Project Progress: Research and Mini-Movie

So far our group's progress ont eh project is quite productive. For the past three days our groups researched certain aspects of our country Sierra Leone. I myself went to the library over the weekend and gathered some books in order to enhance my research and hopefully contribute to our collaborative effort for research. One of the best resources that I have found was on the information cite INFOTRAC. I found this cite to be especially helpful because it has a compilation of professional work about topics and is a very reliable source. Something very interesting that I found was that iron was alreadying being implemented into the daily lives of tribes people in Sierra Leone by 800 A.D. Also, something that piqued my interest was that Sierra Leone was essentially founded by the British as a country where freed slaves would reside. Hence the capitol city name, Freetown. For the mini-movie mini-project, everyone from our group collaborated to see which topics would be our mainpoints for our movie. We also researched and took notes based on the topics we chose to look over.

Here is an excerpt from the notes I took:

• Rokel estuary - a significant source of fresh water and sea-trading
• Port provided trading amonst Europeans, natives of Sierra Leone and other western African countries
• Sea travelers would trade swords, kitchen/household utensils for Sierra Leone's fine ivory and beeswax
• By 15550's, the trade of items became unpopular as the introduction of slave trade graced the seaports of Sierra Leone
• Forts were built along teh Sierra Leonean coast by British traders from the Royal African company by 1672. However they did not have total control and monopoly in the ports but were still prominent.

It seems that Sierra Leone was in contact with the Europeans from very early on. I believe the main reason tot his is because Sierra Leone is on the very end of western Africa and on the coast. So the Europeans had easy access to the tribes whom they traded with.

Works used:

• http://www.visitsierraleone.org/sierra_leone_history.asp
• http://find.galegroup.com/srcx/infomark.do?&contentSet=GSRC&type=retrieve&tabID=T001&prodId=SRC-1&docId=EJ2305100413&source=gale&srcprod=SRCG&userGroupName=sand07018&version=1.0