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The Mende are one of the two largest ethnic groups in Sierra Leone. They primarily live in the Southern Province and make up 30% of the Sierra Leone's total population. Sierra Leone's politics have been dominated by the Mende. The Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) one of the two major political parties in the country is Traditionally based among the Mende in the Southern Province of the country.

Their cultural and oral traditions indicate that they migrated to the area from the western Sudan in several waves between the 2nd and 16th centuries and are part of greater Mandé society.

The Mende are generally known as growers of rice and several other crops, practicing crop rotation to protect soil productivity. They are also known as traders. The upper classes may be descended from the Mane, soldiers of the former Mali Empire.

Regional warfare throughout the 19th century led to the capture and sale of many Mende-speakers into slavery. Most notable were those found aboard the Amistad in 1839, who eventually won their freedom and were repatriated. This event involved fifty-two Mendi tribesmen, purchased by Portuguese slavers in 1839, who were shipped via the Middle Passage to Havana, Cuba where they were sold to Cuban sugar plantation owners, José Ruiz and Pedro Montez. After working the plantation, they were placed on the schooner Amistad and shipped to another Cuban plantation. On the way they escaped their bondage and were led in a rebellion by Sengbe Pieh (later known as Joseph Cinqué). They set sail for Africa. Their efforts to return home were frustrated by the ship's remaining crew, who ensured that no progress was made, and the ship was intercepted off Long Island, New York, by a U.S. Coastal brig. Ruiz and Montez denounced the Mende and asserted that they were their property. The ensuing case, heard in Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut, affirmed that the men were free, and resulted in the return of the thirty-six surviving Mende to their homes.

In the 1930s African American linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner found a Gullah family in coastal Georgia that had preserved an ancient song in the Mende Language ("A waka"), passing it down for 200 years. In the 1990s three modern researchers -- Joseph Opala, Cynthia Schmidt, and Tazieff Koroma -- located a Mende village in Sierra Leone where the same song is still sung today. The story of this ancient Mende song, and its survival in both Africa and the US, is chronicled in the documentary film The Language You Cry In.

Now, in Sierra Leone, Mendes are mostly found in the southern and eastern part of the country. Some of the main cities the Mende occupy are Bo and Kenema.

The Mende are a group of people who live primarily within the southern third of Sierre Leone. Historically, they are rather recent arrivals to this area, appearing no earlier than the sixteenth century as invading forces advancing from the south. Linguistically, the Mende are related to Niger-Kordofanian and Niger-Congo groupings; they have at least two major dialects—Kpa and Ko—and two less prominent dialects—Waanjama and Sewawa. In 1987 the Mende numbered about one million, of whom 75 to 80 percent were Kpa Mende and most of the remaining portion, Ko Mende. The Mende comprise about 30 percent of Sierre Leone's total population.

The small country of Sierre Leone, of which the Mende occupy the southern portion, lies very close to the equator on the western coast of Africa. The climate is distinguished by a dry season from October to May and a wet season from June to October. There is much variation in humidity, sunshine, and rainfall, depending on the terrain, the distance from the coast, and the time of year. Until the twentieth century, much of the terrain consisted of forests, which have since been greatly reduced by clearing for farming. Farm-bush is the dominant vegetation type of the southern part of the country, where the Mende reside.

The Mende live primarily in villages of 70 to 250 residents, which are situated from 1.5 to 5 kilometers apart. There is little or no mechanization over the greater part of rural Mende country. Mende farmers use hoes and machetes, but few other tools. Coffee, cocoa, and ginger are grown as cash crops, whereas rice, pepper, groundnuts, beniseed, and palm oil are grown for local consumption. Rice cooperatives have been formed in some rural areas.

Work is divided by gender: men attend to the heavy work of clearing the land for planting rice while women are occupied with cleaning and pounding rice, fishing, and weeding the planted crops. This routine is followed during ten months of every year, with a couple of months left around the New Year, when they can spend more time in the village engaging in domestic pursuits like house building.

The household unit is represented by at least one man and perhaps several of his brothers, with all of their wives and children. One or more brothers and married sisters usually leave sooner or later and are incorporated into other residential units. The senior male has moral authority—the right to respect and obedience—over the family as a whole, especially with regard to the negotiation of debts, damages, and bride-wealth.

Because of their recent origins, their contact with other peoples in the area, their involvement in the slave trade, and the strong influence of Islam and later colonial powers, as well as missionary contact, it is difficult and perhaps misleading to speak of the traditional culture of the Mende. Mende culture is an eclectic blend that has resulted from all of these different influences. Mende religion, likewise, has native elements—a Supreme Being, ancestral spirits, secret societies, and witch finders—that coexist with and are sometimes interspersed with adherence to Christian or Islamic beliefs.

• Sir Milton Margai, lead Sierra Leone to independence in 1961, and became nation's first prime minister from 1961-1964
• Sir Albert Margai, was the second prime minister of Sierra Leone from 1964-1967; and the brother of Sir Milton Margai and the father of Charles Margai
• David Lansana, former Head of State of Sierra Leone
• Solomon Berewa, vice-president of Sierra Leone from 2002-2007
• Julius Maada Bio, former Head of State of Sierra Leone
• Samuel Hinga Norman, former head of the Civil Defense Forces
• John Benjamin, Sierra Leonean politician and finance minister from 2002-2007
• Emerson, Sierra Leone most famous musician
• Francis Minah, vice president of Sierra Leone from 1985-1987
• Joe Robert Pemagbi, Sierra Leone ambassador to the United Nation
• Charles Margai, Sierra Leonean politician
• Francis Minah, former vice president of Sierra Leone
• Sam Bockarie, was a leading member of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
• Tom Nyuma, one of the leading memebers of the NPRC, a military janta that rule Sierra Leone from 1992-1996
• Julius Gibrilla Woobay, football star
• Joseph Ganda, a Sierra Leonean Archbishop
• Solomon Musa, was the vice chairman of the NPRC, a military government that rule Sierra Leone from 1992-1996
• Banja Tejan-Sie, Sierra Leone attorney general from 1967-1968
• Major General Edward Sam M’boma, Chief of the Defence Staff of The Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces
• John Karimu, Sierra Leonean politician
• Patrick Bantamoi, football star
• Aluspah Brewah football star
• Emerson Samba football star
• Allieu Kondewa is a former commander of the Civil Defence Forces
• Augustine Jusu Lecturer and Writer. Most recent book pulished: Tears Of Happiness.
• Festus Minnah Head of The Sierra Leone Teachers Union
• Francis Ken Josiah Author and former Public Relations Officer of the Sierra Leone Military. Most Recent publication: Trial by Rebellion.

• Fage, John D. History of Africa. Routledge; 4th edition (2001).

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