Ethnic groups · pre-1822 and continuing
Kru people
The seamen of the West African coast, indispensable and never enslaved by treaty.
Biography
No people on this coast were better known to European shipping than the Kru. Their surf canoes worked cargo through breakers no ship's boat could cross, and Kru crews shipped aboard European vessels from Senegal to the Congo under contract, returning home with pay and goods. They maintained a strict tradition — recorded by many captains — that Kru were not to be sold as slaves, and their coastal towns operated as independent contracting communities under councils of elders.
Historical significance
One of the sixteen principal peoples mapped in the atlas; Kru (Niger–Congo) in language, with an economy built on surf canoe building and deep-sea seamanship.
Timeline
- 16th c.First European notices of Kru canoe-men
- 18th c.Contract labour aboard European vessels
On the map
Associated with Settra Kru. Open the historical atlas.
Related entries
References
- Contemporary shipping records; Brooks, The Kru Mariner (1972)
Suggested reading
- Dunn, Beyan & Burrowes (2000). Historical Dictionary of Liberia.