G.DAMA SAFFA YANNIE II         DAMA SAFFA YANNIE I    DAMA LAHAI LIMAYANNIE III

By the Heir of His noble Lineage of Dama Saffa Siaka Yannie I Giema-Dama, Dama Chiefdom, Kenema District

Origins and the Colonial Transition

In the rolling hills of the Kenema District of Sierra Leone lies the Dama Chiefdom, a place where history breathes through the soil and the legacy of ancient rulers whispers through the wind. For centuries, the Dama Yannie dynasty has served as the sovereign authority of this land, a precolonial lineage whose legitimacy predates British administration, colonial maps, and the modern state itself. This declaration serves to formally restore the hereditary sovereign name of that lineage, to affirm its unbroken continuity, and to make publicly known the truths that history once sought to conceal.

Long before colonial maps were drawn, the Warrior King, Saffa Siacca/Siaka Yannie Sr. (Damaga TiKee Yannie I), carved order from the wilderness, offering protection and governance to the Dama land and her people. His authority was not born of paper or decree but of the Galinas coastal territory, known by Europeans as the Sulima territory. This territory linked the hinterland adjourns and borders on the Atlantic Ocean via the Moa River, extending inland as far as the navigable head of that river, which borders the Makona River at Yenger in Kailahun, the eastern border district of present-day Sierra Leone. Saffa Siaka Yannie I exercised overlordship as sovereign authority from Sulima to the heart of Giema-Dama, the centre of the Moa River, extending as far as the navigable head of the river where it borders Guinea.

This remained the status quo until 1882, when the Aborigine Riparian Rights Treaty No. 36 signed by the founding sovereign lineage, Saffa Siaka Yannie I, who signed as Jaiah Siacca (Mahein