And it came to pass in that there went out an ordinance from Her
Majesty the Queen of England that all the territories adjacent
to the Colony of Sierra Leone should be taxed.  This tax, though
similar to ones that had been successfully imposed in other
imperial “protectorates,” was resisted, and led to a violent
rebellion and then to a crackdown in which dozens of Hut Tax
rebels were hanged and hopes for the independence of Sierra
Leone from foreign rule were, for decades, frustrated.  Most of
the summary I’m giving here today is based on the Report By Her
Majesty’s Commissioner and Correspondence on the subject of the
Insurrection in the Sierra Leone Protectorate, 1898, issued ,
which is very critical of the colonial administration, but which
necessarily has a pro-imperialist bias (the Commissioner’s
commission came from Her Imperial Highness after all).  The
British coalesced the coastal African colony of Sierra Leone,
and its adjoining inland “protectorate,” by negotiating with
individual kings of the many