The Krio people of Sierra Leone are partly descended from former enslaved Africans who fought for their British in the American War of Independence, in exchange for promises of freedom.

After the American victory in 1783, they fled with the British to the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, from where they were sent back to Africa, and the British colony of Sierra Leone. This had been founded for freed slaves, even before the slave trade was abolished in 1807.

Others who make up Sierra Leone's Krio population include descendants of black Londoners and Maroons - escaped slaves who fought against the British in Jamaica - and those who were freed from slave-carrying ships along the Atlantic route, who were all sent to Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown.