Comrade Chopi, I will repeat what I said to your other name in this same forum. I know it hurts to see a Mandingo guy having such relevance in the history of a country he has been castigated by some ethnocentric historian, as an outsider. But comrade, the history of our nation does not support your subjective assessment, of the life of this great man of history.
Just so you know, the Mandingo supremacy in this part of Africa is dated before the 18th and the earlier part of the 19th centuries, when the demarcation of Africa’s boundaries was consummated.
Yes, I am also aware of another Mandingo Warrior called Samurai Tourey, in what is today called Guinea.
He, like most African Kings and warriors sold captive locally or to the merchant ships. You know very well that I don’t need any referrer to know that.
So comrade, don’t lecture us on these issue you know well is embedded in bigotry and ethnocentrism. Not being part of the Poro or the Sande societies cannot deprive anyone of the right as citizen.
This is a divide that will continue to exit until some of you guys understand that this is a free country, opened to free associations and affiliations.
It was a choice then, when even after the demarcation of the various boundaries, members of the Kpelle, Kisi and Lorna, and Mano tribes, migrated to Liberia from Guinea without any restrictions from authorities.
Once you were a member of the Poro or the Sande societies, you could cross the border with fewer restrictions. The refusal of King Boso Kamara and his followers to join the Poro and the Sande societies was a choice then and is a choice, which is being withheld today.
I read with consternation, the diatribe and the miscarriage of our history by a self-indulgent accountant of historical facts regarding one of our founding fathers in person of his Highness Sabsu or Sao Boso Kamara, by a pseudo historian, with no understanding of terrestrial relic of what was once a beckon of hope for Africa.
One thing we can all agreed to, is the fact that everyone south of the Sahara came from the great Sudan to where we are today, in search of good farmland or as a result of the difficulties experienced in that part of our continent.
Another thing we are sure of is that Africa at the time was divided and rule by kingdom and that kingdom were demarcated by countries in some instances and by territories in certain locations as was done in the case of the Mandingo’s Kingdom of Bopulu.
Moreover the Mandingos were dominating trade and politic in this part of the world, before the 19 and 20 centuries demarcation of Africa. One thing which is unequivocal, as well, is the reign of King Sao Boso Kamara, the Muslim cleric and the Mandingo warrior dating back, before 1818, when the ACS commissioned two white Americans, Samuel J. Mills and Ebenezer Burgess, to proceed to England and Sierra Leone, and gather information on the settlement of an African-American colony on the West Coast of Africa.
Sao Boso Kamara rule extend back before February, 1820, when the vessel, “Elizabeth” which was chartered by the American Government, departed with 83 African-Americans for Sierra Leone, a venture that lead to the settlement at present day Providence Island in Monrovia.
This was the beginning of the creation of a system that was drastically change in 1980. What also is unequivocal is that, the settler met a system of governance, headed by traditional leaders and a formidable Kingdom led by King Sabsu, (He was also called, King Sao, King Boatswain; his real name was “Sao”, the “bsu” was the way his people pronounced “boatswain”) of Bopulu, the most dominant indigenous leader in the region.
Written history tells us that Sabsu was a Mandingo king and a devoted Moslem. He married a Gola woman, who bore him four sons, including Momoru Sao who ruled Bopulu in the 1860s.
This union with a non-Moslem was necessary for Sabsu because all the children he had by his Mandingo women died.
Early in his career, Sabsu served on European vessels as a boatswain, where he got his name. Sabsu was a devout Moslem who had no use for infidels.
From his kingdom 100 miles in the interior, which his people called Bokoma, he raided towns and villages from Cape Mount to Grand Bassa, a distance of almost 200 miles, and sold his victims into slavery, like all Kings and warriors acted at the time.
We are told of series of intervention he made in the interest of conflict resolution, but one in which he made a daring intervention, was when during the 1822 crisis, King Sabsu arrived on the coast with a massive force, and warned the Dey, Gola, and Vai kings, that he would behead anyone who interfered with the Americans. He is reported to have told the Americans:”
I promise you protection. If these people give you further disturbance, send for me; and I swear, if they oblige me to come again to quite them, I will do it by taking their heads from their shoulders, as I did old King George’s on my last visit to the Coast to settle disputes.”
This and many other courageous actions, in the name of unity and security, won him a place in our history, like any other founding father.
Another indisputable fact of history is that Bopulu existed and there was a Kingdom that coordinated a confederacy.
What is also indisputable is that Sao Boso worked on slave vessels during the 1800, and got his relevant in the settler’s history, for what he did in ensuring unity and security. It is an undisputed historical fact that shortly after King Sabsu departed for Bopulu, the Dey, Gola and Vai warriors attacked the settlement.
The first major battle occurred in the morning, on Monday, November 11, 1822, while the colony was under the leadership of Jehudi Ashman, a white American from Champlain, New York. It should be noted that class struggle and ethnic hatred was not limited to the Liberian state.
Recorded history also enlightens us that the Indigenous nations that bordered Liberia were constantly at war with each other. Most of these wars not only resulted in the enslavement of the vanquished, but disrupted Liberian trade with other interior nations, and threatened the national security of Liberia. In 1834, the settler sent a delegation to Bopulu, about 100 miles, northwest of present day Monrovia, to negotiate trade and national security treaties with King Sabsu, the head of the Moslem state. Sabsu agreed to supply the Settlers communities with cattle, rice, and ivory, but refused to end war with the Gola and Dey nations in the south.
Here is a brief review of Bopulu life in the 1830s: [the Mandingos named Bopulu, “Bokoma,” and the Loma’s and Belles named it Bopulu].
The town had a population of 3,000; the Kingdom had a population of 10,000; the population included Vai, Lorna, Gola, Mandingo, and Kpelle; the principal languages spoken were Vai, Lorna and Mandingo: the people greeted each other by saying, “Yakuneh” in Vai or “Oongah” in Lorna or Boday; Islam was the dominant religion of the Bopulu Kingdom, but was predominately practiced by the Mandingos and Vai; the Koran was widely read; the “Leilat el Kadri” the night when the Koran was received, was celebrated; the words, “Allahu akbaru.
La ilaha ill allahu ” the call to prayer was always heard; the emblem of Islam included: seven guns, three swords, four spears; there were schools established for boys, where the Imam taught them how to read the Koran; they manufactured their own ink in black, yellow, and red; polygamy was generally practiced; adultery was punishable either by enslavement, or the accused was dispossessed of his property; primary diet of the people were fish and rice; weapons of war included: flintlock musket; balls used in muskets were melted down from iron pots; large and powerful bows; quivers with very poisonous arrows, “it was said to be so fatal that if it wounded so much as the tip ends of the fingers it is certain death”; cutlasses; war belts; war coats; powder horns and spears; the consumption of snuff was prevalent in the area; alliances were consummated through the following ceremony:
“The rum was emptied into tortoise shell, and each of the other articles, and then a foul was held by two men, while a third severed its head, and the bleeding trunk was poured over each person until they were stained by the sacrifice.
Numbers ran up, anxious to have their weapons receive a drop [of blood] whilst the contents of the tortoise was drank by way of sealing the obligations entered [into]; ” those imprisoned had their ankles safely stapled to a large wood; each town had its own laws; in cases involving life or death, the leading chiefs were summoned to decide; all villages were heavily fenced with timber, and guarded for twenty-four hours; the gates of the town was only opened, when the guest fired a musket in the air, announcing his arrival; the town was lit with palm-oil lamp; the major exports of Bopulu Kingdom included camwood, the wood used to manufacture dye in Europe and America, ivory, hides, rice, and coffee; and because of the slave trade, travelling was very difficult, when you arrived at a town, you were detained, and a messenger was sent to the previous town, to determine if you were allowed free access through their town.
Every written or oral history is replete with the conflicts that were resolve by this great King. There is no account of any historical facts, which suggest that Sao Boso the elder came from anywhere outside the demarcated boundaries or territories that came to be called Liberia. What is missing in the subjective accounts is that, there were two Kings.
One was “Sabsu” Sao Boso Kamara, and the young Momoru Sao, the son of Sabsu Sao Boso Kamara, whose mother was of the Gola tribe. After the death of Sabsu, the reign of the young Momoru Sao Boso was greatly influence by the Gola tribe of his mother. He ruled the Kingdom of Bopulu in the 1860s.
We will forever be grateful to King Sabsu and Momoru Kamara for their roles in shaping a country reflective of a stronger value and discipline. Irrespective of the many ethnocentrically driving historical analysis of these contributions, we will remain resolute and unbending in our appreciation of the role of these Giant in our history.
We look forward to the erection of more edifices, glorifying the memories of King Sao Boso Kamara, our hero and a formidable founding father. You will excuse me, I have to take my ablution.
Abe Kromah MA, MA, Eds,
Criminal Justice Practitioner and Lecturer