Cash Rules Everything Around Me: The Economies of Place, Architecture and the Early Modern Period in Senegambia and Guinea

 At this point in our collective social consciousness, the influence of economics on the ability to impact the ways we relate to one another is commonly known. In the political and social realms, the ebb and flow of finance is a common catalyst for the structuring and re-structuring of the dynamics that govern how a people operate. These social principles of organization are not lost on the physical arrangement of space and architecture. We can see this in how the roles of economics impacted the Luso-African people of the Senegambian and Guinea region, and the “Portuguese” style of the architecture that they conceived.

Peter Mark examines the layered and multifaceted identities of the Luso-African people and their indelible impact on the histories of coastal West African communities during the late fifteenth to the late nineteenth century. Their economic roles in these societies, ranging from sailors to merchants, lent them to become the go-between for the commerce of Europe and the West African communities they eventually settled in. Mark explores the concept of fluidity in identity as he goes through written travel texts and first-hand accounts during that era. Through these accounts, he is able to discern how the intermarrying of the Portuguese merchants with these coastal West African communities, led to the social construction of the coalescent ethnic identity of the Luso-African people. The “Portuguese” style of their homes, thereby becomes idiomatic to the cultural exchange and engagement of these communities brought together by commerce. 

Although there are few surviving physical examples of this “Portuguese” Architecture within the broad coastal regions of Senegambia and Guinea, through Mark’s investigations and scholarship, we can clearly identify the elements that are consequential to the reciprocal influences of these West African communities and their Luso-African counterparts. From the accounts of local material sourcing of sun-dried brick that was plastered in earth and washed in lime or clay to create a distinguished whitewash, that reflects the heat of the sun; to the contrasting rectilinear plans, these homes were predicated on. This led to the evolution of an architectural style that is distinctive and truly unique and emblematic of the wealth and high social class that was enjoyed by the Luso-African people. 

Most interestingly are the development of the liminal interior-exterior space that takes the form of a vestibule or a verandah that can be found at the home's entrance or wraps around an exterior wall. The conception of this architectural feature is purely functional as it plays host to receiving customers and business patterns and is commonly the site of commercial exchanges. This building feature is still widely seen in many Senegambian homes and buildings today, in the capital city of Banjul where spaces of commerce and the home coalesce.   

Streets of Banjul in The Gambia (Kah, 2018)

References:

• Mark, P. (1996). “Portuguese” Architecture and Luso-African Identity in Senegambia and Guinea, 1730-1890. History in Africa, 23, 179–196. https://doi.org/10.2307/3171940
• John H. Hanson; “Portuguese” Style and Luso-African Identity: Precolonial Senegambia, Sixteenth–Nineteenth Centuries. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 2004; 35 (1): 173–174. doi: https://doi-org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/10.1162/002219504323091667

Research Ideas: 

1. Identity and Islam in West Africa: A case study on the Toucouleur Mosques of Senegambia
2. Ornament and Structure: The Origins of the Hausa and Toucouleur Dome