4 - Liberated African Nations

Summary

While the first three chapters explore the regional origins of Liberated Africans and the experiences of their forced migrations to Sierra Leone, the later chapters explore the new communities and identities these migrants forged. Chapter 4 investigates the multifarious “nations” that were at the center of Liberated African identity formation and political life. Within Liberated African society, Africans formed communities based on common language and experience, referred to in colonial and missionary documents as nations. The chapter explores how the most prominent of these nations – the Aku, Igbo, Popo, Hausa. Cosso, Moko, Congo, and Calabar – were diasporic creations whose members congregated based on similar language and place of origin. It looks at the varying meanings of these “national” categories from the perspectives of Liberated Africans, missionaries, and colonial officials. The chapter’s discussion fits within larger debates over the meaning of ethnicity in colonial Africa and the diaspora and how identity was shaped by particular imperial contexts.