Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean history and culture, hosted by me, alexandria Miller. Strictly Facts teaches the history, politics and activism of the Caribbean and connects these themes to contemporary music and popular culture. Hello, hello, wagwan people, and welcome back to another episode of Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean history and culture. I'm your host, alexandria, and, as promised stemming from the discussion in our last episode, I thought it would be great to continue dissecting different Caribbean identities in ways we rarely discuss.

Speaker 1: 0:41

Today's episode focuses on the Sierra Leonean Creole people, who are descendants of freed and self-emancipated Africans, african-americans and, of course, as strictly facts, afro-caribbean people. But before I get too deep into the conversation, let me first introduce my lovely guest, who I haven't seen in some months, so it's great to have you on the show. Joining us for this episode is Aaliyah Harding, east London-based community organizer and current PhD student studying migratory survival stories of British African families. Aaliyah, it's such a pleasure again to have you on the show, so, especially you know we haven't seen each other since UWE St Augustine earlier this year. Before diving too deep into our episode, why don't you let our listeners know a bit more about yourself and your connection to the Caribbean? Of course, Cool.

Speaker 2: 1:36

Hi everyone, hi listeners, and thanks so much for having me. Alexandra, it's a true pleasure to be here. And so, yeah, yeah, I think you've mainly introduced me in a nutshell, um, but just to add, I'm first generation, quote-unquote British, creole, sierra Leonean. Um, and yeah, I'm sure we'll go on to mention a bit more about the richness of queer community, but just to say we are a vibrant, fluid um people and we, um we see ourselves in so many people and hopefully we'll get a chance to talk about that um my personal connection to the Caribbean, um, so during my uh, late teens, um, after a trip to Sierra Leone, after 10 years, so last month I was eight, and then I went back when I was 18 and I was just very casually informed about my paternal lineage and who originally came from Trinidad and Tobago and came to settle in Freetown.

Speaker 1: 2:39

so, yeah, really, really excited to be here and talk more about that and of course, I think you know we were talking before we kicked off recording and just, you know the wealth of and the beauty of, you know migration patterns and especially, I think, when it comes to our migrations to Africa, we often, so often, talk about how many of us, or many of our ancestors and things were left Africa or, you know, were forcibly removed from Africa. Of course, right, but there are definite conversations and peoples, much like the Creole who we'll be talking about today, who returned to Africa. So, before getting too deep, of course, for our listeners who may not be familiar, I definitely want to give a bit of a background on the Creole people of Sierra Leone. So first off, I think, maybe from a US perspective at least in my high school they did tell us about Liberia and not Sierra Leone, which is interesting anybody who's a bit familiar with the history of Liberia and freed Black Americans moving to Liberia to settle that. What was you know then?

Speaker 1: 3:51

The state of Liberia, or the colony of Liberia, originally the colony of Sierra Leone was founded in 1808 as a place to resettle returning Africans.

Speaker 1: 4:03

Even prior to this founding, free Black people who were loyal to the British crown began to settle there as early as the 1700s, with the British crown founding the settlement, the Province of Freedom, in 1787, with 400 formerly enslaved Africans and 60 white colonists. Over the next century, black people from all over the diaspora moved to Sierra Leone, and this includes African Americans who were freed during the Revolutionary War in the US, africans and Caribbean people who were, you know, uk-london based Black Nova Scotians, 550 Jamaican Maroons in 1800, and several other waves of African and Caribbean people proclaiming their freedom. And so this mix of people would go on to form the melting pot that we're talking about today. And you know the mix of identities of people who are the Creole, and so I guess you know, from your like, familiar perspective, or you know what you know about your family. In what ways do you, you know, see your family fitting into that very quick description of you know the Creole people and how your family came to be in Sierra Leone?

Speaker 2: 5:26

that question, um, so I'll start off by kind of contextualizing my own kind of experience of Sierra Leone and, um, and this started in my childhood um, my early years of childhood was in post-civil war Sierra Leone. So we're looking at 2003-2004 and during this time, for obvious reasons, um, I was, I was sheltered in terms of where I could go. So, as ridiculous as this sounds, um, for half of my life I grew up believing that Freetown was Sierra Leone and Sierra Leone was Freetown. But so Freetown as a settlement and what we refer to as kind of upline, the highlands, uh, anything outside of the capital, was like this foreign place and land. So this means that what I knew of Sierra Leonean culture was very much narrowed, I would admit, through the lens of what I understood to be Creole culture at the time.

Speaker 2: 6:18

And so, like I mentioned, I was very casually told during my visit when I was 18 that my paternal lineage are from Trinidad and Tobago, and I think this is when the questioning of oh my god, so everything I thought was true is not true. I'm here repping Creole heritage, proud Sierra Leonean woman and I I don't know about this Trinidadian kind of roots or connection and that for me, I think up until this point I'm the only one in my family kind of reckoning with that connection, um, like I said, it was said so casually. So, yeah, my great-grandfather, um, unfortunately I never got to meet him because he was killed in the civil war, but what I have been told is of his um military service. He was a soldier. I've kind of explained his target during the civil war as well, him being a target um.

Speaker 2: 7:18

But one thing that I did want to highlight, that that's kind of parallel to the migration of my paternal lineage to the settlement of Freetown was also the West Indian regiment units of the British army that we used to expand the empire during 1700s and early 1900s and after taking part in the I believe, the second Ashanti war in 1873 74, around that period they then established the base in Sierra Leone for the recruitment and training of African people. So as much as I don't know how much of those two histories are interconnected for me, I know that there's a parallel there in terms of migration of my paternal lineage from Trinidad and Tobago to Settlement of Freetown and this kind of military service that they are known for, and then, of course, the establishment of the West Indian regiments in Freetown.

Speaker 1: 8:18

It's just, I think, a really interesting narrative that we, you know, know very little about, I think, right in my estimation, and just an awareness of the necessity to connect and bridge these histories a little bit right.

Speaker 1: 8:33

Like you know, if you didn't sort of casually get that note that conversation of you know your great-grandfather coming from Trinidadidad, you know you wouldn't personally know this, um, I know from from us talking back when we were in Trinidad, that there are some really interesting ways that you know the Creole people are. I won't I don't want to say distinct in like a negative sense or anything, but you know there are a few things that are markers of the creole people, particularly because these are people who are descendants from, as we previously stated right, black americans, those in the us. Obviously we have the influx of british colonialism shaping a lot of these, these movements right and so, um, in what ways, in your estimation, are the distinct you know, cultures or um ways that you you've seen the creole people being very particular to, to the community, whether that's language or you know, other things like that yeah, I guess you can start with language.

Speaker 2: 9:43

So, yeah, and my last name is Harding. Where does that come from? Um? But I think I'm the only one in my family with a name that kind of makes you question oh, where's she from? Because of my first name being Aaliyah and a lot of my I think majority of my Sierra Leonean family members um have very, very colonial old British names, like we're looking at Lawrence Roderick, regina, matilda, loretta, and I think for me these names kind of represent the names that we were given through this process of dehumanization and then also names that we may have claimed. You know, a lot of my works work looks at um survival mode, so names that we may have claimed through assimilation, um as a pathway to education, um, you know, gaining social respectability um, or even politics.

Speaker 2: 10:45

I'll get onto this maybe a bit later, but when we look at the local governance of Freetown, it's very um creole dominated um. But yeah, but when we look at the makeup of the creole language and its influence across the nation, creole is most widely spoken by everyone but Creole people. I think we make up less than three percent of like overall population, so it goes to really see how we integrated in in the country. See how we integrated in in the country, um, and our influence, and so it is a fluid language, um, it's influenced by languages across the atlantics. You know, you've got english, you've got, um, some portuguese language in there, um, of course, the dialect of jamaican patois, which was, you know, brought by the marines. So, for example, say, how are you howdy body? So we talk about body and how we spell body as well. There's a similarity um, and then as well, by which is not really talked about as much, but it kind of speaks to the kind of last wave of migration, to the settlement of the recaptives and liberated Africans, and it is looking at the influence of Nigerian Yoruba language following the migration during the war that was happening in Yoruba land at the time during the 19th century. So, for example, you've got words like bobo, which is boy, in Nigerian pigeon, and bobo also in Creole, boy. So there's similarities there and, yeah, it's just really nice.

Speaker 2: 12:34

I think we get caught up in all. Who started first or where did it come from? But, like I mentioned, I think Creole for me is seeing myself in others, is seeing myself in others, and then a second one which it just warms my heart. Every time I see it I have to stop and take a picture of it because it's the, it's a declining kind of architecture of this, you know, um creole kind of legacy, and these are board houses, so they're called bodos and they are wooden houses that you would see across Freetown and but, like I said, due to the declining infrastructure, due to fire hazards, we're not allowed to like build anymore. But these houses for me, you know, provide an intimate reminder of Creole resilience, especially when you think about concepts of home and these themes of belonging within the diaspora and these themes of belonging within the diaspora. And so these houses are said to be a legacy of former enslaved people from Nova Scotia and they're actually similar to ones that I've seen across the east coast of America and as well our recent trip to Trinidad, actually, I also saw some there. So that was that was quite nice to see.

Speaker 2: 13:51

And I think earlier I mentioned about the legacy of local government predominantly being held by Creole people.

Speaker 2: 13:59

So when we look at the local governance of Freetown, it has historically been upheld by a long history of Creole mayors, and this is after the first formation of Freetown as a city, which was in 1799 and the second formation was in 1893 and usually of course, mayors were appointed through colonial governance.

Speaker 2: 14:20

So when we're looking at language and names and assimilation and what was acceptable at the time civilisation, the civilised African was the Creole person, unfortunately. But when we see a shift into a more democratic government in 1948, where you's hard to ignore the legacies of colonial rule and these kind of enforced hierarchies of civilization like I mentioned, and this is kind of like the colonial mission right, conquer and divide. And unfortunately we see that today. We know that there's difference, even within ethnic groups. There's difference. Even within ethnic groups. There's difference. But I think what colonialism really weaponized through this difference was that division and making it very clear on who can and who can't. Um, so yeah, I would say those are like kind of the three things that come to mind when I think about Creole culture, how it's maybe emerged with the more indigenous African cultures and how it's distinct to them Definitely.

Speaker 1: 15:32

I think even one thing I found interesting in learning about Sierra Leone is in terms of, from the region, the awareness and numbers of our indigenous Taino or Arawak people has been, you know, very convoluted. A lot of the stories are like, yes, you know there are no more Taino people, which we obviously know. That is not true, especially because Maroons and the early Indigenous people definitely were interwoven, and so, because of you know, the migrations of the over 500 Maroons from Jamaica to Sierra Leone, you definitely can see populations of descendants, you know, from indigenous communities there as well. I think your point of names and stuff also brings me, on one hand, to an earlier episode we had on Aruba, in which our guests there similarly discussed that right that you know there are people whose names are very British sounding or, you know, whatever is traditional British last names because of the influx of British colonialism, although you know Aruba is predominantly a Dutch colony, right, or a Dutch country, rather, but there are a lot of different ways that you know we see our communities being upheld and supported in these histories, right?

Speaker 1: 17:00

And so my question for you would be, you know, given the varying backgrounds that we were talking about these mixes of people who, all you know, came together to form Sierra Leone. How do you and that you know could be from like a personal standpoint or just you know, speaking for Creole people, generally see people identifying culturally really right, and I know this could, you know, take us into several different points, but I remember us together, being in Trinidad and you really being moved and wanting to, you know, navigate that understanding of who you are from the perspective of you know, finally being in a place where you know your great grandfather called home you know your great-grandfather called home, yeah, yeah, well, that's actually a beautiful question.

Speaker 2: 17:52

I didn't mention that I am. I was born to a mother of Indian Punjab heritage. So, with that being said, I still proudly identify as a Creole Sierra Leonean woman and I guess each day I'm learning more and more about what that is, especially because, up until the age of 18, a lot of what I thought to be true wasn't um. So I've gone my life believing something that isn't innately true and trying to now figure out. You know how can I get closer or closest to the truth? Um, so, yeah, I would say that I would identify as a Creole Sierra Leonean woman.

Speaker 2: 18:32

And you know many scholars in the diaspora. You know they write about the tensions of, you know identity, politics, belonging, etc. And I think, for me, professor Paul Gilroy I had the privilege of being supervised by him do my master's and I don't know. I think his concept of roots versus roots is something that speaks to this experience, I would say, of how I identify. And so, you know, roots being to the land and then roots is in the journey and you know, highlighting that history um across the transatlantic, um that has created a, you know, a unique, um, diasporic kind of black culture and which has created for me, I guess, opportunities for people to settle, or people who have been displaced to to settle. So when I look at roots, as in the journey across the transatlantic and the history of that, it signifies this richness of creole culture and that I personally see to be symbolized through natural landscapes, if I'm honest.

Speaker 2: 19:45

So when you know you shared that I had expressed on the trip in Trinidad, you know, this kind of like deep desire to find out who I was is because I find myself in a natural landscape that seems familiar to me and there is something quite magical, or you could say spiritual, about African and Caribbean people's connection to land.

Speaker 2: 20:13

And so when we even look back to the Haitian revolution, you know, and the Maroons, tactics of guerrilla warfare, and you know we see this tactic of guerrilla warfare over the following hundred years, you know, know, in resistance to colonial powers, the forest for me continues to represent this place of refuge, but also organizing. And so every time I see the highlands of Sierra Leone, and even, you know, like I said, my trip in Trinidad when we were driving through the forests of Trinidad to get to Marrakesh Beach, it reminds me that Creole culture is shaped by survival and the beauty that lies within resistance, when we are kind of forced to be in community with one another. And, like I mentioned, it's something again that just gives me the ability to recognize myself and others, and I think that's why, for me, creole culture is something that allows me to reckon with where I have come from and what has shaped my identity.

Speaker 1: 21:23

I think that was so beautifully said because, as people who are both born or, you know, grew up in the quote-unquote global north right, these major colonial powers, um, and have to contend with that sort of like, on one hand, minority status, right, um, as children of immigrants of, of course, right, but then also, you know, as you're saying, right these roots in both senses, that we have to come to understand who we are and our place in the world. There are different ways to understand that that are not just nationality-based, right. I remember my first trip to South Africa when I was an undergrad, um, and at the time, you know, I didn't know anything about my family's heritage or legacy beyond coming from Jamaica, but I just was like this is not the Africa that they proclaim on TV, right, like, and there are definite places where I was, we were driving around South Africa and me being like this could easily be parts of our country, in Jamaica, and it's very much so the forest, or you know, some of our rural places and the ways that we've been able to maintain the beauty of those places, yes, and you know, sort of free from the powers of colonization. So I thought that was a beautiful moment and, of course, you know us being together in Trinidad and learning about each other's stories. It was one for me that I found particularly special to just, you know, be able to be in community with you while we were there and see that like evolutionary process for you.

Speaker 1: 23:10

There is a question that I always ask all of our listeners right, it comes almost at the end of every episode, and so what are some of your favorite ways that? You know, the Creole culture comes alive through popular culture in Sierra Leone and highlights, you know, the diversity, that is, the many ethnic groups that came to be. You gave us some examples, which I love, through language, right, but any others that you have to share with us I'd love for you to tell our listeners.

Speaker 2: 23:41

Yeah, I think one person who I think has helped me or aided me on this journey of discovering the richness of Sierra Leonean history would have to be um writer and novelist, aminata Forna. Um, and she is a mixed heritage, scottish and Sierra Leonean. Yeah, her books are just incredible. I would recommend anyone who, you know, just wants a easy read but get an insight into Sierra Leonean history, especially looking at the war and just resilience of Sierra Leoneans in general. I think I hate that word resilience, but I'm using it here, um, but yeah, I would recommend um reading her.

Speaker 2: 24:28

I believe her debut book was a memoir named the Devil that Danced on the Water, and here she speaks about the loss of her father, her father being taken into hostage and shortly after being executed, I believe by the state, because of his political stance. And then, of course, there's the memory of love which follows the lives of three gentlemen during and post Sierra Leonean Civil War in the 1990s. And so, yeah, she's written extensively on different experiences of being in the world, not just in Sierra Leone, which I think speaks to me as someone who lives and navigates life in the diaspora, but she also speaks to issues of, you know, resistance, colonialism, themes of love and friendship and loss that may be more familiar to us, maybe more familiar to us, but I think for me, one topic that she speaks on, that kind of speaks to my experience more intimately, is how she writes about childhood, and you know I mentioned that I experienced my early childhood years in Sierra Leone, post-civil War, and so the impact of the stories that we hear and how they shape our experiences, um, I know I mentioned about, or we've been talking about, sorry roots, you know, and roots um, and she kind of adds to this by saying but people don't have roots, like as in, like she's thinking literally like we can't be planted, which I don't think is the idea anyway, but she goes on to say that people have feet and feet are made for walking. So what defines us is less about the place so in my case, england, where I was born and where I currently live but rather about the stories that we grow up with, and in my case it's listening to my grandmother, you know she, she played a pivotal role in raising me and she never completed primary school education and for me she's the most influential person in my life and so when you think about the things that would have impact on someone when you look deeper at the surface is actually, you know, the connections that you make with people and, yeah, so, listening to my grandma's stories, um, and where she's highlighting, you know, grief and pain, but also pride and hope, is definitely those two tensions that I try to work with.

Speaker 2: 27:09

And I think, just going back to the work of Amanata, is her character development throughout her novels is just incredible, and I think what they represent is that two things can be true at once, that you can exist in multiple places. So, for example, you can be a victim of war, um, but you can also be a survivor in the way that you go and, um, help rebuild your country or community or be there for someone else who's also in mourning, and it really goes against Black people, african people, caribbean people, people's histories, you know, and being people that are ahistorical, and so I just love the nuances of her book and I think it speaks very richly to or very deeply, sorry, to the richness of Sierra Leonean history.

Speaker 1: 28:10

You beautifully said, I have not read any of those. So not only will I be checking them out, but I'll be sure to add them on our Strictly Facts website for our listeners who definitely want to tune in. And so for my final question, as I have you today, I think you know, oftentimes, when we think of migration, particularly African and Caribbean people migrating and colonialism and many of the other topics we've talked about, right? But you know, for this case, particularly especially when it comes to the return to Africa, most oftentimes people think of Marcus Garvey, that sort of back to Africa movement, rastafari, other things like that, right? What in your thoughts are? Just, you know, sort of the need for greater awareness surrounding the many migrations, right, because those in particular, as we've noted for our episode today, aren't the only examples of our people returning to Africa. And how can we build, you know, sort of better transnational connections as we come to understand these histories?

Speaker 2: 29:19

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think I would start off by saying that we cannot romanticize this return. I think that's a mistake that I made at 18 years old, I think. Even how that trip came about, my mum was like, what do you want for your 18th birthday? And I was like I want to go back home these times. I hadn't been in 10 years, so where was home? But that's the kind of language and and how I kind of romanticized that experience. And when I got there, oh boy, I got a rude awakening. Um.

Speaker 2: 29:52

So yeah, I think for anyone who is looking to return home wherever home may be, or to the African continent, it's really doing that. It's gonna sound so cliche, but that kind of like reflective work, like why, why are we moving and what is our contribution? Whether you're in the workplace, whether you're in a different society or you're working on a project, a freelance project, everyone has a contribution. So I really am against this commercialized return that we see, especially like around I don't know if you're familiar with the term like dirty December and we go, we have a great time and it's very exclusionary. But actually what are we returning to? We're returning to the diaspora on the continent, like we're not. What are we actually doing when we return? So I think it's about having a a real um talk with yourself, like, what is it that I'm going to do? And for anyone who's thinking I want to go and open a charity, please don't.

Speaker 2: 31:04

The NGO sector has highly branded, like deeply branded African nations, and I can speak for Sierra Leone. Um, I thought it was bad um post-civil war, as in when I was there as a child, but going back, it's just like more and more streets are branded with different charity names. Um, and I think as well it feeds into this idea that we're taught um, you know, in the global north quote unquote where the helpless african, the voiceless african these are narratives that they are enforcing there through their um, their appearance, you know the parents of ngos. So really question what you're going to do, and does your work include um getting to know and engage local people, or is it? I want to feel comfortable because in learning, like learning requires you to be uncomfortable, and so what is the purpose of our return? Is it to continue to, you know, out market local businesses? Like, what is it that we're really trying to do and are we bringing the local and indigenous people along with us on this story?

Speaker 2: 32:25

Um, because a lot of the time it's like you know, we'll get a group of friends and we just want to go back and see, and that's fine, but I think the move to live is is something that requires, uh, yeah, like I said, a lot of questioning and also community. So what conversations are you having with people who are already living in the continent, um, or people who are also looking to return? But, yeah, like I said, just not to romanticize, I've made that mistake because in my head, I would be living in Sierra Leone right now, but it's it's not possible. So, yeah, finding community, and community can be a shared dream, you know, it could be like what would you like Sierra Leone to look like? Or what are the people of Sierra Leone doing currently that you feel you can get behind?

Speaker 1: 33:17

um, yeah, so I would think about what is your contribution, what is your purpose um, I may add an awareness or sort of like an understanding of what's happened before, in a very intentional way, right? Um, when we think of histories and movements and things, right, that have happened social movements and what have you it's not enough to just be like, oh, I know that this happened from 1960 to 1970 or whatever, right, but what were the highlights, what were the failures? Right, so that those things aren't repeated again. But, all that being said, aaliyah, I can't thank you enough for joining me for this episode.

Speaker 1: 33:59

Not only was it great to chat with you again, having not seen you in a bit, but also, I think, just like a really expansive conversation for how we understand the confines of borders and geographic reasons and things that we label as Caribbean or as African or, as you know, whatever else, and for us to understand that diaspora is real in more than just, you know, like 20th century migrations or whatever right, Like there are, as we map today, generations of our people who have moved for freedom, especially back to Africa, as we noted today.

Speaker 1: 34:41

And so, for our listeners, I will definitely add the text that we talked about, paul Gilroy's work and a lot of other texts on Sierra Leone and even Liberia if you're interested in learning more about these movements of Black peoples from across the world and moving for their freedom. Aaliyah again, thank you so much for sharing with us and sharing your personal stories as well, and until next time, little more. Thanks for tuning in to Strictly Facts. Visit strictlyfactspodcastcom for more information from each episode. Follow us at Strictly Fax Pod on Instagram and Facebook and at Strictly Fax PD on Twitter.