Managing Waste: The Provisioning of Public Latrines and the Disposal of Night Soil in Southern Gold Coast (Ghana), c. 1878–1950

Although Gold Coast Africans in the pre-colonial period believed that supernatural forces were the final causes of diseases, they were also clearly aware of the health implications of indiscriminate defecation and other environmental pollutants. Two types of latrines existed in the Gold Coast to displace excrement beyond the healthful space of the community. One existed inside the house, which European writers referred to as privy huts. The second type was communal latrines located on the outskirts of the town boundary. Irrespective of the true conditions, European adventurers and later colonial officials viewed the Gold Coast through the prism of the racial politics of the “civilizing mission.” They conceived toileting techniques and practices as well as the management of excrement among Africans as “primitive,” unhygienic, and therefore, anathema to “civilization.” This article examines the provision of latrines and the management and disposal of human excrement in the southern Gold Coast during the colonial period. It demonstrates that despite European claims to superior toileting techniques, latrines provided by the colonial administration before the twentieth century were mostly ad hoc, inadequate, very basic, and inefficient. Similarly, colonial technologies for disposing excrement proved inefficient. Thus, the management of human waste in the Gold Coast posed technocratic barriers to public health and highlighted the limits of colonial measures and technologies.