A photo graph of Bai Bureh under Police guard 
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“The Hut Tax War” in Sierra Leone 1898-99
- Posted by Peter Duckers
“The Hut Tax War” in Sierra Leone
… a forgotten colonial campaign.
by Peter Duckers
The “East and West Africa” medal with clasp for “The Hut Tax War”
Following the American Revolution (1776-1783), many British “loyalists” fled from the new USA. Many went to Canada or the West Indies and included thousands of black settlers and workers. More than 3,000 “Black Loyalists” settled in Nova Scotia, where they were granted land and founded Birchtown. But they found the climate and conditions there unworkable and pressed the British authorities for relief and aid. As a result, the British abolitionist John Clarkson and others founded “The Sierra Leone Company” specifically to relocate black loyalists who wanted to return to West Africa. In 1792, nearly 1200 such people from Nova Scotia crossed the Atlantic to found the colony of Sierra Leone, with its capital, the pointedly named “Freetown”. It was a harsh environment, with few facilities or much money and the continual threat of illegal slave raids and re-enslavement. From 1807, when Britain abolished the seaborne trade in slaves (and tried to force other nations to do so!) Britain maintained a naval squadron in the Bight of Benin aimed solely at intercepting slave vessels and freeing their “cargoes”. It was an expensive and (for the crews) dangerous and unpopular policy – service in “the white man’s grave” might earn higher pay but the death toll from tropical diseases and heatstroke was appalling. Over the next eighty years, British ships rescued and freed thousands of captured Africans, liberating them at Freetown. Although they came from all over sub-Saharan West Africa, most chose to remain in Sierra Leone. As the century progressed, they were joined by freed black Americans, refugees from the American-founded territory of Liberia, and particularly by West Indians. The new settlers were known as Creoles (or Krio).
The conquest of tropical empire – many African and West Indian soldiers saw a lot of service, but surviving examples like this are now uncommon
As a colony, Sierra Leone existed only as a small coastal enclave for most of the 19C. Like other British settlements along the West African coast, it was not until the 1890s that it was enlarged, during the greatest era of Britain’s expansion in tropical Africa, when all her coastal holdings were greatly increased in size. The urgent motive for this development was an aggressive French expansionist policy across the Sahara and in West Africa which threatened to cut off and limit Britain’s coastal territories unless steps were taken to seize territory inland. Under the determined Conservative Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, a deliberate policy of “land grabbing” was begun after 1895, the idea being that Britain should annex territory in the hinterlands of its existing West African territories not on the basis that they had any immediate economic value but on the basis that they might have in the future – the “undeveloped estates” theory. Stake
It was this policy which saw, for example, rapid expansion inland from the Niger Delta (what became the colony of Nigeria), along the Gambia and into the Ashanti Empire in 1896. Throughout the period 1895-1900, the British established by treaty, annexation or force a series of much larger colonies in West Africa, following the 1885 Berlin Conference’s requirement to demonstrate “effective occupation” of claimed territories. In 1896, a large swath of territory inland of the existing Sierra Leone frontier was annexed by Britain to form a much larger Protectorate. However, somewhat understandably, this was not popular amongst many local leaders and chiefs, since it interfered with their sovereignty and local standing as they simply became units within a new British colonial government.
It was a long-established principle of British colonial administration that colonies should contribute as much as possible to their own government, defence and development – hence the imposition of taxes; it was this policy which had alienated the American colonists and fomented their Revolution in 1776. It was also a good way to get local people to work for their new rulers (e.g. on plantations or road making) since they would need cash to pay the taxes.
A Sierra Leone village – Panguma, besieged during the rebellion; here seen with defensive stockades. Two armed columns came to its relief.
The new Governor of Sierra Leone, the experienced soldier Colonel Sir Frederick Cardew KCMG, followed exactly this policy. In January 1898, he imposed a new tax on dwellings (the “hut tax”), which was immediately unpopular not simply because no such imposition had ever been levied before but also because the taxes were deemed to be far too high – at between five and ten shillings per hut (depending on size), the annual assessment was often deemed to be greater than the value of the dwelling. Almost immediately, 24 leading chiefs petitioned Cardew, to convince him that the tax was unfair. The failure of Cardew and the colonial government to respond sympathetically was the immediate cause of the Temne-Mende war, known to history as “the Hut Tax war” of 1898-99. This turned into one of the largest-scale anti-colonial revolts West Africa ever saw and fairly quickly drew in just about the whole of the new colony. The British authorities found themselves almost overwhelmed by the scale (and spread) of the opposition and what followed was a very fragmentary series of operations, largely relying on small columns of West African troops under British officers, operating in different districts and trying, with varying degrees of success, to keep the lids on several boiling pots at once.
The rebellion against the new Hut Tax began in the Karene district, which became known as “the northern front”, where officials had been visiting Temne villages trying to raise the new tax in full, in part or in kind, but with little success. To provide a back-up to the process, a small force of the Sierra Leone Frontier Police (SLFP) under Major A. Tarbet was sent to support the District Commissioner Capt. Sharpe and try to arrest Bai Bureh, chief of Kasse, and regarded (unfairly as it now appears) as the leading instigator in the non-payment of the tax in that area. Interestingly, Bai Bureh and his men had fought on the British side during the 1892 Sierra Leone operations. Bai Bureh, who unsuccessfully tried to make peace overtures throughout the spring of 1898, quickly gained the support of several prominent chiefs, including the powerful Kissa chief Kai Londo and the Limba chief Suluku. Both sent their own warriors and weapons to aid Bai Bureh, who felt he had to defend himself against what he saw as unprovoked aggression. Other leaders who soon rose to the fore were chiefs Niagu of Paguma, chief Guburu of Bompe and Bai Sherbro of the Yonni tribe.
Bai Bureh in captivity
The 61-year old Bai Bureh was a powerful and well-regarded chief, not prepared to sit back and await arrest. Mobilising his followers, he fought the progress of the SLFP from the start, to the extent that Tarbet’s force was virtually isolated within Karene, since all the roads to Port Loko and Freetown were blocked by Bai Bureh’s men and passed through hostile territory. After two weeks of struggling to find Bai Bureh, and frequently attacked en route, they were joined by a company of 1st West India Regt. under Major Richard Norris DSO, who had reached them via a circuitous route to avoid potential ambushes.
On 3rd March, the combined force under Norris made a determined attempt to find and arrest Bai Bureh but from the moment they set out towards Port Loko, they came under continual harrassing attacks in the dense forest tracts and suffered considerable casualties; volley firing into the trees had little effect. Eventually reaching Port Loko, Major Norris took up a defensive position and summoned reinforcements from Freetown. On 6th March 1898, Norris was joined by 94 officers and men of the 1st West India Regt. under Major W. B. Stansfield who came up from Freetown. In the meantime, Bai Bureh’s supporters began to construct blockhouses, manned by only a few men, but skilfully constructed out of banana wood and hidden in the forests; from these almost invisible stockades, they could fire on passing columns and then flee into the woodlands before they could be surrounded and attacked. It was becoming clear that the “rebels” were gaining the upper hand – British firepower and superior armament was of little advantage in forests which completely hid the enemy – and the rebellion began to spread.
Group to a naval recipient – naval awards are not common
As the situation seemed to be worsening, naval forces from the Cape Squadron were brought into action, with brigades (amounting to about 250 men) landed at Bonthe from HMS Fox (Capt. F. H. Henderson), Blonde (Cdr. P. Hoskins) and Alecto (Lt. A. F. Holmes); these ships also conveyed reinforcements in the form of the 3rd West India Regiment, shipped from St. Helena, while a small detachment of Royal Artillery and other specialists (e.g. Royal Engineers) was sent from England. In total, including the Sierra Leone Police and “odd” detachments, some 2,500 men were immediately available to take the fight to Bai Bureh. It is believed that the timely arrival of these reinforcements was actually what saved the colony from being completely overrun; they were able, for example, to relieve Major Norris’s heavily-pressed column and get him back to Freetown. Bai Bureh was finally captured in October 1898 by “A” Company of the newly-formed West Africa Regt. under Col. E. R. P. Woodgate. Bai Bureh and two colleagues were exiled to the Gold Coast, though he was allowed to return in 1905 and reassumed the chieftaincy of Kasse.
However, the success of Bai Bureh encouraged others to rise against the government. The central Mende (or Mendi) tribe, under Momoh Jah, and tribes in the south of the colony (the “southern front”) showed a particular willingness to take on the British, aiming to drive them out of the country; merchants and civilians, both Europeans and those of mixed race deemed to be “westernised”, were attacked, with over 1000 estimated to have been killed. From April 1898, beginning from the district of Imperri, armed bands of Mende overran the coastal area, taking control of smaller ports as far as the Liberian frontier. Other rebel groups operated further inland and many SLFP posts and bases were attacked or besieged; even major towns like Bonthe and Waterloo were attacked.
Mende tribesmen during the campaign
Throughout the country, people were under arms and out of (government) control. Captain C. B. Wallis with only 28 men of the SLFP was attacked at Kambia, forcing him to fall back to Bonthe, with all his ammunition gone. Lt. Col. Cunningham, DSO, serving with the West Africa Regt., re-took Kambia in May, then proceeded along the Jong river to Mafwe, whose civilian post had been attacked and destroyed. Here, he was attacked by over 1000 Mendes, driven off with heavy casualties, as was another attack soon afterwards. Cunningham then captured two solid, well-hidden stockades – impervious even to artillery fire – near the town of Bumpe.
One of the besieged government posts was the town of Panguma in the eastern central area of the country. Sir Frederick Carew ordered that Panguma be relieved immediately by a column from Badajuma, itself defended by only 50 SLFP under Capt. Eames and a good four days’ march away. Accordingly, on 9th June, a force of only 45 SLFP – far too few – set off to reach the town. Under attack from the start, they got as far as Doja, 30 miles from Bandajuma, before the refusal of their porters to continue forced them to turn back. Another attempt at relief was made on 12th June when a column of 75 men of the SLFP with 300 “friendly” natives under Major E. D. H. Fairtlough set out from Kwalu. This force also had a 7-pounder field gun, manned by the artillery section of the SLFP. The column came under serious attack at Gagboro, but succeeded in driving off their attackers, capturing three stockades and entering the town. Fairtlough came under continual harrassing attack as he edged towards Panguma, but defeated another major assault at Dodo and finally reached the besieged town on 23rd June. They found the defenders under Capt. J. E. C. Blakeney in a bad way – they had defended their stockaded position for over two months, under almost daily attack from over 2000 rebels and had just about run out of ammunition and food (down to meagre rations, chiefly of rice) when relieved.
However, this particular ordeal was not yet over. The combined column now had to fight its way out, under ambush and passing (and usually capturing) many hidden blockhouses. The largest action took place at Yomundu on 6th July. This sizeable town was well-defended by a triple stockade but the 7-pounder gun made a world of difference. Three columns attacked different points – Captain H. de L. Ferguson to the right, Major Fairtlough on the left and the third, comprising largely the “friendlies”, attacked the centre. When the stockade was breached, hand-to-hand fighting took place in the town, the end result being being the death of three local chiefs and 115 of their supporters.
By this time – early July 1898 – a complex military operation was underway; six separate SLFP and WIR columns were criss-crossing the country, burning “rebel” villages, trying to reimpose order, and some chiefs were beginning to offer their submission. Though a number of raiders and marauding bands remained at large for some time, no further large-scale opposition developed and graduall, and with difficulty, units of the SLFP were able to round-up rebel leaders and re-establish government authority. Officially, the operations were not deemed to be over until as late as 9th March 1899.
The campaign in Sierra Leone was one of the largest fought during the early days of Britian’s conquest of a new West African empire. The extent of the rebellion, in terms of the territory it affected and the number of people who rose in rebellion, was far greater than in other colonial uprisings other than that in Ashanti in 1900-01. The colony’s slender military resources were stretched to the limit and only the involvement of outside forces, like the small RN and RM brigades, with reinforcements, landed from warships enabled the government to suppress the uprising. Colonel Marshal, the British commander-in-chief, said that the operations in 1898, involved “some of the most stubborn fighting that has been seen in West Africa. No such continuity of opposition had at any previous time been experienced on this part of the coast.”
Army Order 152 of 1899 authorised the award of what was then called “the West Africa Medal” with clasp Sierra Leone 1898-99 to the following units, the figures taken from Magor’s African General Service Medals and British Battles and Medals” which differ only slightly from each other.
Misc. civilians, surgeons, officials etc 109
Misc. British officers 9
Royal Garrison Artillery 85
Sierra Leone RGA 184 (Magor = 177)
Royal Engineers 56
Army Service Corps 29 + local labourers
Army Medical services 44
Army Ordnance Corps 16
Army Pay Corps 4
1st West India Regt. 1123
2nd West India Regt. 594
3rd West India Regt. 159
West Africa Regt. 895
Sierra Leone Volunteers 126
Waterloo Volunteer Corps 61
Sierra Leone Frontier Police 553
Colonial steamer Countess of Derby 19
HMS Blonde 124 (Magor = 117)
HMS Alecto 51 (Magor = 34)
HMS Fox 95 (Magor = 87)
The differences for the naval issues may simply reflect the inclusion of awards to native kroomen. Interestingly, there is no record of medals to personnel from HM ships Blake, Phoebe and Tartar which landed men in May 1898. These ships are mentioned in the official dispatches – as are some of their officers – published in The London Gazette; perhaps they were not deemed to have complied with the award regulations, which stipulated that medals were only granted to naval personnel who actually took part in shore operations or in boat expeditions which came under fire along various rivers; these included the River Lokko on March 5th 1898, in the Sherbro hinterland 1-15th May, in the expedition along the Boom-Kittam river, 16th May, and along the Bumpe River, 11-14th May.
In all, about 4,000 men were eventually involved, mostly in the small columns which ranged around the colony restoring order. This is quite a large number for this sort of campaign, but the medal is still quite scarce. As can be seen, medals will be more common to the West India Regiment and to the SLFP, with awards to some of the smaller detachments being rare. With 66 killed and 186 wounded (mostly in Karene district) casualties were significantly high for a colonial campaign:
Imperial forces – 4 officers 17 men killed; 16 officers and 94 men wounded
The Sierra Leone Frontier Police – 46 killed and 76 wounded.
In addition, among locally-hired porters and bearers, there were 50 killed and 96 wounded.
Medals to a soldier of the 3rd West India Regt. – the WIR saw extensive service in West Africa
Medal for Sierra Leone with clasp for previous service in the Gold Coast
Medal rolls are in series WO.100/92 for military personnel and ADM.171/45 for the navy. The London Gazette of 29th December 1899 has the main dispatches on the campaign.
Officers and Men mentioned in Dispatches :
Col. E. R. P. Woodgate (appointed CB and KCMG)
Bvt. Col. G. G. Cunningham, DSO, Derbys. and West African Regts.
Lt. Col. W. J. A. Marshall, West India Regt.
Capt. N. J. Goodwyn, West India Regt. (awarded DSO)
Capt. F. M. Carleton, West African Regt.
Major C. B. Morgan, West India Regt. (awarded DSO)
Lt. H. D. Russell, West India Regt. (awarded DSO)
Major A. H. Thomas, ASC att’d West India Regt. (awarded DSO)
Major R. Crofts, RAMC. (awarded DSO)
Lt. W. R. Howell, 1/ Glamorgan Arty. Vols. att’d Sierra Leone Vols. (awarded DSO)
Major H. G. de L. Ferguson, 4/ Norfolks and SLFP. (awarded DSO)
Major E. C. D. Fairtlough, DSO, 4/ Ryl Dublin Fus.; District Commissioner. (appointed CMG)
Capt. W. S. Sharpe, 4/ Ryl. Irish Rifles; District Commissioner. (appointed CMG)
Major A. F. Tarbet, 3/ S. Lancs; Inspector General, SLFP. (appointed CMG)
Major A. R. Stuart, RA; commanding RA.
Major E. S. C. Kennedy, Brigade Major, West India Regt.
Major H. C. Buck, West India Regt.
Lt. H. T. Eckersley, West India Regt.
Lt. N. E. F. Safford, West India Regt.
Capt. O. H. E. Marescaux, Shrops. L. I., att’d West African Regt.
Capt. C. Dalton, RAMC.
Capt. J. M. Harrison, RAMC.
Corpl. Greenidge, 1st West India Regt.
Pte. Grant, 3rd West India Regt.
Sgt. A. G. Wells, ASC.
Sgt. B. Thomas, West African Regt.
Capt. A.L. Winsloe, HMS Blake.
Capt. F. H. Henderson, HMS Fox (appointed CMG)
Capt. R. L. Rolleston, HMS Phoebe
Lt. F. K. C. Gibbons, HMS Fox.
Cdr. P. Hoskyns, MVO, HMS Blonde (appointed CMG)
Lt. Cdr. Holmes, HMS Alecto.
Lt. E. O. Gladstone, HMS Alecto.
Lt. W. F. Benwell, HMS Fox.
Lt. G. H. Welch, HMS Blonde.
Chf. Engr. W. W. Hardwick, HMS Blonde.
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Predecessor 
See also this post:
Pigeons in the Hut Tax War of Sierra Leone, 1898
When did the British Army first use pigeons in combat? World War One? The Boer War? The answer is the Hut Tax War of 1898, a relatively obscure colonial uprising in Sierra Leone. This week, we take a look at how the British Army, for the first time ever, relied on pigeons to communicate with a distant headquarters.
On August 31, 1896, British colonial authorities in the Crown Colony of Sierra Leone unilaterally declared the interior surrounding Freetown a Protectorate. Divided into five districts, the Protectorate encompassed numerous chiefdoms, many of which had no direct treaties or relations with the British government. To consolidate British rule over them, the colonial government issued the Protectorate Ordinance that same year, aimed at encroaching upon the chieftains’ sovereignty. The Ordinance transferred much of the chiefs’ traditional judicial powers to British District Commissioners. It undermined the internal slave trade—a primary source of income for chiefs—by granting enslaved persons the opportunity to obtain freedom by petitioning British officials in Freetown. Finally, the Ordinance implemented a tax on dwellings within three of the Protectorate’s districts, Ronietta, Bandajuma, and Karene. Dubbed the Hut Tax, it required all residents to make payments based on the size of their residence at the start of 1898.
The British also installed Frontier Police posts across the chiefdoms, composed of indigenous men led by British officers. Tasked with ensuring safe passage over roads and keeping the peace, members of the Frontier Police occasionally overstepped their jurisdiction and “interfered in local disputes,” acting as “little judges and governors.” Moreover, much of the Frontier Police had been runaway slaves who had obtained their freedom in Freetown. Chiefs bristled at the prospect of being arrested by their former slaves.
Many chiefs within the Protectorate opposed these measures, the most notable of whom was Bai Bureh. A member of the Temne ethnic group, Bai Bureh had been appointed chief of Kasseh, “a small chiefdom on the left bank of the Small Scarcies River,” in the Karene District in 1887, thanks to his military prowess. While Kasseh was a tiny chiefdom, Bureh possessed considerable authority owing to his status as a kruba or war chief. “There were very few war chiefs,” a historian has noted, “and only they possessed the right to request permission from other chiefs to travel though their chiefdoms to collect armed followers.” Karene’s District Commissioner claimed that war chiefs “were the only ones who possessed any ‘real authority’ and that one of them was worthy fifty ordinary chiefs.”
Bureh had a complicated relationship with the colonial government. He’d been arrested in 1891 for defying a British official, escaping while en route to Freetown. The next year, though, he joined in a colonial expedition against the town of Tambi. After another arrest attempt in 1894, Bureh largely ignored the British until the enactment of the Protectorate Ordinance. In 1897, he joined 24 other chiefs in submitting petitions to the Colony’s governor, Sir Frederick Cardew, protesting the Hut Tax.
Disregarding the chiefs’ opposition, colonial authorities set out to collect the tax in the Karene District in January 1898. They encountered resistance in Port Loko, “the largest and wealthiest town” in the area, and arrested the primary chief and his sub-chiefs in response. Rumors soon emerged that Bai Bureh was planning an attack on Port Loko, resulting in most of the town’s inhabitants fleeing. On February 16th, a detachment of Frontier Police set out from Port Loko to Karene to find and arrest Bai Bureh. On the road to Karene, the unit was continually harassed by Bai Bureh’s warboys, who jeered at the Frontier Police and pelted them with stones. At one point in the expedition, the parties exchanged gunfire. The Frontier Police found Karene safe, but remained concerned over the safety of the Port Loko-Karene route; most of the surrounding towns and villages had cleared out in support of the revolt.
Upon receiving word of the Frontier Police’s plight in Karene, Cardew opted for a demonstration of British power. On February 22nd, Cardew ordered a company of the 1st Battalion West India Regiment (WIR)—an Army infantry unit composed of recruits from British Caribbean colonies—to head to Karene. Commanded by Major Richard Joseph Norris, the WIR company’s primary mission was to set up a garrison at Karene, allowing the Frontier Police to pursue Bai Bureh. If necessary, the company was authorized to support the Frontier Police in case of an attack, but Cardew hoped that “once the troops arrived, resistance to the administration’s authority would collapse.”
A particular challenge facing the WIR at Karene would be maintaining contact with Freetown, which was 60 miles away. All lines of communication between Port Loko and Karene had ceased on February 19th after supporters of the rebellion stole the Frontier Police’s canoes. Cut off from Porto Loko, the Frontier Police in Karen had no way of communicating with Freetown, absent a circuitous, northwestern route. Fortunately, Thomas Chadwick, a merchant with the trading firm G.B. Ollivant and Company, came up with a solution. Having represented the firm’s interests in Freetown since 1891, Chadwick had been frustrated that “communication with the interior could be conducted only by runners.” He’d imported a loft of homing pigeons from England and trained the birds to deliver news from the interior to Freetown. The pigeons had allowed Chadwick to be “always better informed than any of his competitors regarding the position of produce stocks and merchandise requirements.” Seeing the administration was in a bind, Chadwick turned his pigeons over to the government for use in Karene.
The WIR company departed Freetown on February 25th aboard a government steamer up the Great Scarcies River and disembarked at a nearby village on the 26th. Norris and his troops marched to Karene, reaching the town unopposed on the 28th, although they were monitored by warboys. The company found the Frontier Police besieged on all sides, with three of its members in the hospital. As the situation in Karene escalated, on March 2nd, the District Commissioner requested that Norris declare martial law and assume responsibility for the administration of Port Loko and Karene, to which Norris assented. The next day, the company marched to Port Loko to restore communication between the two towns. Throughout the 25 mile march, the soldiers encountered intense opposition from Temne warboys, both sides suffering casualties. On March 4th, Norris, fearing that Port Loko would soon be attacked, released a pigeon with a message requesting two additional WIR companies from Freetown. Cardew received the message that same day, but, believing that Norris “could easily hold his own,” sent only one company.
On the evening of March 5th, the second WIR company arrived at Port Loko, only to find the town had earlier been the site of a fierce, four-and-a-half hour battle between Norris’s troops and Temne warboys. As hostilities mounted, Norris continued badgering Cardew for additional WIR companies over the ensuing days until the governor ultimately acquiesced and sent two more. Each unit departing Freetown received twelve pigeons.
By mid-March, the WIR companies had coalesced into a force of 700 troops under the command of a colonel. Now known as the Karene Expeditionary Force (KEF), the forces made Port Loko their headquarters and focused on keeping the road to Karene open. Throughout these patrols, the KEF kept Freetown apprised of developments via pigeon. “[A]uthorities at Freetown knew the position of matters at Port Loko, which is twenty-five miles off, within half-an-hour’s time,” a newspaper reported. On the evening of March 25th, a pigeon brought news to Freetown officials of a reversal suffered en route to Karene:
Things very serious; fifty of the West India Regiment and twenty-seven carriers missing; many wounded, including four officers; Lieutenant Yeld is dead.
Following an attack two days later resulting in 35 casualties and the death of the colonel from “heat apoplexy,” officers concluded that the KEF’s frequent patrols between Port Loko and Karene had resulted in excessive casualties, while the original mission of locating Bai Bureh languished.
On April 1st, the uprising took on a frenzied pace, as a new colonel, John Marshall, took command of the KEF. Under his direction, the troops set up two intermediate outposts along the Port Loko-Karene route to cut down traveling time between the towns. Marshall then implemented “a scorched earth policy in Kasseh country.” “Taking out a flying column each day,” writes one historian, “he razed every village which offered resistance to his advance.” Meanwhile, the KEF continued relying on pigeons to support its operations. “This is our daily means of communicating with the outside world,” a British medical officer noted in an April 4th letter. His letters indicate that the KEF’s pigeons kept Freetown abreast of setbacks and requests for supplies and manpower throughout the month. On April 19th, a pigeon notified Freetown that a major had been shot through the lungs while traveling between Port Loko and Karene.
For supplying pigeons to the troops, Chadwick received an official thanks and payment from the colonial government. However, it was soon revealed that Chadwick had in fact supplied some of Bai Bureh’s forces with 100 lbs gunpowder! Many merchants had actually preferred robust chiefdoms, because they could curry favor with individual chiefs. Incensed at this apparent betrayal, the Secretary of the State for Colonies Joseph Chamberlain initially pushed for the prosecution of Chadwick. But after identifying weaknesses in the case and noting that the Colony had already thanked Chadwick for his services, Chamberlain deemed it prudent to drop the matter.
Marshall’s campaign of destruction paid off—by the end of May, he reported that “[t]he whole of the disaffected areas of the Karene district had been overrun, and the power of the rebel chiefs utterly broken.” The KEF established permanent garrisons in Karene and Port Loko, while the remainder of the forces returned to Freetown on July 10th. The Frontier Police continued their pursuit of Bai Bureh, but he managed to evade capture for months until November 11th, when he was found in “swampy, thickly vegetated country.” Colonial officials spared his life, but exiled him to the Gold Coast, where he remained until he was permitted to return to Kasseh in 1905.
The Hut Tax War of 1898 soon faded from memory—it was just one of many colonial uprisings against the British Empire. But the British Army’s successful use of pigeons in the conflict remained a part of the Army’s institutional memory. During the Boer War, the Army, inspired by Sierra Leone’s example, relied on pigeons for communications during the Siege of Ladysmith in 1899 and 1900. Throughout World War I and World War II, British troops routinely employed pigeons when other mediums of communication were lacking. This long-forgotten war, therefore, merits our attention for conclusively demonstrating to British military officials that pigeons could facilitate communication under wartime conditions.
Sources:
- Abraham, Arthur. “Bai Bureh, The British, and the Hut Tax War,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1, at 99-102 (1974).
- Altham, E.A. Major, The Ladysmith Pigeon Post, The Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, Vol. XLIV, No. 273, November 1900, at 1231.
- Clodfelter, Michael. Warfare and Armed Conflicts, at 210 (2017).
- Crowder, Michael, and Laray Denzer. “Bai Bureh and the Sierra Leone Hut Tax War of 1898,” Colonial West Africa, at 61-62, 64, 67, 69, 70-73, 83-88, 91-92, 94-95 (1978).
- Fyfe, Christopher, A History of Sierra Leone, at 579 (1962).
- Marshall, John. “Report, 30 August, 1898, Lt.-Col. Marshall, Commanding Karene Expeditionary Force—Operations in Timini County.” Report by Her Majesty’s Commissioner and Correspondence on the Subject of the Insurrection in the Sierra Leone Protectorate, 1898, at 613-16, 621 (1899).
- “News from West Africa,” The Standard, Apr. 13, 1898, at 3
- Pedler, Frederick, “British Planning and Private Enterprise in Colonial Africa,” Colonialism in Africa 1870-1960: Vol. 4, at 96 (1969).
- Pedler, Frederick. The Lion and the Unicorn in Africa: A History of the Origins of the United Africa Company 1787-1931, at 95-96 (1974).
- “The Disturbances in Sierra Leone,” The Times, Apr. 9, 1898, at 4.
- “The Sierra Leone Revolt,” The Birmingham Post, May 6, 1898, at 10.
- “The Troubles in Sierra Leone,” The African Review, Vol. XV, Apr. 16, 1898, at 96.
- Tobin, Richard. “A Memoir of the Late Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Dalton, R.A.M.C,” BMJ Military Health, Vol. 24, at 76-78, 1915.
- “West African Operations,” The Morning Post, Mar. 24, 1898, at 5.
