The Temne people constitute one-half of the two major ethnic groups of contemporary Sierra Leone (the other being the Mende), making up about 35% of the nation's population. The primordial roots of the group could be traced to a singular patriarchal factor generally referred to as O'thaim, the Pa (or old man). The latter was presumably the founder of the original group, after whom the name Thaimne (Temne) was derived. Along with the Bullom, the Temne were the inhabitants of the land on which a settlement of manumitted Africans was established in the late 18th century, with the resultant emergence of the Krio. As Joseph Bangura notes, the latter have dominated the historiography of Sierra Leone, and in fact ‘oversimplifies the complex history of Britain's oldest and arguably most important colony in West Africa in the nineteenth century’ (7). Thus Bangura endeavours to show the equally, if not more significant, contribution of the Temne people in facilitating the success of British colonialism in Sierra Leone. The author pointedly seeks to avoid any semblance of tension between the ‘colonisers and colonised’, and instead endeavours to ‘underscore’ the role played by the Temne in the success of the British colonial state.
The book consists of seven chapters and a conclusion. Chapter 1 looks at the role of Sierra Leone in the transatlantic slave trade and the subsequent abolition of the trade system in 1807. In discussing the prelude to the Abolition Act of 1807, Bangura alludes to the landmark Mansfield decision of 1772 as the signalling impulse for the abolition of the trade system. According to Bangura, Lord Mansfield's ruling ‘essentially declared that English culture did not permit the practice of slavery’ (5). This interpretation flies in the face of empirical evidence, as the enslavement of Africans was fundamental to the English economy. Given the plethora of literature on the case, including Joseph Inikori's (Reference Inikori2002) monumental discussion of the contribution of Africans to the English political economy and its resultant impact on the shift to an industrialised economy in the 19th century, Bangura's take constitutes an unfortunate misreading of the watershed Mansfield decision. The author also goes on to state that the 1772 decision ‘likely influenced American slaves, particularly those who fought alongside British forces in the American War of Independence'. It is important to note that rather than Mansfield, the entry of enslaved African Americans into the War of Independence is ascribed to the governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, who recognised the need for more manpower in the outnumbered British Redcoats and, therefore, appealed to Africans in slave plantations to join the Redcoats. African Americans were motivated by an ideological conviction of liberty to fight against the plantation owners in exchange for Dunmore's guarantee of tangible ‘Warrants of Manumission’, thereby earning the moniker of ‘Black Loyalists', not necessarily because of the Mansfield decision. The rest of the introductory chapter is devoted to an analysis of extant historiography which Bangura perceives as ethnocentric in character, with the discussion aimed directly at lambasting the supposed cultural superiority of a ‘westernised’ Krio society vis-à-vis other ethnicities of Sierra Leone. In rejecting this perceived Krio hegemony, Bangura attempts to ‘shift the focus toward the major agency of the ascendant indigenous Temne’ (20).
In Chapter 2, Bangura challenges Krio identity and posits that the terms Creole and Krio were ‘untenable', and not based on empirical evidence. He thus claims that a more appropriate name for the descendants of manumitted Africans in Sierra Leone should be ‘Freetonians', a moniker which the author conveniently forgets to inform his readers is an appropriated term frequently utilised by earlier Temne ethno-nationalists of the post-World War II period, such as the Temne ethno-nationalist, Kandeh Bureh. While the chapter is seemingly concerned with the construction of Creole/Krio identity, Bangura demonstrates a palpable unfamiliarity with the concept of creolisation. Freetown was the locus of an intermixing of cultural and language groups, wherein the conglomerating cultures sharing close physical and social spaces allowed for the evolving of a creolised community that would continually absorb people from the surrounding sociocultural environment. What ultimately emerged out of this process of creolisation was an identifiable cultural group known as the Krio of contemporary Sierra Leone. Unlike, say, the Temne, the emergent Krio certainly do not share primordial roots, to utilise Bangura's formulation, simply because they do not constitute an ethnicity. The Krio constitute a cultural group, not a ‘tribe'. Originally consisting of multifarious peoples relocated to the Freetown peninsular, the erstwhile creole community included Bullom, Temne, Limba, Soso, Mandinga, Mende, Loko, Yoruba-speaking groups from the Bight of Benin, and others, such as the so-called Black Poor and Nova Scotians, repatriated from across the Middle Passage. Thus Krio identity transcended ethnicity, culture and/or religion, and the people to whom the appellation, Krio, is applied certainly do not have ‘a shared ancestral history'.
Chapter 3 is devoted to the development of the Temne Tribal Authority as an appendage of the colonial administration. Bangura represents the Temne local leadership as a counterweight to the Krio-dominated Freetown City Council as well as an important instrument of British colonial rule in Sierra Leone. According to the author, the collaboration of the Temne leadership in Freetown was instrumental to the success of the colonial project. It is rather curious that Bangura seems quite oblivious to the instrumentality of the imperial policy of divide et impera, which the British deftly utilised in the consolidation of colonial authority. It is also curious that Bangura is quite comfortable with the uncritical use of the concept of ‘tribe’/'tribal’ in reference to the Temne and other ethnicities, particularly at a time when even European/American ethnographers and social anthropologists have sought to avoid the use of the problematic term(s).
In Chapter 4, Bangura explores inter-ethnic relations in a rapidly urbanising Freetown, including related issues of class and religious identities. Bangura correctly identifies the conscious political role of Temne leadership in mobilising ethnic identity geared towards political and social gain. The Temne chief, Kandeh Bureh, exploited perceived and/or real differences between the colony Krio and other ethnicities, particularly the Temne, in a bid to burnish his stature and political bona fides. While Bureh had sought earlier to cooperate with non-Temne in East Freetown (89), he ultimately abandoned any semblance of statesmanship when he joined forces with another prominent Temne leader, Gibril Sesay, in identifying a political opposite in the Oku Muslims of Foulah Town. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, forces from Sesay's group, Morrkah, were engaged in nightly stone-throwing attacks on the Muslim community of Foulah Town, where an Oku Muslim politician, M.S. Mustapha, had been identified as a major competition to Bureh and Sesay. The latter was clearly more a political than religious figure, more adept at utilising Islam as an instrument of political aggrandisement.
Chapters 5 and 6 look at Temne cultural associations and their role in the development of popular culture, as well as efforts in facilitating the spread of Islam among colony-based and immigrant Temne. Groups such as Ambas Gedda, Nuru Janati, Boys London and Ariah were indeed popular; however, their reach and influence were restricted to the Bambara Town area and parts of East Freetown and not colony-wide. Contrary to assertions by Bangura, they were distinctly Temne entities, founded by and for Temne people at a time when other groups, such as the Mandinga/Soso, had their own popular associations (e.g. the Yankadie and Tarancis). In the area of religion, Bangura adroitly examines the role of Temne leaders in the founding of schools and mosques in Freetown, albeit with much emphasis on the role of Gibril Sesay and Kandeh Bureh. Conspicuously absent in the discourse is the role and place of a prominent Temne Muslim clergyman, Alfa Sheka Sesay, the first Imam of the Temne mosque in Bambara Town. Alfa Sheka was widely known as a scholar/teacher, along with a local Temne teacher more generally known as O'thamroko, who was largely responsible for the survival of Nuru Janati in Bambara Town, not Magazine Cut. While local Temne clergy were instrumental in the spread of Islam among their compatriots, it will be foolish to ignore or deny the much more essential role of Fula, Mandinga and Soso clergy in facilitating the spread of Islam in Sierra Leone.
Chapter 7 examines the contributions of Temne women traders in colonial Freetown. Bangura rightly asserts that the historiography has been largely concerned with Krio women traders in the commercial life of the colony, with non-Krio women marginalised. Any serious study of commerce during and after the colonial period will be incomplete without an examination of the women traders from other societies, such as the Bullom, Temne, Soso, Loko and others. The popular King Jimmi, Dove Cot and Kissy Road markets were indeed dominated by non-Krio women traders, particularly as primary suppliers of such food items as Fufu, garri, yams, rice, fish, ori (shea butter) and vegetables. Rather than any real hostile competitiveness between market women, based on ethnic differences, there was a great deal of cooperation between the women traders, all of whom were of working-class background. The micro-credit system popular among the women traders transcended ethnic and/or cultural differences. The popular Esusu micro-credit system included traders of every ethnicity and served to facilitate the success of small-scale enterprises.
The Temne of Sierra Leone is indeed a welcomed intervention in the developing historiography of Sierra Leone. Works by Adeleye Ijagbemi (Reference Ijagbemi1968, Reference Ijagbemi1971, Reference Ijagbemi1973, Reference Ijagbemi1976), Kenneth Wylie (Reference Wylie1977) and Vernon R. Dorjahn (Reference Dorjahn1960) have looked at aspects of Temne history in the 19th century. The pre-colonial history of this very important group remains to be seriously engaged by scholars of Sierra Leone history. It is imperative that such an engagement, particularly with regard to the colonial period, be done in a more substantive than rhetorical manner, with a great deal of even-handedness.
