Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone. Before 1896 the name denoted a small area around Freetown. Here in 1787 associates of the Clapham Sect bought land for a self-supporting Christian settlement of poor Blacks. This soon collapsed but was refounded in 1792 with Black soldiers from America who had supported Britain in the War of Independence. They brought a vigorous Church life, Methodist, Baptist, and the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion. In 1808 Sierra Leone became a British colony and the landing place for intercepted slave cargoes from all over W. Africa. Most of them entered the new model of society offered by the missionaries (especially the CMS) and the 1792 settlers. A Christian, literate, English-speaking Krio community resulted. Sierra Leonians travelled extensively in W. Africa, taking Christianity with them. The incorporation of the British Protectorate in 1896 changed Sierra Leone's demographic basis; the Krio community was eclipsed and the hinterland became dominant as the independent State emerged in 1961. Missions to the hinterland had begun in the 1790s, with increasing American involvement from the mid-19th cent., but the response was slow. Today the United Methodist Church and the RC Church are the leading Christian bodies in the hinterland.