From the sixteenth century, European observers reported the occurrence of a regional transformation, which would re-shape the economic, political, social and cultural history of the Sierra Leone and Liberia subregion of the Upper Guinea Coast. Speakers of languages in the Central and South-Western branches of the Mande language family moved through the interior of presentday Sierra Leone to the coast of Liberia to establish trade networks linking the interior with the coast. In some areas they also took over the riverine trade networks that had been operated by the Sapes from Sierra Leone in the south to the Biafada territory along the Rio Grande in the north. Historians have called this social, political and cultural movement the 'Mani or Mane invasions' and the Central and South-Western Mande-speakers the 'Mani or Manes'. (Green, 2012, pp. 236-38). According to Adam Jones, the Manes were the linguistic ancestors of speakers of the present-day Vai language in the Central branch of the Mande language group; vocabulary words recorded by European observers and attributed to the Manes included Vai words (Brooks, 1993, p. 288; Jones, 1983a, p. 25; Jones, 1981, p. 159; Hair, 1968, pp. 47-73, 52, 58-59). The movement of Mande groups from the interior impacted Atlantic and Kruan groups occupying the coast from the Cape Verga region of present-day Guinea to the Cape Mount region of present-day Liberia (Brooks, 1993, pp. 275-78).  
Slave trader Sir John Hawkins was one of the first Elizabethan navigators to reach the Upper Guinea Coast. Hawkins made his second voyage in 1564 to the coast of Sierra Leone, specifically to the islands off its coast, the Îles de Los. There, he encountered Atlantic groups, Sapes, Krim and Bullom speakers, the indigenous inhabitants of the coastal region. Hawkins' two ships visited the Îles  
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