By Warner M. Montgomery The African Slave Trail

The port at Sanya Pauli today. During the slave trading days (1770–1860) it was bustling with caravans from the interior and slave ships from Europe and America.

Part 16: Sanya Pauli: Mary Faber declares war

During the prosperous slave trading days on the Rio Pongo (1770– 1860), the caravan trail ran from the interior to the Atlantic coast. The caravans stopped at factories (trading posts) along the river. The purpose of our historic trek on June 13, 2004, was to walk the slave trail from Farenya to Boffa. We began our trek at 7 am in Farenya. At 7:55 am we reached Funachoré, at 9:35 am Sambaya, at 9:45 Bangalan, at 10:25 Bakoro, and at noon Sanya Pauli.

The pottery shard is one of many lying around in Sanya. It is possibly an artifact left over from the early days of the French occupation (1866–1900). Sanya Pauli (Paulia) began as a small Susu village. From 1795 to 1802 the British Sierra Leone Company operated a trading post there and called it Freeport. When the British moved out, independent slave traders moved in to capitalize on the booming trade with America. In 1809, American ship captain Paul Faber set up shop and renamed the village Sanya (Sangha).

Faber disappeared in the early 1830s and his wife, Mary, took over the factory. In 1838, Mary Faber offended the other slave traders when she broke the quota agreement they had by filling a ship with her own slaves.

Slave trader William Ormond sent his men to Sanya and seized a number of slaves from Faber’s plantation. Faber immediately prepared for war even though another trader, Emerson, intervened and convinced Ormond to return Faber’s slaves.

Mary Faber appealed to the Fula chiefs to assist her in a war against the “Mulatto” slave traders and the Sierra Leone traders she claimed were moving back in to the Rio Pongo. She demanded that Ormond be removed as chief of Bangalan.

When the Fula governor of the Rio Pongo area sided with her, Faber looted and burned Benjamin Campbell’s factory near Sanya, then blockaded Ormond’s factory at Bangalan. Ormond retaliated by blockading all traffic in the upper river.

This so–called Mulatto War resulted in the Fula chiefs exercising their authority, deposing Ormond, and driving Emerson and Campbell from the river. Mrs. Emerson and Mrs. Campbell, who were daughters of Capt. Styles Lightburn and Elizabeth Bailey (Niara Bely) Lightburn, took refuge at Farenya with their mother.

The British Navy under Lt. John Hill of the HMS Saracen arrived on an appeal from Campbell. When Hill heard from Lightburn and the Fula governor that Campbell and the other British traders had joined in a local chieftancy dispute, he refused to intervene.

Ormond died in 1840 and his factory at Bangalan fell into disrepair. Sanya under Mary Faber and Farenya under Niara Bely (Mrs. Lightburn) became the major trading center on the Rio Pongo. The women soon became chiefs (queens) which furthered their hold on trade in the upper Rio Pongo. The queens joined the Fulas in a successful war in 1842 on the slave traders in the lower river. In response, the British Navy burned Lightburn’s barracoons (warehouses for slaves) at Farenya.

During the late 1840s and early 1850s, the sons of Queen Mary and Queen Niara Bely, William Faber and Styles Lightburn Jr., became chiefs and ruled jointly with their mothers. They turned from coffee to peanuts as the legitimate trade to cover their illegitimate trade in slaves.

In 1852, when the British tried to force a non–slave trading treaty on the Susu and Baga chiefs of the Rio Pongo, Faber and Lightburn joined forces and attacked the Susu and Baga villages. The Susu under Afro–European Chief Thomas Curtis counterattacked and burned Sanya. Farenya was saved but Lightburn sued for peace in 1855. Faber and Lightburn controlled trade in the upper river until the French colonized the area in 1866.

Descendants of Paul and Mary Faber and their son William continued to live in the Rio Pongo area. Maitre Paul Faber became the Guinea Minister of Justice (1958–1961), legal adviser to Guinea’s first president, Sékou Touré, head of the African Affairs Division of the IMF in Washington, DC, (1963–1967), professor of law at the University of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and advisor to the current president of Guinea, Lansana Conté.

(Next week: The last leg of the trek)