![Sherbro Landsat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Sherbro_Landsat.jpg)
Sherbro Island is in the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
, and is included within
Bonthe District
Bonthe District is a district that comprises several islands and mainland of the Atlantic Ocean in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone. Bonthe is one of the sixteen districts of Sierra Leone. Its capital is the town of Bonthe Island and its la ...
,
Southern Province,
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...
. The island is separated from the African mainland by the Sherbro River in the north and
Sherbro Strait in the east. It is long and up to wide, covering an area of approximately . The western extremity is
Cape St. Ann.
Bonthe
Bonthe is a coastal town located on Sherbro Island in Bonthe District in the southern Province of Sierra Leone. The town lies on the eastern shore of Sherbro Island, on the Sherbro River estuary. Bonthe is about 60 miles south-west of Bo and 1 ...
, on the eastern end, is the chief port and commercial centre.
Historically, this was part of the territory of the historic
Sherbro people
The Sherbro people are a native people of Sierra Leone, who speak the Sherbro language; they make up 1.9% of Sierra Leone's population or 134,606. The Sherbro are found primarily in their homeland in Bonthe District, where they make up 40% o ...
, who dominated a large area of what is now Sierra Leone. Today they are concentrated in the southern and central part of
Moyamba District
Moyamba District is a district in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone, with a population of 318,064 in the 2015 census. Its capital and largest city is Moyamba. The other major towns include Njala, Rotifunk and Shenge. The district is the lar ...
. They make up by far the largest
ethnic group
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
in the island, where the total population is 28,457. The island has more than of tropical beaches. It has been earmarked by the Ministry for Tourism and Development of Sierra Leone for tourism development.
Economic activities
Swamp-rice cultivation, tourism, and fishing are the main economic activities.
History
Sherbro Island was long inhabited by the Sherbro people, who historically dominated other ethnicities in much of the region on the mainland. The islanders had an economy based on extensive fishing. They also traded by boat with neighboring people in villages along the coast.
In the seventeenth century
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
,
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
, and
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
explorers and traders came to this area. They traded with the Sherbro and with other tribes up the rivers to the interior. They referred to what is now known as the Sherbro River as the ''Madrebombo'' River, which may have referred to "mother drum" in Spanish. Dutch letters dated 1633 refer to the river in a spelling variation as ''Maderebombo.'' Other spelling versions included ''Madrabomba.'' (See: ''Navigantium Atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca'')
In the seventeenth century, the
Royal African Company, chartered as a monopoly in England, began to operate here and on the
Guinea Coast as traders. While originally seeking gold, particularly along the
Gambia River
The Gambia River (formerly known as the River Gambra) is a major river in West Africa, running from the Fouta Djallon plateau in north Guinea westward through Senegal and The Gambia to the Atlantic Ocean at the city of Banjul. It is navigable f ...
, by the early eighteenth century the RAC became involved in
slave trading
The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of en ...
, which its monopoly covered.
The RAC established a Company fort known as York Island at Sherbro Island. It was a port for exporting enslaved Africans to the Americas.
Thomas Corker
Thomas Corker (1669-1670 - 10 September 1700, Falmouth, Cornwall) was known as an English agent for the Royal African Company on York Island (now Sherbro, Sierra Leone). He married a Sherbro woman and had two sons with her before his early death ...
, who was from
Falmouth, Cornwall
Falmouth ( ; kw, Aberfala) is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,797 (2011 census).
Etymology
The name Falmouth is of English or ...
, had been working with the RAC for more than a decade when he was appointed agent here in the late seventeenth century. He married the daughter of a Sherbro chief, and their two sons became the patriarchs of a family dynasty of traders and chiefs in the region. Shortly after being reassigned to
The Gambia
The Gambia,, ff, Gammbi, ar, غامبيا officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. It is the smallest country within mainland AfricaHoare, Ben. (2002) ''The Kingfisher A-Z Encyclopedia'', Kingfisher Publicatio ...
, he died on a business trip to England in 1700, but his descendants in Sierra Leone did well.
After Great Britain abolished the international African
slave trade
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
in 1808 in partnership with the United States, it used the former RAC trading fort on Sherbro Island as a base for naval operations against illegal slave traders. Liberated slaves were resettled in the
Freetown
Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educational and p ...
colony. But for decades more, both Spain and Portugal continued to buy African slaves for their colonies in the Caribbean, and Central and South America.
In 1815
Paul Cuffe
Paul Cuffe, also known as Paul Cuffee (January 17, 1759 – September 7, 1817) was an American businessman, whaler and abolitionist. Born free into a multiracial family on Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts, Cuffe became a successful merchant and ...
, a successful African-American ship maker of
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
, became interested in resettling free blacks in west Africa. The British had undertaken this at
Freetown, Sierra Leone
Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educational and po ...
since 1792. There
Black Loyalists from
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
(African Americans freed in the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
) had been joined by Maroons deported from
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
, Liberated Africans freed from illegal traders, and some of the ethnic groups in the territory of Sierra Leone who were interested in western culture.
[Harris, Sheldon H. ''Paul Cuffee: Black America and the African Return''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972.]
Cuffe believed that skilled American blacks could help develop trade between Sierra Leone and the United States, benefiting both. In 1815, he resettled a group of 88 American
freedmen
A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), abolitionism, emancipation (gra ...
on Sherbro Island. After returning to the US, Cuffe marketed his cargo of goods taken on at Freetown.
Cuffe died in 1817, but the
American Colonization Society
The American Colonization Society (ACS), initially the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America until 1837, was an American organization founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to encourage and support the migration of freebor ...
(ACS), founded in 1820 by both abolitionists and slaveholders, continued the effort to resettle free blacks in Africa. They commissioned a survey of possible areas, including Sherbro Island. They found
John Kizell
John Kizell was an American immigrant to Sierra Leone, who became a leader in Sierra Leone as it was being developed as a new British colony in the early nineteenth century. Believed born on Sherbro Island, he was captured and enslaved as a child, ...
, a Sherbro born locally who had returned after being captured and held in slavery in South Carolina. He gained freedom with the British during the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
and was among 1200
Black Loyalists resettled here in 1792. He led a number of Sherbro people.
The
U.S. Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...
passed an act on March 3, 1819, authorizing transport of freed blacks to their "motherland". The ACS began to develop a colony in Africa for free American blacks. It later became known as the
Republic of Liberia
Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...
. In this period, most free blacks (and enslaved) in the US were native to the nation; they had family and history there. They wanted to gain equal rights and non-discriminatory treatment in the US.
In 1821, the ship ''Elizabeth'' from New York carried 86 free African Americans (including missionary
Daniel Coker
Daniel Coker (1780–1846), born Isaac Wright, was an African American of mixed race from Baltimore, Maryland; after he gained freedom from slavery, he became a Methodist minister. He wrote one of the few pamphlets published in the South that prote ...
), as well as three ACS agents, as the first ACS sponsored group to Sherbro Island. Disease and fever quickly killed more than a quarter of the would-be settlers.
The survivors relocated in April 1822 to
Providence Island at
Cape Mesurado
Cape Mesurado, also called Cape Montserrado, is a headland on the coast of Liberia near the capital Monrovia and the mouth of the Saint Paul River. It was named Cape Mesurado by Portuguese sailors in the 1560s. It is the promontory on which Afri ...
in what developed as the nation of present-day
Liberia
Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...
.
In 1861 the British Crown Colony at
Freetown
Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educational and p ...
acquired Sherbro Island from the Sherbro people, putting it under the jurisdiction of its government. The Sherbro continued to live there. The colonial and later protectorate government administered it until Sierra Leone achieved independence in 1961.
Environment
![Sherbro Island - panoramio (1)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Sherbro_Island_-_panoramio_%281%29.jpg)
Sherbro Island is believed to be a breeding ground for
green sea turtles as well as
leatherback sea turtle
The leatherback sea turtle (''Dermochelys coriacea''), sometimes called the lute turtle or leathery turtle or simply the luth, is the largest of all living turtles and the heaviest non-crocodilian reptile, reaching lengths of up to and weight ...
s.
The waters surrounding the island hold some of the biggest
tarpon
Tarpons are fish of the genus ''Megalops''. They are the only members of the family Megalopidae. Of the two species, one (''M. atlanticus'') is native to the Atlantic, and the other (''M. cyprinoides'') to the Indo-Pacific Oceans.
Species a ...
in the world. Records of the sportfishing organisation
IGFA
The International Game Fish Association (''IGFA'') is the leading authority on angling pursuits and the keeper of the most current World Record fishing catches by fish categories. Fishermen who are sport fishers are careful to follow their strin ...
have been made by catches from this area.
Population
In May 2013, the Government of Sierra Leone's record of the island's population was 28,457.
References
External links
*
1746 map of the Guinea Coast, including Sierra Leone by
N. Bellin. Published in German.
''Navigantium Atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca'' Google Books
{{Coord, 7, 33, N, 12, 42, W, region:SL_type:isle, display=title
Islands of Sierra Leone
Southern Province, Sierra Leone
Sherbro people