The Gambia’s hidden history: how a tiny river basin influenced colonial trade and slavery

The Gambia is often portrayed as little more than a geographical oddity, a strip of land engulfed by its much larger neighbour Senegal. It was once the centre of Senegambia, administered by Britain between 1765 and 1779. But there is another way of looking at it which reveals its importance and adds to current reflections on reparations for slavery.

Pape Chérif Bertrand Bassène has studied the history of The Gambia and southern Senegal. He argues that British and Portuguese sources point to the existence of “Sierragambia” – a dynamic Mande-Atlantic connection and maritime corridor extending from the Gambia River basin, through the Casamance and Cacheu networks, down to the Sierra Leone River estuary, which later became the Abolitionist Laboratory Loop.

This independent coastal region played a decisive role in the Atlantic's political, commercial and anti-slavery dynamics. Here, French-British rivalries intersected with African political agency long before the abolition of the slave trade. Whether through strategic alliances or fierce resistance, Bassène argues, African societies played an active, structuring role in transforming the Atlantic system into a network of exchange. We asked him to fill in the details.

How did you go about your research?

My research draws on two sets of European archives: British archives on The Gambia, and Portuguese sources on The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. I analysed them alongside the historiography of Senegambia rather than in isolation.

Rather than treating these records as objective accounts, I approached them as geopolitical narratives. These require critical interpretation, informed by insights from historical linguistics; by analysing Atlantic, Mande, and Bak languages, I trace the etymologies, shifting meanings, and social realities hidden behind European denominations and colonial administrative categories.

These sources help reveal how coastal trading networks developed. They also show how waterways were controlled by “Banhüns” (Baynunks) or “grumetes/gourmets”. Europeans used these terms for the local intermediaries who connected them to the Atlantic slave trade.

The sources show African political structures remained strong and were able to negotiate, resist, or exploit imperial rivalries.

What was the crisis between the French and British colonial forces all about?

Between 1779 and 1785, “Sierragambia” was a space where Franco-British rivalries intersected with African political agency, before the abolition of the slave trade.

In 1779, French forces destroyed Fort James on the Gambia River, ending Britain's Province of Senegambia. But the French administration could not establish lasting control. British ships quickly returned and resumed their operations.

This rivalry reached its peak in October 1780. The French naval warship Le Sénégal boarded four English vessels at the mouth of the river. Britain responded quickly.

On 2 November 1780, the ship HMS Zephyr, supported by the privateer Polly (a civilian vessel), attacked the French ship. Twelve French sailors were killed and 28 wounded. The British lost only two men. Le Sénégal was captured and taken to Gorée, the slave trading island. It exploded shortly afterwards.

What role did Gambian communities play?

Portuguese sources describe precolonial Casamance in today's Senegal as a territory fiercely guarded by coastal societies. There was no easy access. Europeans had to pass through the Banhuns-Grumetes, intermediaries from local communities, and Portuguese “lançados” (exiles). These various actors controlled the backwaters, filtered trade flows, and dictated the terms of barter.

The 1780 episode was shaped by an African initiative, a strategic alliance between British sailors and the Joola people of Fogni (the southern part of the Gambia River). Trapped along the river, the British sailors secured logistical and military support from the Joola. Rather than a victory decided purely by British maritime superiority, the capture of the ship Le Sénégal was engineered by a local African alliance that stripped the French of mobility and logistics. Africans created the tactical conditions that made British interception possible.

Coastal communities refused to supply the French. They harassed French rowboats, and disrupted the slave trade. On the north bank, the Niuminkés generally supported France. On the south bank, the Fogni communities allied with Britain. Their actions helped shape the territorial status quo ratified by the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

Although this treaty kept Albréda north of the river under the French flag, Paris had no real control over the river.

The agreement brought only a temporary pause to the conflict between the French and the British. It continued for decades.

How did this play out in the slave trade?

After losing its American colonies, Britain realigned its economic priorities. As it became an industrial power, it used the abolitionist movement as a tool to weaken its economic rivals. Sierragambia proved fertile ground for this project. Britain had already built strong ties with local communities.

The founding of Bathurst (present day Banjul, the capital of The Gambia) in 1816 should not be seen just as colonialism imposed from the outside. It was, rather, a legal formalisation of a preexisting political autonomy.

The colonial order that took shape in the 19th century grew out of forms of local autonomy that coastal communities had built during the slave trade era.

Even though the Barra Fort on the north bank of the Gambia River served to protect trade routes, the southern region became a space of emancipation, dissent and social change.

Freed captives, coastal communities and local authorities came together to strengthen their room for manoeuvre in the face of European powers. The Gambia developed a political identity distinct from its neighbours.

Further south of Banjul, the French attempted to replicate this model by planning to create a “village of freedom” on the Carabane island.

What does this tell us about reparations?

As debates over the memory of the Atlantic slave trade gather pace, calls for reparations are growing louder.

Yet a crucial part of west African history remains trapped in an outdated framework shaped by the types of sources historians have traditionally used.

The “Sierragambia” concept invites us to rethink borders and territories in west Africa. Borders are not simply lines drawn at European imperial conferences. They are also a result of complex interactions shaped by the Atlantic system, African diplomatic choices, and local power dynamics.

Recognising African agency also changes the way we think about reparations today. It moves us beyond a simple story of powerful oppressors and passive victims. The collapse of the Atlantic slave trade was not decided only in London or Paris. It played out on the ground, driven by local resistance and global economic shifts.

Pape Chérif Bertrand Bassène does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

By Pape Chérif Bertrand Bassène, Senior Lecturer, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar

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