King James Cleveland

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Not to be confused with LeBron James.

King James Cleveland (1754?–1791) was an eighteenth-century King of the Banana Islands in Sierra Leone.[1] The Afro-British Cleveland descended from seventeenth-century British traders who worked for the Royal African Company and took African wives.[2] He was the son of William Clevland and Ndamba, a Kissi woman. [3]

Education and career

James Cleveland attended school in England, but joined the Poro society on his return. Through the Poro, he recruited an army with which to attack Charles Caulker whom he killed, then decapitated [4]

Cleveland had a son William, whose succession as King, when the elder Cleveland died, was contested by Stephen Caulker. James Cleveland also had a daughter who died shortly after her marriage to Henry Smeathman.

References

  1. ↑ Sierra Leone Traditional States accessed 11 January 2011
  2. ↑ Imodale Caulker-Burnett, The Caulkers of Sierra Leone: The Story of a Ruling Family and Their Times (Xlibris, 2010), p. 32
  3. ↑ Caulker-Burnett, The Caulkers of Sierra Leone, p. 56
  4. ↑ Christopher Fyfe, A Short History of Sierra Leone (London: Addison-Wesley Longman, 1962).


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