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The “Lion Money” of Sierra Leone .
There was a momentous court decision made in England in 1772. In that year, the black servant of a British planter in Britain on business refused to accompany his master back to the islands, maintaining that since England had no slavery, it followed that he, too, was free. The resulting court case heard before Lord Chief Justice Mansfield found for the servant, His Lordship declaring that the status of slavery was “odious”. The decision freed all slaves in England and, swelled by those of returning Loyalists from America a few years later, reached a number of some 15,000. But even though “free”, these former slaves faced all the social problems of integration and, for the most part, became a class of “black poor” congregating in the city slums. In January, 1786, a voluntary philanthropic association of London merchants and others – the “Black Poor Committee” - was founded to alleviate their suffering with distributions of clothing, food and other assistance. But it became obvious that these were only stop-gap measures and a proposal was made to resettle these poor unfortunates in their own country in Africa . The area picked was Sierra Leone (“ Lion Mountain ”) on the west coast of Africa , so named because the immediate mountain inland has the general appearance of a recumbent lion. The British government agreed with the scheme, offering to pick up the costs if the Committee would be responsible for the work. In May, 1787, the first transports reached Sierra Leone and, by treaty with “King Tom”, regent of the Koya Temne, of 11 June, 1787 , a grant of land comprising some 200 square miles was obtained. This first settlement was almost entirely destroyed by “King Jimmy”, Tom's successor in 1789. But even before news of this disaster was known in England , a move was afoot to consolidate the whole settlement of the colony into a formal company. It was believed that with the proper infusion of funds, the riches of Africa would be sufficient to support the colony plus pay dividends on shares. Accordingly, the Sierra Leone Company was incorporated by Act of Parliament (31 Geo.III,Cap.55) with a capital of £250,000 on 6 June, 1791 , with thirteen Directors and the right to make its own laws. As a colony governed by a Court of Directors in England rather than under the Secretary of State, Sierra Leone had (among several rights) one that Canada did not: the right to issue their own money. It was well that they did so. At the time of the original settlement, utopian dreamers sought to eliminate coinage altogether, using native barter in its place. Locally, the preferred item was the bar , a trade “ingot” of iron standardized at 6 feet long by 2 inches wide by ¼-inch thick. Its true value varied but in 1794 it was reckoned at 3s4d sterling and in 1820 at 5s. “Small change” was strings of cowrie shells ( cyprea moneta ): 40 cowries to a string, 50 strings to a “head” – valued at 5s (or a “bar”) in 1820. But values varied.
And a coinage was struck at Matthew Boulton's Soho Mint in Birmingham , at the time one of the best-equipped mints in the world. There were five denominations in all: a bronze 1-cent and silver 10-, 20- and 50-cent pieces as well as a dollar (shown above). All had the same general design, the obverse showing a lion in threatening pose on what is obviously high ground - a play on words for “ Lion Mountain ” (“ Sierra Leone ”). All reverses show clasped hands, light shading showing that one is black, one white. All of the first coinage is dated 1791. This is a coinage of “firsts”, being the world's first decimal silver coins based on the dollar (the ubiquitous Pillar Dollar). Not that 1791 is the true date of issue: researcher Fred Pridmore established from contemporary records and letters that the coinage had still not been received in the colony by very late 1792, but had been by July, 1793 (when someone stole “30 or 40 pounds” of the copper pieces from the store of Macauley & Babbington). “1791” is the date of the founding of the Company and/or the colony. Even so, the silver coins which we habitually think of as the first – that of the U.S. – did not appear until the period 1794-6. (The Massachusetts inscribed cent of 1787 was the first in the copper category). With the Spanish dollar valued in the colony at 5s local currency (just like the “Halifax Currency” of Canada), the silver pieces all represented familiar denominations to the British there, the 10-, 20-, 50-cent and dollar being the equivalent of sixpence, shilling, halfcrown and crown in local currency. But while the value was the same, the new coins were not quite intrinsically the same as the Spanish dollar; it has since been determined that the Sierra Leone dollar coin was only .834 fine, weighing 408 troy grains against the Spanish dollar's .900 fine, 417¾ troy grains. Evidently the Directors let the coins themselves pay for some of the minting costs. Because of a second disaster, another ( mostly identical) issue was needed in 1796. In 1794, a French privateer raided the capital of Freetown , burned a lot of it and plundered the rest, including the carrying off of any of the silver coin they could. (Back in France , many of these exotic coins were not melted down and today constitute one of the major sources of such numismatic material.) But the Directors were forced to have more coins struck by Boulton who in 1796 did so, apparently using the old 1791-dated dies with two exceptions: bronze cents and the little 10-cent was dated 1796. (There was also an issue of 10-cent dated 1805 struck later). Even though they cost more, it is usually easier to obtain proofs of these coins than it is an uncirculated business strike. Apparently, the Directors had sets or portions thereof struck at the time for themselves, selected stockholders and prospective ones.
The final denomination is an anomaly with little possibility that it ever actually circulated. This is the ONE PENNY PIECE, also dated 1791. The coin would make little sense since it would supposedly circulate side-by-side with the cent but represent 1/60 th of a dollar rather than 1/100 th . The Sierra Leone pennies Pridmore was able to examine were all either proofs or gave evidence of being impaired proofs through cabinet wear or being used as pocket pieces (the poorest condition penny he found still was a good VF). Proof sets of the Sierra Leone coins exist but the bronze piece in such sets is invariably a Cent. Dr. Henry Winterbottom (1803), writing of his time in Sierra Leone , mentions the currency prominently – but only Cents, never Pennies. There is the possibility that the pennies were patterns from a few years later. Unfortunately for the stockholders, Sierra Leone did not prosper despite an additional infusion of £100,000. On 1 st January, 1808 , the colony was transferred from the Company to the Crown. The first Royal Governor, Thomas Perrond Thompson (1808-10), disliked anything that smacked of American republicism and one of his first acts was to order the withdrawal of the Sierra Leone coinage and replace it with British sterling. Neither Pridmore nor other researchers at the time were able to come up with anything like mintage figures for the Sierra Leone coins. From somewhere , such figures are listed in the Krause catalogues as follow. : Bronze. Cent. 1791. 500,000 (Proofs: 400 pieces) “ 1796. 50,000 Penny. 1791 215,000(!) Silver. 10 Cents. 1791. 4,200 (109 proofs) “ 1796. 9,227 “ 1805. 6,100 20 Cents. 1791. 5,200 (84 proofs) 50 Cents. 1791. 4,622 (54 proofs) Dollar. 1791. 6,560 + 800 replacements in 1796 (40 + 5 proofs) Something is badly wrong with the above figures. The Court of Directors in 1794, just before the French raid (or at least before they knew of it), reported that there was about £1000 worth of coin circulating in the colony – and that amount could be accounted for by the 1-Cent mintage figure quoted above all by itself. Both the bronze Cents and Pennys are much, much scarcer than the figures above indicate.
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JanuaryThe 'Lion Money' of Sierra Leone
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