Kpana Lewis (April 19, 1830 – May 10, 1912) was a Sherbro chief from Sierra Leone and an opponent of colonial rule of the British. He exercised strong influence over all Sherbro chiefs. Part of his fame rested in his pervasive use of the Poro Secret Society to oppose the British colonialists. He was considered so powerful that, while Bai Bureh was allowed to return from exile after the 1898 Rebellion, Kpana Lewis continued to be held in exile in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), where he died in 1912. Early life and leadership Kpana Lewis was born in 1830 in Sherbro Island in the Southern Province of British Sierra Leone to a politically dominant family of the Sherbro aristocracy. His grandfather, Bai Kong Kuba Lewis was the most dominant king among all of the Sherbro people. Kong Kuba Lewis signed a treaty ceding Sherbro country to the British in 1825, but the British did not exercise any direct authority over the Sherbros until the end of the century. Kpana Lewis assumed the leadership of the Sherbro people in 1879, after his father died. As a leader, Kpana Lewis was able to bring quite a few of the counties back under the authority of the Sherbro. He did this by using the enormous power of the Poro Secret Society, of which he was a leading member. Poro is reported to have spread into the interior of Sierra Leone from Yoni on Sherbro Island, which was the capital of the Sherbro Kingdom and where Kpana Lewis resided. He thus came to restore something of the old glory of the Kong Kuba and regained authority over former mainland provinces of the once powerful Sherbro Kingdom. When the British proclaimed a Protectorate in 1896, many of the terms of the Protectorate Ordinance were distasteful to the local rulers. Above all was the Hut Tax. Kpana Lewis was one of the few leaders who actually led a group of chiefs to the capital of Freetown to protest against the tax. While the British Governor informed him that the Sherbro in the Colony was unaffected by the tax, Kpana Lewis did not sit back and leave the other rulers to continue protesting alone because his own territory was not involved. On his return to Yoni, Kpana Lewis used the Poro to give force to his disgust with the colonial measures. Rebellion The Poro traditionally had