Mende People - History

History

Cultural and oral traditions indicate that the Mende migrated to the area from the western Sudan in several waves between the 2nd and 16th centuries, and are part of greater Mande society and linguistic group. Ethnologists identify three different sub-groups. The Kpa-Mende live to the west in the coastal bush, while the Sewa Mende are in the central forests. The Ko-Mende (or Kolo Mende) also live in the forests but generally to the north of the Sewa. (Olson, 1996).

Regional warfare throughout the 19th century led to the capture and sale of many Mende-speakers into slavery. Most notable were those found aboard the Amistad in 1839. They eventually won their freedom and were repatriated. This event involved fifty-two Mende tribesmen, purchased by Portuguese slavers in 1839, who were shipped via the Middle Passage to Havana, Cuba, where they were sold to Cuban sugar plantation owners, José Ruiz and Pedro Montez. After working the plantation, they were placed on the schooner Amistad and shipped to another Cuban plantation. On the way, they escaped their bondage and were led in a rebellion by Sengbe Pieh. They told the crew to return them to Africa. Their efforts to return home were frustrated by the ship's remaining crew, who navigated up to the United States. The ship was intercepted off Long Island, New York, by a U.S. Coastal brig. The Spanish merchants Ruiz and Montez denounced the Mende and asserted that they were their property. The ensuing case, heard in Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut, affirmed that the men were free, and resulted in the return of the thirty-six surviving Mende to their homes.

In the Americas, especially the United States, researchers have discovered that elements of African culture had long persistence. In some areas where there were large groups of enslaved Africans, they kept much of their heritage . In the 1930s African-American linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner found a Gullah family in coastal Georgia who had preserved an ancient song in the Mende language ("A waka"), passing it down for 200 years. In the 1990s three modern researchers -- Joseph Opala, Cynthia Schmidt, and Tazieff Koroma—located a Mende village in Sierra Leone where the same song is still sung today. The story of this ancient Mende song, and its survival in both Africa and the US, is chronicled in the documentary film The Language You Cry In.

Today in Sierra Leone, the Mende people are found mostly in the southern and eastern part of the country. Some of the major cities with significant Mende population include Bo, Kenema, Kailahun and Moyamba.