Canadian Journal of African Studies/La Revue

canadienne des études africaines

ISSN: 0008-3968 (Print) 1923-3051 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcas20

From Hill Station (Freetown) to Downtown Conakry

(First Ward): Comparing French and British
Approaches to Segregation in Colonial Cities at the
Beginning of the Twentieth Century

Odile Goerg

To cite this article: Odile Goerg (1998) From Hill Station (Freetown) to Downtown Conakry
(First Ward): Comparing French and British Approaches to Segregation in Colonial Cities at the
Beginning of the Twentieth Century, Canadian Journal of African Studies/La Revue canadienne
des études africaines, 32:1, 1-31, DOI: 10.1080/00083968.1998.10751128

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00083968.1998.10751128

Published online: 30 Oct 2013.

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CJAS32.1x8• 1/29/99 5:22 PM Page 1

From Hill Station (Freetown) to Downtown

Conakry (First Ward): Comparing French and
British Approaches to Segregation in Colonial
Cities at the Beginning of the Twentieth
Century

Odile Goerg

Résumé
Au début du XXème siècle, toutes les villes coloniales d’Afrique
connurent une forme ou une autre de ségrégation spatiale, à connotation
raciale ou sociale. Les principes en sont désormais connus: les
justifications hygiénistes, accentuées par les découvertes scientifiques
des années 1890 et la recrudescence de certaines épidémies, recouvraient
des motivations idéologiques liées à la logique même de la domination
coloniale. Cet article se propose de comparer deux approches différentes,
celle des Français à Conakry et des Britanniques à Freetown, et de
préciser ce que furent les conséquences concrètes de telles politiques, au-
delà des discours et des mesures légales. L’article met en évidence les
contradictions internes des politiques de séparation des populations ainsi
que leur impact effectif sur l’aménagement des villes. Il montre comment
s’épanouit le dualisme spatial des villes coloniales, à la fois marque
concrète et symbole de la dualité des sociétés coloniales.

Introduction
At a time when African urban history was a new field and compar-
ative history was not much in fashion, Thomas Gale, in a very
suggestive and ground-breaking article, concluded that French and
British colonizers had two fundamentally different approaches to
urbanism and segregation in their respective colonies (Gale 1980).1
He argued that, “segregation helps to explain why the British failed
to build attractive colonial towns as did the French,” while “French
town-planning ... aimed at safeguarding the lives of all the people”
(Gale 1980, 505-06).2 Some years later, Philip Curtin pointed out

1
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2 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

that, for the French, “[r]ace was not the only criterion. The
Government resorted to a cultural distinction based on architec-
tural style,” although they agreed with the British regarding the
medical analysis of the origins of disease and the remedies for them
(Curtin 1985, 609-10).
Those historians suggest the existence of a radical opposition
not only between two policies — cultural and social segregation
versus racial segregation — but, more basically, between two
philosophies — one being influenced by the Enlightenment theo-
ries of universalism, the other reflecting a more narrow
Eurocentrism. This opposition, enacted in most colonial decisions,
was likely even more visible in towns. While French colonial cities
welcomed mixed populations, offering free access to land, the
British masters imposed a more strictly divided vision of urban
space, best symbolized by separate residential areas.
By the late nineteenth century, it had become obvious to all
Europeans that settlement in the colonies required ending the
deadly reputation of “the White Man’s Grave” which had been
weighing on Africa for centuries.3 To do so, the French and British
resorted to close but dissimilar policies that aimed at either
protecting the lives of Europeans alone or trying to change the
general sanitary conditions. Spatial, legal, and psychological
boundaries between different social, ethnic, or racial categories
were imposed to enforce these new policies.
Based on research on Conakry (French Guinea) and Freetown
(Sierra Leone),4 this study takes a closer look at this issue. Though
created a century apart, Freetown and Conakry both underwent
similar changes reflecting a new segregative policy at the turn of
the twentieth century. Freetown was chosen in 1787 by the Sierra
Leone Company as the settlement for free Black Poor, who were
joined by Black Loyalists or Nova Scotians in 1792, and later
Maroons in 1800. Then, from 1808 onwards, these groups were
followed by thousands of Liberated Africans. Conakry was offi-
cially founded in 1885 as the capital city of the Southern Rivers, at
the time — and up to 1893 — still part of the “Senegal and depen-
dencies.” After analyzing the changes which occurred at the begin-
ning of the twentieth century in both cities (and, in fact, more
generally in the colonial world), this study points to differences in
the official colonial discourse, as well as in the practical considera-
tions which prevented both colonizers from being entirely in
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Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 3

compliance with their own theories.

This comparative and empirical approach should provide a
more concrete answer to the question of the importance of specific
historical context in engendering segregation. A comparison of
segregation should be made within the general framework of colo-
nialism. Differences of policies may, indeed, be a result of various
factors, including the city’s date of foundation or the ratio between
White and Africans. The respective importance of expatriates in
both colonial systems partly explains the way in which the French
and British tried to address similar problems of urban health,
elevated mortality rates, and sanitation. Before World War I,
Europeans comprised only 1.6% of the official population in
Freetown (558, in the 1911 census, out of 34 090), against eight
percent at the most in Conakry (610 out of about 7 300, but only
five to six percent if we take into account higher population esti-
mates).
Despite differences in the historical development of the two
cities, one is struck by the synchronism of the segregative
measures. Beyond their specific characteristics and the obvious fact
that Conakry was a new town, only about fifteen years old, whereas
Freetown was more than a century old when the first segregation-
ist plans were adopted, one finds the same discourse of racial sepa-
ration. Both the French and English used the hygiene paradigm to
enforce a clear division between so-called races and ethnic groups
and to make these categories visible in everyday life.

From Cohabitation to Segregation

At about the same time, some form of spatial segregation took
place in cities where, previously, people of various national, social,
and ethnic origins had lived together. The original settlement of
Freetown was planned in 1792 according to a grid-pattern and
slightly changed after the French attack of 1794. Around what was
to become the heart of the city, the British government, which took
charge of the administration in 1808, sought to settle the Liberated
Africans in the villages of the peninsula, as well as in the city. In
Freetown itself, the formation of different spatial communities was
encouraged along broad tribal and occupational lines: Maroon
Town, west of Fort Thornton, followed by New Town East, and
Portuguese Town (1813), Congo Town and Kroo Town (1816),
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4 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

Soldier Town (1817), Kossoh Town and Fourah Bay (1818), Gibralter
Town and Foulah Town (1819), Bambara Town (1821), New Town
West (1830), and Cline Town (1846) (Harrell-Bond et al. 1978, 46
[map]).
These quarters were given an official role through the institu-
tion of headmanship in the 1905 Ordinance at the precise moment
when segregation was being implemented. This policy did not
concern the descendants of the first settlers, the Creoles (or Krios
as they are now often called),5 who are viewed as a non-ethnic
group. These various neighbourhoods surrounded the central
district where British administrators or private entrepreneurs,
mainly merchants, rented houses from Sierra Leonean landlords.
Real estate was the main investment for the African middle class,
who did not have access to banking facilities. As one reporter
wrote: “Greatness in Sierra Leone consists, in some measure, in the
possession of a large house and a Sedan chair.”6
As early as the 1820s several stone houses were built, usually
on a two-storey plan, and were concentrated along the main streets,
close to St. George Cathedral and the main administrative build-
ings. There, British and wealthy Freetonians, mainly Krio families,
shared the same life style, leaving the outskirts of the city to the
less wealthy. The governor would invite members of the African
elite (lawyers, doctors, administrators) to his receptions “at home”
or to picnics, a fundamental British tradition, whereas the African
middle class would do the same to celebrate official or more private
events such as weddings.7 In the French Empire, the same phenom-
enon of shared space occurred in Saint-Louis, Senegal, where
traders and their employees lived in the same quarters, often even
in the same buildings (Bonnardel 1992, 104). Similarly, Dakar illus-
trates “the earlier pattern of co-existence, if not integration, of the
African and European populations” (Betts 1971, 143). Gorée, as
well as other trading posts along the Coast, presented the same
characteristics.8 This scheme did not apply exactly in the same way
to Conakry, mainly because this new city lacked a large African
middle class. Nevertheless, Africans, notably civil servants or
entrepreneurs coming from the Four Communes of Senegal,9 asked
for land lots and started building in the same part of the city as
Europeans.
This situation changed drastically at the turn of the century for
reasons linked to colonial imperialism and to fundamental changes
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Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 5

in the relationship between African countries and the European

powers. But apart from these very general factors, one can discern
more precise factors which explain the evolution from multina-
tional towns to some forms of segregation. Various conditions led
to the implementation of a new urban policy at about the same
time in most African cities.
During the second half of the nineteenth century in Europe,
town-planning as a new concept with practical applications for the
prevailing hygienist obsession was born. As a result, public author-
ities (state, regional, or local governments) had a responsibility to
provide urban plans and urban sanitation, which included
measures for water supply, drainage, sewage, as well as garbage
disposal, in order to fight against morbidity. One implication of
these measures was a kind of segregation based on increased social
contrasts. Colonial officials transferred these ideas to tropical
Africa, where sanitation was viewed as even more important given
the high mortality rates and long history of epidemics (yellow
fever, plague, and smallpox).
At the same time, fundamental changes in race theories were
occurring, as the concept of fundamentally different “races” and
cultures with antagonistic needs was replacing the ideal of the
universality of humanity. According to this theory, the main cleav-
age opposed the Whites to the Natives. This opposition had many
legal consequences, such as new definitions for census purposes10
or the acquisition of citizenship, but it also served as a basis for
actual spatial exclusion. Thus, many administrators employed
cultural arguments, ranging from an overtly racist discourse to
some form of paternalism as partially expressed in the French
ideology of assimilation, to justify the legal separation of urban
dwellers. Under the pretext of respecting everybody’s life style, one
could provide the rationale for spatial separation as in the case of
the Mende in Conakry: “Les Mendés sont allés sur un autre point
former un village pour eux seuls, où il leur est loisible de danser et
de crier tout à leur aise” (Raimbault 1891, 142).
Beyond the imagined homogeneity of each group — White and
Natives — a chain of interwoven divisions characterized colonial
society. Such divisions were based mainly on ethnic definitions
(various “tribes,” Creoles versus Aborigines); however, such defin-
itions were not advanced for purposes of segregation.
The prevention of fires was also important, especially in
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6 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

Freetown, where most of the buildings were made of wood and

where frequent fires devastated the city. For example, in 1884, a
serious fire destroyed many houses and £32 000 worth of property,
leaving the inhabitants in a difficult position since most of them
were not insured.11 As a result, the government passed a law (no.10
of 1884) forbidding the use of flammable materials. This legisla-
tion, which subsequently served as a justification for social segre-
gation, was opposed by the population, who feared that “the
expulsion of the poor from the inheritance of their fathers to find
home in some far away corner because they cannot supersede their
[modest mansions] by others more gorgeous and superb” (Sierra
Leone Weekly News, no. 6, 11 October 1884).
Owners of existing buildings were given only about five
months to effect alterations, a situation denounced by the famous
lawyer, Samuel Lewis:
We should indeed like to see the city of Freetown filled with
regular constructed houses, covered with incombustible mate-
rials, such as would impede the progress of the raging flame in
a conflagration, but we deprecate the losses and inconve-
niences that will be sustained by a large number of persons who
would utterly be unable to meet the requirements of the
Ordinance especially at so early a date (Sierra Leone Weekly
News, no. 5, 4 October 1884).
According to the 1891 census, there were only 221 stone houses
out of more than five thousand (fewer than five percent) (Crooks
1972 [1903], 302). The only concession made by the government
was to further limit the area where the law was immediately imple-
mented: according to a new law passed in 1899, only some parts of
downtown were affected. Some people’s criticism was thus taken
into account; nevertheless, social segregation was reinforced
(Goerg 1997, 2: 233).
Officials also resorted to a mixture of fire prevention measures
and regulations relating to social standards in many French colo-
nial cities such as Conakry. Descriptions of building materials —
mainly the opposition between inflammable and non-flammable
materials and the stress on permanent structures — were used to
differentiate urban zones.
Last but not least, medical discoveries played an important role
in explaining the change in urban policy. In 1899, Dr. Ronald Ross
was able to prove that the vector of malaria was a mosquito
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Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 7

(Anopheles gambiae-Anopheles funestus). Initially a military

medical officer in the India service (1882-99), he was then
employed at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, from
which he led a medical expedition to Freetown in 1899 for his defin-
itive research.12 The following year, the Colonial Office sent a
second expedition, “the malaria commission,” whose conclusions
differed from Ross’ with regard to the remedies to be applied.
Similar findings proved that yellow fever, another major tropical
endemic illness, was also transmitted by a mosquito (Aedes
aegypti). Although these theories, as opposed to the previously
prevalent miasma theory, were not accepted at once, they had
major implications for urban colonial planning.
These factors combined to provide a rationale justifying some
kind of separation between different categories of urban dwellers,
mainly colonizers and colonized. They were used in a way that
fitted the general theory of colonization and white supremacy. The
new regulations were, indeed, chosen from among a set of possible
medical and urban policies, sometimes in the face of opposition
from colonial administrators or doctors.

Similar Justifications — Different Policies. Hill

Station and the Three Zones of Conakry: Two Types of
Urban Dualism
Drawing conclusions from the medical theory which blamed
mosquitoes for spreading malaria (1899), the Royal Society coun-
seled Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies
(1895-1903), as early as 1900: “Segregation from the native is at
present the only scheme for preventing malaria that offers the least
possibility (sic) of success in Africa.”13
Once the origin of malaria had been determined, it became a
choice between trying to get rid of all mosquitoes in the entire city
or creating a mosquito-free zone for privileged inhabitants. The
second solution, implying spatial segregation, was seen as easier
and quicker to apply despite the opposition of some governors or
medical officers.
This policy was promptly adopted in Sierra Leone, where Major
R. Ross had made his decisive discoveries, as the new official line
of thought.14 Residential segregation in British Africa took its inspi-
ration directly from India, where summer locations, known as
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8 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

“Hill Stations,” were built in the mountains high above the hot and
humid Ganges valley. There, only British people could live and
recreate an environment familiar to them (see King 1976, chapter
7). The sociopolitical context differed greatly: whereas Hindu and
Muslim Indians generally favoured the separation between them-
selves and the “impure” British for religious reasons, in Africa, the
people who had previously served as colonial auxiliaries opposed
the discrimination that was imposed upon them. In Freetown, this
was particularly true for the Krio who shared with the British the
same values and culture:
We view with disfavour the proposal to remove the Europeans
officials from unhealthy Freetown to the breezy hillsides, and
leave the African officials to the filthy and ill-kept surround-
ings of Freetown. If the chief Europeans were removed from
Freetown less likelihood there would be than ever of the sani-
tary condition of Freetown being improved. The African offi-
cial requires healthy surroundings as much as his European
brother, and His Excellency will see on reference to the
Registrar-General’s returns that the civilised and cultured
African when living in an unhealthy climate is as frail and
prone to disease as the European, and requires equal care.15
The Krios’ concern was, in part, to protect their own lives, as their
reference to the debate on their fragility and higher morbidity indi-
cated (Fyfe 1962; Goerg 1997, 1: 108; Spitzer 1974; Wyse 1989), but
they also sought to defend the general public interest. The
Freetown municipal council, as well as individuals, opposed the
government scheme, but the authorities did not take these argu-
ments into account when they no longer needed the Krios’ support,
and when the municipality — controlled by them — was the object
of extensive criticism (Goerg 1997, 1: 361). The Hill Station scheme
of 1901 explicitly excluded all non-Europeans, wealthy Africans as
well as Lebanese, from the new residential site. The colonial
authorities put forward the benefits not only for the civil servants,
but for the Colony itself:
It could enable the European to live longer and to work better
and more continuously by removing him from the heat and
malarious influences of Freetown to the cooler and purer
atmosphere on the summits of the adjacent hills.16
The decision to build a separate residential quarter was made
under Governor Cardew, less than three years after Ross’ medical
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Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 9

CJAS32.1x8• 1/29/99 5:23 PM Page 10

10 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

expedition. A variety of medical assumptions underlay the Hill

Station scheme, besides the benefits expected from the altitude
itself. Doctors assumed that mosquitoes bit primarily at night;
with this in mind, British officials could work in their downtown
offices without putting their health at great risk, provided they
spent the night in the hills. The hilly surroundings of Freetown
offered an ideal situation, combining a sufficient altitude (240
metres) and reasonable distance. Ross marvelled: “that people
should stew for a century in the dampest, hottest, and dirtiest parts
of a native town when they possess cool, airy and beautiful hills
close at hand to live upon.”17
About six miles separated the new Hill Station from old
Freetown (Map 1). This distance necessitated the construction of a
railway, which partly accounts for the high cost: a total of £86 000
was spent for Hill Station, of which £39 000 went to the railway and
£47 000 to the bungalows.18 The construction began at the end of
1902; two years later, the first twenty-one bungalows were finished
(Plate 1) and the Mountain Railway was inaugurated (and operated
until 1929). Governor Probyn (1904-10) refused to move to the new
settlement, but his successor, Merewether (1911-16), who favoured
the extension of Hill Station, asked for a Government residence to

Plate 1; Hill Station Bungalow (1990)

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Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 11

be built as well as new bungalows. His justification resorted to an

overtly racist argument:
One of the greatest annoyances to a resident at Government
House is noise.... The good people in this country do not seem
to know that noise is objectionable. They are born in noise, live
in noise, die in noise, and cannot realize that noise is unpleas-
ant to anybody.19
Unthinkable a few years earlier, this assertion provoked strong
reactions on the part of the population. For the first time, such an
opinion was not only openly expressed by His Majesty’s represen-
tative, but also printed by the Government. Beyond their “regret
and feelings of mortification, at so severe a criticism coming from
the Head of the Executive,” their sense of betrayal20 and their
protest of the continuing financial unbalance,21 the Sierra Leoneans
provided a very insightful analysis of the new relationship between
them and the British, as materialized by Hill Station:
It is much to be regretted that deeply desirous as the people of
this city are, uninterruptedly demonstrating their devotion as
liege subjects of His Majesty and thus maintain (sic) the ancient
reputation of the colony, they should, through no fault of their
own, find the relations between them and the present repre-
sentative of the King whom they so much love and revere,
becoming more and more distant daily. Social and, other func-
tions at which it had long been an unwritten law that the
Governor should, by virtue of his office, take the leading part,
His Excellency has had no time to attend.22
The expressed desire of escaping from noise, a by-product of indige-
nous dwellings, paralleled the determination to get away from the
“Aborigines” themselves.23 In but a few years, colonists had moved
from an ideology of self-government, which was evident from the
1860s to the early 1890s and resulted in a locally elected munici-
pality in 1895, to a position of triumphant imperialism.
At the same time, French administrators adopted a somewhat
different approach to the question of “races” and cities in West
Africa. Fundamentally influenced by assimilation theory — a
legacy of the 1789 and 1848 revolutions, even though it had been
officially abandoned with the enlargement of the Empire at the end
of the nineteenth century — French colonizers could not use an
overtly segregationist discourse to impose changes in colonial
cities. Therefore, they adopted a more subtle policy, legally based
CJAS32.1x8• 1/29/99 5:23 PM Page 12

12 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

not on race, but on living standards and cultural characteristics.

Most urban dwellers, except for the citizens of the Four Communes
of Senegal, who had some local government rights, were French
subjects submitted to the colonial will and to the status of “indigé-
nat.” Moreover, there was virtually no African middle class to
either support or oppose the Government policy. According to the
first land law passed in Conakry in January 1890, the settlers had to
comply with limited obligations (“cahier des charges”) in order to
be granted an urban plot: to clear the bush, to enclose the property,
and to start building within a year. Until 1901, no legal restriction
based on personal status or financial means was imposed on the
settlement of migrants in Conakry.
Some reshaping had nevertheless taken place after 1890, when
a general urban plan24 was imposed where two villages were previ-
ously located, the eponym Conakry in the northern part and
Boulbinet in the south. The old village of Conakry, mainly the
concession where its chief Mery Sekou Soumah lived, was moved
to the interior (east) in compliance with a general scheme provid-
ing for an administrative quarter in the capital city. At this time,
expressions like “centre européen” (1889)25 or “ville européenne,”
as opposed to “ville indigène” (1899)26 were already being used as if
they were obvious, although they did not have any firm theoretical
or legal basis. Despite this underlying assumption of difference, the
study of land attribution clearly shows the mixed aspect of
Conakry at a time when most of the concessions were concentrated
in the western part of the peninsula; houses inhabited by Africans,
many of whom came from the Four Communes as government
employees or craftsmen, were built next to plots occupied by
Europeans even if some spatial differentiation was already visible
with the existence of an administrative quarter, trading streets, and
the harbour district (Goerg 1997, 2: 93).
The absence of legal constraints to settle in Conakry was put to
an end in 1901-05, at the same time as Hill Station was being built
in Freetown. The timing is not pure coincidence, but derives
instead from the conjunction of factors described above. Locally,
the change in policy resulted both from the rapid growth of
Conakry, which made it important to control population move-
ments, and from the importance of sanitary concerns:
La question de savoir si, dans les villes coloniales, il convient
de chercher à séparer l’élément indigène de l’élément européen
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Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 13

peut donner lieu à de longues discussions. Notre avis sur ce

point est affirmatif; la santé de l’Européen exige un genre de vie,
des installations et des mesures d’hygiène dont les indigènes
ont l’avantage de pouvoir se passer.... La séparation des maisons
des Blancs et des cases indigènes tend d’ailleurs à se produire
naturellement. Il convient, à notre avis, de la favoriser.27
The policy adopted was based on gradations of financial means,
depending on the location of the land. First two, then three, zones
were distinguished in Conakry: the nearer to the seat of colonial
power, the more city dwellers had to spend on buildings. This new
legislation originated from a local, not a federal (meaning on the
level of the French West Africa Federation — AOF), initiative. The
first segregative law (14 September 1901) mentioned a central zone
around Government House (“le Palais du Gouverneur”), the
harbour, and the railway station, where the expenses ought to have
amounted to at least 7.5 F. per square metre and where the build-
ings were required to be made from durable materials. The legisla-
tion went into more detail in 1905 (23 September), dividing
Conakry in three zones of roughly the same area (see Map 2); the
required expenses ranged from 7.5 F. per square meter in the first
zone, to 4 F. in the second zone, and only 1.5 F. in the third zone.
The concessionaire was permitted two years, instead of one, to
complete the buildings which were to be “à l’européenne.”
Provided that a settler could comply with these new legal demands
and have the necessary literary skill to understand the complex
written French legislation as published in the Journal Officiel,
anybody could acquire a urban plot anywhere in Conakry.
But given the social and economic structure of the population,
it is quite clear that not many Africans had the means to settle in
the first zone. Moreover, the third zone was officially called the
“native zone,” a term which highlights the underlying assumption
of the law; although not officially phrased in terms of racial segre-
gation or legal exclusion, the implications were overtly those of
separation between the colonizers and most of the colonized.
Several years later, the legislation was slightly changed, but accord-
ing to the same logic: access to property remained strict in the so-
called “central zone” (first zone), but was made easier on the
periphery, where only a temporary residence permit could be
acquired (“permis d’occupation précaire,” law of 21 February
1911). Finally, a law combining minimal expenses (10 F. per square
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14 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

metre, except in the third zone, plus the cost of the procedure), the
quality of the buildings, and sanitary requirements recapitulated
the policy in Conakry (law of 13 April 1912 and 9 October 1912).
If conclusions are drawn only from the official framing of the
policies, the impression would be one of sharp contrast between
French and British approaches. In fact, however, one must take a
closer look to understand how these policies affected the cities and
the people.

Beyond General Theories: British Intransigence versus

French Subtlety?
If one really tries to measure the effectiveness of segregation poli-
CJAS32.1x8• 1/29/99 5:23 PM Page 15

Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 15

cies in Freetown, one can ask different sets of questions: on the

sanitation level, was Hill Station a mosquito-free enclave and the
all-purpose answer to medical problems in the tropics? Regarding
the protection of European lives, what percentage of expatriates —
especially of civil servants — was actually affected by the new
policy? Moreover, was Hill Station really an African-free zone?
Whereas the first question calls for a nuanced answer (the general
improvement in health resulted from various factors at the same
period), the second one deals precisely with the definition of segre-
gation in English colonies. Having found the explanation for the
transmission of malaria, British policy-makers decided to do their
best to protect European lives by segregating the colonizers, mainly
senior officials, from the colonized. To what extent did Freetown
become a segregated city in the full sense of the word? Was the
construction of Hill Station primarily a symbolic measure to
clearly mark the difference between the rulers and the ruled?
Living standards in a colonial context implied the possibility of
having easy access to servants. How would this fundamental rule
coexist with the idea of segregation? Contemporary medical theo-
ries provided some justification: African adults were held to be
potentially less dangerous than children, through whom contami-
nation was thought to be most common. From this followed the
exclusion of families from Hill Station and the preservation of a
village-free zone around it. With this in mind, the government
purchased a buffer zone.28 Basing their beliefs on the assumption
that mosquitoes only bit at night, Europeans thought that they
could work in anopheles-infected Freetown and go up to the hills
after work; there, only one, then two, servants per household were
allowed to spend the night, to be ready to serve their master before
the arrival of the first train:29
Hill Station in Sierra Leone was planned and designed as a
fortress against the mosquito.... The township is intended for
European residents only, and this principle of segregation is
carried out as far as practicable; thus, there are no houses with
native children, and each resident has to comply with the
Government rule that no more than one native servant is to
sleep on the premises.30
Long discussions took place between the government and the
medical authorities, the latter of whom criticized the inconsis-
tency of half-measures: whereas the first bungalows were opened in
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16 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

1904, nothing was planned at this time for the sanitary needs
(showers or toilets) of the servants. The following year, only two
collective latrines were built for them; one may infer from their
scarcity and distance from the residences that they were only irreg-
ularly used.31 This important lack is fundamentally incompatible
with all the medical theories put forward to justify the building of
a segregated residential zone. But this was not the only restriction
on the effectiveness of the segregated settlement.
A comparison between the number of bungalows in Hill
Station and the number of Europeans remaining in Freetown shows
the relatively limited size of Hill Station and highlights its ideo-
logical dimension. This quarter remained restricted to civil
servants, only a small portion of whom, however, were able to actu-
ally live on the hills — far from the miasma, from an African popu-
lation viewed as potentially dangerous, from the numerous insects,
and from the noises of the city. While the administration provided
only for the lodging of highly ranked civil servants, mainly heads of
departments, it was never able to attract private investors. In the
government plan, the administration’s initiative should have been
followed by the construction of bungalows by trading companies
and entrepreneurs. Governor King-Harman had envisioned as
many as a hundred bungalows instead of about thirty.32 For several
reasons, the settlement was not attractive to private interests: first,
it was too far away from Freetown and too dependent on the rail-
way for traders who needed to stay near their patrons and stock;33
and second, the general sanitary condition of Freetown improved,
and although medical officers really tried to support the idea that
people’s health was much better in the hills, nobody was convinced
that it was really worth the trouble and the expense.34 The govern-
ment and medical officers accused the British trading companies in
Sierra Leone of putting self-interest first. According to F. Smith, a
British medical officer who was a member of a mission which
visited the three cities,
The small white population is either official or is composed of
traders or factory agents ... [who] are mere employés of firms
whose members live in Europe. The controllers of the purse
strings are out of danger of malaria (Smith 1905).
Despite the government’s desire and the facilities given by the
administration, only a few private companies decided to move to
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Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 17

the hills: Elder Dempster built a bungalow in 1916 and, in 1919,

Pickering & Berthoud Ltd. asked for some land.35 The result was
that only a very small portion of the Europeans who were settled in
Freetown actually lived in Hill Station. The total number of resi-
dents, including family members, went from about thirty (includ-
ing fourteen women) in 1907 to fifty-four in 1909 and approximately
ninety in 1911. This amounted to sixteen percent of the 558
Europeans living in Freetown at this time.36 Because of the war, the
number of residents fell to seventy-four in 1914: forty-eight civil
servants (sixty-five percent), four military, two missionaries, and
twenty non-officials (including wives). The situation was then
described as satisfactory, although ten officials (twenty percent)
had suffered from malaria.37 Many residents stayed in Hill Station
only temporarily (for example, fifty-five percent in 1909);38 they
were mainly civil servants from the Protectorate who came to
regain their health. It is difficult to determine precisely the
percentage of Europeans living at Hill Station because of the
incomplete and vague nature of statistics and their wide monthly
fluctuations; nevertheless, one can still draw interesting conclu-
sions. The actual data are partial: for the civil servants alone, The
Annual Report for 1908 (8) mentions twenty-three out of a maxi-
mum of one hundred in Freetown, which implies that fewer than a
third lived in the exclusive settlement.
With the development of colonial and economic interests, the
total number of Europeans coming to Sierra Leone increased
greatly, but only a small proportion lived in the exclusive settle-
ment of Hill Station, at the most between ten and fifteen percent.
Hill Station was supplemented by the building in 1902 of another
segregated quarter, formed of three bungalows for the railway offi-
cials, “as far removed as possible from native dwellings, at Cline
Town, on the outskirts of Freetown.”39 The idea of an “intermedi-
ate Hill Station” was also suggested, but given up for financial
reasons.40 Any real improvement in downtown Freetown was not
considered since the colonial office could not “regard the middle of
Freetown as a suitable site.”41
The limited number of segregated Europeans contradicts the
general assumption that most Europeans benefited from a segre-
gated environment as Mary Gaunt (1912, 51), among others,
writes.42 While travellers often praised the advantages of Hill
Station, they acknowledged that they stayed downtown because it
CJAS32.1x8• 1/29/99 5:23 PM Page 18

18 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

was more convenient. The testimony of F.W.H. Migeod (1926, 8) is

particularly interesting. Although he affirms that in 1898, when he
first came to Freetown, “there was [then] no hill station, and the
place was a death-trap,” this did not prevent him from staying
without a mosquito net at the City Hotel in 1924 because access to
Hill Station was not easy.43
Despite the government’s expenses and efforts, Hill Station
never became a mosquito-free paradise nor a perfect model for a
healthy environment, for it had its negative counterparts as
summarized in this humorous note written by a Krio:
Hill Station
We learn that so cold and damp are the bungalows at Hill
Station, that fires have to be lit in them for the comfort of the
occupants. It seems then, that segregation has its comforts, as
well as its discomforts (Colony and Provincial Reporter, no.
101, 9 August 1913).
These obvious limitations did not call into question the princi-
ple of segregation and the existence of Hill Station since other
fundamental intentions justified this policy: the creation of a
specific quarter for the community of expatriate administrators,
where spatial distance would give concrete form to the social abyss
existing from then on between colonizers and colonized. Moreover,
the health benefits supposedly drawn from Hill Station did not
push the government to change its leave policy, usually six months
every fifteen or eighteen months. The Sierra Leoneans called for a
reform on this issue because the situation was seen to be unjust and
expensive for the Colony, whose budget came mainly from their
taxes.44 Some went so far as to state that one would see “all the offi-
cers swarming back to Freetown to reside if the leave system were
to be changed,”45 that is, if the number of vacation months was
diminished.
While British colonies applied an overtly racist housing policy
which concerned only a small portion of the expatriate community
in Freetown for whom a very special environment was created,
French authorities chose a different approach to creating attractive
and healthy conditions for Europeans in colonial cities. The new
policy, based strictly on financial parameters without any reference
to “race” or civic status, nevertheless had major consequences for
the distribution of the population. From 1890 to the passing of the
law in 1901, a minimum of 250 town lots were attributed in
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Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 19

Conakry, but, at this stage of urban growth, only ten were located
beyond the Fourth Boulevard (in what would become the second
and the third zone); the population was then distributed according
to occupational specialization — around the markets, the harbour,
or the administrative buildings. Most of these 250 owners were
Europeans, but there were also some Africans, mainly traders. After
1901, my analysis refers to the three zones as defined in 1905, using
family names to trace change.
This method, however, leaves room for uncertainty (whence
the idea of “minimum”) and underscores the complexity of identi-
ties.46 For example, old mulatto families from St-Louis, such as the
Turpin, defined themselves as European and are included in this
category. The percentage of Europeans dominant in the first zone of
Conakry diminishes drastically in the second and third zone: the
Europeans were attributed almost sixty percent of the new town
lots in the period 1902-13 (39 out of 67), but only about nineteen
percent in the second zone (21 out of 110), and 11 percent in the
third (4 out of 37).
Because of the demands of the new laws, the total number of
town lots decreased through the years. Most of the Europeans (indi-
viduals or firms) who settled down in Conakry did so at the turn of
the twentieth century, a fact which explains why the number of
new town lots in the first zone was limited later on, but mostly
monopolized by the Europeans. The second and third zone, which
together concentrated most of the newly attributed lots, were
inhabited mainly by Africans. But although the Europeans acquired
about sixty-nine percent of the town lots in 1902-05, as well as forty
percent in 1906-13 in the first zone — while remaining a small
demographic minority — several Africans still lived there and
continued to purchase new lots despite the financial demands.
They were mainly government employees, traders, and entrepre-
neurs, such as Boubou Sow, the first nominated African member of
the city council, or Ibrahima Nabbie, who purchased seven town
lots, mainly in the second zone, but also a large one in the first zone
as late as 1912. Conversely, a few Europeans chose to live in the
second and third zone, generally near the railway station or the
Catholic mission (Map 2).
The policy, which was based on financial parameters, demon-
strates an obvious flexibility in the location of the inhabitants in
Conakry within a socially segregated frame. The situation,
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20 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

however, changed fundamentally in 1912 when a new law (9

October) introduced the ambiguous notion of “reserved” town lots
for natives, which implied, in fact, their exclusion from other
places. This legislation displayed an openly racial tone, barring free
access by Africans to the white city and leaving ultimate control to
the administration:
Dans le cas où la ville Européenne prendrait de l’extension, il a
été prévu que, seuls les terrains sis au-delà du 8ème bd pourront
être attribués à titre définitif à des conditions accessibles aux
indigènes (construction de cases solidement bâties d’une
valeur de 2 F. par m2 concédé). En ce qui concerne les lots des
quartiers de Boulbineh et de Sanderval, plus rapprochés du
centre Européen, les concessionnaires devront, s’ils désirent
obtenir des titres définitifs, remplir les obligations prescrites
par l’arrêté du 13-4-1912 (construction à l’Européenne d’une
valeur de 10 F. par m2 concédé au minimum).47
Though not strictly applied, this law became a useful legal
weapon for the administration every time it needed a piece of land
in a city where Africans greatly outnumbered Europeans (about
10 000 to 15 000, as opposed to a maximum of 500 in 1912).
Changes in the distribution of city dwellers were not the only
consequences of the new policy. It had, in fact, much broader,
though unarticulated, implications. Without providing any theo-
retical justification, the policy implied an opposition between two
contrasting urban styles in the city: one directly copying European
standards, characterized by hygiene and order, the other more or
less left to African initiatives. The new segregation measures were
obviously part of a more general policy imposing an enforced social
control on the growing population of Conakry, which had increased
from a few hundred in the 1880s to about ten thousand officially
registered people at the beginning of the twentieth century.
This policy was implemented by diverse means. Some harmful
activities which consumed space were transferred during the same
period far from the heart of the city (see Map 2). This was the case
for the new hospital built in 1899-1902 and located at the end of
Sixth Avenue, for the new military camp (“camp des tirailleurs,”
from the name given by the French to the African soldiers), and for
the new jail, the latter two of which were built in the third zone. A
growing prisoner population rendered the old jail obsolete, provid-
ing an excuse to construct a new building, away from the European
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Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 21

quarter:
La construction, édifiée d’une façon sommaire de 1892 à 1896,
pour servir de prison à Conakry, étant devenue, dans ces
dernières années, absolument insuffisante pour recevoir les
prisonniers, au nombre d’une centaine; d’un autre côté, l’in-
stallation se trouvant aujourd’hui au milieu du quartier
européen, l’Administration a décidé de reconstruire une
nouvelle prison dans un quartier plus retiré et suivant un plan
d’ensemble bien arrêté.48
Other measures helped to establish the image of a “white city.”
Urban infrastructures, considered part of the definition of urban
life, were developed in the first zone, thereby accentuating the
contrast between this quarter and the rest of the town. These
included sewage (private toilets versus collective latrines), garbage
disposal, street cleaning, paving and then tarring of streets, water
supply (indoor running water versus public standpipes), and public
gardens. While official discourse always encouraged plans to
extend these infrastructures to other parts of Conakry, such plans
failed to materialize for financial reasons.
Finally, the architectural style clearly marked a contrast
between the residential and administrative part of the city and the
less privileged quarters. By enforcing the use of durable building
materials for safety reasons, the administration was able to control
the image of the city. Thatched roofs were singled out as being
highly flammable and were forbidden early in the first zone. Even
more important were the numerous government structures built in
Conakry before the First World War, the administration being the
main real estate developer. They gave central Conakry its specific
look, as opposed to the so-called African neighbourhoods (Goerg
1993).

Development and Meanings of Segregation Policies

Though the French and the British both adopted some form of
segregation, the way in which it was applied differed, opposing a
general land policy in Conakry versus the building of a distinct
settlement in Freetown. The same logic (centre/periphery)
prevailed, but in a different way, characterized by an apparent para-
dox. Whereas segregation theory was more subtle in Conakry,
moderated by both a concern for human rights and humanist ideol-
CJAS32.1x8• 1/29/99 5:23 PM Page 22

22 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

ogy, in reality, the contrast between neighbourhoods was more visi-

ble, given the greater number of Europeans. The segregated and
distant settlement of Hill Station only harboured a small minority
of Europeans, while, in Conakry, they occupied a large district,
encompassing almost one third of the city. It was not the exclusive
residence of Europeans, as this district concentrated administrative
and economic functions, as well as urban services deemed essential
for expatriates.
The impact of an urban policy that was initially justified by
medical concerns ended up affecting more people in Conakry than
in Freetown and more radically redefining European/African resi-
dential patterns. Without openly barring well-to-do Africans’
access to any part of Conakry until late (1912), and even then only
partially, it established a clear visual division in the city, obvious to
any visitor. This form of social segregation, best characterized as
urban dualism, typified all French colonial cities.
In both cities, the sanitary justification of segregation became
progressively less important than more general concepts such as
comfort, quiet, or aesthetics:
Hill Station is a township designed exclusively for Europeans.
The Mountain Railway gives access to the Station, while a pure
water supply, beautiful scenery, and provision for tennis and
other games enable the residents to live under pleasant and
healthy conditions.49
The mental health benefits, access to leisure, and socially
balanced life were stressed, as opposed to aspects of life in the city:
Up on the hills the spirits are buoyant, but all that exhilaration
of feeling and enjoyment amid the wild natural charms of the
mountains is unknown to the unfortunate European who
rarely leaves Freetown, but plods on wearily in the fetid atmos-
phere of the overcrowded city, with its unsanitary conditions
and unsavoury odours, with the deadly old limpness and
lethargy always weighing him down (Alldridge 1910, 109).50
From the First World War on, the segregationist discourse
became permanent and unquestioned (Goerg 1995b), with segrega-
tion being referred to as self-evident. But its initial justification —
sanitary and health reasons, with their practical inconsistencies —
was conveniently forgotten. The shift from a medical justification
(the anopheles mosquito) to political motivations (separation from
the colonized, whatever their status or culture), took a mere
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Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 23

decade.
Medical justifications, having played their role in the estab-
lishment of urban segregation, were now replaced by arguments of
another nature. As John Cell asserts, “[s]egregation was not a key
word in the vocabulary of race relations among English-speaking
peoples in the nineteenth century” (1986, 307), but it became so in
the following century. Of course, the realities of segregation were
older, but only with the triumph of imperialism and the reign of
“scientific” racism was its theory clearly articulated and popular-
ized.
Both policies — that of building an exclusive but small settle-
ment, as well as that of favouring a section of the city and commu-
nity — implied high expenses for a limited number of people,
whereas the bulk of town dwellers did not have the access to the
sanitary equipment which would have been the best protection
against medical hazards. Financial constraints were emphasized in
Freetown:
Inasmuch as the Government has already incurred very great
expense in providing a segregation town for Europeans, and a
railway thereto, a railway which will probably never pay, it
seems rather early to ask it to plunge into debt by adopting
extravagant schemes, in order to bring about doubtful benefit
to the Negro population which remains in the town. The Coast
towns are poor. The Negro is not keen on taxing himself for
problematical blessings to posterity (Smith 1905).
These budgetary priorities were not surprising in a colonial
context. In different ways, both colonizers put an emphasis on
European health, although they took some measures to improve
the general sanitary state of cities. Considered a priority at the end
of the nineteenth century, when Europeans were obsessed with
tropical fevers, unknown diseases, and high mortality rates, sanita-
tion became less of a concern once basic infrastructures had been
made available to the expatriates. Segregation, be it racially or
socially based, then served a different purpose: to affirm and give
concrete expression to the colonial domination, the “mainmise
coloniale.”
Spatial organization, or at least the official discourse on this
issue, reflected the changing social and racial categories formulated
by colonial ideology. Hill Station was part of an attempt to rethink
Freetown’s spatial organization and general administrative policy
CJAS32.1x8• 1/29/99 5:23 PM Page 24

24 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

and to relocate some groups at a time when it was crucial to differ-

entiate strictly between rulers and subjects. The main victims of
this overtly discriminating policy were the “Creoles” (a new term
imposed more or less successfully in the late nineteenth century
(Georg 1987), whose status among the non-rulers was thereby made
clearer. Their exclusion from Hill Station matched their exclusion
from the administration of the Protectorate (annexed in 1896), from
the West African Medical Service instituted in 1902, and from the
highest civil servant positions. At the same time, their economic
base was threatened by the loss of rents in downtown Freetown and
by the growing importance of Lebanese traders.51
While drawing a clear line between the various sociopolitical
groups, these segregative policies added a new dimension to the
symbolic mapping of both cities, with the superimposition of
different territories. In Freetown, one can distinguish various
spheres of a different nature: political (headmanship for “tribes,”
municipality for the “Krio,” colonial power for everyone), residen-
tial (exclusive Hill Station, the various ethnic settlements, mixed
downtown), economic (the docks and the harbour, the main
markets, the commercial quarter), and religious (the different
mosques with their Krio or aboriginal clientele, the anglican cathe-
dral, and the numerous churches of different denominations).
Those territories, symbolic or real, overlapped with a strong
nucleus, blurred frontiers, and no man’s lands.
In Conakry, where official urban policy explicitly opposed
those city-dwellers who could afford the building expenses to the
ones who could not, other levels of colonial discourse differentiated
colonizers and colonized — by means of the legal distinction
between citizens (including the “Originaires” from the Four
Communes of Senegal) and subjects (mainly the Fulani, Susu or
Baga, and other ethnic affiliations). These different criteria of cate-
gorization provided for a wide range of combinations depending on
specific social context. However, the main opposition in the spatial
organization of the capital city was indeed between Europeans and
Africans. Therefore, even if the initial discourse on hygienism and
urbanism seemed to be more open in francophone cities, the
distinction between “la ville blanche” (the white city) and the
African quarters was more visible than in British colonial cities,
where the colonial element was also demographically more
discrete.
CJAS32.1x8• 1/29/99 5:23 PM Page 25

Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 25

Conclusion
Segregation measures, whatever shape they took, were part of a
more general change in imperialism at the turn of the twentieth
century, a turn that included the theorization of previously empir-
ical policies or a strict separation of roles, thus excluding some
former allies from administrative power. These theoretical devel-
opments and the practical policies which devolved from them
mark an important phase in colonization. The fact that they were
never fully implemented,52 once their basic principles were
proclaimed, does not minimize their meaning and impact.
Moreover, the internal contradictions of segregation discourse and
practice — for the French between segregation and the official egal-
itarian discourse or for the French and British alike in regard to
hygienic rules — were not seen as a major obstacle to their adop-
tion.
What was, indeed, fundamental was the general twist in colo-
nial theory. Segregation implied not only a change in rhetoric, but
also concrete measures which had long-term consequences, includ-
ing drastic changes in social and family life. Hill Station and the
existence of a European “healthy quarter” made it possible for civil
servants to bring their wives and, to a lesser extent, children along.
This exclusive lifestyle put to an end decades of inter-”racial”
intermingling and personal relationships on various levels; it also
partially accounts for the reappraisal of mixed-raced people and a
new anthropological and legal discourse on “métissage” in fran-
cophone colonies.
While these two cities have their particular history and
peoples, they are nevertheless representative of more general colo-
nial policies. The model of a separate settlement for Europeans is
not limited to Freetown, but was a common feature elsewhere in
the British Empire (Government Hill at Ibadan, Ikoyi residential
section on Lagos Island, St Mary’s Cape at Bathurst). By contrast,
the French method of separating groups according to financial
demands and through the legal concept of “lotissement” is applied
in other cities such as Dakar or Abidjan. The period preceding the
First World War gave colonial cities their definitive look: despite
what seems to be a radical theoretical opposition between the
French and the British approaches, most cities in Africa became
characterized by a sharp contrast between the “white city” and the
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26 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

African districts or so-called “villages.” This dualism, expressed

basically through legislation over access to land but also through
architectural regulations and the distribution of urban services,
became the main element in the definition of colonial cities. At the
same time, it symbolized colonial domination and gave a concrete
aspect to the duality of colonial society by creating a visual
distance between the colonizers and the colonized.

Notes
1
This article is a contribution to the subject of segregation itself. See, also,
Betts (1971), Cell (1986), Cohen (1982), Curtin (1985), Frenkel and Western
(1988), Swanson (1977).
2
He continues: “The French aim was primarily to protect African lives and
not European ones.” They justified this by a concern for manpower and
population growth, which a policy of segregation would have contradicted.
3
Describing Sierra Leone, the Times (17 November 1827, cited by Fyfe
1962, 165) refers to the costly grave for British subjects, whereas some
decades later, R. Burton (1863, 233) calls it “the `Red Grave,’ as this portion
of the great cemetery of the Anglo-Saxon race is called.”
4
The material for this article is taken from my Thèse d’Etat (Université de
Paris 7, 1996) subsequently published (Georg 1997) where a detailed analy-
sis of colonial urbanism is presented.
5
The Creole, or Krio, were strong supporters of British imperialism while
defending their own interests. On the terminology, see Goerg (1995a) and
Wyse (1989).
6
“My view of things,” Sierra Leone Weekly News, no.20, 15 January 1887.
7
The Sierra Leone press is an important source for these festivities as it
gives the list of participants, the program (songs and menus), as well as
extracts of speeches.
8
For Grand Bassam, see Domergue-Cloarec (1986, 95).
9
The inhabitants of these cities (Saint-Louis, Gorée, Dakar, and Rufisque)
were granted French citizenship and political rights in the nineteenth
century, when the assimilation theory was predominant (election of a
deputy to the French National Assembly in 1848, elected municipalities in
the 1870s/1880s).
10
For the Creole in Sierra Leone, see Goerg (1997, 1: 108).
11
West African Reporter, no.311, 16 April 1884; The Watchman, no.6, 24
April 1884; Freetown Express, no.16, 4 April 1884; Methodist Herald,
no.14, 25 April 1884; no.15, 9 May 1884; and no.7, 14 January 1885.
12
Ross published his Memoirs in 1923. He was awarded the Nobel prize in
1902. See, also, along with the studies on segregation, Curtin (1989),
Dumett (1968), Harrison (1978).
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Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 27

13
Quoted in Gale 1980, 496. Stephens-Christophers to Malaria
Investigating Committee, 20 December 1900 (Public Record Office [PRO],
Colonial Office [CO] 855/7).
14
Hill Station has been extensively studied; the best and most recent
synthesis is Frenkel and Western (1988).
15
“The Governor and the Citizens of Freetown,” Sierra Leone Weekly
News, no.17, 22 December 1900.
16
PRO, CO 267/452 no.14229, Cardew to Chamberlain, 23 April 1900.
17
Ross to A.L. Jones, Liverpool Courier 16 April 1902 (enclosed in PRO, CO
267/463 no.19930).
18
Annual Report for 1908, 3. The expenses were paid by the Colony itself
with money lent by the CO.
19
Legislative Council of 29 November 1912, published in the Sierra Leone
Royal Gazette, 1 February 1913, and reproduced in The Colony and
Provincial Reporter, no.79, 8 March 1913.
20
“the Governor who is sent to govern them should reside at Freetown
amongst them and not at the bush five to six miles away,” “The New
Government House,” The Colony and Provincial Reporter, no.78, 1 March
1913.
21
“Will the Government continue to find money for its expensive
Bungalows, and endanger the lives of the members of the community by
causing them to fall into pits and ditches in the middle of the streets at
night?” (“The Development of the City of Freetown,” Sierra Leone Weekly
News, no.26, 24 February 1912).
22
“A Mortified Community,” The Colony and Provincial Reporter, no.76,
15 February 1913.
23
To justify his asking for a residence at Hill Station, Merewether argued
that, “Government House was near native dwellings.” (PRO, CO 267/532
no.25089, Merewether to Harcourt, 19 July 1911).
24
Called “plan cadastral et projet d’alignement de la ville de Conakry,”
1890, under acting governor Cerisier; see Archives Nationales, Section
Outre-Mer (ANSOM) (previously at Paris, now at Aix-en-Provence) /
Centre d’Archives d’Outre-Mer (CAOM), Guinée XII, d. 3. It was conceived
by F. Couteau, from St-Louis in Senegal, with the aid of L. Mouth who was
subsequently in charge of its implementation.
25
ANSOM, Guinée XII, d. 1, Gouvernor of Senegal to engineer Couteau, 16
September 1889: “préparer un projet d’alignement en prévision de la
formation d’un centre européen sur ce point devenu siège du gouverne-
ment des Rivières du Sud.”
26
ANS, 2 G 1/40, Rapport d’ensemble (General Report), 1899, p. 111.
27
ANSOM, Public Works, c.147, d.4, Fontaneilles, engineer, 30 October
1901: 35.
28
See the report of Drs. Christophers and Stephens on “Segregation,”
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28 cjas / rcea 32:1 1998

stressing the importance of “the removal from the neighbourhood of the

infected native,” as quoted in PRO, CO 267/454 no.35298, Cardew to
Chamberlain, 10 October 1900.
29
The fares for the railway led to extra expenses for the residents of Hill
Station about which they complained; PRO, CO 267/497 no.37761, Probyn
to Elgin, 11 October 1907.
30
Annual Report for 1908, 6/7)
31
Report of the Director of Public Works Copland, 19 September 1902,
PRO, CO 267/464 no.42640 (mentions the projected “Servant Earth
Closet”).
32
PRO, CO 267/458 no.21418, King-Harman to Chamberlain, 7 June 1901.
33
According to Philip Lemberg, an important German business man and
long-term resident in Freetown (of which he became mayor), no trader
wants to build at Hill Station and the Europeans who live there would like
to come back downtown (Sierra Leone Weekly News, no.21, 19 January
and no.24, 9 February 1907). “It was anticipated that the Merchants would
shortly be erecting bungalows at Hill Station when the Tennis Club would
be open to those wishing to become members” (Sierra Leone Weekly
News, no.20, 12 January 1907). The Legislative Council (meeting of 26
November 1906) voted a budget of £100 for that purpose, but in vain.
34
Medical Report for 1907 by Dr. Forde, including a letter of the Chamber
of Commerce of Manchester to the Secretary of State, 30 November 1908
and Forde’s answer from the 23 December 1908, characterized by a moral
bias: “The clerical staff naturally objects to residing at Hill Station where
they would be under some restraint and could not indulge in the same free
and easy life as in Freetown (Sierra Leone National Archives (SLNA, MP
no.2387 de 1908).
35
SLNA, LM (local matters) no.108 of 1919, Application for land at Hill
Station.
36
Medical Report for 1907 by Dr. Forde, SLNA, MP no.2387 for 1908;
Medical Report for 1910 by Dr. Forde, PRO, CO 267/533 no.30363; Medical
Report for 1911 by Dr. Forde, PRO, CO 267/541 no.23709; Medical Report
for 1913 by Dr. Rice, PRO, CO 267/559 no.35065.
37
Medical Report for 1914 by Dr. Rice, PRO, CO 267/566 no.28093 (p. 9).
38
Medical Report for 1909 by Dr. Forde, SLNA.
39
Medical Officer Forde, 23 December 1908, to the Under-Secretary of
State (in SLNA, Minute Papers, no.2387 of 1908).
40
PRO, CO 267/524 no.28675, Probyn to Crewe, 30 August 1910; /525
no.31711, 1 October 1910; and /530 no.13408, 7 April 1911.
41
Minutes of CO, 26 September 1913 in PRO, CO 267/551 no.32857,
governor to Harcourt, 8 September 1913.
42
“They have wisely built their bungalows on the healthier hillsides.”
43
See also Newland 1969, 19. The author spent his time in Freetown itself,
as it was comfortable enough for a short stay.
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Goerg: From Hill Station to Downtown Conakry 29

44
“The Bungalows and the Leave System,” Sierra Leone Weekly News,
no.13, 26 November 1904.
45
“The Segregation Scheme,” Sierra Leone Weekly News, no.42, 17 June
1905 and no.30, 27 March 1909.
46
Supplemented by other sources when available.
47
ANS, 9 E 12, Conseil d’administration (advisory board), 9 October 1912.
48
ANS, 2 G 2/9 rapport d’ensemble, 1902: 49/51.
49
Annual Report for 1908, 6-7.
50
This administrator describes the care of the gardens and the variety of
flowers combining European (roses, lillies) and exotic species (hibiscus,
bougainvillea): “Each bungalow stands on its own ground, a liberal space
being allotted for the garden. The residents take a keen interest in garden-
ing. Although so new and on rocky grounds, these hill-tops garden are
already flourishing” (107). He regrets that the trading community had not
followed the government example.
51
This rivalry culminated in the 1919 Freetown riots. See Wyse (1979).
52
The best example is the way very radical laws passed by Lugard in
Nigeria were given up after he left in 1919.

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