History
In 1787, the British helped 400 freed slaves from the United States, Nova Scotia, and Great Britain return to Sierra Leone to settle in what they called the "Province of Freedom." Krio society developed into a mosaic of Liberated Africans (ex-slaves), and itinerant traders. Liberated Africans were themselves a mixed group, including Yoruba, Igbo, Efik, Fante, and other ethnicities. The first Liberated African group to arrive was composed of individuals who had worked as servants in England, as well as blacks who had come to England from the Americas and West Indies, many of whom had served in the British military or escaped from slavery. In 1792, they were joined by Nova Scotians, former slaves who had fought for the British in the American War of Independence and resettled in Nova Scotia. In 1800, the British also deported Maroons, militant escaped slaves from Jamaica, to Sierra Leone. The largest of the groups which formed the Krio community were West Africans of mostly Yoruba descent, who were rescued from slave ships between 1807 and the 1860s.
These numbers were joined by many members of Temne, Limba, Mende, and Loko groups who were already present in Sierra Leone and assimilated into Krio culture.
Read more about this topic: Sierra Leone Creole People
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“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)