The Gambia | A River that Became a Country

Let's say you live in Senegal's capital and largest city, Dakar, and just wanted to get away from it all. So, you packed up your things and decided to check out Kapskering for a short vacation. From what I hear, the area has pretty nice beaches and an all-inclusive resort. Well, you could drive the nine and a half hours there, but in doing so would have to cross an international border twice. If you wanted to avoid that, another option would be to take a much longer route, adding another five hours to your trip. But why is this? The Gambia, that's why. Right in the middle of Senegal is another country. And if you've ever looked at a map of West Africa and wondered why, well, that's exactly what we'll be exploring in this video. The Gambia, or as it's officially known, the Republic of the Gambia, is the smallest country on the African mainland and is entirely surrounded by Senegal. That is, aside from its western coast and the Atlantic Ocean. It's named after the Gambia River, and if you have closed captions turned on, you might have noticed something a little unusual here. The Gambia is one of only two existing countries, the other being the Bahamas, that uses and capitalizes the definite article THE in its official name. And yes, there are other countries in which THE is used, like the Philippines or the United Kingdom. These, however, are cases in which the name is either plural and or includes the form of government and are not obligatory. So, just once more, officially, it's THE Gambia, not Gambia, though plenty of people still say that anyway. In part, this was done to avoid confusion with another country, Zambia, that gained independence around the same time. Oh, and random fact here, but I think it's pretty cool the Carthaginian explorer Hanno the Navigator may have reached the Gambia River during an expedition all the way back in the 5th century BC. The first verifiable written accounts we have of the region, however, come from Arab traders back in the 9th and 10th centuries AD, and the region was, for a time, controlled by the Mali and Songhai Empires. But we're getting a bit off topic. Why does the Gambia exist in the first place? Well, as you might have expected, that answer mostly has to do with colonialism. The Gambia was a British colony, while Senegal was French. Now, that being said, the first Europeans to actually explore the region were the Portuguese, who established trading outposts sometime in the mid-15th century. By the way, there's also a theory the river itself may have gotten its name from the Portuguese word cambio, meaning trade or exchange. Others think it may have come from the Madinka word cambra or camba. Still another theory points to the Serer people, who used the term gamba to refer to a bottle gourd that traditionally was beaten to announce the death of a respected individual. Anyway, by the 16th century, the Senegambia region had become an important location in relation to the so-called triangular trade, which saw European nations bring textiles, rum, and other manufactured goods to Africa, which they traded for gold, ivory, and slaves. These were then brought over to the New World and sold in exchange for sugar, tobacco, and cotton, which in turn were then brought back to Europe. In 1659, the French established a fort known as Saint-Louis and shortly thereafter, in 1677, captured the island of Gorée. Soon, they exercised control over much of the Senegal River region, while the British set up shop along the Gambia down south. However, during the Seven Years War, aka the French and Indian War, the British were able to capture Saint-Louis and Gorée, thereafter creating the Crown Colony of Senegambia. London fully intended to keep its foothold in West Africa, but in an often ignored chapter of the American War of Independence, which saw plenty of fighting outside North America, the French were able to recapture Saint-Louis in 1779. The Treaty of Versailles and Treaty of Paris in 1783 then gave France effective control of Saint-Louis, Île-de-Gorée, and the Senegal River region, while Britain retained possession of the Gambia River region. In 1807, the Kingdom of Great Britain abolished the slave trade and tried doing the same in its colonial holdings, including Gambia. Slave ships were intercepted by the Royal Navy and a number of formerly enslaved peoples were relocated to McCarthy Island approximately 170 miles or 272 kilometers up the Gambia River, where they were to start their new lives as free men. However, before 1816, Britain's presence was essentially restricted to James Island, modern Kunta Kinta Island, near the mouth of the Gambia River. Later that year, Alexander Grant, the first commandant of what was to become the Gambia Colony and Protectorate, purchased an island from the King of Combo, a small local kingdom upon which quickly grew the town of Bathurst, now the Gambian capital and largest city, Banjol. However, no sooner had the British acquired Gambia, they began thinking about exchanging it with France. In 1868, Arthur Kennedy, the Governor General of Sierra Leone, which had jurisdiction over the Protectorate until it became a separate colony in 1888, acknowledged a proposal by the French to exchange Gambia for some other territory in West Africa. This later was accepted in principle by the British government in 1870, but was strongly opposed by the native inhabitants of Gambia and most of the merchant community there. What's more, none of the settlements offered in exchange for Gambia were of particular interest, and so it was instead suggested the French renounce their Paris agreed, but nonetheless, following a series of parliamentary debates, the 1870 proposal was essentially dead in the water. In 1874, the French government revisited the matter, again offering to renounce its claims on the Melicori region and even giving some additional concessions in the Ivory Coast. When news of the second proposal got out in mid-1875, however, there was immediate backlash in Bathurst. Negotiations were then delayed and finally suspended in 1876. The notion of exchanging Gambia for, well, something, was briefly flirted with one last time in the 1890s, when it was suggested that the territory could be given in exchange for France giving up its fishing rights along the Newfoundland coast. Nothing really came of this and the West African territory remained in British hands. Just a year before, however, in 1889, the British and French had agreed in principle to set the colony's borders at 6.2 miles, or 10 kilometers, north and south of the Gambia River and east of Yarbutenda, its furthest known navigable point. That being said, there is another story which claims the border was demarcated when a British ship made its way down the Gambia River, firing cannonballs off either side and claiming the land that fell within range. Wherever they landed, boom, you had part of the border. This almost certainly is a fabrication, but there is a small nugget of truth here. In 1891, a joint Anglo-French boundary commission set out to map the Gambia's border in further detail. It, however, encountered resistance from local rulers whose land was being divvied up sometimes right through the middle of an existing kingdom. The boundary commission had backup, though, via British ships patrolling the river. Soldiers from three warships landed at various points on the river bank as a hint of what the resistors had to expect in the event of any continued resistance. What's more, the British may have also bombarded the village of Kansala. So, in a way, cannonballs were likely involved in the shaping of the Gambia's colonial borders. Skipping ahead a little bit, Senegal then became independent in 1960 when, alongside French Sudan, it formed the Mali Federation. This lasted for about two months before Dakar opted to withdraw from the Federation, while the Gambia gained its independence in 1965. Following this, in 1981, there was a coup attempt by the Gambian Socialist Revolutionary Party, which may have received support from Libya, and disaffected members of the Gambian military against President Dauda Jawara. This eventually was put down after Senegalese forces intervened, and perhaps because of this, the idea of unification gained support. Fun fact, Libya would also, allegedly, play a hand in the successful 1994 Gambian coup. Anyway, in 1982, the two countries did unite, forming the Senegambia Confederation. This was, well, a loose confederation in which Senegal and the Gambia remained largely independent. However, issues did nonetheless soon arise. Gambians in particular were reluctant to integrate economically with Senegal, and opposed Dakar's proposal in 1984 to create a customs and monetary union. The Gambia also opposed the building of a trans-Gambian highway and bridge, as it believed this would threaten its sovereignty and result in a loss of revenue from trade with Senegal's Casamance region. Underlying all this was Banjul's concern that Senegal was more interested in a unitary Senegambian state, as opposed to a confederation. Then, in 1989, Senegal pulled its troops from the Gambia, because of a border conflict with Mauritania. Feeling its interests were no longer being protected, Banjul initiated measures to dissolve the union, and in September of that year, the Senegambia Confederation was no more. This, interestingly, would add fuel to the still technically ongoing Casamance conflict, as the Jola, or Diola, the dominant ethnic group in the region, felt economically disenfranchised from the rest of Senegal, although since 2015, there has only been sporadic fighting. 2015 was also the year that the Gambia changed its name to the Islamic Republic of the Gambia, but this was later changed back to the Republic of the Gambia in 2017. And so, that's the story of the Gambia, the African mainland's smallest country.