Poro, witchcraft and red water in early colonial Sierra Leone: G. R. Nylander’s ethnography and systems of authority on the Bullom Shore

Abstract

ABSTRACT The early decades of the nineteenth century were tumultuous within the Sierra Leone colony, as abolition was enforced and the slave trade actively prosecuted legally. Missionaries on the ground at the time provide new sources with which to understand the process of judicial enslavement. Their accounts offer not only first-hand observations, but also details into trials by ordeal for accusations of witchcraft, and enslavement as a penalty despite ongoing efforts by British authorities to halt the trade. Due in part to their status as outsiders – compared to the colonial authorities – the first few missionaries of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) provide vivid accounts of experiences during this transformational period. This article provides new perspectives from a missionary correspondent on the Bullom Shore, G. R. Nylander, and situates his reports within the colonial and regional jurisprudence and process of abolition.