the Dove family, Easmon family and Smith family, the Awoonor-Renners are among the wealthy Aristo or aristocratic Creole families. In the Gold Coast, the family was part of the country's African political elite and some members were affiliated with the Aboriginal Rights Protection Society (ARPS), which included such activists as John Mensah Sarbah, Kobina Sekyi and J. E. Casely Hayford.
Prominent barrister and educator, Renner-Thomas became chief justice of Sierra Leone in 2005.
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