The Gambian Creole people, or Krio or Aku, are a minority

ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

Gambia The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, The Gambia is the List of African countries by area, smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for ...

with connections to and roots from the

Sierra Leone Creole people The Sierra Leone Creole people () are an ethnic group of Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Creole people are descendants of freed African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and Liberated African slaves who settled in the Western Area of Sierra Leone be ...

.Frederiks, M. (2002). The Krio in the Gambia and the Concept of Inculturation, Exchange, 31(3), 219-229. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/157254302X00399Shaka Ashcroft (2015) ''Roots and Routes: Krio Identity in Postcolonial London'', Black Theology, 13:2, 102-125, DOI:10.1179/1476994815Z.00000000051 In Gambia the Aku account for about 2% of the population. Some estimates put the figure higher. However, according to the 2013 Gambian Census, the Aku make up 0.5% of the population or around 8,477 people.

Origins

Gambian Creoles are the descendants of

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

ans of Nova Scotian, Jamaican Maroon and Liberated African ancestry, who migrated to the Gambia, along with liberated Africans released in the Gambia directly. Gambian Creoles are partly an extension of the Sierra Leone Creole community, and some Gambian Creoles have roots in the West Indies, North America, England, and various African communities. Some Gambian Creoles also have some European heritage through intermarriage and through their connections to Sierra Leone Creoles who settled in the Gambia between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Language

Many Gambian Creoles speak the Krio language, an English-based creole also spoken by Sierra Leonean Creoles. Krio is spoken by 96 percent of Sierra Leone's population, especially in their trade and social interaction between ethnic groups.

Aku Marabouts

In Sierra Leone, the term 'Aku Marabout' or 'Aku Mohammedan' refers to the Oku people, while in the Gambia, the term 'Aku' refers to the Creole people, who are

Christians A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words '' Christ'' and ''C ...

residing mainly in and around

Banjul Banjul (, (US) and ), officially the City of Banjul, is the capital city of The Gambia. It is the centre of the eponymous administrative division which is home to an estimated 400,000 residents, making it The Gambia's largest and most densely ...

. The ''Aku Marabout'' people of the Gambia are a non-Creole migrant community descended from the ''Oku'' people of Sierra Leone.

Notable Gambian Creole people

This is a list of notable Gambian Creole people. * Belinda Bidwell, first female speaker of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

The Gambia The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, The Gambia is the List of African countries by area, smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for ...

Mark Bright Mark Abraham Bright (born 6 June 1962) is an English sports correspondent and former Association football, footballer. Born to a The Gambia, Gambian father and English mother, he was adopted into a foster family in Stoke-on-Trent at an early a ...

, sports correspondent and former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

* Crispin Grey-Johnson, current Secretary of State for Higher Education of the Gambia * Augusta Jawara (''née Mahoney''), was a nurse, playwright,

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...

activist and former first lady * Julia Dolly Joiner,

politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...

and Commissioner of Political Affairs for the

African Union The African Union (AU) is a continental union of 55 member states located on the continent of Africa. The AU was announced in the Sirte Declaration in Sirte, Libya, on 9 September 1999, calling for the establishment of the African Union. The b ...

* Joshua King, Norwegian footballer * Florence Mahoney, author, historian, and first Gambian woman to be awarded a PhDDavid Perfect
"Mahoney, Dr (Asi) Florence Kezia Omolara"
''Historical Dictionary of The Gambia'' (Fifth edition), Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, p. 281. * Basiru Mahoney, lawyer and Judge * Dej Mahoney, legal and business consultant * Louise N'Jie, teacher,

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

and first woman to serve as a

cabinet minister A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ' prime minister', ' p ...

in The Gambia * Lenrie Peters,

surgeon In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and educationist * Edward Francis Small, trade unionist, nationalist and pan-Africanist * Susan Waffa-Ogoo, politician and former

Minister of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and foreign relations, relations, diplomacy, bilateralism, ...

* John Carew * Nicolas Jackson * Ebrima Colley * Omar Colley * Lamin Colley

References

Sources

*http://today.gm/hi/arts/the_aku.html *http://www.accessgambia.com/information/aku.html African-American diaspora in Africa People of Sierra Leone Creole descent Ethnic groups in the Gambia Repatriated Africans Gambian Creole people People of Liberated African descent Gambian people Gambian Christians {{SierraLeone-stub