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Sierra Leone - Econimocally and Politically Looking Toward the Future as a Player on the International
Stage
Surrounded by Guinea, Ivory Coast and Liberia on the West African coast, Sierra Leone is land of human diversity and mineral riches. As a political entity,
the country is byproduct of the slave trade. Late in the 18th century, it was established as a colony for freed slaves who
wanted to return safely to Africa. Sadly, the country subsequently became an example of the lasting chaos that the slave trade
made of many African cultures. When the Portuguese began frequenting these West African shores in the 15th century,
the territory was divided among small chieftaincies, many of them hostile to one another. Hence, the region yielded slaves
readily, as one group was willing to sell members of another for profit.
When British abolitionists colonized Sierra Leone, they hoped to resettle freed slaves from throughout the New World,
and began doing so in Freetown in 1792. The powerful Temne people were understandably mistrustful and resisted forcefully. But
in the first half of the 19th century, the colony attracted Africans from all over, and together they made the capital, Freetown,
a vibrant economic center and the home of a new culture, Krio. But outside the city, old animosities and slaving continued right
up to 1928, when the British finally ended the illicit trade.
Shortly thereafter, diamond and gold mining emerged as centerpieces of the local economy. After independence in 1961,
Sierra Leone swung from a conservative, market economy government to a far more
left-leaning government during the `70s when the collapse of the oil market hit hard undermining, among other things, the
country's recording industry.
Deteriorating political and economic conditions in Guinea,
and the tenuous security situation in neighboring Liberia may present challenges to the continuation of Sierra Leone's stability.
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