Mission Education in Early Sierra Leone, 1793-1820

Mission education helped to transform the small colony at Freetown and mission outposts at Rio Pongo, the Bullom Shore and elsewhere on the upper Guinea coast into a center of regional development. Freetown was a focal point of migration from North America, England and various parts of Africa that provided an early model of a multicultural society in a colonial context. The activities of the various Christian missions enhanced the educational opportunities for the nascent British colony, especially with the arrival of people taken off slave ships by the British navy after 1808. People in the area of Sierra Leone already had access to education before the establishment of the British colony in 1808. Muslims attended Quranic school wherever Muslims formed communities, and Islamic education was especially associated with Fuuta Jalon in the interior. Moreover, the Poro and Sande secret societies provided initiation training that amounted to an educational system. Finally, the children of prominent coastal traders and local officials sometimes were educated in Europe, and in this period, especially in Britain. The schools opened by the Christian missionaries, especially the Church Missionary Society (CMS) intensified the access to education. The efforts of the CMS missions introduced a new approach to instruction that was revolutionary for the region. Importantly, these early CMS missionaries were German-speaking Lutherans. As a result of their work, Freetown became a center of culturally diverse learning. This thesis examines mission records for the period 1808-1820 in order to analyze the cultural diversity of the Freetown population. Children came from a variety of backgrounds which reflect early settlement and the arrival of the first wave of Liberated Africans. It is argued here that mission education was well established during this period, which was before the arrival of large numbers of Yoruba and other Africans after 1820. The subsequent activities of the children who studied in the mission schools make it clear that the impact of mission education was dramatic, since many of the children became missionaries, teachers or merchants who provided leadership in the consolidation of Freetown as a center of education and cultural plurality before the landscape of the colony was altered after 1820.