Wilberforce, Sierra Leone

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Wilberforce is a neighborhood in Freetown, Sierra Leone. It is home to the Wilberforce military barracks, one of the largest in the country and the main barracks of the Sierra Leone military. [1]

Contents

Wilberforce is also home to several foreign embassies, including China, Gambia, Germany, Liberia, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, and Austria. [2]

History

Wilberforce was founded in 1810 to provide accommodation for liberated African recaptives, who had been brought to Freetown by the British Royal Navy West Africa Squadron. The descendants of these liberated Africans, (along with the Jamaican Maroons and Nova Scotians) are the Creole people. The settlement was formerly known as Cabenda. [3] :122

Notable People from Wilberforce, Sierra Leone

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Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It shares its southeastern border with Liberia, and the northern half of the nation is surrounded by Guinea. Covering a total area of 71,740 km2 (27,699 sq mi), Sierra Leone has a tropical climate, with diverse environments ranging from savanna to rainforests. The country has a population of 7,092,113 as of the 2015 census. Freetown is the capital and largest city. The country is divided into five administrative regions, which are subdivided into 16 districts.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krio language</span> English-based creole spoken in Sierra Leone

The 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 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.

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The Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone were a group of just under 600 Jamaican Maroons from Cudjoe's Town, the largest of the five Jamaican maroon towns who were deported by the British authorities in Jamaica following the Second Maroon War in 1796, first to Nova Scotia. Four years later in 1800, they were transported to Sierra Leone.

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The Nova Scotian Settlers, or Sierra Leone Settlers, were African Americans who founded the settlement of Freetown, Sierra Leone and the Colony of Sierra Leone, on March 11, 1792. The majority of these black American immigrants were among 3,000 African Americans, mostly former slaves, who had sought freedom and refuge with the British during the American Revolutionary War, leaving rebel masters. They became known as the Black Loyalists. The Nova Scotian settlers were jointly led by African American Thomas Peters, a former soldier, and English abolitionist John Clarkson. For most of the 19th century, the Settlers resided in Settler Town and remained a distinct ethnic group within the Freetown territory, tending to marry among themselves and with Europeans in the colony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edna Elliott-Horton</span> Sierra Leonean scholar and activisist (1904–1994)

Edna Elliott-Horton was the second West African woman from a British colony to receive a university degree after the Nigerian physician Agnes Yewande Savage, who received a medical degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1929. A Sierra Leonean, Elliott-Horton became the first West African woman to complete a BA degree in the liberal arts, after graduating from Howard University in 1932, where Dr. Edward Mayfield Boyle, her maternal uncle, had graduated as a medical doctor. Elliott-Horton was a political activist who challenged the colonial authorities in Sierra Leone through her participation in the West African Youth League which was formally established in her living-room.

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic groups in Sierra Leone</span> Ethnic groups living within the country of Sierra Leone

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sierra Leone Creole people</span> Ethnic group of Sierra Leone

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Porter (historian)</span> Creole professor, historian, and author (1924–2019)

Arthur Thomas Daniel Porter III was a Creole professor, historian, and author. His book on the Sierra Leone Creole people, Creoledom: A study of the development of Freetown society, examines their society in a way in which few books of their time period had, and it is one of the most quoted books on the Creoles. He was published in East Africa and the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oku people (Sierra Leone)</span> Ethnic group 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.

Charlotte is a mountainous village in the Rural District in the Western Area of Sierra Leone. Charlotte is located about twenty miles outside Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital. Charlotte, is commonly known as Charlotte Village, and is in close proximity to the towns of Regent, and Leicester. The main economic activity in Charlotte is farming.

References

  1. United Nations document on UNAMSIL Archived 2009-08-08 at the Wayback Machine un.org
  2. "List of embassies in Freetown". www.slhc-uk.org.uk. Archived from the original on 2006-11-09. Retrieved 2006-11-02.
  3. Sanneh, Lamin (2009). Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa. Cammbrideg, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

8°28′N13°16′W / 8.467°N 13.267°W / 8.467; -13.267