The Adventure of Bai Bureh of Sierra Leone: A Tale of a Warrior

By Ibrahim Arolyn N. Koroma

The adventure of Bai Bureh revealed a classic African trendsetter on a mission to conquer. He was born in a ruling house, a chief (king). He was confronted with humongous obstacles, but he was equally determined to die a king. Bai Bureh was selfless and altruistic. He was noted for his humble beginnings. At a very young age, he was perceived as timid among his peers, but he redeemed himself after he triumphantly thrashed both his high school bullies, Fenplaba (Lawbreaker) and Gbose Gbose (Violator).
He was a teenager whose aim was to be the defender of not only his country of Sierra Leone but also of Africa. He set a precedent by challenging the all-powerful British Empire ruled by King Edward VII and Queen Victoria. The British role in interfering with Sierra Leoneans’ economic way of life in 1898 was a no-brainer, and to Bai Bureh, it was a game changer. Enough was enough.
His social and natural capabilities were to complement his resiliency to lead his people during the economic and political dark ages of Africa.
The legendary warrior Bai Bureh used a holistic approach to the various twentieth-century challenges faced by his country of Sierra Leone created by the dominant colonialist British Empire’s quest for world dominance. But he brilliantly challenged them with both a twentieth- and twenty-first-century political approach. He was well ahead of his time at the turn of century.
For the legend, it was not what people think about him. It was not what his admirers say about him but what he did and how he did it. What he said and how he said it set him apart from most African warriors who trod the African stage in parallel era. His calculated political trajectory was shaped by his worldview, defined by an external threat which he perceived as a catalyst to destabilize Sierra Leoneans’ socioeconomic life.
The British colonialist imposition of a hut tax did not settle well with the hotheaded leader. He galvanized a small but resilient Sierra Leonean populace. He and his people stood firm against the British sanctioning of a hut tax on personal dwellings on a nation where local commerce was either on its infancy stage or nonexistent. The altercation slowly but surely reached its climax in 1898, and a war ensued. Bai Bureh proved smarter in the battlefield than he was perceived capable by the superior British military might.
Bai Bureh was first to introduce in battlefield the silent but lethal sniping tactics and guerilla warfare, which killed a sizeable number of British infantry soldiers by constructing camouflage trenches along the only accessible trails to the country’s interior.
A rogue court filled with hateful British demagoguery sentenced Bai Bureh to a prison term. The imprisonment to slow the hotheaded Bai Bureh’s rebellious activities only polarized his charisma and opened new venues of leadership and supervisory positions including the British maximum prison in the Gold Coast.
He returned to Sierra Leone to be lavishly showered with richly deserved homecoming welcome. He was again crowned chief (king). He was born a king, and he died a king in his hometown of Kasseh in northern Sierra Leone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524548728

Ibrahim Arolyn N. Koroma

About the Author The author, Arolyn Ibrahim Nfagie Koroma, was born in 1957 in Port Loko District in Sierra Leone, West Africa. He is a playwright/screenwriter, a novelist, a journalist, and a trained economist/accountant. He worked as an accountant for a total of nineteen years, beginning with the Bank of America in San Mateo in 1985 and the CPA firm of Siba & Associates in Oakland, California. He worked as a manager and auditor at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Falls Church, Virginia, and the Hyatt Hotel at the capital in Washington, DC, USA. He works for Eagle Technologies, a Homeland Security corporation in Maryland and Washington, DC, since 2007. He produced his first play, Sofia and the Misfortune of the HIV/AIDS, at the James Moore Theater in Oakland City in 1994. Coproduced with Dr. Fikre Tolossa (Ethiopian), the play The Coffin Dealer and the Grave Digger was staged in the city of Berkeley in 1995. Natural disasters (storm) shut down the second production of Sofia and the Misfortune of the HIV/AIDS at the Oakland Lorraine Hansberry Theater in 1996. Koroma took to writing in 1993. He has since authored for hire and produced two plays in California. He had published four textbooks. He wrote The Odyssey of Brima Falla (An African Child Soldier) a novel; Bambara Samba (King Tom), a play; and Lethal Money, which is also a novel. They are all educationally entertaining and are available in bookstores.

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Copyright © 2016 by Arolyn Ibrahim N. Koroma.

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Rev. date: 10/28/2021

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Contents

Bai Bureh of Sierra Leone 1840-1908

Introduction

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Additional Historical Facts Testimony

Bai Bureh of Sierra Leone 1840-1908

Bai Bureh’s authentic photo was bought from ebay in 2013. He was wearing one of his trade-mark ‘the African Magical Ronko gown/cloth’, and a small embroidered Muslim hat, and the inscribed word beneath the photo, which reads: Bai Bureh, chief of the Temene, when a prisoner in Sierra Leone in 1898, an original photograph taken by Lieutenant Arthur Greer, West Indian Regiment, who died in August 7, 1900, when storming a blockade after the Britissh relief of Kumasi.

The celebrated rough hand sketch of the Bai Bureh in 1898, which is significantly recognized until the above photo emerged and donated to the Government 2013

If you purchase this book without a cover, you should be aware that it is stolllen property. It was reported as stolen. Understand that neither the publisher, nor the author has received payment. As a result, both you and the illegal seller are legally liable.

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduec in whole or in part. Or any other form means; electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system means of reproduction without the written consent or permission from the author or his legal representative.

Disclaimer: Certain names are used only to clarify notable instances, but do not fully factualize timeline.

I dedicate this book to the people of Sierra Leone, including those who spilled their blood and lost their lives for us to have a land that we love, and proud of as the nation of Sierra Leone.

Introduction

Recent writers misplaced the true profile of the legendary icon, Bai Bureh February 15, 1840-August 24, 1908, a Temene of the 1898, Sierra Leone Hut Tax war. He was mistakenly positioned in localities and among tribes where he does not belong. This is especially true of the ethnicity of the various earlier writers, who sometimes wrongfully tend to place Bai Bureh in their own ethnic groups. The Loko tribe’s population was quite minuscule in the Kasseh, Port Loko region. It was then, and it is still less known in Kasseh, and Mange Bureh in the Port Loko District. Bai Bureh’s profile was entirely omitted, because of the earlier writer’s failure to conduct a thorough research, or visit Kasseh Town, his birth place. There were not many initiatives taken to spend time to interview war participants, associates, and town residents in the earlier period, 50 years after the legendary icon’s death in 1908.

I personally visited Kasseh, the home of Bai Bureh twice. Once in 1968, on a High School historical field trip 60 years after his death. The grave site curator vividly explained pieces of what I already learned in school. He specifically mentioned that Bai Bureh was born with magic powers; while some believed that indeed, he had magic powers, but he obtained those powers in his adult life. Mr. Momodu was an elderly man who participated in the war. Again I visited in 1975, sixty-seven years after Bai Bureh’s death in 1908. At this time I was able to satisfy my probing mind with regard to all that I learned earlier about the warrior’s heroic adventures. I asked snooping questions and got pertinent answers from the local residents of Kasseh in 1975.

The Temenes were the hardest of tribes to rule then, as they are now, in present day Sierra Leone.

Bai Bureh was able to calvanize the nation to fight a common enemy, the British Empire. Most of Sierra Leone’s many tribes were represented in the historical formation of the Republic in the early nineteenth and twentieth century. For instance, the Mendes, Temenes, Mandingos, Susus, Lokos, the Limbas, Konos, Yelonkas, Kurankos, Fulas, Kisi, Shabro, Crims and Creoles, ect. Each tribe, in their own unique capabilities, immensely contributed in Sierra Leone’s rich history.

It is depressing to state that an in-depth of their respective contributions was minimally catalogued, as revealed after104 years subsequent to the death of the legendary Bai Bureh, and the beginning of my writing this book. His achievements reached the zenith of African revolutionary undertakings of the twentieth century, but his story came to us in less than a page or probably only few paragraphs in many reports about his adventurous patriotic missions.

As a post graduate, Dr. Alimony Nuru Deen Koroma, a mathematician/Statistician, who wanted to write a research paper on the legendary Bai Bureh, said, "I was disappointed; I traveled to Sierra Leone in 1969 to search for more information about Bai Bureh Ka Blai 61 years after his death. I was disappointed to find only two or three paragraphs. As a result, I returned to the United State with no more than w hat I already knew about him.

The British who were forced to go to war by a non super power nation, Sierra Leone, at the height of the Empire’s fame and influence had no appetite to promote Bai Bureh’s battlefield supremacy. The date of his departure to his imprisonment or exile to the Gold Coast and his eventual honorable return to Sierra Leone ’s date were of no interest to the British writers, who were most privileged to write about the war. Their decision not to promote Bai Bureh allowed them to present a hand sketch of his photo, instead of presenting a snap-shot photo, which was readily available as revealed by a photo that was discovered in 2013 on ebay.

Bai Bureh’s father Ibrahima Kamara was a Temene, who lived in the Temene land of Port Loko District.

He lived side by side with the Loko tribe, who resides in Pockets in the north and other parts of the country.

Bai Bureh returned to Sierra Leone from exile in the Gold Coast (Ghana). Again very little was documented regarding his honorable return. It was only fifty-seven years in 1965, after his death in 1908 (ref. Christopher Fife), that those who witnessed the hut tax war, both the literate and illiterate residents of Port Loko told of Bai Bureh’s heroic adventures and stories both in social gatherings and in political discussions, in an effort to invoke his spirit.

Myself, growing up from a two year old boy to a teenager in Port Loko in the 1970’s, I had the rare privilege of associating with Bai Bureh’s immediate relatives; grandchildren and great grand children.

One has to be a deeply rooted Temene to subdue and rule Temenes. They are very friendly, but quite stubborn in nature.

This, among many revolutionary traits in their persons’ is gradually dissipating.

I personally participated in pass time story telling about the legendary icon both in schools and in social settings in the enclave where I grew up.

Preface

This Documentary-Docu-Drama is about the life of one of the most celebrated African warrior, the Sierra Leone legendary warrior Bai Bureh Ka Blai, who in 1898 led a revolution against the British Empire. He went to war against the only super power and the most influential leader of that era, King Edward VII and Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria was born1819. She reigned from 1837-1901 (British Monarch listing, 1901). The British Prime Minister who proposed and sanctioned the hut tax fee on Sierra Leone was William Ewart Gladstone1892-1898. (Ref.G.W. Stevens. British Monarchy 1837-1901).

Bai Bureh’s father, Ibrahima Kamara was a Temene. He was born in a small town called Kasseh in the Port Loko District. Bai Bureh’s father was among the first generation of progressive Temene leaders in the Temene enclave of Port Loko.

Before the arrival of colonialism in Africa, African States were divided into Communes or Kingdoms that were ruled by Kings, and Sierra Leone was no exception.

The young Bai Bureh was born in Kasseh on February 15, 1840 and he died on August 24, 1908. He grew up with a unique social life which gave him a range of choices to develop himself. Within these choices, he slowly but surely became a warrior whom the world reckoned with. Through inheritance from his father, he was crowned Or Bai (Chief or King) among his ethnic Temene tribesmen, in Temene land. He was endowed with ultra stubbornness, magical powers and patriotism. These magical powers characteristics among many other traits, his stubbornness and unpredictability legitimized the pseudo-name; Bai Bureh Ka balai. His numerous heroic undertakings made him more popular than his father, Chief Bai Bureh, Senior.

Bai Bureh refused to take orders from British Prime Minister William Gladstone and Army General, Sir. Herbert Horatio Kitchner (Ref. G. W. Stevens) at the end of the 19th century.

Bai Bureh fought a bitter war against the British Empire’s sanctioned Hut Tax, (property tax) of Sierra Leone. Bai Bureh’s action in defiance was parallel with the American defiance regarding the Tea Act of 1773 which was imposed on the colonists by the significantly indebted British Government in the period leading to the 1775-1783. This period was also known as the American revolutionary (Tea tax war) war April 19, 1775.

The British leadership partitioned Sierra Leone into colony and protectorate. They decreed the protectorate residents to pay ten shillings for their four bedrooms residences, and five shillings for two bedrooms and below.

The British crown further partitioned Koya and other smaller cities. The Koya community was the largest chiefdom in the country at that period with a natural harbor, and thus, selected to become Freetown, the nation’s capital.

The Songo Township which was the third seat of government in the Koya enclave became a colony and another crown land. It later became the Headquarter of Koya Chiefdom in the early 1940 after the death of P.C. Kompa Dumbuya-Koroma of Koya whose seat of government was Gbabai.

The British had bad experiences with the Gold Coast coastal Kings Osei Bonsu and King Nana Ageyman Prempeh I. King Nana Ageyman Prempeh I, of the Gold coast, (present day Ghana) was most thorny. The aggressive King inflamed the coastal areas with constant wars to enlarge his Asante Kingdom. His adventurous commitment forced the British to downgrade most African Kingdoms, including the Sierra Leone to chiefdoms ruled by the supreme Chiefs.

Sierra Leone Kingdoms were later renamed as Chiefdoms. The protectorate chiefs were not impressed by the crown’s hut tax payment decision. And the leaders were ready to show their displeasure. The prominent anti European aggression and anti-hut tax Chiefdoms were the Temnes, in Temene land. They were later supported by the Mendes, Limba, Kissy and Loko Chiefs ect.

The most prominent of the anti-Hut Tax chiefs was Bai Bureh Ka