Heroes
Sierra Leone's heroes include warrior-kings, peacemakers, merchants, scholars, the founders of Freetown, a slave-ship rebel and the leaders of independence. Some lives were complex, and where the record is mixed Story of Salone says so.
National heroes
Early kingdoms (1500s–1700s)
Farma Tami
c. 1540
Regarded by the Temne as their founder, he is remembered as a Mane conqueror who established his capital at Robaga in Koya. Every paramount chief of Koya is still expected to visit his shrine there.
Sources 114
Mansa Kama
A Koranko warrior-king said to descend from Sundiata Keita of Mali, he founded Kamadugu and Kholifa. The Kholifa ruler's title, Masakma, still honours him. His source gives conflicting dates, from the 1500s to around 1720.
Sources 114
Early Freetown (1780s–1840s)
Nemgbana
c. 1710–1793
Regent of Koya who signed the 1788 treaty granting land to the colony. The heroes book suggests he may not have understood that the British meant to stay permanently, and records his opposition to the slave trade.
Sources 115
Thomas Peters
c. 1738–1792
A Black Loyalist who travelled to London to secure land for his people and recruited the Nova Scotian settlers who founded Freetown. He recruited roughly a third of the 1,196 founders and died of malaria in 1792. Canada named him a National Historic Person in 2022.
Pa Demba
1794
A Temne village headman who sheltered Freetown's children and homeless settlers after French warships burned the town in 1794.
Sources 115
Gumbu Smart
c. 1750–1820
A Loko ruler who built Rokon into a major trading town on the Rokel River. He began as a slave-buying agent for Bunce Island traders, but sometimes freed Loko captives as his own followers.
Sources 115
Dala Modu Dumbuya
c. 1770–1842
A Soso merchant and diplomat who mediated between the colony and inland rulers for decades. He was expelled from Freetown in 1806 after being accused of slave trading, and later settled the Bullom Shore.
Sources 115
Nineteenth-century Freetown
John Ezzidio
c. 1810–1872
Freed from a slave ship as a teenager, he became a leading merchant and, in 1863, the first African elected to the Legislative Council.
Sources 116
Samuel Ajayi Crowther
1809–1891
First student of Fourah Bay College and first African Anglican bishop of West Africa.
Sources 22
See it:Old Fourah Bay College
Edward Wilmot Blyden
1832–1912
Born in the Virgin Islands and a Liberian statesman, he settled in Freetown from 1885 and died there. He edited Negro, described as the first explicitly pan-African journal in West Africa.
Africanus Horton
1835–1883
Army surgeon, scientist and early advocate of West African self-government; considered the first African graduate of Edinburgh University.
William Broughton Davies
c. 1831–1906
Among the first West Africans to qualify as a doctor, in 1859.
Sources 28
Sir Samuel Lewis
1843–1903
Barrister, Mayor of Freetown and first West African knighted, in 1896.
John Henry Malamah Thomas
1844–1922
Self-made merchant, eight-time Mayor of Freetown, and local president of the National Congress of British West Africa.
Sources 116
John Augustus Abayomi-Cole
1848–1943
Doctor and herbalist whose "mosquito missionaries" campaigned for cleaner compounds to fight malaria.
Sources 116
Upcountry in the nineteenth century
Sengbe Pieh
c. 1813–1879
Mende farmer who led the 1839 Amistad revolt and won freedom in the US Supreme Court in 1841.
Foday Tarawaly
c. 1790–1880
Founded an Islamic university at Gbinle, near Kambia, that taught several hundred students.
Sources 14
Alimamy Rassin
c. 1825–1890
Ruler of Mafonda who set up a peace fund and refused British payment for peacemaking.
Sources 14
Manga Sewa
d. 1884
Yalunka king who defended Falaba against Samori Toure for five months; oral accounts of his death differ.
Sources 14
Kai Londo
c. 1845–1896
Kissi warrior-king who founded Kailahun.
Sources 14
Foamansa Matturi
c. 1855–1936
Kono ruler who drove Samori's forces from Kono in 1893.
Sources 14
The 1898 rising
Bai Bureh
c. 1840–1908
Ruler of Kasseh who led a ten-month guerrilla campaign against the house tax. He was captured on 11 November 1898, exiled, and reinstated in 1905. A large statue stands in central Freetown.
Almamy Suluku
c. 1820–1906
Limba king of Biriwa who, by the heroes book's account, kept his independence through diplomacy, quietly aiding Bai Bureh while assuring the British of his loyalty.
Sources 117
Nyagua
c. 1842–1906
Mende ruler at Panguma, exiled after 1898 although, according to the heroes book, British officials acknowledged he had committed no hostile act.
Sources 117
Bai Sherbro Kpana Lewis
c. 1830–1912
Sherbro ruler who used the Poro society to organise a trade boycott against the tax, and died in exile.
Sources 117
Madam Yoko
c. 1849–1906
Kpa Mende ruler who brought fourteen chiefdoms under her authority through alliances, the Sande society and British support. Her own sub-chiefs rose against her in 1898 for supporting the tax, and assessments of her legacy differ.
See it:Madam Yoko's Grave
Colonial Freetown and the inter-war years
Adelaide Casely Hayford
1868–1960
Educator and cultural nationalist who opened a Girls' Vocational School in 1923 teaching African history and arts.
Sources 118
Sir Ernest Beoku-Betts
1895–1957
Lawyer and Mayor of Freetown; first Sierra Leonean puisne judge (1945).
Sources 118
I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson
1894–1965
Trade unionist and founder of the West African Youth League; detained in 1939 and later a delegate to the 1960 independence talks.
Constance Cummings-John
1918–2000
Topped the poll in the 1938 Freetown council elections, founded the Sierra Leone Women's Movement in 1951, and became Freetown's first woman mayor in 1966.
Emmanuel Cole
1908–1972
Gunner who led a 1939 protest over pay and the lack of boots for African soldiers. Convicted of mutiny, he was later pardoned, and according to the heroes book boots were then issued across British West Africa.
Sources 56
Asana Beya
1915–1987
Sergeant awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for an action in Burma in December 1944.
Sources 56
Haidara Kontorfilli
c. 1890–1931
Islamic reformer in Kambia District who urged peasants not to pay the house tax. He died in a 1931 clash with colonial troops in which a British officer was also killed.
Sources 56
Kisimi Kamara
c. 1890–1962
Tailor credited with creating the Kikakui script for Mende in 1921. The Unicode Standard notes that he developed an earlier script by his teacher, Mohamed Turay, and is generally credited as its primary inventor.
Independence leaders
Sir Milton Margai
1895–1964
First Protectorate graduate of Fourah Bay College and first Protectorate doctor; founder of the SLPP; first Prime Minister.
Sir Albert Margai
1910–1980
Second Prime Minister, who introduced the leone and created the Bank of Sierra Leone. His government faced corruption accusations, and the SLPP lost office after the 1967 election.
Sources 61
Eustace Taylor-Cummings
1890–1967
Doctor and Mayor of Freetown who campaigned to save Fourah Bay College in 1944.
Sources 61
Lamina Sankoh
1884–1964
Clergyman and writer who worked to unite Colony and Protectorate; his People's Party merged into the SLPP.
Sources 61
John Karefa-Smart
1915–2010
Doctor, WHO regional medical officer and early Foreign Minister.
Kande Bureh
b. 1908
Teacher and Temne community leader in Freetown who later served as a minister.
Sources 61
Amadu Wurie
1898–1977
Educator and first Minister of Education after independence.
Sources 61
Ella Koblo Gulama
1921–2006
Paramount Chief of Kaiyamba; first woman elected to the House of Representatives and first woman cabinet minister.
Sir Banja Tejan-Sie
1917–2000
Lawyer, Chief Justice, and acting Governor-General from 1968.
Mohammad Sanusi Mustapha
b. 1903
Muslim leader, businessman and minister, and a founder of the SLPP.
Sources 61
Dates shown as "b." are as given in the 1988 heroes book, which records these people as living; later dates have not been confirmed.
Sources 61
After independence
Siaka Stevens
1905–1988
Trade unionist, a founder of the APC, and first Executive President (1971–1985). He chaired the OAU in 1980–1981.
Christian Alusine Kamara-Taylor
1917–1985
APC founding secretary-general; later Prime Minister and Second Vice-President.
Sources 120
Sorie Ibrahim Koroma
1927–1994
APC organiser; later First Vice-President.
Tamba Songu M'briwa
1910–1968
Kono paramount chief and founder of the Sierra Leone People's Independence Movement (later the Kono People's Union), who allied with the APC before the 1967 election.
Sources 120
Modern heroes
Sierra Leone's twentieth- and twenty-first-century heroes include musicians, writers, museum founders, peace campaigners, health workers and athletes.
Culture and heritage
M.C.F. Easmon
1890–1972
Doctor who campaigned against racial discrimination in the colonial medical service. He became the first chairman of the Monuments and Relics Commission in 1947 and founded the Sierra Leone Museum, which opened in December 1957, serving as its first curator.
See it:Sierra Leone National Museum
John Akar
1927–1975
Composer of the national anthem's music and founder of the National Dance Troupe.
Sources 121
Ebenezer Calendar
1912–1985
Maringa and palm-wine musician whose 1951 song for Freetown's new double-decker buses made his name. When he died, bands played his songs at his home for twenty-four hours.
Sources 121
Salia Koroma
b. 1903
Mende accordionist and minstrel poet who performed for chiefs across the country.
Sources 121
Asadata Dafora
1890–1965
Freetown-born dancer and composer whose dance-opera Kykunkor opened in New York in May 1934. He is regarded as a pioneer of African dance on the American concert stage.
S.E. Rogie
1926–1994
Palm-wine guitarist from Pujehun District, known for "My Lovely Elizabeth". He played benefit concerts for people displaced by the war before his death.
Dates shown as "b." are as given in the 1988 heroes book, which records these people as living; later dates have not been confirmed.
Sources 121
Literature
Syl Cheney-Coker
Syl Cheney-Coker won the 1991 Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Africa Region) for The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar.
Ishmael Beah
Ishmael Beah's memoir A Long Way Gone (2007) is a widely read account of the war; he is a UNICEF advocate for children affected by war. The Australian newspaper has questioned parts of its chronology.
Aminatta Forna
Aminatta Forna is an acclaimed novelist, known for The Memory of Love.
Sources 81
Peace and democracy
The women of the Bintumani conferences
1995–1996
Women's groups secured a conference ruling that only a recalled conference could postpone the 1996 elections. UN Women credits the Women's Forum with uniting women's organisations behind holding those elections. Conciliation Resources notes that the elections restored civilian government but did not end the war.
Zainab Hawa Bangura
b. 1959
Founded W.O.M.E.N. in 1994 and co-founded the Campaign for Good Governance, which pressed for the 1996 elections. In 2002 she became the first woman to run for president, and she later served as UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict.
Leaders of armed groups in the 1991–2002 war remain contested figures in Sierra Leone and are not profiled here. The Special Court's judgments form the public legal record of that period.
Sources 38
The Ebola frontline (2014)
Dr Sheik Umar Khan
1975–2014
Head of Kenema's Lassa fever programme, credited with saving more than 100 lives before he died of Ebola on 29 July 2014. He was declared a national hero.
Mbalu Fonnie
Mbalu Fonnie was Kenema's head nurse, with over 30 years of Lassa fever experience. She is remembered with the 221 health workers who died in Sierra Leone's outbreak.