The colony was established by the British , supported by abolitionists , under the Sierra Leone Company as a place for freedmen. The settlers called their new settlement Freetown. The Creoles of Sierra Leone have varying degrees of European ancestry , [ 3 ] [ 4 ] similar to their Americo-Liberian neighbours and sister ethnic group in Liberia. The Creoles are overwhelmingly Christian [ a ] and the vast majority of them reside in Freetown and its surrounding Western Area region of Sierra Leone.
It is the most widely spoken language in virtually all parts of Sierra Leone. As the Krio language is spoken by 96 percent of the country's population, [ 1 ] [ 22 ] it unites all the different ethnic groups , especially in their trade and interaction with each other. Cria derives from criar , meaning "to raise or bring up", itself derived from the Latin creare , meaning "to make, bring forth, produce, beget"; [ 37 ] β itself the source of the English word "create".
In Louisiana , the term Creole has been used since to represent descendants of African or ethnically mixed parents as well as children of French and Spanish descent with no racial mixing. In the Caribbean , the term broadly refers to all the people, whatever their class or ancestry β African, East Asian, European, Indian β who are part of the culture of the Caribbean. In French Guiana the term refers to anyone, regardless of skin colour, who has adopted a European way of life, and in neighbouring Suriname , the term refers only to the descendants of enslaved Africans.
In Africa, the term Creole refers to any ethnic group formed during the European colonial era, with some mix of African and non-African racial or cultural heritage. Perhaps due to the range of divergent descriptions and lack of a coherent definition, Norwegian anthropologist T. Eriksen concludes:. Today, Creole communities have more in common with each other than they have with any African ethnic groups.
On the islands of Africa, creole languages predominate while on the mainland, creole languages are lingua franca or national languages in Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia , and South Africa. In island communities, Creoles are found in many occupations ranging from agricultural workers to members of society's elite. In the coastal areas of mainland Africa, Creoles acquired economic and political leverage due to their education, culture and close relationships with the colonial administration.
