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down than pay the fees, or even the fines. How much would such an operation be worth? "Let's just say that in seven months we brought in $450,000 ro the government, so you do the math," was all that Cobus was willing ro say. The cost of fishin permits is calculated according ro the size and rype of fish involved. Ships larger than 250 gross registered tons could pay up to $70,000 per season. This was a major source of income for a country that was functionally bankrupt. Officially, abour $30 million worth of fish was caught in 1998. At the same time, only $66 million worth of diamonds was officially exported in 1998 and only $31 million in 1999. The government made only 2 ro 3 percent in taxes from either resource in addition to the fees, but the figures show how fishing stacked up next to diamonds. The word jitt"re was never linked to diamonds. As Cob us pointed out, "Diamonds are not a renewable resource. Once the diamonds are mined, it is over. It is too easy for diamonds to be handled in an unethical way." Diamonds had been the reason for Sierra Leone's trouble and the main fuel behind the war. They were at the core of corruption, and they continued to create a carpetbagger mentaliry in the country. Most white people who came to Sierra Leone quietly caughr diamond fever. The business was supposed to be quite easy. The government charged a tiny 2 or 3 percent tax on any diamonds that were mined and exported from Sierra Leone. Miners were to register the diamonds, have them assessed, and pay a fraction of their worth. But even this modest tax didn't work. T he Diamond High Council in Antwerp estimated that in 1998 the official export of diamonds from Sierra Leone was a pathetic 8,500 carats, bur buyers had actually registered Sierra Leone as the source country for 770,000 carats in the same year. The discrepancy indicated the scale of the diamond-smuggling business. More disturbing was the fact that Liberia, whose mines produce only 100,000 to 150,000 carats in a good year, had been "exporting" an average of 6 million carats a year, worth about $300 million. The prevailing estimate was that $200 to $300 million worth of diamonds were smuggled out of Sierra Leone every year. So who was making the money from the diamonds? The U.S. government estimated that the RUF rebels had made between $30 and $125 million a year from the sale of diamonds mined in Sierra Leone. How had such wealth created such desperate poverry? Sierra Leone was created by and for dreamers. Its inception was a fantasy: a place created to repatriate African slaves who had fought with the British against the Americans in the Revolutionary War; a well-meaning but inadequate response ro centuries of enslavement, murder, and abuse by Europeans. Even the name Sierra Leone was a fabrication. The natives had called it Romarong, bur the hilly coastline was renamed by Pedro de Cintra in 1467 as Tierra Leoa or Sera Leoja because the sound of thunder that came from the hills reminded him of the roaring of lions. The present-day locals told me that it was named for the hills, which they said were shaped like crouching lions, but there are no such hills. When the Portuguese fi rst ven tured ashore their interest was black gold, or slaves. They needed cheap labor for sugar plantations on the newly discovered islands of Madeira and Sao Tome, and there were thousands of healthy black males available from local traders. If they couldn't be bothered to pay for slaves and had weapons, they just rounded up the slaves themselves. They established a few agricultural sites in Sierra Leone to replenish their ships but made few attempts to colonize or explore the area. It was simply a place for pillaging raw resources. By the mid-l700s twelve million I I I o 50 Africans had been sold ro foreigners. The economy of Virginia was based on slavery during the Revolutionary War. The British commander in chief, Sir Henry Clinton, issued the Philipsburg proclamation in 1775, which offered land, protection, and freedom to any Negro who deserted the rebel cause. Two thousand slaves opted to fight with the British . In 1783 the British and their supporters had ro leave the United States, and George Washington demanded the return of the slaves who had fo ught with the British. Blacks made up 10 percent of the 40,000 loyalists who sailed to Nova Scotia, then a Bri tish colony. Others made their way back to England. The goal of finding a new homeland for these former slaves was not entirely charitable. The British had failed ro provide the land they promised in America and began a movement that tried to redress this wrong by creating a homeland for slaves who wished to return to Africa. In 1787 two Englishmen, Smeathman and Sharpe, bought 20 square miles from the Temme chief Naimbamma, the king of what was to be called Sierra Leone. The well-meaning English sent 400 black settlers and sixry Europeans on the Nautilus on May 9, 1787. By the time the second group arrived a few months later, most of the original group was dead. In November 1789 the colony was virtually wiped our after an attack by an African chief. In 1790 rhe colony of Sierra Leone was established under a mercantile structure called the Sr. George's Bay Company, which would later become the Sierra Leone Company. But back in Canada more black " MOST WHITE PEOPLE ... QUIETLY CAUGHT DIAMOND FEVER " Loyalists had been left stranded, and they sent a representative to London to petition the government for their land. Instead, the representative struck a deal with a business group that promised land in exchange for settling in Sierra Leone. On January 15, 1792, nearly 1,200 black Loyalists set sail from Halifax in 15 ships bound for Sierra Leone. the Freetown was also to be populated by "Poor Blacks" of England, "Chestlluts"-Jamaican Maroons-living in Canada, and slaves taken from slave traders who had no way of surviving. The displaced and repatriated black settlers spoke a Caribbean-rype pidgin English called Krio, since in many cases they had long forgotten their morher tongues. The directors of the Sierra Leone Company were to give each settler 45 acres in an area to be called Granville. One hundred Europeans and 1,136 blacks arrived in March 1792. Sixry had already died in the crossing. When they arrived the directo rs reduced the ptomised 45 acres of land to four acres. A supply ship failed to arrive and starvation ensued. The rains and fevers came in May, killing 800. Finally, the local king was persuaded to ler the settlers live near the freshwater springs. One Sunday morning in April 1794, a French squadron attacked and burned the boats and buildings of Freetown, destroyed Granville, and captured two ships. As a result, only two or three weeks' worth of provisions were left and famine began again. In 1800, the implementation of a ground tax caused a revolt: 550 Jamaican Maroons pur down the rebels, bur then forry war canoes full of Temne tribesmen attacked Freetown. After fighting off the tribesmen, the settlers and Maroons of Granville built defenses around Freetown. Another Temne uprising occurred in 1803. The attackers came from Port Loko and were led by a dancing, screaming, and drumming grigri, or female witch doctor. Life has never been simple or predictable here. Britain finally prohibited the slave trade in 1807 (though the use of slaves remained legal until 1833), and Sierra Leone became a Crown colony in 1808. It was to be a place where "Christianity, civilization, and commerce" would be demonstrated. The slaves liberated by the British were soon sent to Sierra Leone. In 1819, 1,222 soldiers and their fam il ies came from a West Indian regiment that had been recen t1y disbanded in Jamaica. By 1820 the population of the entire country was Iii I- Vi o o 0.. 0.. f; 00

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