The Temne, also called Atemne, Témené, Temné, Téminè, Temeni, Thaimne, Themne, Thimni, Timené, Timné, Timmani, or Timni, are a West African ethnic group.

[5] The Temne constitute the largest ethnic group in Sierra Leone, at 35.5% of the total population, which is slightly bigger than the Mende people at 31.2%.

[3][5] They initially practiced their traditional religion before Islam was adopted through contact with Muslim traders from neighboring ethnic groups.

Their largest concentrations are found in the northwestern and central parts of Sierra Leone, as well as the coastal capital city of Freetown.

[4][11] Although Temne speakers live mostly in the Northern Province, they also can be found in a number of other West African countries as well, including Guinea and The Gambia.

Some Temnes have migrated beyond West Africa seeking educational and professional opportunities in countries such as Great Britain, the United States, and Egypt.

[6] In 1642, a Susu caravan of 1,500 people led by Touré, Fofana, Yansané, Youla, and Doumbouya from the North, invaded the city of Forécariah.

The Temne, who refused to convert to Islam, were massively conquered from their region, which resulted in forced migration to northwest Sierra Leone.

[12] According to Bankole Taylor, the migration of the Temne to present-day Sierra Leone goes far back as the 11th and 12th century, Mainly due to the fall of Jallonkadu Empire in what eventually became Futa Jallon.

According to oral tradition, the Temne consider their ancestral home to be the Fouta Djallon highlands in the interior of present-day Guinea.

The Limba, according to Alexander Kup, had settled in Sierra Leone at some point before 1400 CE invading land then-inhabited possibly by Gbandi people pushing them eastwards into Liberia.

[16] However, Kenneth C. Wylie states, the "kingdoms" were graftings atop existing local structures which continued to survive and which influenced the newcomers.

[22] The earliest mention of Temne and other ethnic groups of Sierra Leone are in the records of Portuguese financed explorers such as those of Valentim Fernandes and Pacheco Pereira who were traveling along the coast of Africa to find a route to India and China.

[23] Pereira's memoirs written between 1505 and 1508 mention Temne words for gold ("tebongo"), water ("'mant 'mancha") and rice ("nack maloo," borrowed from Mandinka).

[24] The Portuguese records describe the culture and religion of the Temne people that their ships met as communities living near water, worshippers of idols made of clay, and men having their gods, while women had their own".

[25] The text mentions villages, their courts of justice, and lawyers who represented different parties while wearing "grotesque masks", with the chief presiding.

[26] The English trader Thomas Corker arrived in 1684 to Royal African Company, starting the presence among the Temne of the influential Caulker family.

[30] Naimbana provided land and labor to help the newly-freed Black Nova Scotians who founded Freetown in 1792, as a resettlement for former slaves liberated by abolition activists,[31][28] as well as a center of economic activity between the Europeans and the ethnic groups of Sierra Leone including the Temne people.

[32][33] The city was rebuilt by the Black Nova Scotian settlers[31] and by 1798, Freetown had between 300-400 houses with architecture resembling that of the American South with 3–4 feet stone foundations with wooden superstructures.

[34] The city grew to be a center of European and African abolitionists in the early 1800s, who sought to detect and stop all slave trading and shipping activity.

[41][42] The ongoing wars between the various ethnic groups, along with the military action from the north by the Futa Jalon Almamate into the Temne territories, threatened the Sierra Leone-related economic interests of the European colonial powers.

[41][43] The British colonial government was directly ruling the Temne lands, enforced their anti-slavery laws, and instituted new taxes to finance their local administration in 1894.

Still, the British ignored the petition, assumed that the chiefs lacked mutual cooperation for any serious concerted action, and asked their collectors to proceed forward.

[45][46] By mid-1898, the British assumptions proved wrong, Temne people had refused to pay the new tax and launched a coordinated war.

[49] Following their migration from their ancestral home of Guinea, triggered by invasions from neighboring Fulani in the early 15th century,[3][5] the Temne resettled in northern Sierra Leone.

[53] According to Vernon Dorjahn, early Christian missions were opposed by Temne elites because it insisted on monogamy, compared to the polygynous households of the Muslim chiefs and landholders.

The villages granted by the Temne king for resettlement of freed slaves of all ethnic groups, was modeled to include Christian missions and Churches of various denominations such as Methodist and Baptist.

[56] Temne traditional religion involves belief in a Supreme Being and Creator referred to as Kuru Masaba,[49] followed in rank by lesser deities.

[57] According to Taylor, the Temne believe that Kuru Masaba cannot be approached directly but only through the intercession of patrilineal ancestral spirits, and sacrifices are offered to them when requesting for help.

[61][65] The slaves were held in Temne clans as agriculture workers and domestic servants, and they formed the lowest subservient layer of the social strata.