[edit]
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Lomé.
Lomé in 1903.
The city was founded by the Ewes and expanded in the 19th century by German, British and African traders, becoming the capital of Togoland in 1897. At the end of the 19th century, British customs duties on imported products (especially on alcohol and tobacco) weighed very heavily. The traders, mainly maritime Ewe or Anlo from the area between Aflao and Keta in the east of the British colony of Gold Coast, then looking for an alternative place to unload goods while being out of reach of British customs officers, naturally targeted the coastal site of Lomé, nearby. This commercial dynamic of customs circumvention and tax evasion then favored the expansion of Lomé around 1880. The calm and sparsely inhabited Loméen coastline began to be populated rapidly. The Ewes were soon joined by European, British and especially German companies, as well as itinerant merchants from the interior, such as the Hausa caravans from the cola roads. Many people were attracted by the new economic hub that Lomé represented. The rapid growth of the city was reinforced, and Lomé quickly earned a reputation as a place where good business was done.
Colonial period[edit]
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
Loading of cotton bales (1885)
It was the threats of the British present in the neighboring Gold Coast (now Ghana) that put an end to the competition that Lomé provoked for their colony, which then provoked a call for the protection of Germany. Togoland was thus created as an entity of international law within the German colonial empire on 5 July 1884, by the Treaty of Togoville, signed by Gustav Nachtigal and King Mlapa III [fr].
Lomé continued to prosper freely as a centre of import, thus becoming the main gateway to the North, whose major axis of penetration was then the Volta Valley; it was to access it that the construction of the first real road in the country, Lomé-Kpalimé, was undertaken from 1892. It was this major economic role that led the German administration to transfer the capital of the territory to a city that already had more than 2,000 inhabitants.
Stamp of the German colony Togogebiet cancelled in Lomé in 1902.
Alley leading to the Governor's Palace (1904).
Lomé benefited from 1904 from a port that made it the only maritime contact point of Togo, ruining its rival, Aného, until then much more important. From this development, a network of railways could be deployed: to Aného in 1905, to Kpalimé in 1907 and to Atakpamé in 1909. All the "useful Togo" was now organized in a funnel around Lomé, whose preponderance on the Togolese urban network was definitively established and growth assured. The city reached a population of 8,000 in 1914. But, if the infrastructure set up by the Germans - which consisted of a post office in 1890, the telephone in 1894, the cathedral in 1904, a bank in 1906 and the intercontinental telegraph in 1913 - could benefit everyone, a system of discriminatory patents and licenses gradually ousted African traders from the most lucrative activities, that is the trade or import-export business.
Apart from the rich Octaviano Olympio, with his large Cocoterais, the first in the city, his herds, his brickyard and his construction company, most Togolese merchants had to put themselves at the service of foreign firms as managers of their agencies in other cities, or enjoying more autonomy as buyers of agricultural export products in the interior. The smallest had been hired in large numbers as clerks in the main factories (headquarters of the offices of a trading company abroad). Firms in other African territories looked with envy at Togo, which had an abundant skilled workforce, while elsewhere, it was necessary to entrust all positions to expatriates, much more expensive for the employer.
The First World War completely spared the city. However, in 1916, it led to the eviction of German companies, gradually replaced by British and French firms. Many Togolese traders returned to Lomé. Their flourishing businesses, their vast coconut groves, and their large land holdings made them a bourgeoisie with which the new French colonial authorities had to reckon, prompting the creation of the council of notables in 1922 (elective from 1925), which gave Lomé a remarkably early political life in French-speaking Africa. It is also quite exceptional that an African capital has been so marked by its indigenous bourgeoisie, both in the production practices of urban space, so original in Lomé, and in the singularities of its popular architecture.
The French renewed the infrastructure left by the Germans, repairing railways, building more roads, constructing a new quay, etc. They added electrification in 1926 and drinking water supply in 1940. However, they took years to fill the void left in the schools by the German verbist missionaries when they left. The level of students enrolled in 1945, at the death of Jean-Marie Cassou [fr], reached that of 1914.
In the 1920s, a policy of systematic low taxation ushered in a long period of prosperity. In January 1923, a Lomé Women's Revolt [fr] took place against the arrest of two Duawo leaders and forced their release.
Map of the city of Lomé in 1931
Left part
Right part
Lomé reached 15,000 inhabitants around 1930. But the global economic crisis of the early 1930s led to a brutal recession. Many businesses closed or had to consolidate. Investments stopped, like the Northern Railway, definitively stopped in Blitta in 1934. A plan for a sharp tax increase, while the people's resources were falling, provoked the riots of January 1933, which were undoubtedly a major political break in the history of Togo. It was only after World War II, following a decade of postwar stagnation, that boom times resumed in Lomé.
Independence[edit]
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
Independence Monument
The population of the city increased rapidly in the second half of the 20th century. It had only a population of 30,000 in 1950, which increased to 80,000 in 1960, the year when Togo became independent. A decade later, it stood at 200,000 people, in 1970. Within two decades, the population of Lomé increased by seven-fold. The city, as throughout the country, the very high prices of export products operate the markets, the significant investments of the colonial administration (the "FIDES" plan created a large number of roads, bridges, schools, hospitals) ensured full employment. The constructions were rapidly expanding at the expense of the old coconut groves, the hope animated each of an imminent take-off.
From the mid-1970s, investments became more and more gigantic, but not always in well-targeted areas, Togo, a small open country and hub of trade between its powerful neighbors, did not have the protected market that would have been needed for the large industries that were built for it, nor the stable tourism potential for the luxurious hotels that were coming up. At the same time, the railways were allowed to deteriorate, even though they had an important role, especially for serving the outlying districts of the city.
But, the economic activity of an African city is not just an accumulation of large companies, banks and factories. There is also the very vast field of the popular economy, these innumerable activities of production, exchange, service, repair, which are in fact the livelihood of the majority of the population, and the only way for it to access services commensurate with its modest resources. Difficult to grasp in the statistical tools of economists, the informal sector is increasingly affecting the real economic life of African city dwellers. In addition, the development of market gardening around the city, stimulated by growing unemployment, arose rural exodus and demand for vegetables. Market gardening, first extended to the north, is mainly on the beach (as the sand is too less salty), planting protective hedges. The various studies of the city's land market indicate that the neighborhoods are relatively heterogeneous, mixing opulent villas and modest housing, without social and spatial division of the city. This is explained by the fact that Lomeans are very attached to their plot of land and what they call their "home" (their home). This, therefore, led to a land freeze. However, if the city is not a socially divided city, the fact remains that Lomé is experiencing more and more problems related to the collection of household waste, the fight against urban insalubrity has become one of the priorities of the city and its inhabitants.
