Monuments and Relics Commission

Proclaiming, Preserving, and protecting Sierra Leone's Monuments and Relics Since 1948. Making the past relevant to the present and future.

Monuments and Relics Commission

The Monuments and Relics Commission (MRC) was established in 1948 following the passing by Parliament of the Monuments and Relics Ordinance in 1946. The mandate of the Commission spelled out in the Public Ordinance No. 12 of 1946, is to provide for ‘the preservation of Ancient, historical and natural monuments, relics and other objects of archaeological, ethnographical, historical or other scientific interest with its members appointed by the government.In 1962 this Ordinance was upgraded into an Act, and in 1967 a very important amendment of this Act gave the power to the Monuments and Relics Commission to ‘acquire, maintain and administer the Sierra Leone Museum founded by the Sierra Leone Society’.The Commission has the responsibility of ensuring the preservation, protection and promotion of Sierra Leone’s cultural heritage assets. This is achieved by identifying important aspects of our heritage and culture that can be preserved, shared, enjoyed and studied by present and future generations.

saint maroon church

Everyday we walk by the St. John's Maroon Church and go to our various engagements in the center of Freetown. When the Maroons arrived in 1800, Freetown was at war. The Nova Scotians, led by Isaac Anderson, had declared independence because Governor Thomas Ludlam refused to honor existing contracts with them. They wanted their lands free of tax as Governor John Clarkson had promised, but nobody was interested in implementing that anymore - not in Freetown or London.

The rebels were not interested in more talks. Some were black British veterans. Years earlier they had marched underneath the Union Jack in an attempt to keep America British. They had been proud members of the regiment of Black Pioneers who fought in return for a promise of freedom. The British lost the war, but they kept their promise to the Black Pioneers. An estimated 3,000 of these black loyalists were taken to Nova Scotia.

Life in Canada was not as promised. Agriculture did not prosper and slavery followed them there. Many of the settlers were re-enslaved. The black loyalists sent Sergeant Thomas Peters, a gallant soldier who was wounded twice in battle and survived, to England to present their wish to be taken to Freetown to the government and abolitionists. In 1792, the Nova Scotians, led by Clarkson, arrived in Freetown.

When the Maroons arrived, Freetown was under siege, and the rebels had the upper hand. The Maroons, wild ones, acquired their name from resisting the British in Jamaica (1731-1739). The Trelawny Maroons, led by Chief Cudjoe, signed a peace treaty with the British in 1738, granting them autonomy. The second maroon war (1795-1796) broke out when the British violated a provision of the treaty granting Maroons the right to punish their own subjects for certain crimes. It was not the punishment of two Maroon hog thieves that so much aggravated the Maroons, but the fact that the flogging was carried out by a former slave, and they were “laughed, hissed, and hooted by the slaves.” The Maroons also complained that their Trelawny settlement was too small for their growing population.

The British apologized for the swinegate incident and requested a meeting with four Maroon representatives, but they replied saying the Maroons wished “nothing else from the country but battle.” This was the beginning of the second Maroon war. They were eventually forced to surrender after the British enlisted the help of Cuban bloodhounds and chasseurs. This is how 600 of the Maroons were taken to Nova Scotia - but Canada was evidently unconducive for the Maroons, so they agreed to move to Freetown.

The Maroons arrived and immediately went to war, a craft they knew well, but this time on the side of their former enemies – the British. They attacked the last group of rebels and reversed the war in favour of Governor Ludlam. They arrested 31 rebels. When the rebellion was quelled, the Maroons made Freetown their home. In 1822, under the leadership of Charles Shaw Harding as their Superintendent, they completed the construction of the St. John's Maroon Church.

There was only one aspect of their lives the Maroons were unwilling to relinquish – polygamy. Monogamy, "dat white people fashion; dat no do for we poor Maroon," one of them had said in Nova Scotia. Their church is still standing on Siaka Stevens street, close to the Freetown Cotton Tree area, where the Black Poor, the first settlers from England, had started their settlement. Congregants still file in and out every Sunday, worshiping with one of the first Reverends, Rowland Peck, who is buried there.

Saint Charles Church

As the Liberated African Villages grew, it was decided that structures had to be established to cater for the spiritual and educational welfare of the emerging communities. The government agreed to finance the construction of schools and churches. In 1816, the government financed the building of a stone church the Regent, one of the Liberated African Villages. St. Charles, named after Charles MacCarthy, was the first stone church to be built in West Africa.
Perched on top of a steep hill, the church soon became inadequate for the five hundred worshipers it had been planned for due to the expanding population of Regent and the inspirational and influential leadership of Reverend W.A.B Johnson. After the death of the Reverend and subsequent migration by the inhabitants to the city in search of more opportunities, numbers dwindled but the historic significance of the church still remains and it still services congregation in current day.