Colonial mutiny and the black radical Atlantic: Sierra Leone, 1939

Abstract

This article details an incident that occurred in colonial West Africa just prior to the start of World War II. Disputing their pay and terms of service, 11 Sierra Leonean soldiers in the British army went out on strike, refusing to assemble for duty. Although they did not remain in protest long, their action drew disproportionately severe punishments. Focusing upon the so-called ‘gunners’ mutiny’, this piece queries the relative or situational nature of ‘radical’ ideas, ideals, and actions.

Keywords:

• radicalism
• antiimperialism
• Wallace-Johnson
• International African Service Bureau
• West African Youth League
• Sierra Leone

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Archival Sources

United Kingdom National Archives, Kew

Great Britain Colonial Office (CO)

Great Britain Foreign Office (FO)

Great Britain Home Office (HO)

Great Britain War Office (WO)

Security Service, MI5 (KV)

London Metropolitan Police, Special Branch (MEPO)

Communist International Archives (Incomka Project),

Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

Communist International Archives, Negro Commission 1919–1929

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library

Public Records and Archives Administration Department, Accra and Cape Coast, Ghana

Periodicals

Africa and the World

The African Morning Post (Accra)

The African Standard

The African Sentinel

The Crisis

International African Opinion

The International Negro Workers’ Review

The Negro Worker

Sierra Leone Weekly News (Freetown)

The West African Pilot (Lagos)

Vox Populi (Accra)

Notes

1. Confidential despatch, Governor Arnold Hodson to Secretary of State for the Colonies W.G.A. Ormsby-Gore, 5 February 1937. Public Records and Archives Administration Department, Accra, Ghana, CSO (Colonial Secretary’s Office) 15/4/35.

2. West African Pilot (Lagos) 9 May 1939.

3. Unsigned column, ‘We Bow’, The African Standard, 6 January 1939. Clipping included in United Kingdom National Archives (hereafter UKNA) CO 267/671/5.

4. UKNA WO (War Office) 71/1034. A detailed account of the entire incident is included in the court martial testimony.

5. Memo, initials unclear, 1 July 1939. UKNA CO 267/671/6.

6. ‘General Court Martial of Certain African Gunners, at Freetown. Commencing, 8 March 1939’. Seventeenth day of court, 27 March 1939. Judge advocate’s closing commentary. Page hand-numbered ‘Sheet no. 65’. WO 71/1034.

7. ‘Ja-Ja’ (I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson) to George Padmore, 27 December 1939. Fabian Colonial Bureau Papers, box 86, file 2. Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House, Oxford, UK.