Anglo-Krio Relations: A Study of a Disadvantaged Community in a Colonial Setting, 1895–1922

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines the nature of Anglo-Krio relations in Sierra Leone between 1895 and 1922, a period that could arguably, be described as the most trying phase in Krio fortunes. It sheds significant light on Sierra Leone’s intellectual history, and provides a window through which the historian could begin to gauge the fortunes of a disadvantaged community seeking to negotiate the strains and stresses ignited by what had come to be perceived as an oppressive colonial system by the end of World War I. Whilst examining some discernible characteristics of a colonised society such as the Krio, the study juxtaposes the nuanced and complex character of Britain’s colonial administration with the intellectual impulses that drove Krio society in the period under review, and the ways in which gubernatorial idiosyncrasies ruffled Krio sentiments and forced the society to begin questioning their loyalty to officialdom. Part of the methodology employed here is to tap the tenor of Krio voices within an essentially repressive context as they sought to mediate their relationship with their colonial masters. In tracing the roots of Krio protest, the study examines diverse factors, which shaped Krio perceptions of His Majesty’s proconsuls, and the extent to which colonial administrators drew on the racist ethos of the period, orchestrated through the controversial institution of ‘albocracy’, to exclude colonial subjects from the top echelons of government.