POREKERE, FORAY BENIA

Foray Benia Porekere (18?-December 28, 1893) was an able general who became leader of the Sofa, troops of the great Mandinka emperor, Samori Touré. His activities in northeastern Sierra Leone caused much trouble to both the British and French colonial governments.

By 1892, when he became leader, the French had occupied the town of Heremakono, to the northeast of Koranko country. This prevented the Sofa from using their usual route to Freetown, where they obtained arms, and which ran through Falaba and southwest to Port Loko. So Kemoko Bilali, the Sofa general formerly in charge of the Sierra Leone hinterland, sent Porekere to open a more easterly route through Koranko and Konike Temne countries.

Porekere built a number of strongholds in Konike country in eastern Sierra Leone. He started his assignment by making an alliance with the southern Koranko, whom he had apparently subdued, against the Konike. A number of towns were attacked and destroyed, but Porekere later fell out with the Koranko over the distribution of captives taken in battle and attacked his former allies.

At this point the Native Affairs Department, wanting to prevent colonial troops being sent against him, intervened. Its head of department, J.C.E. Parkes wrote to Porekere warning him off Konike. Porekere obeyed, retired eastwards, and captured Tecuyama and Levuma, two towns claimed by the powerful Mende ruler Nyagua. It appears that a chief, Tellu of Kuruwa, who had a land dispute with Nyagua, had asked for his assistance. Although pacifists in the colonial administration were opposed to violence against the Sofa, they could not suppress the report to the Colonial Office that Porekere had attacked Nyagua, a king in a treaty with the British. Orders were given for an expedition against him to set out at once.

The French, who had been fighting Samori since 1871, were also determined to put an end to Sofa hegemony and claim former Sofa-controlled areas as French by right of conquest. A French military officer, Lieutenant Gaston-Maxime Maritz, had moved into this area and joined forces with Kono warriors, subjects of Nyagua’s, in driving Porekere out of Tecuyama. Porekere then retreated further northwest to Bagbema, from which point he joined in as a mercenary on one side of a land dispute involving two Mende chiefs, Foray and Vonjo. Porekere helped Foray in attacking Vonjo at Tungea.

Meanwhile, the British expedition had set out. It was led by Captain E.A.W. Lendy with Captain A.B. Ellis commanding the troops. Hearing of Maritz’s activities in the area, Ellis sent a warning of their arrival to the French officer. It would appear that this information failed to reach Maritz, who was acting on information from his Kono allies that a large Sofa force was encamped at Waima in eastern Kono country. This force was, of course, Lendy’s. British and French each mistook the other for Sofa and attacked each other at Waima with the loss of several soldiers on both sides, including the two commanders, Lendy and Maritz.

A Krio sub-inspector, Charles Taylor, was also on his way with earlier orders to join Lendy on the expedition. But learning that Porekere and Foray were marching towards Tungea, he hurried to meet them there. The Sofa attacked at Varma, a town subject to Tungea, where Taylor was encamped, and were badly defeated by his troops losing 250 dead and 150 taken prisoner. Among those killed was Porekere.

C. MAGBAILY FYLE AND ARTHUR ABRAHAM