Gambia: History

Pre-20th-Century History

As early as AD 500, towns and villages based on agriculture and the knowledge of iron were dotted across the West African region. As the first millennium progressed, trade increased significantly between the regions north and south of the Sahara.

In the 14th century, the Empire of Mali - founded by Sundiata Keita, leader of the Malinké people - encompassed the area from the Atlantic coast of today's Gambia and Senegal, all the way to Niger and Nigeria. This vast empire controlled nearly all the trans-Saharan trade, and contact with rulers of the Arab states to the north led Mali rulers to embrace Islam with enthusiasm. By the mid-15th century, the Mali empire was waning in influence, and a group of Malinké people migrated into the valley of the Gambia River. They brought Islam with them and became known as the Mandinka.

In the early 15th century, Prince Henry of Portugal began encouraging navigators to sail down the coast of West Africa, hoping to bypass the Arab and Muslim domination of the trans-Saharan gold trade, which by that time was the cornerstone of Portugal's finances. Gambia's first contact with Europeans came in 1456, when these navigators landed on James Island about 30km (19mi) upriver from the sea. Although the Portuguese didn't establish a settlement, they continued to monopolise trade along the West African coast throughout the 16th century. In their trading posts, salt, iron, pots and pans, firearms and gunpowder were exchanged for ivory, ebony, beeswax, gold and slaves. (It's been suggested that the Gambia River's name stems from the Portuguese word cambio , meaning 'exchange,' or, in this context, 'trade'.

By 1530, Portugal had established settlements in Brazil. Over the next 70 years, large commercial estates there led to a demand for labourers, which the Portuguese began to import from West Africa. Although slavery had existed in Africa for many centuries, the Portuguese developed the trade on a massive scale, maintaining a virtual monopoly on it until the mid-16th century, when Britain joined in. By the 1650s, Portugal had been largely ousted by the French and British.

The first European settlement in Gambia was made by Baltic Germans, who built a fort on James Island in 1651. Ten years later, they were displaced by the British, who were themselves ever under threat from French ships, pirates and mainland African kings. Fort James lost its strategic appeal with the construction of new forts at Barra and Bathurst (now Banjul) at the mouth of the Gambia River. These were better placed to control the movement of ships, though Fort James continued to serve as a slave collection point until the trade was abolished.

Britain declared the Gambia River a British Protectorate in 1820 and for many years ruled it from Sierra Leone. In 1886, Gambia became a crown colony and, the following year, France and Britain drew the boundaries between Senegal (by then a French colony) and Gambia.

Modern History

With the slave trade at an end, the British were forced to come up with a new source of wealth to support the fledgling protectorate. The planting of groundnuts (peanuts) along the river was the result. The harvested nuts, crushed to make oil, were exported to Europe for use in food manufacture. In the 1950s, Gambia's groundnut production was beefed up as a way to increase export earnings and make the country more self-supportive. Today, groundnuts remain the chief crop of both Gambia and neighbouring Senegal.

In 1965, Gambia became independent (although Britain's Queen Elizabeth II remained as titular head of state) and, without any official explanation, The was added to its name. Around the same time, two events occurred that enabled the tiny nation to survive and even prosper. For a decade after independence, the world price for groundnuts increased significantly, raising the country's GNP almost threefold. The second event had an even more resounding effect - Gambia became a significant tourist destination.

Economic growth translated into political confidence and, in 1970, Gambia became a fully independent republic. Troubles in the 1980s began with falling groundnut prices, while the government of President Dawda Jawara did little to diversify the economy. Several coup attempts were quelled with the assistance of Senegalese troops, who were integrated with Gambian troops in 1982 as the Senegambian Confederation. In 1989, the confederation was dissolved and both countries imposed severe border restrictions. Tensions ran high well into 1990.

A protest by soldiers over late salaries in July 1994 turned into a coup d'etat, led by a young lieutenant, Yahya Jammeh. A new military government was formed, and Jammeh announced that he would remain in power at least until 1998.

Recent History

After a brief flirtation with autocracy, 30-year-old Jammeh bowed to international pressure, inaugurated a Second Republic and contrived to win the 1996 presidential election comfortably. He reportedly suppressed a coup attempt in 2000, and won a second term in 2001 in elections reported as largely fair. Nevertheless, the Jammeh regime became increasingly known for its autocracy. It reached an ugly climax when, in 2004, prominent journalist Deyda Heydara was killed by unknown assassins only days after expressing his opposition to a controversial media law granting the government powers to jail journalists if accused of libel. In March 2006, international observers were once again alerted to Gambia's political situation - several high ranking military officers were arrested on claims of an attempted coup d'etat. A few months before the presidential polls, this was interpreted as a way of 'cleansing' the government of rivals, and could be indicative of the way elections might be handled.

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