Sierra Leonean-Lebanese
Notable people:
Roda Antar |
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (33,000-44,000 (1970 estimate)) | |
| Religion | |
| Islam and Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Lebanese diaspora |
There is a significant population of Lebanese people in Sierra Leone.
Lebanese immigrants first came to West Africa in the mid-19th century when a silk-worm crisis struck their homeland, then part of the Ottoman Empire; the first Lebanese arrived in Sierra Leone in 1893. The first groups were Maronite Christians, but beginning in 1903, Shia Muslim Lebanese began to arrive from South Lebanon where there was an agricultural crunch. They worked as small traders, at first occupying the same position in the economic structure as indigenous coastal traders.
At first, they had little access to capital and little control of import or export; they were at the mercy of the large colonial merchant firms, the same as indigenous traders. They brought imported manufactured goods such as textiles, jewellery, and mirrors to rural areas where European and creole traders would not go, and traded them for local agricultural produce, primary palm kernels and kola nuts. As they expanded their trading interests into the interior, they gained some commercial power. However, they were blamed for a 1919 rice scarcity, and riots broke out against them in which their shops were looted. Even the colonial authorities, traditionally seen as the patrons of the Lebanese, did not protect them; instead, they deported two Lebanese traders blamed for causing the shortages. This was one of the first major incidents that contributed to the Lebanese having a negative image in Sierra Leone.
In the 1920s, they not only began to enjoy better access to credit, but also began to play a role themselves in extending credit to agricultural producers in the interior, sometimes at exorbitant rates which sparked the intervention of the colonial government. Beginning in the 1930s, the Lebanese began to outcompete indigenous traders, by concentrating their returns from commerce back into the same sector to expand their purchases of goods, rather than diversifying into other sectors. They also began to establish their own links to exporters in other countries. The worldwide Great Depression actually strengthened their position, as smaller African-owned trading enterprises were hit the hardest.
...
Wikipedia