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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Contesting Commercial Space in Freetown, 1860-1930: Traders, Merchants, and Officials
Author:Howard, Allen M.ISNI
Year:2003
Periodical:Canadian Journal of African Studies
Volume:37
Issue:2-3
Pages:236-268
Language:English
Geographic terms:Sierra Leone
Great Britain
Subjects:colonialism
mercantile history
Development and Technology
Economics and Trade
Urbanization and Migration
History and Exploration
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/4107239
Abstract:From the 1860s to 1930, a period of great expansion in import-export trade in Sierra Leone, African traders, foreign-owned firms and the colonial State struggled over Freetown's commercial space. Justifying their claims, they put forward different ideas about use rights and the nature of public and private space, but most parties asserted notions of fair and free trade to back their positions. Alignments were complex and changed over time. Foreign firms did not necessarily join together against African traders, nor did colonial authorities automatically support the programmes of expatriate business owners and managers. This article focuses on three sectors - the cattle trade, the traffic in other urban necessities, and certain components of the import-export trade - that illustrate different aspects of spatial contestation. The impacts of imperialism, Atlantic capitalism, population growth, and other changes in Freetown are assessed by comparing two time periods: the 1860s through the 1880s and the 1910s through the 1920s. In the period from 1860 to the 1920s, Freetown became a colonial capital, and imperial rule and industrial capital brought fundamental technological and economic changes that altered the spatial structure of the city and its hinterland. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in French. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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