DAKAR AND THE OTHER CAPE VERDE SETTLEMENTS ^ 



By Derwent W 1111^11^:81^1' 

 Harvard University 



[With 4 plates] 



Dakar is the only city, in the European (or Occidental) sense, in 

 the whole of West Africa. No other center shows the clear-cut areal 

 differentiation of functions that characterizes the urhs occidentalis. 

 Its urban — in a small way even metropolitan — character cannot be 

 attributed to its creation by Europeans less than a century ago, 

 because this differentiation of functions has evolved only during the 

 past three decades. The absence of any significant settlement on or 

 near its site until the late nineteenth century heightens the paradox 

 of its present ranking position among rivals, whether newly founded 

 or centuries old. 



The enigma of Dakar promises solution if the city is considered 

 in association with its intimate neighbors. Together they form a 

 design in historical geography close to the typical for tropical Africa. 

 Europeans, upon their advent in the period of the discoveries, traded 

 intermittently with indigenous farming and fishing villages of the 

 Cape Verde Peninsula. Subsequently they established a stronghold 

 on an island close to shore as headquarters for trade and administra- 

 tion of affairs. In time a lighterage landing place on the continent 

 absorbed the commerce, leaving to the island its political functions. 

 Finally, an artificial harbor on the continent proved sovereign over 

 both its predecessors and drew to itself all the functions both had 

 exercised, adding to them new functions of its own. 



In this course there is nothing to set Dakar apart from several 

 other places along the coast. Its preeminence appears natural, how- 

 ever, in the light of the shifts in items, values, and routes of African 

 trade during five centuries, the quality of the unique location amid 

 revolutionary changes in the political and technological structure 

 of the world, and the variety of the associated sites, which permitted 

 flexible utilization to suit advancing needs. 



1 Reprinted by permission from the Geographical Review, vol. 31, No. 4, October 1941, pub- 

 lished by the American Geographical Society of New York. 



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