Sierra Leonean American
| Total population | |
|---|---|
|
21,737 (ancestries and ethnic origin; 2014 American Community Survey) 35,213 (Sierra Leonean-born, 2013) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
|
|
| Languages | |
| Religion | |
| Muslims, minority Catholics, Gullah | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
Sierra Leonean Americans are Americans who are descended from Sierra Leoneans. The population of Sierra Leonean Americans is relatively large and consists, according to surveys of 2013, of 21,538 people. However, many African Americans are descended also from Sierra Leonean slaves who were exported to the United States since the 18th until the early 19th century, so the number of people with that heritage should be much higher. So, the number of slaves from present Sierra Leone exported to present United States exceeded the 25.000 people. A peculiar group of people of partially Sierra Leonean descent in United States is that of the Gullah, who, descendants of slaves, fled their owners at the end of the 18th and early 19th century and they established in parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and the Sea Islands, areas in which, even today, they retain their cultures. Moreover, according to the American Community Survey there are 34,161 Sierra Leoneans immigrants living in United States.
The first people from present Sierra Leone who emigrated to the United States were slaves exported to this country between the 17th and 19th centuries. The first slaves from Sierra Leone arrived to the United States are some of the Gullah ancestries, or (in Georgia) Geechee, speakers, which were sent from Barbados or directly from Africa to work in the rice along the southeast coast of the United States beginning in the 18th century. The Sierra leonean slaves belonged to peoples such as the Mendes, Temnes, Vai, Loko, Fula, Sherbro and Limba people and many them were Muslims (as is the case of the Fulbes). It is estimated that approximately 24 percent of slaves brought into the area came from Sierra Leone, prized by buyers in Charleston specifically for their skills as rice farmers. Most of the slaves of Sierra Leone were imported to south, mainly to South Carolina (where arrived the 70% of those slaves, more of 18.300 slaves from Sierra Leone, settling in places as the Saint Helena Island) and Georgia (where arrived the 15% them, more of 3.900 slaves from this region, becoming in the most of the slaves of the colony), followed, over long distances, mainly by Virginia, Maryland and Florida (those places had in total more of 11% on total of slaves from Sierra Leone in the present U.S., having between 900 and 1,000 of those slaves depending on the American state). So, Professor Opala has found letters establishing the facts of this regular commerce between South Carolina plantation owner Henry Laurens and Richard Oswald, his English slave agent resident on Bunce Island in the Sierra Leone River. Moreover, between 1776 and 1785, during the American Revolution, many Gullah of Sierra Leoneans origin fled from the United States and emigrated to Nova Scotia, Canada, after of the abolition of slavery in this country. Subsequently, in 1787 the British helped 400 freed slaves from the United States, Nova Scotia (many of them were Gullah), and Great Britain to return to Sierra Leone, founded the colony Freetown in 1792.
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Wikipedia