Cannibalism Myths, Empire, and Identity in Colonial Sierra Leone

In 1913, Sierra Leone bore witness to a Special Court convened to hear cases of cannibalism. Described as “Human Leopards,” those accused of ritually killing and eating others were associated with a criminal group, and in the wake of the cases, many accused and convicted Human Leopards were executed or exiled from the colony. Contemporary writers described these events in the rhetoric of the “civilized world” triumphing over the “barbaric,” and newspapers of the period wallowed in the lurid...