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“Portuguese” Architecture and Luso-African Identity in Senegambia and Guinea, 1730–1890

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Peter Mark
Peter Mark*
Affiliation:
Wesleyan University
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Extract

Along the West African coast and in the immediate hinterland from the Gambia River to Sierra Leone in the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century, a region of extensive long-distance trade, the buildings people lived in, as well as the physical layout of their communities, served as important elements in the articulation of their cultural identity. At the same time, architecture reflected contact between the various populations of the region. These groups included a small number of Portuguese and a somewhat larger population of several thousand Luso-Africans, whose commercial role as traders, declining by the late eighteenth century, was limited essentially to the navigable lower reaches of coastal rivers and waterways.

These Luso-Africans, faced by Europeans who contested their efforts to define themselves as a group, were gradually marginalized and ultimately subsumed into the neighboring coastal populations, leaving only traces of their distinctive culture. Among the elements that comprised the Luso-African cultural legacy were houses built in “Portuguese” style: rectangular structures with whitewashed exteriors and a vestibule or a porch. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, these houses helped to define the Luso-African community.

The local African populations of West Atlantic-speakers (Floups, Bagnuns, Bijogos, and Papels) and, further down the coast, Susus, Temnes and Bulloms, were for the most part organized into small-scale, decentralized societies. Mande-speaking peoples inhabited the small states of the lower Gambia and the more important state of Kaabu in Guinea-Bissau; they, together with ‘juula’ merchants, comprised the western outriders of the Mande diaspora. Further east, in the newly-established Islamic state of Fuuta Jaloo (Futa Jalon), lived the Fulbe.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 23 , January 1996 , pp. 179 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1996

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References

Notes

1. In the Mande heartland, Soninké and Saracollé are sometimes used synonymously, but in the lower Gambia, Soninke referred to communities of non-Muslim Mandinkas. South of the Gambia, in the Casamance, the term Soninké is used among Jola-speakers to refer to any non-Muslims, including Jolas (Floups).

2. See Hecquard, Hyacinthe, Voyage sur la côte et dans l'intérieur de l'Afrique occidentale (Paris, 1855), 202ff.Google Scholar

3. Compare, for example, the rather pejorative “les voies de communication dans l'intérieur des villages sont très étroites: le nom de rue ne leur convient pas” to the purely descriptive “les cases ont diverses formes: la plus commune est la forme cylindrique…en paille ou en terre sechée; il y a aussi la case parallelipédique, entièrement construite en terre;” Raffenel, Anne, Nouveau voyage dans le pays des Nègres (Paris, 1856), 48–49.Google Scholar

4. Bertrand-Bocandé, Emmanuel, “Notes sur la Guinée-Portugaise ou Sénégambie méridionale,” Bulletin de la Société de Géographie (mai-juin 1849), 265–350Google Scholar; (Juillet), 57-93. Bertrand-Bocandé, ibid., 324, wrote: “Trop souvent on a négligé un moyen qui servirait beaucoup à guider ceux qui consacrent leurs travaux à des recherches sur les origines des peuples: c'est de rapporter, outre les noms des nations et des villages, ceux des…families.”

5. The original art works are located in the Frobenius-Institut (Goethe Universität), Bilder Archiv 2445-66. I wish to thank the staff of the Institute, especially the Acting Director Siegfried Seyfarth and the photographer Peter Steigerwald for making the illustrations available to me and for permitting their photographic reproduction for research purposes. Elsewhere I have published several of Hecquard's works, including the views of Timbo. See Mark, Peter, “Hyacinthe Hecquard's Drawings and Watercolors from Grand Bassam, the Futa Jalon and the Casamance: a Source for Mid-Nineteenth Century West African History,” Paideuma, 36 (1990), 173–84.Google Scholar

6. Portugal retained its trading towns and garrisons at Bissau, Cacheu, and Ziguinchor. The economic importance, particularly of the latter two stations, declined during the eighteenth century. On the Portuguese and Luso-Africans see Brooks, George, Landlords and Strangers, Ecology, Society and Trade in Western Africa, 1000-1630 (Boulder, 1993).Google Scholar

7. Mathews, John, A Voyage to the River Sierra Leone (London, 1788), 10.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., 20.

9. Ibid., 14. Like other European observers, Mathews found it odd that these people called themselves “Portuguese.” See below.

10. Moore, Francis, Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa (London, 1738), 29, 52, 74.Google Scholar On the history of this commercial network see Brooks, Landlords and Strangers.

11. Moore, , Travels, 24.Google Scholar The French had established a trading center at Albreda in the Gambia; ibid., 57.

12. Ibid., 50.

13. Ibid., 57.

14. Durand, Jean-Baptiste-Léonard, Voyage au Sénégal (Paris, 1802), 86.Google Scholar

15. See Mark, Peter, “Constructing Identity: 16th- and 17th-century Architecture in the Gambia-Geba Region and the Articulation of Luso-African Ethnicity,” HA, 22(1995).Google Scholar

16. Durand, , Voyage, 101.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., 101. “La maison, bâtie à la portugaise, était grande, blanche dehors et dedans, avec un vestibule à l'entrée, ouverte de tous côtés; elle était environnée de grands palmiers, garnie de meubles commodes, de chaises et de selles de bois.”

18. Ibid.

19. Adanson, M., A Voyage to Senegal, the Isle of Gorée, and the River Gambia (London, 1759), 162.Google Scholar

20. See Teixeira, Manuel, “Portuguese Traditional Settlements, a Result of Cultural Miscegenation,” Traditional Dwellings and Setlements Review, 1/2 (Spring 1990), 29.Google Scholar

21. Mathews, , Voyage, 114.Google Scholar This entire passage was plagiarized in 1802 by Durand, , Voyage, 192.Google Scholar Compare Durand's: “Les dehors sont blanchis avec une argile blanche qu'on trouve en quelques lieux au fond de la rivière, ou bien avec de la terre savonneuse qu'on tire du pays de Sherbro.” This plagiarism necessarily casts some doubt on Durand as an original source.

22. Winterbottom, Thomas, An Account of the Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone (London, 1803), 81–82.Google Scholar Winterbottom wrote: “The walls, which are about six feet high, are plastered inside and outside with clay, which is left to harden in the sun; but to prevent their drying too quickly and cracking they are frequently moistened with water.”

23. Bright, in Mouser, Bruce, ed. Guinea Journals: Journeys into Guinea-Conakry during the Sierra Leone Phase, 1800-1821 (Washington, 1979), 35.Google Scholar

24. Park, Mungo, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa (London, 1799), 195.Google Scholar

25. Hecquard, , Voyage, 70.Google Scholar

26. Ibid., 91, “chacune d'elles est entourée d'une galerie assez spacieuse et sous laquelle les habitants recoivent et logent les étrangers.”

27. See Mark, , “Constructing Identity,” 315.Google Scholar

28. Moore, , Travels, 57.Google Scholar It is also significant that the Englishman uses the Portuguese term for stake or pole, “forkilha” or “forkilla;” this too points to Lusitanian influence in local architecture.

29. Moore, , Travels, 177–78.Google Scholar

30. As it is used in this paper the term “Portuguese” refers to the appellation which the Luso-Africans gave to themselves, while Portuguese refers to the inhabitants of Portugal.

31. Moore, , Travels, 29.Google Scholar

32. For another example of the European tendency to question “Portuguese” identity because of their color, see Durand, , Voyage, 95Google Scholar: “Presque tous les Portugais d'Afrique sont d'un sang mêlé, c'est-à-dire mulâtres, mais ceux-ci sont si noirs.”

33. Mathews, , Voyage, 13–14.Google Scholar At the end of the seventeenth century some of the Luso-Africans, particularly those settled in Wolof country north of the Gambia, retained the Jewish faith of their ancestors; see Le Maire, Jacques, Les voyages du Sieur he Maire awe Isles Canaries, Cap-Verd, Sénégal et Gambie (Paris, 1695), 38.Google Scholar

34. For an analysis of European images of West Africans and the role of perceptions of African religions in the formation of those images, see Mark, Peter, “Fetishers, Marybuckes and the Christian Norm; European Images of Senegambians and their Religions, 1550-1760,” African Studies Review (1978), 91–99.Google Scholar

35. Mollien, Gaspard, Voyage dans l'intérieur de l'Afrique aux sources du Sénégal et de la Gambie (2 vols.: Paris, 1820), 2:224Google Scholar: “I only saw three Europeans there….The remainder of the population…consists of blacks and mulattoes, who are nevertheless called whites, because all who are free lay claim to this title.” If the village was entirely Luso-African, then the “on” certainly suggests that they themselves used the term “blanc.”

36. Goerg, Odile, “Sierra Leonais, Créoles, Krio: la dialectique de l'dentité,” Africa, 65(1995), 114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37. See Brooks, , Landlords and Strangers, 189.Google Scholar Nineteenth-century sources, however, indicate that not all the Luso-Africans were prohibited to own land. In 1849 Bertrand-Bocandé, , “Notes,” 309Google Scholar, wrote: “Le territoire qui environne Ziguinchor est la propriété des Portugais qui l'habitent et qui peuvent à leur gré le vendre et le transmettre à leurs héritiers sans aucune redevance aux naturels du pays.” This situation, unique to Bissau and Ziguinchor, dated only to about 1800. Hecquard, , Voyage, 109Google Scholar, in his account of an 1850 voyage in the Casamance, used the same words as Bocandé as part of his description of Ziguinchor, without however citing his source; The plagiarized passage does not, however, invalidate all of Hecquard's description of Ziguinchor (see below). Hecquard visited the town and included some original material in his own travel narrative.

38. Ibid.

39. Mollien, , Voyage, 245.Google Scholar

40. K.A. Appiah has made a similar argument; see his In My Father's House (New York, 1992), 178.Google Scholar

41. Bertrand-Bocandé, , “Notes,” 273, 311, 331.Google Scholar East of Ziguinchor the Bagnun were chased from their former territory by the invading Balantes during the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Ibid., 313, 324.

42. On the decline of the Bagnun language—and hence on the numbers of Bagnun-speakers—see de Lespinay, Charles, “La disparition de la langue Baynunk: Fin d'un peuple ou processus réversible?” Cahiers du Centre de Recherches Africaines, 5(1987), 23–29.Google Scholar

43. Two contemporary phenomena may illustrate the process whereby Bagnun identity may be differentially transformed, either temporarily or permanently, into Jola identity. Several northern Jola communities (e.g., Tendouk, Thionk-Essyl) have oral histories that recall the original inhabitants as Bagnun. This is corroborated by the fact that many of these Jolas have Bagnun patronyms. These traditions seem to document a permanent historical change in ethnic identity. A possibly less permanent transformation is seen in Ziguinchor (originally a Bagnun village). There, inhabitants who identify themselves to outsiders as Jola admit, when talking with foreigners who show interest in Bagnun traditions, that they are actually Bagnun.

44. On the development of the trade in forest products see Mark, Peter, A Cultural, Economic and Religious History of the Basse Casamance since 1500 (Stuttgart, 1985), 70–75.Google Scholar

45. Hecquard, , Voyage, 202.Google Scholar

46. See Bertrand-Bocandé, , “Voyage au pays de Kion,” 10 April 1850Google Scholar; Archives Nationales du Sénégal, 1G 23.

47. Salle, D'Anfreville de la, Notre Vieux Sénégal (Paris, 1909), 253.Google Scholar D'Anfreville's disparaging comments sought to resolve the contradiction between “rude” or uncivilized Africans and the visually impressive architecture they created. An analogous situation existed in contemporary Great Britain with the “discovery” of the Benin bronzes. Coombes has described “the confusing conjuncture of praise and appreciation for the artifacts with the adamant refusal to accredit any cultural and social value to the Edo themselves.” Coombes, Annie, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination (New Haven, 1994), 24.Google Scholar

48. Salle, D'Anfreville de la, Senegal, 256.Google Scholar