View source for Falaba

{{hatnote|For the British steamship ''Falaba'' whose torpedoing became a diplomatic incident during the first World War, see the [[Thrasher incident]].}}
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'''Falaba''' is a rural town in Solima chiefdom, [[Falaba District]] in the [[Northern Province, Sierra Leone|Northern Province]] of [[Sierra Leone]].  The population of Falaba is largely from the [[Yalunka people|Yalunka]], [[Kuranko people|Kuranko]] and couple of Mandingo ethnic groups. Falaba is virtually all [[Muslim]] and it is known for its deeply religious population . Farming is the major economic activity in Falaba.

==History==
Falaba was the center of a small [[Yalunka people|Yalunka]] polity in the 18th century, which eventually absorbed its neighbors to created the state of [[Solimana (state)|Solimana]] by 1800. A fortress town, it controlled rich trading routes to the western coast of Africa and was the judicial center of the kingdom.{{sfn|DeCorse|2012|p=286}} It was visited in 1822 by [[Alexander Gordon Laing]], who estimated that the town held 6-10 000 people.{{sfn|DeCorse|2012|p=295}} In 1869 [[William Winwood Reade]] visited, leaving the following description of the town and its defensive stockage of hundreds of massive [[silk cotton tree]]s:
<blockquote>
On arriving at the top of a small hill the people stood still, and pointing with their hands, pronounced the word ''Falaba''! I saw beneath me a beautiful plain covered with sheep and goats and red cattle, and a black avenue of trees marking the course of a river. In the midst of this plain was a large grove, as it seemed, of gigantic silk-cotton trees; and on looking more carefully I perceived now and then a brown roof between the foliage. At the same time I heard the distant booming of a drum...We entered and were led a roundabout way, that we might be impressed with the size of the town.{{sfn|DeCorse|2012|p=295}}
</blockquote>

In 1884, [[Mandinka people|Mandinka]] conqueror [[Samori]] joined the king of [[Kaliere]] in attacking Solimana, then under the rule of [[Manga Sewa]].  After Samori's general [[N'fa Ali]] destroyed a number of surrounding villages, the Mandingo forces began a five-month siege of Falaba itself.  With the city's residents starved nearly to death, Manga Sewa could not bear the starvation of his people and for the mere fact that he was being compromised by their neighbouring villages he vowed never to surrender himself to Samouri's army, so he decided to go into the gunpowder house to commit suicide by lighting it up, his wife said she would not sleep with any other man beside her husband (Manga Sewa), his Yaeliba (a person who sing and praises Kings and great people) also decided to join him in the gunpowder thus saying he would not praise any other King, so they both entered the Falaba gunpowder magazine and lit a torch, simultaneously killing himself and breaching Falaba's walls.  Falaba was then briefly assimilated into Samori's [[Wassoulou Empire]]; following Samori's own fall several years later, it was reclaimed by the British.<ref name = hero>{{cite web |title=Sierra Leone Heroes |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060222005607/http://www.sierra-leone.org/heroes4.html |access-date=20 October 2024}}</ref>

The Anglo-French treaty of 1895 left the town without an affluent hinterland, and the colonial administrative post was moved from Falaba to [[Kabala, Sierra Leone|Kabala]].  As a result, Falaba declined after 1895.  Falaba was situated approximately thirty miles north-east of Kabala.{{citation needed|date=October 2024}}

===Civil War===

Reports indicate that fighting in Falaba during the [[Sierra Leone Civil War]] of the 1990s caused most people to flee the town.{{citation needed|date=October 2024}}  In a press report of May 27, 1998, one witness said "the towns of Falaba, Sinkunia, Musaia-Mongo Bendugu, Krubonia, Bafodia and Yiffin had all been partly or totally destroyed".<ref>{{cite web |title=News Archives |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060115051821/http://www.sierra-leone.org/slnews0598.html |access-date=20 October 2024}}</ref>  The roads and bridges into Fabala were also almost totally destroyed, and the town very severely damaged, according to a post-war damage survey. An air survey in 2001 reported Falaba as a "village".{{citation needed|date=October 2024}}

==R.M.S. ''Falaba''==

The British R.M.S. ''Falaba'', a West African steamship, was hit and sunk by a [[U-boat]] [[torpedo]] in 1915. It was the first passenger ship sunk during [[World War I]]. Leon Thrasher, an American citizen, died on the ''Falaba'', and his body was found after the ''[[RMS Lusitania|Lusitania]]'' sank ([[Thrasher incident]]).

==References==
<references />

===Sources===
* {{cite book |last1=DeCorse |first1=Christopher |editor1-last=Ogundiran |editor1-first=Akinwumi |editor2-last=Monroe |editor2-first=J. Cameron |title=Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa |date=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=278–308 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/power-and-landscape-in-atlantic-west-africa/fortified-towns-of-the-koinadugu-plateau-northern-sierra-leone-in-the-preatlantic-and-atlantic-worlds/2F796CE4972716328AA0C7DE9782A85A |access-date=17 October 2024 |chapter=Fortified Towns of the Koinadugu Plateau: Northern Sierra Leone in the Pre-Atlantic and Atlantic Worlds.}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060222005607/http://www.sierra-leone.org/heroes4.html Description of Samori's siege of Falaba]

[[Category:Populated places in Sierra Leone]]
[[Category:Northern Province, Sierra Leone]]