The first
imperialist colony in Africa (disregarding Roman Egypt). Sierra Leone was founded in 1792 by the Sierra Leone Company, a prototypical
territorial corporation on the model of the
Hudson's Bay Company. Its founders and financiers were largely prominent
abolitionists, including Thomas Clarkson.
Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, was founded by
black loyalists from
Nova Scotia, who had been enticed to move there by promises of land and self-government.
The owners of the Sierra Leone Company had the best of intentions, but we all know what the road to hell is paved with. The governors chosen by the company enforced strict control of the colony. When the settlers threatened to rebel and support the native tribes attacking the colony, their land was seized, dissenters were exiled, and new settlers from Jamaica were brought in and played against them. As the British ended slavery, slave ships that were captured by privateers or British warships were unloaded in Sierra Leone.
Around this time, Liberia was settled by the Americans on the same model. Colonial imperialism in Africa became the latest fad among European nations, carried out to its most brutal extreme in the Belgian Congo. Sierra Leone eventually became a prosperous colony, although it was never quite as lucrative as the more repressive colonial regimes.
Like all of Britain's African colonies, Sierra Leone was made independent in the aftermath of World War II.
Now that diamonds have been discovered in Sierra Leone, there's something for the new imperial powers, corporations, to fight over again. Sierra Leone has once again become a testing ground for new corporate models as mercenary corporations like Sandline International take contracts to 'protect' the Sierra Leone government (i.e. eliminate rebels by any means possible using the latest in military technology). Western diamond mining companies have arranged and financed this assistance in order to ensure control of these 'conflict diamonds'. And so Africans are killed and mutilated by the thousands in order to stabilize the world's essential supply of diamond rings.