Segregation in British West Africa

In French West Africa the gouvernment offices were located within the towns and often facing the main square. In British West Africa however, the situation was normally quite different: government offices were usually located at a government station completely outside of the town. The practice of housing segregation in British West Africa was not simply part of a general pattern of racial segregation occuring in most British colonies. It might not have become the general policy after 1910 if it had not been for certain unprecedented developments – the outbreaks of plague and yellow fever epidemics in 1908 and 1910 – which alarmed the medical authorities into recommending residential segregation as being absolutely essential to the protection of the lives of European officials. Many governors realized from the beginning the political dangers involved in a policy of housing segregation, but they were unable to resist the best medical advice of their day. It was unfortunate that one of the policies adopted to make it possible for European officials to function more efficiently in Africa also contributed to the nationalism that ultimately forced most of them to depart. Notes, ref.