From time to time small additions by purchase were made to the area of the colony, at first partly to cope with the slave trade, which continued to be carried on illicitly. Then, about 185o, a period of discouragement set in and in 1865 a House of Commons committee reported against any further acquisitions of territory. Nevertheless, if only in the interests of trade, complete indifference to the hinterland was impossible. But the French had penetrated into the interior in a way which threatened to reduce the British possessions to small enclaves. In the task of extending British influence and in endeavours to stop inter-tribal warfare, the British authorities enlisted the services of Dr. Edward W. Blyden (a pure-blooded negro), who in 1872 visited Falaba and in 1873 Timbo, both semi Mohammedan countries. Falaba—which had been visited in 1869 by Winwood Reade on his journey to the Niger—came definitely under British protection, but Timbo, which is in Futa Jallon, was allowed to become French territory. The area for expansion on the north was in any case limited by the French Guinea set tlements, and on the south the territory of Liberia hemmed in the colony. In the east and north-east British officers also found themselves regarded as trespassers by the French.
An accidental collision between British and French troops at Waima (Dec. 23, 1893) showed the necessity for settling the Franco-British frontier. An agreement was signed in 1895, Great Britain securing a compact area something less than the size of Scotland. Over this area a British protectorate was proclaimed (Aug. 26, 1896). Slave raiding and slave dealing were at once declared illegal, and the widespread resentment thus caused was aggravated by the imposition of a hut-tax. A little later, Bai Bureh, a Timni chief, rose in revolt. In April, 1898, there followed a general rising of the Mendi, who began by murdering mission aries (including four women) and a large number of officials and police, chiefly Sierra Leonians, who were as obnoxious to the natives as were the whites. The dreaded "Poro" fetish was used by the chiefs to compel recalcitrants to join them. The insurrec
tion, which cost some thousands of lives, was suppressed with severity.
Relations between the people of the protectorate and the administration improved gradually. The opening up of the country by railways, the establishment of schools and the support given by Government to the paramount chiefs in the exercise of their legitimate powers, all tended to a better understanding. Progress was slow, however, and was checked by the continued tolerance of domestic slavery. Though from time to time efforts to end it were made, the subject was not very seriously dealt with until 1919, and it was not until 1926 that an ordinance was passed by the local legislature which was intended to remove the last vestige of legal recognition of slavery. Events showed that that ordinance did not effect its purpose, for the supreme court of Sierra Leone decided (July, 1927) that a slave owner had "the right to use reasonable force to re-take a runaway slave." Immediate action was taken to remedy the defect disclosed, and in the following September an other ordinance was passed abolishing in express terms the legal status of slavery in the protectorate. This ordinance came into force on Jan. I, 1928, some 200,000 persons being affected. No great social upheaval followed; the majority of the ex-slaves re mained with their former owners and intermarried with their families, while others acquired land and set up on their own account. It was noteworthy that the paramount chiefs with seats on the legislative council—themselves the largest slave-owners voted in favour of the abolition of slavery and made no demand for compensation. An elective element for the colony and direct representation of the protectorate, was introduced into the legis lature for the first time in 1924 See H. C. Luke, A Bibliography of Sierra Leone, 2nd ed. (1925) ; T. N. Goddard, The Handbook of Sierra Leone (1925) ; Correspond ence Relating to Domestic Slavery in the Sierra Leone Protectorate (British White Paper Cmd. 3,020, 1928). (F. R. C.)