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Gambia
Only a small strip of Atlantic coastline keeps the Republic of Gambia from being completely surrounded by its larger neighbor, Senegal. Never more than thirty miles wide, Gambia stretches for more than 300 miles, along both banks of the Gambia River and into the center of Senegal. Gambia owes its creation to British economic interests, first in the Transatlantic Slave Trade and then in the coastal trade in agricultural and manufactured commodities. But the British zone of control ended where their boats encountered the Gambia River waterfalls, never reaching into the river basin’s natural hinterland. This severely constrained Gambia’s economic growth and ultimately shaped its national character. Most ethnic groups of Gambia are found in larger numbers within Senegal and the small nation still struggles to forge a national identity, apart from a shared experience of British Colonial rule. Gambia’s peculiar geography illustrates the irrationality of Africa’s colonial boundaries and the difficulty of using them as the basis for the creation of nation states in the postcolonial era.
Precolonial History
Despite Gambia’s small size, it is a country of extraordinary diversity. Located at the frontier between the open savanna to the north and the Guinean forest and wooded savanna to the south, it also represents a cultural frontier between Sudanic cultures and those at the northern limits of the Guinean forest. The Sudanic cultures of the Mandinka, Wolof, and Fula were characterized by hereditary caste groupings that determined a member’s occupation and potential marriage partners. The Mandinka and Wolof had strong traditions of kingship and centralized authority, and with the exception of the precolonial Wolof, they were markedly patriarchal. The Sudanic peoples’ economies were based primarily on millet and sorghum production, artisanry, and long-distance trade. In contrast, the forest-dwelling Jola, Bainounk, and Manjaco peoples had neither occupational castes nor kingly traditions and were generally more open to women’s participation in public life. These forest-dwelling communities practiced wet rice agriculture and limited their commerce to local markets. Gambia was one of the areas where an African species of rice (orya glaberimma) was first domesticated more than 2,000 years ago.Little is known about the first inhabitants of Gambia, but they probably included ancestors of populations that are today known as the Bainounk, Niominka, and Bassari. During the first millennium they built numerous clusters of stone circles that most likely had ritual significance in early Senegambian religion. Beginning in the thirteenth century, Mandinka warriors from the empire of Mali, led by Tiramaghan Keita, conquered much of the Gambia River valley. Many of its indigenous inhabitants embraced a Mandinka ethnic identity, swelling a fairly small group of Mandinka immigrants from Mali into the region’s dominant population. Wolof, Serer, and Fula immigrants also entered the area during this period. As the empire of Mali weakened, new Mandinka states emerged along the Gambia River, including Barra, Kombo, Baddibu, and Niumi. The Mandinka empire of Gabou controlled most of the upper river. Although Islam had already been introduced to the area, most people adhered to indigenous forms of religion.Portuguese travelers first entered the region in 1455. In the sixteenth century, the Portuguese established trading factories along Bintang Creek, a tributary of the Gambia River, where they purchased beeswax, gold, ivory, and slaves from Mandinka and Bainounk merchants. The Duke of Courland established a small trading post in 1661 on an island near the mouth of the river. Two years later the British expelled the Courlanders and established their own fort on the site, which they renamed James Island. In 1681 the French established a trade settlement at Albreda. While the French and British traders pushed the Portuguese out of the region, they tried to expand the area’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. At its late eighteenth-century peak, approximately 8,000 slaves were sold to European merchants in Gambia each year; in addition, large numbers of people died in warfare or slave raids or while being transported to slave-trading posts along the Gambia River.After the British abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, and with the end of the Napoleonic Wars, British interests shifted toward the suppression of the trade by other Europeans and Americans. To achieve that end, in 1816 the British established a new naval base and settlement at the mouth of the Gambia River, on Banjul Island, and named the settlement Bathurst. Its small garrison was charged with curtailing the Gambian slave trade and encouraging British commerce along the Gambia River and in coastal Senegambia. The British, however, did little to secure the natural trading hinterland of Gambia, while the French gradually extended control over most of the Senegambia region and its major cash crop, peanuts.A reason for British reluctance to venture further inland was the fear that any expansion of the colony would entangle them in the considerable political turmoil in the region, caused by the breakdown of the Mandinka-dominated state system in the early nineteenth century. Throughout the latter half of the century, the Soninke-Marabout Wars, fought between followers of Islamic political leaders known as Marabouts and followers of an older Mandinka form of leadership, who were called Soninke, had become increasingly violent. Eventually, the British were drawn into these conflicts, but not before the French had occupied much of the surrounding territory, and the power of the Soninke essentially had been destroyed. By the late nineteenth century, Gambia had become predominantly Muslim.For much of the nineteenth century, Gambia was not even considered a separate colony; from 1821 until 1888, it was administered as a district of Sierra Leone. For many years it seemed that it would be only a matter of time before the British ceded its few settlements to the French, who had periodically offered to take them in exchange for their own Gabon or Côte d’Ivoire. But the British consistently refused these offers, and after the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 they were left with a colony in Gambia that extended little more than 24 kilometers (15 miles) in either direction from the riverbanks. In 1889 the French and British agreed on what are now the approximate boundaries of Gambia, leaving the French colony of Senegal with control over many communities that had previously traded through Gambia.British Colonialism
In 1894 the British proclaimed a protectorate over the interior areas of Gambia, distinguishing it from the colony, which consisted of the town of Bathurst and the Kombo area on the adjacent mainland. In the protectorate, the British established a system of indirect rule, relying on government-appointed chiefs to exercise local authority. In the colony, a limited form of direct rule was established. Because Gambia was small in size, the British invested little in developing its economy. Most Gambians remained in rural areas, cultivating peanuts, millet, sorghum, and rice, though some went to work in the peanut-shelling and peanut-oil factories in Bathurst (now Banjul) or on the docks. Although employment opportunities were limited, the colony attracted migrants fleeing forced labor policies and conscription in French-ruled Senegal.After World War I (1914–1918), newspaper editor Edward Small and other early nationalists founded Gambia’s first labor unions and a Gambian branch of the National Congress of British West Africa, both of which pressed for Gambian economic and political empowerment. During World War II (1939–1945), Senegal was initially allied with the Vichy French, putting British control of Gambia in jeopardy. But in 1943 French West African authorities shifted their allegiance back to the Allies, and the threat to Gambia was removed.After the war, limited political participation in government was extended to the protectorate. The first political parties, the Democratic Party and the United Party, were formed in 1951, followed the next year by the Muslim Congress Party. In 1959 DAWDA JAWARA, a former colonial veterinary officer, founded the Protectorate People’s Party. His party gained a plurality of votes in the 1960 election for the House of Representatives, the first election in which rural voters were fully franchised. In the 1962 elections, Jawara’s party, renamed the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), won decisively, and Jawara became the chief minister.Independence
Gambia achieved independence on February 18 1965, and Jawara was chosen to be the new nation’s prime minister. Five years later Gambia became a republic, with Jawara as president. It quickly became apparent that the new republic lacked many things, including experienced administrators who could run the government. Apart from a two-year college for teachers, Gambia had no schools that offered higher education, and its only secondary schools were in the Bathurst-Kombo area. River transport and some all-weather roads facilitated the transportation of peanuts to the processing plants, but little other industry existed. A major source of foreign exchange was the trans-Gambia ferry at Farafenni, which provided a critical link between northern Senegal and the southern Casamance region. Long waits at the ferry helped many merchants on both shores attract Senegalese customers for the low-duty consumer goods available in Gambia. Smuggling between Gambia and Senegal (where tariffs on imports were considerably higher) began in the colonial era and remains a widespread practice.In the late 1960s, Gambia began to promote its scenic beaches as winter vacation spots for European tourists. British and Scandinavian investors built elaborate hotel complexes in the coastal communities of Bakau and Fajara. By 1975 more than 25,000 tourists, mostly from Sweden and Denmark, visited Gambia each year. Local artisans increased production of batiks, tie-dyes, and other crafts to meet the demand for souvenirs, and Gambian farmers found new markets for their fruits and vegetables in resort restaurants. But most of the tourist industry profits were repatriated to hotel and tour company operators back in Europe. Tourism also created social problems, as the overwhelmingly Muslim Gambians found their streets and beaches invaded by crowds of relatively affluent, scantily-clad vacationers. Some young people, more men than women, went into prostitution, while others sought intimate relationships that would let them pursue greater opportunities in Europe. The incidence of rapes of tourists and premarital pregnancies among Gambian women also increased.Aside from the development of a tourist industry, the Jawara government failed to diversify the economy. Close to 85 percent of the population made a living primarily from agriculture, yet peanuts remained the only significant cash crop, and the country continued to be highly dependent on imports of rice and other staple grains. The Sahel drought of the 1970s and subsequent erratic rainfall further undermined rural productivity and economic security.In 1981 Kukoi Samba Sanyang, a leader in the leftist Movement for Justice in Africa, attempted a coup d’état while President Jawara was away in England. With the aid of Senegalese troops, the coup was suppressed, but not before more than one thousand people had been killed. Part of the cost of this assistance was the creation of a confederation between the two countries, known as Senegambia, which was dominated by Senegal and received little support in Gambia. In 1989 the confederation disbanded and Gambia resumed its status as an independent state, still headed by President Jawara. In 1994 Jawara was overthrown by a group of young military officers led by YAHYA JAMMEH, who then became president of the republic. In 1996, in response to considerable outside pressures, Jammeh held national elections. He was elected president by a small margin, amid accusations that the military government had used intimidation to influence voters.After seizing power, Jammeh worked to restore international confidence in the Gambian government and to revive the country’s tourist industry. He emphasized infrastructure improvements such as the expanding of Yundum airport, the paving of roads, and the building of new schools and hospitals. In October 2001 Jammeh was reelected president in elections that international observers generally endorsed as free and fair. He followed this victory, however, with a crackdown on political dissidents. Jammeh won another elective victory in 2006 amidst suspicions—actual or otherwise—of a brewing military coup.See also Islam in Africa; Mali empire; Slavery in Africa; and Tourism in Africa.
Gambia
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