Banana Islands

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The Banana Islands

The Banana Islands are a group of islands that lie off the coast of Yawri Bay, south west of the Freetown Peninsula in the Western Area of Sierra Leone.

Contents

Three islands make up the Banana Islands: Dublin and Ricketts are linked by a stone causeway. The third, Mes-Meheux, is the smallest and is uninahbited. Dublin Island is known for its beaches, while Ricketts Island is best known for its forests.

Banana Islands are entirely surrounded by the Freetown peninsula; and the islands are only accessible by boat, ferry and helicopter. The major industries in Banana Islands are fishing and tourism.

History

Diemermeer

In 1747 the Diemermeer, an East Indiaman belonging to the Dutch East India Company was wrecked here. [1]

The Clevlands

William Clevland and a group of fellow sailors were ship wrecked on the Island, and Clevland took the opportunity to declare himself king. This claim was cemented by his marriage to his wife Ndamba, a Kissi woman. During the late 1700s disputes broke into deep violence between the Clevelands of Banana Islands and the Caulkers on Plaintain Islands. This ended in the 1800s when finally the Caulkers succeeded in taking both sets of islands. [2]

Ricketts and Dublin

Dublin and Ricketts Islands have a combined population of about 900 people. The two Islands are connected by a spit of sand that is underwater at high tide. A stone bridge connects the path between the two islands' villages of Dublin and Ricketts, located on the coast facing the Western Peninsula. [3]

The islands were visited in the 17th century and perhaps earlier by Portuguese sailors. They were settled in the late 18th and 19th centuries by Recaptives, freed slaves, mostly from the Americas. Their descendants make up most of the population of the islands today.

Mes-Meheux

Mes-Meheux is the smallest of the three islands. [4] It is uninhabited and is owned by an eco-tourist business who promote it as an "adventure tourism destination". [4]

Activities

Shipwrecks lie off the coast and in one can be found cannons amongst the ruin and coral. On the northern tip of Dublin Island the ruins of an 1881 church as well as an old slave dock can be found. It is advised that visitors should pay their respects to the tribal chief before wandering around the islands. [5]

Tourist infrastructure exists only in the northern part of the island. “Daltons Banana Guest House” or the “Banana Island Chalets” can arrange transportation to the islands from the nearby town of Kent.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sierra Leone</span> Country on the southwest coast of West Africa

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.

Sierra Leone first became inhabited by indigenous African peoples at least 2,500 years ago. The Limba were the first tribe known to inhabit Sierra Leone. The dense tropical rainforest partially isolated the region from other West African cultures, and it became a refuge for peoples escaping violence and jihads. Sierra Leone was named by Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra, who mapped the region in 1462. The Freetown estuary provided a good natural harbour for ships to shelter and replenish drinking water, and gained more international attention as coastal and trans-Atlantic trade supplanted trans-Saharan trade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freetown</span> Capital, chief port, and the largest city of Sierra Leone

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bunce Island</span> Port Loko, Sierra Leone

Bunce Island is an island in the Sierra Leone River. It is situated in Freetown Harbour, the estuary of the Rokel River and Port Loko Creek, about 20 miles upriver from Sierra Leone's capital city Freetown. The island measures about 1,650 feet by 350 feet and houses a castle that was built by the Royal Africa Company in c.1670. Tens of thousands of Africans were shipped from here to the North American colonies of South Carolina and Georgia to be forced into slavery, and are the ancestors of many African Americans of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sherbro Island</span> Place in Southern Province, Sierra Leone

Sherbro Island is in the Atlantic Ocean, and is included within Bonthe District, Southern Province, Sierra Leone. The island is separated from the African mainland by the Sherbro River in the north and Sherbro Strait in the east. It is 32 miles (51 km) long and up to 15 miles (24 km) wide, covering an area of approximately 230 square miles (600 km2). The western extremity is Cape St. Ann. Bonthe, on the eastern end, is the chief port and commercial centre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Area</span> Subdivision of Sierra Leone

The Western Area or Freetown Peninsula is one of five principal divisions of Sierra Leone. It comprises the oldest city and national capital Freetown and its surrounding towns and countryside. It covers an area of 557 km2 and has a population of 1,447,271. The Western Area is located mostly around the peninsula and is divided into two districts: the Western Area Rural and the Western Area Urban.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tourism in Sierra Leone</span>

Tourism in Sierra Leone is an important growing national service industry. Beaches and other natural habitats are the biggest parts of the nation's tourism industry.

Thomas Corker was known as an English agent for the Royal African Company on York Island. He married a Sherbro woman and had two sons with her before his early death.

John Kizell was an American immigrant to Sierra Leone, who became a leader in Sierra Leone as it was being developed as a new British colony in the early nineteenth century. Believed born on Sherbro Island, he was captured and enslaved as a child, and shipped to Charleston, South Carolina, where he was sold again. Years later, after the American Revolutionary War, during which he gained freedom with the British and was evacuated to Nova Scotia, he eventually returned to West Africa. In 1792 he was among 50 native-born Africans among the 1200 mostly African-American Black Loyalists who were resettled in Freetown.

The history of African-American settlement in Africa extends to the beginnings of ex-slave repatriation to Africa from European colonies in the Americas.

King James Cleveland was King of the Banana Islands in Sierra Leone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Clevland (king)</span> King of the Banana Islands

William Clevland was an Anglo-Scot who became the self-appointed King of the Banana Islands off the coast of present-day Sierra Leone.

Ricketts (Also known as Wesleyland) is a coastal fishing village on Banana Islands off Yawri Bay, around the peninsula in the Western Area Rural District of Sierra Leone. Ricketts is an island and is reached only by boat, helicopter, or by being a boss ass mf. The major industries in the village are fishing and tourism.

Stephen Caulker was a king of the Banana Islands off the coast of present-day Sierra Leone. He had some distant Anglo-Irish ancestry and was mostly Sherbro in ancestry. Caulker was part of a hereditary dynasty that ruled as chiefs of the states of Bumpe and Shenge (Kagboro) in Sierra Leone from 1820 into the late 20th century.

Dublin is a large coastal fishing village on the Banana Islands in the Western Area Rural District of Sierra Leone. Dublin is one of three islands that make up the Banana Islands; the others are Ricketts and Mes-Meheux.

Kent is a coastal fishing village around the peninsular in the Western Area Rural District of Sierra Leone. Kent lies approximately thirty miles east of Freetown. Kent is known for its large beaches and its strong fishing community.

<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.

Yawri Bay is a bay in the coast of Sierra Leone on the Atlantic Ocean.

Clevland may refer to:

References

  1. ↑ Bishop, Leigh. "The Final Circle". Divernet. Diver Group. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
  2. ↑ "Cleveland Tombstone". www.sierraleoneheritage.org. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  3. ↑ "Sierra Leone Beaches". www.210countries.com. Archived from the original on 12 May 2012. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  4. 1 2 "Tropical Island Adventure". Tropical Island Adventure. Tropical Island Adventure. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  5. ↑ "Banana Islands". Lonely Planet. Retrieved 31 March 2013.

8°07′N13°13′W / 8.117°N 13.217°W / 8.117; -13.217

Bibliography


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