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[^0]:    1 The term 'the Returned' may indeed be understood in its active or passive sense.
2 From 1820, African-Americans left the United States of America for Liberia; Afro-Brazilians settled in TogoBenin following the 1835 Malé revolt. See also the story of Libreville in Gabon and Frere Town in Kenya.
3 Chapter by M'bayo.  
Sierra Leonean historiography covers, in great detail, the merging in around 1870 of all these diasporas. This merging is said to have happened around the capital, Freetown ${ }^{4}$ - while Great Britain was considering self-government for the colony - forming an Afro-Victorian elite, the Creoles. The political, commercial and cultural hegemony of the Creoles over the region continued until the declaration of the protectorate in 1896, which split British subjects from the peninsula and hinterland in accordance with the indigénat - until the first discovery of diamonds in the late 1920s.