12. THE VICIOUS CIRCLE
YOU CAN’ T TAKE THE TRAIN TO BO ANYMORE
ALL OF THE WEST AFRICAN nation of Sierra Leone became
a British colony in 1896. The capital city, Freetown, had originally been founded in the late eighteenth century as a home for repatriated and freed slaves. But when Freetown became a British colony, the interior of Sierra Leone was still made up of many small African kingdoms. Gradually, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the British extended their rule into the interior through a long series of treaties with African rulers. On August 31, 1896, the British government declared the colony a protectorate on the basis of these treaties. The British identified important rulers and gave them a new title, paramount chief. In eastern Sierra Leone, for example, in the modern diamond-mining district of Kono, they encountered Suluku, a powerful warrior king. King Suluku was made Paramount Chief Suluku, and the chieftaincy of Sandor was created as an administrative unit in the protectorate.
Though kings such as Suluku had signed treaties with a British administrator, they had not understood that these treaties would be interpreted as carte blanche to set up a colony. When the British tried to levy a hut tax— a tax of five shillings to be raised from every house— in January 1898, the chiefs rose up in a civil war that became known as the Hut Tax Rebellion. It started in the north, but was strongest and lasted longer in the south, particularly in Mendeland, dominated by the Mende ethnic group. The Hut Tax Rebellion was soon defeated, but it warned the British about the challenges of controlling the Sierra Leonean hinterland. The British had already started to build a railway from Freetown into the interior. Work began in March 1896, and the line reached Songo Town in December 1898, in the midst of the Hut Tax Rebellion. British parliamentary