Falaba

Falaba became the centre of a small Yalunka polity during the eighteenth century. By 1800, its rulers had absorbed neighbouring communities to form Solimana, with Falaba as their capital. The town combined military, commercial and judicial functions. Its fortifications protected a settlement that controlled rich trading routes towards the western African coast, while disputes within the kingdom could be brought to its judicial centre. These connections gave an inland town a place in commercial networks reaching far beyond its immediate farmland.

Alexander Gordon Laing visited in 1822 and estimated between six and ten thousand inhabitants. A fortress town of that size shows how large a fortified capital could grow in the interior of Upper Guinea.