The Mandinka people of Sierra Leone (commonly referred to as the Mandingo, Mandinka or Malinke) is a major ethnic group in Sierra Leone and a branch of the Mandinka people of West Africa, with whom they share the same culture, religion, tradition and language. The Sierra Leonean Mandingo are the direct descendants of Mandinka warriors from Guinea who conquered large territories in areas of the North and East of Sierra Leonean in the 1870s under the leadership of Samori Ture. They were followed by thousands of 'Mandingo settlers from Guinea in the late 19th and early-to-mid-20th century.