Start somewhere familiar.

The city now called Banjul entered a new colonial phase in 1816, when the British established Bathurst on St Mary's Island. This city-wide context should not be used to erase older names, uses, or communities on the island.

Early Bathurst was not one uniform settlement. Its grid connected distinct quarters whose names reflected occupation, migration, status, and community identity. Historic sources name Portuguese Town, Soldier Town, Melville or Jolof Town, and Mocam, later called Half Die.

Sources agree that Melville or Jolof Town was one of early Bathurst's distinct quarters, but disagree on the name's origin. One account emphasises Jola labourers; another emphasises Wolof artisans. Both evidence trails remain open for community and archival research.

Sources disagree. We keep the uncertainty visible.

Soldier Town's name records the military geography of early Bathurst. Barracks and garrison facilities stood there, and liberated-African units were stationed in the area from the 1820s.

Portuguese Town linked early Bathurst to older Luso-African trading worlds and to the movement of liberated Africans through Sierra Leone. Its history complicates any story that begins and ends with British rule.

Half Die was earlier called Mocam Town and sometimes Wildman Town. Its familiar connection to the 1869 cholera epidemic is not the only evidence: archival research reports the name in use by 1837. Its origin remains open, alongside the neighbourhood's repeated experience of epidemic disease.

Sources disagree. We keep the uncertainty visible.

Half Die held a concentrated record of kirinting building knowledge. In 2008, a short rescue survey documented more than forty kirinting structures across fifteen properties as port expansion and relocation were already changing the area.

Half Die's landscape has repeatedly been reshaped by port growth. Documented phases include a 1972 jetty, a 1995 land expansion, and major container-yard expansion in 2008. Residents and advocates continue to debate what development should preserve.

Bathurst became Banjul in 1973 as part of post-independence decolonisation. Secondary sources disagree on the exact day; the year is established, while the primary proclamation still needs checking.

Banjul's Six-Gun Battery forms part of the UNESCO World Heritage property Kunta Kinteh Island and Related Sites. Its location inside State House grounds also shapes how it is protected and accessed.

Historic maps and photographs offer another way to see a changing city. They record a particular moment, not definitive boundaries for today's neighbourhoods. Open the original collections below to read their dates, credits and reuse terms.

The NCAC and University of Hamburg catalogues offer another starting point for oral-history research, with item descriptions and stable links. Listening access is controlled by NCAC. These catalogue entries are not confirmed matches to Hamanteh's recordings.