REBELLION, MARRONAGE AND JIHĀD: STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY ON THE SIERRA LEONE COAST, C. 1783–1796

Abstract

A B S T R A C T : The Yangekori Rebellion was among the earliest extensive uprisings within Africa to be reported in European documents. This rebellion, which lasted for more than a decade, included domestic and market-bound slaves as well as free persons, all of whom became involved in promoting significant changes in traditional socioeconomic and political patterns. What made this rebellion unique and more informative for the present and for research relating to external slave trading and to rebellion within the diaspora, however, were its complex and local-based context, its multiple centers and its substantial involvement in a timely religious movement intent on transforming coastal society. Also instructive is the synergetic response that occurred among autocratic and otherwise quarrelsome rulers who were responsible for ending this rebellion, for re-establishing landholding patterns, and for defending themselves effectively against socioeconomic and political change.K E Y W O R D S : Slavery resistance, slave trade, Islam, Guinea, Sierra Leone.

Violence and War in Agrarian Perspective

“…There were also full-scale slave revolts, and attempts at marronage. We know about one substantial instance of marronage on the edge of the Upper Guinean forest in the late eighteenth century (Mouser 2007), but other instances of slave rebel groups retreating into more inaccessible regions of the forest perhaps await discovery (cf. Scott 2009).…”

Islamic spirituality vis-à-vis Asia Pacific Muslim populations: A resource for Western social work practice

“…That reference was eventually institutionalized as America's 'Star Spangled Banner' national anthem. No less relevant were confrontations with Europe where European colonial powers intentionally avoided Muslim states in their slave transactions as Muslim slave rebellions were not uncommon (Mouser, 2007). Subsequently, historical tensions between Muslims and the West are far from being a modern-day phenomenon.…”