Waterloo is a city in the Western Area of

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

and the capital of the Western Area Rural District, which is one of the sixteen districts of Sierra Leone. Waterloo is located about twenty miles east of

Freetown Freetown () is the Capital city, 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, e ...

. Waterloo is the second largest city in the Western Area region of Sierra Leone, after

. The city had a population of 34,079 in the 2004 census, and 55,000 as per a 2015 estimate. Waterloo is part of the Freetown

metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region consisting of a densely populated urban area, urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories which share Industry (economics), industries, commercial areas, Transport infrastructure, transport network ...

. Waterloo is a major urban transport hub and lies on the main highway linking Freetown to the country's

provinces A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term ''provi ...

. Waterloo is an entirely

urban area An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbani ...

, and lies 25 miles to Port Loko District entrance border line in the Northern Province. Waterloo is one of Sierra Leone's most ethnically diverse cities, as it is home to many of Sierra Leone's ethnic groups, with no single

ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

forming even 30% of the population . Although Waterloo is part of the larger Western Area Rural district council, the city has its own directly elected city council headed by a mayor. The current mayor of Waterloo is Dennis Omojowo Browne of the All People's Congress who was elected in the 2018 Sierra Leone local elections.

History

Waterloo was founded in 1819 as a settlement for liberated Africans. Incorporated into the parish system under the tutelage of the Church Missionary Society (CMS), Waterloo was settled by soldiers from the second and fourth West India Regiment from

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

and

Barbados Barbados, officially the Republic of Barbados, is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American ...

. The town was named after the Anglo-Allied army victory over Napoleon Bonaparte in the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium), marking the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The French Imperial Army (1804–1815), Frenc ...

in present-day

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

. The ex-military men settled in "Soja Town" bordering King Street, an artery leading to King Yard which housed the police station, courthouse, and jailhouse. The settlers were later joined by several groups of Recaptives, whose integration into the village community was facilitated by Governor MacCarthy's insistence on education and religion via schools, personages and churches. Several Christian denominations, primarily of

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

, Countess of Huntingdon, and Wesleyan persuasions established churches and schools throughout the fast-growing populace. Following the establishment of the Mixed Commissions in

in 1819 (primarily to set recaptured slaves free), the number of Recaptives in Freetown grew. This growth resulted in a corresponding increase in the Recaptives population in Waterloo. Unlike the original settlers from Jamaica and Barbados, the Recaptives had made minimal sustained contact with Western languages and cultures. In efforts to restore some lifestyle stability in their new environment, the Recaptives settled along ethnic or tribal lines. Thus, the Yoruba settled in Aku Town, the Igbo in Ibo Town, the ex-military Recaptives in Soja Town, etc. The community which emerged established social welfare institutions and secret societies such as Osusu, Ojeh, Hunting, Geledeh, and Akanja as measures to perpetuate their culture, provide a framework for social stability, and increase their independence. With the inculcation of Christian values and Western education, and under the supervision of the village headman (who enforced the rule of law), Waterloo evolved as a stable economic, cultural, and socio-political centre. In less than half a century since its inception, Waterloo emerged as an important economic hub buffering Sierra Leone's provincial capitals and the nation's capital. Throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries, the city continued to serve as a gateway to and from the hinterland and blossomed as a trading centre into which goods and services from Freetown and the Sierra Leone peninsula converged. Its economic prosperity coupled with its proximity to the city brought together diverse people from different parts of the nation.

Geography

The town of Waterloo is located some 20 miles from

. With a population estimated at approximately 40,000, it is the second largest city in the Western Area and an important crossroad where roads connecting provincial capitals and the Sierra Leone peninsula to the nation's capital meet. The prosperity which reigned in Waterloo throughout the 19th and 20th centuries was shattered by the outbreak of the Sierra Leone Civil War in the 1990s, during which rebel soldiers pillaged and ravaged homes, schools, churches, offices, and government buildings, with many inhabitants fleeing the town.

People

Intermarriages between the newly arrived ex-servicemen from

and

and the Africans liberated from slavery generously enriched elements of culture in the town. The language that resulted from the fusion of these cultures evolved into the Krio language, which retained its English base while absorbing other linguistic elements from a variety of African and European languages and dialects which is evident in words such as (beaucoup), encore (from French); , , (Yoruba); , (Jamaican Maroon Creole and Portuguese); (Mende), etc. The descendants of these repatriated soldiers and the liberated Africans formed a nucleus of the Krio society in Waterloo. In addition, the skills, knowledge and attitudes that the new settlers acquired facilitated their integration into the new settlement and provided the foundation for cultural adaptation and socio-economic reconstruction. Notable people from Waterloo include: * Justice C.O. E. Cole, first president of the Republic of Sierra Leone * Christian Cole, lawyer, the first black student at Oxford University * Christiana Thorpe, religion & civil service * Chief Mohammed Shitta Bey, Oku businessman & philanthropist * Ibrahim Turay, Olympic sprinter

Links with Liverpool

A British charity, the Waterloo Partnership, fundraises in Waterloo and Crosby areas of

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

for its

namesake.

References

*Ali, J.A. D. (1990) A New History of Sierra Leone, London, U.K. Macmillan Education. *Boahen, A; Ajayi, A; and Tidy, M. ( 1969) Topics in West African History, England, Longmans *Nicol, E.P. (1970) A Brief History of St. Mark's Church (Countess of Huntingdon Connexion), *Waterloo, Sierra Leone, University of Aberdeen (Dept. of Church History), Aberdeen, Scotland. *Sumner, D.L (1963) Education in Sierra Leone, Freetown, Sierra Leone Government Printer *Wyse, Akintola (1989) The Krio of Sierra Leone: An Interpretive History, London, Hurst

External links

*https://archive.today/20130210035159/http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=&men=gpro&lng=en&dat=32&geo=-3316&srt=npan&col=aohdq&pt=c&va=&geo=354040693 {{coord, 8, 20, N, 13, 04, W, display=title, region:SL-W_type:city(20000)_source:dewiki Western Area Sierra Leone Liberated African villages Populated places established by Sierra Leone Creoles