The first Kroomen to be employed by the British Navy in Simon’s Town arrived on the HMS Melville in 1838. [i] Their date of arrival was telling, having coincided with enslaved people at the Cape experiencing their first breath of freedom. At this time there were two distinct groups of people settled at Sierra Leone. The first group were the indigenous Kru people and the second group, the Settler-Liberians. [ii]

However, these two groups of men were employed by the Navy as one group, under the blanket name of ‘Kroomen’. [iii]
— Read on www.sahistory.org.za/archive/west-african-kroomen-and-their-link-simons-town-joline-young

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