Gambia History: The Incredible Journey To Independence (19th Century)

Gambia History

Gambia History: By 1800, the British were the main European traders on the Gambia River. However, private businessmen, not the government, maintained the British presence. The Wolof kingdom ruled one side of the river, while the Mande kingdom ruled the other. On the south side of the river, nine Mande kingdoms were in charge. On the north side, five kingdoms with large Wolof populations were in charge. 

Each of the Mande states had a king, or mansa, in charge. The king had advisors and an army to protect the state and keep laws in place. People who lived there spoke Mande, Wolof, some Diola, Serer, and some Fulbe, especially in the kingdoms on the upper Gambia River. 
To the north of the Gambia region.

In the 1800s, the French took over more and more of these kingdoms and sometimes got involved in the business of the kingdoms on the northern bank of the Gambia River. The British ended the slave trade in 1808. Because of this, a part of the British navy needed a place to dock in West Africa, and they picked the mouth of the Gambia River. 

The Mande king of Kombo, Tumani Bojang, sold Captain Alexander Grant the sand banks of Bamboo Island, which was later named Saint Mary’s Island. They were right next to the river’s southern bank. The garrison built barracks, office buildings, and harbor facilities. Lord Henry Bathurst, the British Colonial Secretary, named the town of Bathurst (later called Banjul) around these core structures.

Wolof traders and newly freed African slaves brought more people to the area. The governor of Freetown, Sierra Leone, took control of the new Crown Colony in 1821. The British West African Federation then joined the colony. In 1823, the settlement got bigger and had more people when it got MacCarthy Island and other concessions from the local Mande rulers. 

The new colony had some economic effects on the nearby Mande and Wolof countries, but no political or military ones. The African states did some small business with the British, but they kept their independence. The British were the first to grow peanuts in the early 1830s, and the idea quickly spread to nearby countries.

In just ten years, peanuts had become the colony’s main export, and the British influence grew. However, the most significant changes in the 1800s occurred when the traditional Wolof and Mande kingdoms fought with Muslim reform leaders. These fights began in the 1850s and persisted until around 1900, affecting all areas of the Gambia River.

The so-called Soninke-Marabout wars (which isn’t really a name for them because the Soninke weren’t involved) destroyed most of the kingdoms that were already there and created a number of new Muslim-dominated states. The British did not step in to help the Mande and Wolof leaders, who were already in charge. The fighting was part of a wave of Muslim reform movements that happened all over Senegal in the second half of the 1800s. These movements destroyed traditional ethnic governments and set up new states with an Islamic identity. 

Most of the Gambian people also became Muslims during this time of chaos. Ma Ba, Alfa Molloh Balde, and Fode Kabba Dumbuya were the most well-known and important Muslim leaders. They all created new states in the Gambia River region. There were numerous conflicts in nearby French-controlled areas, and the reform leaders frequently fled across the border.
It was Ma Ba’s dream for Senegambia to have a united theocracy, but it never came true.

uring the wars, the British used force a few times when it looked like their economic interests were at risk, but most of the fighting happened in places outside of Britain’s sphere of influence. The wars slowed down trade along the river, leading to a drop in income.

The British Parliament started to wonder if investing in such a place was a good idea. Some members even suggested selling the land to France, which was aggressively expanding its power over Senegal and wanted to buy the Gambia River area. Even though some people in Britain wanted to sell the land to the French, it wasn’t until a meeting in 1889 that the French agreed to let Britain control the Gambia River and set the current borders. 

The colony became a protectorate in 1894. By 1900, Britain had set up 35 chiefdoms in Gambia as a form of indirect rule, but the governor and his staff at Bathurst still had the real power. They divided the land into colony and protectorate areas based on its distance from Bathurst. It’s clear that the British influence was strongest in the colonial area around Bathurst. Despite some resistance to British rule, the locals, exhausted from recent wars, appeared eager for peace.

The British didn’t get involved in the colony’s politics or religion because they weren’t there much and didn’t have much money. Muslim leaders worked with British leaders, and farmers grew peanuts to pay their taxes. Slavery ended in the area for good in 1906, but that didn’t seem to have much of an effect on peanut output, which kept growing quickly. The Gambia’s colonial economy was based on growing and exporting peanuts. 

The government wanted to keep things calm and peaceful so that peanut production would go up, as well as collect taxes and duties on trade. Gambia was Britain’s smallest and poorest colony in West Africa, and it didn’t get much help with growth. The peanuts’ taxed value was just about enough to cover the costs of running the local government. Bathurst got a better harbor, better transportation, and better ways to talk to each other. Missionary groups also built schools. 

Only one secondary school and one hospital served the rest of the territory. The river was still the main way to get from Bathurst to the rest of the protectorate. It was also the main way to get peanuts from the inland to the coast. Even on the river, there were only the most basic ways to get around. After WWII, European countries that had colonies started to take small steps toward ending their colonies. 

But in Gambia, political parties took a long time to form, and the country’s progress toward independence was slow compared to the other British West African countries. Ghana, formerly known as the Gold Coast, achieved independence in 1957. Nigeria did the same in 1960, and Sierra Leone did the same in 1961. These three countries achieved their independence after extensive efforts and a considerable amount of time, long before Gambia did.

Gambia wasn’t sure if it could be an independent country because it didn’t have many resources, its land area wasn’t very big, and it was in a French-speaking area of Senegal. Many people thought that Senegal would take control of the area and make it part of an independent Senegal or Senegambia. Also, there wasn’t a group of educated people who could take over power in the future. 

A strong sense of racial unity was much stronger for most people in the area than any sense of national identity or loyalty to a political party. Chiefs still had a lot of power in local politics. Even though some changes were made in the 1950s to allow more Gambians to be involved in government, the governor and top administrative officers, who were all British, still had a lot of power. 

District officers and legally recognized chiefs, who liked things the way they were and didn’t want them to change, ran the protectorate. They changed the constitution twice, in 1954 and 1960. These changes let political groups run for office, but they didn’t set a date for independence. Several small political parties emerged in Gambia during the 1950s. David Jawara and his friends founded the Protectorate People’s Party in 1959, making it the largest of these.

The 1960 elections resulted in a deadlock in the government. Jawara and his partners quit, calling for more changes to the constitution. In 1962, Jawara and his new party, the People’s Progressive Party, emerged victorious in new elections. With 62 percent of the vote, the party won, and Jawara became prime minister. Gambia became self-governing in 1963, and talks began about how and when the country would be fully independent.

Opposition groups wanted new elections when the country got its independence, but Jawara and his party persuaded the British that there was no need for new elections. Gambia became an independent country in the British Commonwealth on February 18, 1965. Jawara was named prime minister. After receiving a knighthood in 1966, Jawara changed his name to Dawda Jawara. It turned into a republic on April 24, 1970.

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