The people of Sierra Leone are called Sierra Leoneans. The population is composed of about eighteen ethnic groups. The largest is the Mende (Malinke—about 34 percent of the population). There are also 40,000–80,000 Creoles, descendants of slaves freed from Europe, the West Indies, and other regions. For more information on the Mende, see the article on Malinke in the chapter on Liberia in Volume 5.
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