out to vessels anchored just beyond the surf. Convinced that they were destined for death, many captives would try to drown themselves in the surf, but the Europeans and their indigenous Kru partners kept a close eye out for this and thwarted many such attempts. In 1839, hundreds of captives were packed onto the Tecora, a Portuguese slaver, and sailed to Havana. They made land under cover of night because importing slaves into the Americas was illegal. But in a parallel to todayâs diamond controversy, slave traders dodged this by obtaining passports for their prisoners that showed they were Cuban. Fifty-three of these Sierra Leoneans were purchased by Spanish slave owners and put aboard the 60-foot coastal schooner Amistad for transport to Puerto PrÃncipe. But during the voyage, a Mende slave used a nail to pick his locks and freed his fellow captives. They took over the ship and wound up not back in Africa, as theyâd planned, but in Mystic, Connecticut. In the resulting landmark trial, the would-be slaves were freed by the U.S. Supreme Court, aided in no small part by one their attorneys, former U.S. president John Quincy Adams.
Back in Sierra Leone, by 1850 more than 100 ethnic groups were living in Freetown, a mixture brought about by Britainâs policy of releasing recaptives at Port Kissy. Like an African version of New York City, Freetownâs heterogeneous population occupied different parts of town and the different groups lived fairly harmoniously. Collectively, the Freetown settlers became known as Krios and they developed a language of the same name that allowed them to communicate outside their various native tongues. Krio is a hodgepodge
of African dialects, its main component being English: The result is a mellifluous babble of pidgin slang, Queenâs English, and tribal terms.
For most of its postslavery history, there was nothing remarkable about Sierra Leone, and Freetown likely lived up to its name. For the most part, those living there got along well with their neighbors and their British overseers. It wasnât until diamonds were discovered in the 1930s that Sierra Leoneâs course toward self-destruction was set.
Â
TODAY,ITâS HARD TO DECIDE if Freetown looks more or less depressing from the air. Flying in from the provinces on one of the choppers that regularly blows sand into the drinks of those trying to relax on the beach, you can look out the port windows to watch the Peninsula Mountains drop away to reveal its jumbled collection of teetering high-rise buildings that seem to be lined up behind one another like a suicide procession, as if waiting their turn to leap to their deaths in Destruction Bay. The bay itself, aptly named, is haunted with the hulls of half-sunken vessels. The city claws its way up the mountains, creeping into the jungle like a disease. At street level the city is a chaos of mud, wrecked cars, zinc roofs, and palm trees, all tied together with all-weather plastic sheeting. Itâs not surprising that the capital is so decimated and hopeless considering that Sierra Leone effectively ceased functioning during the civil war. The RUFâs diamond war has so far killed about 75,000 people and mutilated another 20,000. 2 Eighty percent of its estimated five million citizens have been turned into refugees and most of them seem to have retreated to Freetown. Like everywhere else in the country, Freetown is just another city where people struggle to survive from day to day. The only difference is that
their efforts are overshadowed more by high-rise office buildings than palm trees and climbing vines.
Architecturally, the capital is a disorganized landslide of cardboard shacks, cinderblock houses, poured concrete office buildings, and zinc-and-timber Krio formations that look like miniature Southern plantations, minus the beauty, craftsmanship, and inspiration. Downtown is a maelstrom of blaring horns, fish-smoke, money changers, fistfights,
Back in Sierra Leone, by 1850 more than 100 ethnic groups were living in Freetown, a mixture brought about by Britainâs policy of releasing recaptives at Port Kissy. Like an African version of New York City, Freetownâs heterogeneous population occupied different parts of town and the different groups lived fairly harmoniously. Collectively, the Freetown settlers became known as Krios and they developed a language of the same name that allowed them to communicate outside their various native tongues. Krio is a hodgepodge
of African dialects, its main component being English: The result is a mellifluous babble of pidgin slang, Queenâs English, and tribal terms.
For most of its postslavery history, there was nothing remarkable about Sierra Leone, and Freetown likely lived up to its name. For the most part, those living there got along well with their neighbors and their British overseers. It wasnât until diamonds were discovered in the 1930s that Sierra Leoneâs course toward self-destruction was set.
Â
TODAY,ITâS HARD TO DECIDE if Freetown looks more or less depressing from the air. Flying in from the provinces on one of the choppers that regularly blows sand into the drinks of those trying to relax on the beach, you can look out the port windows to watch the Peninsula Mountains drop away to reveal its jumbled collection of teetering high-rise buildings that seem to be lined up behind one another like a suicide procession, as if waiting their turn to leap to their deaths in Destruction Bay. The bay itself, aptly named, is haunted with the hulls of half-sunken vessels. The city claws its way up the mountains, creeping into the jungle like a disease. At street level the city is a chaos of mud, wrecked cars, zinc roofs, and palm trees, all tied together with all-weather plastic sheeting. Itâs not surprising that the capital is so decimated and hopeless considering that Sierra Leone effectively ceased functioning during the civil war. The RUFâs diamond war has so far killed about 75,000 people and mutilated another 20,000. 2 Eighty percent of its estimated five million citizens have been turned into refugees and most of them seem to have retreated to Freetown. Like everywhere else in the country, Freetown is just another city where people struggle to survive from day to day. The only difference is that
their efforts are overshadowed more by high-rise office buildings than palm trees and climbing vines.
Architecturally, the capital is a disorganized landslide of cardboard shacks, cinderblock houses, poured concrete office buildings, and zinc-and-timber Krio formations that look like miniature Southern plantations, minus the beauty, craftsmanship, and inspiration. Downtown is a maelstrom of blaring horns, fish-smoke, money changers, fistfights,
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