thumb|Natural Color Landsat image of Sherbro Island, Sierra Leone. In the west, the Turtle Islands can be seen.

Sherbro Island is in the Atlantic Ocean, and is included within Bonthe District, Southern Province, Sierra Leone. The island is separated from the African mainland by the Sherbro River in the north and Sherbro Strait in the east. It is long and up to wide, covering an area of approximately . The western extremity is Cape St. Ann. Bonthe, on the eastern end, is the chief port and commercial centre.

Historically, this was part of the territory of the historic Sherbro people, who dominated a large area of what is now Sierra Leone. Today they are concentrated in the southern and central part of Moyamba District. They make up by far the largest ethnic group in the island, where the total population is 28,457. The island has more than of tropical beaches. It has been earmarked by the Ministry for Tourism and Development of Sierra Leone for tourism development.

Economic activities

Swamp-rice cultivation, tourism, and fishing are the main economic activities.

In 2024 it was reported that English actor Idris Elba, whose father is Sierra Leonean Creole, had founded Sherbro Alliance Partners with the goal of developing a "smart-city" capable of supporting up to a million people on Sherbro.

History

Sherbro Island was long inhabited by the Sherbro people, who historically dominated other ethnicities in much of the region on the mainland. The islanders had an economy based on extensive fishing. They also traded by boat with neighboring people in villages along the coast.

During the Mane invasion in the 16th century, Sherbro was the center of one of their main kingdoms. The king throughout the first half of the 17th century was a man named Sherabola or Selboele, after whom the island was named.

After Great Britain abolished the international African slave trade in 1807 it began to use former RAC trading fort on Sherbro Island as a base for naval operations against illegal slave traders. Liberated slaves were resettled in the Freetown colony. The United States also banned the importation of enslaved people in 1808, though enforcement was limited. But for decades more, both Spain and Portugal continued to buy African slaves for their colonies in the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

In 1815 Paul Cuffe, a successful African-American ship maker of Boston, Massachusetts, became interested in resettling free blacks in west Africa. The British had undertaken this at Freetown, Sierra Leone since 1792. There, Black Loyalists from Nova Scotia (African Americans freed in the American Revolution) had been joined by Maroons deported from Jamaica, Liberated Africans freed from illegal traders, and some of the ethnic groups in the territory of Sierra Leone who were interested in western culture, coalesced into the Creole/Krio ethnicity.

Cuffe believed that skilled American blacks could help develop trade between Sierra Leone and the United States, benefiting both. In 1815, he resettled a group of 88 American freedmen on Sherbro Island. After returning to the US, Cuffe marketed his cargo of goods taken on at Freetown. The survivors relocated in April 1822 to Providence Island at Cape Mesurado in what developed as the nation of present-day Liberia.

Environment

thumb|Part of the coast of Sherbro Island

Sherbro Island is believed to be a breeding ground for green sea turtles as well as leatherback sea turtles. The waters surrounding the island hold some of the biggest tarpon in the world. Records of the sportfishing organisation IGFA have been made by catches from this area. African manatees also inhabit the delta of the Sherbro river system north of the island.

Population

In May 2013, the Government of Sierra Leone's record of the island's population was 28,457.

References

  • 1746 map of the Guinea Coast, including Sierra Leone, by N. Bellin. Published in French.
  • Navigantium Atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, Google Books