Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea on the north and Liberia on the south, with the Atlantic Ocean on the west. The name Sierra Leone was adapted from the Portuguese name for the country: Serra Leoa. more...

Home
Africa
Asia
Commonwealth/ British...
Aden
Anguilla
Antigua & Barbuda
Ascension Island
Australia
Bahamas
Bahrain
Barbados
Basutoland/ Lesotho
Bechuanaland/ Botswana
Bermuda
British Antarctic Territory
British Guiana/ Guyana
British Honduras/ Belize
British Indian Ocean...
British Levant
British Virgin Islands
Brunei
Burma
Canada
Cayman Islands
Ceylon
Collections/ Mixture
Cook Is/ Aitutaki/ Penrhyn
Cyprus
Dominica
Falkland Is & Dependencies
Fiji
Gambia
Gibraltar
Gilbert & Ellice Is/...
Gold Coast/ Ghana
Grenada
Heligoland
Hong Kong
India
Jamaica
Kenya/ Uganda/ Tanganyika
Kuwait
Leeward Islands
Malaya/ Malaysia/ S. Setts.
Maldive Is.
Malta
Mauritius
Montserrat
Morocco Agencies
Nauru
New Hebrides/ Vanuatu
New Zealand
Nigeria
Niue
Norfolk Island
North Borneo
Northern Rhodesia/ Zambia
Nyasaland/ BCA/ Malawi
Omnibus Issues
Other Commonwealth Stamps
Pakistan/ Bahawalpur
Palestine
Papua New Guinea
Pitcairn Island
Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe
Samoa
Sarawak
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Solomon Islands
Somaliland Protectorate
South Africa
South West Africa/ Namibia
St Helena
St Kitts & Nevis
St Lucia
St Vincent/ Grenadines
Sudan
Swaziland
Tonga
Trinidad & Tobago
Tristan da Cunha
Turks & Caicos Is
Tuvalu
Zanzibar
Great Britain
Ireland
Latin America
Middle East
Philately/ Postal History
Rest of the World
Thematics
United States

The literal meaning is "Lioness Mountain." During the 1700s Sierra Leone was an important centre of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The capital Freetown was founded in 1792 by the Sierra Leone Company as a home for Black Britons who had fought for the British in the American Revolutionary War.

In 1808, Freetown became a British Crown Colony, and in 1896, the interior of the country became a British Protectorate. The Crown Colony and Protectorate joined and gained independence in 1961. From 1991 to 2000, the country suffered greatly under a devastating civil war. To end the civil war, UN and British forces disarmed 17,000 militia and rebels, in the largest UN peacekeeping act of the decade. The average life span of a Sierra Leonean is 38 years for men and 42 years for women.

History

The written history of Sierra Leone began in 1536, when the Portuguese explorer Pedro da Cintra landed and named the country. Europeans used the land as a source for slaves, but in 1792 Freetown was established as a haven for Black Loyalist ex-slaves who had initially been settled in Nova Scotia after the American Revolutionary War. {From History}

In 1808, Sierra Leone became a British Crown Colony, which it remained until halfway through the twentieth century, when the process of de-colonization was commenced. This culminated in independence on April 27, 1961. Sir Milton Margai (1895-1964) was the first prime minister.

Sierra Leone became a one-party state in the early 1970s. The country suffered a civil war beginning in 1991, with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by Foday Sankoh, attacking government soldiers and civilians indiscriminately (Sierra Leone Civil War). This resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of more than 2 million people (well over one-third of the population) many of whom became refugees in neighboring countries. A military coup on May 25, 1997 briefly replaced then President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah with Major Johnny Paul Koromah. Kabbah was reinstated in March 1998 after the junta was ousted by the Nigerian-led ECOMOG forces.

The Lomé Peace Accord, signed on July 7, 1999 in Lomé, Togo offered hope that the country would be able to terminate the period of civil chaos that had engulfed it, and rebuild its devastated economy and infrastructure. As of late 1999, up to 6,000 UNAMSIL peacekeepers were in the process of deploying to bolster the peace accord.

In May 2000, the situation in the country deteriorated to such an extent that further Nigerian troops were deployed in a 'save Sierra Leone' mission to evacuate foreign nationals and establish order. They stabilized the situation, and the Nigerian troops were the catalyst for a ceasefire and ending of the civil war. United Nations peacekeeping forces withdrew at the end of 2005.

Read more at Wikipedia.org