Abstract
The considerable physical advantages that Freetown possesses as a port site have long been recognised, as the accounts by numerous early seafarers bear witness:
This noble river is at least two leagues wide at its entrance, and has a safe and deep channel for ships of any burthen, and affords excellent anchorage at all seasons. It continues the same breadth for six or seven miles … On the north side of Sierra-Leone river the land is low and level … but on the south side it rises into hills, which, forming one upon the other, tower into lofty mountains crowned with perpetual verdure. From the foot of these hills points of land project into the sea, which form excellent bays for shipping and craft, and convenient places for hauling the seine.1
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Notes
J. Mathews, A Voyage to the Sierra Leone River (London, 1788) pp. 20–1; reprinted 1968.
S. Gregory, ‘The Raised Beaches of the Peninsula Area of Sierra Leone’, Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. vol. 31 (1962) 15–22.
J. I. Clarke, ‘Ports’, in J. L Clarke (ed.), Sierra Leone in Maps (London, 1966) pp. 108–9.
C. Fyfe, History of Sierra Leone (London, 1962).
H. R. Jarrett, ‘The Port and Town of Freetown’, Geography, vol. 40 (1955) 108–18.
E. J. Taaffe, R. L. Morrill and P. R. Gould, ‘Transport Expansion in underdeveloped Countries: A Comparative analysis’, Geographical Review, vol. 53 (1963) 503–29.
M. E. E. Harvey, ‘Bonthe: A Geographical Study of a Moribund Port and its Environs’, Bull. Jour. Sierra Leone Geog. Ass., vol. 10 (1966) 60–75.
A. Harley, ‘Report on the Freetown Wharf Survey’, MS. quoted by H. R. Jarrett, ‘Recent Port and Harbour Developments at Freetown’, Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. 71 (1955) 157–64.
Jarrett, ‘The Port and Town of Freetown’. Geography, vol. 40 (1955) 108–18.
J. D. Pollett, ‘Our Mining Story’, Sierra Leone Trade Journal, vol. 1 (1961) 10–13 K. Swindell, ‘Mining’, in Sierra Leone in Maps, pp. 92–3.
H. L. Van der Laan, The Sierra Leone Diamonds (London, 1965).
J. I. Clarke, ‘Population Distribution in Sierra Leone’, in J. Caldwell and C. Okonjo (eds.), Population of Tropical Africa (London, 1968) pp. 270–7.
R. Green and A. Seidman, Unity or Poverty (London, 1968) chap. 2.
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© 1970 J. McKay
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McKay, J. (1970). Physical Potential and Economic Reality: the Underdevelopment of the Port of Freetown. In: Hoyle, B.S., Hilling, D. (eds) Seaports and Development in Tropical Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15362-6_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15362-6_5
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