| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Freetown | |
| Languages | |
| English,Krio,Hebrew | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism |
Thehistory of theJews inSierra Leone date back at least to the 15th century, when Sephardi Jewish traders and explorers arrived in the region from Portugal.
During the late 15th and early 16th centuries,Portuguese Jews escaping religious persecution in Portugal during the Portuguese Inquisition formed Jewish communities along the coasts of theUpper Guinea from, Sierra Leone toSenegal. These Portuguese settlers, known as lançados, married local African women and formed families. These mixed-race Black Sephardi communities are often known as Luso-Africans. Much early commerce in Sierra Leone was conducted by lançados who sailed to and from the region toS. Domingos, located north of present-dayBissau. Mixed-race Black Sephardi Jews in the region were referred to asfilhos de terra and were generally considered "Portuguese".[1]
A small of number ofEuropean andAmerican Jews settled in the BritishSierra Leone Colony and Protectorate between 1831 and 1934. Some of the Jewish merchants who settled in Sierra Leone were an important part of the colonial European population and helped pioneer European commerce in the hinterlands of Sierra Leone.[2]
