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Jolof Town: Artisans, Movement, and a Contested Name

Jolof Town appears in the record as Melville Town, an artisan quarter, a commercial district, and a civic ward. The origin of the name is disputed. No historical source should be used to assign an ethnicity to present residents or to draw a modern boundary.

Melville Town and the early city plan

Early Bathurst was planned as linked quarters separated by open ground. Saho and Roberts describe Melville Town as an area allotted mainly to artisans, servants, and dependants of merchants. As settlement grew, the spaces between quarters filled and a more continuous city emerged. This makes the old quarter names useful historical anchors, but poor substitutes for a current community map.

Walking Tour of Banjul: A History of Major Architectural Works Heart of Banjul: The History of Banjul, The Gambia, 1816-1965 Historic Preservation and Development in Banjul, The Gambia

Jola and Wolof explanations

Gijanto reports an explanation that links Jollof Town to Jola labourers involved in building the colonial settlement. Hughes and Perfect instead describe Joloff Town as largely inhabited by Wolof artisans in the early nineteenth century. Gijanto's later article also uses the Jola explanation while recognizing a multiethnic city. The evidence supports publishing the disagreement itself, together with questions for residents and archival follow-up.

Historic Preservation and Development in Banjul, The Gambia Serving Status on the Gambia River Before and After Abolition Historical Dictionary of The Gambia

Work, shops, and the commercial city

The artisan association is the strongest recurring feature across accounts. Jolof Town later became closely connected with major trading and business establishments. The wider commercial landscape ran through the waterfront streets, warehouses, Albert Market, hand carts, lorries, and the skills of mechanics, builders, textile traders, and other workers. A living archive should recover the names of trades and routes without assuming that one occupation defined the whole quarter.

Historical Dictionary of The Gambia Walking Tour of Banjul: A History of Major Architectural Works Heart of Banjul: The History of Banjul, The Gambia, 1816-1965 Gambian Women's Struggles through Collective Action

A ward in the civic city

In the twentieth century Joloff Town was represented as a ward in Bathurst's local-government system and later joined Portuguese Town in a House of Representatives constituency. This administrative history is evidence of political geography at particular dates, not proof of a permanent neighbourhood line. It does show that quarter identity entered elections, representation, and public debate.

Historical Dictionary of The Gambia A Political History of The Gambia, 1816-1994