SIERRA LEONE

Settlers from around the World

Archaeological evidence so far discovered suggests that hunters and foragers were living in the Sierra Leone (see-EHR-uh lee-OEN) region from about 8000 B.C.E. Over the centuries many different peoples moved into the region and settled. From about 1200 C.E. Mandingo (mahn-DING-goe) people arrived from lands to the northeast. From around this time until 1450, Sierra Leone became part of the mighty Mali Empire, which controlled most of the vast Sahel region (see MALI). The Temne (TEHM-nee) and related peoples were in the area by the early 1400s C.E., having probably come from Fouta Djallon (FOO-tah-JAH-loen) in modern Guinea. Peoples speaking languages of a group called Mande (MAHN-dee) were assimilated into the area through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

	CLIMATE
	Sierra Leone has a hot, moist, tropical climate. Heavy monsoon rains fall almost every day from May to early November. From December to March the harmattan wind blows in from the Sahara Desert, filling the air with clouds of dust.

During the 1500s many Portuguese sailors settled in Sierra Leone and married African women. Their descendants became known as the Krio (KREE-oe), and their culture blended African and Portuguese languages and traditions. Krio people became merchants, doing business with both Africans and Portuguese.

Around the same time the international slave trade began, and slaves from Sierra Leone were sent to North America. Protests from religious and humanitarian leaders led to the gradual abolition of the slave trade after 1750 and to campaigns for slaves to be freed and returned to their African homelands. During the 1780s freed Africans and British humanitarians founded the city of Freetown to house returning slaves. The freed slaves continued to arrive until the mid-nineteenth century. They mingled with the other inhabitants of Freetown to form another Krio, or Creole, culture.