Freetown @ 222

The number 222 is, among numerologists, hugely significant. A search on Google brings up in just 0.24 seconds, a boastful 341,000 results, the top ten of which tell of a wide variety of blessings that the number can bestow. So, one may hope that, at 222, Freetown could be on the threshold of another beginning leading to much happier times. Doubt me not. I love the place dearly but I also always think that it has a whole lot of room for improvement.

The exact date of the birthday is subject to debate, with a range of options from which one can choose. A fairly obvious one is that date in March 1792 when the first of the small flotilla of ships that left Halifax, Nova Scotia six weeks earlier, entered the mouth of the Sierra Leone River; or if one likes, one can pick the day when the flagship of the commander, the youthful Lieutenant John Clarkson, the Lucretia, dropped anchor at St George’s Bay; or, indeed, the day when the first wobbly-legged arrivals stepped on dry land after their long sea voyage. But of all these, perhaps the most emotionally-loaded day is that first Sunday, March 11, when the group of hopefuls congregated around the prominently located and, by now, venerated Cotton Tree, to give a praise of thanksgiving for their deliverance.

That occasion was re-enacted a few days ago, when descendants of those Nova Scotians and indeed the descendants of others rescued from slavery in the ensuing century, gathered around that same Cotton Tree to celebrate the survival of the city from those early days. True, the beginnings of the city were far from auspicious, with less than 1200 free black men, women and children plunged into a hostile environment in which they were at risk of capture and re-enslavement by aggressive slavers who had their headquarters just a few miles up the river at their Bunce Island stronghold. And besides, the indigenous people, from whom land had been bought to plant the new colony, soon began to have twinges of seller’s remorse.  Moreover, disease and the climate ravaged through the infant colony that was short of the basic necessities of food and shelter, and not to mention the incompetence, greed and to some degree, malice from the British Parliament-sanctioned Sierra Leone Company that had organized and subsidized the entire venture.

When Lieutenant Clarkson, who became the colony’s first governor, left at the end of 1792, his confidence in its future was not high. His doubts were articulated in a twelve-hundred word prayer so patronizing, that it is a wonder that the colony did not actually sink under its weight. But survived it did and here we are, 222 years on with a city more or less ready, we think, to take on new challenges and, perhaps, realize its full potential at last.

Tell Fren Tru

Compensation

There is a tiny little island some twenty miles up the Sierra Leone River. You would think, judging by its size, that this island would be of little importance, if any at all. But it is a hugely important site in the history of Sierra Leone.

Of course, on the scale of geological time, the history is a short one. Very short. But, in modern terms it is a long one. Three hundred years. In those three centuries, the island’s fortunes waxed and waned and waxed and waned again.

The basis of those fortunes was slaves. The island, Bunce Island, to keep to its modern name, is only 13 acres in size. But it was from this island that thousands of Sierra Leonean Africans were shipped to slavery in America and the Caribbean. To bring about this feat, European slavers built a structure, which they called a “factory” for processing the human crop, the merchandising of which was to create vast wealth for the participants in the trade.

And of course, in order to protect their assets, the slavers’ factory was also built as a fortified castle. That, however, did not prevent it from being attacked by rivals and it being razed to the ground from time to time. Think of the modern trafficker and his distaste for competition and you’ll get the picture. But, in the end, the Brits prevailed, as they often did in those good old superpower days.

       Britain prevailed also when it came to ending the evil trade in the early 19th century, and so Bunce Island entered its final phase of decline. But it has never ceased to capture the imagination and has become a must-see heritage site for visitors as well as Sierra Leoneans interested in remembering. So, it was not a surprise when the novelist, the late Graham Greene, visited the island when MI6, the British Intelligence outfit posted him to Sierra Leone during World War II. What was surprising to me is Greene’s recollection of his visit in which he had expressed sympathy for the slavers who had been buried in the “crumbling little cemeteries,” as he called them, on the island. It didn’t make sense at the time I read it. Here was this “liberal” man who should have been able to rise above the level of the European functionary exercising seigniorial rights in the land where his masters were pulling all the strings. All empathy for the perpetrators and none for the victims. It was puzzling.

          Seven decades on, the matter was to be clarified, now that it has been revealed that Greene’s family did own slaves up to the time of abolition in the 1830’s, when those who held slaves demanded, and got, substantial compensation from the British government for giving up their human possessions. Greene is of course among distinguished company, as the list of present day inheritors is a virtual Who’s Who of today’s British establishment: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britains-colonial-shame-slaveowners-given-huge-payouts-after-abolition-8508358.html

But the question that remains a-begging in many minds is who, among the central players, are yet to be compensated?

For which, read “victims.”

Tell Fren Tru