Waterloo is a city in the

Western Area The Western Area or Freetown Peninsula (formerly the Colony of Sierra Leone) is one of five principal divisions of Sierra Leone. It comprises the oldest city and national capital Freetown and its surrounding towns and countryside. It covers an a ...

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...

and the Capital city, capital of the

Western Area Rural District The Western Area Rural District is one of the sixteen districts of Sierra Leone. It is located mostly around the peninsula in the Western Area of Sierra Leone. The Western Area Rural District has a 2015 census population of 442,951. The district ...

, which is one of the sixteen districts of Sierra Leone. Waterloo is located about twenty miles east of

Freetown Freetown is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educ ...

. Waterloo is the second largest city in the Western Area region of Sierra Leone, after

. The city had a population of 34,079 in the 2004 census, and 55,000 as per a 2015 estimate. Waterloo is part of the Freetown

metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region that consists of a densely populated urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories sharing industries, commercial areas, transport network, infrastructures and housing. A metro area usually ...

. Waterloo is a major urban

transport hub A transport hub is a place where passengers and cargo are exchanged between vehicles and/or between transport modes. Public transport hubs include railway stations, rapid transit stations, bus stops, tram stops, airports and ferry slips. F ...

and lies on the main highway linking Freetown to the country's

provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

. Waterloo is an entirely

urban area An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities ...

, and lies 25 miles to

Port Loko District Port Loko District is a district in the North West Province of Sierra Leone. It is the most populous District in the North and the second most populous District in Sierra Leone, after the Western Area Urban District. As of the 2015 census, Port L ...

entrance border line in the Northern Province. Waterloo is one of Sierra Leone's most ethnically diverse cities, as it is home to many of Sierra Leone's ethnic groups, with no single

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

forming even 30% of the population . Although Waterloo is part of the larger Western Area Rural district council, the city has its own directly elected

city council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural coun ...

headed by a mayor. The current mayor of Waterloo is Dennis Omojowo Browne of the

All People's Congress The All People's Congress (APC) is one of the two major political parties in Sierra Leone, the other being its main political rival the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP). The APC has been the main opposition party in Sierra Leone since 4 Ap ...

who was elected in the 2018 Sierra Leone local elections.

History

Waterloo was founded in 1819 as a settlement for liberated Africans. Incorporated into the parish system under the tutelage of the

Church Missionary Society The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British mission society working with the Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission ...

(CMS), Waterloo was settled by soldiers from the second and fourth

West India Regiment The West India Regiments (WIR) were infantry units of the British Army recruited from and normally stationed in the British colonies of the Caribbean between 1795 and 1927. In 1888 the two West India Regiments then in existence were reduced t ...

from

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispa ...

and

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estima ...

. The town was named after the Anglo-Allied army victory over Napoleon Bonaparte in the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armies of the Sevent ...

in present-day

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

. The ex-military men settled in "Soja Town" bordering King Street, an artery leading to King Yard which housed the police station, courthouse, and jailhouse. The settlers were later joined by several groups of Recaptives, whose integration into the village community was facilitated by Governor MacCarthy's insistence on education and religion via schools, personages and churches. Several Christian denominations, primarily of

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...

, Countess of Huntingdon, and

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charle ...

persuasions established churches and schools throughout the fast-growing populace. Following the establishment of the Mixed Commissions in

in 1819 (primarily to set recaptured slaves free), the number of Recaptives in Freetown grew. This growth resulted in a corresponding increase in the Recaptives population in Waterloo. Unlike the original settlers from Jamaica and Barbados, the Recaptives had made minimal sustained contact with Western languages and cultures. In efforts to restore some lifestyle stability in their new environment, the Recaptives settled along ethnic or tribal lines. Thus, the

Yoruba The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...

settled in Aku Town, the Igbo in Ibo Town, the ex-military Recaptives in Soja Town, etc. The community which emerged established social welfare institutions and secret societies such as Osusu, Ojeh, Hunting, Geledeh, and Akanja as measures to perpetuate their culture, provide a framework for social stability, and increase their independence. With the inculcation of Christian values and Western education, and under the supervision of the village headman (who enforced the rule of law), Waterloo evolved as a stable economic, cultural, and socio-political centre. In less than half a century since its inception, Waterloo emerged as an important economic hub buffering Sierra Leone's provincial capitals and the nation's capital. Throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries, the city continued to serve as a gateway to and from the hinterland and blossomed as a trading centre into which goods and services from Freetown and the Sierra Leone peninsula converged. Its economic prosperity coupled with its proximity to the city brought together diverse people from different parts of the nation.

Geography

The town of Waterloo is located some 20 miles from

. With a population estimated at approximately 40,000, it is the second largest city in the

and an important crossroad where roads connecting provincial capitals and the Sierra Leone peninsula to the nation's capital meet. The prosperity which reigned in Waterloo throughout the 19th and 20th centuries was shattered by the outbreak of the

Sierra Leone Civil War The Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002), or the Sierra Leonean Civil War, was a civil war in Sierra Leone that began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), with support from the special forces of Liberian dictator Char ...

in the 1990s, during which rebel soldiers pillaged and ravaged homes, schools, churches, offices, and government buildings, with many inhabitants fleeing the town.

People

Intermarriages between the newly arrived ex-servicemen from

and

and the Africans liberated from slavery generously enriched elements of culture in the town. The language that resulted from the fusion of these cultures evolved into the

Krio language Sierra Leonean Creole or Krio is an English-based creole language that is lingua franca and de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Krio is spoken by 96 percent of the country's population, and it uni ...

, which retained its English base while absorbing other linguistic elements from a variety of African and European languages and dialects which is evident in words such as (beaucoup), encore (from French); , , (Yoruba); , (Jamaican Maroon Creole and Portuguese); (Mende), etc. The descendants of these repatriated soldiers and the liberated Africans formed a nucleus of the Krio society in Waterloo. In addition, the skills, knowledge and attitudes that the new settlers acquired facilitated their integration into the new settlement and provided the foundation for cultural adaptation and socio-economic reconstruction. Notable people from Waterloo include: * Justice C.O. E. Cole, first president of the Republic of Sierra Leone * Christian Cole, lawyer, the first black student at Oxford University * Christiana Thorpe, religion & civil service * Chief

Mohammed Shitta Bey Chief Mohammed Shitta-Bey (c.1824 – 4 July 1895), alias Olowo Pupa, was the first titled Seriki Musulumi of Lagos. He was a prominent Nigerian Muslim businessman, aristocrat and philanthropist who was involved in commerce across Lagos and the ...

, Oku businessman & philanthropist * Ibrahim Turay, Olympic sprinter

Links with Liverpool

A British charity, the

Waterloo Partnership The Waterloo Partnership is a British charity based in Waterloo and Crosby areas of Liverpool raises money for its Sierra Leone Waterloo, Sierra Leone, namesake. Sierra Leone has now emerged from a period of Civil War A civil war or in ...

, fundraises in Waterloo and Crosby areas of

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

for its

namesake.The Waterloo Partnership. Two Waterloos, One Hope
/ref>

References

*Ali, J.A. D. (1990) A New History of Sierra Leone, London, U.K. Macmillan Education. *Boahen, A; Ajayi, A; and Tidy, M. ( 1969) Topics in West African History, England, Longmans *Nicol, E.P. (1970) A Brief History of St. Mark's Church (Countess of Huntingdon Connexion), *Waterloo, Sierra Leone, University of Aberdeen (Dept. of Church History), Aberdeen, Scotland. *Sumner, D.L (1963) Education in Sierra Leone, Freetown, Sierra Leone Government Printer *Wyse, Akintola (1989) The Krio of Sierra Leone: An Interpretive History, London, Hurst

External links

*https://archive.today/20130210035159/http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=&men=gpro&lng=en&dat=32&geo=-3316&srt=npan&col=aohdq&pt=c&va=&geo=354040693 {{coord, 8, 20, N, 13, 04, W, display=title, region:SL-W_type:city(20000)_source:dewiki Western Area Sierra Leone Liberated African villages Populated places established by Sierra Leone Creoles