Sierra Leone
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Sierra Leone. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a small British colony and a protectorate on the W. coast of Africa. The colony occupies the peninsula, Sherbro Island, some small isles and a coast-strip between French Guinea and Liberia. Area, 4,000 square miles. The protectorate extends inland and is bounded by French Guinea on the N., by Liberia, E. and S. E. Area, 27,000 square miles. Principal products: palm kernels, cola nuts and gum copal. Exports in 1919 were valued at $2,101,569; imports at £2,123,344. There are 169 elementary schools. A college at Fourah Bay, to prepare natives for the ministry, is supported by the Church Missionary Society. Pop. of colony about 75,500; of Protectorate, about 1,400,000, mostly negroes. There are about 700 whites. Sierra Leone was purchased by Great Britain in 1787 from the native chiefs, for the purpose of a settlement for liberated negroes, and to aid in the suppression of the slave trade. Capital, Free Town. Pop. 34,000.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a British colony. It lies on the West African Coast adjacent to Liberia. Area, 4,000 square miles; population, 80,000. There are less than 1,000 whites. Over half of the population has been converted to Christianity. Over 8,000 pupils are in school. Freeport, the capital, has a population of 37,000 and carries on a thriving export trade in palm oil, ginger, peanuts, kola, and India rubber . The native artisans excel as gold and silversmiths. In 1909 over 1,250,000 postal packets were carried. In 1896, 30,000 square miles of additional territory was annexed under the title of a protectorate. This territory extends 180 miles inland and has a native population of 1,000,000. An active traffic is carried on in forest products.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's described this in 1921, Sierra Leone was a British colony of some 75,500 people on the peninsula plus a protectorate of about 1,400,000 inland; the two were joined into an independent state in 1961, which became a republic in 1971. The economy the old entries describe — palm kernels, kola nuts, ginger, gum copal — was overtaken by minerals, above all the diamonds discovered in the 1930s, whose trade helped finance a brutal civil war from 1991 to 2002 that killed tens of thousands and drove Freetown into the hands of rival armies. The country was then among the hardest hit by the West African Ebola epidemic of 2014–16, with roughly 4,000 deaths. Population now stands around 8 million, Freetown well over a million, and Fourah Bay College, praised in 1921 for training native clergy, is a constituent college of the University of Sierra Leone.
Written for this edition, 2026.