that territory to be a British Protectorate. The Colony remained a distinct political entity; the Protectorate was governed from it. Most of the chiefs whose territories the Protectorate subsumed did not enter into it voluntarily. Many had signed treaties of friendship with Britain, but these were often expressed as being between sovereign powers, with there was no subordination to the British. Only a handful of chiefs had signed treaties of cession, and in some cases it is unknown if the chiefs had understood the implications of the treaty. In more remote areas, no treaties had been signed at all. The creation of the Sierra Leone Protectorate was more in the nature of a unilateral acquisition of territory by the British. Almost every chieftaincy in Sierra Leone responded to the British arrogation of power with armed resistance. The Protectorate Ordinances (passed in the Colony in 1896 and 1897) abolished the title of King and replaced it with "Paramount Chief". Chiefs and kings had formerly been selected by the leading members of their own communities; now all chiefs, even paramount ones, could be deposed or installed at the will of the Governor, and most of the judicial powers of the chiefs were removed and given to courts presided-over by British "District Commissioners". The Governor decreed that a house tax of 5s to 10s was to be levied annually on every dwelling in the Protectorate. To the chiefs, these reductions in their power and prestige were unbearable. During these conflicts, British officers used the practice of cutting the hands of people to account for bullets spent, similar to what had occurred under the regime Leopold II of Belgium in the Congo Free State. British doctor, Jason Todd, who had travelled to West Africa on an LSTM expedition, wrote down the testimonies of British officers who had been involved in putting down rebellions in British Sierra Leone and had practiced cutting the hands of the people they shot. The exact number of living victims who ended up mutilated is unknown. Hut Tax War of 1898 In 1898, two rebellions broke out against British colonial rule in Sierra Leone in response to the introduction of a new hut tax by Governor Frederic Cardew. On 1 January 1898, Cardew introduced the hut tax as a way to pay for the colonial administration's financial expenditures. However, the tax proved to be beyond the financial means of many