The protectorate is divided for administrative purposes into districts, each under a European commissioner. Native law is administered by native courts, subject to certain modifications. The tribal system of Government is maintained, and the authority of the chiefs has been strengthened by the British.
Economic Conditions.—With a population of 55 to the square mile Sierra Leone has a fairly good labour supply: the great majority of the natives prefer, however, to work for them selves rather than for an employer. The wealth and external trade of the country is mainly dependent on the oil-palm, the kola nut being next in value. The Sierra Leonians (as apart from the natives) are traders, not producers, and agriculture proper is still almost confined to the cultivation of food crops for home consumption—chiefly rice and cassava. At one time rub ber exports were of some account ; this trade virtually ceased about 1910 partly because the rubber tree and vines were over tapped, chiefly through the superiority of plantation rubber grown in the East. The trade in rubber and in other produce, was also affected by the diversion of produce from the interior of French Guinea, which used to be brought by caravan to Sierra Leone, to Konakri. Without transit trade Sierra Leone is dependent on its own resources. In the 20 years 1907-27 the export of palm nuts rose from 35,000 tons to 65,00o tons, of palm oil from 2,600 to 3,600 tons. They formed from 70 to 8o% of the local exports. The oil-palm industry was conducted in the wasteful traditional fashion of the natives. The "wild" oil-palm is found by the million, but, despite this unlimited supply, anxiety was caused by the prospective competition of the cultivated oil-palm in the East, and also by the increasing production of copra, which yields an oil similar to that of the palm. The administration therefore, in 1926-27, laid out a model plantation of 2,000 ac. to demonstrate to the natives the advantages of scientific methods of culture. Besides palm nuts and palm oil and the kola nut trade the export of ginger was of next importance. The cultiva tion of cocoa, however, began to have promising results from 1925. The greatest need for the development of trade was better means of transport. The 33o m. of railway had not been added to since 1916, and in 1926 there were but 400 m. of motor roads; a vigorous road-making campaign began in 1925. Until 1926 it was supposed that the country was without mineral wealth. In that year platinum and haematite were discovered. Subsequently gold, chromite corundum and other minerals were found and by 1929 production had begun.
Cotton goods are the chief imports, next in value are food stuffs and tobacco. Formerly trade spirits (from the continent of Europe) were imported in large quantities, the duty upon them yielding a large share of the revenue, but in accord with international agreements steps were taken to suppress the trade and between 1912 and 1924 the value of spirits imported fell from 6.29 to I•I o of the total imports. The trade of Sierra. Leone grew steadily. It was about £650,000 in 1887 and, exclud ing specie, had reached £2,782,000 in 1913. In 1924 the figures were :—Commercial imports L1,451,000; commercial exports £1,671,000, of which ii,510,000 represented the value of the local produce. For 1927 the figures (including specie) were:—Im ports £2,112,000 (f1,296,000 British) ; exports £1,757,000. Of these exports £603,000 went to Great Britain. Kola nuts to Sene gal, the Gambia and Nigeria. Germany takes a large proportion of the palm nuts (37,00o tons in 1927).
Sierra Leone (in the original Portuguese form Sierra Leona) was known to its native inhabitants as Romarong, or the Mountain, and received the current designation from the Portuguese dis coverer, Pedro de Cintra (1462), either on account of the "lion like" thunder on its hill-tops or to a fancied resemblance of the mountains to the form of a lion. Here, as elsewhere along the
coast, the Portuguese had "factories"; and though none existed when the British took possession, some of the natives called them selves Portuguese and claimed descent from colOnists of that nation. English traders were established on Bance and the Banana islands as long as the slave trade was legal. The existing colony has not, however, grown out of their establishments, but owes its birth to the philanthropists who sought to alleviate the lot of those negroes who were victims of the traffic in human beings. In 1786 Dr. Henry Smeathman, who had lived for four years on the West Coast, proposed a scheme for founding on the Sierra Leone peninsula a colony for negroes discharged from the army and navy at the close of the American War of Independence, as well as for numbers of runaway slaves who had found an asylum in London. In 1787 the settlement was begun with 400 negroes and 6o Europeans, the whites being mostly women of abandoned character. In 1788 "king" Nembana, a Timni chief, sold a strip of territory for the use of the settlers, and thus the British acquired the best harbour on the whole of the west coast of Africa. The first settlement, not unnaturally, proved a complete failure. In 1791 Alexander Falconbridge (formerly a surgeon on board slave ships) collected the survivors and laid out a new settlement (Granville's Town) ; and the promoters of the enterprise received a charter of incorporation as the Sierra Leone Company. In 1792 John Clarkson, a lieutenant in the British navy brought the colony I,Ioo negroes from Nova Scotia. In 1794 the settlement, which had been again transferred to its original site and named Freetown, was plundered by the French. The governor at the time was Zachary Macaulay, father of Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay. In 1807, when the inhabitants of the colony num bered 1,871, the company, which had encountered many diffi culties, transferred its rights to the Crown. The slave trade hav ing in the same year been declared illegal by the British parlia ment, slaves captured by British vessels in the neighbouring seas were brought to Freetown, and thus the population of the colony grew. Its development was hampered by the frequent changes in the governorship. Sydney Smith's jest that Sierra Leone had always two governors, one just arrived in the colony and the other just arrived in England, is but a slight exaggeration. In 22 years (1792-1814) there were 17 changes in the governorship. After that date, changes, although not quite so rapid, were still frequent. Many of these changes were due to deaths, but the resources of science have removed the reproach of Sierra Leone being "the white man's grave." It took a good many years to build up an industrious and self supporting community out of the heterogeneous human material "dumped down" at Sierra Leone. The settlers, whose language was English and who, for the most part, professed Christianity (the Church Missionary Society began work among them in 1804), were regarded by the natives as aliens and collisions be tween the settlers and neighbouring tribes were frequent. The settlers, after a time, took to trade and professional careers and as Freetown was a much used port of call for shipping a measure of prosperity was reached.