Educating Africans from Metropole to Backwater: The Education of Ms. Florence Peters

In the middle of the twentieth century, Bathurst was in most respects a metropolis.  As a colonial city it had many of the amenities and opportunities that set it apart from the rural backwaters that made up the large majority of The Gambia. Yet there was one opportunity this urban space could not fully afford its residents - higher education.  In many respects Bathurst was more like a rural part of West Africa.  In the absence of institutions of higher education, Gambian's seeking opportunities for degrees and training found themselves migrating abroad to other parts of West Africa or going farther afield to Britain to attain a degree.  This movement between a colonial metropole and a colonized city resulted in conflicts over who was entitled to such opportunities and how one ought to be allowed to move across social and geographic boundaries.  This paper examines colonial era letters to address the identity and networks that one particular student, Florence Peters, and her family negotiated in order to insure her education. The Peters family leveraged their resources and connections to secure her transnational education.  By the time Ms. Peters returned to Bathurst in early 1953 at her father’s expense, she was, as the first woman from there to attain a four year degree, a great resource and asset to The Gambia and the colonial government that administered the territory. Peters' case highlights the intersections and striking connections between rural home and urban opportunity.