Reprinted from Sierra Leone Studies, New Series no. 16, June 1962

THE visit of Her Majesty the Queen last year was the first ever made by a reigning sovereign to this territory, and has prompted many to ask what were the antecedents which were climaxed with the Sovereign’s visit. In this short article, an attempt will be made to recall Sierra Leone’s intimate contacts with the Royal Family before it became an independent country.

The Portuguese, as is well known, were the first Europeans to establish contact with West Africa, including what is now the Sierra Leone River and Mountain Peninsular. Commerce soon followed in the wake of these voyages and articles of African trade—gold, bees wax, elephants’ teeth, spices and Negroes—became much sought after by the nations of the western world, when keen rivalry was soon established. Each nation—Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, and Dutch—in order to protect the interests of their nationals gave them Charters setting out the areas in which to trade. All included the coasts of Sierra Leone.

From early in the seventeenth century, individual merchants and companies received Charters from the English Government. In 1662, for example, a Charter was granted to the Royal Company Trading into Africa by Charles II, in which were associated the names of his mother, his Queen, Catherine of Aragon, and his brother, the Duke of York. It was in the time of this Company that the Dutch Admiral de Ruyter destroyed English trading factories in Jamaica in the Sherbro and Tassoh on the Sierra Leone River. The Company never recovered from this loss and had to close down. It was succeeded in 1672 by the Royal African Company with the Duke of York as Chairman. This Company lasted till 1752 and it was during its time that factory buildings were first erected on Bense, Bance or Bunce Island.

There is no direct contact with Royalty for another 124 years, and then it was with a set of people who did not become Sierra Leoneans until four years after. The contact was between the Maroons and a son of George III, Edward, Duke of Kent, who at the time was Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in Canada and was later to become the father of Queen Victoria. This is how the meeting took place. The Maroon War in Jamaica was brought to an end by the Maroons surrendering (they were never defeated) to General Walpole on his word of honour that they would not be deported. On some legal quibble this was not honoured by the civil Government of Jamaica and, on laying down their arms, they were transhipped to Halifax in Nova Scotia. Prince Edward, being anxious to see these so-called wild savages who had for so long withstood the might of the British Army in Jamaica, arranged to pay them a visit on board their transport. Great was his surprise to find lined up at attention a smartly dressed body of men. He spoke with them and, as the Napoleonic Wars were still on and the defences of Halifax incomplete, he asked them if they would help in the defence work. They professed their loyalty to the King’s Son and agreed. In Halifax they helped to build the fortifications on the high mound in the centre of the 

How did the death of a German Prince come to be recorded in a Mission House in Freetown? The following account throws some interesting light on a page of Sierra Leone and West African history. The name Prempeh is well known to West Africans and those interested in West African history. He was the Asantehene or ruler of the great Ashanti Confederacy and was taken prisoner in the last but one Ashanti War, that of 1896, and exiled to the Seychelles but spent the first four years of his thirty year long exile in Freetown. In command of this 1896 Expedition was Sir Francis Scott, and he had with him as his Military Secretary, Prince Henry of Battenburg.

On his way to the Gold Coast, Scott called in at Freetown, and took with him as Chaplain to the Forces, the Rev. J. Taylor Smith, a young C.M.S. missionary who had recently been a curate at Norvad. Before the end of the war, Prince Henry became ill and was invalided and young Taylor Smith accompanied him home. However, he never reached England but died at sea between Freetown and the Canary Islands. Taylor Smith then had the unpleasant task of taking his body and personal belongings to Queen Victoria and her daughter Princess Beatrice and of conveying his last dying messages.

This was the beginning of the tide which Taylor Smith took at the flood. He returned to Sierra Leone and became Canon Missioner and later Bishop of Sierra Leone. On retirement he became Chaplain General to the Forces.