TRIBAL HEADMEN IN FREETOWN
| Author | M. P. Banton |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1954.tb00062.x |
| Date | 01 July 1954 |
| Published date | 01 July 1954 |
140
JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ADMINISTRATION
TRIBAL HEADMEN IN FREETOWN
By M. P. Banton.
A
FEATURE
of the growth of towns in Africa which poses a special adminis-
trative problem is the tendency of urban centres to attract Africans of different
tribes from those of the surrounding territory.
The
immigrants do not take
lightly to the ordering of their affairs by the authorities of the local tribe whose
customs are often different from their own. In towns in Sierra Leone immigrants
from stranger tribes elect each their own headman to whom they take their dis-
putes and to whom, in varying degree, they look for leadership. In Bo, for
example, there are six such headmen
but
though they exercise a real influence
among the people they have not yet been given an official position, as headmen, in
urban administration.
A system of tribal administration was, however, long ago found necessary in
Freetown which is situated in a non-native area inhabited by the descendants of
the original Negro settlers and the liberated Africans released there during the
suppression of the slave trade. In the Colony area runs the writ of English law
and native customary law receives no
official
recognition.
The
situation is compli-
cated by the relatively large number of indigenous tribes in Sierra Leone, thirteen
of which have recognised headmen in the capital.
When
Sir
Leslie Probyn assumed the governorship in 1904 several alimamies
or headmen enjoyed official recognition and there was an arrangement imposing
upon them certain duties but giving them no legal powers. Probyn was at first
unsympathetic towards this system believing that everything should be done to
make the city's population homogeneous,
but
on examination he found that such
assimilative tendencies as there were, worked very slowly. He came to the con-
clusion
that
the headmen were useful as media of communication with their people
(for the gulf between the natives and non-natives was great) and served a useful
function, while they might be further used to control immigration and enforce
regulations regarding sanitation. Accordingly he had an ordinance enacted in
1905 under which immigrant tnbes could approach the government to have their
nominee recognised as tribal ruler of their tribe.
The
tribal ruler was given
power to make regulations on specified subjects which would then be as the law
of the land for his people,
but
such rules, and the penalties prescribed for their
contravention, must first receive the approval of the Governor. Tribal rulers
could also settle disputes and try members of their tribes for minor offences.'
The
flexibility of the ordinance was both its strength and its weakness. Legally,
everything depended upon the tribal rulers' making good sets of rules. In prac-
tice, everything depended upon the officers of the administration and their bridg-
ing, by personal contact, the gap between the machinery of European-type
government and the limited understanding of most of the tribal heads. Sir Leslie
Probyn was satisfied with a measure which gave him legal authority to support
the progressive elements in each group without erecting any rigid structure.
Circumstances changed and after the Great War the system languished.
If
it
was to be effective the ordinance required an administrative officer to see that its
provisions were utilized. Left alone, matters deteriorated and a commission of
enquiry in 1932 revealed that many tribal rulers had abused their powers and that
most were ineffective.
The
commission had little sympathy for native customs
and held the tribal rulers responsible for the system's failings, though had the
ordinance been operated as originally intended the existing state of affairs could
1See my
"The
Origins of the System of
Tribal
Administration in Freetown ", forth-
coming in Sierra Leone Studies, new series,
No.2.
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