History of Sierra Leone

Slavery, and in particular the Atlantic slave trade, had a great effect on the region—socially, economically and politically—from the late 15th to the mid-19th centuries.

There had been lucrative trans-Saharan trade of slaves in West Africa from the 6th century. At its peak (c. 1350) the Mali Empire surrounded the region of modern-day Sierra Leone and Liberia, though the slave trade may not have significantly penetrated the coastal rainforest. The peoples who migrated into Sierra Leone from this time would have had greater contact with the indigenous slave trade, either practicing it or escaping it.

When Europeans first arrived at Sierra Leone, slavery among the African peoples of the area was believed to be rare. According to historian Walter Rodney, the Portuguese mariners kept detailed reports, and so it is likely if slavery had been an important local institution that the reports would have described it. There was mention of a very particular kind of slavery in the region, which was:

a person in trouble in one kingdom could go to another and place himself under the protection of its king, whereupon he became a "slave" of that king, obliged to provide free labour and liable for sale.[6]

According to Rodney, such a person would likely have retained some rights and had some opportunity to rise in status as time passed.

If the Africans were not much interested in acquiring slaves, the Portuguese—as well as the Dutch, French, and English who arrived later—certainly were. Initially, their method was to cruise the coast, conducting quick kidnapping raids when opportunities presented themselves. Soon, however, they found locals willing to partner with them in these affairs: some chiefs were willing to part with a few of the less-desirable members of their tribes for a price; others went into the war business—a large group of battle captives could be sold for a fortune in European rum, cloth, beads, copper, or muskets.

This early slaving was essentially an export business. The use of slaves as labourers by the local Africans appears to have developed only later. It may first have occurred under coastal chiefs in the late 18th century:

The slave owners were originally white and foreigners, but the late eighteenth century saw the emergence of powerful slave-trading chiefs, who were said to own large numbers of 'domestic slaves'.[7]

For example, in the late 18th century, chief William Cleveland had a large "slave town" on the mainland opposite the Banana Islands, whose inhabitants "were employed in cultivating extensive rice fields, described as being some of the largest in Africa at the time".[8] The existence of an indigenous slave town was recorded by an English traveler in 1823. Known in the Fula language as a rounde, it was connected with the Sulima Susu's capital city, Falaba. Its inhabitants worked at farming.

Rodney has postulated two means by which slaving for export could have caused a local practice of using slaves for labour to develop:

1. Not all war captives offered for sale would have been bought by the Portuguese, so their captors had to find something else to do with them. Rodney believes that executing them was rare and that they would have been used for local labour.
2. There is a time lag between the time a slave is captured and the time he or she is sold. Thus there would often have been a pool of slaves awaiting sale, who would have been put to work.[9]

There are possible additional reasons for the adoption of slavery by the locals to meet their labour requirements:

1. The Europeans provided an example for imitation.
2. Once slaving in any form is accepted, it may smash a moral barrier to exploitation and make its adoption in other forms seem a relatively minor matter.
3. Export slaving entailed the construction of a coercive apparatus which could have been subsequently turned to other ends, such as policing a captive labour force.
4. The sale of local produce (e.g., palm kernels) to Europeans opened a new sphere of economic activity. In particular, it created an increased demand for agricultural labour. Slavery was a way of mobilising an agricultural work force.[10]

This local African slavery was much less harsh and brutal than the slavery practiced by Europeans on, for example, the plantations of the United States, the West Indies, and Brazil. The local slavery has been described by anthropologist M. McCulloch:

[S]laves were housed close to the fresh tracts of land they cleared for their masters. They were considered part of the household of their owner, and enjoyed limited rights. It was not customary to sell them except for a serious offense, such as adultery with the wife of a freeman. Small plots of land were given to them for their own use, and they might retain the proceeds of crops they grew on these plots; by this means it was possible for a slave to become the owner of another slave. Sometimes a slave married into the household of his master and rose to a position of trust; there is an instance of a slave taking charge of a chiefdom during the minority of the heir. Descendants of slaves were often practically indistinguishable from freemen.[11]

Slaves were sometimes sent on errands outside the kingdoms of their masters and returned voluntarily.[12] Speaking specifically of the era around 1700, historian Christopher Fyfe relates that, "Slaves not taken in war were usually criminals. In coastal areas, at least, it was rare for anyone to be sold without being charged with a crime."[13]

Voluntary dependence reminiscent of that described in the early Portuguese documents mentioned at the beginning of this section was still present in the 19th century. It was called pawning; Arthur Abraham describes a typical variety:

A freeman heavily in debt, and facing the threat of the punishment of being sold, would approach a wealthier man or chief with a plea to pay of[f] his debts 'while I sit on your lap'. Or he could give a son or some other dependent of his 'to be for you', the wealthy man or chief. This in effect meant that the person so pawned was automatically reduced to a position of dependence, and if he was never redeemed, he or his children eventually became part of the master's extended family. By this time, the children were practically indistinguishable from the real children of the master, since they grew up regarding one another as brothers.[14]

Some observers consider the term "slave" to be more misleading than informative when describing the local practice. Abraham says that in most cases, "subject, servant, client, serf, pawn, dependent, or retainer" would be more accurate.[15] Domestic slavery was abolished in Sierra Leone in 1928. McCulloch reports that at that time, amongst Sierra Leone's largest present-day ethnolinguistic group, the Mende, who then had about 560,000 people, about 15 per cent of the population (i.e., 84,000 people) were domestic slaves. He also says that "singularly little change followed the 1928 decree; a fair number of slaves returned to their original homes, but the great majority remained in the villages in which their former masters had placed them or their parents."[16]

Export slavery remained a major business in Sierra Leone from the late 15th century to the mid-19th century. According to Fyfe, "it was estimated in 1789 that 74,000 slaves were exported annually from West Africa, about 38,000 by British firms." In 1788, a European apologist for the slave trade estimated the annual total exported from between the Nunez River (110 km north of Sierra Leone) and the Sherbro as 3,000.[17] The Atlantic slave trade was banned by the British in 1807, but illegal slave trading continued for several decades after that.

Wesleyan Institution, King Tom's Point (May 1853, X, p.57)[32]

In 1787, a plan was established to settle some of London's "Black Poor" in Sierra Leone in what was called the "Province of Freedom". This was organised by the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor, founded by British abolitionist Granville Sharp, which preferred it as a solution to continuing to financially support them in London. Many of the Black Poor were African Americans, who had been given their freedom after seeking refuge with the British Army during the American Revolution, but also included other West Indian, African and Asian inhabitants of London.

The area was first settled by 400 formerly enslaved Black Britons, who arrived off the coast of Sierra Leone on 15 May 1787, accompanied by some English tradesmen. They established the Province of Freedom or Granville Town on land purchased from local Koya Temne subchief King Tom and regent Naimbana, a purchase which the Europeans understood to cede the land to the new settlers "for ever". The established arrangement between Europeans and the Koya Temne did not include provisions for permanent settlement, and some historians question how well the Koya leaders understood the agreement. Disputes soon broke out, and King Tom's successor, King Jimmy, burnt the settlement to the ground in 1789. Alexander Falconbridge was sent to Sierra Leone in 1791 to collect the remaining Black Poor settlers, and they re-established Granville Town (later renamed Cline Town) near Fourah Bay. Although these 1787 settlers did not establish Freetown, which was founded in 1792, the bicentennial of Freetown was celebrated in 1987.[33]

After establishing Granville Town, disease and hostility from the indigenous people eliminated the first group of colonists and destroyed their settlement. A second Granville Town was established by 64 remaining black and white 'Old settlers' under the leadership of St. George Bay Company leader, Alexander Falconbridge and the St. George Bay Company. This settlement was different from the Freetown settlement and colony founded in 1792 by Lt. John Clarkson and the Nova Scotian Settlers under the auspices of the Sierra Leone Company.

Street-level view of Freetown and the Cotton Tree where former American slaves prayed under and christened Freetown in 1792

The basis for the Freetown Colony began in 1791 with Thomas Peters, an African American who had served in the Black Pioneers and settled in Nova Scotia as part of the Black Loyalist migration. Peters travelled to England in 1791 to report grievances of the Black Loyalists who had been given poor land and faced discrimination. Peters met with British abolitionists and the directors of the Sierra Leone Company. He learned of the company's plan for a new settlement at Sierra Leone. The directors were eager to allow the Nova Scotians to build a settlement there; the London-based and newly created Company had decided to create a new colony but before Peters' arrival had no colonists. Lieutenant John Clarkson was sent to Nova Scotia to register immigrants to take to Sierra Leone for the purpose of starting a new settlement. Clarkson worked with Peters to recruit 1,196 former American slaves from free African communities around Nova Scotia such as Birchtown. Most had escaped Virginia and South Carolina plantations. Some had been born in Africa before being enslaved and taken to America.

The settlers sailed in 15 ships from Halifax, Nova Scotia and arrived in St. George Bay between 26 February and 9 March 1792. Sixty-four settlers died en route to Sierra Leone, and even Lieutenant Clarkson was ill during the voyage. Upon reaching Sierra Leone, Clarkson and some of the Nova Scotian 'captains' "despatched on shore to clear or make roadway for their landing". The Nova Scotians were to build Freetown on the former site of the first Granville Town which had become a "jungle" since its destruction in 1789. (Though they built Freetown on Granville Town's former site, their settlement was not a rebirth of Granville Town, which had been re-established at Fourah Bay in 1791 by the remaining Old Settlers.) Clarkson told the men to clear the land until they reached a large cotton tree. After this difficult work had been done and the land cleared, all the settlers, men and women, disembarked and marched towards the thick forest and to the cotton tree, and their preachers (all African Americans) began singing:

Awake and Sing Of Moses and the Lamb
Wake! every heart and every tongue'
To praise the Saviour's name
The day of Jubilee is come;
Return ye ransomed sinners home

On 11 March 1792, Nathaniel Gilbert, a white preacher, prayed and preached a sermon under the large Cotton Tree, and Reverend David George preached the first recorded Baptist service in Africa. The land was dedicated and christened 'Free Town' according to the instructions of the Sierra Leone Company Directors. This was the first thanksgiving service in the newly christened Free Town and was the beginning of the political entity of Sierra Leone. Later, John Clarkson would be sworn-in as the first governor of Sierra Leone. Small huts were erected before the rainy season. The Sierra Leone Company surveyors and the settlers built Freetown on the American grid pattern, with parallel streets and wide roads, with the largest being Water Street.

On 24 August 1792, the Black Poor or Old Settlers of the second Granville Town were incorporated into the new Sierra Leone Colony but remained at Granville Town.[34] It survived being pillaged by the French in 1794, and was rebuilt by the Nova Scotian settlers. By 1798, Freetown had 300–400 houses with architecture resembling that of the American South, with 3- to 4-foot stone foundations and wooden superstructures. Eventually this style of housing (brought by the Nova Scotians) would be the model for the 'bod oses' of their Creole descendants.

In 1800, the Nova Scotians rebelled and it was the arrival of 500 Jamaican Maroons[35] which caused the rebellion to be suppressed. Thirty-four Nova Scotians were banished and sent to either the Sherbro or a penal colony at Gore. Some of these were eventually allowed back into Freetown. Following their capture of the rebels, the Maroons were granted the land of the Nova Scotian rebels. Eventually the Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone had their own district at the newly named Maroon Town.

The Maroons were a free community of blacks from Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town) who had been resettled in Nova Scotia after surrendering to the British government followed the Second Maroon War of 1795–6. They had petitioned the British government for settlement elsewhere due to the climate in Nova Scotia.

After the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron was stationed in Freetown to intercept and seize ships participating in the illegal slave trade. The slaves that were held on these vessels were released into Freetown and were called 'Captured negroes', 'Recaptives' or 'Liberated Africans'.

Britain outlawed the slave trade throughout its empire on 29 March 1807 with the Slave Trade Act 1807 and the British Navy operating from Freetown took active measures to stop the Atlantic slave trade. However, the institution of slavery itself continued to be practised in the British Empire until it was abolished in the 1830s.

Houses at Sierra Leone (May 1853, X, p.55)[36]

In 1808, the British Crown Colony of Sierra Leone was founded, with Freetown serving as the capital of British West Africa. The city's population expanded rapidly with freed slaves, who established suburbs on the Freetown Peninsula. They were joined by West Indian and African soldiers who settled in Sierra Leone after fighting for Britain in the Napoleonic Wars.

In the early 1800s, Sierra Leone was a small colony extending a few kilometres (a few miles) up the peninsula from Freetown. The bulk of the territory that makes up present-day Sierra Leone was still the sovereign territory of indigenous peoples such as the Mende and Temne, and was little affected by the tiny population of the Colony. Over the course of the 19th century, that gradually changed: the British and Creoles in the Freetown area increased their involvement in—and their control over—the surrounding territory by engaging in trade, which was promoted and increased through treaty-making and military expeditions.

In their treaties with the native chiefs, the British were largely concerned with securing local peace so that commerce would not be interrupted. Typically, the British government agreed to pay a chief a stipend in return for a commitment from him to keep the peace with his neighbours; other specific commitments extracted from a chief might include keeping roads open, allowing the British to collect customs duties, and submitting disputes with his neighbours to British adjudication. In the decades following Britain's prohibition of the slave trade in 1807, the treaties sometimes also required chiefs to desist from slave-trading. Suppression of slave-trading and suppression of inter-chiefdom war went hand-in-hand because the trade thrived on the wars (and caused them). Thus, to the commercial reasons for pacification could be added anti-slavery ones.

When friendly persuasion failed to secure their interests, the British were not above (to borrow Carl von Clausewitz's phrase) "continuing diplomacy by other means". At least by the mid-1820s, the army and navy were going out from the Colony to attack chiefs whose behaviour did not conform to British dictates. In 1826, Governor Turner led troops to the Bum–Kittam area, captured two stockaded towns, burnt others, and declared a blockade on the coast as far as Cape Mount. This was partly an anti-slaving exercise and partly to punish the chief for refusing territory to the British. Later that year, acting-Governor Macaulay sent out an expedition which went up the Jong river and burned Commenda, a town belonging to a related chief. In 1829, the colonial authorities founded the Sierra Leone Police Corps. In 1890, this force was divided into the Civilian Police and the Frontier Police.[37]

The British developed a modus operandi which characterised their interventions throughout the century: army or frontier police, with naval support if possible, would bombard a town and then usually torch it after the defenders had fled or been defeated. Where possible, local enemies of the party being attacked were invited by the British to accompany them as allies.

In the 1880s, Britain's intervention in the hinterland received added impetus because of the "Scramble for Africa": an intense competition between the European powers for territory in Africa. In this case, the rival was France. To forestall French incursion into what they had come to consider as their own sphere, the British government renewed efforts to finalise a boundary agreement with France and on 1 January 1890 instructed Governor Hay in Sierra Leone to get from chiefs in the boundary area friendship treaties containing a clause forbidding them to treat with another European power without British consent.[38]

Consequently, in 1890 and 1891 Hay and two travelling commissioners, Garrett and Alldridge, went on extensive tours of what is now Sierra Leone obtaining treaties from chiefs. Most of these were not, however, treaties of cession; they were in the form of cooperative agreements between two sovereign powers.

In January 1895, a boundary agreement was signed in Paris, roughly fixing the line between French Guinea and Sierra Leone. The exact line was to be determined by surveyors. As Christopher Fyfe notes, "The delimitation was made almost entirely in geographical terms—rivers, watersheds, parallels—not political. Samu chiefdom, for instance, was divided; the people on the frontier had to opt for farms on one side or villages on the other."[39]

More generally, the arbitrary lumping-together of disparate native peoples into geographical units decided by the colonial powers has been an ongoing source of trouble throughout Africa. These geographical units are now attempting to function as nations but are not naturally nations, being composed in many cases of peoples who are traditional enemies. In Sierra Leone, for example, the Mende, Temne and Creoles remain as rival power blocs between whom lines of fission easily emerge.

In August 1895, an Order-in-Council was issued in Britain authorising the Colony to make laws for the territory around it, extending out to the agreed-upon boundary (which corresponds closely to that of present-day Sierra Leone). On 31 August 1896, a Proclamation was issued in the Colony declaring that territory to be a British Protectorate. The Colony remained a distinct political entity; the Protectorate was governed from it.

Most of the chiefs whose territories the Protectorate subsumed did not enter into it voluntarily. Many had signed treaties of friendship with Britain, but these were expressed as being between sovereign powers contracting with each other; there was no subordination. Only a handful of chiefs had signed treaties of cession, and in some of those cases it is doubtful whether they had understood the terms. In remote areas no treaties had been obtained at all.[40]

Strictly speaking, a Protectorate does not exist unless the people in it have agreed to be protected. The Sierra Leone Protectorate was more in the nature of a unilateral acquisition of territory by Britain.[41]

Almost every chieftaincy in Sierra Leone responded to the British arrogation of power with armed resistance. The Protectorate Ordinances (passed in the Colony in 1896 and 1897) abolished the title of King and replaced it with "Paramount Chief". Chiefs and kings had formerly been selected by the leading members of their own communities; now all chiefs, even paramount ones, could be deposed or installed at the will of the Governor, and most of the judicial powers of the chiefs were removed and given to courts presided-over by British "District Commissioners". The Governor decreed that a house tax of 5s to 10s was to be levied annually on every dwelling in the Protectorate. To the chiefs, these reductions in their power and prestige were unbearable.

When attempts were made to collect the house tax in 1898, the chiefs and their people rose up: first in the north, led by a dominant Temne chief called Bai Bureh, and then in Mende country to the south. The two risings together are referred to as the Hut Tax War of 1898, though they had quite different characteristics.

Bai Bureh's forces conducted a disciplined and skillfully executed guerrilla campaign which caused the British considerable difficulty. Hostilities began in February; Bureh's harassing tactics confounded the British at first but by May they were gaining ground. The rainy season interrupted hostilities until October, when the British resumed the slow process of eliminating the Africans' stockades. When most of these defences had been eliminated, Bureh was captured or surrendered (accounts differ) in November.

The Mende war was a mass uprising, planned somehow to commence everywhere on 27 and 28 April, in which almost all "outsiders"—whether European or Creole—were seized and summarily executed. Although more fearsome than Bai Bureh's rising, it was amorphous, lacked a definite strategy, and was suppressed in most areas within two months. Some Mende rebels in the centre of the country were not beaten until November, however; and Mende king Nyagua's son Maghi, in alliance with some Kissi, continued to fight in the extreme east of the Protectorate until August 1899.[42]

The principal of the uprisings, Bai Bureh, Nyagua and Be Sherbro (Gbana Lewis), were exiled to the Gold Coast on 30 July 1899; a large number of their subordinates were executed.

In the early 19th century Freetown served as the residence of the British governor who also ruled the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and the Gambia settlements. Sierra Leone also served as the educational centre of British West Africa. Fourah Bay College, established in 1827, rapidly became a magnet for English-speaking Africans on the west coast. For more than a century, it was the only European-style university in western Sub-Saharan Africa.

After the Hut Tax War there was no more large-scale military resistance to colonialism. Resistance and dissent continued, but took other forms. Vocal political dissent came mainly from the Creoles, who had a sizeable middle and upper class of business-people and European-educated professionals such as doctors and lawyers. In the mid-19th century they had enjoyed a period of considerable political influence, but in the late 19th century the government became much less open to them.[60]

They continued to press for political rights, however, and operated a variety of newspapers which governors considered troublesome and demagogic. In 1924, a new constitution was put in place, introducing elected representation (3 out of 22 members) for the first time, with the first elections held on 28 October. Prominent among the Creoles demanding change were the bourgeois nationalist H.C. Bankole-Bright, General Secretary of the Sierra Leone Branch of the National Congress of British West Africa (NCBWA), and the socialist I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson, founder of the West African Youth League (WAYL).

African resistance was not limited to political discussion. Sierra Leone developed an active trade union movement whose strikes were often accompanied by sympathetic rioting among the general population.

Besides the colonial employers, popular hostility was targeted against the tribal chiefs who the British had transformed into functionaries in the colonial system of indirect rule. Their role was to provide policing, collect taxes, and obtain corvee labour (forced labour exacted from those unable to pay taxes) for the colonialists; in return, the colonialists maintained them in a privileged position over the other Africans. Chiefs not willing to play this role were replaced by more compliant ones. According to Kilson, the attitude of the Africans toward their chiefs became ambivalent: frequently they respected the office but resented the exactions made by the individual occupying it. From the chiefs' point of view, the dilemma of an honourable ruler faced with British ultimatums cannot have been easy.

Postage stamp with portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, 1956

Throughout the 20th century, there were numerous riots directed against tribal chiefs. These culminated in the Protectorate-wide riots of 1955–1956, which were suppressed only by a considerable slaughter of peasants by the army. After those riots, reforms were introduced: the forced-labour system was completely abolished and reductions were made in the powers of the chiefs.

Sierra Leone remained divided into a Colony and a Protectorate, with separate and different political systems constitutionally defined for each. Antagonism between the two entities escalated to a heated debate in 1947, when proposals were introduced to provide for a single political system. Most of the proposals came from the Protectorate. The Krio, led by Isaac Wallace-Johnson, opposed the proposals, the main effect of which would have been to diminish their political power. It was due to the astute politics of Sir Milton Margai that the educated Protectorate elite was won over to join forces with the paramount chiefs in the face of Krio intransigence. Later, Margai used the same skills to win-over opposition leaders and moderate Krio elements for the achievement of independence.

In November 1951, Margai oversaw the drafting of a new constitution, which united the separate Colonial and Protectorate legislatures and—most importantly—provided a framework for decolonization.[61] In 1953, Sierra Leone was granted local ministerial powers, and Margai was elected Chief Minister of Sierra Leone.[61] The new constitution ensured Sierra Leone a parliamentary system within the Commonwealth of Nations.[61] In May 1957, Sierra Leone held its first parliamentary election. The Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), which was then the most-popular political party in the colony of Sierra Leone, won the most seats in Parliament. Margai was also re-elected as Chief Minister by an overwhelming majority.

Throughout the war, Freetown served as a critical convoy station for Allied ships.

On 27 April 1961, Sir Milton Margai led Sierra Leone to Independence from Britain and became the country's first prime minister. Sierra Leone retained a parliamentary system of government and was a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. In May 1962, Sierra Leone held its first general election as an independent nation. The Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) won plurality of seats in parliament and Sir Milton Margai was re-elected as prime minister.[66][67] The years just after independence were prosperous, with money from mineral resources being used for development and the founding of Njala University.[67]

Sir Milton Margai was very popular among SierraLeoneans during his time in power. An important aspect of his character was his self-effacement; he was neither corrupt nor did he make a lavish display of his power or status. His government was based on the rule of law and the notion of separation of powers, with multiparty political institutions and fairly viable representative structures. Margai used his conservative ideology to lead Sierra Leone without much strife. He appointed government officials with a clear eye to satisfy various ethnic groups. Margai employed a brokerage style of politics by sharing political power between political groups and the paramount chiefs in the provinces.

Upon Sir Milton Margai's death in 1964, his half-brother, Sir Albert Margai, was appointed as Prime Minister by parliament. Sir Albert's leadership was briefly challenged by Sierra Leone's Foreign Minister John Karefa-Smart, who questioned Sir Albert's succession to the SLPP leadership position. Kareefa-Smart received little support in Parliament in his attempt to have Margai stripped of the SLPP leadership. Soon after Margai was sworn in as Prime Minister, he immediately dismissed several senior government officials who had served under his elder brother's government, as he viewed them as traitors and a threat to his administration.

Unlike his late brother, Sir Milton, Sir Albert Margai proved unpopular and resorted to increasingly authoritarian actions in response to protests, including the enactment of several laws against the opposition All People's Congress (APC) and an unsuccessful attempt to establish a one-party state. Unlike his late brother, Sir Albert was opposed to the colonial legacy of allowing the country's paramount chiefs executive powers, and he was seen as a threat to the existence of the ruling houses across the country—almost all of whom were strong supporters and key allies of the previous administration. In 1967, riots broke out in Freetown against Sir Albert's policies. In response, Margai declared a state of emergency across the country. He was accused of corruption and of a policy of affirmative action in favour of his own Mende ethnic group[68]

Sir Albert had the opportunity to perpetuate himself in power, but he elected not to do so even when the opportunities presented themselves. He had the police and the army on his side and nothing could have prevented him from achieving his ambition to hold on to power, but he chose not to and called for free and fair elections.

The APC narrowly won a small majority of seats in Parliament over the SLPP in a closely contested 1967 Sierra Leone general election, and APC leader Siaka Stevens was sworn-in as Prime Minister on 21 March 1967 in Freetown. Within hours of taking office, Stevens was ousted in a bloodless military coup led by the commander of the army, Brigadier General David Lansana, a close ally of Sir Albert Margai who had appointed Lansana to the position in 1964. Lansana placed Stevens under house arrest in Freetown and insisted the determination of office of the prime minister should await the election of the tribal representatives to the house. On 23 March, a group of senior military officers in the Sierra Leone Army led by Brigadier Andrew Juxon-Smith overrode this action by seizing control of the government, arresting Lansana, and suspending the constitution. The group constituted itself as the National Reformation Council (NRC) with Juxon-Smith as its chairman and Governor-General.[69] On 18 April 1968, a group of senior military officers who called themselves the Anti-Corruption Revolutionary Movement (ACRM) led by Brigadier General John Amadu Bangura overthrew the NRC junta. The ACRM juntas arrested many senior NRC members. The democratic constitution was restored, and power was handed back to Stevens, who assumed the office of prime minister.[70]

On 29 April 1992, twenty-five-year-old Captain Valentine Strasser led a group of young Sierra Leone Army officers—including Lieutenant Sahr Sandy, Seargent Solomon Musa, Lieutenant Tom Nyuma, Captain Komba Mondeh, Captain Julius Maada Bio and Captain Komba Kambo—from their baracks in Kailahun District and launched a military coup in Freetown, which sent President Momoh into exile in Guinea. The young soldiers established the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) with Strasser as its chairman and Head of State of the country. Captain Solomon Musa, a close friend of Strasser and one of the leaders of the coup, became the deputy leader of the NPRC Junta. The coup was largely popular because it promised to bring peace, but the NPRC Junta immediately suspended the constitution, banned all political parties, limited freedom of speech and freedom of the press and enacted a rule-by-decree policy, in which soldiers were granted unlimited powers of administrative detention without charge or trial. The NPRC established a Supreme Council, consisting of the highest-ranking soldiers in the Junta government.

On the same day the NPRC Junta took power, one of the coup leaders, Lieutenant Sahr Sandy, was assassinated—reportedly by Major Sim Turay, the head of Sierra Leone Military Intelligence, and a close ally of the deposed president.[75] A heavily armed military manhunt took place across Sierra Leone to find Turay and others suspected to have participated in the assassination, forcing Turay to flee to Guinea.

The NPRC Junta fought the RUF rebels, recaptured most of the RUF-held territories, and pushed the rebels back to the border with Liberia. The NPRC Junta maintained relations with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and strengthened support for Sierra Leone-based ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) troops fighting in Liberia.

In December 1992, an alleged coup attempt against the NPRC administration of Strasser was foiled; it had aimed at freeing from detention Colonel Yahya Kanu, Lt-Colonel Kahota M.S. Dumbuya and former inspector-general of police Bambay Kamara. Seargent Mohamed Lamin Bangura and some junior army officers were identified as being behind the coup. Seventeen soldiers were executed, including Bangura, Kanu and Dumbuya. Several prominent members of the Momoh government who had been in detention at the Pa Demba Road prison, including former inspector-general of police Bambay Kamara were also executed.[76]

On July 5, 1994, deputy NPRC leader Solomon Musa was arrested and sent into exile in Guinea. Musa was accused by Strasser, on the advice of high-ranking NPRC soldiers, that he had become too powerful and was a threat to Strasser. Musa, who was a close ally and childhood friend of Strasser, denied the allegation and claimed his accusers were the threat. Strasser replaced Musa as deputy NPRC chairman with Captain Julius Maada Bio, and immediately promoted him to brigadier.

Due to internal divisions between soldiers loyal to Musa and those who supported Strasser's decision to oust him, the NPRC's campaign against the RUF became ineffectual. More and more of the country fell to RUF fighters, and by 1994 the RUF held much of the diamond-rich Eastern Province and were at the edge of Freetown. In response, the NPRC hired several hundred mercenaries from the private firm Executive Outcomes. Within a month, they had driven RUF fighters back to enclaves along Sierra Leone's borders and cleared the RUF from the Kono diamond-producing areas of Sierra Leone.

On 16 January 1996, after about four years in power, Strasser was arrested by his own bodyguards in a coup led by Bio and backed by many high-ranking soldiers of the NPRC junta. Strasser was immediately flown into exile in Conakry, Guinea. Bio stated in a public broadcast that his support for returning Sierra Leone to a democratically elected civilian government and his commitment to ending the civil war were his motivations for the coup.[77]

Promises of a return to civilian rule were fulfilled by Bio, who handed power over to Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), after the conclusion of elections in early 1996. President Kabbah took power with a great promise of ending the civil war, opened dialogues with the then-defeated RUF and invited RUF-leader Sankoh for peace negotiations, signing the Abidjan Peace Accord on 30 November 1996.

In January 1997, under international pressure, the Kabbah government ended their contract with Executive Outcomes even though a neutral monitoring force had not arrived. This created an opportunity for the RUF to regroup and renew military attacks. Sankoh was arrested in Nigeria, and by the end of March 1997 the peace accord had collapsed.

On May 25, 1997, a group of seventeen soldiers in the Sierra Leone army led by Corporal Tamba Gborie freed and armed 600 prisoners from the Pademba Road prison in Freetown. One of the prisoners, Major General Johnny Paul Koroma, emerged as the leader of the group. Calling itself the Armed Forced Revolutionary Council (AFRC), the group launched a military coup and sent President Kabbah into exile in Guinea. Koroma became head of state, with Gborie as deputy-in-command of the AFRC. Koroma suspended the constitution, banned demonstrations, closed all private radio stations, and granted unlimited powers to soldiers.

Koroma invited the RUF rebels to join his coup. Facing little resistance from army loyalists, five thousand rag-tag rebel fighters overran the capital. Koroma appealed to Nigeria for the release of Foday Sankoh, appointing the absent leader to the position of deputy chairman of the AFRC. The joint AFRC/RUF coalition government then proclaimed the war had been won, and gave the soldiers and rebels unlimited powers in a great wave of looting and reprisals against civilians in Freetown (dubbed "Operation Pay Yourself" by some of its participants).

The AFRC Junta government was not recognized by any country—whereas President Kabbah's government in exile in Conakry, Guinea was recognized by the United Nations, the African Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and ECOWAS as the legitimate government of Sierra Leone.

The Kamajors, a group of traditional fighters mostly from the Mende ethnic group under the command of Deputy Defence Minister Samuel Hinga Norman, remained loyal to President Kabbah and defended the Southern part Sierra Leone from the rebels. The Kamajors and rebels, including the RUF soldiers, regularly fought each other, and human rights violations were committed by both sides.

ECOWAS, led by Nigerian Head of State Sani Abacha, created a military force to defeat the AFRC/RUF junta in Freetown and to reinstate president Kabbah's government. Many West-African countries sent troops to reinstate the Kabbah Government, assembling a force largely from Nigeria but also including soldiers from Guinea, Ghana, Togo, Gambia, Mali, Ivory Coast and Senegal.

After 10 months in office, the AFRC junta government was ousted and driven out of Freetown by the Nigeria-led ECOMOG forces. The democratically elected government of President Kabbah was reinstated in March 1998. Koroma fled to the rebel strongholds in the east of the country.

Kabbah returned to power with Albert Joe Demby as vice president. President Kabbah named Solomon Berewa as attorney general and Sama Banya as foreign minister. On 31 July 1998, President Kabbah disbanded the Sierra Leone military and introduced a proposal for a new military.[78] On 12 October 1998, twenty-five soldiers—including Gborie, Brigadier Hassan Karim Conteh, Colonel Samuel Francis Koroma, Major Kula Samba and Colonel Abdul Karim Sesay—were executed by firing squad after they were convicted by court martial for orchestrating the 1997 coup.[79] AFRC leader Johnny Paul Koroma was tried in absentia and sentenced to death.

ECOMOG was unable to achieve a tactical victory over the RUF, and the international community promoted peace negotiations. The Lomé Peace Accord was signed on 7 July 1999 to end the civil war, granting amnesty for all combatants, and controversially granting Sankoh the position of vice president and chairman of the commission that oversaw the diamond mines. In October 1999, the United Nations established the UNAMSIL peacekeeping force to help restore order and disarm the rebels. The first of the 6,000-member force began arriving in December, and the UN Security Council voted in February 2000 to increase the force to 11,000, and later to 13,000. In May, when nearly all Nigerian forces had left and UN forces were trying to disarm the RUF in eastern Sierra Leone, the RUF took over 500 peacekeepers hostage, some of the rebels using captured weapons and armoured personnel carriers to advance on the capital. The 75-day hostage crisis resulted in more fighting between the RUF and government forces as UN troops launched Operation Khukri to end the siege. The Operation was successful with Indian and British Special Forces being the main contingents.

The situation in the country deteriorated to such an extent that British troops were deployed in Operation Palliser, originally simply to evacuate foreign nationals.[80] However, the British exceeded their original mandate, and took full military action to finally defeat the rebels and restore order. The British were the catalyst for the cease-fire that ended the civil war. Elements of the British Army, together with administrators and politicians, remained in Sierra Leone, helping to train the new armed forces, improve the infrastructure of the country and administer financial and material aid. Tony Blair, the prime minister of Britain at the time of the British intervention, is regarded as a hero by the people of Sierra Leone, many of whom are keen for more British involvement. Sierra Leoneans have been described as "The World's Most Resilient People".[81] In 2004, Parliament passed a Local Government Act of 2004 which re-introduced local government councils back to Sierra Leone after thirty years. On 4 August 2006 in a broadcast to the nation, President Kabbah announced that 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections would be held on 28 July 2007.[82]

Between 1991 and 2001, about 50,000 people were killed in Sierra Leone's civil war. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes and many became refugees in Guinea and Liberia. In 2001, UN forces moved into rebel-held areas and began to disarm rebel soldiers. By January 2002, President Kabbah declared the civil war officially over. In May 2002, Kabbah was re-elected president by an overwhelming majority. By 2004, the disarmament process was complete. Also in 2004, a UN-backed war crimes court began holding trials of senior leaders from both sides of the war. In December 2005, UN peacekeeping forces departed from Sierra Leone.

Elections were held in May 2002. President Kabbah was re-elected, and the SLPP won a majority of the parliamentary seats. In June 2003, the UN ban on the sale of Sierra Leone diamonds expired and was not renewed. The UN disarmament and rehabilitation program for Sierra Leone's fighters was completed in February 2004, by which time more than 70,000 former-combatants had been helped. UN forces returned primary responsibility for security in the area around the capital to Sierra Leone's police and armed forces in September 2004; it was the last part of the country to be turned over. Some UN peacekeepers remained to assist the Sierra Leone government until the end of 2005.

The 1999 Lomé Accord called for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which would provide a forum for both victims and perpetrators of human rights violations during the conflict to tell their stories and facilitate genuine reconciliation. Subsequently, the Sierra Leonean Government and the UN agreed to establish the Special Court for Sierra Leone to try those who "bear the greatest responsibility for the commission of crimes against humanity, war crimes and serious violations of international humanitarian law, as well as crimes under relevant Sierra Leonean law within the territory of Sierra Leone since 30 November 1996." Both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Special Court began operating in the summer of 2002. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its Final Report to the government in October 2004. In June 2005, the government issued a White Paper on the commission's final report which accepted some but not all of its recommendations. Members of civil society groups dismissed the government's response as too vague and continued to criticize the government for its failure to follow-up on the report's recommendations.

In March 2003, the Special Court for Sierra Leone issued its first indictments. Foday Sankoh, already in custody, was indicted, along with notorious RUF field commander Sam "Mosquito" Bockarie, Johnny Paul Koroma, and Hinga Norman (the Minister of Interior and former head of the Civil Defence Force), among several others. Norman was arrested when the indictments were announced, while Bockarie and Koroma remained in hiding. On 5 May 2003, Bockarie was killed in Liberia, allegedly on orders from President Charles Taylor, who feared Bockarie's testimony before the Special Court. Koroma was also rumoured to have been killed, though his death remains unconfirmed. Two of the accused, Foday Sankoh and Hinga Norman, have died while incarcerated. On 25 March 2006, with the election of Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo permitted the transfer of Charles Taylor—who had been living in exile in the Nigerian coastal town of Calobar—to Sierra Leone for prosecution. Two days later, Taylor attempted to flee Nigeria, but he was apprehended by Nigerian authorities and transferred to Freetown under UN guard.

In August 2007, Sierra Leone held presidential and parliamentary elections. They had a good turnout and were initially judged by official observers to be "free, fair and credible". However, no presidential candidate won the 50% plus one vote majority stipulated in the constitution on the first round of voting. A run-off election was held in September 2007, and Ernest Bai Koroma, the candidate of the APC, was elected president and sworn-in the same day. In his inauguration address at the national stadium in Freetown, President Koroma promised to fight corruption and the mismanagement of the country's resources.

By 2007, there had been an increase in the number of drug cartels, many from Colombia, using Sierra Leone as a base to ship drugs to Europe.[83] It was feared that this might lead to increased corruption and violence and turn the country, like neighbouring Guinea-Bissau, into a narco state. President Koroma quickly amended the existing legislation against drug trafficking—inherited at independence in 1961—to address the international concerns, increasing punishment for offenders in terms of prohibitive fines, lengthier prison terms, and provision for extradition of offenders wanted elsewhere, including the United States.

In 2008, an aircraft carrying almost 700 kg of cocaine was caught at Freetown's airport and 19 people, including customs officials, were arrested, and the minister for transport was suspended.[83]

In 2014, the country was impacted by the 2014 Ebola virus epidemic in Sierra Leone.