https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8731-2714
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ABSTRACT
In 1956, the British colonial administrators in Sierra Leone organized an operation of mass expulsion of migrants that aimed to solve the problems of health and security in the country’s diamond mining areas: Operation Parasite. This article examines how colonizers created artificial categories of “strangers” to expel people who were legally designated “undesirable subjects,” as well as how the health conditions of those living in the mining villages together with an ongoing epidemic of smallpox were instrumental in morally justifying this operation. The article argues that Operation Parasite was not only a police operation used to expel migrants to protect the interests of mining capitalism, but also a medical operation, which contributed to establishing the representation of an inverted reality: namely, that migrants, not colonizers, were the exploiters of Sierra Leone’s natural resources.
RÉSUMÉ
En 1956, les administrateurs coloniaux britanniques en Sierra Leone ont organisé une opération massive d’expulsion de migrants destinée à résoudre les problèmes de santé et de sécurité dans les zones d’extraction de diamants du pays : l’Opération Parasite. Cet article examine comment les colonisateurs ont créé des catégories artificielles “d’étrangers” afin d’expulser les personnes légalement désignées comme “sujets indésirables”, et comment les conditions sanitaires des personnes vivant dans les villages miniers, ainsi qu’une épidémie de variole, ont contribué à justifier moralement cette opération. Cet article soutient que l’Opération Parasite n’était pas seulement une opération de police visant à expulser les migrants pour protéger les intérêts du capitalisme minier, mais aussi une opération médicale qui a contribué à établir la représentation d’une réalité inversée : à savoir que les migrants, et non les colonisateurs, étaient les exploitants des ressources naturelles de la Sierra Leone.
Acknowledgements
I thank Eleanor Fisher, Christian G. De Vito and Sam Poskitt for commenting on earlier versions of this article. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editors for their insightful critical comments. None of those mentioned here is responsible for the views the article expresses or for whatever errors or inaccuracies it contains.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Due to its geographical location, the port of Freetown became an important navy base during World War II. Before the creation of the Suez Canal, it was a base for the sea routes that connected Africa to America and Europe to South Asia. In Freetown, people were aware of these historical and political connections; see e.g. The Daily Guardian. 1956. “Suez and Sierra Leone.” The Daily Guardian (Freetown), 21 September.
2 Sierra Leone Government. 1958. Report on the Medical and Health Services 1956. Freetown: Government Printing Department.
3 Sierra Leone Government. 1957. Report on the Administration of the Provinces for the Year 1956. Freetown: Government Printing Department, 1.
4 In 1957, there were 24 hospitals, 72 registered medical practitioners and 46 government medical officers, of whom 21 were Africans (Written answers (Commons) of Wednesday, 23 January 1957).
5 Colonial Office. 1958. Sierra Leone Report 1956. Freetown: H. M. Stationery Office, 64.
6 Ibid.
7 Sierra Leone Government. 1956. Report on the Medical and Health Services for the Year 1954. Freetown: Government Printing Department, 6.
8 Colonial Office, Sierra Leone Report 1956; Colonial Office. 1959. Sierra Leone Report 1957. Freetown: H. M. Stationery Office.
9 Epidemiological information on the smallpox epidemic of the 1950s is scarce and limited. Moreover, basic statistics such as the number of inhabitants of Sierra Leone were also lacking: the last census dates to 1948 (see Sierra Leone Government, Report on the Medical and Health Services 1956, 33).
10 Ibid.
11 For example, the bifurcated needle, which played an important role in the effectiveness of the WHO Smallpox Eradication Campaign that started in 1968, was invented as late as the 1960s, by Benjamin Rubin (Tucker Citation2002).
12 The National Archives, London, Kew (TNA) CO267/648/14, “An Ordinance to Control Vagrancy and to Provide for Repatriation to Their Own Chiefdoms of Native Convicted before Certain Courts in the Protectorate, no. 17, 1934,” 7 December 1934; TNA CO267/649/11, “The Minerals (Enclosed Area) Rules,” 7 February 1935.
13 The Immigration Restriction Ordinance, 1946 defined a “native foreigner” as “any native in any part of West Africa, irrespective of whether the native is resident in British territory or territory belonging to other European Powers,” while the “prohibited immigrant” was “any person who outstays the period of stay allowed or breaks any of the conditions of such a pass” (Colonial Office. 1947. Annual Report on Sierra Leone for the Year 1946. London: H. M. Stationery Office, 29–30).
14 Sierra Leone Government. 1968. Report of the Wales Commission of Inquiry into the Conduct of the Immigration Quota Committee from 1st January 1961 to 23rd March 1967 and Government Statement Thereon. Freetown: Govt. Print. Dept.
15 The Daily Mail. 1954. “‘Stranger’ Clause.” The Daily Mail (Freetown), 18 March.
16 The Freetonian politicians, including Bankole-Bright, Crowter, Edmondson, Thompson and Williams, opposed the decision taken by the Legislative Council. Wallace-Johnson boycotted the session. He was among the most critical opponents of the negotiations with the SLST (Daily Mail, “‘Stranger’ Clause”).
17 The Daily Mail. 1954. “Reader’s Letter. Diamond Bill.” The Daily Mail (Freetown), 12 March.
18 In May 1955, the Acting Solicitor General flew to Takoradi for an official visit of about two weeks in order to study the Gold Coast immigration system (The Daily Mail. 1955. “Immigration: New Move. Talks Proposed.” The Daily Mail (Freetown), 13 May; The Sierra Leone Observer. 1955. “Immigration. Another Move by Government.” The Sierra Leone Observer, 24 May).
19 The Daily Mail. 1952. “Non-Kono Residents to Leave Mining Area.” The Daily Mail (Freetown), 20 October.
20 The Daily Mail. 1952. “Dunbar Calls for Review of Mining Concessions.” The Daily Mail (Freetown), 11 December.
21 Dunbar’s motion was accepted by the Legislative Council on 17 December 1952 (The Daily Mail. 1952. “Mining Claim to Be Reviewed.” The Daily Mail (Freetown), 18 December).
22 Some of the main exponents of the Sierra Leonean political elite participated in these negotiations, including Paul Dunbar, Siaka Stevens and Albert Margai.
23 Colonial Office, Sierra Leone Report 1956, 71.
24 TNA CO554/1509, Telegram from M. H. Dorman, Governor, to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 11 February 1959.
25 Sierra Leone Government, Report on the Administration of the Provinces for the Year 1956.
26 TNA 554/799, Telegram from M. H. Dorman to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 5 October 1956.
27 In the 1960s, there were several cases of mass expulsion of strangers in West Africa. Margaret Peil (Citation1971) traces these expulsions back to the deportation of some Nigerians from Ghana (1954) and numerous Togolese, Dahomeyans and Nigerians from Ivory Coast (1958), ignoring the mass expulsions occurring in Sierra Leone in the 1950s.
28 See Sierra Leone Government, Report on the Medical and Health Services 1956, 14. Yengema is the name of the urban centre of Kono district where the SLST’s headquarters were located.
29 The Freetonian doctor David E. Boye-Johnson was among the staff that visited the mining areas along with T. P. Eddy in September 1956 (TNA 554/799, Telegram from Governor of Sierra Leone to Secretary of State for the Colonies, “Appendix A. Sanitary Conditions in Alluvial Mining Areas,” 26 October 1956).
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 This report was written in September during the rainy season, which usually ends in October/November.
33 TNA 554/799, Telegram from Governor of Sierra Leone to Secretary of State for the Colonies, “Appendix A. Sanitary Conditions in Alluvial Mining Areas,” 26 October 1956, 7.
34 TNA 554/799, Telegram from M. H. Dorman to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 6 October 1956.
35 Colonial Office. 1958. Sierra Leone Report 1956. Freetown: H. M. Stationery Office, 73.
36 The Daily Mail. 1956. “Governor’s Guiding Hand.” The Daily Mail (Freetown), 22 October.
37 The Daily Mail. 1956. “Strangers Are Crowding Us Out. Paul Dunbar Tells of Kono Problem.” The Daily Mail (Freetown), 22 October.
38 The Aliens (Control in Special Areas) Ordinance, 1956 and the Diamond Industry Protection Ordinance, 1956 came into force on 22 November 1956 – that is, the day after the conclusion of Operation Parasite. These two ordinances gave the governor greater powers to control and expel “aliens” and “native foreigners” who were not normally resident in diamond protection areas before January 1950.
39 The Daily Mail. 1956. “LegCo Passes Bill to Eject ‘Strangers’. Dunbar Warns Against Armed Resistance.” The Daily Mail (Freetown), 26 October.
40 The French authorities feared that the population expelled from Sierra Leone would protest violently and interfere with the elections in Guinea (Bredeloup Citation2007, 90–91).
41 The Daily Mail. 1956. “Will There Be Trouble in Kono? Doctors and Nurses on the Alert May Leave on Wednesday.” The Daily Mail (Freetown), 29 October.
42 TNA CO554/799, Telegram from M. H. Dorman to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, A. Lennox Boyd. 5 October 1956. At the House of Commons, when John Hall asked the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, John Profumo, what success had attended the expulsion of strangers in Sierra Leone, the latter replied: “The operation was outstandingly successful. At least 45,000 so-called native foreigners have left the Kono area, removing the growing threat to health and security there.” In “Written Answers (Commons) of Wednesday, 6th March 1957, House of Commons Hansard, 49–84, Session 1956–57, Fifth Series, Volume 566,” House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online (https://parlipapers.chadwyck.co.uk/), accessed 31 October 2016.
43 TNA CO554/1507, Despatch n. 188 of Governor Sir M. H. Dorman, 20 February 1957. Sylvie Bredeleoup (2007, 92) speculates that the British skilfully circulated the rumour that new diamond deposits had been discovered in Guinea to facilitate the expulsion.
44 TNA CO554/1508, Telegram from Governor’s Deputy to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 26 August 1957.
45 Colonial Office. 1957. “The Colonial Territories 1956–1957. Presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament by Command of Her Majesty, June 1957.” London: H. M. Stationery Office.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Lorenzo D’Angelo
Lorenzo D’Angelo is an assistant professor at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, and a research fellow at the University of Hamburg, Germany. He has carried out fieldwork in Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda. He is the co-founder, with Robert J. Pijpers, of the EASA Anthropology of Mining Network, co-editor of the special journal issue Mining Temporalities (EXIS 2018) and the author of the book Diamanti. Pratiche e stereotipi dell’estrazione mineraria in Sierra Leone (Meltemi 2019).