Old Fourah Bay College

The Old Fourah Bay College site is a structure in partial ruins. The Fourah Bay College was founded in 1827 by Anglican missionaries as a school. Fourah Bay College was the first European style university in West Africa. The college became a place for English speaking, well-to-do Sierra Leoneans and West Africans to seek education. Under colonialism, Freetown was known as "The Athens of West Africa" due to many well regarded schools and institutions in the region. The college was staffed with black educators and administers, early on from the US and UK but later Africans started filling more roles. Due to a fire in 1999 during the Sierra Leonean Civil War, the college has been reduced to its stone and iron construction. In 2010, Old Fourah Bay College was acquired by Bunce Island Coalition, an organization dedicated to preserving the nearby slave castle on Bunce Island. The coalition intends/intended to use the former college as a museum for the slave trade and the Bunce Island castle. Currently the college is still in ruins and inhabited by squatters.

The Old Fourah Bay College is a colonial institution. While it wasn't started by the colonial powers, it was facilitated by colonialism. The college represents the early colonial prowess of Freetown as a major force in West Africa. The staff of the college being black is an example of blacks in prestigious positions in a time period in which, it was very hard for blacks to move up in society. Blacks as educators and administrators in the 1830s-1860s was nearly unheard of in the traditional narrative.

“About Us.” Welcome Fourah Bay College. Accessed December 2, 2020. http://fourahbaycollege.net/.

Crowder, Michael. "Institute of African Studies, Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone." The Journal of Modern African Studies 4, no. 1 (1966): 95-96. Accessed December 2, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/159418.

Paracka, Daniel J. The Athens of West Africa a History of International Education at Fourah Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone, 2003.