Travellers' accounts from sixteenth and seventeenth century Sierra Leone and Cape Mount provide evidence of complex cultural, social and political processes  
at work. Cultural contact among Mande groups, moving into the region as smiths, traders and warriors, and Atlantic and Kruan groups subjugated, incorporated and in some cases enslaved by the Mande. The emphasis here is on the incorporation of the Atlantic and Kruan groups by the Mande, which resulted in the Mani in Sierra Leone adopting the dress and language of Sumbas who fought their wars and the Vai initiating young men in Atlantic and Kruan groups in south-western Liberia into their power associations. Though the Mande achieved political control of the region through violence, the cultures practised among conqueror and conquered groups were no longer distinctly Mande, Atlantic or Kruan after the 'Mane invasions', but Creole (Dapper, 1686, p. 381).