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dissertation entitled

LAND AND HISTORICAL CHANGE IN A RIVER
VALLEY: PROPERTY, POWER AND DEPENDENCY IN
THE LOWER GAMBIA BASIN, NINETEENTH AND
EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURIES

presented by

ASSAN SARR

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LAND AND HISTORICAL CHANGE IN A RIVER VALLEY: PROPERTY, POWER
AND DEPENDENCY IN THE LOWER GAMBIA BASIN, NINETEENTH AND
EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURIES
By

ASSAN SARR

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY

2010

ABSTRACT

LAND AND HISTORICAL CHANGE IN A RIVER VALLEY: PROPERTY, POWER
AND DEPENDENCY IN THE LOWER GAMBIA BASIN, NINETEENTH AND
EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURIES

By

Assan Sarr

This dissertation uses oral and written sources to explore changing concepts of
land tenure along the banks of the lower Gambia River basin. It argues that landholding
customs and land use practices in this region were constantly changing under the impact
of new conditions, often related to major historical developments in the area and forces
associated with the region’s relationship with the wider world, particularly Europe and
the Islamic world. The most important matters affecting land tenure systems were the
outbreak of Muslim Revolutions and the development of cash-crop production. These
occurred following the ending of the Atlantic slave trade and, over several decades
following 1830, resulted in the overthrow of a Mandinka aristocracy and rejection of

royal control over the land.

DEDICATION

To Momodou Sarr, Donald R. Wright and Doris Wright

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I owe a lot of gratitude to Professor Emeritus Donald R. Wright and his wife,

Don's Wright. In addition to providing me with an opportunity to pursue graduate
school, Dr. Wright and Doris supported me in all forms throughout my career as a
graduate student both at. Ohio University and Michigan State University. I sincerely
thank them from the bottom of my heart. My extended family in the Gambia provided
me the inspiration. I owe my late brother and dearest friend, Momodou Sarr, much
gratitude and I wish him well in the heavens. I beneﬁted from the support and prayers
of my wonderful parents, Fatou Drammeh, and Mangkodou Sarr. I also thank my
siblings Omar, Ousainou (my twin brother), Ida, Mamcherno, Ousman, Mamut, Pa, and
Yusupha Sohna. Thanks also to Marion and Aji Fatou for their love, support and
understanding.

I have a number of good friends in the academic community who deserve to be
mentioned. At the University of The Gambia, I thank Professor Nicodemus F. Awasom
and the late Mr. Michael Jusu. Momodou Bah helped me during some of my interviews
and Abdoulie Jaﬁmeh and Ensa Touray accompanied on most of the trips I made to the
countryside. I am thankful to Professors Michael Tuck, David Wheat, Mara Leitchman
and Steve Howard.

I say a big thank you to Bakary Sidebe, the former Director of the OHAD, the
late Iali Kebba Suso, and all the people that I interviewed over the years. At the .
National Records Service, I thank Director Elizabeth Bahoum, Kalilu Sonko and
Bakary Sanyang, who is also director of RDD. In Senegal, I thank IFAN’s Professor

Abdoulaye Toure who showed me kindness. He and his wife, Madam Toure, not only

iv

opened up their house to me, they were important contacts. Professors I brahama Thioup
and Abdourahman Ngaide were excellent contacts and mentors.

At Michigan State, I benefited immensely from the assistance of our excellent
Afn'cana bibliographers, Joe Laur and Peter Limb. Director ofMSU’s TAP program,
Kevin Johnston, made East Lansing a home for me. I enjoyed Dr. Peter Alegi and Leslie
Hadﬁeld’s friendship and intellectual support. Leslie read several parts of this
dissertation. Thanks to Lumumba Shabaka, Lindsey Gish, Ibra Sene (now at Wooster)

and Bala Saho and his wife, Binta Sanyang. Moussa Dieng, Oona O'Leary, Kelli Kolasa
and Chris Greenmun helped with the map.

Funding came from the MSU’s College of Social Science, the Kenneth E.

Correy Research Enhancement fellowship, the Graduate School, and the Department of
History. The Compton Foundation offered me a dissertation fellowship to travel to The
Gambia and Senegal and Bill Roberts, through his SMCM-Gambia Program, supported
my trip to England. Professor James Brennan, who was then at the SOAS, wrote me a
letter of invitation so I could get a UK visa to carry out research.

Lastly, I want to thank my dissertation committee here at Michigan State
University: Professors Nwando Achebe, Peter Beattie and Gordon Stewart. My mentors
Professors Walter Hawthorne and David Robinson were especially kind to me. I
beneﬁted tremendously from their love and their intellectual support and guidance. This
dissertation could not have been written without them. I must state that Dr. Hawthorne
was just more than being a mentor. He was truly a friend and brother and our

relationship goes back to Ohio University where he admitted me as his first Gambian

student. To these people and those not mention, I say a big thank you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................... v

INTRODUCTION ............................................... .1

CHAPTER ONE: THE POLITICAL, ECOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC
CONFIGURATION OF THE LOWER GAMBIA BASIN:
THE LAND ............................................ 32

CHAPTER TWO: LANDLORDS AND STRANGERS: LAND, POWER

AND DEPENDENCY IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH
CENTURY LOWER GAMBIA BASIN .................... 74

CHAPTER THREE: LAND QUESTIONS AND THE FALL OF THE OLD
REGIMES: JIHAD AND CHANGE, 18405-1901 .......... 109

CHAPTER FOUR: LAND AND THE GROWTH OF

COMMERCIAL AGRICULTURE: PEANUTS AND
CHANGE, c. 18303 - 19005 .......................... . 145

CHAPTER FIVE: THE CROWN COLONY AND PROTECTORATE
AREAS: CHANGES AND CONTINUITY IN LAND
TENURE DURING THE COLONIAL ERA, c. 18805-19203 . . 179

CONCLUSION ..................................................... 21 1

BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................... 223

vi

LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 1: Map showing the lower Gambia’s Ecological Zones .............. 37

vii

Introduction

In 1795 an English factor by the name Mungo Park traveled to the Gambia
looking to discover the sources of the Niger River and to trade in gold and other
merchandise. In the course of his travels he met a “wealthy” Mandinka slave trader in
the upper reaches of the Gambia River. The trader’s name was Karfa. Park travelled
with Karfa, visiting several towns and villages along the banks of the Gambia River.
They bought slaves and provisions, and held palavers with ruling elites. Karfa however
was unable to ﬁnd a market for the slaves he bought. As a result, he “hired from the

chief . . . of Jindey huts for their accommodation, and a piece of land on which to

employ [these slaves] 1n raIsmg corn and other prOVISIons for their maintenance. ’

Park’s observations raise a number of questions: what made it possible for chiefs
like that of Jindey to exercise the right of renting land to individuals such as Karfa?
What sort of relationship developed between the chief and Karfa? Did the relationship
change over time? With a focus on the Gambia River region, this study answers these
questions. More speciﬁcally, it explores why land was important in the political and
social history of the people living along West Africa’s Gambia River. It charts how
broad transformations in the regions’ political and social arrangements affected land
tenure in the Gambia’s lower basin, across the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
These include the rise of the nineteenth century militant Islamic revolution, the
development of cash crop production and the establishment of colonial rule. In other

1
Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa First Journey -1795 ~1797 (Edinburg: Adam and Charles
Black, 1878), p. 330.

words, the study documents the impact of islarnization on land tenure as well as the
development and expansion of peanut production and export and implementation of the
colonial regime at the turn of the century. 1

By analyzing the effects of these broad transformations in lower Gambian
history, the dissertation makes a number of general arguments. First, it contends that in
considering land tenure in the lower Gambia River the peoples’ social, political and
religious considerations are no less important than the purely economic ones. It further
argues that to emphasize on the productive uses of land is to overlook the value
Africans placed on land. This is because Africans' own social and political way of
thinking and operating were as important as the economics in shaping how people
perceived or claimed land.

Second, it argues that continuity and change in systems of land tenure can be
explained through the conﬂuence of signiﬁcant changes occurring in late “pre-colonial”
and early colonial lower Gambian society. The transformations mentioned above
occurred following the ending of the Atlantic slave trade and resulted, in the severed
decades after 1830, in the overthrow of the Mandinka aristocracy and royal control of
land. Many lower Gambian village residents only had the right of use to the farmlands
they cultivated and newcomers had to seek permission from those in authority before

they could establish their own settlement on the land or to use part of the land to

cultivate crops.2 It was in the mid nineteenth century when the aristocracy’s monopoly

control of land was challenged and brought to a ﬁnal end in a series ofjihads.

2
NRS, CSO 10/7l-Native Land Tenure, 1939

Third, it also argues that the expansion of cash crop production (i.e. peanuts) in
the mid nineteenth century did not lead to the growth in the market for land in rural
communities. In most Gambian villages, until the end of colonial rule, local customs
continued to forbid the transfer of land that involved some form of monetary exchange.
In fact, Western inﬂuence on local attitudes toward property was minimal in most
Gambian villages. Although native tribunals - comprised of men appointed by the
European district commissioners —- were created and empowered to deal with matters of
land tenure, but these councils hardly altered the “customary” rules used to claim
ownership to land. As a matter of fact, the position of the colonial administration with
regard to land tenure practices was often contradictory. While it frequently advocated
for a policy of non-interference in so-called customary tenure, it declared that all unused
land in the colony and protectorate was taken over by the colonial state.

Historiography

Landholding and land use practices in West Africa have become important
topics of study for many anthropologists but not much for historians. In fact,
anthropological studies of African land tenures began in a thorough way in the work Of
mainly British social anthropologists in the years immediately after the end of the
Second World War.3 But as anthropologists were developing interest on African land,
historians sought to study changes in other forms of property rights especially slavery
and slave trading. Consequently, as Anthony Hopkins writes, historical research on

property rights in West Africa has concentrated very largely on studies of slavery and

3
R. E. Downs and S. P. Reyna (ed.) Land and Society in Contemporary Africa (Hanover and London,
University Press of New England, 1988), p. ix

its compliment, wage labor.4 A major reason for this bias in the historiography could be
the popularity of slavery and slave trading among modern historians of West Africa.
While slavery and slave trading continued to draw the attention of many
historians, it is probably the topic that generated the most controversy in Aﬁican
history. Even today, issues of slavery and the slave trade continue to generate ferocious
debates among scholars. One of the consequences of this is that over the past several
decades, dozens of books and articles have been published on this tOpic. These debates
have no doubt made enormous contributions to West African history. But the narrow
emphasis on “slaves as property” appears to reinforce the view that slaves were the
most important form of property in West African societies especially before the colonial
era. Some historians even went much further to argue that African societies have
generally valued people more than land, and suggest that the sense of ownership was a
colonial and modern imposition.5 Notable among these are Martin Klein, John Thornton
and Joseph Miller. For example, in Peasants in Aﬁica, Klein gives the impression that
across Africa, overtime, slaves, rather than land, were the primary forms of investment.
For him, land was not short in supply in pro-colonial Aﬁica and the only challenge
Africans had to overcome was the shortage of dependents and/or labor.6 R. E. Downs
and S. P. Reyna suggest that the shortage of labor made it possible that if an individual

wanted land, he asked for it; and he is assured of getting it. “In the case of virgin land it

 

4 Anthony G. Hopkins, “Property Rights and Empire Building: Britain's Annexation of Lagos, I861" The
Journal of Economic History, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec, 1980), p. 797

For example, see the works of John Thornton Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World,
1400-1800 Second Edition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Martin Klein (ed.) Peasants
in Africa: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Beverly Hills, London: Sage Publications 1980),
pp. 2022; Joseph C. Miller. Way of Death: Merchant Capitalism and the Angolan Slave Trade 1730-
g 830 (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), pp. 43, 44.

Klein, Peasants in Africa, 13; Miller, Way of Death, p. 43
4

might not even be necessary to ask for it.”7 In a similar argument, Joseph Miller claims

that in Western Central Africa, wealth was people and “land was cheap, often free to its
ﬁrst occupants”8 and John Thornton suggests that from around the 14005 to the 18005,

and in all of Africa, control was exercised more over people than over land.9 Thornton

writes that African law recognized the ownership of slaves rather than through the

ﬁction of landownership.10 For him, slaves were the only form of private, revenue-
producing property recognized in African law and owing land in Africa meant nothing
more than owning a piece of dirt.11 Hence, land, he claim, was not a matter of
importance in Africa.

Also, for many of these scholars, African societies did not value land because
they had small populations and abundant supply of land. People like Klein argue that
pre-colonial Africa was characterized by low population densities and because of that
there was free land for everyone. This is echoed by RE. Downs and SP. Reyna and
Jack Glazier. Glazier for example claims that “traditional societies of Africa
experienced no land shortages because land to population ratios were consistently high
in traditional Africa.”12 Similarly, in writing about the Tswana of Southern Africa, John
and Jean Comaroff claim that the Tswana did not buy into notions of private landed
property because neither arable ﬁelds nor pasture was scarce in Tswanaland. These

scholars suggest that until the turn of the twentieth century Africa experienced no land

 

7 Downs and Reyna (ed.), Land and Society in Contemporary Africa, p. 13
8 Miller, Way of Death, p. 44

Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, p. 78
‘0 ibid, p. 76
” lbid, p. 74

12
Jack Glazier, Land and the Uses of Tradition Among the Mbeere of Kenya (Lanham, MD: University
Press of America, 1985), pp. '1—2

shortages, and because of this land ownership or control was not a basis socio-economic

. . . . . l3
differentiatron In Africa.

Thus, some historians only traced signiﬁcant transformations in land ownership
in Africa from around the time of the onset of colonial rule, when Europeans brought

their notions of property rights formed through long experience with mercantile and

industrial capitalism.l4 For instance, many scholars have traced the growth of land
markets in various West African societies to the development of cash cropping in the
middle of the nineteenth century. Notable among them is Anthony Hopkins who claims

that in Lagos, land values jumped sometime in the nineteenth century in part because of
the commercialization of agriculture.15 Sara Berry, Polly Hill and Julian Clarke also

make similar arguments.16

As with most African historical study, Senegambian historiography generally
neglects the study of land ownership. As will be discussed, the major exception is the
literature on the middle Senegal valley. Even in dealing with an area some three
hundred miles from the lower Gambia and in a very different ecological and cultural
region, the literature on the middle Senegal valley do not explore changes in practices

of property ownership or how these changed over a signiﬁcant time period. Therefore,

 

13
John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff. Of Revelation and Revolution: The Dialectics of Modernity on a
South African Frontier, Vol. 11 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1997), p. 369

Glazier, Land and the Uses of Tradition; Comaroff and Comaroff, 0f Revelation and Revolution, p.
369; Douglas R. Egerton, Alison Games et. al., The Atlantic World: A History, 1400-1888 (Wheeling,
Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 2007), pp. 33-36; Klein (ed.) Peasants in Africa, p. 22—23

15
Hopkins, “Property Rights and Empire Building,” p. 790.

Sara Berry shows that conﬂict over land intensiﬁed in much of Western Africa (e.g. in the Nigeria and
the Gold Coast) due to the “new” value agricultural land acquired as a result of expansion in cash crop
production. [For more see Berry. N0 Condition is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change
in Sub-Saharan Africa (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), p. 16. See also Julian
Clarke, “Peasantization and Landholding: A Nigerian Case Study” in Peasants in Africa (edited by
Martin Klein), p. 197; Klein, Peasants in Africa, p. 21 and Polly Hill. Rural Capitalism in West Aﬁica
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970).

6

by exploring the changes to systems of land tenure in the lower Gambia basin and
focusing on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this study aims to examine
some of these problems in the study of land in West African history.

While its goal is not to diminish the importance of slavery in West Africa, the
study suggest that it is misleading to assume that Africans did not value land because
they valued slaves more. It shows that emphasis on “wealth-in-people” or the notion of
“property in slaves” ignores the political and social value pre-colonial Africans placed
on land. Politically, in the lower Gambia valley, controlling land was often critical in
the creation of the many forms of dependency in African societies —— not just slavery.l7
One of these forms of dependency is the landlord-stranger relationship. In his study of
pre-colonial West Africa, George Brooks shows that landlord-stranger relationships
often played a critical role in shaping interactions between European strangers and

African landlords in the Upper Guinea Coast, of which the lower Gambia was a part

of.’8 He shows that the willingness of Africans providing land to Europeans sailors and

 

‘7 For more detailed discussion of this, see Sara Berry “Access, Control and Use of Resources in African
Agriculture: An Introduction” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 59, No. 1,
Access, Control and Use of Resources in African Agriculture. (1989), pp. 1-5; Berry “Hegemony on a
Shoestring: Indirect Rule and Access to Agricultural Land” Africa: Journal of the International African
Institute, Vol. 62, No. 3, Rights over Land: Categories and Controversies. (1992), pp. 327-355; Berry.
Chiefs Know Their Boundaries: Essays on Property, Power, and the Past in Asante, 1896-1996
(Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann; Oxford: James Currey; Cape Town: David Philip, 2001); Berry No
Condition is Permanent (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993).

1,8 George E. Brooks, Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society, and Trade in Western Africa, 1000-
1630 (Boulder, Westview Press, 1993). Other studies which deal with the importance of landlord-stranger
relationships in West Africa include: Bruce L. Mouser’s “Landlords-Strangers: A Process of
Accommodation and Assimilation” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 8, No. 3
(1975), pp. 425-7; V. R. Dorjahn and Christopher Fyfe. “Landlord and Stranger: Change in Tenancy
Relations in Sierra Leone” The Journal of African History, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1962), p. 392', Wyatt
MacGaffey, “Changing Representations in Central African history,” Journal of African History, 46
(2005), pp. 193-95. Paul Julian Beedle “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town” Thesis (doctora1)--
University of Cambridge, 1980; Kenneth Swindell. “Migrant Groundnut Farmers in the Gambia: The
Persistence of a Nineteenth Century Labor System” International Migration Review, Vol. 11, No. 4
(Winter, 1977), pp. 452-472; Kenneth Swindell. “Family Farms and Migrant Labour: The Strange
Farmers of the Gambia” Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue C anadienne des Etudes Africaines,

7

merchants were often critical to the success of European commercial interests along the

West African coast. 19 But unlike Brooks, this study will show how interactions between
African landlords and other African strangers shaped their societies. By emphasizing
the importance of landlord-stranger relationship, it shows that power was at the heart of
the privileged existence of West African landlords. Like anthropologists Parker Shipton
and Mitzi Goheen have demonstrated, people use land not just to produce the material
conditions of survival and enrichment, but also to gain control over others, and to deﬁne
personal and social identities.20 Accordingly, this dissertation suggests that employing a
purely materialist interpretation of land in Africa could and is indeed misleading.

The study also shows that it is misleading to assume that in pre-colonial Africa,
because land was plentiful and populations small, land ownership was not a matter of
importance? Low population density does not necessarily make land less important. In
the nineteenth century lower Gambia region, land also possessed spiritual value. In fact,
belief in spirits shaped local attitude toward land. As stated by Arjun Appadurai and

William H. Davenport in their work on commodities and value, value is not solely

determined by material constituents.22 Mystical and spiritual attributes, they argue, can

 

Vol. 12, No. l (1978), pp. 3-17; Ken Swindell. “Serawoollies, Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers: The
Development of Migrant Groundnut Farming along the Gambia River, 1848-95” The Journal of African
History, Vol. 21, No. 1 (1980), pp. 93-104

George E. Brooks, Landlords and Strangers, pp. 38-9.

20 Parker Shipton and Mitzi Goheen, “Introduction. Understanding African Land-Holding: Power,
Wealth, and Meaning” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 62, No. 3, Rights over
Land: Categories and Controversies. (1992), p. 307. See also Shipton “Land and Culture in Tropical
Africa,” pp. 347-377

For a more succinct criticism of this assumption see Gareth Austen’s “Resources, Techniques, and
Strategies South of the Sahara: Revising the Factor Endowments Perspective on African Economic
development, 1500—2000” Economic History Review (2007), p. 1.

Indeed, Anthropologists and economic historians take much of the credit for improving our knowledge
of West African land tenure systems. [Notable among them include Paul Bohannan and Laura Bohannan.
Tiv Economy (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968), p. 87; See also Bronislaw Malinowski,

8

also become attached to almost any kind of goods as a result of social activity,
increasing their value beyond any strictly utilitarian logic and eventually removing them
altogether from the realm of economic commodities.23

As suggested earlier, a good number of the studies on land in West Africa
focused on West Africa’s river regions. For example, the work of Michal Tymowski

and Maurice Delafosse on the Niger River valley shows that in that region, in the past,
certain individuals had special rights to the lands situated near the river and the elites
often charged a tax on the tenants.24 Focusing on the middle Senegal River, David
Robinson shows that land was important in Futa where the middle Senegal valley
constitutes a rich ﬂoodplain, allowing its farmers to grow a dry season crop and thus
provide important insurance against the uncertainties of rainfall agriculture. This asset,
according to him, has made Futa the bread-basket of the region, and has attracted
herders, traders, and settlers to its soil throughout its history.25 Land in the middle

Senegal valley also served other functions. Youssouf Guéye and Oumar Kane for

 

Coral Gardens and Their Magic: A Study of the Methods of Tilling the Soil and of Agricultural Rites in
the Trobriand Islands. (New York, American Book Co. 1935); GB. A. Coker, Family Property Among
the Yorubas (London & Lagos: Sweet and Maxwell, African Universities Press, 1966), pp. 25-6; Polly
Hill. Rural Capitalism in West Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. xiv; Polly Hill.
The Migrant Cocoa-Farmers of Southern Ghana: A Study of Rural Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1963)].

Arjun Appadurai, The Social life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge
[Cambridgeshire]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), P- 108‘ For more on land and
spirituality, see Robin Horton “God, Man and the Land in a Northern Ibo Village Group,” In Aﬁ'ica, 24,
(1956), pp. 17-23; Jack Goody Death, Property and the Ancestors: A Study of the Mutuary Customs of
the Lo-Dagaa of West Africa (London: Tavistock Publications, 1962); Edward Tengan’s The Land as
Being and Cosmos: The Institution of the Earth Cult among the Sisala of Northwestern Ghana (New
Lork and Paris: Peter Lang, 1991) '

See for example, the work of Michal Tymowski, Le De’veloppement et la Regression Chez les Peuples
de la Boucle du Niger 2: l’époque Pre'colom'ale ([Varsovie] Wydawni twa Uniwersytetu Warszaw-skiego,
1974), p. 13; Maurice Delafosse. Les Civilisations Négro-Africaines (Paris : Librairie Stock, 1925) and
Maurice Delafosse, Haut-SénégaI-Niger (Soudan francais) [microform : series (1’ etudes pub. Sous la
direction de M. Le gouveneur Clozel (Paris : E. Larose, 1912).

David Robinson, “The Islamic Revolution of Futa Tom,” The International Journal of African
Historical Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1975), p. 185

example show that the Islamic Regime of F uta Toro and its elites took special interest in
controlling land because the land was considered valuable.26 For instance, in La

Premiere He’ge’monie Peule, Oumar Kane connects land ownership in Futa Toro to

political power by describing the jaaltaabe of F uta as the “chef de terre.”27 Elsewhere,
also in the Senegal region, Boubacarr Barry, Abdoulaye Bara Diop and Mamadou Diouf
show that land rights in Waalo and in Kajoor were equally linked to political or
religious power under the authority of a territorial chief, who functioned as a
community head whose tile was laman.28

Even though studies focusing on other river regions of West Africa seem to
constitute an exception to the assumption that the key resource in Africa is people, not
land, lands situated along the banks of the Gambia River have been rarely placed in this
historical reality. Hence, this is a study of a riverine region. By charting changes in land
tenure across the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this study shows that African
customs and practices of land tenure were far from static and that not all of the
inﬂuences on land tenure were coming from Europe. Local forces were important in
altering family structures and unity as well as communities, and the ways people
exercised control over land. Moreover, it also shows that while the development of

commercial agriculture played a significant role in altering local attitudes toward land in

 

26 Youssouf Gueye, “Essai: Sur Les Causes et Les Consequences de la Micropmpriété au Fouta Toro,”
Bulletin de 1'], F. A. N, TXIX, sér. B, No. 3 1—2, (1957); p. 98 and Oumar Kane La Premiere He’ge'monie
Peule: Le F uuta Tooro de Koli Tengella a Almaami Abdul (Paris: Karthala‘, Dakar -Fann: Presses
rzrniversitaires de Dakar, 2004). i

For more on land in Futa, see the work of Aboubacry Moussa Lam, La F iévre de la Terre (Paris, L’
Harmattan, 1990) and Maiga, Mahamadou. Le Bassin du F leuve Se’négal: De la Traite Négriére au
Développement Sous—Regional Autocentré (Paris: l'Harmattan, 1995)

Abdoulaye-Bara Diop. La Socie’te’ Wolof Tradition at C hangement: Les Systémes D ’ine'galité er De
Domination (Paris: Karthala, 1981), pp. 120-131; Mamadou Diouf. Le Kajoor au XIXe siecle: Pouvoir

Ceddo et Conquéte Coloniale (Paris: Karthala, 1990), pp. 23-25; 32-41; Boubacar Barry, Senegambia and
the Atlantic Slave Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 11-33; 304

10

West Africa, circumstances in most of the lower Gambia did not encourage the growth
of land markets as in other societies in West Africa. In sum, my study seeks to
contribute to this slow but growing recognition that Africans valued land just like they
valued people. It does so by focusing on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
lower Gambia basin.

Sources and Methodology

The existence of a relatively rich body of historical documentation and oral
sources allows for a study of this nature. But analyzing the evidence could present many
challenges. In the ﬁrst place, in existing archives, virtually all reports were written by
outsiders, nearly all Europeans, who brought with them their ideas about property
ownership. What they wrote often contained assumptions that were not necessarily
accurate. For this reason, one needs to read materials carefully in an attempt to infer
what the situation was like even when things are not stated directly. This is often slow
going, requires patience and other sources as well as cultural knowledge.

The use of oral sources (in the form of individual and group memories of past
attitudes towards property and property ownership) is crucial to a study of this nature.
In many remote villages located along the banks of the Gambia River one can ﬁnd
people who can speak to changing notions of property (land) ownership that they have
witnessed or have knowledge of. However, like the written sources left behind by
Europeans, these oral sources have to be approached with care. In fact, one might ﬁnd it
difﬁcult to tap them given the present economic, social and political circumstances
facing Gambian society in general and the lower Gambia in particular. For the interest

of preserving unity in their communities, for instance, elders are in most cases careful of

11

what they tell their audience. A case in point is when the author pressed an elder griot
named Sheriff Jobarteh to explain to him why in Banni and in Saba landownership was

such a contentious issue in the past. Jobarteh’s only answer was “not all history must be

told.”29 Jobarteh was mindful of what he would say that could jeopardize the harmony
that his community enjoys. Certainly, he did not want to reveal anything that will hurt
or anger a member of his community. Moreover, Jobarteh’s fear is also compounded by
the growing conﬂicts as well as the unfavorable political atmosphere in the country over
land in several communities in recent years adds to the difﬁculty.
Written Sources

Before the advent of colonial rule, the peoples of the Senegambia in general and
those of the lower Gambia in particular produced less of the materials historians
traditionally consider as evidence -— i.e. letters, dairies, travel logs, wills, property
records, organizational papers, and government documents. However, Europeans who
either lived or visited the area in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have
produced a considerable body of evidence vital in understanding African systems of
land tenure. These documents were in the form of European (in both English and
French) travel accounts, letters, court records, scattered government circulars, annual
reports, reports from special (land) committees, colonial correspondences, and most
importantly commissioner’s reports.

The largest body of sources about most of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries Gambia region, however, is the English documents. The French, as Charlotte

Quinn writes, were primarily concerned with districts under their sphere of inﬂuence,

 

9
These two middle-sized Gambian villages are located in Baddibu (an old Mandinka kingdom located
on the northern bank of the Gambia River).

12

which means administrators of French trading establishments and their merchants paid

relatively little attention to institutions along the banks of the Gambia River beyond
Albreda and its immediate surroundings.3O In fact, by the turn of the nineteenth century

they were primarily conﬁned in their Albreda post, opposite James Island.“
Accordingly, this study relies primarily on the English sources to chart changes in
practices of land landownership in the lower Gambia River. The annual reports provide
a valuable year-to-year chronology of developments during the period under study

whereas the commissioner’s reports provide rich ethnographic descriptions of local

populations, as well as their customs and practices.32 While a great majority of these
reports focus on colonial affairs, the English travel accounts were especially useful for
the “proto-colonial” period —- the period leading to the beginning of British colonial rule
in the Gambia.

For period before 1860, the study draws from the writings of individuals such as
Richard Jobson, Mungo Park, Gaspard Mollien, and missionaries such as John Morgan,
William Moister and William Fox to describe the centrality of land in the lower
Gambian political culture. Since most of these Europeans were strangers themselves
(who wanted land to settle to trade or to proselytize), their accounts provide essential
clues showing how strangers could acquire land from the local aristocracy that

controlled the land. The author also supplements the evidence from these accounts with

 

30
Charlotte A. Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia: Traditionalism, Islam, and European
Expansion (Evanston [Ill.] Northwestern University Press, 1972), p. xv
Though French merchants would remain important in the area until much latter than this date.
Evidence indicates that few French merchants were active in the area until the last decades of the 18005.

In part, the records helped me to establish the basic chronology of this study. Some of the reports point
to important markers in the transformations in lower Gambian society — e.g. the decaying powers of
Mansa, the waging of holy wars by Muslims and the demographic shifts in the region’s social landscape
as well as their implications.

l3

insights from dispatches and correspondences between Europeans in the Gambia and
their respective counterparts in Europe or Sierra Leone.33

Between 1860 and the early 19005 various European documents in the form of
reports and correspondences appeared describing the general situation in the lower
Gambia River. This period coincided with various religious wars and increasing British
presence in the area. Some of the correspondences help shed more light on the
circumstances that led to the outbreak of the jihads as well as the growing importance of
the peanut economy in the communities along the banks of the Gambia River.
Similarly, the travelling commissioners’ reports which began emerging during the last
decade of the nineteenth century contain rich evidence concerning local ideas about
landownership in the Gambia. Since the appointment of the ﬁrst travelling

commissioners in 1893, commissioners were expected to travel “through the country
and ascertain what there was either in shape of towns, or people or anything else, within
the boundary.”34 During “the ordinary course of ofﬁcial duties, hearing complaints,
reviews of native tribunal cases and so forth,” they obtained critical information useful
to historians of land tenure. They also obtained information during “enquiries carried

out for the Intelligence Report on the north and south bank districts” and also from the

 

33 . . . . -
I also make up for this lack of written documents by usrng oral history derived from oral history
collection at the Research and Documentation Center and also from interviews.

34 NRS, ARP 35/2, 1894 Colonial Reports (Annual) No. 143 (Annual Report for 1894). Alice
Bellagamba “Slavery and Emancipation in the Colonial Archives: British Ofﬁcials, Slave-Owners, and
Slaves in the Protectorate of the Gambia (1890-1936)” Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue
Canadienne des Etudes Africaines Vol. 39 No. l (2005), pp. 13-14. The ﬁrst travelling commissioners
were appointed in January 1893. Initially, there were only two of them, one for each bank of the river
running 300 miles in the interior from the Atlantic.

14

“informal talks with natives of all kind.”35 The ﬁrst set of travelling commissioners’
reports covers the period 1893-1899. The second set covers the period from 1902-1921
and the third deals with the years 1923-1933.

Basically, the very nature of colonial rule in West Africa, like elsewhere in
Africa, encouraged the production of archives of this sort. As David Conrad observed in
the Malian archives, it was a matter of colonial policy for ofﬁcials at regional ofﬁces to

inquire into the historical background of local cultures though some administrators were

more interested than others in pursuing this policy.36 Similarly, in Senegal, David
Robinson writes that “administrators were charged with establishing a survey of
relevant information about local chiefs, their attitudes, competence, and inﬂuence; the
economy of production and distribution, religious afﬁliations; land tenure and
demographics.”37 In the Gambia, as Alice Bellagamba notes, the establishment of

British rule coincided with reconnaissance to gather information, who would legitimize

later political choices.38

While many of the European colonial ofﬁcers have performed this duty with
utmost dedication, and have produced telling reports of what they saw, African
interpreters and cultural guides often played a critical role in the overall process. With
their help, for instance, commissioners’ traveled widely and in every district, meeting

with village and district elders and discussing wide ranging issues that were of interest

 

35 .

NRS, CSO 10/71 Colonial Secretary (Sgd) R.H. Gretton Governor Sir Thomas Southern, Conﬁdential
Dispatch to the Colonial Secretary in Bathurst from the Commissioner’s Ofﬁce South Bank Province,
Cape St. Mary, April 30 1940.

David C. Conrad, “Oral Sources on Links between Great States: Sumanguru, Servile Lineage, the
Jariso, and the Kaniaga" History in Africa, Vol. 11 (1984), p. 37

David Robinson, Paths of A ccommodation: Muslim Societies and French Authorities in Senegal and
Mauritania, 1880-1920 (Athens and Oxford:: Ohio University Press and James Currey, 2000), p. 52

Bellagamba, “Slavery and Emancipation in the Colonial Archives,” p. 14

15

to them and their European superiors in Bathurst and in London. Some of these issues
include but not exclusively the subject of slavery, trade, local politics, customary
practices, religion, law and order, levels of productivity, and social organizations.
Around 1900, the colonial administration in the Gambia saw the need for
documenting the “laws and customs of the people.” Consequently, reports on land
tenure practices grew during this period. Two of the major proponents of this were one
Mr. Russell, the then Chief Magistrate of the Gambia colony and Governor George C.
Denton (1901-1911). They both called for the need to develop and write down not only
“knowledge of land tenure systems but also Aﬁ'ican customary laws in general.” They

argued that the purpose of such exercise was to enable the administration of justice, to

resolve disputes as well as develop “knowledge of native customary law.”39

Precisely, in 1906 the commissioners came up with an important document
called “the laws and customs” of the various African groups, which was similar to the
French administration’s 1902 publication in Cote d’Ivoire called the “Les Coutumes

Indigenes de la cote d’Ivoire” and also John Mensah Sarbah’s “Fante Customary Law’

published in 1905.40 This document gives a detailed description of African customary
law as was practice in the newly created Gambia colony. The document provides a rich
ethnographic description of the lower Gambia River, describes local attitudes towards
property and property ownership, inheritance rules, family structures, and history. The
commissioners who collected the data for these report were pretty much guided by
earlier reports which existed in other parts of colonial West Africa. For example, they

used questions formerly employed by the French Government in Cote d’lvoire as well

—____

39
40 NRS, CSO 2/94, Laws and Customs of the Various Communities in West Africa, 1906.
NRS, CSO 2/94, 1906

16

as those from the “Notes and Queries on Anthropology” prepared by the British

Association in the nineteenth century.“

In the late 19303 and 19405 other sets of reports appeared. These were the
reports from special (land) committees. For example, on November 29 1939, the
Secretary of state for Colonies in London issued a conﬁdential dispatch to all colonial
governments in British Africa emphasizing the importance of investigating “native”
land tenure systems. This soon gave birth to the establishment of a Land Tenure
committee under the chairmanship of Lord Hailey. Other members of the committee
included Sir Allen Pim, Dr. H. M. Leake, Dr. C.K. Meek, Mr. H.B. Thomas, Dr. A.I.
Richards, and several other members of the colonial ofﬁce staff. The main duty of this
committee was to investigate issues of land tenure not only in the Gambia but British
Africa as a whole. After their investigation was concluded and a report submitted to the
ofﬁce of the Secretary of State for Colonies in London, their recommendations soon
reached ofﬁcials in the overseas territories like the Gambia. Part of the
recommendations put forward in the Lord Hailey Report was the need for the creation
of land tenure panels in all English colonies in Africa. Ofﬁcials in the Gambia worked
tirelessly to implement this recommendation. On the March 2 1946, GET. Colby, the
Governor’s Deputy in the Gambia, wrote that it was necessary to establish a “machinery
. . . for the study of the problems of native land tenure.”42 He recommended that a Land
Tenure Advisory panel be established whose sole function would be to assist

government in undertaking a detailed investigation into matters of land tenure. Soon

 

4r - -
The British Association, established in the 18305, prepared a set of gurdelmes for travelers to use as
they set out to study a non-Westem society.

NRS, CSO 10/71, Native Land Tenure, Dispatch no. 224, December 1939.
17

after this, the government appointed two officers who were charged with the
responsibility of studying local systems of land tenure. One of these ofﬁcers
subsequently became the head of the Gambia’s Lands Department.

Even in the 19405 some colonial ofﬁcials kept complaining that there was a lack
of “knowledge” on matters of land tenure in government circles. As one report stated,
“information on land tenure in Gambia, either from ofﬁcial investigation or
anthrOpological studies, is exiguous.” The ﬁeld is almost untouched. It was only in 1945
that Professor Daryll F orde reported on the need for investigation of indigenous
economic organizations in village communities. In spite of this, however, F orde focused
mostly on the Mandinka, Wolof, Jola, and Lorobo (a F ula sub-group) in his report.43

Relying on these European documents certainly give an incomplete, if not a
biased, picture of local societies and their institutions.“ David Robinson and Gary
Wilder remind us of the colonial context in which these documents were produced. For
Robinson, the colonial reports were tools relevant to the day-to-day operation of
colonial rule. He states that they gave colonial administrators the conﬁdence that they
knew, and thus controlled, the local situation.45 For Wilder, the “colonial ethnologies”

were entwined with imperialism and their main objective was to “reproduce native
society.” Hence, for him, they projected a false image of African societies: emphasizing

primitivity, backwardness, and tribal organization. All over French West Africa, he

 

43

C80 10/71 Enclosures to Gambia dispatch no. 96 of the 24"1 J une 1948
44 . . .

Cited m Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. xv.
45

Ibid

18

posits, colonial subjects “became a newly marked social category,” often treated as

different and having “prelogical thoughts.”46

Further criticisms of these colonial archives include questioning what went into
these documents and what did not. In the ﬁrst instance, one can claim that the makers of
these archives brought with them their ideas of property and property ownership to bear
on their writings. Also, they described local customs and land tenure systems in the
Gambia as if they were the same in other African colonies. What is implied here is that,
as both Robinson and Wilder suggests, the content of these European documents have
been distorted, ﬁltered and shaped by circumstances of colonial rule.

Since most colonial ofﬁcials could not speak the languages of the area
(Mandinka, Fula, Wolof, or Jola), they were forced to use Aﬁican interpreters who
either added their voices or ﬁltered the information that they were transmitting.“ While
the use of interpreters could enhance the quality of the information, it may well present
some problems. For example, in 1901 a colonial ofﬁcial in Bathurst complained that
there was a difﬁculty in obtaining efﬁcient interpretation. He wrote that “...the main
trouble [was] that so few of those of the class from which interpreters should be

obtained know Mandingo really well, and when they are thoroughly acquainted with it

and the different dialects their English is frequently defective . . 3’48 It seems that

 

46
Gary Wilder, The French Imperial Nation-state: Negritude and Colonial Humanism between the Two
(World Wars (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 65

Several scholars have discussed the limits of translation in any form of qualitative research. Most,
however, agree that the process of interpreting important information might be lost.

NRS, ARP 35/2, 1901-- Colonial Report, No. 355, 1901
19

getting good interpreters was a problem which no doubt affected the quality of what got

recorded.49

Certainly, not everything was on record. For example, at an individual, family or
group level, rarely did most people take their claims to land to court. In many instances,
people preferred to settle their problems outside of the European courts and rarely kept
records of the ways in which they resolved them especially in rural communities.
Besides, nineteenth century archival sources are weak in quality particularly as it
concerns statistical data. They were most of the time based on mere guesses. As
Commissioner J.H. Ozanne wrote in 1894, nineteenth century statistics “must not be
taken as anything like an exact census . . . it will [only] give some idea of the number
of people we have to deal with, which is better than nothing” Colonial ofﬁcials like

Ozanne could not effectively keep track of the internal movement of people, which in
many ways tended to be seasonal.“ Similarly, several colonial administrators
repeatedly admitted that conditions of registers were poor —— a problem that increased
the phenomenon of encroachments into public and private property.52 As one ofﬁcial

lamented, encroachment was a very difﬁcult issue to resolve owing to the unsatisfactory

 

49 Perhaps the only exception to this weakness is that some of the earliest travelling commissioners and
Governors were experienced people. For example, George C. Denton, Governor of the Gambia in 1901,
wrote that he “lived amongst Mohammedan peoples for the greater part of the last 28 years, and have for
the most part been on intimate and friendly terms with them (see ARP 35/2 Colonial Report, No. 355,
1901). But even that it is not clear whether he spoke the local languages or used African interpreters.

The commissioners relied heavily on what community elders told them. They enjoyed the luxury of
continuing their estimates. In fact, Commissioner Ozanne discussed this problem. See NRS, ARP 32/1,
gruelling Commissioner’s Report for 8 May 1894 i

For instance, between November and June Bathurst was frequently flooded a large number of
temporary migrants and in the north of April it appeared abnormally empty. The fact is that people in the
Senegambia region moved around a lot. In fact, griots and oral traditionalists in the lower Gambia Speak a
lot about frequent relocation of families and even villages. See NRS, ARP 25/1-Annual Report for 1892
No. 80

52 . .
This phenomenon was concentrated mostly in urban areas srnce these land grants and registers mostly
pertained to the town of Bathurst, British Combo, the ‘Ceded Mile’ and McCarthy Island.

20

condition of registers: “so many measurements being missing and others inaccurate and
as mentioned no sketches at all in some cases. I was handicapped as many had lost their
grants by ﬁre and various other causes. It is regrettable that the matter was not attended

to at the time as now one does not know how many more of these cases there are to

come forward in the absence of a correct list...”53 This concern was re-echoed later in
another dispatch citing that “it will be found already that two different persons hold

grants for the same allotments and in others that the title deeds are not duly recorded or

registered.54

Another challenge of relying on European documents, especially travel accounts
and missionary sources, to chart changes in practices of landownership for the period
before the 18605 is that European merchants and missionaries generally paid more
attention to the political and economic factors relevant to the needs of their trading and
missionary activities. On the one hand, they were quick to report on trade, levels of
productivity, procurement of labor, conquest of an African region by another,
difﬁculties and prospects of maintaining law and order, the so-called backwardness of
Africans and their religious beliefs and so on. On the other hand, they did little to solicit
a thorough understanding of African customs and practices and more especially land
tenure customs. Thus, their writings tell us little about ownership and the management,

and distribution of land in the various Aﬁican communities they were writing on.

 

53

Record keeping was a major problem both for the people and the government. As for the people, many
may have lost their titles on ﬁre or physical damage caused by insects. [See National Records Service of
Ere Gambia ARP 35/2 Colonial Reports-Annual No. 195(Report for 1896)]

This is indeed a problem which limits the evidence for any study on property in Bathurst. See NRS,
CSO 1/2 1824

21

The problem of access to some of these documents is also worth noting. In the
Gambia, the Court Record collection of the Department of State for Justice in Banjul is
not only in a poor state but is not also open to scholars. This archive houses a wealth of
civil, police, and criminal records and includes a body of documents produced by the
Mohammedan (Islamic) Courts of Bathurst and Kombo St. Mary created by the colonial
government in 1905. The documents are not catalogued, are rapidly deteriorating and
one needs permission from the Judicial Secretary in the Justice Department to access
them. The author made several unsuccessful attempts to get access to this largely
untapped archive.55 Hence, the legal (court) records used in this study are admittedly
scanty.

Despite all these problems and challenges, however, the European documents
offer relatively good information about the past, however, limited they are. In ﬁrst
place, and as Charlotte Quinn indicates, European observers in the nineteenth century
regularly tapped from African oral history, which implies that the latter often shaped the
views of Europeans. Indeed, there is no denying of the fact that Europeans habitually
wrote down erroneous accounts describing the African societies they encountered. But

it is impossible to also dismiss the reality that in many instances they also solicited

“local knowledge” from their African servants and interpreters as well as elders.56 For

example, as the author read the travelling commissioners’ reports, he grew to have at

 

I was granted access to the archive only thrice. I asked to write to the Judicial Secretary of the Justice
Department who never replied to my letter in spite of my numerous attempts to follow-up on my request.
But when I spoke with one of the staff in the Records Unit of the Department he provided me access out
of favor. Three afterwards the man, however, asked me write

lbid; See also Tamba Mbayo’s dissertation for more on the role of interpreters in the Senegambia.
Mbayo, “African Interpreters, Mediation, and the Production of knowledge in Colonial Senegal: The
Lower and Middle Senegal Valley, ca. 18505 to ca. 19205” PhD. Dissertation, Michigan State University,
2007. See also the NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Report, No. 355, 1901.

22

least selective respect for some of the commissioners: the traveling commissioners were
bright, observant, and often curious. Many of them were people who devoted
themselves fully to what they thought (however misguided some of their assumptions)

was an operation that would beneﬁt their subjects. The reports they wrote, as

Bellagamba states, “take on a historic and ethnographic nature.”57

More importantly, it was my readings from these archives that opened up the
way for my research. During the initial phase of my investigation several individuals
and communities could not tell me much about their history as it relates to land. But by
noting few events (especially past conﬂicts over land) described by Europeans in their
writings the author was able to ask speciﬁc questions about the past that people could
easily remember.

Oral Sources

Given the problems associated with using documented sources to examine
changing concepts of land tenure in West Africa’s Gambia River region, this study
argues for the contribution of oral history or data in writing African history. In several
of the remote towns and villages the author visited there exist people (men and women)

who can speak to changing notions of property ownership that they have witnessed or
know of. Many of the elders interviewed for this study spoke about some of the region’s
main social and political transformations of the last two centuries. Many of them also
reveal important details about inheritance practices, the importance of gender in shaping

property rights, local conﬂicts and above all how power determined access to land.

__~

57
Bellagamba, “Slavery and Emancipation in the Colonial Archives,” p. 14

23

African oral sources are critical in reconstructing the Aﬁican past since they
give a much wider voice especially to those who were once marginalized. In other
words, they bring recognition to the voices of substantial groups of people who had
been ignored. Oral history complicates historical narratives by adding diverging views
and opinions about an event in the past. Thus, this study demonstrates that oral history
could be a powerful tool for discovering, exploring and evaluating how people led their
lives.58

This dissertation makes use of two forms of oral sources. The ﬁrst consist of

oral (audio) tapes in the depository of the former Oral History and Antiquities Archive

(OHA), now called the Research and Documentation Center (RDD).59 This oral history
archive houses tapes of interviews conducted by a generation of researchers such as
David Gamble whose work in the Gambia dates back to the 19405. The archive also has
audio recordings of interviews conducted by “Gambianists” whose work dates back
especially to the 19705. These include Donald R. Wright, Winfred Galloway, Peter Weil
and Bakary Sidebe. The second type of oral sources is from personal interviews
conducted between 2006 and 2008. Interviews were conducted in more than a dozen
towns and villages and the author spoke to men and women, Alkalos, chiefs and
ordinary people on what they know about landownership in the Gambia particularly in

the last two centuries.
But like the written documents, drawing from oral history presented new

challenges to my research. These challenges range from the current socio-political

 

:Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson. The Oral History Reader (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 2- 3

59The RDD 15 now under the National Council for Arts and Culture, which also under the Department of
State for Tourism. Few decades ago, it was under the direct supervision of the President’s Ofﬁce.

24

The problem of access to some of these documents is also worth noting. In the
Gambia, the Court Record collection of the Department of State for Justice in Banjul is
not only in a poor state but is not also open to scholars. This archive houses a wealth of
civil, police, and criminal records and includes a body of documents produced by the
Mohammedan (Islamic) Courts of Bathurst and Kombo St. Mary created by the colonial
government in 1905. The documents are not catalogued, are rapidly deteriorating and
one needs permission from the Judicial Secretary in the Justice Department to access

them. The author made several unsuccessﬁll attempts to get access to this largely

untapped archives5 Hence, the legal (court) records used in this study are admittedly
scanty.

Despite all these problems and challenges, however, the European documents
offer relatively good information about the past, however, limited they are. In ﬁrst
place, and as Charlotte Quinn indicates, European observers in the nineteenth century
regularly tapped from African oral history, which implies that the latter often shaped the
views of Europeans. Indeed, there is no denying of the fact that Europeans habitually
wrote down erroneous accounts describing the African societies they encountered. But

it is impossible to also dismiss the reality that in many instances they also solicited

“local knowledge” from their African servants and interpreters as well as elders.56 For

example, as the author read the travelling commissioners’ reports, he grew to have at

 

I was granted access to the archive only thrice. I asked to write to the Judicial Secretary of the Justice
Department who never replied to my letter in spite of my numerous attempts to follow-up on my request.
But when I spoke with one of the staff in the Records Unit of the Department he provided me access out
of favor. Three afterwards the man, however, asked me write

lbid; See also Tamba Mbayo’s dissertation for more on the role of interpreters in the Senegambia.
Mbayo, “African Interpreters, Mediation, and the Production of knowledge in Colonial Senegal: The
Lower and Middle Senegal Valley, ca. 18505 to ca. 19205” PhD. Dissertation, Michigan State University,
2007. See also the NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Report, No. 355, 1901.

22

least selective respect for some of the commissioners: the traveling commissioners were
bright, observant, and often curious. Many of them were people who devoted
themselves ﬁllly to what they thought (however misguided some of their assumptions)
was an operation that would beneﬁt their subjects. The reports they wrote, as
Bellagamba states, “take on a historic and ethnographic nature.”57
More importantly, it was my readings from these archives that opened up the
way for my research. During the initial phase of my investigation several individuals
and communities could not tell me much about their history as it relates to land. But by
noting few events (especially past conﬂicts over land) described by Europeans in their
writings the author was able to ask speciﬁc questions about the past that peeple could
easily remember.
Oral Sources
Given the problems associated with using documented sources to examine
changing concepts of land tenure in West Africa’s Gambia River region, this study
argues for the contribution of oral history or data in writing African history. In several
of the remote towns and villages the author visited there exist people (men and women)
who can speak to changing notions of property ownership that they have witnessed or
know of. Many of the elders interviewed for this study spoke about some of the region’s
main social and political transformations of the last two centuries. Many of them also
reveal important details about inheritance practices, the importance of gender in shaping

property rights, local conﬂicts and above all how power determined access to land.

57
Bellagamba, “Slavery and Emancipation in the Colonial Archives,” p. 14

23

African oral sources are critical in reconstructing the Aﬁican past since they
give a much wider voice especially to those who were once marginalized. In other
words, they bring recognition to the voices of substantial groups of people who had
been ignored. Oral history complicates historical narratives by adding diverging views
and opinions about an event in the past. Thus, this study demonstrates that oral history
could be a powerful tool for discovering, exploring and evaluating how people led their
lives.58
This dissertation makes use of two forms of oral sources. The ﬁrst consist of

oral (audio) tapes in the depository of the former Oral History and Antiquities Archive

(OHA), now called the Research and Documentation Center (RDD).59 This oral history
archive houses tapes of interviews conducted by a generation of researchers such as
David Gamble whose work in the Gambia dates back to the 19405. The archive also has
audio recordings of interviews conducted by “Gambianists” whose work dates back
especially to the 19703. These include Donald R. Wright, Winfred Galloway, Peter Weil
and Bakary Sidebe. The second type of oral sources is from personal interviews
conducted between 2006 and 2008. Interviews were conducted in more than a dozen
towns and villages and the author spoke to men and women, Alkalos, chiefs and
ordinary people on what they know about landownership in the Gambia particularly in

the last two centuries.
But like the written documents, drawing from oral history presented new

challenges to my research. These challenges range from the current socio-political

 

58
Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson. The Oral History Reader (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 2—3

59
The RDD is now under the National Council for Arts and Culture, which also under the Department of
State for Tourism. Few decades ago, it was under the direct supervision of the President’s Ofﬁce.

24

circumstances in the “New Republic,” the tendency for potential informants to conceal

essential details of their history as well as the inclination of some to attempt to glorify

the past. Apparently, it could be difﬁcult to conduct interviews on landownership
because conﬂicts over land have seemed to amplify across the Gambia particularly in
recent years. There are several cases in court involving individuals, families and
sometimes villages claiming what each of them maintains are their rightful property.60
In addition, especially in years, the Gambian government has dispossessed several
individuals and communities vital parts of their land. With the expansion of tourism
since the 19705, communities near the Atlantic (particularly the settlements of
Sukuta/Sabiji, Brufut and Tujenreng) have lost a great deal of their land partly due to
the implications of rising cost of land and government’s strategy of grabbing land from
the people. The Department of State for Lands and Survey and the Social Security and
Housing Finance Corporation (SSHF C) have recently embarked on establishing housing
estates earmarked for civil servants and private citizens. Within a period of a decade or

so numerous housing projects have sprang up but the major beneﬁciaries were mostly

wealthy foreigners and Gambians, as well as senior government ofﬁcials.61 These
estates were all created on farmlands families and communities had claimed for several
decades if not centuries. Clearly, many of the people interviewed, especially those in the
urban and peri-urban areas, were embittered of this and have developed negative
feelings against the government. However, most of the informants did not feel very

comfortable discussing this matter. They fear facing arrests or being reprimanded

 

60
Few of the disputes include the Makumbaya-Babylon dispute, the Passamas Fulakunda and Passamas
Mandinka dispute and the disputes between Sikunda and Toniataba around the 19503 and 605.

Among the housing projects that were created include the Brusubi estate, Makumbaya, Tujereng, and
Brufut.

25

especially by a government that does take criticisms lightly. The author sensed such

fears among several Alkalos (village heads) whose position and fate depends on their
ties with the government.62 In short, getting people to talk about land is a hard thing to

63
do.

Another challenge in using or soliciting oral data —- a difﬁculty several historians

have discussed at length - is the problems associated with memory.64 During my
interviews I observed that in peoples’ memories of landownership there is an acute
tendency to attempt to “glorify” the past, and part of this gloriﬁcation of the past
includes the argument that “ancient” Africa was characterized by the custom of sharing
of whatever resource or property one had. As opposed to the West, African societies,

the argument goes, were generous and based on reciprocity. People lived in one unit,

 

62 Gambian President Yahya AJJ. Jammeh‘s so-called “Back to the Land call” seems to have added to
the difﬁculty. Shortly after he establish a grand farm in his home town of Kanilai, on the river’s south
bank, a number of village Alkalos and Chiefs have given presents of village land to him so as to win his
recognition. It now is as if the president has a farm in every district in the Gambia. Some of his close
associates are also given land -lands previously belonging to families. A man told me that Jammeh’s
associates are not only given the best lands, but the gifts are against the will of the people. A good
example is the case in Sifoe and Kiti (near the Atlantic) where most of the arable land was given to
Jammeh and is covertly opposed by the residents of the villages. A similar issue is also going on in
Central River Region where a certain chief has granted a rice ﬁeld belonging to a certain family for
generations to the Gambian president. The president, said one of my informants, “has land in every
district or comer of the country and these lands were owned by individual families for several
generations.” [Sourcez the identity of this person is concealed).

I made several attempts to interview the Alkalos of Farato and Farato Bojang Kunda but without
success. For instance, the Alkali of Farato Bojang Kunda told me that he did not trust me. He said I was
being sent by the government to investigate him and hence he will not talk to me. Even though I tried to
show him my Michigan State University 1D, but since 1 was a Gambian it was understandably hard for
him to belief what I was saying. I also could record the interview I had with another Alkali who pleaded
with me never to mention his name in my writings.

64 See Donald R. Wright, “Beyond Migration and Conquest: Oral Traditions and Mandinka Ethnicity in
Senegambia” History in Africa, Vol. 12 (1985), p. 335; Wright, “Requiem for the Use of Oral Tradition
to Reconstruct the Precolonial History of the Lower Gambia” History in Africa, Vol. 18 (1991), pp. 401-
402; Martin A. Klein “Studying the History of Those Who Would Rather Forget: Oral History and the
Experience of Slavery” History in Africa, Vol. 16, (1989), pp. 209-217; Ralph A. Austen “The Slave
Trade as History and Memory: Confrontations of Slaving Voyage Documents and Communal Traditions”
The William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 58, No. 1 (Jan. 2001).

26

usually a big compound, eating, drinking, working and playing together. The same was
for any kind of property. In such a close-knit society, land could not be owned by an
individual; it was shared by the whole community and no one fought for anything
because the menace of greed was absent. Western society, a number of Gambians and
Africans will oﬁen argue, is individualistic and selﬁsh, lacking a culture of sharing.
These contrasting images of the ‘Old’ Africa and Europe is so widespread in popular
memory (as well as in certain intellectual circles) that anyone bent on researching
changes in African conceptions of landownership must be aware of these ambiguous
constructions. They are less useful in that they do not tell us anything signiﬁcant about
the past.

Part of this tendency to glorify the past is the inclination for oral informants to
emphasize in their narratives acts of bravery and/or heroism associated with war while
overlooking important social and cultural details vital in understanding such events. The
author realized this not only during his ﬁeldwork but also when he began working at the
oral history archive.65 While the RDD collection contains a rich archive of audio tapes
on various aspects of Gambian history and culture, many of the interviews were
centered on impressive performance (i.e. heroism) in battles.66

The author tried to overcome some of these problems by relying heavily on a

well-known oral traditionalist/historian whose experience with Gambian oral history

 

65

For example, signiﬁcant part of my interview with Sheriff Jobarteh focused on President Yaya
Jammeh even though I was not interested in him. Jobarteh wanted to impress me that he knows Jammeh’s
lgistory of which I cared less about.

Here, I am referring speciﬁcally to the recordings on the Sankandi-J attaba land conﬂict of 1900. Both
the interviewers and the interviewees seemed to have been more interested in what occurred during the
ﬁght rather than the deep social and cultural factors that caused the misunderstanding. Another possible
of this oral history archive is the fact that their collection is biased heavily towards the Mandinka. There
are very few recordings on Fula, Wolof, Jola and Serahule communities and very little, if any, on the
Serer and other minority groups.

27

goes back to the late 19405 and the early 19503. Bakary Sidebe, a retired civil servant
and former Director and co-founder of the Oral History and Antiquities Bureau have
worked with several intellectuals on collecting and interpreting various aspects of
Gambian history and culture. The author beneﬁted greatly from his knowledge and
connection especially in the area of identifying individuals that he needed to talk to. In
many cases where he had difﬁculty interviewing someone he would call him and he will
talk to the person on my behalf.

Another important strategy he employed was the use of intermediaries -— most of
whom are intimate or childhood friends. Virtually, in every community where the
author conducted interviews he ensured that he was accompanied not only by a close
friend but also a person who either knows the community or at least someone from
there, or else whose family is known in that community once mentioned. The
intermediaries served in some instances as translators, particularly where my language
skills were not quite sufﬁcient.

Summary of Chapters

The study is comprised of ﬁve chapters. The ﬁrst chapter provides the
ecological, political and social context for the lower Gambia River basin. By providing
the context, it outlines the region’s diverse population, ecology, political systems as

well as the religious changes that characterized the last two centuries of its history.
Also, the chapter shows that just as this is a study of a Savanna region, it is also focuses
on a riverine area — a study focusing on an area covering a few couple of miles around

and along the banks of the Gambia River.

28

Chapter two, which focuses on the early nineteenth century, explores the close
link between power and control of land. It examines the way in which the Mandinka
ruling aristocracy—comprising of the mansa, the alkalo and kabilo head—monopolized
the ownership of the land and kept the other segment of the population as dependents.
Throughout the chapter, the author attempts to show the centrality of land in lower
Gambian political culture.

Chapters three and four examines major transformations that took place in the
Gambia region from the mid-nineteenth century and how they affected land tenure
systems. Chapter three, for instance, looks at the way in which the Soninke-Marabout
wars (i.e. the forces of reform) led to the end of the aristocracy’s monopoly ownership
of the land. It shows that a root cause of the holy wars of the nineteenth century was the
aristocracy’s loss of control over their subjects, who rose against their rulers to end the
excessive taxation and exclusion from owning good land as well as the economic,
social, and political assets associated with landownership.

The fourth chapter explores another transformation, which came with the
development of peanut production. It shows changes brought to ideas of property
ownership because of the change to cash—crop (peanut) production through the middle
of the nineteenth century, ideas affected largely by the growth of commercial
agriculture and the entrance of strange farmers and their need of land for growing
crops. It argues that while the growth of peanut production had far-reaching
consequences on lower Gambian society (such as demographic changes), it hardly

created well—developed rural credit (land) markets.

29

Chapters 2, 3 and 4 deal with the lower Gambia region at a time when it is not
quite yet, a British territory. In fact, it is possible to call the nineteenth century, or more
than a half of it, a “proto-colonial” period, in which the British are present, and were the
pre-eminent European authority, but not in control. Thus, it is important to note that the
boundaries that get drawn by the end of the nineteenth century are not yet there before -—
which also suggests that one should not read the modern boundaries and the colonial
entity back as what the lower Gambia was. Rather, the emphasis is placed on both the
changing political boundaries of the Gambia and geography or territory that occupied
the Gambia River basin.

The last and ﬁnal chapter focuses on the impact British rule had on land tenure
systems. It deals with the introduction of British-inspired land legislations and the
extent to which they changed local practices pertaining to land and how the impact of
British-induced “land” policies had different effects in the rural and urban parts of the
country. The chapter shows that the changes (to land tenure) that were occurring during
the colonial period were part of ongoing transformations that began long before the
onset of colonial rule. These changes include the increasing individuation or
disaggregation of family land into smaller plots owned and controlled by smaller
household units. However, what was new was the codiﬁcation of the laws governing the
management and ownership of land.

The conclusion emphasize that land occupies an important place in the political
and social history of the Gambia River. Its importance is explained not solely by its

economic value, but also by its social and political importance. Africans conceive of

30

land as both a political and a social resource. In short, land was a means by which some
individuals, families and communities created dependents.

While the general movement in the dissertation is chronological, it is also
thematic and that the militant Islamic movements of chapter 3, the cash crop production
of chapter 4, and the early colonial rule of chapter 5, will be overlapping considerably,

and in effect covering the same time periods.

31

Chapter One

The Political, Ecological, Social and Economic Conﬁguration of
the Lower Gambia Basin

The kingdoms and villages of the lower Gambia River constitute a logical
subject of historical study for a variety of reasons. One important reason is that the
lower Gambia was historically more populated than the upper reaches of the Gambia.
Several documentary sources have commented on how sparsely populated the interior
of the Gambia was. Even Lady Southom noted “the loneliness of the upper reaches” of
the Gambia, which she notes “is striking.” In the Upper Gambia, she writes, the river
seems absolutely deserted.l Also, John Gray remarked that “in the higher reaches of the
Gambia towns and villages are few and far between.”2 In addition to the demographic
rationale, the lower Gambia was the area that was frequented the most by European
visitors. As such, the quality of the European documents for the lower Gambia appears
richer than those of the Upper River.3

For centuries, the Gambia River proved to be one of the major avenues that
provided Europeans access to the West African hinterland. Modern European
commercial and political interactions with the Gambia can be traced back to the
expansion of the trading activities of the Portuguese in the ﬁfteenth and sixteenth
centuries who came purposely to trade in gold and slaves.4 Later, from the mid-

seventeenth century, the British established a base on James Island. But private traders

 

1

Lady Southom, The Gambia: The Story of the Groundnut Colony (London: George Allen and Unwin
Ltd., 1952), p. 32

John M. Gray, A History of the Gambia (London: Frank Cass and Co. Ltd., 1966), p. l

lbid, p. 64.

4
Donald R. Wright’s The World and a Very Small Place in Africa: A History of Globalization in Niumt',
The Gambia (New York, ME. Sharpe, 2004), p. 89

32

British privateers continued to enjoy the relative monopoly over the Gambia
trade until 1807 when the slave trade along the river was ﬁnally abolished. The
illegalization of the slave trade along the West African coast brought about a major
transformation in Gambian history. Between 1807 and 1888, Britain acquired a number
of settlements in lands located along the banks of the Gambia River partly to

5

Gray, A History of the Gambia, p. 69
33

Gailey, the present day boundaries of the Gambia present speciﬁc problems for

historians dealing with the pre-l 889 agreement. This is because it could force historians

34

 

The Physical and Environmental Setting
The lower Gambia basin roughly covers the narrow strip of land on both banks

of the Gambia River’s lower reaches. It extends from the Atlantic coastline to about 120

whole owes its importance to this river, which is often described as one of the ﬁnest and

the most navigable waterways in West Africa. The river ﬂows from the F uta Djallon

banks and the bolongs (i.e. tributaries). '0 Some of these mangroves grow to the height
of forest trees. “ Very little agricultural activity takes place in this mangrove belt. This
is because the mangroves are often ﬂooded by the river’s salt water, rendering the land
acidic for growing crops. As Judith Carney writes, saltwater constantly menaces the
downstream reaches of the Gambia River. '2 The advance of saltwater in coastal
estuaries, however, failed to discourage lower Gambians from adapting rice cultivation.

In the past, lower Gambians, especially Mandinka and Jola communities, built elaborate

m

6 Harry A. Gailey. Historical Dictionary of T he Gambia (Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc,
1975), p. vii. NRS, PUB “/17 Report of a Socio-Economic Survey of Bathurst and Kombo St. Mary m
the Gambia. 9th February 1956, p. 4

7Amold Hughes and David Perfect. A Political History of The Gambia [816-1994 (Rochester: University

of Rochester Press, 2006), p. 6; NRS, PUB 1 1/17, 1956.
8 NRS, CSO 1/2, 1 November 1824
Southom, The Gambia: The Story of the Groundnut Colony, p. 36
10 Hughes and Perfect, A Political History of The Gambia, p. 6
2' Southom, The Gambia: The Story of the Groundnut Colony, p. 28

Judith Carney. “Landscapes of Technology Transfer: Rice Cultivation and African Continuities.
Technology and Culture, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan. 1996), p. 10

35

network of embankments, dikes, canals, and sluice gates to prevent marine water from
intruding into their ﬁelds while capturing rainwater to support the plants.”

Lying behind the mangrove belt, on slightly higher ground, are the faroos and
the jeeri lands. The faroos were often places where people grow rice. They are often
located in areas near Greeks, marshes and swampy. '4 There is usually enough water in
these areas even in the long dry seasons. The jeeri lands are ﬂat and consist of dry,
open woodland with well-spaced trees of moderate height and tall grasses. They are also
interspersed with many tall silk-cotton and fat baobabs trees. The major economic
activity carried out by people living in this area is peanut and millet cultivation and the

domestication of livestock. ' 5

 

13 Ibid

14
1 ARP 28/1 Traveling Commissioner’s Report SBP, 1894
5
The most common crops that people grew for subsistence food were not so varied. Mungo Park

mentioned a list of grains which include com (maize), sanio and basso, millet and rice. He noted that
these were cultivated in “considerable quantities.” People mostly used the harvests from these grains to
feed themselves and their families. With the development of peanuts farming, however, more cash crops
were grown for the purposes of securing cash. From the second half of the nineteenth century, most
agricultural families would allocate most of their land and labor to growing peanuts than food crops — the
consequences of which had been remarkable especially over the few decades [Mungo Park, Travels in the
Interior of Africa First Journey -1795 - l 797 (Edinburg: Adam and Charles Black, 1878), p. 9].

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Fig. 1: Map showing the lower Gambia Region’s different Ecological Zones

Critical in shaping its history is the Gambia’s climate and geographical
location.16 The lower Gambia valley is located in the westernmost extension of the
savannas stretching out across the entire Westem Sudan. In the ﬁrst place, across the
savanna, agriculture is generally rain—fed and consequently it is seasonal. Like many
parts of tropical West Africa, the Gambia experienced two seasons in a year: the rainy
season and the dry season. Typically, the rainy season starts around the month of May
or June and ceases in September. During the rest of the year, Gambians experience the
dry season. The annual rainfall of the Gambia region is by no means heavy for the
tropics. On average the annual rainfall in a year was about 45.31 inches. According to
John Gray, past records suggest that the wet period of the year had been slightly
different to what it was in the ﬁrst half of the twentieth century when rains began in
June and heaviest in July and August, often raising the river’s water level with
increased chance of ﬂooding. During these months the rains continue very violent,
coming down with great winds, and much thunder and lightning. '7 These are followed
by lighter falls of rain in September and October. '8

Communication -— including the movement of troops engaged in warfare— was
especially difﬁcult during the wet season. '9 Much of the merchandize that was traded
were transported to the interior through the river. Until the late nineteenth century, there
were no good roads linking lower Gambian villages to Bathurst and its environs. Often,
people trekked, used canoes or rode their donkeys or horses to wherever they wanted to

go. In addition, the wet season was also the period when the incidence of malaria,

16 Gray, A History of the Gambia, p. 1
17 Ibid, p. 11

‘8 lbid, p. 3

'9 lbid

38

yellow fever and sleeping sickness (trypanosomasis) hiked because it was a perfect time
for the breading of mosquitoes and tsetse-ﬂies, which transmitted the malaria and
sleeping sickness respectively. People, cattle and horses more especially suffered from
the effects of malaria and sleeping sickness.20 This was also a time when people
participated more fully on commerce, wrestling competitions, participated in wars or
even slave raids.

Farming in much of the lower Gambia region is based on shifting cultivation,
where the cultivation system is characterized by a cycle of clearing and burning
vegetation, planting crops, weeding, harvesting and fallowing. If a land was cultivated
until its nutrients were depleted, such a ﬁeld was then permitted to return to fallow
under forest cover and the farmer shifts to another plot in the forest to begin the cycle
again.21 Due to this practice, much of the Gambia’s vegetation has disappeared
especially over the last century or so. Just few centuries ago, precisely in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European travelers to the area described the land

”22 especially in the southwest where palm trees

as “generally covered with woods,
dotted the landscape.23 However, the growth of commercial agriculture since the
middle of the nineteenth century has led to the destruction of much of this forest cover.

Since then the cultivation of peanuts had occupied the lives of majority of the people

living along the river.

 

20

See James Webb’s Desert Frontier: Ecological and Economic Change Along the Western Sahel, I 600-
1850 (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995); Wright, The World and a Very Small Place
an Africa, p. 44

But usually the person would seek permission from the elders of the community, comprised of

families of founding lineages that established the settlement or were ruling the state. In other words. land
was not free for taking.

Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa, p. 8, 324.

23 . .
Donald R. Wright, “Oral Traditions From the Gambia” Vol. I Mandinka Grtots. Papers in
International Studies, Africa Series No. 37. Center for International Studies, Ohio University, 1979, p. 16

39

European travelers visiting the region several centuries ago have also
commented on the quality of the soils, stating that “The soil upon [the] banks [of the
Gambia River] and numerous islands as relatively fertile.”24 For example, Mungo Park
wrote that nature has blessed the region’s people with abundant and fertile lands and in
1824 another report described the fertility of the soil as “so great as to render very little
labor necessary in its tillage a bountiful providence having here lavished the seeds of all
natures blessings which require only the industrious hand of man to bring into ﬁrll
perfection.”25 The soils are generally sandy and in some areas it is comprised of a
mixture of clay and sand. The latter report compared the quality of these soils with
those of the Senegal Rivers and concluded that it was generally more suitable to grow
rice and peanuts in the Gambia than in northern Senegal.26 However, recent evidence
points to soil exhaustion due to intense agricultural activity. One report, for example,
noted that “the old soils, with the exception of the old mangrove forests and some
swamps, are deﬁcient in minerals needed for cultivation.”27

Agricultural practices — such as slash and burn methods, the change from
kongko methods of farming to plough agriculture as well as the changing perception of
“spirit” lands —— have equally contributed to the rapid depletion of the region’s forest

cover as well as the quality of the soils. Productivity is however affected by frequent

droughts and locust attacks, which were common occurrences in the lower Gambia

24
25 C80 1/2, November 1 1824
2 lbid
6
lbid
27
PUB ll/l7-l956, p. 9

40

region. While John Morgan witnessed an “annual (seven months) drought” in 1821,28
the missionary, William Fox, commented on the locusts stating that a nineteenth century
traveler to the Gambia could observe “passing armies of locusts [which would]
frequently obscure the sun like clouds.”29

Consequently, brief periods of hunger were a common occurrence in the several
communities located along the banks of the Gambia River. These often resulted from
droughts and locust invasions, which frequently decimated crops already planted
leaving farmers incapable of feeding themselves. Gambians called this the “hungry
season” ~ a time when food from the harvest was running low. Senegambians
responded repeatedly to natural disasters in a variety of ways ~ including relocation and
migration as well as embarking on wars of expansion and taking advantage of trading
possibilities.

The Land and People

Just as the region is characterized by a diverse ecology, it is also comprised of
great diversity of people. In fact, the Gambia River has never been a “tribal” boundary.
As Boubacar Barry writes, it has long served as a “magnet for all of the Senegambia’s
zone populations.”30 Historical sources about the Gambia region are rich in stories of
migration. The movement of people back and forth has made this region linguistically

and ethnically diverse---comprising of several principal groups with their customs,

religious beliefs and social hierarchies.

 

28

John Morgan, Reminiscences of the Founding of a Christian Mission on the Gambia. (London:
Wesleyan Mission House, 1864), p. l 15

William Fox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions on the Western Coast of Africa (London:
shylott and Jones, 1850), p. 235

0
Boubacar Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
1998), p. 5 ’

41

The Mandinka were and are still the largest group. To this day, they comprised
the bulk of the population in the north bank and south bank provinces and were the most
numerous group. In 1911, they accounted for forty-nine percent of the total population
of the Gambia.3 1 Arnold Hughes and David Perfect claim that the Mandinka ﬁrst moved
into the Gambia in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth centuries as the Mali Empire
expanded and slowly they settled in all parts of the Gambia basin. But as Paul Julian
Beedle notes, one part of the country -— Kombo -— remained sparsely populated by
coastal groups beyond the extent of Mandinka domination until the seventeenth century.

The Mandinka were certainly fully established on both banks of the River
Gambia when the ﬁrst explorers from Portugal arrived in the ﬁfteenth century and by
1800, they provided the ruling class and comprising most of the inhabitants of the
region.32 Among others, the Mandinka ruling elites exercised control over the Fula. The
Fula had been present in the area for centuries. For instance, Donald Wright mentioned
a prominent F ula Muslim family that settled in one of the north bank villages around the
beginning of the sixteenth century and a signiﬁcant number of these migrants were
strongly Islamized. Wright believes that this Muslim clerical lineage settled in Juffure
to take advantage of the already expanding trade with Atlantic merchants.33 Ever since
their arrival to the Gambia, the F ula accounted for a substantial proportion of the

population of the Mandinka controlled kingdoms. In fact, by 1911, they comprised up

 

31 . .
Hughes and Perfect, A Political History of The Gambia, p. 13; Paul J. Beedle “Citizens and Strangers in
azGambian Town” Thesis (doctoral)--University of Cambridge, 1980, p. 21
Hughes and Perfect, A Political History of The Gambia, p. 13. For more on the Mandinka migrations
and conquests, see George E. Brooks, Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society, and Trade in Western
Africa, I 000—} 630 (Boulder, Westview Press, 1993), pp. 97-1 15.

Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, p. 77
42

one-ﬁfth of the population of the Gambia’s rural villages.34 Most Fula were semi-
nomads, who tended the cattle of their Mandinka overlords in return for the land.35 Until
the nineteenth century, the wealth of a Fula was measured by the number of cattle he or
she owned.

Indeed, not all Mandinkas were interested in politics. Some, like the Darboe-
Jula, were long distant traders.36 The Darboe-Jula shared this trait with the Serahule,
who are believed to be among the descendants of the founders of the Ghana Empire,
which ﬂourished between the eighth and eleventh centuries AD.37 As early as the
18403, several Serahule Muslim families were growing peanuts in the Gambia. Several
of them were also growing peanuts for their Mandinka landlords as “strange farmers.”38
In the nineteenth century, the lower Gambia has never been an important home for the
Serahule, at least population wise, except those settling as “strange farmers.”

The Wolof were ﬁrmly established in the Gambia by the ﬁfteenth century. It is
believed that they entered the Gambia valley from Senegal and established a kingdom
in the Gambia’s north bank. By the 18005, this state, Saloum, was the only non-
Mandinka kingdom below the Barrakunda Falls.39 However, over the past few

centuries, the Wolof were relatively fewer than the Mandinka. According to Hughes and

Perfect, in the 191 l census they made up sixteen percent of the Gambia’s rural

 

34
Hughes and Perfect, A Political History of The Gambia, p. 15

35 .

Richard Jobson, The Golden Trade: or, A Discovery of The River Gambra, and the Golden Trade of
the Aethiopians (London: Printed by Nicholas Okes, 1623), p. 34; Hughes and Perfect, A Political
ggistory of T he Gambia, p. 16

For more on the Darboe-Jula, see Donald R. Wright’s article, “Darbo Jula: The Role of a Mandinka
Jula Clan in the Long-Distance Trade of the Gambia River and Its Hinterland” African Economic History,

540- 3 (Spring, 1977), pp. 33-45
38 Hughes and Perfect, A Political History of The Gambia, p. l8
Ibid, p. 18
39 ,
lbld, p. 16

43

communities. They also occupy roughly the same area now that they did in the ﬁfteenth .
century when they were described in the writings of the explorer Alvisto Cada Mosto40
and were mostly found in the Gambia’s north bank, especially in the Rip (Baddibu),
Saloum and in Bathurst. Communities of Wolof are also numerous on the south bank of
the Gambia as people have migrated, mostly as a result of the religious warfare of the
late nineteenth century, but generally in search of better farming land.“ Since the end of
the nineteenth century, most rural Wolof have been Muslims and the male folks living
in the rural areas became peanut and millet farmers. They took up peanut farming in the
nineteenth century and the Wolof women tended to grow food crops.

In the south bank, especially in the districts of Foni, the land is occupied mostly
by the Jola. In 1911 the Jola comprised seven percent of the national population. As a
small—scale, relatively decentralized society, they lived mainly in small isolated
communal groups in the forests and swamps along the banks of the Gambia River. As
agriculturalists, they cultivated rice, domesticated cattle, pigs and palm trees, and traded
in bees wax rather than growing peanuts. Moreover, unlike other riverine peoples, the
Jola were very slow to convert to Islam in the nineteenth century and many remained
“animist” as late as the twentieth century. However, most Jola are now Muslims, with a
minority being Roman Catholic.42

A group that is culturally and linguistically related to the Jola is the Bainunka.
Oral traditions claim that among the earliest settlers in the Gambia’s Kombo districts

identiﬁed themselves as Bainunkas. The traditions also traced their origins to a mythical

40
David P. Gamble and Linda K. Salmon, “Peoples of the Gambia: The Wolof” Gambian Studies No.
:7. San Francisco. 1985, p. I
[bid
42
Hughes and Perfect, A Political History of The Gambia, p. 18
44

ﬁgure called Ngana Sira Banna who is believed to have come from Manding.
According to one Bainunka elder, Ngana Sira Banna was the ruler of the Bainunka. “He
ruled from here [Kombo] to La Guinea and Portuguese Guinea where the Kooli River is
found. He also ruled from here to the ocean. This made the Bainunkas the owners of the
land. They are the ﬁrst people to come.”43 But if the Bainunkas were the oldest settlers
in the Gambia’s Atlantic coastline, certainly their power and inﬂuence on the land had
diminished by the nineteenth century. In fact, by this time they were already a small
population.

Another group is the Manjago (also known as the Manjaco in Guinea Bissau).
However, it is certain that most of them were not Muslims as late as the twentieth
century. As agriculturalists, living in Kombo, they cultivated crops, tapped palm wine
and raised pigs. According to Hughes and PerfeCt, in the late nineteenth century, several
Manjago migrants from what became a Portuguese colony, Guinea Bissau, arrived in
the Gambia."’4 Other important groups that came as migrants include the Masuankas.45
In the year 1894, the commissioner of the North Bank Province noted that about twenty
strangers from the Masuwanka group rented farms from the head of the village of
Bambally.46 Oral sources suggest that many of these Masuwanka came from the
Guinea-Bissau region. Another group that is worth mentioning is the Bambara, whose
numbers increased with the expansion of peanut production as well as the outbreaks of

43

Unknown informant, “History of Kombo,” interview by NC AC staff, tape recording. Trans. available
23 the RDD collection in Fajara as Tape # 321.

lbid, p. 19

4S
ARP 32/1 Travelling Commissioner’s Report for the North Province, May 1894; Tida Touray and
lhgomdou Fatty, interview by Assan Sarr, tape recording, Bambally, North Bank Region, May 1 2008.

The Masuwanka are a group of people who borrowed from Mandinka and Balanta. They are mostly
found in the Guinea Bissau region.

45

the First and Second World Wars.47 In the Gambia, the Bambara are also commonly
referred to as the Tillibunkas, meaning the people from the east.

The lower Gambia region is also comprised of other small-scale groups. The
Serer are one of them. Although they comprise a higher share of the modern Senegalese
population, this group has been present in the Gambia River area for many centuries.
Arnold Hughes and David Perfect claim that in the early nineteenth century most Serer
lived north of the river in the kingdom of Saloum, but in 1863, an estimated 2,000 ﬂed
to the Crown Colony (Bathurst area) to escape from the fighting in the interior.48 Oral
traditions also claim that several of them lived in Niumi’s north bank kingdom, near the
Atlantic coastline. In these areas, they engaged in farming and ﬁshing. During the
nineteenth and ﬁrst half of the twentieth century, the majority of the Gambian Serer
remained “animist,” but in recent decades, most have become Muslims. Few also
became Catholics.”

The Aku (Liberated Africans) formed were a distinctive group within lower
Gambian society. They were the descendants of African slaves who were freed by the
British naval squadron after the abolition of the slave trade throughout the British
Empire. Because of this, they were also called the Recaptives. Many of them were
settled in the Gambia around 1818 and the 18205. However, most immigration occurred
between 1832 and the 18405. In 1841, their p0pulation in Bathurst was estimated to be

around 1,400. Few of these became merchants and many of them gained employment in

47
4 lbid, p. 19
8
4 Ibid, p. 19
9

Ibid, p. 19

46

the colonial civil service, as they became better educated and many of them became
enterprising landowners in the colony especially Bathurst and British Kombo.”

The long histories of interaction between these diverse groups have encouraged
exchanges of a variety of cultural elements for centuries. For instance, as George
Brooks notes, just as the Mandinka were inﬂuenced by other groups, they also imposed
Maude tripartite social structures wherever they settled. These Mande social structure
comprised of elites and free people, the endogamous occupational groups and slaves.5 '
It was also not unusual for interrnarriages to occur. Thus, while the ethnic classiﬁcation
provided above is accurate, it is equally drawn for convenient sake. Yet, people who
identiﬁed as Mandinka were for centuries politically dominant in the River States.

Ethnic boundaries also remained important in the competition for the control of the
valley’s resources.52
Political Organization and Structure

Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the politics of the region was mostly

dominated by prominent Mandinka lineages that imposed itself as the rulers of the

53

Gambia through a series of conquests. As they conquered the area, these warrior

families established a number of kingdoms,54 which a nineteenth century missionary,

 

50
Hughes and Perfect, A Political History of the Gambia, pp. 20-21

51 . .
Brooks, Landlords and Strangers, p. 2; Donald R. Wright “Beyond Migration and Conquest: Oral
Traditions and Mandinka Ethnicity in Senegambia,” History in Africa, Vol. 12 (1985), p. 338

Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town,” p. 23

53 . .

Jobson, Golden Trade, p. 28. As late as 1841, a missionary who vrsrted the area noted that “Along the
. . . bank of the River Gambia, the reigning power is now the Mandingo.”_The Christian Traveller.
Zest/em Africa. (London Charles Knight and Co. 1841), p. 149

Quoted from K.W Blackbume’s Development and Welfare in the Gambia, June 1943, Chapter V.
Political Development (Local Government; Native Administration)

47

William Mositer, described as “independent states.”55 Each of these states had more or
less a well-deﬁned boundary and had loose ties with the Mandinka state of Kaabu. 56
They each enjoyed their individual autonomy although all of them shared certain
characteristics. In these kingdoms, for instance, the basis of administration was the
hierarchical system of Mandinka polities involving family, village and kingdom.

The mansa (Mandinka word for king) was the head of the kingdom. He
represented the ﬁgure of leadership of all the kingdom’s separate lineages and the
formal link with their collective group of ancestors. Donald Wright states that the
mansa was the embodiment of the state.57 As head of the kingdom, the mansa had a
variety of responsibilities. His primary duty was to keep order. Supporting the mansa
was an army that helped him defend the kingdom while settling disputes between
lineages or villages. As the chief landlord, he coordinated planting and harvesting,
oversaw relations with strangers, and interceded with the ancestors or spirits of the land.
Each mansa had a royal ﬁeld. These royal ﬁelds were notoriously the largest within the
kingdom. Harvests from these ﬁelds and contributions from his subjects enabled him to
keep a granary. Like the royal ﬁelds, these granaries were the most numerous, the ﬁrst

ﬁlled, and the last emptied.58 Furthermore, the mansa could call on the young men to

 

55 . . . . .

William Morster, Memorials of missionary Labours m Western Africa, The West Indies and the Cape
géGood Hope (London, Patemostter Row, 1866), p. 34.

Kaabu, a precolonial Senegambian state, stretched from modern Guinea Bissau and Gambia. Kaabu
was a confederation that eventually encompassed a vast amount of territory. See Walter Hawthome,
Planting Rice and Harvesting Slaves: Transformations along the Guinea Bissau Coast, 1400—1900
gPortsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003), p. 31
58 Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, p. 102

It was important for the mansa to keep and have a ﬁlled granary because this was not a time when a
person lacking food could go to the store and buy rice. Part of the Mansa’s role was to take care of his
people, and that meant that he needed to have lots of food in storage for when drought came along.
Mansas weren’t all bad; part of their deal was that they could lead a privileged lifestyle more or less in
exchange for protection from danger and bad times.

48

work on the royal ﬁelds. Typically, he also commanded the most slaves and kept a
sizeable population under a state of dependency. Theoretically, he claimed territorial
ownership to all the land within his kingdom. As such, he gave permission to strangers
who wanted to establish their own village in his kingdom.

The powers of the mansa were by no means unlimited even at its height. As
Charlotte Quinn writes political competition within the states centered largely on the
sharing of taxes and other revenues from the use of the land. These were divided
between the mansa and his family and the leaders of other prominent lineages. In
addition, the mansa was constitutionally required, at least theoretically, to follow the
advice of leaders of the principal lineages of towns and villages in his kingdom.
However, seniority and putative lineage relationships together with the distribution of
power seems to have had critical inﬂuences on determining access to land and
traditionally they favored the mansa, and certain clans.”

Each kingdom was subdivided into villages. A village was a collection of
between four and a dozen extended families. The village in lower Gambia has been
from early times the unit which formed the basis of social life. The village was also the
venue where the population organized themselves for economic and political co—
operation. This importance of the village as the unit in rural life has persisted through
the nineteenth century down to the last century and it is important to note that
agriculture and the land are the basis of life in the village.

Each kingdom was comprised of core villages that were sometimes referred to

as “royal towns.” For example, in Kombo such villages included Busumbala, Yundum,

 

59
Charlotte A. Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia: Traditionalism, Islam, and European
Expansion (Evanston [111.] Northwestern University Press, 1972), p. 45

49

Jambur and Brikama. The Niumi singkilos (or royal towns) constituted Essau,
Berending, Bakindiki, Sitanunku and Tobabkolong. The core lineages from these towns
played an active role in state affairs. One of the eldest male members of the village’s
founding lineage was normally the village head (Alkalo);60 heads of the other prominent
lineages in the village served as his council.“ (In Wolof his title is borom dekk and in
Fula it is jom leidi or Jam sare).62 But the Alkalo was the mansa is representative at the
village level. He, too, had recognizable authority in the allocation and distribution of
land, especially to strangers. With the consent of the council of “free” compound elders
of the village, the Alkalo could assign to strangers usufruct rights to any unculivated
land within his village. In some instances, the Alkalo’s family was the biggest
landowner in a village. His title was derived from his ties to the land. In fact, the very
idea of Alkaloship is founded on the notion of ﬁrst founding lineage to settle in a
village.“

The Alkalo mediated disputes between individuals and families. Disputes settled
by the Alkalos usually ranged from land disputes, to theft or marriage feuds. He worked
with, though not speciﬁcally for, ruling lineages in collecting taxes, summoning
manpower for military pursuits, policing the village, and taking other actions that would

help maintain peace and state security.

 

60 Before the middle of the nineteenth century, the Alkali’s Mandinka title was sate-tic, which literally
(tinieans the “owner of the village.” '

Among the Fula, the title of the village head is jom leedi or jom sare. For more, see Curtin, Economic
Change in Precolonial Aﬂrica, 1975, p. 23, 25

Michael Anderson, A Voyage to Senegal, the Isle of Goree and the River Gambia, 1727-1806
([London, 1814?]), p. 48; Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial Aﬁ'ica, p. 23,

These families carried with them the title Jaiti in Mandinka which means “landlord.” William Fox

refers to the word in his account (see page 471 ). See also Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian
Town,” p. iv

50

Another primary level of segmentation in the lower Gambia valley was the
family compound, which formed the village. In fact, as Wright mentioned, the states
were a collection of lineages in a group of villages. A5 extended-family groups their
members farmed land assigned to their use. A village’s founding lineage had it own
land, which they acquired originally through permission from the kingdom’s rulers and
clearing a forest (or unused land) on which they established the village. In every village,
particularly in Mandinka communities, family groups were gathered into wards
commonly referred to as kabilo.64 People in the same kabilo generally had the same clan
name, though, as Quinn writes, in large and complex kabilos there were also a number
of strangers and slaves, unrelated to the founding lineage. Most of these strangers and
slaves held inferior status within the social unit."5 Typically, each kabilo had its own
head (the kabilotiyo). The oldest man in the founding lineage often became the kabilo
head. He arbitrated internal disputes and represented his unit in the lineage council,
which was comprised of prominent lineages of the village. Like the mansa, it was he
who sacriﬁced to the ancestors and other spirits on behalf of his extended family/clan.
Kabilo leadership was, therefore, associated with rights to the land and was passed

collaterally within the lineage segment claiming to have ﬁrst received these rights.

 

64 In Mandinka societies where there existed a kabilo system (i.e. the grouping of extended family
members into wards), the eldest male member of that extended family became the proprietor of that land.
He oversaw its distribution and settled any other dispute associated with it. In non-Mandinka
communities, however, the kabilo system did not exist. In such communities the compound head -—
usually the eldest male in the compound — assumed such responsibilities. Besides, the family that founded
a village claimed ownership of most of the land in that village. They also assumed the leadership of the
village, and were frequently answerable to the kingdom’s ruler (i.e. mansa).

Quinn, The Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 12; NRS, Banjul C30 2/94-The Laws and
Customs of the Mandingoes, 1906

51

Moreover, in most cases, “village” land could only be assigned to newcomers with
permission of kabilo leaders."6

Philip Curtin confuses kabilo to the notion of gale, which is the F ula word for
compound.67 Even though both had an active head, normally the oldest member who
represented its interests to higher ofﬁcials, settled internal quarrels, and sometimes
acted as a central agent for receiving and redistributing income from the group’s
economic efforts. But the kabilo often comprised of multiple gales or kerrs (compound
in Wolof).

Not all members of the kabilo enjoyed equal rights to the land. Just like
strangers, slaves could never become kabilo head in his owners’ household. In
Mandinka, Fula, Wolof and Serahule households, until the late nineteenth century, there
was often an important distinction made between the freebom and the slave class

belonging to a kabilo. ‘58 Indeed, as Martin Klein notes, like other dependents, the male

 

The Mandinka held a broad notion of ‘stranger-hood.’ Just as an individual or a family living in a
village could be regarded as strangers, so also was an entire village that was hosted by the elders of
another village would be regarded as strangers. In other words, if a community was granted permission
by the “headman” of another town or the Mansa (Mandinka word for King) to settle on a land, the new
community became ‘strangers’ of the old settlement that gave them the land. Several villages in Niumi
and the Sabach-Sanjal districts, for instance, held stranger status because they settled on other peoples’
land. Once the land was allocated, these communities could use the land as long as they wanted, but their
status as strangers hardly changed. By virtue of their dependency on others for land, they, too, were
excluded from politics.

Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial Africa, p. 31

68 In 1893 Commissioner JH Ozanne of the North Bank Province reported that the Alcaide of
Jabbakunda said he had a son in slavery and he could not dear to think of him. He spoke very sadly to me
on the subject, and said he was not sure where the young man was; he was afraid to cross the frdntier, but
if there were any hope of help from us, he would send messengers to ﬁnd one. He also reported that at
Kaur where there are more old people than elsewhere they expressed their thanks to your Excellency for
not depriving them of their servants in their old age. [The] slavery question which a few months ago
threatened to upset all the good results likely to be derived by a British protectorate. In the whole of my
district every headman has one or more slaves who he feeds but does not cloth. Five days in the week, the
slave works for his master from Sam to 3.30pm. The remainder of the time he works for himself having a
much land given to him to cultivate has he can manage. By these means he often manages to save a little
money. . . They are treated well on the whole but I am told that the women are worked very hard.

52

slave generally had his own piece of land, and as he grew older, he devoted more of his
time to his own plot. A slave owed his master ﬁve days of labor a week, a working day
being considered to run from sunrise to about 2:00pm. An unmarried male (and of a
freebom origin) had the same obligation to the head of the compound. Some freebom
families had many slaves.69 But the distinction between freebom male member of the
household and a male slave is that the former could eventually rise to the position of
kabilo head and the slave could not.

One of the few groups that lacked this type of political centralization is the Jola.
As late as the 18905, a European could comment that in “Fogni . . . the people will not
recognize any head chief over them or even headmen of towns, or groups of
5tockades.”70 However, each Jola community recognized the Alefanow (or the ‘big
man’) as their leader. The people “living in his stockade obey him only as their
superior.”71 But here, too, the Alefanow “seems to be the one that all the cattle, money
etc. belongs to and when this man dies the next “big man” takes charge.” Thus whoever
was Alefanow inherited from his predecessor.72

These different degrees of political control were no doubt important in

determining the nature of the property regimes that shaped interactions between social

groups and among members of a family or families. It must be stated that while the land

 

Slaves do not have an opportunity of running away, as all the Alcaide are interested in stopping them
and returning them to their owners. Ozanne described the Alcaide of Sallikene was the ring leader of
slavery in Badibu and I thought it might be as well to have a little private conversation with him before
meeting the other Alcaide.

Martin Klein “Servitude among the Wolof and Sereer of Senegambia” in Suzanne Miers and Igor
Kopytoft’ (ed.) Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1977), p. 346

70
7‘NRS, CSO 2/94-The Laws and Customs of the Jolahs of Fogni, 1906
Ibid
7
2 lbid

53

tenure customs practiced by the various groups living along the banks of the Gambia
River were often similar, sometimes there were differences. For example, as indicated
in an important colonial “ethnographic” report dating back to the 19305, “Jola customs
and the customs of the Mandingoes of the Kiang and Jarra districts . . . differ only in
detail.”73
Religious Beliefs and Spiritual Power

Most of the people living in the lower Gambia basin, in the nineteenth century,
viewed themselves as Muslims.74 In fact, some lineages had adopted Islam for several
centuries already, some more recently. Moreover, by the mid nineteenth century,
several Muslim clerics immigrated to the river banks and set up villages on lands
provided to them by prominent families including the Mandinka ruling elites. Many of
these recent settlers were Fula speaking peoples commonly referred to as Toronkas.7S

Several of them came from the Futa Toro area with cattle, students, slaves and

followers. The villages they established eventually became Islamic centers where over a

 

73

Conﬁdential Dispatch to the Colonial Secretary in Bathurst from the Commissioner’s Ofﬁce South
Bank Province, Cape St. Mary, 30 April, 1940, C80 10/71 Colonial Secretary- (Sgd) R.H. Gretton
Govemor-Sir Thomas Southorn

In fact, a signiﬁcant number of Gambians were already Muslims by seventeenth and the late eighteenth
centuries. For example, in the 16205, English trader Richard Jobson observed that the “Marybuckes
[referring to the Muslims] are separated from the common people . . . their houses or dwellings are
separated from the common peOple, having their towns and lands set out in several within themselves,
wherein no common people having dwellings except such as are their slaves, that work and labour for
them” [Richard Jobson. The Golden Trade, 1620-23, p. 78]. A little over a century after Jobson, Mungo
Park wrote that [The pe0ple of the Gambia were] divided into two sects, the Mahometans, who are called
Bushreens, and the Pagans, who are called Kaﬁrs . . . the Pagan natives are the most numerous, and the
government of the country is in their hands. . . . Among all these nations the religion of Mohamet has
made and continues to make, considerable progress, but in most of them . . . both free and enslaved,
preserve in maintaining the blind but harmless superstition of their ancestors, and are called by the
Mohammedans kaﬁrs or inﬁdels. . . . The uncharitable maxims of the Koran have made them less
hospitable to strangers . . . they consider [other groups] as their inferiors . . . Their government is
i7nﬂuenced by the Mohametan laws [Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa, pp. 13, 29 49]

Of course there were other non-Fulbe Muslim clerics in the region. For more on these see Lamin O.
Sanneh The Jakhanke Muslim Clerics: A Religious and Historical Study of Islam in Senegambia
(Lanham, MD.: University Press of America, 1989)

54

dozen, if not hundreds, of students were taught how to read the Quran and practice their
faith.

Donald Wright explains that over the several centuries following the demise of
the Mali and Jollof empires, Islamic cultural inﬂuences, particularly from the Senegal
River valley, continued to bear, and more heavily still, on the lives of people in all
levels of lower-Gambian society.76 As Martin Klein indicate, when the Portuguese
arrived in the area in the ﬁfteenth century, there were marabouts attached to most of the
Senegambia courts.77 These marabouts prayed for the chiefs and handled
correspondence. A5 a reward for their services, they received land and were permitted
to formed villages. By the seventeenth century their villages had become substantial
islands of Islam. The Muslim communities supported Quranic schools, kept the fast of
Ramadan, and followed the Muslim dietary laws.

In the 16205, English trader Richard Jobson observed that the “Marybuckes
[referring to the Muslims] are separated from the common people . . . their houses or
dwellings are separated from the conunon people, having their towns and lands set out .
. . within themselves, wherein no common people having dwellings except such as are
their slaves, that work and labour for them.”78 In describing the Gambian Fula almost a
century after Jobson traveled through the Gambia, Mungo Park wrote that

The uncharitable maxims of the Koran have made them less hospitable to
strangers . . . they consider [other groups] as their inferiors . . . Their

government is inﬂuenced by the Mohametan laws. . . Among all these nations
the religion of Mohamet has made and continues to make, considerable

76 .
Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, p. 98

77

Martin A. Klein, Islam and Imperialism in Senegal: Sine-Salaam, 1847-1914 (Stanford, Calif,
Published for the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace by Stanford University, Press, 1968)
p. 63

78
Jobson, The Golden Trade, [620-23, p. 78
55

progress, but in most of them . . . both free and enslaved, preserve in

maintaining the blind but harmless superstition of their ancestors, and are

called by the Mohammedans kaﬁrs or inﬁdels79
Moreover, John Morgan described the existence of “Muhammedan missionaries.80 The
islamization of the area had inﬂuenced the land tenure system in the lower Gambia
valley. As believers, Muslims are obliged to follow the basic precepts of sharia
especially regulations that deal with inheritance, trade and other aspects of family law.
As a matter of fact, the Qu’ran has created a set of rules that deﬁne inheritance to
property from father to son. It also established equality among the male heirs
particularly over succession.“ In the Gambia, the “disaggregation” of land was
sometimes done through prescriptions given in the Quran, especially when people
making the claims to the property were in disagreement with one another. In addition,
the Gambia region was subjected to considerable unrest in the second half of the
nineteenth century, which eventually led to the rejection of the Mandinka aristocracy’s
control over the land.

But while nineteenth century lower Gambian society was predominantly
Islamic, many of its residents continued to believe in the spirits of the ancestors and of
forces in the soil, rocks, and trees of the area. In other words, “pre-Islamic” beliefs in
the power of spirits and jinns to control space remained important even well into the

twentieth century. As part of their complex belief system, several people believed in

one supreme-being. According to Mungo Park, many of the people whom he came into

 

79
8 Park, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, p. 49, I3
0
John Morgan, Reminiscences of the Founding of a Christian Mission on the Gambia. (London:
zEllesleyan Mission House, 1864), p. 7
Youssouf Gueye, “Essai: Sur Les Causes et Les Consequences de la Micropropriété au Fouta Toro,”
Bulletin de l ’1. FAN. T.X IX, se'r. 8, no 3 l-2, (I957), pp.29-42

56

contact with believed that the supreme-being was “the creator and preserver of all
things” but they considered “him as 3 Being so remote.” Matters concerning worldly
affairs - such as the ownership of farmland -— were thought to have been controlled by
subordinate spirits, “over whom they suppose that certain magical ceremonies have
great inﬂuence. A white fowl suspended to the branch of a particular tree, a snake’s

head, or a few handfuls of mu are offerings to appease the displeasure of these tutelary

agents.”83

One of the most important of the spirits were the jinns. A jinn, which is an
Arabic word, is an animate spirit. People living along the banks of the Gambia River
believed that it is a spirit that comes out as a “devil” and causes evil. Jinns are supposed
to be invisible spirits, immortal, some good and some bad. It is also believed that they
have their own dwelling places and it is extremely dangerous to settle in a place already
inhabited by “bad” devils. But not only did the jinns have their own places to live, they
had their own favorite times of day: the time before dawn and dusk, two o’clock in the
afternoon, the hottest part of the day, and mid-night. These were the most dangerous
hours, when jinns were most likely to be out and about and it was dangerous for
ordinary people to be out - though marabouts and gifted individuals liked to conduct
much of their own business at these effective times.

Another frightening spirit is the ninki nanka. The ninki nanka is a dragon-like
creature, and is often believed to inhabit swampy forests and has the attributes of a

“devil.” As Southom notes, “the people are dogged by fear of devils and chief among

“a

82
Ibid, p. 194
83 ,
lbid, pp. I94—l95

57

these is the Ninki Nanka . . . [If] seen by a man is a sure sign of approaching death”84 If
anyone unwittingly builds his house across a pathway of jinns, he ran the risk of
numerous deaths and illnesses, houses falling down, ﬁres, or other disasters. Thus,

when people were thinking of settling a particular site, they sent seers in ﬁrst to check
whether or not the site was truly uninhabited.

A person already gifted with supernatural abilities can expand one’s spiritual
force, nyamoo, greatly by magical means such as amulets. It was believed that nyamoo
was obtained from benign spirits or jinns or other supernatural agencies. Adults who
spent much of their time alone in the bush —especially hunters believed to have
developed special relationships with jinns and could learn their secrets.85 Hunters - who
were often part of the ruling elites’ warrior class —- were people who knew the secret(s)
of the spirit world. These specialists were thought to possess nyamoo (which implies
spiritual force). Nyamoo is a vital protective force that only hunters, warriors and
marabouts had. These people, it is believed, could turn into an animal because they
possessed spiritual and mental qualities. This made their worlds strange - i.e. where the
lines between human beings and the great animals are shadowy and ﬂuid. These
individuals had the ability to communicate with jinns and other spirits.

The histories of several villages in the Gambia oﬂen credit the role of hunters
(or people with spiritual powers) in their establishment. For instance, oral traditions
claim Sora Musa’s hunting for a place to settle brought to the Gambia region from Mali.

Upon arriving in a place called Kande Kunola, he spent a night under a timpo tree. In

 

84
8 Southom, The Gambia: The Story ofa Groundnut Colony, p. 250

Bakari Kamara, Two Hunting Tales of the Senegambia. Oral History and Antrqurtres Drvrsron, Banjul,
1980, pp. 2-3

58

that timpo tree were two male jinns. The jinns warned not to settle there because they
were the owners of the land. They however showed him a place where he would be able
to stay. The jinn told him that “there was a creek he must cross. Once he reached and
crossed it, he then went upland to a place where there was a big taba tree. The jinn told
him that he could look there and build a fence and have that for his area of settlement.86
Also, oral traditions of Bambally claimed that sometime before the late nineteenth
century the village’s founder, Sainey Darboe, from the Foday Kunda Kabilo in Jarra
Bureng was a hunter. According to the tradition, he discovered the site during one of his
hunting trips. Other sources indicate how the village of Sarrakunda was discovered by a
man “whose black cow would often lead him to a pond where it would drink whenever
he took it into the forest for grazing. One day, upon his return to the village, he told the

people what he observed about the place. He found the place to be suitable for a

settlement.”87

 

86 Abdoulie Samba, interview by Donald R. Wright, tape recording, Gambia, November 12, 1974.
Interview in Wright’s “Oral Traditions From the Gambia” Vol. 1, p. 132

87 Mba Neneh Sabbally, interview by author and assisted by Abdoulie Jafuneh, tape recording,

December 14, 2008, Sarrakunda, North Bank Region, Gambia. Also, sources on the history of the Kiang
village of Dumbuto claim that “the elder of Dumbuto was a hunter” [Alkalo Tonyonding Darboe and

Imam, interview by Bala Saho, Lamin Yabo and Lamin Nyagadou, tape recording, Sankandi, Kiang,

Lower River Region, November 3, 2001. trans. available on ﬁle as RDD Tapeit 5162 in Fajara].

Similarly, it is asserted that Mbemba, the founder of Jattaba was a hunter from Jenier. “The present site
where Jattaba is located was often the place where he rested after a long trek in the forest where he

hunted for game. In that forest there was a big tabo tree. When he killed an animal he would dry its skin
under the tree. That is why the tree got its name ‘dry-skin tabo tree.’ It was later that he decided to settle
there” [Alkalo Bunang Sanneh, interview by Bala Saho and Lamin Yabo, tape recording, Kiang, Lower
River Region, November 3, 2001. trans. available at the RDD collection in Fajara as Tapeli 5177].

Alhagie Bai Konte, interviewed by NCAC staff, tape recording, Kombo, June 28 1976. trans. available at
the RDD ofﬁce as Tape Catalogue it 612. Bakary Kutu Jatta, Alkali of Busumbala “History of Kombo,
interviewed by NCAC staff, tape recording, Kombo North, West Region, August 28, 1973. trans.
available at the RDD ofﬁce in Fajara as Tape # 223C: 50-70. Oral sources connect the “early” history of
Kombo to the famous hunter from Busumbala, Karafa Yali Jatta. Lastly, Oral traditions repeatedly
explain how a famous hunter and blacksmith, Hamadadu Segani Demba from .lokadu Tambana, was
taken by jinns when he was a baby. It is said that when Segani was young he had no babysitter and so his
mother took him to the rice ﬁelds with her. She placed him under a tree and always glanced at him while
working. Then, a female j inne came and took him away. When the woman came she found that her baby
was taken away. Segani lived with the female jinn and her husband until he became grown. They gave

59

Thus, while there are bad jinns, each compound and every person is said to
“have a good jinn,” a protector. In his Oral Traditions ﬁom the Gambia, Donald Wright
indicates that it was customary among many Mandinka that the “original settlers of an
area and their descendants [develop] special relationships with the jinns, or spirits of the
region.”88 This, he writes, accorded the original family usufruct rights to the land and
water within some generally speciﬁed bounds. New settlers in the area had to receive
permission from the original family to clear land for new villages and to use the
surrounding land for farms.

These religious ideas, therefore, had an important bearing on local attitudes
toward land. Historically, lower Gambians made two distinctions between lands
occupied by spirits and lands identiﬁed as ideal for humans — which means distinctions
were often made between lands occupied and “owned” by spirits and lands used by
humans for agricultural purposes and for dwelling.

Overview of Land Tenure Systems
Ownership of “Spirit” Lands:

As shown above, local attitudes towards certain land and its ownership hinged
on complex mystical and spiritual attributes such as the belief in spirits and jinns. As
late as the 19203, Colonial Commissioner Emilius Hopkinson could write that a
signiﬁcant portion of Niumi’s land was wooded and uninhabited, and that the resident

Mandinka “think of [that] land as being inhabited by bad devils and spirits.”89

him a gun, taught him how to hunt, and allowed him to return to his home. Hamadadu’s grandson,

Kekoto Sengani, was also a hunter and a marabout.
Sheriff Jobarteh, interview by Donald R. Wright, Baddibu Banni, January l, 1975. Interview in Wright’s

ggral Traditions From the Gambia” Vol. I, p. 101
89 Wright, “Oral traditions From the Gambia” Vol. I, p. 42
PRO 60/2, E. Hopkinson. Traveling Commissioner’s Report. North Bank Province, 1921-

60

Hopkinson noted that settlements on this land “always died out after 2 or 3 years” and
that most residents of Niumi “had never been through this area.”90 Jumankari, as this
particular land was called, was only ﬁve miles away from the village of Sami. The
Jumankari forest was believed to be a place where jinns or evil spirits lived and would
ruin the lives of anyone attempting to farm there or settle on the land.91

Since the decades before the 18503 missionaries who were often intrigued with
the religious beliefs of the Africans they encountered observed the close relationship
between beliefs in spirits and local attitudes towards certain lands. For instance,
William Fox mentioned a land on the banks of the river that the “natives” called
“Devil’s Point.” The people believed that the “prince of darkness is said to have a
residence under that point of land.” As a result, “In passing this place, the natives are in
the habit of [giving something to the devil].”"2 Few years before Fox made this
observation, John Morgan wrote that the “native name of the island of [Bathurst] was

Ben-joul, or Pen-joul, a word . . . meaning the ‘devil’s head.”93

 

90 . . .
William F ox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions, pp. 245-246; Wrrght., The World and a Very
Small Place in Africa, p. 43

Oral traditions indicate that the sites where the present villages of Bantang Kiling and Medina
Bafuloto are located were also believed to homes of dangerous devils and spirits. The same, it was
believed, was also true of Bangali and Nambu (two other dangerous forests located in the center of
Niumi, near Medina Sereign Mass and Medina Bafuloto). Accordingly, there seems to be abundant
evidence to suggest that most of Niumi’s land as it existed elsewhere in lower-Gambia region before the
twentieth century was in one way or the other areas deemed not suitable for settlement or agricultural
activity. Oral traditions further explain how the old villages of Tambana, Bambally and Busra were
abandoned because the evil spirits attacked and killed many of the people. Daily, people were dying
mysteriously because the spirits would appear before them at night or when they were in their ﬁelds. The
spirits came in the form of monkeys, antelopes, ninki nankas (or dragons) and occasionally in human
form. While to outsiders this “spirit” land appeared merely to be vacant, to the Africans living along the
banks of the Gambia they were not.

“Devil’s Point” was used to describe the area near Balingho, near Elephant Island. See William Fox, A
Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions, pp. 245-246 and David P. Gamble, “The Gambia: Place Names
(9)31 Maps and in Travellers’ Accounts Up to 1825” (Brisbane, Ca, April 1999), p. 9

Morgan, Reminiscences, pp. 1-2. In the past, almost every major village had a shrine and these shrines
were often established on sites that were isolated from most of the people (i.e. on Islands or “distant”

6l

The implication of this belief in spirits on notions of land ownership is by no
means triﬂing. These sorts of beliefs determined the sites people considered habitable or
suitable for agriculture. In essence, they helped establish the value people attached to
the land itself. For many people, a land that was home for spirits and jinns was not a
valuable piece of land. For example, the region’s Wolof communities, like their
Mandinka and F ula counterparts, believed in the usefulness of enforcing this strict
spatial boundary between the human settlements and those of the spirits. In fact, as one
man mentioned in an interview, a potential farmland close to his village was called
mbay dee (meaning cultivate and die). Anyone who tried to farm on that land died
because the spirits would kill him.94 An informant claimed that in the past these lands

were numerous in the area because there were many spirits and jinns in the area and that
these spirits outnumbered the people. Obviously, it is impossible to conﬁrm the

authenticity of this claim from both the written and oral sources. In fact, that is beyond

 

forest) A good example of this was Jerre Kung Sito, an island near one of Niumi’s royal villages,
Sitanunku. Jerre, which the British called Dog or Charles Island, was the place where the people of
Sitanunku kept some of their shrines and jujus. In fact, an 1830 English source indicates that Jerre, was
Sitanunku’s “fetish” place. The place was opened only to elders of the village and hence no one was
allowed to settle there. As a result, when in the 18305, the Agricultural Society of England wanted to
settle pensioners and Liberated Africans on the island so they could grow hemp 0" this Island, the Alkalo
of Sitanunku objected to the idea. Although the British had promised him that they won“ give him
annual customs in return for the use of the land, the Alkalo insisted that “they W011“ rather give “P
custom than have the British on the Island.” Consequently, the young men 0f Sitanunku “went to Dog
Island and threatened some pensioners and others residing on the Island with destruction of their farms.”

This incident occurred a few days before the British attacked Barra Point, where the “King Of Barra - ~ -

assembled all ﬁghting men from neighboring village[s] [Sources PRO CO 87/5, 41, Lt. Governor Rendall

to R. W. Hay, Government House, Bathurst, July 30 1831; PRO 87/5, 46 Barra War-Lt. Governor

Rendall to Lord Vincent Goderich, Bathurst, August 24 1331; PRO CO 3759 41‘ Lt' Governor Rendall to

R. W. Hay, Government House, Bathurst, July 30 1831]. For more 0“ the Barra War and the D08 Island

incident see For more on this see Donald R. Wright’s The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, pp.

138-139. It is written about in Paul M. Mbaeyi, "The Barra-British War of 1831" in Journal of the

Hjsmrica] Society ofNigeria, (June 1967), 617-631, and in less detail in Mbaeyi's book, British Military

and Naval forces in West African History, 1807-1874 (NY3 M)", 1978), p. 76‘ Finally, see William

Moister (visited 183]) Memorials of Missionary Labours, p. 206. George Rendall, the governor of the

English settlement of Bathurst, was forced to stop paying the annual custom to the mansa until “they

would comply.” For more information, see Lt. Governor Rendall to R.W. Hay, Government House,

Bathurst, July 30 1831 CO 87/5, 41

4
Alkalo Dawda Sowe, interview by author, Baffuloto, Upper Niumi, North Bank Region, July 23 2006.
62

the realm of historical enquiry. But what historians should be concerned with is the
extent to which such beliefs were rampant and how they inﬂuenced local attitudes
towards land and its ownership. Both the oral traditions and travelers’ accounts left
behind by Europeans shed-light on these questions. Thus, belief-systems in lower
Gambia basin were just as important in determining where people would settle or farm.
Also, it seems that the association of certain religious and spiritual powers to certain
groups of people (especially marabouts) and their ability to utilize “spirit” lands was a
means of social control. Furthermore, some "vacant" or preserved land was necessary. It
provided protection from threatening outsiders, a place to hunt, gather fruits and
medicines, and a place for water run-off. In short, "spirit lands" served an ecological
ﬁmction.

Lower Gambians believed that even though the areas jinns and “devils”
occupied were for the most part made up of fertile soils, the harvests from these lands
may not be good because of the spirits that would destroy the crops. In addition, this
belief in “spirit” lands was also one of the reasons for the marked difference between
European and African understandings of what a vacant land was. While Europeans were
looking at lands that were actively put into productive use, Aﬁ'icans were thinking
beyond production. In fact, to many Africans, these lands belonged to the jinns and
powerful spirits. Therefore, the land, which was left vacant, was not just untouched
because people believed that it was owned by some invincible spirits.

This belief in spirits and their ability to occupy some land is one of the major

reasons why the abandonment of settlements is a recurring theme in lower Gambian

oral and. documentary sources. As Southom writes,

63

The number of abandoned settlements on the banks of the river is a curious
feature of Gambian history. Time after time settlements, which are mentioned
by the earlier writers and seem to have been of some importance in their day,
have vanished completely” .Trade routes changed, towns and villages were
destroyed 1n tribal wars, localities acquired a bad reputation for unhealthiness

or the malign inﬂuence of evil spirits”
Like Southom, David Gamble described Wolof villages as “small and constantly
waxing and waning, [and] breaking up.” He also writes that “Wolof families move
about a great deal.”96 When people unknowingly settle on a land where they believed
evil spirits lived, they would eventually be forced to move to a different, more ideal site.

Indeed, villagers were always liable to pick up and move for a variety of

reasons, not just the fear of spirits. Soils could lose their fertility (especially in those
days when there were no commercial fertilizers and much less was known about the
necessity of crop rotation); wells could run dry over long periods of drought or become
spoiled by runoff from latrines or garbage heaps; soothsayers could predict prosperity at
another site; or villages could be entirely destroyed—by bush ﬁres or strong enemies,
bringing elders to decide to relocate rather than to rebuild on the same spot.
Nonetheless, oral traditions from the many villages located along the banks of the
Gambia River seem to suggest that most villages were deserted because of the spirits’
interference.

As will be shown in the fourth chapter, in the second half of the nineteenth and

the early twentieth centuries, most of these “spirit” lands began to be cleared for

 

:,Southom The Gambia: The Story of the Groundnut C alony, P 33

6David P. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia: Places, People and Population (B) The Wolof
9:7rea: Sabah and Sanjal, Lower Saalum, Upper Saalum” (Brisbane, Cal., April 1999), p. 10

Donald Wright and Assan Sarr, “Cherchez la Tata: Can We Locate the Old Royal Villages of the

Gambian Mandinka States, and What Might Excavation at These Sites Reveal About Life in Precolonial
Gambia? “Unpublished Paper presented at the “Common Ground, Different Meanings: Archaeology,

History and the Interpretation of the African Past” Syracuse University, October 8-10, 2009.
64

growing peanuts. Part of the reason for this had to do with the expansion of cash
cropping and the changing religious dynamics taking place across the banks of the
Gambia River.
Controlling Human Settlements and F armlands
If “spirit” lands were “owned” by spirits and could be acquired by religious

specialists such as marabouts, lands earmarked for agriculture and settlement were also
managed by powerful individuals through a body of customs. Before the mid-

nineteenth century, available land that was typically under the territorial jurisdiction of

a chief, was deemed to be “own” by the mansa. But these lands were then subdivided
among villages, kabilos (families) and individuals —-all often within the jurisdiction of a
polity.98 Any person or group who wanted a land where he could set up a village had to
seek permission from the mansa and his subordinates or elsewhere acquire the land by
means of conquest."9 Through conquest, a number of lineages were reduced to the status
of strangers albeit in their own land.

At the village level, families acquired use rights to plots of land they cleared

themselves at a time when no one laid claim on that land. That land became the

property of the family of the person that ﬁrst cleared it. However, they must be granted
permission by those in authority to clear the forest. Rights to land were sometimes
claimed by hunters on the grounds of their initial occupation or utilization of sections of
a forest. These remained the most important means of laying claims to any piece of land

after the middle of the nineteenth century when mansas lost their power.

98
But often it was the ﬁrst chief that settled in an area or the power-holder who usually gave permission
to migrants to create new villages -—~ a practice that disappeared during the second half of the nineteenth

century.
In all of these instances, however, immigrant groups had to seek permission from these initial settlers

to settle, hunt, farm, or practice their particular trade.

65

Just as an individual or a family living in a village could be regarded as
strangers, an entire village that was hosted by the elders of another village would be
regarded as strangers. In other words, if a community was granted permission by the
“headman” of another town or the mansa to settle on a land, the new community

became ‘strangers’ of the old settlement that gave them the land. Several villages in

 

the banks of the Gambia River. Before the wars of the second half of the nineteenth century, the Soninke
ruling class used its political power to prevent stranger groups from owing thelgest land and ﬁ:om having
access to the economic and political privileges which the land provided. Beyond their villages,
Stranger-groups were treated as ‘outsiders’ and people with less ‘voice’ in state matters. Stranger-Villages,
like the individual stranger living a village 0r Kabilo, had less power and inﬂuence over how the
kingdom’s affairs were to be conducted. Their primary duty was to pay tribute (taxes) to the ruling class
Who supposedly provided them security.'00 But stranger-groups shared this fate With the many peasant
communities in the lower Gambia valley. In many of the Mandinka-led kingdoms, the drstmctron

between a stranger and an early settler who was politically marginalized was oﬂen slim.
101

C80 10/71Conﬁdentia1 Dispatch from Governor of Sierra Leone, Douglas Jardine, to the Secretary
Of State for Colonies, April 1940. See also NRS, Banjul, CSO 2/94 Laws and Customs of the Jolas, 1906
102

V.R. Dorjahn and and Christopher Fyfe, “Landlord and Stranger: Change in Tenancy Relations in
Sierra Leone,” The Journal of African History, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1962), pp. 391 -397.

66

Niumi and the Sabach-Sanjal districts, for instance, held stranger status because they

settled on other peoples’ land. '03 Once the land was allocated, these communities could

One unit that “incorporated” several outsiders as dependents is the kabilo
grouping, which existed in Mandinka. Under leadership of the eldest male member and
proprietor of that land in that extended family, as mentioned earlier, the kabilatiyo
oversaw the distribution of land and settled any other dispute associated with it. In non-

Mandinka communities, however, the kabilo system did not exist. In such communities

A type of land that was particularly valuable to people living along the banks of
the Gambia River were the rice ﬁelds (swamps) known as faroos. Rice, as noted by
Judith Carney and Michael Watts, was cultivated both as an upland rain-fed crop

(tendako) and, more extensively, as wet or paddy rice in tidal saline and freshwater

m
103

Few examples include Sanchi Paalen, Bamballi, Kerr Chickam.

67

swamps (bafaro and wamifaro), on periodically inundated ﬂoodplain ﬂats (leofaro), and
in riparian depressions (known in Mandinka as the bantafarro).104

The desire for lands near the river was even further exacerbated by the
expansion of cash cropping. This further encouraged growth of wharf towns. The wharf
towns were “the centers of life on the river.”'05 As Southom wrote, there is a market in
every wharf town — peanuts were assembled in these wharf towns in the trading
season.106 In more recent years, however, many villages which once were linked to
particular wharf towns as trading centers have now moved to the new roads, to gain
access to relatively fast transport.107

In sum, different lands had different value attached to them. Among other
factors, size and location inﬂuenced the value people attached to certain land. By the
close of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century lower Gambians held
complex notions of land ownership. Ethnographic documents point to the fact that the
Fula, Mandinka, Wolof and Jola all recognized both a collective and an individual form
of property system —-all forms of ownership existing simultaneously.108 While there
were lands that belonged to the “whole” community (e. g. cemeteries, mosques or

shrines), most of the land were however either claimed by individuals or prominent

families instead of all members of the community. Moreover, in Mandinka

 

104 . . .
Judith Carney and Michael Watts. “Disciplining Women? Rice, Mechamzation, and the Evolution of

Mandinka Gender Relations in Senegambia” Signs, Vol. 16, No.4, Women, Family, State, and Economy
in Africa (Summer, 1991), p. 654

Southom, The Gambia: The Story of the Groundnut Colony, p. 33
106 .

lbld, p. 34

Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town,” p. 3

108

NRS, CSO 2/94-The Laws and Customs of the Mandingoes of the North Bank, 1906. Bakary Sidebe,
interview by author, Churchill Town, Serrekunda, August 5 2008. Modi Sanneh, interview by author,
Sapu, Central River Region, August 8 2008

68

communities, if family members undertook the clearing of the forest collectively, the
land is designated mama and as such is inalienable from the residence group. In this
system, residents of a household were obliged to cooperate in production for use and
exchange. In return for the labor committed to household subsistence, family members
were allocated rights to a portion of family landed property. Property rights and labor
claims then, as Carney and Watts argue, constituted the fundamental pillars of
Mandinka production relations. Individual women and men, however, could establish
land ownership rights by clearance under their own labor (kamanyango). In the ﬁrst half
of the twentieth century, a colonial ofﬁcial suggested that the “ownership” of rice ﬁelds
nearly approximated lands held as freehold property. He wrote, “. . . the right of use
[exercised over these rice ﬁelds] seems to be more or less perpetual.”109 Although the
earliest references to these individualized plots of land dates back to the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, a number of oral sources suggest that individual
ownership of kamanyango ﬁelds has been a part of Mandinka landholding customs for a
long time. In fact, as Robert Baum argues for the Jola living in the Cassamance area,
paddy rice was individually owned but was oﬁen worked by brothers, together with
their wives and children. Most rice paddies were passed down from parent to their
children. ' '0

As opposed to Wolof, Jola and F ula communities, in Mandinka villages, women

often played a key role in this landholding system. I” In almost all Mandinka villages,

 

109
Letter from CNBP to Colonial Secretary dated 26.6.42 CSO 10/71

110
Robert M. Baum. Shrines of the Slave Trade: Diola Religion and Society in Precolonial Senegambia
Wew York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 29

Among the Jolas no female owned any lands in her own right even though women always worked the
rice ﬁelds. They could not claim the land or its fruits as their personal property; all was considered the

69

the “right of use [for several of the rice ﬁelds] descends in the female line.” If a woman
married out of the village where she was born and if her new home was not too far
away, she would continue to cultivate her own rice farm in her natal village).”l '2 The
ownership or control of these rice ﬁelds was often “jealously guarded.” ”3 This is
because the rice swamps were regularly cultivated more or less on permanent basis. The
vast majority of them had been cleared from lowland swamps, and typically devoted to
labor-intensive rice production. They were well-watered and had boundaries that were
well-marked.

Nevertheless, disputes often broke out among co-wives, families and
communities over the control or ownership of these rice ﬁelds. In Mandinka
households, as in other groups, there was always a head wife who was in charge of the
rice ﬁelds belonging to her husband’s family. As the senior wife, she also managed the
stores of rice and other grains. In some instances, the other wives even worked three
days a week in her rice farm and the other days in their own farms. The senior wife also
took charge of the husband’s house when he traveled.1 '4 But in the lower Gambia

region, it was not uncommon for one to see tensions in families where polygamous

 

property of the husband. Anyone may buy and sell his own property and is under no obligation . . .
However], land was not rented or lent to anyone. Moreover, no woman was acknowledged as head of a
family. The head of the family was always the oldest man [ARP 28/1 Traveling Commissioner’s Report
SBP]. Similarly, in another ethnographic document, a colonial commissioner noted that among the Fula
females and infants may not hold any land but were allotted land by their parents. (Source: Report ﬁ'om
the commissioner of Kombo to the Acting Colonial Secretary, WB Stanley. No. 767/ l 906 dated May 10
1906]. It is also noted that among the Wolof, women may only hold farming land when given by their
male relatives. They could not actually take the land themselves. [Report from Commissioner McCallum
to the Colonial Secretary dated March 25 1906]. For more, see CSO 2/94-Laws and Customs of the
Yarious Communities in West Africa, 1906.

12 .
ll Letter from CNBP to Colonial Secretary dated June 26 1942 C80 10/71
3
lbid

1 14
C80 2/94 The Laws and Customs of the Mandingos 1906
70

marriages existed.I ‘5 Competition among co-wives and or their children often provided
a fertile ground for conﬂict over the “ownership” or control of rice swamps.
Competition such as these even led to difﬁculties in deciding inheritance questions.

As Judith Carney and Michael Watts writes, maruo and kamanyango are also
Mandinka terms that are used to distinguish between ﬁelds employed for food crop or
use value production, and plots planted for cash cropping or exchange. The land on
which members of the same family labor for their collective subsistence needs is
referred to as maruo — meaning household ﬁelds. Maruo land constitutes family land or
property. Crops produced for domestic consumption fell under the jurisdiction of the
male household head, who controlled storage, distribution, and proﬁts in the event of
sale.”6

In return for the provision of maruo labor, the household head conferred to
family members usufructory rights over a small portion of household land. To the extent
that the cultivator remained a resident and able-bodied family laborer, control over the
plot use and crop rights was guaranteed in perpetuity. These individual ﬁelds devoted to
production for exchange were also referred to as kamanyango. Men generally cultivated
peanuts on their individual ﬁelds; women typically grow rice for sale. I '7

Conclusion
In sum, in discussing the forms of property ownership, it is important to note

that the idea of the “individual” and “community” are not always in sharp contrast and

”5 Virtually, all this historic documents from the 17905 to the late 19205 stressed the importance of
multiple marriages in Mandinka, Wolof, Fula, and Jola communities. Both Muslim and non-Muslim
males tended to marriage multiple wives. There are also several oral traditions that claim that wealthy and
powerful elites often had over a dozen women they called “wives.” Ethnographic data dating back to the
colonial era also show that Muslim men oﬁen had between 1 to 4 wives.

117 Carney and Watts, “Disciplining Women,” p. 654
lbid

71

opposition to one another. In other words, in the lower Gambia region, especially
during the ﬁrst two decades of the twentieth century, the binary between what was
public or private was not so clear in that spatial boundaries were kept and maintained by
naming one’s property.

The belief that Africans value people and not land is a widely held view. But
this chapter shows the value Africans placed on land and the different elements that
inﬂuenced peoples’ attitude to land. It summarizes how controlling land on the one
hand and exercising control over people on the other hand tended to reinforce one
another. It does so by looking at the lower Gambia region, which was inhabited by a
diverse group of people. As noted by Southom, the banks of the Gambia River did not
constitute a “tribal” barrier.l '8 It hosted diverse groups of people among them include
the Mandinka, Wolof, F ula and Jola. However, until the late nineteenth century, the
Mandinka held power over large portions of the north and south banks and the Wolof
kingdom of Salourn formed a large enclave in north bank area. Yet, the Jola, Fula as
well as the others, settled in villages of their own but under the control of region’s
ruling aristocracy, and many of them concentrated on farming and had local elites who
controlled land and determined access to it.

Each group had its own language and sometimes unique customs. Yet, for all the
groups, the value of land was inﬂuenced by power, and belief. Hierarchy (or one’s
social standing in a community) was often important in determining access to land and
it also determined the nature of the interactions between ﬁrst settlers and strangers. Just
as individuals could be regarded as strangers, it was not uncommon for entire

1 18
Southom, The Gambia: The Story of the Groundnut Colony, p. 39
72

communities to be viewed as strangers to a nearby village or town. As Beedle notes, the
landlord-stranger institution was common to the Mandinka, Wolof and Fula.l '9

Each of these groups had complex religious beliefs. But belief-systems in lower
Gambia basin were just as important in determining where people would settle or farm.
Such beliefs were probably a means of social control —- i.e. to deter people from utilizing
certain lands. They could also have been just a part of the people’s religious
worldview. In any event, local attitudes towards land were shaped by these sorts of
beliefs. Consequently, some "vacant" or preserved land provided protection from
threatening outsiders. They also served as places to hunt and gather fruits and
medicines. In short, many "spirit lands" served an ecological function.

Land was also the primary means of attaining a livelihood as farmers.
Historically, lower Gambian farmers produced several types of grains of their land in
“considerable quantities.” Some of these grains include com (maize), sanio and basso,
millet and rice. However, from the middle of the 18305 onwards, peanuts became the

most important crop grown by farmers living along the banks of the River Gambia, a

transformation explored in chapter 4.

—_‘

l9
Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town,” p. 23

73

Chapter Two
Landlords and Strangers:
Land, Power and Dependency in the Early Nineteenth Century Lower Gambia
Basin
The concepts of power and domination are important in understanding systems

of land tenure as were practiced along the banks of the Gambia River in the early
nineteenth century. In this region, the Mandinka ruling aristocracy managed through the
use of political power to maintain monopoly ownership of the best land along the river,
except for the narrow area where the kingdom of Saloum reached the river bank.1 This
does not ﬁt with what few scholars have argued for some other parts of pro-colonial
Aﬁica: that African kings or chiefs were only nominal custodians of communal land.2
Circumstances in the lower Gambia suggest that this was not everywhere the case. The
ruling class used land to increase its wealth and to demonstrate its political power. In
fact, before British authority began altering African customs, land in the Mandinka-

dominated kingdoms of the Gambia could not be acquired as a simple commodity; nor

 

lCharlotte A. Quinn. Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia: Traditionalism, Islam, and European
Expansion (Evanston [111.] Northwestern University Press, 1972), p. 27; Paul Julian Beedle, “Citizens and
Strangers in a Gambian Town” Thesis (doctoral)--University of Cambridge, 1980, p. 24. Fafa Jobe,
interview by author, Kumbija Village, Sabach-Sanjal, The Gambia, December, 14 2008.

2 0.8. A. Coker. Family Property Among the Yorubas (London & Lagos: Sweet and Maxwell, African
Universities Press, 1966), p. 31. In writing about Yoruba systems of land tenure, 6.8. A. Coker writes
that “The chief holds on behalf of the whole community in the capacity of a caretaker or trustee only but
he allocates portions of land to family heads according to need and these in turn reallocate among their
members.” See also Rev. Samuel Johnson. The History of the Yorubas: From the Earliest Times to the
Beginning of the British Protectorate (C.M.S. Nigeria, Bookshops Lagos, 1921). Johnson writes that
theoretically and traditionally Yoruba land belonged to the Alaﬁn of Oyo as the supreme head of the
Yorubas. Also, Dickson A. Mungazi and George B.N. Ayittey have made similar arguments about land
tenure systems elsewhere in Africa. See also Dickson A. Mungazi. The Struggle for Social change in
Southern Africa: Visions of Liberty (New York, Crane Russak, 1989), p. 34; George B.N. Ayittey. Africa
Betrayed (New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1992). The general point made by all these scholars is that as
head of the group, the king or chief had no power to sell or distribute land at his disposal. As such, he was
bound by ‘native’ law and custom to allocate use rights to the land to families and strangers after due
consultation with the ‘elders of the land.’

74

the constructs of “landlords” and “strangers.” In the early nineteenth century, landlords
in the lower Gambia region canied with them the title Soninke — meaning the owners of
the land. As opposed to the “recent” settlers who were commonly viewed and treated as
“strangers” (luntango, in Mandinka), the Soninke generally consisted of the ruling party
of aristocratic families and their followers; they were the principal lineages in territories
under their domain. The stranger populations regularly depended on this aristocracy for
access to land, for which they paid tributes. “Strangers” were also barred from holding
important political ofﬁces, partly because of their lack of strong ties to the land. Yet,
even families that were poor and politically marginalized but traced their descent from
the principal lineages could enjoy those privileges —- such as hosting strangers — that the
former could not enjoy. Despite their material deprivation, they were still part of the
principal families of a village. As a result, they took pride more on the number of their
dependents (including women and slaves) and their status in the community rather than
solely basing it on the size of their material wealth.

Although in recent decades several scholars have examined the importance of

. . . 5 . ' .
the landlord-stranger relationship in some African soc1et1es, In general the scholarship
\ ﬂ
3 Boubacar Barry argues this for the Senegal River valley.

land situation in the Gambia region. For more on land in Senegal, see Bany, Sen
Slave Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 30
4

Parker Shipton, Mortgaging The Ancestors: ldeO/Ogles ofAttachment in Africa (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2009)

 

But similar arguments can be made about the
egambia and the Atlantic

75

differentiation that came along with landownership. An important factor is the
distinction between “landlords” and “strangers” — a practice that emerged out of the
“politics” of accessing land.8 The landlord-stranger relationship, as Paul J. Beedle

states, was one “of dependence and protection, involved power, was durable and

 

 

 

 

 

\ ﬂ.
SFor example, see Dorjahn and Fyfe. “Landlord and Stranger: Change in Tenancy Relations in Sierra
Leone” The Journal of African History, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1962), pp. 391-397; Bruce Mouser. “Landlords-
Strangers: A Process of Accommodation and Assimilation” The International Journal of African
Historical Studies, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1975), pp. 425-7; George Brooks, Landlords and Strangers. For more
on the importance of the ﬁrstcomer/latecomer opposition see Wyatt MacGaffey, “Changing
Representations in Central African history,” Journal of African History, 46 (2005), pp. 193-95. Most of
these, however, focused on Euro-African interactions or deals with societies outside of the Senegambia
region.

John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800 Second Edition
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 87 l
7 . .
180k Glazier, Land and the Uses of T radition Among the Mbeere 0f Kenya (Lanham, MD: Umversrty
Press of America, 1985), pp. 1-2; Martin A. Klein, Peasants in Africa: Historical and Contemporary
Perspectives (Beverly Hills, London: Sage PUblications 1980). These works suggests that most African
SOCieties lacked a well-deﬁned landowning Class and thus the antagonistic relations that sometimes result
gn peasant-landowner conﬂict.

Landlord stranger relationship was an age old custom of hosting and providing food, shelter and land ‘0
strangers. It was common throughout the Gambia as it was to other parts of Western Africa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

76

 

The land situation in the societies along the banks of the lower Gambia River in
the nineteenth century is described because this period was the last time the mansas
ruled the area without signiﬁcant interference from English traders and colonialists on
the one hand, or from militant Muslims on the other. In discussing land tenure,
however, the study gleans from oral sources and mitten observations by Europeans
showing the importance of land in lower Gambian political culture. Sources (both
Written and oral) from the region point to the centrality of land in shaping the region’s
political culture. The written sources include observations made by English
administrators and missionaries dating back to the ﬁrst half of the nineteenth century.
Also utilized is the oral history collection at the RDD, formerly called the Gambia’s
Oral History and Antiquities bureau. Together, these sources offer valuable insights into

the region’s past, and especially, how matters of land ﬁt into its broader history.

M

9 . .
Paul J. Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers m a Gambian T
Cambridge, 1980, p. iii

own” Thesis (doctoral)--University of

77

Land, Power and Dependency
In Senegambia During the Atlantic Slave Trade, Boubacar Barry writes that pre-

colonial Senegambia contained two types of societies. One was egalitarian in outlook.

shows that throughout its pre-modem history, the Senegal valley seems to have been a
cradle from which populations spread out into the rest of northern Senegambia. The
valley played this role because of its river, which he argues “is a life sustaining gift.”
The river basin had the ability to support what he calls “ﬂood recession farming.” Given
the importance of ﬂood recession fanning, land was central to economic, political, and
social life in the delta. ” In order to demonstrate this, Barry draws examples from the
pre-colonial Senegambian states of Jollof, F uta Tom and Waalo. In Jollof, where a land
tenure system of the lamanal type developed, land rights belonged to kin-based
Communities and were managed by the community head or laman.12 Farms were
Worked by families paying land rent to the laman. Under this system, it was possible for

outsiders to settle on such land with their families, provided they paid settlement

 

\\
10 Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 26
1

Ibid, p. 10 . . . .
12 ore on the discussion of lamanal land tenure system in Kajoor and In other Wolof socrertres, see

For m . . . '
Mamadou Diouf‘s Le Kajoor au XlXe siécle: Pouvoir Ceddo et C onquete Colomale ‘(Parrsb,1.(arthjltaZ
1990) and Abdoulaye-Bara Diop’s La Socie'te' Wolof Tradition et Changement: Les Systemes mega I e

et De Domination (Paris: Karthala, 1981).
78

dues/taxes to the laman along with regular rent, in return for permanent, inheritable
farming rights. Even with the decline of the Jollof Empire, this lamanal land tenure
system did not change fundamentally. Landed property continued to be used as a basis
of monarchical authority.13 Similarly, in F uta Toro the Denyanke dynasty had
consolidated landownership structures by letting the aristocracy distribute holdings to
the most faithful of their entourage. The result was the creation of extensive
landholdings side by side with small family plots. Such a system indicates the existence
of a class of major landowners, with Denyankobe taking the lion’s share. The history of
Futa Toro is principally a record of the continual reconstitution of landholdings to the
beneﬁt of its ruling class. '4 Also, Barry notes that in Waalo land was a crucial political
and economic resource, even if competition for it was not as acute as it always was in
Futa Toro.I 5

While Barry accurately demonstrates the importance of land in the Senegal
River valley, he does not recognize its signiﬁcance in the political and social history of
the Gambia River area. For him, the Gambia, unlike the Senegal valley, owed its
importance primarily to trade. ‘6 Indeed, it is possible that competition for land in the
Gambia may not have been as intense as it was in the Senegal valley. However, in the
Gambia, systems of land tenure were very much an integral part of the people’s social,

political, and religious institutions. At least in the early nineteenth century,

 

13
Bany, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 15

‘4 lbid, p. 11; Philip D. Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial Africa: Senegambia in the Era of the
Slave Trade (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), PP- 220-3; Oumar Kane, La Pr emiér e
Hége’mom‘e Peale: Le Fuuta Tooro de Kali Tengella a‘ Almaami Abdul (Paris: Karthala; Dakar-Fann:
Presses universitaires de Dakar, 2004)

Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave T rade, p. l l
lbid, p. 18

79

 

 

landownership was at the heart of the privileged existence of the ruling lineages. As in
Futa Toro, land was one of the bases of political power.‘7 It was the basis that was used
to decide leadership at the village and kabilo level, in addition to providing some people
with a voice in their communities. Most often, individuals from lineages that claimed to
be the original founder—settlers assumed the leadership of a village. As opposed to the
stranger families and conquered populations, who generally held inferior status in their
kabilos or communities, the Alkalos and kabilo heads always came from original
founder-settlers. As “elders of the land,” the kabilo heads and Alkalos presided over the
distribution and allocation of land and settled disputes in their communities. Also,
“village” land could only be assigned to newcomers with the permission of the Alkalo
and kabilo heads. Control of land, therefore, ranked society: virtually everyone was
considered and treated as either a “landlord” or a “stranger.” Together, the mansa, the
Alkalos, and kabilo heads of the states’ core lineages formed the most powerful
landowning class (i.e. Soninke). The Soninke used their land-based political power to
dominate their subjects. By controlling the land, they monopolized the best lands along
the banks of the Gambia River. This implies that, generally, two levels of authority
often exercised power over the distribution and allocation of land. The ﬁrst was the
state level, exercised by the mansa. The second was at the village and compound level.
The Mansa’s Land Was His Kingdom
Mungo Park wrote in the late 17905 and early 18005 that
Concerning property in the soil, it appeared to me that the lands in native r
woods were considered belonging to the king . . . When any individual of free

condition had the means of cultivating more land than he actually possessed,
he applied to the chief man of the district, who allowed him an extension of

17
lbid, p. 30
80

 

ten'itory on condition of forfeiture if the lands were not brought under
cultivation by a given period. ‘8

Here, Park explains one important feature of land tenure before the mid nineteenth
century, which is the mansa ’s territorial ownership of the land. As territorial head and
chief landlord of the kingdom, it was his prerogative to be consulted in matters of land
allocation. (This role performed by the mansa is widely acknowledged by many
contemporary European sources). This was especially true when individual settlers
wanted land on which they wanted to set up their own village. As one report notes, “If
the land required was vacant, the mansa in whose kingdom it was located was
approached by those wanting to settle and build a village. After due formalities, the
mansa would allocate to the new village sufﬁcient land for its needs. If necessary,
boundaries would be ﬁxed with its neighbors.”19 At times, if the land requested was
land over which another village was regarded as having right of use, the village head
(Alkalo) of that village “was approached and after due formalities he would allocate to
the new village sufﬁcient [land] for its needs and ﬁx a boundary between the two
villages.” 20 Subsequently, the Alkalo would inform the mansa of what he had done and

obtain formal approval. In this way, the new village would acquire land but it acquired

 

l8 .
Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa First Journey -l795 -1797(Edrnburg: Adam and Charles
Bglack, 1878), pp. 241-42

NRS, Banjul, CSO lO/71-“A memorandum on Native Custom Regarding Land Tenure in the Kombo
Districts of the South Bank Province” in Conﬁdential Dispatch to the Colonial Secretary in Bathurst from
the Commissioner’s Ofﬁce South Bank Province, Cape St. Mary, Gambia, April 30 1940.

lbid, NRS, Banjul, C80 | 0/71 See also Peter Weil, “Mandinka Mansaya: The Role of the Mandinka in
the Political System of the Gambia.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Oregon, 1968, p. 68
[Anthropologist Peter Weil explains the process by which sites for new villages were determined. He
writes that before anyone can settle on a land, he must seek ﬁnal permission from the person who
controlled]. Finally, See David Gamble. Traditional Mandinka Agriculture. Gambian Studies, No. 49.
Brisbane, California, February 2006, p. 20-

81

 

 

only the right to use this land; it did not acquire full ownership —— meaning it was still

perceived as a stranger community.2|
The mansa ’s right to dispose of land allotted to strangers is noted in many other

European accounts. A traveling commissioner’s report of the 18905 for the South Bank
also noted that in Kiang, on the founding of a new town “the people went to the king
and asked him to allocate land on which they farm and build houses. The king then
apportions a certain amount of land . . . according to the number of people building,
which included town site and farming land. When the town increased in size the people
then asked for more land.”22 The same report states that among the Mandinka the right
of disposal of the use of any vacant land for the establishment of a village “lay with the
king after due consultation” with those who had a right by custom to be consulted in the
kingdom’s affairs. Theoretically, the ownership of the whole of the land—whether
vacant or occupied—~was considered to be with the mansa.23 The same report concluded
that the mansa had such rights “either by conquest or occupation.”24

A number of missionary sources also suggest that in the past, there was a close

link between the mansas’ authority and access to land. For instance, in December of

 

21 . .
lbid, NRS, Banjul, CSO 10/71

22 l have argued in the introduction to this dissertation that much of what the ﬁrst traveling
commissioners know about the history of the people they were dealing with came from oral history and
involved processes that took place before the 18905. Certainly, the migration and conquest of parts of the
lower Gambia region by the Western Mandinka took place well before the 18905 because the eighteenth
and early nineteenth century European travel accounts such as Mungo Park’s Travels in the Interior of
Aﬁica mentioned these Mandinka states. NRS, Banjul, ARP 28.1—Travelling Commissioner’s Report,
South Bank Province 1893-1899

23
NRS, Banjul, ARP 28/1 Traveling Commissioner’s Report, South Bank, 1893

lbid. By deﬁnition, conquest is the taking of possession of enemy territory or land through force,
followed by formal annexation of the defeated territory by the conqueror. Elsewhere in Africa, notably
among the Lunda and Shona, as Allen lsaacman states, “kings were considered divine with power over
the fertility of the land. He was the sole custodian of land and he possessed the exclusive right to allocate
it. In return he extracted from his tributes. services and other resources.” J.F. Ajayi (editor) General
History of Africa VI Africa in the Nineteenth Century Until the 18805 (James Currey, California;
UNESCO, 1998), p. 182

82

1823, soon after members of the Society of Friends (a Christian missionary society)
anived in Brikow (mostly Bakau, a town situated at the Cape St. Mary in the territory of
the mansa of Kombo), a piece of land was given to them after seeking permission from
the mansa.25 Also, in Kombo, in the 18205, the mansa told missionaries from the
Methodist church to “look around, and in any place [they] liked to sit down (i.e. settle)”
The missionaries identiﬁed the “choice of the spot . . .and [the] choice was approved by
the king, who in another interview, formally gave them permission to cut down what
trees they pleased, whether for building‘or clearing the land, and expressed his content
at [the] proposed annual tribute of twenty dollars.”26 Another missionary document
corroborates this role performed by the Mandinka mansas. In his 1821 account,
Reverend Morgan wrote after he returned from Tendaba that the mansa was willing to
give him as much land as he wanted. But he pondered the extent to which “grants of
land [were] secured” in that kingdom.27 He sensed that “the king’s word will doubtless

be sufﬁcient during his life but the next king may deny the [stranger’s] claim to that

land.”28

Granting permission was an important means for the mansa to exercise control
over settlers. In other words, land provided the ruling aristocracy a means of social
control because controlling land enabled mansas to keep people as dependents. But the

control of land and the control of people tended to reinforce one another. In other

 

2S . .
Cited from The Christian Traveller in Western Africa. (London Charles Knight and Co. 1841).

26 .

lbid, p. 170.
7

John Morgan, Reminiscences of the Foumling of a Christian Mission on the Gambia. (London:

Wesleyan Mission House, 1864), p. 15
28 ,
lbid
83

words, with more dependents greater amounts of land could be brought under use.
Similarly, with land, people can attract more settlers.

The mansa had the right to exercise control over land because his lineage was
among the ﬁrst to either settle on the land or to rule the kingdom. Most of the lineages
which became lower Gambia’s ruling families acquired their rights to the land by
conquering land from other groups. Popular stories documented in both oral and
written records echo this claim. For example, in his dissertation, Edouard Francois
Manchuelle writes that among the Soninke (Serahule) of Senegambia, “Land belonged
to certain lineages, whether because of their anteriority in the area or by right of
conquest.”29 While Manchuelle’s study deals with a group that lived in what is now
modern Senegal, an oral history of the kingdom of Jarra claims that when the people of
Jarra came to settle on the banks of the lower Gambia River, they found the inhabitants
of Kiang already living in the area.30 The account claims that those who established
Jarra traced their origins to Doutilla (most likely Dantilla), a ‘distant’ home in the West
African interior where most of the Senegambian Mandinka claim to have originated
from -— i.e. tilibo, which literally means the East. (Most western Mandinka living along
the banks of the Gambia River claim that they came from tilibo. They consistently refer
to the east as the place where the medieval empire of Manding once stood. Doutilla

might have been one of the centers in Manding where some of these Mandinka speaking

 

29 Edouard Francois Manchuelle “Background to Black African Emigration to France: The Labor
Migrations of the Soninke, 1848-1987” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, June
1987, p. 47; See also NRS, Banjul, CSO 10/71, April 1940. See also Conﬁdential Dispatch from
Governor of Sierra Leone, Douglas Jardine, to the Secretary of State for Colonies, April 1940.

NRS, Banjul, ARP 28/1 Traveling Commissioner’s Report, South Bank Province, November 27 1893
84

peoples came from. It might also be how the English heard ‘Dugu Tilibo’).3 ' Through
conquest, the people of Jarra led by their mansa seized the land from Kiang and drove
them west. Subsequently, the mansa of Jarra appointed “an agent” to monitor the
frontier between his kingdom and those of his defeated neighbors (i.e. Kiang). Later,
however, war between the two kingdoms erupted again and this time, the Kiang people
were pushed much further west as J arra expanded its territory.32 Although the oral
sources do not point to an approximate date when the Mandinka conquered this land, it
was certainly before the nineteenth century.

A celebrated Mandinka warrior, Arnari Sonko, also descended on the north bank
of the Gambia River with armed men, and fought many battles with the Bur Saloum,
before helping the Jammeh ruling family to assert its independence from Saloum. It is
unclear in the oral traditions when Sonko invaded the north bank, but it is certainly
before the nineteenth century. Sonko’s descendants of Amari Sonko became prominent
landowners in Niumi because of this role he played in “liberating” Niumi. The Sonko
lineage controlled the prominent villages of Sika, Lamin, Bunyadu and Essau, which
became “royal towns.” In fact, the mansaya (government) in Niumi rotated between the

Sonko and the other lineages that had a right to govern (i.e. the Jammeh and the

 

l .
Mungo Park also mentioned a place in eastern Gambia named Dentrla. It was supposedly a town
notorious for trading especially in cotton and iron. (See p. 329)

Similar narratives about Kombo explain how the Bainunks lost their land to an invading Mandinka
lineage. For more on the Mandinka-Bainunk relationship, see the interviews tape with Nbalifele Janneh
abd Lamin Fatty, Bakau, Cape St. Mary on Kombo history. Tape Catalogue # 027B, RDD collection,
Date: 1967. Collected by SM. Sissokho. Transcribed on May 15 1982. Also see Alhagie Bai Konte,
interview by Bakary Sidebe, tape recording, Brikama-Kombo Central, April 4 1976. trans. of the tapes
available at the RDD collection in Fajara as Tape catalogue it 609 and RDD Tape it 321]. RDD, interview
by NCAC staff with an unknown information, March 28, 1976. Translated by Abdoulie Bayo and ﬁle
stored as RDD Tape it 327 B. Alhagie Bai Konte, “History of Kombo,” interview by Radio Gambia,
Brikama, Western Region, April 4 1976. trans. available at the RDD collection in Fajara as Tape
Catalogue it 609.

85

Manneh lineages of Bakindik, Tobabkolong, Sitanunku and Bunyadu).33 In part this
demonstrates that strangers have in the past laid claim to ﬁelds and became landlords
through military force.

Certainly, one of the most prevalent and widely-accepted themes in Mandinka
oral traditions is the conquest and long-terrn settlement resulting from the great
Mandinka migrations from Mali.34 As Donald Wright states, it is rare for Gambian
Mandinka oral narrative—whether focusing on the history of a state, a village, or a
separate lineage—that does not begin by naming where the ancestors originated and/or
conquered. Wright criticizes these traditions on the grounds that they are shaped by
modern ethnic labels, which do not hold up when considering people in the past. (In
other words, oral traditionalists of today place modern ethnic constructs on peoples of
the past). For Wright, using modern ethnic labels to describe peoples in pre-colonial
lower Gambia is almost equal to what Frederick Cooper illustrates as “confusing the
analytic categories of the present with the native categories of the past, as if people

acted in search of identity or to build a nation when such ways of thinking might not

 

3 Francis Moore, an eighteenth century English trader to the Gambia conﬁrmed that although Barra
(Niumi) was ruled by a Mandingo king, his kingdom was then a tributary of the king and kingdom of
Saloum). See Donald R. Wright’s interview with Jerre Manneh, Bunyadu. Date: September 28, 1974. See
also Donald R. Wright’s “Oral Traditions From the Gambia” Vol. 11 Family Elders. Ohio University
Center for lntemational Studies, Papers in lntemational Studies, Africa Series No. 38, 1980, pp. 35-36;
Farata Lamin Fatty, “The history of Baddibu and Niumi,” interview by Donald R. Wright, Niumi,
Gambia, October 16 1975. trans. available at the RDD collection as Tape Catalogue # 0225 A and B. In a
personal email conversion on Sunday 29 March 2009 Donald Wright told me that he thinks the Sonkos
and Manneh came to Niumi sometime after slave trading picked up there, perhaps early in the 17‘h
century. He believes the threat, and need for protection, was sufﬁcient at that time for the mansas to
strengthen themselves with more elites, and this is why the Jammehs welcomed the Sonkos and the
Mannehs. He further states that he has a sense that it was not a peaceful time, that lots of ﬁghting and
turmoil occurred before they ironed out their rotating succession so as to please the various families who
contributed to the mansaya and the state protection.

34
Donald R. Wright, “Beyond Migration and Conquest: Oral Traditions and Mandinka Ethnicity in
Senegambia” History in Africa, Vol. 12 (1985), p. 335

86

have been available to them.”35 Another criticism he advances stems from his
disappointment with griots (“men of memory”). He found their information
contaminated and weak especially for the pre-colonial period. In fact, he writes that
neither griots nor informed elders had factual information about the pre-colonial period.
The griots could not even give him good genealogies.36

Wright’s criticisms are in many ways compelling. The lower Gambia region was
a multi-ethnic society. Even European records have shown that there was no “tribal”
boundary that separated the different ethnicities. Marriage across ethnicities, which
further complicates ethnic identities, was common in the area. Moreover, Mandinka oral
narratives are heavily biased toward stories of migration and conquest, which
overwhelmingly center on the deeds of “heroes” and less on the contributions of
ordinary people. Also, like all types of sources, there is often a question of accuracy in
oral narratives.

However, these tales of conquest and/or migration are not entirely irrelevant to a
historian whose aim is to reconstruct the history of land tenure in the lower Gambia
region in that they provide clues to the distant past. There is no doubt that before the
nineteenth century there were people who identified themselves as Mandinka, Wolof,
Fula or Serer. Moreover, the Soninke ruling class had by this time (i.e. the nineteenth
century) become defined by the region’s inhabitants as belonging to the Mandinka
ethnic group. The “invention” of these traditions resulted from the Mandinka political

hegemony of the region dating back as far as the sixteenth down to the mid-nineteenth

 

35
Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley, Los Angeles and
London: University of California Press, 2005), p. 18

3
Donald R. Wright, “Requiem for the Use of Oral Tradition to Reconstruct the Precolonial History of
the Lower Gambia” History in Africa, Vol. 18 (1991), p.p. 401—402

87

centuries. During this period, the Mandinka aristocracy controlled the territory from the
Gambia in the north to modern day Guinea Bissau in the south. This is part of the
Mandinka’s past glory that griots take pride in narrating. Most of what griots remember
is about war —— i.e. wars of conquests that implant a ruling aristocracy on a land which
was previously not theirs. Some of the narratives they provide also shed light on how
‘title by conquest’ was acquired and maintained by force.

Mansas took interest in giving or refusing permission to strangers who desired
to set up new villages within their kingdoms for several reasons. Certainly, increasing
one’s lineage was an important reason.37 As landowners the mansas knew that
allocation of use rights was an important means of gaining followers and building a
power base.38 To the aristocracy, land was valued primarily as a means to attract
dependents rather than as an asset in its own right.39 Another reason had to do with
power and the security of the kingdom. An oral history of Bantangkilling (a town the
English colonialists used to call Fitzgerald town) claims that Mansa Demba Sonko of
Niumi, who at the time was residing in Berending, allocated an “undesirable” piece of
land to a Wolof chief and mystic, Masamba Koki Jobe. Masamba came from Senegal to

settle in Niumi, but the mansa assigned him an “evil forest” because he did not want

 

37

For more on the importance of expanding one’s kinship among the Mandinka see the work of S. M.
Cissokho “Kinship Among the Western Mandinkas” Bulletin 1. FAN. XXX], Ser. B, No.2, 1969. For the
rest of Africa, see the work of Suzanne Miers and lgor kopytoff, “Introduction: African ‘Slavery’ as an
gastitution of Marginality” in Slavery in Africa, pp. 3-78

Anthony Hopkins, “Property Rights and Empire Building: Britain’s Annexation of Lagos, 1861” The
313107101 of Economic History, Vol. 40, N0. 4 (Dec., 1980), P- 784

Sara S. Berry. Chiefs Know Their Boundaries: Essays on Property, Power, and the Past in Asante,
[896-1996 (Portsmouth and Oxford: Heinemann and James Currey, 2001), p. 9

88

him to settle in his kingdom for long.40 (The land, which was called mbantang killing,
was under the tutelage of Tobabkolong. But the people of Tobabkolong never made use
of the land because it was widely believed that the forest was home for jinns and evil
spirits)“ Masamba was a warrior and a relative of Lat Jor lobe of Kayor, who had the
potential to create unrest in the mansa ’s kingdom by threatening his power.

Land was sometimes given to individuals or communities as a reward for special
services, or for the sake of establishing an alliance. This was mostly applied but not
limited to warriors or men with special skills.42 For example, in Kombo, tradition tells
us that the ancestors of the “royal” towns of Busumbala, Yundum, Manduar, Brikama,
and Jambur were given permission to settle on the land by female “ruler” of Sanyang.43
After some time, one of the daughters of the female ruler is noted to have married one
of the strangers. When the marriage took place, the ruler was considered to have
resigned her position as mansa, surrendering the throne to her son—in-law.44 An oral

informant argued that the female ruler herself, not the daughter, married Karafa Yali.45

 

40 . . . .

Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interview by author, tape recording, Kerr Chemo Village, Upper Niumi.
June 13, 2006 and August 17 2008. Mangkodou was born in Bantang Killing and is the eldest male
descendant of Masamba Koki.

William F ox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions on the Western Coast of Africa (London:
[.4A2ylott and Jones, 1850), pp. 245-246.

Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 29; See also David P. Gamble, Traditional
Mandinka Agriculture. Gambian Studies, No. 49. Brisbane, California, February 2006, p. 29; Alkalo
Luntang Jaiteh, interview by author, not recorded, Bakau, June 9, 2006.Luntang was also Chairman of
Rent Tribunal, KMC and member of the African Center for Peoples and Human Rights Mediation
Committee.

The Alkalo of Busumbala told a group of researchers that descendants of the ancestors of Busumbala
were the Konteh and Jatta lineages [translated version of the tape recording available at the RDD as Tape
342230 50-70, 1973].

NRS, Banjul, CSO 10/71, The Secretariat Conﬁdential File, Gambia No. 2544, December, 24 1939.
Sanyang was and is still an important coastal town located on the Atlantic coastline.

Karafa Yali was the hunter who accidentally “discovered” Sanyang. He was also the younger brother

of the leader of Busumbala. It is often claimed that Karafa Yali was wandering the thick forest called
Sanyang Sutubaa when he heard a noise. He became curious and continued to search for the source of

89

By this act, the narrative further states, she was regarded “as giving up her group’s
independence and title to the ownership of the land.”46 After this happened, the
newcomers divided up the land and created two “royal” towns, Busumbala and
Brikama. The rest of the land was left vacant (used only for hunting purposes, or the
gathering of wild fruits and forest produce) but technically they all came under the
territorial ownership of these newly created “royal” towns. As their populations grew,
the settlements continued to expand. Eventually, new villages emerged either through
groups hiving off from the original settlements or growth in migrant populations
settling in.

In short, this anecdote highlights a situation whereby a landlord married a
stranger whose kin would later lay some claims not only to the land but also to the
political power associated with it. By becoming the rulers of Kombo, the lineages that
founded these “royal” towns became the territorial heads of Kombo. But there were
several of these towns; the lineages established a rotating mansaya system similar to the
one in Niumi. Anyone who became mansa from the Bojang or Jatta lineages of Kombo
claimed ownership of the land as ruler. They exercised the power to distribute land to
newcomers who wanted to establish their own village. Once a virgin area had been

cleared and cultivated by a person or a family with the mansa ’s permission, in theory

 

the noise. Subsequently, he arrived at a settlement which was at the time under the female ruler. For more
on this, see translated version of the tape recording in RDD Tape# 223 C: 50-70.

The informants do not seem to agree on the identity of this mysterious female ruler. While one
informant argues that she her was Wuleng Jabbi, another stated that her name was Wulending Jammeh
Jarsey. According to Alhagie Bai Konte’s own narration, there was a war in Karoni and because of that
the ancestors who became the founders of Sanyang left with their mansa and settled in Sanyang Sutubaa.
Others claimed that the female ruler lived in the forest, in a cave. That female ruler gave the crown to
Karafa Yali and her daughter to marry. [Sourcez Alhagie Bai Konte, interview by NCAC staff, tape
recording, Brikama, Western Region, June 28 1976. trans. available at the RDD as Tape Catalogue # 612
and Alkalo Bakary Kutu Jatta, “History of Kombo, interview by NCAC staff, tape recording, Busumbala,

Kombo North, West Region, August 28 1973. trans. available at the RDD collection as Tape # 223C: 50-
70.

90

the cultivator’s family/lineage owned the rights to cultivate this farm in perpetuity and
could not under any circumstances be dispossessed. But land acquired in this way
carried with the ownership the obligation to pay tribute to the ruler of the land and it is
about two bushels of rice for every hundred bushels the land yields.47 Usually, no
tribute was, however, paid for uncultivated areas.

The mansas did not claim ownership of land as their private property. They
controlled land mostly because of their territorial ownership of the land. Furthermore,
they did not only seek wealth in land but also political power.48 In addition to being
subject to the mansa ’s territorial ownership, land was also the basis of stratiﬁcation at
the village level. It even shaped the nature of village politics. Lower Gambian society
was comprised of landlords -— ﬁrst-comers and power holders —- on the one hand, and
“strangers” —— recent settlers and conquered populations -— on the other.

Rights of Ofﬁce Holders: Alkalos and the Kabilo Heads

In Gambian villages, lineages with traditions of direct descent from the founder-
settler ancestors claimed paramount rights of land ownership in their individual
settlements.49 As part of custom, initial occupation or evidence of the utilization of
sections of a forest by farmers and/or hunters was enough basis for laying claims to the

ownership of land. Once these claims were established, immigrant groups had to seek

 

47
NRS, Banjul, CSO 10/7 1: Conﬁdential Dispatch from Governor of Sierra Leone, Douglas Jardine, to
the Secretary of State for Colonies, April 1940

8
NRS, Banjul, CSO 10/71, Conﬁdential Dispatch to the Colonial Secretary in Bathurst ﬁ'om the

Commissioner’s Ofﬁce South Bank Province, Cape St. Mary, 30‘h April, 1940. This is also supported by
Farata Lamin Fatty, “The History of Baddibu and Niumi,” interview by Donald R. Wright, tape
recording, Niumi, October 16 1975. trans. available at the RDD collection as Tape Catalogue # 0225 A
and B.

49 ,
Qumn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 17
91

permission from these landowning families to settle, hunt, farm, or practice their
particular trade.

It was from these founding lineages that Alkalos and kabilo heads were chosen
from.50 An Alkalo was the oldest man of the senior family that founded the village.
Thus his position was typically hereditary. But even though most Alkalos assumed their
position through succession, occasionally the mansa appointed Alkalos who
administered their individual towns and villages on his behalf. This means Alkalos took
on the role of land allocation and dispute resolution as representatives of the mansa. As
one report states, “it was the custom on the founding of a new town for the ‘king’ to
appoint the alcaide; at his death he is succeeded by his brother; at the death of all the
brothers [the leadership of the village] revert[ed] back to original alcaide’s eldest
son.”5 I

Arnong the Mandinka it was also common for members of different lineages to
come together and set up a village. Such families “may not even share a common
ancestor.” Yet, they could decide to live together and share the land amongst
themselves. “They could even eat together.” As one informant told me, in such
situations, when women ﬁnished cooking food they usually brought it to the head of the
kabilos, and members of the kabilo met there to eat.”52 When this occurred, the
Alkaloship normally rotated between the different kabilos that founded the village.

The Alkalo performed a variety of duties. As Mungo Park also wrote, “In every

considerable town there is a chief magistrate, called the Alkaid, whose ofﬁce is

50
51 Gamble, Traditional Mandinka Agriculture, p. 23
NRS, Banjul, ARP 28/1 Report of Cecil Sitwcll-Traveling Commissioner for the South Bank Province

Alkalo Dawda Sowe, “History and Land tenure in Baffuloto” interview by author, tape recording,
Baffuloto village, Upper Niumi District, July 23, 2006.

92

hereditary, and whose business it is to preserve order, to levy duties on travelers, and to
preside at all conferences in the exercise of local jurisdiction and the administration of
justice.”53 As the mansa ’s representative in the village, the Alkalo settled disputes,
collected ﬁnes and kept a small tax from strangers leasing village lands without having
to worry about upsetting an overlord.54 In theory, the Alkalo was regarded as having
control over “village” land in relation to strangers.55 As lesser landlords, the Alkalo
often welcomed strangers to his village.56 In that way he attracted many dependents to
his compound and/or village and also acquired wealth by collecting revenues from these
strangers. For example, Charlotte Quinn writes that the “alkali of J illifree received twice
the revenues from land leased to Europeans.”57 The Alkalo enjoyed these privileges
because of the political power that came along with his ties to the land.

By virtue of their birth-rights and status in the community, the Alkalo generally
enjoyed some degree of autonomy on matters of land, particularly in Wolof and F ula
communities where the notion of Kabilo was typically non-existent.58 In such
communities the Alkalo’s family often claimed large tracts of land. As one report noted,

“The open space round a town generally belongs to the Alcaide’s family. These people

 

54 3Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa p. 18

In his Travels, Mungo Park mentioned that the Alkalo of Juffure was collecting customs and duties
grsom traders, which he presumably did on behalf of the Mansa of N1um1 (p. 4).

Gamble, Traditional Mandinka Agriculture, p. 20

56Alkalo Luntang Jaiteh, interview by author, not audio recorded, Bakau, June 9,2006; Alkali Dawda
Sowe, interview by author, tape recording. Bafuloto village, Upper Niumi District, North Bank Division,,
1eg 23,2006

58 Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 65
Alkali Dawda Sowe, interview by author, tape recording, Bafuloto Village, July 23, 2006

93

certainly seem to have a very good title to their allotments; having received them from

their ancestors.”59

Among the Madinka kingdoms, certain village leaders had more authority over a
larger area of land than other Alkalos. These lineage leaders were called suma. In
Baddibu, Jarra, Niumi, Kiang, and Kombo, the kingship rotated between certain
lineages with the suma of a particular lineage becoming the mansa.60 Hence, the
Alkalos of “royal” villages (and other prominent towns) that participated in the rotating
mansaya system often held a unique position, as opposed to their counterparts in
villages with little political inﬂuence. It was common for these Alkalos to be present
when the mansa was making key decisions such as negotiating and signing treaties
with, for example, European traders. When Burungai Sonko was signing the 1826 treaty
that ceded part of his territory to the British, he had with him “his chiefs and
Headmen-mincluding Seney the Alcaide of Juffure.”61 In another treaty signed on
November 18, 1850, Mansa Demba Sonko was accompanied by “Amado Tall (Alkali of
Jillifree [Juffure] and Mahmoudi Sankoora (Alkalo of Berending and brother of the

king).”‘32

 

59

NRS, Banjul, ARP 32 [VOL 1 North Bank 1893-1898] —-Traveling Commissioner’s Reports, North
tIggmk Province 1893-1932 (60).

Hany A. Gailey. Historical Dictionary of the Gambia 2"“ edition (Metuchen, NJ & London: The
Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1987), p. 133

61
NRS, Banjul, ARP 35/2 Colonial Reports-Annual Report (no. 195), 1896

Parliamentary Papers (Great Britain), Select Committee on Africa (West Coast), House of. Commons,
Gambia Treaties. Session - February 7 to July 6 1865. Vol. V., p. 410. Similarly, on December 26, 1850
the Kombo mansa took with him his “council” to Jeshwang when he was meeting the Governor and
Commander-in-chief of the British settlements in the Gambia, Richard Graves MacDonnell, to sign a
treaty to cede British kombo to the English. Members of the mansa’s delegation included one Ansumana
Jatta (heir to the Mansa), Mardy Mariama (“slate” of Yundum), Ansumana Ceesay (Alkali of Mandinari),
Foday Ansumana Munang, Majiboo Ceesay, Bass Booroko, Moosa [Musa] Channang, Fody Barcany,
Janka Fatima, Kassee Koonkong, Samba Deber [Dibba], Ansumana Jana [chief of Bedjulo [Bijilo],
Lamin Sinney [Sainey]-the mansa’s eldest son, “chiefs of Kombo, and head-men of Baccon [Bakau] in

94

In some instances, Alkalos also had the power to refuse strangers access to
village land. Similarly, they also had the duty protect village shrines, cemeteries, and
“fetish” or sacred land. A good example of this was the event that took place in Jerre in
1830, an island near Niumi’s village, Sitanunku. Jerre (also known as Dog or Charles
Island) was the place where the people of Sitanunku kept some of their shrines and
jujus.53 A report dating around the same time noted that Dog Island locally referred to
as Jerre, was their “fetish” place.64 The place was opened only to elders of the village
and hence no one was allowed to settle there. However, in the 183 Os, the Agricultural
Society wanted to grow hemp on this Island.65 Not surprisingly, the Alkalo of Sitanunku
objected to the settlement, arguing that “they would rather give up custom than have the
British on the Island.” Consequently, the young men of Sitanunku “went to Dog Island
and threatened some pensioners and others residing on the Island with destruction of
their farms.”66 This incident occurred a few days before the British attacked Barra

Point,67 in which the “King of Barra . . . assembled all ﬁghting men from neighboring

 

the said kingdom of Kombo.” See Reports from the Select Committee on Africa (Western Coast) Session
7 February-6 July 1865 Parliamentary Papers, p. 411.

Like Jerre, there were numerous lands that were considered to be ‘fetish’ lands or places inhabited by
spirits. A good example of such land in the Gambia was “Devil’s Point.” It was located about seventy
miles from the entrance of the Gambia River. A European wrote that “In passing this place, the natives
are in the habit of [giving something to the devil].” The people believed that the “prince of darkness is
said to have a residence under that point of land” [For more on this see William Fox, A Brief History of
the Wesleyan Missions, pp. 245-246].

64
PRO CO 87/5, 41, Lt. Governor Rendall to R. W. lHay, Govemment House, Bathurst, July 30 1831

65 Although British power was growing in Niumi during this period, it was still fragile and limited. The
British wanted to expand the prospects of the agricultural sector in the Gambia. In 1824 Sgd. George
Rendall contemplated on settling one or two hundred Liberated Africans in different parts of the region.
He wanted these settlers to be placed under the care of a superintendant who would also be the
government agent or commandant. As settlers, the British envisioned to give them land so as to relieve
the government from the expense of their support (See CSO 1/2-November l, 1824)

66
PRO 87/5, 46 Barra War-Lt. Governor Rendall to Lord Vincent Goderich, Bathurst, August 24 1831

67

PRO CO 87/5, 41- Lt. Governor Rendall to R. W. Hay, Government House, Bathurst, July 30 1831.
For more on the Barra war, see Lady Southom. The Gambia: The Story of the Groundnut Colony
(London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1952), pp. 159-161

95

village[s].68 Again, this conﬁrms that Alkalos of prominent villages wielded much
power and authority over land, which they often used to control strangers’ access to
land.

In strong kabilo-based systems, the powers of the Alkalo were by no means
unlimited. For instance, only with the consent of the kabilo heads could he assign
usufructuary land rights to strangers wanting to settle in his village. In such societies,
“village” land was held by kabilos, which constituted “a patrilineal lineage tracing
descent from a common ancestor.” 6'9 The only exception was when the land belonged to
the Alkalo’s family. In this event, he did not need to consult the heads of other lineages
in the village. He only consulted the elders in his own lineage.

In most Mandinka societies, the kabilo was considered the most important
family unit. People living in the same kabilo generally bore the same clan name and
adult men from the same kabilo often cultivated the ﬁelds together. For example, as one
report noted, “in the old days each [family] made one communal koos [millet] farm
which supposed food (with the womens’ rice farms) for the whole [compound].
Permission must be asked every year from the yard owner, but the use of the land [was
often not denied] except for very good and exceptional reasons. 70 The kabilotiyo was
the head of the kabilo and the one that granted permission to members of his extended

family to use any part of the kabiloland.

 

68 For more on this see Donald R. Wright’s The World and a V 8’? SW1” Place in Africa, PP- 138439-
See also Paul M. Mbaeyi, "The Barra-British War of l83l,"pp. 617-631, and Mbaeyi's book, British
Military and Naval forces in West African I'll-9100’, 1807'1874 (NY: NOk’ 1978)’ p ' 76' Finally, see
Moister (visited 1831). Memorials of Missionary Labour 5: P- 206- George Rendall, the governor ofthe
Engﬁsh settlement of Bathurst, was forced to stop paying the annual custom to the mansa until “they
would comply.” For more information, see Lt. Govemor Rendall to R.W. Hay, Government House,

Bathurst, 30 July 1831 CO 87/5, 41

70 Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 13
CRN 1/10 Commissioner’s Ofﬁce South Bank, April 30 1940

96

Not everyone was able to become a kabilotiyo. This position/rank was held by
the oldest man of the senior branch of the line claiming direct descent from the original
founder-settler of the clan. As such, the kabilo head was associated with rights to the
land, and the position/headship was passed collaterally within the lineage segment
claiming to have ﬁrst received these rights.71 This implies that late-comers could not
assume the title of kabilotiyo. Kabilos were also ranked hierarchically. Some Kabilos
were more inﬂuential politically and socially. As one informant noted, “In those days if
elders were not famous they would not hear the words of the Mansa.”72

Because of their birth rights and status in the village, the Kabilo heads often
played a crucial role in village politics. As part of the Alkalo’s council, they assist him
keeping law and order within the village, and in settling disputes between members of
their families and at times even beyond. They helped the Alkalo in organizing the
youths of the village for community service. The kabilo heads from the “royal” towns
performed even greater roles in politics. They usually advised the mansa on important
matters. In theory the mansa was obliged to honor their views but in reality he could
also ignore them.

A Story of Conﬂict: The Kombo Mansa and the Elders of Mandinari

In Kombo, in 1821, the mansa seized a plot of land from the elders of Mandinari
and gave it to the Methodist missionaries who wanted to establish a church there. Since

the mansa was the head of the lineage in power and had the ability to exercise more

military or physical force, his authority was superior to all those living in his kingdom.

71 ,
lbrd, pp. 12-12
72

Farata Lamin Fatty, “The History of Baddibu and Niumi,” interview by Donald R. Wright, tape
recording, Niumi, October 16 1975. trans. available at the RDD collection as Tape Catalogue # 0225 A
and B. See also the “History of Niumi and Baddibu” on Tape # 276 at the RDD collection.

97

If people disagreed with their mansa, especially in matters of settling a stranger on their
land, the likely option for them was perhaps to desert his kingdom.73 According to the
evidence, rarely did ordinary people voice their discontent with their mansa. In fact,
abundant documentary sources suggest that the “kings [were] quite despotic” and when
possible they made sure that people obeyed their authority. As William Moister noted,
“the government[s] [are] almost invariably of the most despotic character. The will of
the king or chief is the law of the tribe; and woe to those who dare to thwart or oppose
his sable Majesty.”74 One might be tempted to dismiss these European observations as
racist and based on Eurocentric assumptions. However, there is a Mandinka proverb
which states that “If a mansa demands a road to be made on a person’s head, it means it
will cost a head but the road will be created.”75

The 1821 dispute in Mandinari occurred when John Morgan and John Baker
tried to establish a station in the town. At ﬁrst the Mandinari elders opposed the
mansa ’s decision to allocate land belonging to Mandinari to the missionaries. In short,
the elders contested the mansa ’5 right to allocate land to the strangers. They also
demanded gifts from the missionaries and an acknowledgement of their (i.e. elders’)
right to the land. They argued that “their being free men, born on the land, established
their right to it.”76 The missionaries refused to honor their request for gifts in exchange
for the use of the land on the grounds that the “king would expect an annual custom” for

them for the land. As a response, the town’s elders then forwarded their complaints to

73
Morgan, Reminiscences, p. 24; William Fox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions

William Moister, Memorials of missionary Labours in Western Africa, The West Indies and the Cape
3% Good Hope (London, Patemostter Row, 1866, p. 34

The proverb says “Ning mansa k0 silo ye boo kungo tema, kungo kafara le bari silo ka boo le.”

Morgan, Reminiscences, p. 27

98

the mansa, “declaring that two white men had come to settle among them in opposition
to their wishes, and that the strangers were ruining the neighborhood by cutting down
trees of great value.”77 For a while the mansa disregarded their complaints, but their
repeated protests led him at last to resolve on visiting Mandinari with the goal of
settling the dispute. As the missionary explained, “one morning, the king’s drum was
heard a little distance from the building, summoning the chiefs and free men to the
council, or rather a discussion.”78 A messenger was sent to call the strangers. John
Baker, one of the missionaries, was ill and hence could not attend. But John Morgan
attended with an interpreter. Under a large tree (bantango), Morgan “found the king
sitting on his heels, with about twenty principal men of the town in the same position
forming a circle.”79 Morgan wrote in his journal that the meeting took place on May 5,
1821 and another source indicates that about forty men attended it.80

At the meeting the elders of Mandinari expressed their determination to drive
the strangers away from their land. They disputed the mansa ’s right to settle the
missionaries near them without their prior consent. They insisted that by virtue of their
being the free men of Mandinari, they deserved to be consulted by the mansa. As a
result, the elders saw the mansa ’s decision as a violation of custom and declared that he
must withdraw it. When the elders ﬁnished, the mansa defended himself by stating that
it was his prerogative to do as he pleased. But the elders challenged him, insisting that

they would send the missionaries out of their town. As tension grew, the mansa ﬁnally

 

77

lbid, p. 27
78 ,

lbrd, p. 27

In the past, every Mandinka village used to have a bantango or bantaba. It was the village meeting
groundwa place where all important matters concerning the village was discussed. In Wolof it is called
Penche. Palavers were frequently held there.

3 .
Crted from The Christian Traveller, p. 170
99

spoke with authority, saying “Well go then, drive them into the River; and I’ll come
over with my warriors and cut the throat of each man of you, and burn down your
town.”81

Shortly after the mansa issued his threat, Morgan observed a change in the
actions and tones of his opponents. Because of their fear of possible punishment by the
mansa, the Mandinari subdued. They simultaneously commenced prayers for their
overlord, the Mansa of Kombo, who at that time was based in Yundum. When the
prayer ritual started, the mansa “crossed his arms over his breast and clapping his naked
shoulders with his hands, at the end of every position said with a loud voice, Ah’min,
Ah’min.”82 At the close of the prayer, the mansa rose, “advanced to the missionary and
graciously said now white man, you may let your heart sit down, I have settled the
dispute, and the people will trouble you no more. The missionary, Morgan, heartily
thanked him but soon learned that something more substantial than thanks was
expected.” The mansa anticipated some material gain after forcing the Mandinari elders
to settle the missionary on their land. In the ﬁrst instance, he was offered gifts of “a
piece of scarlet cloth . . . and a small horse;” all items that were highly valued by the
“lords” of the land.“

This incident points to the fact that some mansas have in the past exploited their

political power to allocate land in ways that were clearly motivated by their own self-

interest and personal gain, in spite of the group’s opposition to their actions. It also

31
8 lbid, p. 28
2
8 Ibid, p. 29
3
Ibid, p. 29
4

Morgan, Reminiscences, pp. 21-22

100

suggests that the mansa ’3 land “rights” were superior to those of his council because of
his ability to exercise greater military and physical force.

It was not unusual for the region’s rulers to interfere in matters of land
allocation. Even in the Senegal River valley, as Barry writes, despite the fact that the
laman of Waalo often acted as manager of collective property, the king still had more
and more uncultivated or unused land to distribute among relatives and allies, including
warriors, notables, and religious leaders in his entourage. Even though he often
acknowledged the rights of the laman as land administrator, on occasion he was
tempted to encroach on land under the laman ’5 control.85 In the Gambia, the mansas
used their proprietary rights (backed by political power) to extract tribute from several
stranger groups and peasant communities while preventing them from access to
landownership and its related privileges."6

They Were Strangers in Their Own Land

Before the wars of the second half of the nineteenth century, the Soninke ruling
class used its political power to prevent stranger groups from owning the best land and
from having access to the economic and political privileges which the land provided.87
Beyond their villages, stranger—groups were treated as ‘outsiders’ and people with less
“voice” in state matters. Stranger-villages, like the individual stranger living a village or

kabilo, had less power and inﬂuence over how the kingdom’s affairs were to be

 

85
Barry, Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 28

Landing Mustapha J anneh, interview by author assisted by Ensa Touray, tape recording, Bakau,
Gambia, February 7, 2009. Alkalo Aja Takko Taal, interview by author, tape recording, Juffure, Upper
Niumi Disctrict, North Bank Region, July, 23 2006. See also NRS, Banjul, CSO 10/71 Conﬁdential
Dispatch to the Colonial Secretary in Bathurst from the Commissioner’s Ofﬁce South Bank Province,
Cape St. Mary, April 30 1940. The Colonial Secretary was Sgd R. H. Gretton and Governor was Sir
Thomas Southom.

Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 18
l O l

conducted. Their primary duty was to pay tribute (taxes) to the ruling class who
supposedly provided them security.88 But stranger-groups shared this fate with the many
peasant communities in the lower Gambia valley. In many of the Mandinka-led
kingdoms, the distinction between a stranger, a slave and an early settler who was
politically subjugated and marginalized was often slim. As one missionary wrote, the
mansa ’s subjects were “little distinguished from slaves in appearance. [The kings and
chiefs] make all under their power.”89 Both free and enslaved people were subjected to
the similar conditions imposed by the ruling class. However, the exclusion from the
privileges that came along with landownership was felt more strongly by stranger
groups.

The lower Gambia River has historically served as a “magnet for all of the
Senegambia zone’s populations.”90 In spite of the excesses of the aristocracy, the region
provided some opportunities. There was abundant land available to new-comers. Also,
this period, which saw the ending of the Atlantic slave trade and the rise of legitimate
commerce, saw the steady growth in cash crop production. As a result, new-comers
from the Senegal River valley and beyond began arriving in the area with the aim of
taking advantage of the opportunities that the Gambia valley provided. Bambara,
Masuwanka, Fula (particularly the semi-nomadic and Toranka F ulas from F uta Tom)
and Wolof speakers from different parts of the region settled in kingdoms of the

Gambia increasing the population of the dependent groups they already found there.

88

As George Brooks argues, strangers were compelled to adhere to landlord-stranger practices and
transgressors were subjected to judicial processes (palavers). Brooks, Landlords and Strangers: Ecology,
ggciety, and Trade in Western A ﬁlm, [000-1630 (Boulder, Westview Press, 1993), p. 5

O The Christian Traveller, p. 97
Barry, Senegambia During the Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 5

102

Many of them also migrated because of droughts, which threatened their agricultural
lands and overall survival. In the Gambia, with land controlled by the aristocracy, they
made a modest living.

Writing in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Mungo Park
described the status of these strangers and/or dependents as “A state of
subordination.”91 Park further commented on the conditions under which the Fula
lived. Because of their powerlessness and inferior rights to the land, the F ula, for
instance, were forced to work for their Mandinka overlords. One missionary wrote that
“It appears that their [i.e. Fula] father[s] had no land to give them, or else they have
since lost it. For not one of them claims a foot of land in that country?” Other

European accounts noted that there is “no doubt that originally Kombo belonged to [the

 

9
1 Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa, p. 15

92 See The Christian Traveller, p. 97. Elsewhere in Kaabu, the ruling dynasty (as conquerors) had seized
lands belonging to the F ulas and imposed taxes on them. According to Bamba Suso, when the Sanes
anived in Kaabu, they conspired against the Fulas and seized their land but ﬁrst by agreeing on the
following covenant “[The Mandinka had told the Fula that since]...we [i.e. the Mandinka] have no cattle,
sheep or goats, and you Fulas have all these things, you will take the things which grow on the land,
while we will own the land itself.” Realizing their weakness in the face of the Mandinka, the Fula agreed
to the deal. The two groups continued to live under this arrangement until one day when Mankotoba
Sane, the leader of nyancho family, summoned all the F ulas to a meeting in which he reminded them that
“the land belongs to [the ruling family] of the Mandinka.” Sane also informed the Fula that since their
cattle grazed on the land, they ought to compensate the landowners. From then on, Suso explained, the
Fulas all over Kaabu became subjected to the payment of taxes by the Mandinka aristocracy, the Sane,
which ruled Kaabu for most of its history. [Bakary Sidibe, “The Story of Kaabu: lts Extent” An
Unpublished paper, p. 3]. William Moister, another missionary, remarked that “The pastoral F oolas make
no pretentions to a right in the soil, but live by mere sufferance among the Jollofs (Wolof) and
Mandingoes, to whose kings or Chiefs they pay tribute for the privilege of pasturing their cattle. By these
petty despots they are oﬁen severely oppressed, and sometimes robbed of all they possess.” [See William
Moister, Memorials of Missionary Labours, p. 24]. Around the same time, an English missionary,

William Fox, wrote that the Fula had “no lands of their own, but are much attached to a pastoral life; and
have introduced themselves into many of the kingdoms as herdsmen and husbandmen, paying a tribute to
the sovereign of the country for the land which they hold . . . Being thus dependent, the F oulahs suffer
much at times.” [Source: William F ox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions, p. 237]. Another report
noted that the pastoral (nomadic) Fula had no “lands of their own.” Instead, they kept livestock, notably
cattle which they feed in the territory of any chief paying tribute for the right of pasturage. [See

Chamber’s Edinburgh Journal, William and Robert Chambers. Vol. XVI Nos. 392 to 417, July-December
1851,p.275]

103

 

Jola] and part of Kiang, but slowly the Mandingoes [has] beaten them back, behind
Vintang (i.e. Bintang) and Kansalla.”93

In reality, the Mandinka aristocracy depended on its subjects (including
strangers and slaves) for its survival. Contemporary European sources often highlight
this. Several of these accounts state that the Mandinka aristocracy was “too idle to work
in cultivating the ground. [They] lay on [their subjects] all the burden of the hard and
laborious drudgery of raising the corn and working the ﬁelds,” usually under the pretext
of defending them in war. The oppressed race submit[s] to the most arbitrary demands
of the kings and chiefs, and to the wanton extortions of the king’s sons. 94 As
dependents or strangers, they paid tributes “to the sovereign of the country for the land
which they hold . . . Being thus dependent, they suffer much at times.”95 The Soninke
also survived by taking “a portion of the produce of the non-royal lineages in the state
for the royal court and state soldiers.”96 Until the end of the nineteenth century,
dependents or strangers of any ethnic background paid taxes and provided services to
the Mandinka aristocracy. Donald Wright states that Niumi’s “ruling lineages obtained
surplus grain and cotton through taxation and slave production. Following harvest,
village heads supervised collection of about one-tenth of village production and

conveyed it to the mansa ’s village.”97 Similarly, the English described the “King of

Badiboo” as a “powerful robber,” noting that the Mansa maintained himself and his

93 . . . .
NRS (Banjul) ARP 28/1 Travelmg Commissroner’s Report SBP
The Christian Traveller, p. 97

95
Fox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions, p. 237 and Chamber's Edinburgh Journal, William and
Robert Chambers. Vol. XVI Nos. 392 to 417, July-December 1851, p. 275

6 .
97 erght, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, p.37
lbid, p. 107

104

 

 

lifestyle by levying taxes on people for occupying the land and cultivating it.98 They
prospered not only by depending on tolls on the goods of traders passing through their
kingdoms, but partly from the rents and proceeds from lands leased to stranger groups.99

Clearly, the Soninke ruling class was more or less dependent on the labor of its
subjects. While it is likely that European accounts may have been exaggerated, it is
important to note that the wars of the mid-nineteenth century resulted from these sorts
of excesses, which subjects and stranger-groups wanted to end. As Quinn writes, a root
cause of the breakdown of the Mandinka kingdoms in this region was the loss of control
over dependent groups as disparate complaints over excessive taxation, poor land, and
exclusion from political ofﬁce led to the Soninke-Marabout wars of the second half of
the nineteenth century.100 Moreover, the Soninke ruling class denied their subjects
access to political ofﬁces beyond leadership of their own groups. Their subjects were
also denied control over the use of the land and its revenues.101

Conclusion

Land was certainly not the only factor that provided individuals and families
with access to power. There existed a variety of ways in which ambitious young men
and women could acquire a voice in their communities. Power, for instance, could be

acquired through religious institutions, age, gender, bravery, and manipulation of

 

98
9 Parliamentary Papers Vol. XLIV December 10 1868 and 11 August 1869, p. 526
9 . .
Qumn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 18; 28; Paul J. Beedle, “C1tenzens and Strangers in

altoGambian Town,” pp. 24-25

Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 53; Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian
Town,” p. 25

Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town,”p. 25

105

power.102 Nonetheless, land ownership commonly determined the ability to control a
host of other resources, such as wild animals and the forest. Along the banks of the
Gambia River, people used land not just to produce the material conditions of survival
and enrichment, but also to gain control over others, and to deﬁne personal and social
identities. In other words, people sought in land not only material possession, but also
political power. In many ways, in this region, land was the basis of political power.103 It
provided lineages that claimed to the founding-settlers of a kingdom, a village, or a
kabilo, with paramount rights to the land, and the political and economic privileges that
came along with it. People who had power also acquired land through conquest.

As I have shown in this chapter, the relationship between landlords and
strangers — a relationship that is rooted in power structures —— is crucial in understanding
the system of land tenure that existed in the Gambia region. Throughout the ﬁrst half of
the nineteenth century, the aristocracy technically managed to keep numerous groups
“landless” by acting as the “owners” of the land. They used their political power and
status to demand tribute (taxes) from their dependents for using the land; this practice
continued well into the second half of the nineteenth century. The relationship between
landlords and strangers was one of dependence, and usually involved power.104 In fact,

the practice of paying customs to local chiefs was a long standing practice. British,

French and African traders from the interior had to make their own agreements with

‘OZF or example, Robert Baum’s work on the Diola of Southern Senegambia shows how religious ﬁgures
among the Diola manipulated local shrines to subjugate others. See Robert Baum Shrines of the Slave
Trade: Diola Religion and Society in Precolonial Senegambia (New York, Oxford: Oxford University
1130355, 1999).

Barry, Senegambia During the Slave Trade, p. 3-0

Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town,” p. 111

106

African chiefs before they could secure plots of land where they could establish their
trading posts. '05

Access to political power was in some ways tied to the land. The mansas owned
land as the supreme heads of their territories. It was their prerogative to be consulted
whenever vital parts of the land within their territories were to be allocated to strangers
- thus the mansa ’s permission was to be sought before new-comers could be settled on
their territories. Even though families had their own land which they acquired through
clearing virgin lands or by laying other claims, since those lands were located within a
given kingdom, their ownership was subordinate in that the mansa could seize them if
he liked. It is important to note that mansas did not claim land as their private property,
in the western sense of the word. They hardly ever sold land. Yet, they had in the past
allocated land to strangers even when their decisions were against the will of the “elders
of the land.” Once their land-based powers were challenged, at least some mansas
rarely hesitated to use their military power and other strategies to control land and kept
their subjects dependent.

Similarly, individuals became Alkalos and kabilo heads because they had
stronger ties to the land, as opposed to those with inferior status in a village or kabilo.
Leadership of a village, as of the kabilo, was generally held by the oldest man of the
senior branch of the. line claiming direct descent from the original founder-settler of the
community.'06 As “elders of the land,” the kabilo heads and Alkalos settled land

disputes. As part of the landowning families, “village land” could only be assigned to

5
Kenneth Swindell. “Serawoollics, Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers: The Development of Migrant
Groundnut Farming along the Gambia River, 1848—95” The Journal of African History, Vol. 21, No. 1
(10280), p. 98

Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 13

107

newcomers with the permission of the Alkalos and kabilo heads. Control of land,
therefore, ranked society based on “landlords” and “strangers.” Every community in the
lower Gambia valley had a core population which considered itself as the founders and
real citizens of their town, and therefore of superior status to the many Mandinka and
non-Mandinka immigrants (or strangers) who had settled there since. Control of land,

then, was at the heart of the ruling aristocracy’s privileged existence.

108

Chapter Three

Land Questions and the Fall of the Old Regimes:
Jihad and Change, 18405-1901

From the late 18405 into the early 19005, the lower-Gambia experienced
remarkable political, social, and economic change. One of the major developments of
this period was the outbreak of the Muslim Revolution, known locally as the Soninke-
Marabout wars.l Although an effort at reviving Islam, the wars were also a rejection
Soninke aristocratic rule and by consequence it was a rejection of their control of land.
In fact, in the Gambia, the jihads resulted in the overthrow of the Mandinka aristocracy
and their replacement, for a brief period, by leaders of different invading Muslim
groups. The jihads began in the 18405 and spread all over the Gambia basin, causing
widespread instability, along with interruption of trade and agricultural activity. Over
the longer term, they also caused changes in local politics and systems of land tenure.

As noted in chapter two, the Mandinka aristocracy could be oppressive in their
rule, levying excessive taxes, excluding stranger-groups and dependents from political
ofﬁce, and monopolizing ownership of the best land. Exclusion from land and its
related privileges brought about eminent social and economic inequalities — based on
idioms of landlord and stranger differences -— that probably had gone on for centuries.
This chapter will highlight how marginalized groups responded to what they considered
a decaying social and moral order, which brought about their exclusion from land
ownership, by declaring holy war against their rulers, one of the goals of which was to

end the aristocracy’s “traditional” control over land. When the ruling lineages were

 

1 . .

Along the banks of the Gambia River, the term Soninke has d1fferentconnotat1ons. On the one hand,
the word is often used as an ethnic label-referring to the Serahule people found mostly in eastern Gambia
and parts of Senegal and modern Mali. But Soninke, as used in this case, is used to refer to non-Muslims.

109

removed from power, an important feature of land tenure before the mid-nineteenth

century—~i.e. the control of land as a part of royal authority—ended. From this period
onwards no one needed to seek permission from a mansa to set up a village because
mansas were either no longer in power or were too weak to hold any control on land. In
some areas, the leaders of different invading Muslim armies replaced the ruling elites
and took over the role of distributing land, settling disputes over its ownership, and
above all collecting taxes from strangers’ for use of the land. The leaders of these
militant Islamic movements were thought to have acquired such rights by virtue of their
conquest of the former rulers, a practice long accepted in many parts of the Senegambia
region.

These changes occurred on the backdrop of British intervention in local politics
and the regional economy and the increase in the numbers of Muslim “mystics” and/or
marabouts. Although the marabouts were the most inﬂuential actors in shaping lower-
Gambian political and social life through mid-century, the British presence, had been
growing steadily since they acquired Bathurst Island in 1816 to suppress the already
illegal Atlantic slave trade along the West African Atlantic coast: Great Britain took
control of the “Ceded Mile” in 1826, McCarthy Island in 1827, and “British Kombo”
(including the Cape St. Mary) by 1840. They would look upon militant Muslims as a

threat to their authority and control and, in places, would intervene to prop up old
Mandinka ruling lineages that they could more easily manipulate. All of this affected
ideas of who controlled what in terms of the land upon which local populatiOns lived

and worked.

110

From the time of heightening interest in the history of Africa, one of the themes
that attracted most of those who focused on Senegambia was the Islamic Revolutions.2
In 19605 and 19705, a historian raised concerns that the nineteenth-century jihads were
a neglected theme in the region’s historiography, and since then, the subject has
received considerable attention among scholars, especially those interested in the social,
political, and the economic context of rapid change in the region. Consequently, the
historiography illustrates the social, political and economic circumstances that led to the
jihads. For example, Martin Klein’s work provides a substantial assessment of the
causes of the nineteenth-century jihads and his numerous publications show that the
causes of the revolution were rooted in social and religious changes during the
preceding centuries, along with certain economic factors, including the end of the
Atlantic slave trade and the growth of legitimate commerce. 3 Similarly, in The Holy
War of Umar T al, David Robinson shows how the Fulbe living in the Futas had “grown
dissatisﬁed with the material conditions and religious practice at home”4 and in writing
about the nineteenth century Islamic revolution in the Casarnance region, immediately
south of the Gambia, Francis A. Leary shows that the history of the area “is to a large

extent that of interaction between [various] groups —of their competition for lands, of

 

2 Some of the studies that focus on the pre-nineteenth century Islamic Revolutions in the Senegambia
include: Philip D. Curtin “Jihad in West Africa: Early Phases and Inter-Relations in Mauritania and
Senegal” The Journal of African History Vol. 12, No. l (1971), pp. 11-24; Michael A. Gomez. “The
Problem with Malik Sy and the Foundation of Bundu (La question de Malik Sy et la fondation du
Bundu)” Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, Vol. 25, Cahier 100 (1985), pp. 537-553

Martin A. Klein, “The Moslem Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Senegambia” in Western African
History by Daniel F. McCall, Norman R. Bennett and Jeffrey Butler (eds) (New York, Washington and
London' Frederick A Praeger Publishers, 1969); Klein, “Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim
Revolution 1n the Senegambia” Journal Of Afr 1C0" History, V0] 13’ N0 3 (1972)

4David Robinson The Holy War of Umar Tal: The Western Sudan in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), p. 3

111

their cohabitation, and of their partial borrowing of lifestyles, one of the others.”5 In
Niumi, Donald Wright shows that mansa Demba Sonko employed mercenaries who
“rustled cattle, plundered traders, and harassed Muslims in their enclave villages.”6
Charlotte Quinn also shows how the jihads resulted from the measures taken by the
Mandinka aristocracy, excluding their subjects or stranger populations from political
ofﬁce and owning the best lands located along the Gambia River.

While these studies and others7 have shown how the jihads resulted from certain
social, economic and political circumstances, still little is known about processes
involving changes in land tenure. This study focuses on the centrality of land in
understanding aspects of the nineteenth century Islamic revolutions along the banks of
the Gambia River. While the jihads can be understood as efforts at religious, social,
economic and political conﬂict between two social classes —-the Mandinka ruling class
and their courts versus their subjects—they can be understood more fully by seeing

them, too, as conﬂicts among agriculturalists—between and among individuals,

families and communities.

 

5
Francis A. Leary “Islam, Politics and Colonialism: A Political History of Islam in the Casamance
gregion of Senegal (1850-1914)” Ph.D. Dissertation, Northwestern University, 1970. p. 18

Donald R. Wright. The World and a Very Small Place in Africa: A History of Globalization in Niumi,
The Gambia (New York, ME. Sharpe, 2004), p. 146

For more see, David Robinson. “The Islamic Revolution of Futa Toro” The International Journal of
African Historical Studies Vol. 8, No. 2 (1975), pp. 185-221; Robinson. The Holy War'of Umar Tal;
Robinson. “The Impact of Al-Hajj 'Umar on the Historical Traditions of the Fulbe” Journal of the
Folklore Institute Vol. 8, No. 2/3, Special Issue: Folklore and Traditional History (Aug. 1, 1971), pp.
101-113; Charlotte A. Quinn. “A Nineteenth Century Fulbe State” The Journal of African History Vol.
12, No. 3 (1971), pp. 427-440; Charlotte A. Quinn. Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia:
Traditionalism, Islam, and European Expansion (Evanston [111.] Northwestern University Press, 1972);
James F. Searing ‘God Alone is King’: Islam and Emancipation in Senegal: The Wolof Kingdoms of
Kajour and Bawol, 1859-1914 (Portsmouth, NH : Heinemann, 2002)

112

The Growing Inﬂuence of Islam
The size of the Muslim population across nearly all of Senegambia had grown

slowly, but steadily over the seventeenth and eighteenth, and into the early-nineteenth
centuries. Even before that, there were Muslims living along the banks of the Gambia
River when the ﬁrst Portuguese arrived on the Gambia’s Atlantic coast in the ﬁfteenth
century. These marabouts were attached to most of the Senegambia courts.8 As a reward
for their services, they received land and were permitted to found villages. By the
seventeenth century their villages had become substantial islands of Islam. The Muslim
communities supported Quranic schools, kept the fast of Ramadan, and followed
Muslim dietary laws.9 Along the banks of the Gambia River, these Muslim communities
were known as morokundas.10

The early growth of Islam in the region has been attributed to immigration of
stranger populations, mostly from areas north of the Gambia River, and the gradual
conversion of local people among whom these strangers settled.ll One group that
deserves special mention is the Toranka (Torodbe) from the middle Senegal River. The
Toranka were not so much a tight ethnic or lineage grouping-es most belonged to the

wider Fula (Fulbe) ethnic and linguistic designation, as they were related people who

 

8
Martin A. Klein, Islam and Imperialism in Senegal: Sine-Salaam, 1847-1914 (Stanford, Calif,
Published for the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace by Stanford University, Press, 1968),
.63 '
Ibid
10 .
chhard Jobson. The Golden Trade: or, A Discovery of The River Gambra, and the Golden Trade of
the Aethiopians (London: Printed by Nicholas Okes, 1623), p. 78; Mungo Park. Travels in the Interior
Districts of Africa First Journey -l795 -1797 (Edinburg: Adam and Charles Black, 1878), p. 49.
Morokundas, therefore, referred to “settlement of the Muslims.”

| .
Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 65
l 13

came from the same region, Futa Toro, inside the middle Senegal River.’2 As Muslim
clerics and mystics, they were allocated land and permitted by the ruling lineages to set
up villages upon arrival in the Gambia. '3

Each of the Muslim settlements they created had its own Alkalo (qadi or judge and
village head) and Almammy (Imam). The Almammy ’s primary function was to lead
congregational prayers in the village Mosque, and assist and advise the Alkalo in
matters pertaining to village administration. Ideally, the Almammy was a person
knowledgeable in the Quran and sharia. He was also a teacher —— teaching children how
to read and memorize the Quran. In general, the Alkalo, however, came ﬁ'om the
founding-family that established the village. This implies that A lkalos were not
expected to be experts in Islamic law. These “early” Muslim leaders prayed for the
chiefs and sometimes handled records and correspondence for the royal courts. '4

For the most part, the relationship between Muslims and their non-Muslim

overlords before the mid-nineteenth century was ambiguous. While the Muslims
preferred to live in isolated communities, it is worthwhile to remember that their
relationship with the non-Muslims was generally one of a patron-client relationship -—
similar to the landlord — stranger relationship described earlier. It was to the advantage
of both patrons and clients to have the Muslim communities settled near the royal
villages and for individual Muslims to be allowed to take on the profession known as
moriya —the the magico—religious work that served both Muslims and non-Muslims.

While allowed to practice and perform “Muslim works,” many of them were at the

 

12 .
13 erght, The World and a Very Small Place in Aﬂica, p. 132

My interview with Aja Takko Taal, Alkalo of Juffure, 011 the “History of Juffure,” [July 23 2006]
sheds light on this.

Klein, Islam and Imperialism in Senegal, p. 63

114

same time excluded from the economic and political privileges that came with
ownership of the best land, which remains in the hands of the royal elites. '5

Gradually, beginning, it seems, after the ﬁrst third of the nineteenth century,
marabouts gained in strength and began, here and there, challenging the authority of the
rulers. While inﬂuenced by such challenges in other parts of Senegambia and beyond,
the ones in the Gambia region are mostly associated with the region’s connection with a
well-known Futanke cleric named Alhaj i Umar Taal, who is reported in the oral
traditions to have visited the Gambia just before the jihads broke out. While it is not
clear when exactly Umar Taal visited the Gambia or how long he stayed in the region,“5
or whether he ever visited the area, oral traditions claim that during his visit to the
region he resided in Kombo Gunjur (where the Gambian oral traditions claims he met
F odi Kabba Touray) and several dozen communities along the banks of the Gambia
including Jeshwang and Juffure, and met with Alpha Molloh as well as Maba Jahou
Bah.l7 Elders further claim that he traveled far and wide in the Gambia visiting
individuals and blessing communities and leaders. '8 He not only preached the message

of a puriﬁed Islam while introducing the Tijaniyya tariqa, he also denounced any form

of abuse of authority and called .for strict observation of God’s laws. In any event, the

 

15 .
Qurnn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 18

'6 Donald Wright writes that he met with Maba around 1850 (p. 144). Harry A. Gailey cited a popular

claim which states that Umar Taal met Maba at the village of Kabakoto (p. 30). But in his Holy War of
Umar Tall, David Robinson problematizes Maba’s claims to afﬁliate himself with Umar or at least the

traditions that tries to establish a link between the two.

17 '

Alkalo Aja Takko Taal, interview by author, tape recording, Juffure Village, Upper Niumi District,
North Bank Region, July 23 2006; Malick Touray, interview by author, tape recording, Gunjur, Kombo,
Asugust 15 2008. Donald Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, p. 144

There is a conundrum: local sources have him coming in and giving a blessing, but according to David
Robinson the Umarian ones don't mention these things. Nevertheless, whether this occurred or not, is not
Important, since he's the leading mujahid at the time, widely known in West Africa at least by the late
18505.

115

message of jihad seemed to have appealed to many in the Gambia because from the late
18405, a number of Muslim communities began to settle their own affairs and show
markedly less respect for the authority of their Soninke kings. Consequently, from that
period onwards, the lower Gambia region was engulfed in a series of major religious
wars often referred to as the Soninke-Marabout wars.
The Beginnings of the Jihads: A Historical Overview

In terms of the lower-Gambia region, the post-1840 effort at political, social, and
religious reform began in Kombo where the Soninke of Yundum, the Jatta lineage, were
the rulers of the state. However, between 1853 to 1855 two warriors, Fodi Ousmanu19
and Fodi Kabba Touray of Sukuta (Sabij i) and Gunjur respectively, led forces on an
invasion of Kombo. Together, they conquered a large portion of the western section of
the state, burned down the royal town of Busumbala, and in June 1855 killed Kombo’s
ruler, mansa Suling J atta. After this occurred, the marabouts took control of much of the
state and almost everywhere in the region the marabouts and their growing numbers of
followers attacked the vestiges of aristocratic dominance and seized control of the
land.20

Soon the entire south bank was to witness greater instability. In 1868, Fodi Sillah
succeeded his brother, F oday Kabba Touray, as the leader of the jihad in Kombo. He
attacked Yundum and Brikama, and drove the remaining Soninke away. Many of the

Soninke ﬂed to British Kombo (i.e. the portion of Kombo that was ceded to the British

by the kingdom’s mansa). Mansa Tommani Bojang (Suling Jatta’s successor) was

 

l9 .
Fodr Ousmanu was also known as Omar of Sabjrjr.

Harry A. Gailey writes that little is known about the life of Omar before his arrival in the Gambia

except that he was a Mauritanian and he had taken part in Abdel-Kader’s uprisings against the French in
Algeria in 1847. Omar had also invaded Jeshwang before he ﬂed from the British and escaped arrest
(Gailey, Historical Dictionary of the Gambia, 110)

116

forced to retreat to Lamin, a town near the border with British Kombo. F oday Sillah
seized Brikarna in 1874. When Bojang failed to secure British support against the
Muslims, he later surrendered to them, agreeing “to shave his head” and become a
Muslim. In return, F oday Sillah gave him and his people land where they could settle
and cultivate crops.” After the defeat of Mansa Tommani, Fodi Sillah declared himself
the new “Master of Kernbe.”22 In fact, until his defeat in 1894, the British recognized
him as the chief of the part of Kombo he controlled and paid him a stipend.

While other parts of the region were trapped in these protracted civil conﬂicts,
F oday Kabba Dumbuya was busy ﬁghting in F oni and Kiang. Much of his ﬁghting was
directed against the Jola, raiding them for slaves, and aiding the Muslims of Sankandi in
their conﬂict with Jattaba and the “pagan” chief, mansa Koto of Batteling, over the
ownership of a major rice-ﬁeld.

Across the north bank, the conﬂict ﬁrst broke out in Baddibu in 1861. That year
Maba Jahou Bah, the son of N’Dougou Penda Bah, declared his holy war against the
mansa of Baddibu who at the time resided in Illiasa. With about 11,000 ﬁghters, he
burned down a number of towns and conquered lands under the control of Baddibu and
neighboring Saloum,23 killing the mansa and his son and forcing large numbers of their
followers into exiled. Then, in 1863, Maba invaded the south bank kingdom of Kiang.

Several hundred marabouts actually crossed the river from Baddibu and destroyed

 

21
John Gray, A History of the Gambia (London, Frank Cass, 1966), p. 455

22
Roland Oliver and G. N. Sanderson. The Cambridge History of Africa. Vol. 6 c. 18 70-] 905
ggIambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 218

Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 1 17; CO/87/74 Report from Governor d’Arcy,
August 8 1862

117

numerous Soninke settlements around Tendaba.24 Maba’s forces also invaded Kwinella,
one of the royal towns in Kiang, but suffered defeat.

Maba’s success in Baddibu encouraged nearly seven hundred Muslims in Niumi
to revolt against the kingdom’s rulers in 1867.25 The rebels stormed Jokadu, forcing its
Niumi-backed Soninke ruler to convert to Islam. The rebels were aided by Maba’s
brother, Abdou Bah, and a large army. That same year, the Marabouts destroyed the
Mansa’s town, Berending, and according to a British report, killed “the king with many
others and took away many alive.”26 From Berending, the Muslims pushed on toward
Bakindikikoto, destroying the royal village, and then threatened another, Essau, where
the state’s traditional war leader, the suma, had built up a strong resistance.27

Initially, the British, whose presence in the region was already growing had
opted for a policy of non-inference. But quickly it had become clear to them that there
was general instability everywhere along the banks of the Gambia River: hundreds, if
not thousands, of refugees were ﬂeeing from these wars, and both trade and agriculture

were obstructed. As a response, the British again embarked on “punitive expeditions,”

 

24 . .
Qurnn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. l 17

25 Note on June 19 1826, Niumi’s mansa, Burungai Sonko, ceded greater portion of the land in Niumi to
the British. From this date onwards, the land under the Ceded Mile became the property of the British
Crown. That means for anyone to live on the land must abide by English laws. This coincided with a time
when many of Niumi’s residents (most of whom Muslims) were already opposed to Niumi’s ruling elites.
They dislike the elites for several reasons: the elites had “sold oﬁ” their father’s land,

26 Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, p. 146, Quinn, Mandingo Kingdom's of the
Senegambia, p. 1 14-115 and see also CSO 1/14 Report by Colonel Anthon, Acting Administrator, Essau,
Barra Point, August 30 1867

Bakindiki Koto (Old Bakindiki), which was located near the ocean, close to the modern Gambia-
Senegal border, was abandoned. The force that invaded this town was related to Ma Ba’s Senegambian
jihad. The invasion drove the villagers south, toward the river, where they rebuilt in a safer place. Lastly,
the town was part of the seven royal towns of Niumi, which participated in the rotating system of
succession.

118

against some of the marabouts.28 One of these expeditions was launched in 1866. That
year, the British Administrator of Bathurst ordered an English force to bombard Tubab
Kolong and forcing the marabouts to abandon Sika.29
Despite their intervention it was too late to save the “old order.” The marabouts

proved tenacious. In less than a year after the 1866 Tubab Kolong bombardment “the
Marabouts had returned to Sika, where one F odi Sonko had commanded his
blacksmiths to rebuild the stockade and had given permission to the women of Sika to
cultivate rice on “their old ground.”30 In June 1867, the British Administrator, Admiral
Patey, tried to summon Fodi Sonko and Chemo Say, his chief marabout, to Albreda and
Bathurst for a meeting, but Sonko declined because “the chiefs and headmen are all
gone to Badiboo and he cannot say anything now until their retum.”3 ' His deﬁance
eventually forced the British Superintendent at Albreda, Richard A. Stewart, to travel
the four miles from British Albreda to Sika. At their meeting, Steward reported that
Sonko “said to [him] that . . . he is come back and built his country and his father
ground . . . [that] he cannot [travel to see the Governor] because he is hungry and he is
upon hard work—but when he is ﬁnish, he will send his man to the Governor.”32 Sonko

insisted that “Sicca was the land of their forefathers [and] they had no wish to leave it . .

 

28
Salt Matty was Maba Jahou Bah‘s son. He continued to ﬁghts wars after his father’s dead in 1866.

9 See CSO l/l4 Colonel Anthon, Acting Administrator, August 30 1867. “Statement of John Day,
Colonial Interpreter, August 30 I867; “Extracts of a Letter from Richard A. Stewart, British Albreda,
Corporal of Police to Major Anthon, Acting Administrator, dated June 29 1867; “Letter from J. Johnson,
Second Writer, Colonial Ofﬁce, Bathurst, to Corporal Stewart, Albreda dated July 1 1867; “Letter from
RA Stewart, Corporal of Police, British Albreda, to Major Anthon, Acting Administrator, Bathurst, dated
Saturday, July 13 1867 and See also Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 148

NRS, Banjul, Administrator in Chief‘s Letter, Govemment House, Bathurst, Gambia, August 31 1867.

C80 l/l4

l
Extract of a letter from Richard A Stewart, Corporal of police to His Excellency Major Anton Acting,
Administrator, dated British Albreda, June 29 1867.

2
Letter from British Albreda, Saturday July 13 1867, Richard A. Stewart, Corporal of Police
119

. [because] they valued [it so] much.”33 Following his failure to get Sonko to comply
with his orders, Stewart wrote numerous letters seeking help and intervention from
Bathurst. Such deﬁance against the British made the chief police constable in Albreda
very uncomfortable and worried. In the end, the English Governor advised the police
constable “not to make any dispute but to live in peace with the marabouts.”34
It is worthwhile to note that in Baddibu and Saloum, the death of Maba in 1867
and the subsequent civil war diluted the religious basis of the revolution.” The height of
this civil war occurred between 1877 and 1885. After Maba’s death the Wolof ruler of
Saloum, Gedel Mboge, took up arms to recover part of his territory seized by forces
during one of the jihad campaigns against Saloum. Mboge attacked Maba’s son and
cousin, Sait Matty Bah, and Mamur Nderri Bah respectively. 36 These two and Biran
Ceesay, one of Maba’s generals who, after Maba’s death, had carved out a sphere of
inﬂuence for himself, were also engaged in a power struggle with one another.37 This
confusion gave Gedel Mboge, still a non-Muslim, the opportunity of allying with Biran

Ceesay against Mamur Nderi and Sait Matty. Mboge’s army captured several of Sait

Matty’s strongholds in Baddibu, but this coalition was short—lived. Much of Baddibu

 

33
lbid

34

35 Essau, Barra Point, August 30 1867 by sumar of Essau
Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of {he Senegambia, p. 195

36 Anthropologist David P Gamble writes that this period in Baddibu and Saloum is a complete tale of
the political struggles between Saer Mati Ba , Biram Sise and Gedel Mboj. See David P. Gamble. “The
North Bank of the Gambia: Places, People, and Population (B) The Wolof Area: Sabah and Sanjal, Lower
Saalum, Upper Saalum” (Brisbane, California, April 1999), pp. 6-7

When Maba died a council of elders had elected Mamur Nderi to succeed him as the leader of the
jihad and also as ruler of the kingdom of Baddibu (Rip). Sait Matty was upset with this decision and
hence he decided to take up arms to ﬁght against his uncle. At the same time Biram Ceesay, a native of
Kaur, was also trying to overthrow Mamur Nderi, and he came into conﬂict with both contending parties.

120

and Saloum, including the port of Kaur, remained under the control of Biran Ceesay,38
and he began exercising power over the distribution and allocation of land in his
“kingdom.”
The War and the Land Question

This state of affairs cannot be explained without analyzing the social, economic and
political circumstances that gave rise to the uprisings. At the state level, increasing
animosity existed between the holders of the landlord title, the Soninke, and “stranger”
families and their subjects. As mentioned earlier, the anger against the ruling lineages
can be attributed to the exclusion of a signiﬁcant portion of the population from the
ownership of the best land along the banks of the river. As Quinn writes, in addition to
monopolizing the best fertile lands, “the Soninkes restricted the use of land and imposed
heavy taxes on strangers, often stripping the latter of their possessions. [The Muslims]
complained that not only did the rulers of the Mandingo states refuse to convert to Islam
but they moved about the country in armed bands continually harassing the[m], stealing
their wives, properties and slaves.”39 David Gamble writes about the ﬂight of Muslims
and [perhaps stranger families] from their homes near the Baddibu royal town of lliassa
to the bank of the river, where they felt they would be more secure. They established
themselves near Saba with the permission of the Alkalo and elders of Saba.4O But, as
they were the last Mandinka to arrive in the district, there was little land left to assign

them, and what remained was of poor quality. As the village grew, the land was

 

38
Gedel Mboge only became a Muslim shortly before his death in 1895. For more information on
gboge see Gamble, p. 7, and Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 163

Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 68; Paul Julian Beedle, Citizens and Strangers in a
Gambian Town, p. 25 ; 68

4o ,
lbtd, pp. 68—69

121

insufﬁcient for its needs and the Marabouts remained dissatisﬁed with their lot. Gamble
explain this by noting that the years before Maba launched his jihad were ones of
arbitrary rule by the Soninke. He remarked that the “laws of God were nowhere
observed. Any powerful person could take away your wife and property (including
land) if he desired.”41 He claimed that the jihad broke out largely because of these
circumstances. Thus, when Islamic clerics began to preach jihad against these powerful
lineages, the young, male members of families that were excluded from the privileges
associated with land ownership were the ﬁrst to join the revolution.

This exclusion from land ownership or controlling the most productive land
affected families in other forms: it also meant their marginalization from the political
system. As argued in the previous chapter, several families could not become Alkalos or
Kabilo heads or Sumas. Writing in the 19405, John M. Gray notes that the marabouts of
Kombo, like their counterparts living along the banks of the Gambia, were by the mid-
nineteenth century embittered by their exclusion from the political system. It was
because of this that they formed “a loose confederacy to contest the authority of the
ruling families”: they wanted a share in local politics, of which they were hitherto
denied access to.42 Most of them saw the outbreak of the jihads as an opportunity to
end their inferior status and dependency.

Much of the oral and documentary evidence used in this study suggests that those
who fought against the Mandinka states under the pretext of jihad took part mainly
because of socio—political and economic considerations. Ambitious young men, eager to

41
Imam Alhajie Momodou Lamin Bah, “Maba and the History of Islam in the Gambia,” interview by
33th”, tape recording, Serrekunda, June 30 2006.

Gray, History oft/1e Gambia, p. 388.
122

escape parental control, saw the revolution as an opportunity to lead a better life.43 In
addition, John Gray also states that many of them fought because they anticipated
material gains from their raids. Many of the ﬁghters, he notes, were Serahule, Serer, and
J ola mercenaries with little interest in the religious differences between the Soninke and
the Muslims. They simply sold “their guns to the higher bidder.”44 Contemporary
English administrators in Bathurst held the same view. For example, H. L. Loyd Pryce
wrote in 1906 that the aim of the Marabout ﬁghters was not only “to convert the
Soninke but really to obtain personal aggrandizement and to acquire property and
slaves.”45 Another report , dated 1867, by Colonel D’Arcy noted that all their
“controversies with these [groups] have arisen out of the questions of property and
plunder, and not out of any outrages upon life.”46 Countless other reports accused the
leaders of Muslim revolutions of sustaining an internal slave trade. While much of the
negative characterization of Foday Sillah, F oday Kabba Dumbuya, and others in these
reports is born of the racism and prejudice of European administrators against Africans,
a number of elders today look back on the days of the jihads and admit that the desire

for wealth and power were among the primary motivations that drove the decisions of

many of the marabouts.47

 

43 One commissioner noted that “parents have all the ordinary power over their children, chastising them
and making them work for them. In regard to the children when grown up the father never frees them to
marry any man they do not wish to; as is the case with the Mandingoes and Jollofs” [NRS, Banjul, CSO
2/94-Reports on the Jolah PeOple: Their customs and habits (From the Commissioner Kombo and Fogni,

.1206»
4 C80 2/94-Laws and Customs of the Mandinka, 1906
5
NRS, Banjul. CSO 2/94: Laws and Customs of the Mandingoes of the North Bank Territory of the
gambia Protectorate, I906.
Colbum’s United Military Service Magazine and Naval and Military Jounal. No. CCCCLXVI
Eeptember I867. “Settlements of the Gambia” by Governor D’Arcy, p. 4

Malick Touray, interview by author, tape recording, Gunjur, Western Region, August 15 2008;
Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interview by author, tape recording, Medina Baffutoto, Upper Niumi, June I3

123

In their recent book, Migrants, Credit and Climate, Kenneth Swindell and Alieu
Jeng claim that among the Mandinka and Wolof of the Gambia, land rights were
inherited without fragmentation by male successors of the deceased and despite the
increasing islandization of the region, especially after the Soninke-Marabout wars, local
customs of land inheritance were not materially transformed.48 Although, theoretically,
on the death of a man, his propertywmovable and otherwisemwent to his children and
wife (or wives), in practice, however, property was often inherited by the deceased’s
brothers. Accordingly, the father’s brother (or the oldest uncle of the children) ~—
automatically became the head of the family ——and accepted the property in trust until
such time as the sons attained adulthood. If the deceased man’s male sons had already
reached adulthood before his death, the oldest son of the ﬁrst wife could succeed as the
head of the family and become the custodian of the property. If the sons were still
young and none of their uncles were alive, the children and their father’s property often
went to the mother’s family. Generally, as head of the family, the man who assumed the
deceased male’s position as head of the family possessed considerable authority over
matters concerning the family, either individually or collectively. This system of
inheritance even existed among the Jola. For example, as indicated in chapter one, in
1906 Commissioners G.H. Sangster noted that the Jola, who were often organized in

“stockades” had “big men” who were called A lefanow. 49 Each stockade had an

 

2006 and August 17 2008) and Imam Siaka Jobe, interview by author, tape recording, Sanchi Paalen,
North Bank Region, June I 2008.

Kenneth Swindell and Alieu Jeng. Migrants, Credit and Climate: The Gambian Groundnut Trade,
[834-1934 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006), p. 84

C80 2/94-Reports on the Jolah People and See CSO 2/94-Laws and Customs of the Mandinka).
Elsewhere Commissioner Pryce noted that “on the death of a Mandinka his prOperty descends to his

children. The deceased’s brother, however, takes charge of everything, the children all continue living in
the same yard under their uncle. If the deceased has no brother, the eldest son would take charge of the

124

Alefanow who appeared to be the one that all the property (including cattle) belonged
to. When he died the next “big man,” who was the next eldest in that community,
succeeded to the position. This implies that whoever was Alefanow succeeded and
inherited from his predecessor even if such a person had children.50

Clearly, the above suggest that kinship was crucial in the control and/or
ownership of land. However, it overlooks the tensions that characterized these kin-
based societies. In fact, evidence suggests that some male members of families living in
Gambian villages may have been dissatisﬁed with the way in which property was
shared, inherited or even administered. In the lower Gambia, the value of community
was strictly upheld. Families shared food; villagers came to the aid of their neighbors
especially in times of disputes with people from other villages and members of the same
kabilo shared farms. As one reporter noted, if the family “agreed among themselves the
land is usually cultivated as a whole for the beneﬁt of all members.”5 1 Perhaps this is
why Sangster could “. . . ﬁnd no law by which property is to be divided up into certain
proportions.”52 However, valuing community and keeping strong bonds between
families did not mean that conﬂicts were absent. It was not uncommon for tensions and

conﬂicts to arise over the use of family prOperty, and especially when questions of

 

property.” This was also the case among the Wolof. If a father died, his younger brother took charge of
tslbe boys and married their mother [sourcez NRS, CSO 2/94-The Laws and Customs of the Jollofs, 1906]

A man’s property, Commissioners Sangster further noted, was disposed of after his burial. This was
done at the second burial. The second burial took place on the fourth day after the head of the family
passed away. No second burial was held for women. A woman after death was fetched by his father’s
people and buried in his stockade, never in her husband’s. Nor also was it held for children. A man was
always buried in his own stockade. Even if he died whilst away from home, his body was fetched and
buried home. Their funerals were always great occasions and people often came from miles around to
take part in them, not just the direct family of the deceased, but all friends. As Sangster noted, a funeral
was always the reason for a huge [gathering], dancing and drunkenness. It is at these funerals that ﬁghts
and murder take place.

Conﬁdential Dispatch from Governor of Sierra Leone, Douglas Jardine, to the Secretary of State for
Colonies, April 1940

C80 2/94-Reports on the Jolah People
125

inheritance arose. Sometimes disagreements arose and the land was subdivided among
the sons, and in some cases the daughters, in varying proportions. For example, in
describing this situation among the Mandinka, Commissioner H. Lloyd Pryce wrote that
if conﬂict occurred the children of the deceased would share the property.53
In many cases, disagreements occurred because older sons who assumed their

father’s property on behalf of the family kept the largest portion for themselves and
gave the younger brothers only portions of it. In other instances, trouble emerged when
some children were prevented from inheriting their father’s property. For example,
among the Jola, a son who severed his relationship with his father and left the
compound at a time when his father was alive could not inherit his father’s property.
Since he leﬁ his father’s compound and set up his own, he lost his right to claim any
part of his father’s prOperty. Also, an illegitimate child was often prevented from
inheriting any of his father’s property. Individuals considered as lunatics could not
exercise rights over their property because often it was entrusted under the care of “his
nearest male relation.” Yet, as a son he still might be forced to contribute to “pay off all
the deeeased’s debt whenever they are claimed.”54

Prior to the mid-nineteenth century holy wars, those who were excluded from
inheritance had limited options since it was abominable to ﬁght ones’ uncle or elders.
Previously, they could either accept the state and stay with their lineage or move out of
the community. But the outbreak of the jihad gave another Option: to ﬁght and in the

name of Allah. Young men who were either prevented from inheriting their parents’

53
54 C80 2/94-Laws and Customs of the Mandinka
lbid

126

property joined the ranks of the militantjihadists so as to put an end to what they
considered forms of social and moral decay.

If there were tensions at the family and state level, the very nature of this fragile
era also brought neighboring villages into direct confrontation with one another.55
Existing tensions and jealousies among neighboring villages across the length and
breadth of the Gambia contributed immensely to shaping the nature of the Soninke-
Marabout wars. As Quinn writes, even groups sharing land and pasturage frequently
found themselves divided between the opposing sides during the jihad. Even lineage
ties did not always matter.56 The wars gave villages the opportunity to side with one
ﬁghting group or the other. The uprisings intensiﬁed land conﬂicts in a number of areas.
This is exempliﬁed by the conﬂicts in Sabach-Sanjal where the villages of Kumbija and
Tandaito used the occasion to appropriate land previously controlled by Sarrakunda.

The Sarrakunda-Tandaito Land Dispute, 18708-18908
As mentioned earlier, the bitter struggle that followed Maba’s death in 1867 had less
to do with ﬁghting to convert peeple into Islam and more to do with a power struggle.
While Sait Matty was trying to claim his father’s territory from Mamut Nderri Ba,
Biram Ceesay was busy ﬁghting both of them to carve out a sphere of inﬂuence for
himself. The consequences were devastating, especially when neither side gained a
complete a victory in the early years of the conﬂict. In the end, though, as ﬁghting

continued, Biram Ceesay obtained control of the eastern side of Baddibu, leaving

I also suggest that war could affect people’s attitude towards property. During times of war, warriors
appeared to make a more careful distinction between movable property (such as livestock, jewelry, stored
grains, women and slaves) and immovable prOperty such as fruit trees, houses and farmlands. For
example, they often looted granaries and stole livestock, money, jewelry, women and slaves. But since
land could not be moved or be transacted, it was often used to compensate local collaborators.

6 .
QUINN, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 62
127

Mamur Nderi Ba controlling the western side. Much of Sabach-Sanjal, the area where
the towns of Sarrakunda, Tandaito, and Bambally were located, was under the control
of Biran Ceesay’s forces.57

This power struggle occurred at a time when communities along the north bank of
the Gambia River were already divided along such lines as kin, generation, gender,
class, and religious afﬁliation. With the conﬂict intensifying between Biram and his
revivals, the different communities, who had problems with one another, gradually took
sides. Villages that felt that they did not have enough farmland or access to rice ﬁelds
decided to side with one warlord or the other in hopes of improving their circumstances.
Pakala Bati Xai supported Sait Matty, for instance, and neighboring Panchang was on
the side of Biram Ceesay.58

In one of his wars against Sarrakunda, Biran Ceesay seized rice ﬁelds belonging to

Sarrakunda and gave them to the people of Tandaito. It is neither clear from the written
documents or the oral sources why Biran Ceesay took these rice ﬁelds away from
Sarrakunda. However, given the nature of the political conﬂict in Baddibu and Saloum,
it seems that the land was either given to Tandaito because they fought on Biran’s side
or because Biran wanted to remedy the “landlessness” of Tandaito. Most elders living
today in Tandaito hold a “positive memory” of Biran and what he did, whereas they
described Sarrakunda as a Soninke town. Biran most likely took away the land and
gave it to Tandaito because of a need to rescue peOple in the latter town for a state of
“landlessness.” As argued earlier, “stranger” communities along the Gambia River

57
David P. Gamble. “The North Bank of the Gambia: Places, People, and Population (B) The Wolof
Area: Sabah and Sanjal, Lower Saalum, Upper Saalum” (Brisbane, California, April 1999), pp. 6-7

8 , .
Qumn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 8
128

depended on others for access to land. Elders claim that the founders of Tandaito were
strangers hosted by the ancestors of the people of nearby Dunyuto and were migrants
from Niumi Sika.59 They say, further, that the ancestors who established Bambally were
hosted by Sarrakunda — meaning that Sarrakunda was among the oldest settlements in

60 Given their stranger status, residents of Tandaito likely had difﬁculty

the area.
accessing the rice ﬁelds prior to the outbreak of the wars of Biram Ceesay, and hence
they sought assistance from the Wolof leader.

Whether these claims are true or not, one thing that is certain is that the two
villages’ rice ﬁelds and farmlands are close-by and that Biran Ceesay conquered land
that was previously claimed by Sarrakunda and gave it to Tandaito. Thus, when the ﬁrst
traveling commissioner, J .H. Ozanne, was appointed to the area in 1893, he encountered
an on-going land dispute between the towns’ residents.61 In his annual report dated the
same year, he writes that “The Sarrakunda people are trying to get back some of the
farm at Tendito which belonged to their ancestors and were taken away from them in
the war with Biram Sisi.” After the demise of Biram Ceesay and the emergence of a
British administration in the Gambia, the people of Sarrakunda saw the opportunity to

regain their land. According to Ozanne, “The Alkali of Sarrakunda sent one of his wives

to work a farm belonging to Tendito [sic] and the Alcaide of Tendito took away her hoe

 

S9
Mba Neneh Sabbally, interview by author assisted by Abdoulie Jafuneh, tape recording, Sarrakunda

gloillage, North Bank Region, December, 14 2008

Arfang Sainey Sanneh-Darboe, interview by author assisted by Abdoulie Jafuneh, tape recording,
Elamabally Village, December, 15 2008.

A few years before he encountered the Sarrakunda-Tandaito land dispute, he came across the
Bambally affair —which was also a land dispute.“ But these disputes were different from boundary
disputes in that they involved a village’s founding lineage claiming land that was seized from them
during times of war. Boundary disputes, especially in regard to rice ﬁelds were rare. In Mandinka
societies boundaries between farms were generally well marked. A strip from a foot to several yards wide
was left between farms. Trees such as silk cotton trees were oﬁen planted along a boundary line.

129

and sent her back.” Unfortunately for the people of Sarrakunda, the British did not come
to their aid. Ozanne “told the Alcaide of Sarrakundu that [the British] could not make
the people give up lands that had been given to them by Biram Sisi and worked by them
for some years.”62
The Kumbija-Sarrakunda Land Dispute, 18703 to 18905

Around the same time that Biram Ceesay seized the rice ﬁelds controlled by
Sarrakunda and gave them to Tandaito, Sarrakunda was involved in another land
dispute, this time with the people of Kumbija. According to documentary sources, the
land in question originally belonged to the father of the Alkalo of Sarrakunda, but “in
one of the small wars, this Alcaide’s father was driven out of the town and had to seek
refuge elsewhere.” Subsequently, the land fell into the hands of Chief Nderri Raumi, a
Wolof colonial ofﬁcial in French Senegal, who leased it to the Alkalo of Kumbija.
When the French administration recalled Chief Nderri, the Alkalo of Kumbija
appropriated the land and worked it without interference until June 1892 when the
Alkali of Sarrakunda “put in his claim and they came to blows which resulted in the
Alcaide of Sarrakunda retiring, leaving the Alcaide of Kumbija in possession.”63 The
land was about half an acre and was located outside the town of Kumbija, and two miles

from Sarrakunda. Ozanne noted that it was a good spot for houses and several people

were anxious to build on it.“

62
63 NRS, Banjul, ARP 32 Travelling Commissioner Reports-North Bank 1893-1932 (60 ’
NRS, ARP 32 (Vol. I North Bank 1893-1898) Travelling Commissioner Reports

Unfortunately for the people of Sarrakunda when they put forward their claim to Ozanne, he “told
them to leave things as they were until May and that I should go to them sometime in February and the
settle the question. Both parties were satisﬁed to wait. [They] promised to abide by my decision.” The
two communities lost the land, however, because Ozanne “settled the dispute by taking over the land for
the colony. . . I told the Alcaide of Kumbija not to build houses on it or plant it until I heard from you (the
Govemor)? Ozanne noted that the two communities “might be deterred from [claiming the land] if rent

130

Probing into the history of this conﬂict revealed another aspect of the histories of

the settlements of Kumbija and Sarrakunda. Oral traditions from the region suggest that
the village of Kumbija was founded by a Wolof chief called Gumbo Gaye, a student of
Maba, sometime in the last half of the nineteenth century. He founded the village during
the time of a holy war because he interested in spreading Islam.“ According to the
tradition, Gaye had much distaste for the aristocracy. Hence when he destroyed the
Soninke authority in Sarrakunda, he became the only ruler and eventually disregarded
all the Alkalos in the territory be controlled. He relied on his warriors by appointing
them as the leaders of the various communities under his inﬂuence. Moreover, the use
of the title of Alkalo, the tradition claimed, only reappeared later, during the reigns of
Biram Wudy and Mama Tamba J ammeh of Illiassa - a time that coincided with the
colonial era. A similar version alleged that Gumbo was sent to Kumbija by the Bur
(Wolof word for king) Saloum who at the time was resident in Noiro.66 The tradition
claims that Gaye was the Marabout that attacked the Soninkes of Bambally and
Sarrakunda.“

These claims are difﬁcult to verify. Most likely the land in question was seized
from Sarrakunda during one of the wars and the reference to a Wolof chief in the

European record was probably referring to Gaye. Moreover, Gaye’s activities in the

 

were to be charged. [He further suggested] that they be allowed to build houses on the understanding that
should the ground be required by the Government at anytime, they would have to give it up.

Alhagie Fafa lobe, interview by author assisted by Abdoulie Jafuneh, tape recording, Kumbija village,
North Bank Region, December 14 2008. This was also corroborated with what Bambally elders told me
about the Wolof warrior who had destroyed the three Soninke villages that came to make up Sarrakunda
in an attempt to convert them into Islam.

Nioro was an important town in Saloum, in modern Senegal. As a result, it became the center of
French politics during the colonial period.

Arfang Sainey Sanneh-Darboe, interview by author assisted by Abdoulie Jafuneh, tape recording,
Bamabally Village, December, 15 2008.

131

region seem to have coincided with that of Biram Ceesay. One informant said that the
“war” between Kumbija and Sarrakunda was caused by a Wolof Marabout warrior
“who wanted them to accept Islam . . . I don’t know his name . . . but it was not Biram
Ceesay.”68 But in Kumbija, an elder said that Biran Ceesay was a contemporary of
Gumbo Gaye.69
F oday Sillah and the Land Question in Kombo, c1868-1894

In Kombo, land was also an important element in the Soninke-Marabout wars.
One way in which the wars of the nineteenth century played a part in matters of land
tenure has been summarized in the 19403 by the then commissioner of the South Bank
Province. In one of his reports the commissioner wrote that “about a hundred years ago,
the marabou wars started and the kingdom of Gunjur began to expand and to conquer
parts of the two Kombo kingdoms.”70

The architect of the jihad in Kombo was a man called F oday Kabba Touray.71 He
attacked Kombo in the 1840s and in a series of attempts succeeded in killing Mansa
Suling J atta. However, shortly aﬁer this he disappeared from the scene and eventually,
in 1868, was succeeded by his brother, Foday Buraima Touray, popularly known as
Foday Sillah. Sillah intensiﬁed the jihad beginning in 1873 by attacking the royal towns
of Kombo, driving their lineages into exile or killing them.72 When ﬁghting intensiﬁed

in the middle of 1874 the English Administrator in British Kombo concluded a treaty

with Sillah, agreeing to create a neutral zone between the town of Yundum and the

 

6
3 lbid
69 . .
Alhagie Fafa Jobe, interview by author, Kumbija Village, December 14, 2008

70 . .
NRS, CSO 10/71, Conﬁdential Dispatch to the Colonial Secretary in Bathurst from the
Clommissioner’s Ofﬁce South Bank Province, Cape St. Mary, April, 30 1940

7 His is commonly remembered in Gunjur as Kaba Touray.
2
Gray, History of the Gambia, p. 454

132

boundary of British Kombo. The British gave Sillah permission to cultivate the land
while retaining the right of British subjects to plant peanuts there, paying customary
rents to the chiefs in possession of the land. This brought peace for awhile. When this
occurred, the marabouts under Sillah wanted to settle down and encourage farming, at

least for that rainy season.73

However, ﬁghting was renewed again in 1875, when in June, Busumbala, the last
Soninke town, fell. Tomani Bojang, the Kombo mansa, relocated to Lamin (a town
within 400 yards of the British boundary). While he settled there, the Administrator of
British Kombo offered him a piece of land in British territory, but the mansa rejected it.

As ﬁghting continued, Sillah succeeded in conquering much of the mansa ’s
territory —and in the process the ownership of the soil of the conquered territory passed
to the “kingdom of Gunjur.” As this process was unfolding, certain villages with a
strong Muslim population also revolted against their mansa and established their
independence. On September 29, 1875, Mansa Tomanni Baojang “agreed to shave his

9974

head, become a Marabout. He adopted a Muslim name. In return, Sillah, as the new

“mansa,” agreed to give him and his people land where they could cultivate crops.75

 

73 . . . .
lbid, p. 455; Charlotte Quinn also notes that Maba encouraged farmmg. He claimed that he himself

was setting an example in 1864 by farming, “which the pagan king hated;” “he has ordered the whole of
his subjects to cultivate the ground” (p. 97).

4
Gray, History of the Gambia, p. 45 5

Land was also primary object used to entice people to either ﬁght or help solidify a community or
group’s defense against its opponents. David Gamble writes that during Foday Kabba’s wars, an appeal
was made to a smith to settle in the village of Jenneri (a town in Kiang). In so doing, he was promised
that he would receive land and a compound in return. When the ﬁghting ended he was granted substantial
areas of both upland farms, and rice ﬁelds. There were no blacksmiths to make bullets and spears, and
repair guns. Also, some of the jihadists compensated their soldiers with their booty such as land, women
and slaves. [David Gamble. Traditional Mandinka Agriculture, p. 29; For example, Sankandi elders often
explain how their ancestors acquired a piece of land which became a disputed property in the late 18905
and early 1900. The accounts they frequently give explain how the original settlers on that land were the
Jaamar who were fought and pursued by a more powerful enemy. Eventually, the Jaamar were believed
to have sought protection from the people of Sankandi whose leader came from the Darboe clan. With

133

Two relevant developments occurred in Kombo during this time. One was that
once the breakaway villages (with no direct ties to Sillah’s forces) that rebelled against
the mansa succeeded in establishing their independence, the ownership of land on
which villages depended was considered to pass to the residents of such villages. The
other was the complete defeat of Kombo including the royal towns of Yundum,
Busumbala, Brikama, Manduar and Jambur. When this occurred, the villages that had
previously established their independence from the mansa of Kombo acknowledged the
new “king” of Gunjur as their mansa. When they did this, it was understood that they
had surrendered the ownership of their lands to the “kingdom of Gunjur.”

Sillah then became the new “Mansa” of Kombo. Ironically, he began to exercise
his power, especially in the allocation and distribution of land, in a way similar to the
way Soninke rulers had done for centuries. For instance, even though his lineage was
not the ﬁrst to settle in Gunjur, he usurped the right to allocate land not only in the town
but even beyond. According to oral traditions from Gunjur, the town was founded by
members of a lineage named Darboe. They were followed by Foday Sillah’s family, the
Touray, who were Muslims and hence did not want to live among Soninkes. Because of
this, their leader asked for a piece of land outside of the main settlement. A marabout
had also warned the leader of the Tourays that he should move and settle where the
present site of Gunjur is located. He predicted that the prosperity of the town was in that
location. As the Touray settlement began prospering in this new location, the Darboe

decided to move and joined them. Since the Darboe’s were initial settlers in area, an

this help, the Jaamar won the war and were able to defend their land. After the war, Sankandi was given
land as a form of compensation. That is why when, in the late nineteenth century, a man from Jattaba put
his claim of ownership to that land, the peeple of Sankandi refused by noting that their ancestors got that
land through ﬁghting. [for more information on this, see trans. of an audio interview of an elder of Kiang
at the RDD’s collection in Fajara. It is listed as Sankandi Tape, No. 5162]

134

arrangement was made to accommodate them. In a careful agreement, the Darboe
would hold the title of Alkalo, taking care of issues dealing with land allocation and its
distribution to strangers. The Touray, on the other hand, assumed the position of
Almammy - leading the growing Muslim community in prayers. The situation remained
like this until F oday Sillah’s predecessor, Foday Kabba Touray, seized the Alkaloship
from the Darboe clan and administered the land himself. Like his predecessor, Sillah
exercised this role until his death. He distributed land to the different Kabilos in Gunjur:
Darboe, Touray, Manneh, and Janneh, and rewarded others with land for serving in his
army. Ensa Touray of Gunjur narrated that in a recent conﬂict in Gunjur, a man put
forward his claim to a piece of land he believed Sillah had taken from one of his
victims and given to the man’s great grandfather, Bunja Janneh. It was allocated to him
as reward for his participation in Sillah’s wars. According to Ensa Touray, “Foday
Sillah asked Bunja, his general, what he can give him and Bunja’s response was that
give me a place where I and my family can survive.”76 But Foday Sillah ensured that
the Touray clan controlled a greater portion of the land in Gunjur.
The Sankandi-Jattaba Crises, 1899-1901

By the end of the nineteenth century, there had been a long-standing quarrel in
Kiang between the Soninkes of Jattaba and the marabouts of Sankandi over the
ownership of a rice ﬁeld. The disputed land was located in the faroo between the two

villages. An oral source indicates that the conﬂict began after a Sankandi woman,

6
Personal Conversation with Ensa Touray, a native of Gunjur. August 4, 2008. Gunjur, Western
Region.

135

Mariama Darboe, went to marry a man in the village of Jattaba.77 The tradition claims
that Mariama was given the land as a gift from her parents when she got married to
Lang Seyfo of Jattaba.78 Accordingly, she was expected to use the land to cultivate rice
to support her new, nuclear family, especially once she got children. It is not clear how
long Mariama cultivated this land or how many years she spent in Jattaba with her
husband, but one thing the tradition claims is that she was not fortunate to conceive any
children throughout her marriage. Thus, when she died, her uncle in Sankandi requested
the land back—noting that the land was only lent to her for support of her family.
Trouble soon erupted because Lang Seyfo or his family declined to return the land.
They argued that they were not aware of how the rice ﬁeld became Sankandi property
(or to be more precise, the property of the Darboe family of Sankandi). This is what
brought the two villages to a showdown. It should be noted that among the Mandinka
women were often given rice farms as part of their dowry and hence marriage was
another route to land accumulation.79 But this might only be a temporary transfer of
land, as in some instances, there was an understanding that such land would be returned
to the wife’s family after her death especially if she did not have children with her
husband. Also, as Swindell and Jeng notes, rice land could be kept within a man’s

compound when husbands gave the rice farms of their mothers to their wives.80

 

77
In Sankandi, the Darboe kabilo are among the founder lineages of the village. They were the holders
of the title of Alkali in Sankandi. By virtue of their position in the Sankandi community, they controlled a

lot of land.
Historically, intermarriage between the sons and daughters of two neighboring Villages wascommon.
Young men typically sought wives in towns around their hometown. In terms of proximity, Sankandi and

Jattaba were only a few kilometers apart.
Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, Credit and Climate, p. 84

80
Ibid, p. 85
136

Europeans have longed observed the importance of what they called “blood”
vengeance among the Mandinka living along the banks of the Gambia. Among this
group, a family needing help would call to his assistance not only his immediate
relations but all the people in his Kabilo or if possible the entire village." It was in that
fashion that the land dispute eventually became a conﬂict between the two villages and
not just the families that were involved.

At ﬁrst, the elders of Kiang tried to engage in serious negotiations with one and
another village, but without much success.82 The situation worsened and became more
explosive as time progressed. Subsequently, the matter was reported to Mansa Koto
Sanyang in Batteling, about eight kilometres from Sankandi and Jattaba and at that time
the seat of the chieﬂaincy. British ofﬁcials who reported on this incident often claimed
that was part of the reason why negotiations between the two villages were difﬁcult was
because of the existing religious climate of the nineteenth century. Most of the
documentary sources claim that the people of Sankandi were supported by F odi Kabba
and perceived themselves as Muslims while viewing the residents of Jattaba as
“pagans.”83 The British sources insist that F oday Kabba incited the pe0ple of Sankandi
and they suggest that as a Soninke, Mansa Koto’s legitimacy was rapidly waning in the

eyes of the Muslims of Sankandi.

 

81
NRS, Banjul, CSO 2/94-Laws and Customs of the Mandinka

82 '

Lamin Jammeh, Alkalo Ndamboy Sanyang, Siringka Sanyang and Lang Kumba Sanyang, “Sankandi-
Battellin g Land Dispute,” interview by NCAC staff, tape recording, Battelling, Kiang West, Lower River
Region, November 3, 2001. trans. of interview available at the RDD collection in Fajara as Tape No.
5178.

83

Alkalo Tonyonding Darboe and Imam, “Sankandi-Battelling Land Dispute,” interview by NCAC staff,
tape recording, Sankandi, Kiang West, Lower River Region, November 3, 2001. trans. of interview
available at the RDD collection in Fajara as Tape No. 5162.

137

“Sankandi Have Done a Big Thing”
The Killing of Mansa Koto and Commissioner Cecil Sitwell

Popular memory of the Sankandi incident in the Gambia views the conﬂict as a
great resistance against attempts to establish British rule in the Gambia. Several
Gambians — even today - believe that such incidents were bold statements of anti-
colonial sentiment, such being the outlook of much of the world since the downfall of
colonial rule.84 But it is vital to note that oral data of the event, recorded a century after
the incident, likely consists largely of opinions of persons from the perspective of the
present on what happened in the past rather than, necessarily, what people in 1900 knew
of the event. Removal of modern biases shows that the conﬂict was more simply an
argument over land that incited emotions and got out of control. By the time that
Commissioner Cecil Sitwell led a party to solve the dispute; tempers already were at a
boiling point. Moreover, the prevailing climate—~which was no doubt volatile -
worsened tensions between neighboring villages that had longstanding problems——
perhaps something that villagers have very likely argued and fought over for much of
the history of mankind.

When the dispute intensiﬁed in 1899, Mansa Koto, assisted by his elders (namely
Tumani Messeng and Bakary Kumba Santang) summoned a meeting, which was held in
Sankandi. At that meeting, it was decided that the land belonged to J attaba. As

expected, the initial verdict was strongly rejected by Sankandi on the basis that the

 

For example, in one of the interviews in RDD about Sankandi an informant claims that “Sankandi and
Kembujeng were the only two villages where whites have been killed” and adds that Sankandi’s name
became Suuma Kunda because of the annoyance their ancestors had against the whites.”

138

mediators were not fair or honest in their arbitration.85 The elders of Sankandi continued
to insist that the land was theirs and that they were determined to “go to war” if it was
not restored to them.

Later that year, the dispute was referred to Sitwell to resolve. According to oral
traditions from Sankandi, when matters reached the commissioner he again gave his
judgment in favor of Jattaba.86 Some say, however, that during his ﬁrst judgment, the
commissioner had ruled that the disputed property should be used in rotation between
the two villages —meaning that Sankandi would use it for a year and pass it on to Jattaba
for use the following year. Again, Dari Bana Darboe, Sankandi’s Alkalo, and his close
associates declined to accept Sitwell’s proposal. In the end, the commissioner decided
to travel to Sankandi to deal with the problem. On this trip, he was accompanied by
Assistant Commissioner Silva, Mansa Koto, and six police constables. When they
arrived in Sankandi, they ordered the village elders to meet them at the outskirts of the
village to discuss the problem. This outraged the elders of Sankandi. For them, Mansa
Koto and the European commissioner did not accord them much respect because the
proper place to settle a problem was in a bantango or bantaba (i.e. the village meeting
ground) and not outside of the village.87 Hence, Dari Bana Darboe and his council
declined to meet the commissioner and his entourage. In the latter’s attempt to use force

against the deﬁant population of Sankandi, the commissioner, his assistant and the six

85 .

Alkalo Bunang Sanneh, “Sankandi-Battelling Land Dispute,” intervrew by NCAC staff, tape recording,
Jattaba, Kiang West, Lower River Region, November 3, 2001. trans. of interview available at the RDD
collection in Fajara as Tape No. 5177.

Annual Report for 1901 on Microﬁlm available at the Michigan State University Library.

For more on bentang, see Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa, p. 19

I39

police constables were murdered. Marisa Koto also sustained severe injuries and died
later.

Oral traditions from Sankandi claim that their elders were long prepared for a war.
They claim that well before Sitwell traveled to Sankandi, the elders had employed a
blacksmith, Bollo Jobe, who made available enough gunpowder in preparation for
conﬂict. With the gunpowder at hand, the Sankandi army was already lying in
ambush.88 Soon after the commissioners were murdered, Foday Kabba took the
advantage of the conﬂict. For their part, the British retaliated by launching punitive
action against Sankandi. The decision to send the expeditionary force was to revenge
the death of the commissioners and their guards. The force arrived in Kiang in January
1901 from Sierra Leone to “punish the towns implicated in the murder of the two
traveling commissioner and six constables in the previous year.”89 The force ﬁrst
invaded Dumbuto before heading to Sankandi.90 During the invasion of Sankandi, many
of the residents of the village abandoned it and sought refuge in Medina Suumakunda
where F odi Kabba had his capital at the time. But in an attempt to escape into French
Senegal, Dari Bana Darboe and two others from the village of Sankandi were caught by

the French and handed over to the British authorities. They were tried, sentenced to

 

88

Annual Report for 1901

89 lbid
0 , .

As for Sankandi and Dumbutu, an informant noted, they were closely related. “The Villages were
brothers: like an elder brother and his junior brother.” Others stated that “Dumbuto was a'father to
Sankandi.” This implies that the two villages were genealogically linked and in this way their histories
were connected. (Many families who lived in Sankandi may have migrated from Dumbuto either through
marriage or otherwise). Sankandi was originally called Bawdal. It had a minor lake where traders and
laborers used to wash and spenddays. Dumbunto’s Soninke name was Kehnokoto. Their elder (i.e. the
person who founded) the village of Dumbuto was a hunter. He often would sell meat to the laborers and
traders in that minor lake. According to the elders that is how the name of the village changed from
Bawdal to Sankandi.

140

police constables were murdered. Mansa Koto also sustained severe injuries and died
later.

Oral traditions from Sankandi claim that their elders were long prepared for a war.
They claim that well before Sitwell traveled to Sankandi, the elders had employed a
blacksmith, Bollo Jobe, who made available enough gunpowder in preparation for
conﬂict. With the gunpowder at hand, the Sankandi army was already lying in
ambush.88 Soon after the commissioners were murdered, F oday Kabba took the
advantage of the conﬂict. For their part, the British retaliated by launching punitive
action against Sankandi. The decision to send the expeditionary force was to revenge
the death of the commissioners and their guards. The force arrived in Kiang in January
1901 from Sierra Leone to “punish the towns implicated in the murder of the two
traveling commissioner and six constables in the previous year.”89 The force ﬁrst
invaded Dumbuto before heading to Sankandi.90 During the invasion of Sankandi, many
of the residents of the Village abandoned it and sought refuge in Medina Suumakunda
where F odi Kabba had his capital at the time. But in an attempt to escape into French
Senegal, Dari Bana Darboe and two others from the village of Sankandi were caught by

the French and handed over to the British authorities. They were tried, sentenced to

88

Annual Report for 1901

89 lbid
O . -

As for Sankandi and Dumbutu, an informant noted, they were closely related. “The Villages were
brothers: like an elder brother and his junior brother.” Others stated that “Dumbuto was a father to
Sankandi.” This implies that the two villages were genealogically linked and in this way their histories
were connected. (Many families who lived in Sankandi may have migrated from Dumbuto either through
marriage or otherwise). Sankandi was originally called Bawdal. It had a minor lake where traders and
laborers used to wash and spenddays. Dumbunto’s Soninke name was Kehnokoto. Their elder (i.e. the
person who founded) the village of Dumbuto was a hunter. He often would sell meat to the laborers and
traders in that minor lake. According to the elders that is how the name of the village changed from
Bawdal to Sankandi.

140

death, and executed. This marks the end of the nineteenth century jihads. As Gray
writes, the Sankandi incident was the last relic of the Soninke-Marabout wars.91
Conclusion

In sum, the outbreak of the Soninke-Marabout wars ushered in a climate that
enabled villages to ally themselves with different competing groups with the goal of
gaining control of vital agricultural land. Also, disgruntled people came together to end
aristocratic rule and put a stop to their economic exploitation. Thus, it is important to
note that many of those who participated in the holy wars did not do so purely because
of religious motives. For many of them, the reasons for their participation can be
understood from the social and political context that characterized the lives of the
majority of lower Gambia’s populations.

The consequences of the nineteenth-century Gambian j ihads are deep and
profound. They were characterized by competition between and among opposing
individuals, groups and peoples of different social and economic classes. In some
instances, they also represented a conﬂict between the old and the young, and peOples
of different religious beliefs. It was a period when the authority of the mansas and their
long-ruling lineages were challenged and in many cases destroyed. Despite attempts by
the English to save some of these lineages, conditions in these kingdoms were no longer
favorable because most of the kingdom’s residents did not support the mansas and their
continued existence. Muslim forces were determined to see the end of aristocratic rule
and the abuses associated with totalitarianism. Even ordinary people joined the ranks of

the jihads. The wars also brought about a widespread destruction of settlements and

91
Gray, A History of the Gambia, p. 473

I41

property along the banks of the Gambia as well as in some cases interrupted agricultural
activity. In one report, a European commentator noted the “. . . it has never been
possible in the past for natives living on the banks of the river to quietly follow
agricultural pursuits, for the country has been devastated and depopulated nearly up to
the very doors of Bathurst by slave hunters [referring to the Marabouts] marauders who
were attracted by the water—way.”92 Perhaps it was these devastations caused by the
religious wars that compelled John Morgan to exaggerate his statement by noting that
“Owing to the devastations of war in every kingdom, all things appeared to be in an
unsettled state. From their ancestors of more than two or three generations, neither
kings nor people seemed to have inherited anything. . . For hundreds of miles, a tree
planted by a native for ornament or utility was not to be seen . . . what is the use of
raising trees that grow too slowly to bear fruit in [ones] life time?.”93

While the destruction of settlements and property was one impact of the jihads in
the lower Gambia region, it was not the only result of the holy wars. The Soninke-
Marabout wars transformed the land tenure system. One of the impacts of the jihads
was the ending of royal control of land, which was the most important feature of land
tenure before the rise of militant Islam. In short, the jihads succeeded in dethroning the
Mandinka mansas whose lineages had monopolized and control access to land in the
Gambia for centuries. Exclusion of most people from land ownership and the political
and social privileges associated with its ownership contributed to the outbreak of the
jihads. In other words, a root cause of the holy wars of the nineteenth century was the

aristocracy’s loss of control over “strangers,” who rose against their rulers to end the

92
9 NRS, Banjul, ARP 35/2 Colonial Reports-Annual No. 143 Annual Report for 1894

Morgan, Reminiscences, p. 121

142

excessive taxation and exclusion from owning good land as well as the economic,
social, and political assets associated with landownership.94 This adds meaning to
previous interpretations that the Soninke-Marabout wars had been merely tensions
between Muslim agriculturalists and the old, warrior elites.95

The very nature of this fragile era brought individuals, families, and neighboring
villages into direct confrontation with one another.96 In fact, existing tensions and
jealousies among neighbors, families, and patrons contributed immensely to shaping the
nature of the Soninke-Marabout wars just as the jihads had also given rise to some of
those tensions. Uncles and brothers quarreled over matters of inheritance; landlords
faced rebellious strangers and as Quinn writes, even groups sharing land and pasturage
frequently found themselves divided between the opposing sides during the jihad,
irrespective of lineage connections.

Finally, reasons for the participation of most people in the religious wars of
nineteenth century cannot all be found in their religious motivations. Young men saw
the jihad as an opportunity to better their lot. Possessing a weapon during times of war
was empowering and was an evidence of authority. Once a person obtained a weapon
he could raid a community and loot from them. Other people held grievances against
the elites and hence saw the jihads as an opportunity to avenge or revenge their anger.

In addition, young men who were either prevented from inheriting their parents’

 

94 . . .
Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 53; Paul J Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a
Gambian Town,” p. 25

5
Klein “Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution in the Senegambia,” p. 426

War could affect people’s attitude towards property. During times of war, warriors appeared to make
a more careﬁil distinction between movable property (such as livestock, jewelry, stored grains, women
and slaves) and immovable property such as fruit trees, houses and farmlands. They often looted
granaries, stole livestock, money, jewelry, women and slaves. But since land cannot be moved or could
not be transacted, it was often used to compensate local collaborators.

I43

property or land or whose parents were still considered strangers joined the ranks of the
militant jihad. Thus, it is misleading to consider the jihads purely in their religious
context. As with nearly every other major event along the Gambia River prior to the

most recent times, land played a major role.

144

Chapter Four

Land and the Growth in Commercial Agriculture:
Peanuts and Change, c. 1830s to 1900s

The effects of the wars, described in the earlier chapter, on the expansion of
peanut cultivation were also considerable but somewhat paradoxical. As noted by
Kenneth Swindell and Alieu Jeng, the wars disrupted the peanut trade but increased the
potential labor supply that allowed lower Gambian farmers to grow peanuts as a cash
crop.1 In addition to the migrant labor phenomenon, overall the wars did not disrupt the
expansion of peanut production because they were “petty wars, waged on a small scale
with the aid of mercenaries from other [groups]. The numbers engaged were small . . ?2
and many of the destructive ones tended to occur during the dry season when it was
easier to move soldiers from village to village. Consequently, the jihads did not serve as
a hindrance to the growth of cash crops.

This chapter will examine the effects of cash cropping on land tenure. It shows
changes brought to ideas of property ownership as a result of expansion in peanut
production. It argues that while the growth of peanut production had far-reaching
consequences on lower Gambian society (such as demographic changes), it hardly
created well-developed rural credit (land) markets. It also demonstrates that the clearing
of new land, necessitated by the need to grow cash crops, was made possible by

religious specialists (namely marabouts) believed to have the ability to render “spirit”

lands useable.

 

 

] Kenneth Swindell and Alieu Jeng. Migrants, Credit and Climate: The Gambian Groundnut Trade,

1834-1934 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006), p. 28 .
2 Lady Southom, The Gambia: The Story of the Groundnut Colony (London, George Allen & Unwm Ltd,

1952), p. 167
145

However, as it will be shown, this chapter relies heavily on interviews and
documentary sources dealing with the north bank of the Gambia River. This
overwhelming bias can be attributed to the fact that the north bank region was the
principal peanut growing region for a long time and it is the region where peanut
production is believed to have started from. As for the south bank, the major economic
activity continued to be rice cultivation and the inﬂuence of marabouts on the area’s
sacred forests was minimal, especially in Foni, where conversion to Islam was slower.
This bias does not in any way diminish the importance of the changes described here
because similar transformations would soon take root in the south bank.

Cash Crops, Labor and Land Markets

Much of the literature explored in this chapter deals with the impact of cash crop
farming on other West African societies in general and the Gambia in particular. In the
Gambia, for instance, scholars have examined the impact of migrant farmers on
increases in peanut exports, the role of the colonial administration in its development
and how reliance on peanut production kept Gambian farmers dependent on outside
market forces.3 However, so far none have examined in detail how the transformation
from a relatively subsistence mode of production to a more commercialized agricultural

system affected land tenure systems, and overtime.

 

For studies on landlord-stranger relationships in the Gambia, see Kenneth Swindell. “Migrant
Groundnut Farmers in the Gambia: The Persistence of a Nineteenth Century Labor System” International
Migration Review, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Winter, 1977), pp. 452-472; Kenneth Swindell, “Family Farms and
Migrant Labour: The Strange Farmers of the Gambia” Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue
Canadienne des Etudes Africaines, Vol. 12, No. l (1978), pp. 3—l7; Kenneth Swindell. “Serawoollies,
Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers: The Development of Migrant Groundnut Farming along the Gambia
River, 1848-95” The Journal of African History, Vol. 21, No. l (1980), pp. 93-104. The work of Donald
R. Wright puts Gambians’ reliance on peanut production into a global context. See his The World and a
Very Small Place in Africa: A History of Globalization in Niumi, The Gambia (New York, ME. Sharpe,
2004)

146

Elsewhere, in West Africa, scholars have attributed the emergence of what
Gershon Feder and Raymond Noronha call “rural credit markets” (as they pertained to
land) to the growth cash crop production.4 For instance, Polly Hill found evidence of the
existence of rural land sales under Akim Abuakwa customary law in the Gold Coast.
She traces the practice of such sales to the period before or after the nominal abolition
of the Atlantic slave trade in 1807 and/or towards the middle of the nineteenth century
with the development of commercial agriculture, combined with the growth in
population.5 She claims that the “migration involved individual Akwapim, Krobo, Shai,
Ga and other Ghanaian farmers from south of the forest belt, in buying forest land,
which at the time of purchase, was hardly inhabited.”6 Focusing on another country
several hundred miles away, Eliane De Latour Dejean shows how, among the Mawri of
Niger, with the introduction of peanuts and cotton production (leading to a relative
shortage of land), land acquired an exchange value and a price.7 Money made from
peanuts and cotton, she claims, allowed those who could take advantage of such
production to appropriate land very rapidly. Sara Berry shows that with the increase of
agricultural production for the market in Ghana and Nigeria, struggles over land, labor,

and capital intensified as well as led to an upsurge in land values.8

 

4

For example, see Gershon F eder and Raymond Noronha. “Land Rights Systems and Agricultural
Development in Sub-Saharan Africa” The World Bank Research Observer, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Jul., 1987), pp.
143-144
5

lbid, p. 138
6

lbid, p. l

Eliane De Latour Dejean. “Shadows Nourished By the Sun: Rural Social Differentiation Among the
Mawri of Niger” in Peasants in Africa: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives , Vol. 4, edited by
griartin A. Klein (Beverly Hills and London: Sage Publications, 1980), p. 126

Sara Berry. No Condition is Permanent, p. [6. Like Berry and others, Michael Levin shows how the
development of commercial cocoa and coffee plantations in the Bakosi region of Cameroun created not

only smallholder farms but also “allowed the sale of the ‘fann.” Levin observed records 0f transactions —
including pledging farmlands — between baKosi and non-baKosi. The development of this “vernacular

147

While these developments may have occurred in the above-mentioned West
African societies, circumstances in the Gambia did not lead to the development of rural
credit (land) markets. In most Gambian villages, customs continued to forbid the buying
and selling of land. It is however important to note that people did not object to land
sales so much because of the abundance of land or because of the lack of desire on the
part of strangers to own land. There is evidence showing that a sizeable number of
individual strangers who wanted land that they can buy but “landlords” were more
willing to exploit the landlord-stranger practices which guaranteed them maximum
returns while enabling them to keep their land.

The Beginnings, 1830s-1890s

In the decades following the ending of the Atlantic slave trade, Euro-African
trade relationship shifted from trading in slaves to trade in “legitimate” goods. For
people living along the banks of the Gambia River, this shift meant relying more on
agriculture by producing cash crops to sell to Europeans. Throughout the sub region this
transformation required social, economic and political adaptation. But scholars believe
that, in the Gambia that adaptation and change were relatively smooth.9 In fact, the
lower Gambia basin is one of the first areas where commercial export agriculture took

root and peanuts provided one of the earliest commodities in the West African export

 

land market,” he claims, brought conﬂict because tenants often tried to increase the amount owed by
paying more until the sum became very difﬁcult to raise and in the end these transactions worked against
the marginal smallholders because it led to their losing land permanently. See Michael D. Levin “Export
Crops and Peasantization: The Bakosi of Cameroun” in Peasants in Africa: Historical and Contemporary
Perspectives , Vol. 4, edited by Martin A. Klein (Beverly Hills and London: Sage Publications, 1980), p.
333 and p. 234

Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, Credit and Climate, p. 4

148

trade and this was a commercial transformation that preceded the “colonial conquest
and one which was extended under colonial rule. 10

Just within decades after the banning of the slave trade in 1807, cultivation of
peanuts on a commercial scale began spreading between 1834 and 1851.ll The original
encouragement for the cultivation of peanut came from the [British] who in 1838
received a number of Liberated Africans and gave them an area of land on which to
cultivate the nuts.12 This effort was aided by the Wesleyan Mission which started a
“groundnut scheme” on their model farm at MacCarthy Island in 1823.13 Few decades
after these initiatives were taken Gambians started producing peanuts in large,
commercial scale. In short, peOple living along the banks of the Gambia responded
positively to these efforts by clearing more land for the purposes of growing peanuts.
Historian George Brooks points to evidence showing that prior to the 18305 peanut
cultivation along the Upper Guinea Coast, of which the Gambia was a part, was of

negligible importance. In the year 1834, however, 213 baskets of peanuts left the

 

10
Ibid, p. xvii

George E. Brooks “Peanuts and Colonialism: Consequences of the Commercialization of Peanuts in
West Africa, 1830-70” The Journal of African History, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1975), p. 32; NRS, PUB 11/ 17
Report of a Socio-Economic Survey of Bathurst and Kombo St. Mary in the Gambia, February 9 1956, p.
121. Although this report was written in the 19505, its statements about the 18205 were quoted from
earlier documentary sources contemporaneous to the 18205.

'2 Southom, The Gambia: The Story of the Groundnut Colony, p. 184. As early as 1824, the British
Commander, Sergeant George Rendall, wrote that “one or two hundred Liberated Africans might be
placed under the care of a superintendant (who would be also the Government agent or commandant) at
each of the proposed settlements where they would have an opportunity of cultivating the land to such
advantage as shortly to relieve government from the expense of their support.” (For more on this, see
CSO 1/2 November 1 1824. [The Liberated Africans were called different names. While some referred to
them as Liberated Africans, others called them Recaptives. They comprised the enslaved Africans that
were freed after the British naval boats that were patrolling the West African coastline caught vessels that
were illegally trading slaves after Britain abolished the nefarious trade in 1807].

In 1833 a grant of six hundred acres of land in MacCarthy Island was made by the British to the
Wesleyan missionary society. This land was taken possession of in 1836. In that Rev. F ox employed
between thirty to forty Liberated Africans in cultivating and clearing the land. For more see the
Parliamentary Papers Reports on the West Coast of Africa. February 3 to August 12 1842, p. 186; CO
87/24, Huntley to Russell, April 22 1840

149

Gambia for Great Britain, but by the 18503 Gambians were exporting, on average, over
10,000 tons of peanuts a year. By the end of the century, this fr gure rose to about 30,000
tons a year. M

Peanut production had become tremendously successful that by the late nineteenth
century EurOpean observers frequently noted that “the introduction of a cash trade
[fueled by the cultivation of peanuts]. . . . in the protectorate, is bearing fruit. It has
encouraged the people in the protectorate to plant, and it has attracted people into the
protectorate ﬁom elsewhere.”15 For example, as late as 1903, a European observer
could write that “the ground nut crop [was] the natives’ only source of revenue”‘6

Niumi, Baddibu and Saloum were the earliest areas of peanut cultivation. North
bank chiefs were using their slaves and other dependents to produce peanuts as early as
the 18403 and 18503.17 For example, wealthy individuals and elites seized advantage of
the competitive market for peanuts to establish big farms. One of these individuals was
the Wolof chief of Sabach—Sanjal, Gumbo Gaye. Oral sources indicate that Gaye had
“big” farms scattered in different locations. According to my sources, he had a farm in

Numukunda, Kaboji, Paalen, Kumbija and Dibba Kunda.l8 The marabout are the other

group of people that exploited the growth of cash crops. As Charlotte Quinn notes, the

 

M Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, pp. 140— 141

15 ARP 35/2 Colonial Reports-No. 229 (Annual Report for 1897)

I6 ARP 28/2 Traveling Commissioner’s Report on the South Bank Province, 1903-1927

17 Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, Credit and Climate, p. 9

l8 Alhagie Fafa Jobe, interview by author assisted by Abdoulie Jafuneh, tape recording, Kumbija village,
North Bank Region, December 14 2008

150

wealthiest man in Baddibu by the middle of the nineteenth century was J atta Jagne, a
marabout.19
In fact, the ﬁrst peanut farmers were able clear forest because they were
members of prominent families that controlled large areas of land. They also had access
to labor and many of them consulted marabouts who “healed” the evil forest so that the
land can be use. While this was going on, more strangers arriving from areas that are
now part of the modern states of Guinea Bissau, Senegal and Mali began settling in the
Gambia in large numbers to take advantage of the expanding production and trade in
peanuts.

However, this initial development of peanut farming was limited in the south
bank region; Foni was principally a rice and “corn” growing area.20 But Kiang and Jarra
were also important peanut growing regions. For example, in describing the village of
Japenni, located on the south bank of the Gambia in the kingdom of Jarra, French
traveler Hyacinte Hecquard noted in the 18503 that Japenni was a strong village whose
inhabitants grew “rice, millet, and groundnuts, of which the inhabitants harvest a great

quantity, Which they sell to the English.”2|

Changes to Land Tenure:
Land and Types of Labor Regimes

In the past, in virtually all Gambian villages, agricultural production was
organized around the extended family. The Mandinka called these units dabadas. A

dabada is a farming household, in which those living and eating together pool their

19
Charlotte A Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia: Traditionalism, Islam, and European
Expansion (Evanston [111.] Northwestern University Press, 1972), p. 65

lbid; NRS, CSO 2/94, Laws and Customs of the Jolah, 1906

21
Hyacinte Hecquard, Voyage sur la C ole et dans I ’interieur de l ’Afrique Occidentale, 1885, p. 151',
David Gamble, The South Bank of the Gambia, p. 78

151

labor and other resources together. Members of the same dabada undertook the clearing
of farmlands and any other farming activity together. A compound may contain one or
more dabadas.22 But because the dabada was part of the kabilo, ultimate authority was
in the hands of the kabilo head. The kabilotiyo often controlled a sizeable labor force;
comprising of daughters, wives, sons, grandchildren and slaves.23 The use of slave and
family labor was one of the means that allowed extended families to expand their
agricultural activities.24

Typically, slaves worked for their masters ﬁve days in the week and according
to one report “the remainder of the time he worked for himself.”25 The slave, like other
dependents in the family, was also given a plot of land to cultivate on. With this land,
the report further noted, “he often manages to save a little money. . . They are treated

well on the whole but I am told that the women are worked very hard.”26 But in general

 

22 . . .

Alkalo Dawda Sowe, interview by author, tape recording, Bafuloto Village, North Bank Region, July
23 2006; Musa Konateh, interview by author, tape recording, Bafuloto village, North Bank Region, July
23 2006; Swindell, “Family Farms and Migrant Labour,” p. 4.

23 The use of slave labor did not ceased with the termination of the slave trade in 1807 by Great Britain.
In fact, the transition to “legitimate” trade, which in the Senegambia meant the commercialization of
peanut cultivation made slave labor (and other forms of family labor) even more economically desirable.
In 1893, Commissioner Ozanne could write that “In the whole of my district every headman has one or
more slaves who he feeds but does not cloth . . . The report further noted that “at Kaur where there are
more old people than elsewhere they expressed their thanks to your Excellency for not depriving them of
their servants in their old age.” The British feared that stopping the slave trade would “upset all the good
results likely to be derived by a British protectorate.”[NRS, Banjul, ARP 32 [Vol. 1 North Bank 1893-
1898) Travelling Commissioner Reports-North Bank 1893-1932 (60); .Alice Bellagamba “Slavery and
Emancipation in the Colonial Archives,” pp. 6, 541; Martin A. Klein, “Social and Economic Factors in
the Muslim Revolution in the Senegambia” Journal of African History, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1972), p. 434.]

John Morgan, Reminiscences of the Founding of a Christian Mission on the Gambia. (London:
Wesleyan Mission House, 1864), p. 3; ARP 32 [Vol. 1 North Bank 1893-1898) Travelling Commissioner
Reports-North Bank 1893-1932 (60)

Bellagamba, “Slavery and Emancipation in the Colonial Archives,” pp. 15-16; ARP 32 [Vol. I North
1236ank 1893-1898) Travelling Commissioner Reports-North Bank 1893-1932 (60)

In most cases, however, the slaves failed to win their freedom, at least in the short-term, and kept

working in their “own” and their masters’ fields. For instance, Ozanne noted this by noting that slaves
rarely had the opportunity of running away. As one report states, “all the Alcaide are interested in
stopping them (i.e. the slaves) and returning them to their owners.” [ARP 32 [Vol. 1 North Bank 1893-

152

the labor that most slaves performed was not any different from what other members of
the household did. Unmarried women and adult males offered ﬁve days of the week in
the compound elder’s farm. They even worked side by side with slaves belonging to
their families.

While some of the sources exaggerate this, it clear that the fabric of the extended
family (as well as the servile institution) was increasingly shaken especially at the turn
of the twentieth century.27 Clearly, the growth of cash crop farming had accelerated a
process whereby members of the same extended family breaks off into smaller units.28
This process is generally described by anthropologists as landﬁagmentation —i.e. the
breaking up or shrinking of single plots, either through expropriation or inheritance by
multiple heirs.29 It also refers to a development whereby kabilo farms were broken up
into smaller household units each having its own farmlands.

Just as slaves were asserting their freedom, ambitious young men were
increasingly moving out of their father’s compound to establish their own (which in
Mandinka is commonly referred to as banjonko). Some even hive off and relocate to
other villages, where they became strange farmers. In describing the migrant farmers,

Ozanne wrote that “[Some of these men] leave their father’s yards, and go to another

 

1898) Travelling Commissioner Reports-North Bank 1893-1932 (60); Bellagamba, “Slavery and
Emancipation in the Colonial Archives,” p. 21]

Bakary Sidebe, interview by author, tape recording, Churchill Town, Serrekunda, August 5 2008.

But it is important to note that even though the servile institution was weakening, in many
communities the distinctions between (former) slaves and the descendants of their ancient masters
continued to remain important in determining access to land in many of these communities. In some
villages, such as Kerewan and Saba the former slave-owning families, who claimed ownership of the land
tried to prevent ex-slaves and their descendants access to the land. Sheriff Jobarteh interview, Baddibu,

2Banni Village
R. E. Downs and S. P. Reyna (ed.) Land and Society in Contemporary Ajrica (Hanover and London,
University Press of New England, 1988), p. 14

153

town, where they work on the same system as the other strangers.”30 Also, in one of
Commissioner Sitwell's reports he stated that among the major reasons why people were
pursuing the migrant farming option was to avoid having to support relatives, to save
more easily by being away from home, and to pay bride-wealth or to clear debt on

return home.3 1 Even some fugitive slaves began using the sorts of agreement that

strange farmers were using in order to begin a new life as free people. 32

One of the consequences of this process of hiving off was the acceleration of a

process that can be referred to as land fragmentation. In fact, documentary sources

based on oral traditions collected by a colonial ofﬁcial in the late 19305 and early 19405

states that

As a result of the undue attention to the cultivation of groundnuts at the
expense of the koos farms, it is common for the members of [an extended
family] to be split up into several groups, each group making its own coos
farm. When this happens each group gets the use of what land it requires,
every year, from the ‘yard owner’ or ( if there is insufﬁcient land, from the
owner of some other “yard” in order to plant koos and grow the groundnuts of
its individual members. . . [In addition] if the group breaks up and the members
scatter, the [ownership] of such land is shared amongst the members. If the
members all leave the village the [ownership] of such land reverts to the yard
to which the group belonged, though any member of the group or his family or
descendants, if they return to the village, have the right to resume exclusive use

of such land.”
But this process of [and fragmentation or the gradual weakening of elders’ control
of family and slave labor due to the “disintegration” of extended families into smaller

units did not hinder levels of agricultural productivity. In fact, lineage heads were

 

30
3' Travelling Commissioner Reports-North Bank 1893-1932 (60) ARP 32 [ V 01. I North Bank 1893-I898)
Governor R. B. Llewellyn to Secretary of State for Colonies, CO 87, no. 64 of June 16 I894,

Eznclosure no. 2. Also cited in Swindell, p. 99
Alice Bellagamba, “Slavery and Emancipation in the Colonial Archives,” p. 18

33
CRN 1/10 Commissioner’s Ofﬁce South Bank, April 30 1940
154

presented with another source of labor: migrant labor. With the nominal suppression of
the Atlantic slave trade and the growth of peanut production, more migrant farmers
began to arrive in the Gambia in search of land. Lower Gambians responded positively.
Therefore, it is important to note that control of labor ~whether it was the labor offered
by male members of an extended family or the labor offered by migrant farmers -—were
means of land accumulation.34 Individuals and families with access to land can and
often used the labor available to them to clear new land.
The Strange Farmers: Labor and Migration

Migrant farmers are described in the literature as seasonal migrants and also as
strange farmers. Locally, they are called different names (e. g. surgas, nawetans etc.).
George Brooks cites the ﬁrst recorded account of this practice, in the govemor’s annual
report for 1848, which shows that the practice was already well-established-less than a
dozen years after large- scale commercialization of nuts had commenced. This report

noted that

The Sera—Woll‘ies and Telli-Bunkas frequently coming from distances of not
less than 500 or 600 miles in the interior, and on paying a small custom to the
chief of the country in which they settle, are permitted to cultivate the ground
under his protection for one or more years, according to their agreement, and to

sell the produce to the European merchant or his trader. The greater pro-
portion of the groundnuts exported is raised in this manner. .. 5

Also, Ken Swindell writes that the ﬁrst speciﬁc reference to peanuts being cultivated

by long-distance migrants is captured in the Annual Report of Governor MacDonnell

 

:: Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, Credit and Climate, p. 84 ,
Cited in Brook’s “Peanuts and Colonialism,” p. 43 and quoted by Colin W. Newbury, 'Prices and
Proﬁtability in Early Nineteenth-Century West African Trade', in Claude Meillassoux, ed., The
Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (London, Oxford University Press for the
lntemational African Institute, 1971), p. 96. Newbury cites Bertrand-Bocande (1856), who observed that
the seasonal migrations in the Casamance were conducted by individuals who had formerly traded to the
coast with wax, ivory, and slaves. lbid. 96-7 [It might be good to add in this note that “Tillibunka” in
Mandinka means “people from the east,” or, more literally, “people from the land where the sun rises.”

155

dated1848. According to MacDonnell, these migrants, were young men drawn toward
the river, where a stay of two or three years cultivating peanuts would enable them to
acquire imported goods which could be taken back to their homes some distance inland.
These long— distance, periodic movements were also matched by seasonal localized
movements of young men working in the peanut sector as clerks and porters.36 In a later
report for 1860, Governor D'Arcy also refers to the Serahules (whom he described as a
nomadic “tribe” of Mohammedan farmers from Senegambia) as being the principal
cultivators of groundnuts along the borders of the river. He mentioned that these
Tillibunkas and Serahules often employed the services of their women, children,
servants and domestic slaves to cultivate their peanut farms. According to D’Arcy, they
were also involved in general trading within Senegambia, which included making
speculative purchases of cattle up-river and then driving them into the market at
Bathurst. Other migrants from the interior combined farming with hiring themselves out
as mercenaries to the several warring factions in Senegambia.37 Swindell further notes
that the presence of traders and migrant farmers from the interior is also described in a
mid-nineteenth-century report on the state of the French factories and forts in the
Casamance. He writes that in this report Bertrand-Bocande provided an interesting gloss
on the development of legitimate commerce, and observed that the ending of the trade
in slaves provided an incentive for former slavers to develop new forms of enterprise,
which they found in the cultivation of peanuts. Bocande commented on the inhabitants

from the interior entering into the peanut trade, and on the “caravans de travailleurs”

36
37 Swindell “Serawoollies, Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers,” p. 94
lbid, pp. 94-5
156

who came into the Casamance in the rainy season to cultivate peanuts on the land

around the European trading posts.3'8

Other sources suggest that many of these migrant farmers were coming from
within the banks of the Gambia River: Saloum, Kiang, and F ulladu. 3 9 However,
several others came from Pakau, Senegal, Mali and Guinea. Many of these strangers
settled on small agricultural villages but several of them also stayed in major towns
scattered along the banks of the Gambia River. Commissioner J. H. Ozanne, for
example, found that strange farmers were particularly active in and around the wharf
towns. He suggests that these migrant farmers cultivated peanuts only and chose towns
that were near a wharf.40 Many of them lived in Katchang, Kaur, F arafenni, Balinghar
and Nianimaru. The border villages of Nokunda and N’Gen Sanjal also had few
strangers.“ Lastly, in November 1892 a family of thirty crossed over and was provided

land at Bantang Killing. In one [part of the North Bank] there were 974 farmers, 217

of these rent farms in N’ gari’s land.”42

These migrants comprised of a diverse group —comprising of F ula, Wolof,
Masuwanka, and speakers of various Mande dialects. For instance, in one report, the
traveling commissioner for the south bank province noted in 1893, “With reference to
land and settlement I am pleased to be able to report that the Kabbada people have
begun to come over the boundary and that l have given land to the Wongoro people for

their town between Januba and Lau Batori, they have already begun to clear the land. I

38
3 Ibid, p. 95
9
ARP 32 [VOL 1 North Bank 1893-1898) Travelling Commissioner Reports-North Bank 1893-1932

(60)
40
ARP 32 [Vol. I North Bank 1893-1898) Travelling Commissioner Reports-North Bank (60)

41 ,
Swmdell, “Serawoollies, Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers,” p. 99

42
ARP 35/2 Colonial Reports-No. 229 (Annual Report for 1897)
157

estimate their population from twelve to fourteen hundred and I suspect before long to
have remaining towns over-I have an application from . . . to be allowed to move from
Kanjuranta to build his town near .1 arro[1] for two seasons.” 43
Normally, strangers arrived in the region without money and left their families
behind. The documentary sources suggest that these migrants generally preferred to
return home even though most village elders wanted them to stay. However, there is
much oral evidence that hint that many of them settled as “strangers” and were allocated
land. I collected several oral sources that explain how strangers who came to the
Gambia initially as surgas (i.e. migrant farmers), settled down, and many of them
marrying local women. By doing so, they acquired land from their host families and
bore children that became members of the community. In theory, these migrants
became landlords because by marrying into their host’s family they were given
farmlands to “feed on.”44 Even one report states how in Eliassa, in 1893, a stranger
called Lamin wanted to settle in the village. According to this report, Lamin “had been
2 years in the bolong and intended bringing over his father and mother and settling
down at Eliassa.”45
For people like Lamin, settling involved looking for a good landlord who would

take them in hand, give them land to grow cash crops, feed them. 46 Typically, this

landlord held himself responsible for his stranger’s good behavior. Moreover, as part of

 

43
ARP 28/1- Travelling Commissioner’s Report-South Bank 1893-1899

44 . -

Musa Konateh, interview by author, tape recording, Baffuloto Village, North Bank Region, July 23
2006; Haddy Mboob, interview by author, not recorded in audio, Bantang Kiling, Upper Niumi, July 23,
2006.

45 . . .
ARP 32 [Vol. I North Bank 1893-1898) Travelling Commrssroner Reports-North Bank (60)

6 . . . . .
Ba Saney BOJang, rntervrew by author assrsted by Ensa Touray, tape recording, Bakau Sama Kunda,
May 26 2008 and Imam Saika Jobe, interview by author, tape recording, Sanchi Paalen, North Bank
Region, June 1 2008.

158

custom, the landlord “supplies the stranger with a farm to work, seed if he has none, and
food and receives from the strange farmer two days work per week and one dollar out of
every ten that the stranger gets for his cropsf”7 In other words, a farmer took in a
migrant who agreed to work for him for two or three days per week. On the remaining
days the stranger would cultivate his own peanuts on a plot of land provided by the
host. During his stay, he was loaned tools and given food and lodging within the family
compound.48
Cooperation between strange-farmers’ and their hosts was, therefore, always
necessary because of the power landlords had in providing access to land remained
strong.49 Hence, relationship between the landlord and the stranger was more than a
simple economic agreement. It was on a person-to-person basis. Among most West
African groups prospective tenants were to be accepted only if they were “well-
mannered,” not “ungrateful,” “honest” and “likeable.” Compatibility was, therefore,
important since in some instances the tenant’s household will become virtually a part of
his landlord’s household. While the stranger had obligations to his landlord, the latter
too had obligations towards the former. He was often regarded as a “father-ﬁgure,”
which means that an unmarried tenant frequently looked to his landlord for help in
amassing the bride-wealth necessary for marriage, for advice, and for mediation in the

event of a dispute. Should the tenant need material assistance (e. g. food and seeds) in a

 

47
Musa Konateh, interview by author, tape recording, Bafuloto Upper Niumi, July 23 2006.

48 Governor R. B. Llewellyn to Secretary of State for Colonies, CO 87, no. 64 of June 16 1894,
Enclosure no. 2. Also cited in Swindell, “Migrant Groundnut Farmers in the Gambia,” pp. 452-472;
Swindell, “Family Farms and Migrant Labour,” pp. 3-17; Swindell, “Serawoollies, Tillibunkas and
Strange Farmers,” pp. 93-104

Swindell, “Migrant Groundnut Farmers in the Gambia,” pp. 452-472; Swindell, “Family Farms and
Migrant Labour,” pp. 3-17; Swindell, “Serawoollies, Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers,” pp. 93-104

159

bad year, he could ask his landlord for help. This was like a contract because should any
party to the agreement die, his successor, as family head, must renew the arrangement.
Yet, this type of landlord-stranger relationship ensured that the stranger worked
for his landlord and paid him ten percent of his produce. For instance, in one of Sitwell's
reports for 1893, where he explained to Governor Llewellyn what he had learned of the
Strange Farmer system, he observed that generally hosts would give a stranger as much
land as he required, in return for which the host took ten percent of the stranger's crop at

‘66

the end of the season.50 Another report noted that even in J ola communities, a strange’
farmer pays his landlord something, but it is not a recognized thing like the “laginar” of
the Mandingoes.”5 ' This is a major change in local systems of land tenure. Unlike
before, this form of arrangement enabled household heads —not just the Alkalos and
chiefs -to charge “rent” to other people using their land. In fact, one report, noted that
this is “the only way in which land is leased.”52 But even though landlords often
collected “rents” from their dependents, for fear of losing their control of land, these
landlords refused to sell their land to stranger-groups desiring to settle permanently.53
This, however, did not bother many migrant-farmers because the arrangements they
made oﬁen worked for them as well.
When the British ﬁnally took over the administration of the Gambia in the

18905, they also introduced a local tax which strange farmers had to pay. Because of

this, colonial ofﬁcials, like Sitwell, the Commissioner for the South Bank, worked hard

 

50 .
Governor R. B. Llewellyn to Secretary of State for Colonies, CO 87, no. 64 of 16 June 1894,
Enclosure no. 2.

51
NRS, CSO 2/94-The Laws and Customs of the Jolah, 1906 [South Bank Province]
52 .
NRS, CSO 2/94-The Laws and Customs of the Mandingoes of the North Bank, 1906.
53 . . . .
NRS, CSO 2/94-T he Laws and Customs of the Various Communities rn West Africa, 1906

160

to encourage “strange farmers to settle in his district.54 Strange farms were now required
to pay rents to the government. For example, in 1894 alone, only £130 had been
collected in kind from Strange Farmer rents, half of which was returned to the Alkalos,
and nothing had been collected from the indigenous farmers.55

Similarly, in 1894 Governor Llewellyn proposed a hut (yard) tax. This was
formalized in an Ordinance passed in 1895 whereby owners of yards with up to ﬁve
adults who were over sixteen years were to pay four shillings per annum, which
included the right to cultivate a farm. Additional adults who were members of the
family were to be charged at one shilling each. The strange farmers were also brought
within the Ordinance and had to pay two shillings each to the government, not to the
Alkalos, though their food and lodging was to be a separate and private agreement with
their hosts. These taxes were to be collected by the Alkalos and handed on to the
commissioners, who at their discretion could return up to half the amount.

The Alkalos continued to perform their customary duties, which includes
settling disputes, collecting ﬁnes and keeping a small tax from strangers leasing “village
lands.” But they continued to perform these duties by consulting with Kabilo heads. As
one report notes, “if any stranger wished to settle there, the headmen [i.e. Alkalos] held
a consultation [with kabilo elders] as to the quantity of land that can be spared.”56

Another similar report also noted that if a stranger desired to settle in his host

 

54
Governor R. B. Llewellyn to Secretary of State for the Colonies, CO 87, no. 49 of 1 July 1893,
Enclosure no. I. Also cited in Swindell, p. 99

56 Governor R. B. Llewellyn to Secretary of State for the Colonies, CO 87, no. 64 of 16 June 1894.
ARP 28/1- Traveling Commissioner’s Report-South Bank 1893-1899

161

settlement, “the people in [the] town held a meeting . . . and decide what quantity of the
outlying land can be handed over to them.”57

Just as individuals were involved in these sorts of migrations, the movements
sometimes involved families and entire villages. Some families often found relocating
to another town or area more advantageous than remaining in their hometowns. Another
reason is that peanut growers wanted not only good land, but land where access to the
river (for transporting peanuts to market) was easier, and once they got that land, they
wanted to reserve it for their offspring.

In the late nineteenth century the Fatty family left the village of Katchang, in
Baddibu, to settle on a land located along the Suara Greek. Under its leader, a man
named Fatty, the family founded the town of Kerewan. 58 But this family did not give up
its ownership of the land in Katchang. It left the land under the custodianship the Alkalo
of Katchang to rent out as he liked.59 But according to local customs, the Fatty family

had rights to lay claims on that land and it will be returned.60 Commissioner Ozanne

acknowledged it was not uncommon for a land-owning family to move to another place.

 

57
ARP 35/2 Colonial Reports-No. 229 (Annual Report for 1897)

58
Travelling Commissioner Reports-North Bank 1893-1932 (60) ARP 32 [Vol. 1 North Bank 1893-
1898)

But the Alkalo and elders of Kerewan were always called in when a new Alkalo had to be appointed in
Katchang and in order to entrust “the new Alcaide or another man was appointed to let the Fati lands.”
When Ozanne appointed the new Alkalo and left the town of Katchang, the Kerewan Alkalo sent his
gaessenger to approve the appointment and gave the new Alkalo charge of the F ati lands.

However, a dispute occurred because the Alkalo of Katchang gave a piece of these lands to his brother
who had cleared it, and got it ready for planting and refused to return it to its legitimate owners. In the
end the commissioner decided not to divide up the F ati lands. lbid. In 1893, the commissioner reported
another dispute involving land in the village of Suwareh Kunda. In his report, he states that the Alkalo of
Suwarehkunda had sent one of his wives to work a farm belonging to Tendito. [Tendito was a village in
Baddibu that no longer exists]. The woman was subsequently expelled out of the land. NRS ARP 28/1
Traveling Commissioner’s Report South Bank Vol. 11 1893-98. In fact, according to the report, this
dispute started when the people of Suwareh Kunda were claiming to get back some of the rice ﬁelds at
Tendito which belonged to their ancestors and was taken away from them during the war with Biram
Ceesay, a warrior in the North Bank.

162

Around the same time entire families were also relocating to areas closer to the river or
to major roads so as to have easy access to areas where they could market their peanuts.
Many families moved to towns like “Bambali, Tamtenda, and Kunjata [because these
locations had] wharfs [supporting other towns in the] peninsula . . . [towns such as]
Kumbija and Sarrakunda.”6|
In order to take advantage of proximity to the river and/or the roads, sometimes
a whole village could move. In other instances, as Charlotte Quinn notes, bigger
villages tended to hive off, forming separate communities, often at a considerable
distance from the parent settlement because of bitter rivalries over succession of
leadership or because of the need for more land.62 For instance, in the north bank, as
Commissioner Ozanne observed in the 18905, that “The Alcaide, Almani and nearly all
the people have left Panchang and made a new town (Makka or New Panchang), not far
from the wharf,” writes the travelling commissioner. “Altogether the New Panchang is a
decided improvement on the old one, and the people seem happy and content. The
traders at the wharf were doing a good business in the French protectorate having come
to trade with the chief in charge, who allowed them to trade with Parti and the
neighboring towns.”63
In short, in the lower Gambia region, people responded to the global market for
peanuts to the extent that by the late nineteenth century Commissioner Ozanne could

write that “the introduction of a cash trade, instead of barter, in the protectorate, is

bearing fruit. It has encouraged the people in the protectorate to plant, and it has

 

6
' Ibid
62 , .
63 Qurnn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p.24.
NRS, ARP 32 [V0]. 1 North Bank 1893-1898) Travelling Commissioner Reports-North Bank (60)

163

”64 However, it is important to

attracted people into the protectorate from elsewhere.
note that this development coincided with more intense islamization in the region. As
Quinn writes, the numbers of the strangers who flooded into the Gambia states, and who
raised over a third of the groundnut crop along the river were fervent Muslims from the
Senegal River valley."5
Now with more sources of labor available to the Alkalos and lineage heads —
who had control over extensive acres of land ~more land was brought under
cultivation. This implies that “new” and “dangerous” lands were cleared and rights over
its ownership established by individuals or families that were thought to have drove the
spirits out from these lands.66 Consequently, the success cannot be attributed to the
desire of material beneﬁts alone. Even if material desires pushed several ambitious
people to clear more land and attracted more dependents, the process of clearing more
forest was done by strictly respecting spiritual guidelines.
Conquering of the Evil Forest: Belief in Spiritual Power
Certainly, lower Gambian landlords were able to host the thousands of migrant
farmers settling into their villages and growing peanuts in large quantities largely
because of the existence of a class of people believed to have the ability to “conquer”
spirit lands. This made it possible for powerful families and communities to clear more
forests and use it the land for agricultural purposes. In the mid-nineteenth century

marabouts performed this role. Through their maraboutic works (spiritual undertakings

 

64 . . .
NRS, Banjul, ARP 32 [Vol. 1 North Bank 1893-1898) Traveling Commrssroner Reports- 1893-1932
£60)

5 . .
Qulnn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 65
66 . . . ,
Con ﬁdentral Dispatch from Governor of Sierra Leone, Douglas Jardrne, to the Secretary of State for
Colonies, April 1940

164

to heal the land) many communities were now able to exploit previously uncultivated
forests. These Muslim leaders came into the region increasingly in the late nineteenth
century and made Islam the dominant faith and practice in the Gambia basin. They
attracted a major source of labor which helped to boost the production of peanuts -—
which is the labor offered by Quranic students. There are several examples of how these
played out on both sides of the banks of the Gambia.

In the Gambia before 1860, the possibilities of residential Quranic study was
limited. As Swindell and J eng notes, there were only a few pockets of Islamic teaching
to which students were attracted. However, there were ﬂourishing areas of Islamic
teaching across the north bank especially in Niumi and Baddibu.67 Not surprisingly,
peanut cultivation ﬁrst took off in these areas. But evidence from the northern bank of
the lower Gambia shows that the availability of new land cleared or “conquered” by the
actions of marabouts facilitated the expansion of peanut production. According to local
beliefs, this development was made possible by the lead that several of the lower
Gambian marabouts took by “conquering” the spirit lands which were believed to have
been inhabited by spirits. They either led the settlement into these areas or gave
permission and spiritual protection to individuals that they authorized to clear such
lands.

As mentioned earlier both Muslims and non-Muslims believed in spirits and the
ability of hunters and marabout to be in charge of them. Like hunters, marabouts were

associated with possessing knowledge that gives them to inﬂuence or control portions

_*

67
Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, Credit and Climate, p. 55
165

of the spiritual world.68 As religious specialists, they prepared amulets for people and
individuals and advised people - elites as well as non-elite groups -— which lands to
annex or settle on. For example, oral traditions indicate that when mansa Demba Koto
of Niumi wanted to settle on J inak Barra (an island near the Atlantic coast), before the
nineteenth century, he had acted along with his marabout’s advise.69 In addition,
marabouts like Sanyang Bafuloto Saidy who settled in Gunjur sometime in the late
nineteenth century also extended their services to strangers and common people.
Furthermore, people believed that he was able to identify a jinne (in Wolof, J inno in
Mandinka) even if it appears in a human form. Oral traditions claim that when the “jinn
elders in Gunjur” sent two of their members to conﬁrm whether Saidy was a “great
marabout” he was able to spot them out with relative ease.70 Also, elders claim that the
village of Sanchi Pallen in Gambia’s Saloum district was founded by a Wolof man from
Kajoor named Ebrima F aal. According to one informant, “The village of Pallenba was
recommended by a marabout to Ebrima Faal when the place was a big jungle?“
In other instances, marabouts looking for land where they could settle were
allocated some of these “not-so-ideal” locations. This is because to take a noted
marabout to a known jinn habitation and to tell him that this was the only available
place where he could live, would seem to be as good a way as any to get rid of him,

since his host probably thought the marabout would refuse to live there after he found

 

68 ,
69 Qurnn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 55

Unus Jatta, interview by Donald R. Wright, Berending, September 7, 1974. In Interview in Wright’s
“Oral traditions From the Gambia” Vol. 1, p. 38

0
Alhagie Bai Conteh, “History of Sanyang Bafuloto Saidy,” interview by NCAC staff, tape recording,
Brikama Kombo Central, October, 25, 1976. trans. available at the RDD collection in Fajara asTape
Catalogue # 621.
Pa Modou Faal, interview by author assisted by Abdoulie Jafuneh, tape recording, Sanchi Pallen,
North Bank Region, December 14 2008.

166

out what it was. Marabouts were dangerous people to offend by outright refusal.
Consequently, as it occurred in Saba, the people went through the forms of hospitality
and offered what he had requested: a place to live. If he chose not to live there that was
his own affair. Unfortunately for them, Jane Kinteh was a very able marabout and was
therefore able to clear the area of dangerous inhabitants and to build a town where he
lived peacefully.

In the 19705, an informant, Seedia Darboe, narrated to Donald Wright the
history of the Darboe clan came to settle in the Gambia region. In that interview Seedia
claimed that had moved to the Gambia basin after establishing the settlements of Pakao
and Tendindi in Kaabu. When they arrived they established the villages of Dobo, near
Bansang in Central River Region, Dumbutu, in Kiang, and Dasilarni, in Jarra. The
informant further claimed that his ancestors came to the Gambia because they wanted
land where they could settle, farm and trade. The decisions of where they settled along
the Gambia’s River banks are, however, attributed to some mythical events in the past.
For example, the Darboe claim that when their elder came to the Gambia region it was
an animal (or a mystical ﬁgure) that helped him determine where he would settle. 72

Oral traditions indicate how the village of Bambally moved from its previous
location to where it is presently standing because “the place became very hot. Many
people were dying and frequent ﬁre disasters occurring almost every seven years. It was
during the leadership of Kebba Momodou, a close friend of the Mandinka marabout
Sheriff Mali gn, that permission for the relocation of the village was granted. Sheriff

assured them that if the village is relocated to the site he proposed, its size would extend

..-__

72
Seedia Darboe, Sanyang, interview by Donald R. Wright, Niumi, December 27, 1974. Interview in
Wright’s “Oral traditions From the Gambia” Vol. 1, pp. 28-29

167

up to the river and overlooking hills.”73 Moreover, an elder in Medina Bafuloto told me
that their village is in its second site.

There seems to be a coincidence between the growing numbers of marabouts
and the expansion of peanut cultivation in the Gambia. This is because, many of the
villages that were established between 1850 to 1900 have oral traditions that claimed
that a marabout either established that village or gave them permission to settle there.
Many of these traditions also claim that the sites of most of the villages were once
homes of spirits. In other words, these traditions points to developments at the turn of
the twentieth century, which brought major changes in the lower Gambia region.

The period saw the relocation of Masamba Koke Jobe to Niumi from the lower
Senegal valley. While the British regarded him as a non-Muslim (or Soninke), the oral
traditions refer to him as a “great marabout” and every year a ziyara (a religious
gathering to commemorate the life of an individual Suﬁ clerics) is held in Bantang
Kiling in his honor and remembrance. His true religious afﬁliation therefore is not clear
to me. Nevertheless, Masamba Koke’s story in Niumi is valuable because it sheds light
on the changes and continuities on this important aspect of the peoples’ belief-system
(i.e. the belief in spirits and “spirit” lands). As a Wolof from the lower Senegal River,
he came to Niumi during the time when Mansa Demba Sonko of Berending was ruling
Niumi. The traditions claim that Masamba was a warrior and a relative of Latjoor Jobe
from the Wolof state of Kayor. 7" It is claimed that he initially came to the Gambia to

secure ammunition for his brother, Latjoor, from the British. Although I have not found

73
Arfang Sainey Sanneh-Darboe, interview by author, tape recording, Bambally Village, North Bank
Region, December 15, 2008.

74

Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interview by author, tape recording, Kerr Chemo Village, Upper Niumi,
June 13, 2006 and August 17 2008. Mangkodou was born in Bantang Killing and is the eldest male
descendant of Masamba Koki.

168

this in any of the documentary sources, I believe the date of his arrival was in the mid
18005. Certainly, Latjoor was Bur Kajoor as late as the 18605. Also, given the fact that
we know when Demba Sonko was Niumi’s Mansa, it is possible to speculate on
Masamba’s arrival in Niumi. The English sources indicate that Demba Sonko became
Niumi’s mansa around 1834 and died in 1864.

My informants further told me that Masamba was accompanied by another
brother of his, Sayerr Jobe. Once they arrived in the Gambia Masamba went to Niumi
and Sayerr proceeded to Bathurst Island (now Banjul) where he later left to establish the
settlement of Serrekunda. When Masamba arrived in Berending, the sources further
claim, he was hosted by the mansa. At their meeting, Masamba asked Mansa Demba if
he could allocate him land where he could settle. The mansa agreed but sent him to
Tubab Kolong where he met the elders who showed him the land at Banta. At that time,
the Bantang Kiling forest, which was situated between the villages of Albreda and
Lamin, was believed to be the home of dangerous spirits and devils. But Masamba set
up his village there, fought with the jinns and managed to drive them across the river to
the town of Mandinari in Kombo. He put various forms of spells in bottles and buried
them in the ground and offered sacriﬁces to not only ward-off the evil spirits but to ﬁght
them as well. Shortly after he settled there, his village began to prosper. He cultivated
rice, tendered livestock, and attracted more strangers to settle there. Ultimately, conﬂict
broke out between Masamba and Tubab Kolong. According to my informants the
conﬂict arose when the Mandinka asked Masamba to return the land that was given to
him presumably on the grounds that it was merely lent to him. Masamba declined,

telling the elders of Tubab Kolong that he had “conquered” the land by driving away

169

the spirits and made it a habitable settlement for human beings.75 For that reason, he
emphasized, the land was his personal property, and not the property of Tubab Kolong.
This, according to my informants, was one of the major reasons why the Mandinka
went to “war” with Masamba Koke.

Two historians have mentioned aspects of this “war” between Masamba and his
neighboring Mandinka communities. Writing in the 19405, John Gray noted how one of
Maba’s generals, Amara Faal, based in Tubab Kolong, raided Masamba Koke’s
village.76 In trying to defend his village, Masamba beneﬁtted from the friendship and
protection offered by the British. In return, he was appointed “headman of this portion
of the Ceded Mile” — i.e. Bantang Kiling, which was renamed Fitzgerald town.77 With
Masamba as a trusted ally, in 1862, the British decided to resettle nearly 2000 refugees
who ﬂed the ﬁghting between the Muslims and the Soninke in the Sine—Saloum region
where Maba was busy ﬁghting a jihad. Initially, these refugees settled in the towns of
Barra and Kanuma (near the Atlantic coast). Also, as Charlotte Quinn states, that same
year Gambia’s Governor d’Arcy gave him some of the cattle which Muslim invaders
from Baddibu (Rip) had taken from the Niumi mansa ’s herds. Masamba in return

supplied the British settlement with fresh meat from his farm near Albreda.78

 

75 . . . . . .

Haddy Mboob, interview by author, not tape recorded, Bantan Krlmg, Upper Niumi District, July 23,
2006; Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interview by author, tape recording, Medina Bafuloto, Upper Niumi,
121m 13 2006. '

In 1826, Mansa Demba Sonko’s predecessor, Burangia Sonko, had ceded much of Nuimi to the British
in return for annual custom. So much of this area was already part of the “Ceded Mile” under the control
of the British crown. The 1826 treaty therefore gave the British the right to appoint its representatives in
Niumi.

77
78 John Gray, A History of the Gambia (London, Frank Cass, 1966), p. 427
Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms ofthe Senegambia, p. 135

170

But being Wolof and a Soninke, as Gray states, Masamba found it difﬁcult to
exercise any authority in the district.79 Fighting was renewed in 1866 when Marabouts
attacked Masamaba’s village. Both Gray and Quinn state that the British responded by
sending a colonial steamer, which “ﬁred rockets over the marabout towns of Sika,
Juffure, Albreda and Lamin until their populations ﬂed into the bush.”80

Apart from this, Masamba’s story lacks any historical treatment in spite of the
fact that his tale could provide a window for understanding spiritual power as it relates
to land. It could also shed light on some of the factors that shaped local attitudes and
beliefs towards land ownership especially in a rapidly changing political and social
environment. From the 18205 and 18305, Islam and European intervention in the local
politics and economy of the lower Gambia region were already intensifying. The
marabouts and English administrators were no doubt the most inﬂuential actors in
shaping lower-Gambian political and social life. The importance of the English (who
were mostly based in Bathurst and British Kombo) was growing in prominence. They
had acquired Bathurst Island in 1816 and installed an Administrator who managed the
English settlement on the Island. They also acquired the “Ceded Mile” — that portion of
Niumi’s land that Mansa Burangia Sonko (Demba Sonko’s predecessor) ceded to the
British in 1826. Also, in 1830-31 Burangia Sonko went to war with the British;
McCarthy Island was settled in 1827 and British Kombo (comprising Cape St. Mary)
was acquired by 1840. From this time onwards the English were increasingly interfering

in local matters (including land) by taking sides in African conﬂicts.

 

79 ,
8 lbid, p. 427
0
Gray, A History of the Gambia, p. 427 and Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 135

171

More importantly, however, the impact of islamization also at the turn of the
twentieth century has gradually challenged some of the preexisting beliefs in spirits and
“spirit” lands. For instance, oral traditions claimed that a Toranka Muslim, Chemo
Mohammadu Jallow, from Futa Toro, came to settle in Niumi probably around the end
of the nineteenth century or the beginning of the twentieth century. As a stranger and a
marabout, he was hosted by the elders of Jurunku (an old Mandinka village in Niumi)
who gave him land where he could set up his own village. According to the tradition I
collected in Niumi, the Marabout toured Jurunku’s forest and saw “a good location for
his village” even though the farro was the home of a wicked dragon called ninki nanka.
But because of his knowledge and spiritual power, it is believed, the marabout drove the
ninki nanka away into the river. He also drove the notorious spirits that were in forests
of Nambu, Bangali and for many years successfully cultivated parts of Jumankari.
Upon successfully defeating the spirits, however, he began focusing on teaching the
Quran and proselytizing. He attracted a lot of students and followers in his village,
which he named Medina Bafuloto.81 Building on his legacy, one of his sons, Alhagie
Chemo Baba Jallow, succeeded in strengthening the reputation of Medina Bafuloto as a
center of Islamic education. In fact, an English source dating to the 19205 cited Medina
as an important center of Islamic education.82

By this time, Medina Bafuloto was in fact not the only marabout settlement in
Niumi. Other Muslim communities included Medina Serign Mass, Aljamdu, and

Medina Seedia. In fact, some of these “centers” of Islam predated Medina Bafuloto and

 

8] Medina Bafuloto is commonly known as Sarreh (Keur in Wolof) Chemo — meaning the village of
Marabouts. The village gained much of its popularity during Alhagie Baba Jallow’s reign (c.1905-l992).
The religious symbolism of this village is today celebrated in the form of Mawlud Nabis and Ziyaras. The
religious family of Kerr Chemo and their followers are all Ti janis.

NRS, ARP32/33, Annual Report for the North Bank, 1921, p. 37.
172

they all signify the rapid religious transformations that were taking place in Niumi at
that time. Evidently, the area was increasingly becoming incorporated into the Dar al—
Islam. One of the effects of this grth of Islam was that gradually the marabouts
trained more disciples who felt that they could confront these spirits. As one informant
told me, the youngest talibe (i.e. student) always felt fortiﬁed against the spirits by
using various components of the Quran.83 Although my oral sources have not
highlighted this, it is also possible that a sizeable segment of the Muslim community
were beginning to question the idea of the power of spirits and associating it with
apostasy - a major sin in Islam. Of course, Islam did not overturn all preexisting beliefs.
While the growth of Islam signiﬁcantly brought numerous changes in the way in which
the people utilized their land, like non-believers of Islam, many Muslims continued to
hold some beliefs on the power of jinns and the tendency for them to live in certain
forests. For example, even though a number of Muslims would clear portions of land
previously thought of as “spirit lands,” most did so after seeking help from “powerful”
Muslim clerics. Also, many Muslims would bury powerful charms on their land and
wear amulets (or charms) for protection against the evil spirits. Others became cautious
of the time they would go to the ﬁelds and still others avoided felling trees likely to be
the habitat of these spirits. However, these are also evidence of islamization at work.
Because of their role as teachers, mystics and religious leaders, marabouts
tended to have a sizeable following whose labor they often enjoyed. For example, a
report in the 18905 noted that “at Suarakunda there were 20 strangers from Pakau who

had come to that town to study under the Almami. They were cultivating a small portion

83

Alkalo Dawda Sowe, interview by author, tape recording, BanIOIO, Baffuloto village, Upper Niumi
district, July 23, 2006 and Imam Alhagie Momodou Lamin Bah, interview by author, tape recording,
Serrekunda, June 30 2006.

173

of land to support themselves and the Alcaide wished to know if he were to charge them
rent.”84 Although this source points to the late nineteenth century, it describes a process
that began before that period. Oral traditions claimed that the marabouts of Kerr Mama,
Medina Serign Mass, Medina Seedia, Aljamdu, and Baddibu Daru had numerous talibes
(Quranic students) who worked and studied under their marabouts, working in their
master’s ﬁelds, growing the cash crop, when they were not going about their learning.85

The labor that these students offered enabled marabouts to farmed large areas of
land. In so doing, they accumulated wealth and power and in turn used that to attract
more dependents.86 The wealth derived from these various sources was such that the
principal leaders were (apparently at least) in a position to save, to amass and invest
capital on a substantial scale and thus consolidate their economic dominance. Moreover,
hard work, especially in the ﬁelds, is believed to have moral and religious importance in
so far it keeps the mind and body away from temptation.87 Work performed in the
service of a Shaiyhk was regarded as an offering to God, through the founder of the
brotherhood.88

Even as the nineteenth century progressed, Islam took a ﬁrmer hold in areas that

were even barely touched by the religion. For example, as Swindell and Jeng writes, by

 

84 . . . m
lbld, Reported by Commrssroner Ozanne, 16 June 1893

5
Dawda Sowe, interview by author, tape recording, Bafuloto Village, July 23 2006 and Imam Alagie
Momodou Lamin Bah, interview by author, tape recording, Serrekunda, June 30 2006

6 The Quaranic schools under the marabouts tended to embarked on economic schemes. For example,
Donal B. Cruise O’Brien shows that Mouride power was based on the brotherhood’s active participation
in the economic life of modern Senegal through the use of talibe labor among other things. The
brotherhood’s principal leaders had become the biggest individual producers of groundnuts and
landowners in Senegal. These notables controlled vast estates, of many thousand acres in certain cases, on
which their young followers worked (with little or no immediate remuneration) in collective farms (called
daras) Donal B. Cruise O’Brien, The Mourides of Senegal: The Political and Economic Organization of
gm Islamic Brotherhood (Oxford: C laredon Press, 1971), pp. 2—3

7
Ibid, p. 90
88 _
Ibrd, p. 91

174

1880 the marabouts of the south bank had formed chiefdoms which provided an
emergent focus for talibes, who became an important source of labor in the peanut
ﬁelds of their teachers.89 Other marabout settlements that had many talibes among
others were the villages of Siikunda and Barrow Kunda. As Quinn writes, students at
these schools worked hard, tending the master’s ﬁelds and his cattle by day, and
studying at night or before dawn. She ﬁrrther states that the parents of each child were
charged as much as a slave or a horse for his tuition, and the pupil could be kept at work
on the marabout’s farm until the fee was paid. In return the teacher was supposed to
provide board and room for his students."0

The growth of Islam coincided with the development of peanut production and
grth in population due to the immigration of seasonal farmers into the Gambia basin.
Gradually, Niumi’s forest began to disappear in part because “strange-farmers” began
arriving in signiﬁcant numbers in search of farmland where they could grow peanuts
and take advantage of the competitive British market for peanuts. While in Niumi, they
would seek a landlord, who gave them land, food, and lodging for the rainy season. In
return, the strange-farmer would provide his landlord with ﬁve days of labor on his
farm and paid taxes to the village Alkalo.”

Lastly, since defeating the spirits meant a defeat for the environment, a major
devastation to the natural environment followed the expansion of peanut production.

Deforestation was occurring due to the clearing of new land. As mentioned in an 1884

 

89 _
90 Swrndell and Jeng, Migrants, Credit and Climate, p. 55; Annual Report, 1888.
9] Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia, p. 56

For more on the strange-farmers, see the works Kenneth Swindell. “Migrant Groundnut Farmers in the
Gambia,” pp. 452-472; Kenneth Swindell. “Family Farms and Migrant Labour,” pp. 3-17; Ken Swindell,
“Serawoollies, Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers,” pp. 93-104

175

report, there was already a problem of exhausted soils because “everything is taken out
of the ground, comparatively nothing is put into it. Impoverished soil[s] . . . have of late

years affected the quality of the groundnut crop.”92

Conclusion

In sum, the development of commercial agriculture had far-reaching
consequences in lower Gambian societies. In fact, cash cropping was a major factor that
contributed in altering land relations in the Gambia River valley. It was a development
that served as a catalyst for the growth of seasonal, migrant labor in most of West
Africa. In the Gambia basin, as elsewhere, migrant-fanners looking for land came in
signiﬁcant numbers from northern Senegal, Mali and Guinea Bissau to settle along the
banks of the Gambia River —some temporarily and others more or less permanently.

The periodic movements of African populations was part of the indigenous
response to the opportunities offered by the trade in groundnuts following the decline of
the Atlantic slave trade and this continued well into the twentieth century with the
establishment of colonial rule in the Gambia. This “old” practice of landlord-stranger
relationships were recreated and developed to meet the needs of both the mi grant-
farmers and their landlords. Consequently, as Kenneth Swindell demonstrates for the
Gambia, the migrant farmers helped in the early development of the peanut trade in the
18405 following the decline of the Atlantic slave trade.

The presence of migrant farmers within Gambia region led to the development

of a complex set of arrangements between migrants and their hosts, which also involved

 

92 .
Cited in PUB l l/ 17-Report of Socio-Economic Survey of Bathurst and Kombo St. Mary m the
Gambia, February 9 1956.

176

village headmen, kabilo heads, and eventually the British authorities. In many villages
strange farmers were “renting” land from the Alkalos and kabilo heads. Colonial reports
not only stressed the importance of strangers in the peanut revolution, but also noted
that strangers were hiring land from the local chiefs, by “paying custom[s]”93 In other
words, many reports mentioned the practice whereby strangers paid their landlords a
share of their groundnut crop at the end of the season.94

But as landlords were seeking the services of migrant farmers, their control over
the labor of the extended family was weakening. This was true in many places. In fact,
the growth of cash cropping had a major impact in kabilo property. In many places it
led to a process several scholars described as land ﬂagmentation. It also served as a
catalyst for the clearing of previously uncultivated or unused forest for the cultivation of
peanuts. But it argues that this process was facilitated by the continuing but more
intense islamization of the Gambia region.

While the growth of peanut production had increased the demand for
agricultural land, in the lower Gambia region, it did not create a market for land in most
Gambian villages. Both documentary and oral sources about the lower Gambia region
reveal that lower Gambian customs forbid individuals and groups to buy and sell land.
Although new avenues were created for people to rent land, they could not sell it.
Instead, they exploited the old landlord-stranger relationship which enabled heads of
landowning families to attract labor and charge rents for the strangers’ use of their land.

Finally, among the most important arrivals were marabouts who led their

communities into clearing land that were previously thought to belong to jinns and

 

93
94 Annual Report, Governor MacDonnell. 1848
Annual Report, 1851. Also cited in Swindell, p. 98

177

spirits and established vast farmlands where they produced peanuts. In doing so, these
marabouts became prominent landlords, distributing land to people settling in their
villages including their students and followers. From roughly 1830 onwards, peanut
growers wanted not only good land, but land that was close to the river to facilitate the
shipping of their export crop. In spite of the violence accompanying the tensions

between Soninke and marabout, peanut production grew steadily.

178

Chapter Five
The Crown Colony and Protectorate Areas: Changes and Continuity in Land
Tenure in the Colonial Era, c. 18805-19205

By the time a British administration was ﬁnally established in the Gambia
sometime around the 18905, the distinction between public and private forms of
ownership were getting increasingly blurred. People living in the area ever more began
to recognize aspects of both individual and private property rights. This is because lands
that were previously controlled by family groupings were increasingly being
fragmented. However, as the previous chapters show, the beginning of these changes
predated the establishment of colonial rule. Yet, too often, historians assume that the
process of land fragmentation only began in Africa around the time of the onset of
colonial rule, when Europeans brought their notions of property rights based on the
notion of private property.1

Indeed, as John Bruce notes, in many parts of Africa colonialism and the
adoption of Western property law quickened the pace of changes in land tenure by
intensifying the process of land fragmentation.2 However, in the Gambia, most of this

change affected the urban areas and the wharf towns —which were often part of the

 

I For example, among these historians include Anthony Hopkins who argues that colonialism created a
class of land owners [who bought into] British ideas of property [ownership]. Another is Jack Glazier
whose study traces the development of privatization of land among the Mbeere of Kenya. Through a
process of privatizing land, he argues, the colonial government sought to eliminate customary kinship
constraints on land use, sale, and development. Under the new arrangement, each farmer would hold a
consolidated piece of land that he could call his own. For Hopkins and Glazier, therefore, colonialism
brought about a major transformation in ideas of ownership. For more, see Antony G. Hopkins “Property
Rights and Empire Building: Britain's Annexation of Lagos, 1861,” The Journal of Economic History,
Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec., 1980), p. 797) and Jack Glazier, Land and the Uses of Tradition Among the Mbeere
3f Kenya (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985), pp. 1-2

John Bruce, “A Perspective on Indigenous Land Tenure Systems and Land Concentration” in R. E.

Downs and S. P. Reyna (ed.) Land and Society in Contemporary Africa (Hanover and London, University
Press of New England, 1988), p. pp. 31-32

179

Colony. Lands in these areas were declared Crown land. 3 Here, both Aﬁicans and non-
Africans were usually given the opportunity to hold land under such tenures. But it is
misleading to assume that British notion of freehold ownership was adopted and
enforced across the Gambia region. In most Gambian villages, access to land continued
to be determined by local factors, even where the state regarded itself as proprietor of
the land.4 It is equally misleading to assume that processes of land fragmentation only
began in the twentieth century with the onset of colonialism. This chapter highlights

the contradictions in colonial land policies in the Gambia and shows the changes and
continuity in land tenure in the colonial setting.

Government Legislations and the Expansions of Colonial
Authority, c. 18405-1914

A. Colonial Land Legislations

In order to examine the impact of colonial policies on local systems of land
tenure, it is important to describe the steady expansion of the colonial rule across the
length and breadth of the Gambia basin. Prior to the late nineteenth century, British
authority in the Gambia was limited to its control of the Island of St. Mary, the “Ceded”
Mile, Cape St. Mary and Georgetown. Kombo was acquired by the English in the
18405 and in 1862 the colonial administration passed the Kombo Militia Ordinance.
That same year, a civil ofﬁcer was appointed with the title of Manager and British
Kombo remained under his supervision until the abolition of the post in 1903.5 The

3
lbid, p. 23

John Bruce, “A Perspective on Indigenous Land Tenure Systems and Land Concentration” in R. E.

Downs and S. P. Reyna (ed.) Land and Society in Contemporary Africa (Hanover and London, University
Press of New England, 1988), 23

5
Annual Report for 1862; Colonel D’Arcy to Duke of Newcastle, August 241861 and July 24 1862',
Annual Report for 1903 and John Gray, A History of the Gambia, p. 482

180

ordinance provided for the raising of a volunteer reserve force, the members of which
were to “receive a free grant of land at Hamilton Town and Albert Town conditional
upon the performance of twelve days’ annual training and serving during times of
emergency.” 6 In short, military service was an important determinant for securing
tenure of any land, which might be allocated to a newcomer. Even though most of the
settlers in these settlements were not Africans, they lived side by side with a number of
“Mandingoes and other indigenous people, who were already in the district at the
time.”7

This was even so when the British began to suppress the slave trade in 1807. As
John Gray writes, prior to 1816, individual merchants from Europe were encouraged to
settle or establish factories in the river. But each merchant was expected to make his
own bargain with the local chief. If a chief gave him land for his factory, he held that
land by local “customary” tenure. If he was deprived of that land or was otherwise
despoiled of his property, the British government was under no legal obligation and
power to render him any assistance.8 Gray suggests that European traders and company
ofﬁcials were often in a precarious position. For example, their prOperty could be
pillaged or destroyed. In many instances, they were not also in position to defend
themselves against any aggression on the part of the local inhabitants.9

But British policy would eventually change. Between 1880 and the early 19005,

the British garrison based on St. Mary’s Island began to consolidate its power by

expanding into the hinterland. Rather than continuing its commercial expansionist

 

Ibid, p. 481

lbid

John Gray. A History ofthe Gambia (London, Frank Cass, 1966), p. 333
lbid, p. 332

\OOOQON

181

policy alone, it began “pacifying” the population by formally amalgarnating the
conquered “kingdoms” into the British Empire. This extension of British rule in the
Gambia’s hinterland had numerous consequences for land tenure. One of the
consequences was summarized by a European commissioner for Kombo. This
commissioner wrote that when the English defeated F odi Sillah of Gunjur, the “right to
assume the ownership of the land of the “kingdom” was considered to be with the
English Government.”lo However, “Alter conquering the kingdoms of Gunjur and
driving away its kings, the British Government is considered to have given up its
ownership of the land of the Kombo districts which it acquired by conquest, and given
the ownership to the villages occupying the land.” For the Africans, “A gift of
ownership of land [was] considered to have occurred. [The people claimed that] the
white man has conquered our land and so obtained ownership of it. He appears to have
given up his ownership to the villages.”ll This suggests that after the conquest by
Britain, the administration of “village” land was mostly left in the hands of village
elders. '2

Ever since, however, the British established a small colony in Bathurst and its
environs, they managed to pass a series of laws aimed at reforming local systems of
land tenure. These laws were often called ordinances. The ﬁrst step in modern times

with regards to crown lands was the passing of Public Lands Holdings Ordinance 1877.

 

10
ll NRS, CRN l/lO Commissioner’s Ofﬁce South Bank Province, April 30 I940
lbid
12
NRS, Conﬁdential Dispatch to the Colonial Secretary in Bathurst ﬁ'om the Commissioner’s Ofﬁce

South Bank Province, Cape St. Mary, April, 30 1940, CSO lO/7lColonial Secretary- (Sgd) R.H. Gretton
Govemor-Sir Thomas Southom

182

This was later repealed and replaced by Public Lands (Grants and Dispositions) of
1902.”13
The second major ordinance that was introduced was called the Land
(Registration of deeds) Ordinance. This piece of legislation was passed in 1880 and was
amended on June 30 1939. It provided for the registration of deeds, conveyances, wills,
contracts, and other instruments affecting land within the colony and protectorate.
Registration was however not compulsory but was actually preferred by the colonial
government. But under the Public Lands Regulation of 1917 grants that were not
registered within sixty days became void. This regulation tended to work against
“absentee landowners” and in 1918 the sixty days requirement was extended to 120
days.‘4
The next oldest land ordinance was passed in 1889. It was referred to as the
Supreme Court Ordinance, which aimed at applying the common law of England to the
Gambia, including English law referring to the transfer of land. In fact, this was the ﬁrst
piece of legislation to introduce the concept of freehold into the Gambia colony. This
was followed by the Protectorate Qaublic land) ordinance of 1896. Legal recognition
was ﬁrst given to the protectorate system by the passing in 1894 of a Protectorate
Ordinance.’5 That law was repealed and replaced by a number of ordinances each
successively bearing the same title with slightly different alterations in content.
Two traveling commissioners —responsible for the north and south banks of the

Gambia River —were appointed in 1893. In the protectorate, law and order was put

l3
l4 CSO 2/373-Lands: Report by Land ofﬁce

CSO 2/373- Report by Land Ofﬁcer as to extent of Development work in Colony and Protectorate in
connection with Grants, 1920.

5
Jon Gray, A History of the Gambia, p. 483
183

directly under the responsibility of these men. They regularly “patrolled” the hinterland,
and were often accompanied by police constables. For the purpose of maintaining peace
and security, the hinterland was divided into seventeen districts, each placed under the
management of a head chief known as seyfolu. These chiefs were appointed by the
Colonial Administrator, from whom he received orders and to whom he was responsible
for the peace and maintenance of good order in his district.

That same year (i.e. in 1893) the Administrator of the Gambia, Robert B.
Llewelyn presented an ordinance to the Legislative council deﬁning the conditions
under which certain lands in the “Ceded” Mile were held by a private ﬁrm called Arthur
Reis — a British company based in London. This ﬁrm was issued a piece of land in the
form of a grant dated April 2 1891. The land, which was surveyed by the Colonial
Engineer, was located between Albreda and Sami. According to the ordinance, the 1891
Crown grant was “vague and indeﬁnite and has not expressed with sufﬁcient clearness
and precision the terms on which the said lands were intended to be granted.”
Llewelyn’s administration also thought it was “necessary to protect in their possessory
rights such natives as were owners or occupiers of or entitled to rights in any part of the
said lands.” The ordinance, therefore, allowed government to levy a tax on Arthur Reis.
The ordinance also outlined that “neither the said grant nor [the ordinance] shall affect
or diminish the rights of the persons who owned possessed or occupied any portion of
the said land.”'6

The 1896 legislation proclaimed that all public lands were to bevplaced under the

control of English administrator of the Gambia colony. It is a legislation that sought to

 

‘6 Report from Robert Baxter Llewelyn, C .M.G., Administrator, October 20 1893
184

place the management of the public lands, especially lands where no legitimate owners
was found, in the newly established colony and protectorate in the hands of the
government. It was envisioned that this measure would encourage capitalists to take up
tracts of land for agricultural purposes, as the government was now able to issue “land
certiﬁcates” to persons who intended to procure and develop such lands. The
government anticipated that there were large tracts of land on the banks of this river
suitable for the growing of [crops] and with the cessation of the religious wars
individuals could acquire “good ﬁelds” and invest their capital. However, its declaration
that all vacant lands located in the protectorate would taken over by the state was
challenged by some communities. For example, in Baddibu, Sabach and Sanjal the
Alkalos opposed the protectorate ordinance arguing that “there [was] no unclaimed land
and that all the outlying lands belong to the towns.”17 In fact, some ofﬁcials were
“strongly opposed to the recording of native rights in land. [According to one report it
would] be a very bad thing to do anything to encourage the concept of individual
ownership of land among native communities.”l8 Another ofﬁcial added that “it would
be a very great mistake for the Government in dealing with land to bind its hands by
statutory regulations?”9 Other ofﬁcials, like the commissioner of the South Bank
Province, had problems with the protectorate land ordinance. He contested the idea of
“public land” as stipulated in the ordinance because “all land was more or less occupied

”20

when the protectorate was established. This, according to him, “means that the

Govemment’s right to grant leases and charge rents in wharf towns is in nearly every

 

l7 ARP 32 Vol. 1 North Bank , Travelling Commissioner Report, 1893-1932 (60)
:: CSO 10/71 Dispatch No. 21 dated March 2 1946
20 CSO 2/373 Dispatch No. 48 of March 14 1919

CRN 1/10 Land Grants-Conﬁdential Dispatch, April 30 1940

185

instance, at the very best, dubious.” He further stated that all “person who have obtained
such leases have no legal security of tenure. Thus, he reasoned that such lands at the
wharf towns or elsewhere which government plans to acquire of its own use should be
acquired by negotiation with the owners or occupiers of such lands.

In 1901, the public lands acquisition ordinance was passed. This ordinance
concerned both the colony and protectorate. More speciﬁcally, it sought to empower the
governor to acquire land for public purposes, even if it means through the use of force.
The legislation also provided for the regulations of compensation and laid down
procedures to deal with land disputes.2| This ordinance was followed by the Grants and
Dispositions Ordinance, introduced in 1902. Under this ordinance, the governor was
authorized by the laws of the colony to grant crown lands in the colony, and public
lands in the protectorate, in freehold either in fee simple or for life, or leasehold.
Although there is no evidence that grants of land were issued in 1901, this ordinance
empowered the governor to retrieve land that were previously granted for public
purposes and compensate holders. Under the existing framework, it was possible to
“obtain land from government for agricultural purposes on conditions of payment of 2d.

per acre per annum for twenty-one years.”22 This ordinance was amended in 1909.

 

2‘The colony lands ordinance of 1945 repealed the colony public lands acquisition ordinance, 1901, and
the public lands (grants and dispositions) ordinance, 1902. It required the Governor not to dispose of any
colony land in fee simple without consent of the Secretary of State. Otherwise Governor may make grants
of colony land. It is also stated that grants shall not include mineral or oil rights. If land granted remains
unoccupied for more than 12 months it reverts to the crown. Rent to be revised at ﬁxed periods in all
leases on the basis of the unimproved value of the land. It describes covenants implied in grants of colony
land; no sub-division or alienation without consent of Governor; all conveyances to be registered.
Governor may resume land granted for public purposes. Part 111 provides for acquisition of land for public
urposes, and compensation.

ARP 35/2 Colonial Reports-Annual (No. 264) 1898

186

Even though the government had passed a piece of legislation in 1896 to take
over all vacant lands in the Gambia, in 1903 it felt that it still needed a new legislation
to enforce it. Even in Bathurst, as the Colonial Secretary wrote, land “owners go away .
. . for rather long periods of time leaving very ignorant persons in possession and whom
I have honour to regard themselves as owners under such circumstances. These people
could do nothing to safeguard the estate or may not inform the absent owners of the
proceedings.” Because of this, the government decided to introduce another ordinance
that would empower the government to declare all unoccupied land within the colony as
property of the crown. This was called the Vacant Lands (Ascertainment Title)
Ordinance.”

Given that the colonial authorities were even more concerned with introducing
private forms of landownership in the colony, in 1904 an important legislation was

passed to provide for the registration of title to land to private owners. This was called

the Land Transfer (Colony) Ordinance 1904.24 This was followed by the Mohammedan

 

This robust legislation was repealed by the public lands (Grants and Dispositions) (Amendment)
ordinance, 1944. In other words, the public lands (Grants and Dispositions) (Amendment) ordinance of
l944--repealed the vacant land (Ascertainment of title) ordinance of 1903. It laid down further
conditions under which public lands may be granted and disposed of by the Governor, among them: land
granted under the ordinance which has been unoccupied for a period exceeding 18 months shall revert to
the crown unless the holder gives proof of intending to use and develop the land within a reasonable time:
on all leases which contain no provision for rent revision speciﬁcally, the Governor reserves the right to
revise and ﬁx the rents. It repealed by the colony lands ordinance of 1945.

24 This legislation was repealed by land Transfer (Repeal) Ordinance of 1918. But private forms of
ownership were expanded in 1932 when the colonial government introduced the Alien (Acquisition of
property) ordinance which proclaimed that aliens may hold real and personal property of every
description in the same manner as natural born British subjects. In addition, the protectorate lands
ordinance of 1945 laid down conditions on which non-indigenes may occupy protectorate land which
entails the consent of the District authority and approval of the Divisional commissioner. It noted that
every tenancy for a term exceeding three years to be created by an agreement in writing. Senior
Commissioner approves of lease. Lease to be registered within sixty days in the Colonial Registry and a
copy deposited for entry in the Divisional Land Register. Lease limited to twenty-one years’ duration;
rent subject to revision every seven years on unimproved value. Appeal against the revised rent may be
made to the Governor, whose decision shall be ﬁnal. It stipulated that no tenant could mortgage, sublet or
dispose without the consent of District authority. Lease lapses if land unoccupied for more than two

187

Law Recognition Ordinance of 1905. This ordinance, which was amended in 1925 and
in 1933, provided for a Mohammedan court at Bathurst to exercise jurisdiction over all
cases between Muslims relating to civil status, marriage, succession, donations,
testaments and guardianship. Muslim judges (known as Qadis) were appointed to
assume responsibility of this court. Appeals from this court however laid to the
Supreme Court and the jurisdiction of the court did not extend beyond Bathurst.

In 1913, the protectorate ordinance was introduced. This ordinance recognized
“native” laws and customs, especially those pertaining to tenure of land. The legislation
sought to strengthen local courts and “to take cognizance of and enforce native land
customs.”25 Under the Protectorate Lands Ordinance, “no protectorate land shall be
occupied by a non-indigene unless he has ﬁrst obtained the consent of the Native
Authority for the district in which such a land is situated.” The ordinance further
highlighted that “any non-indigene who occupies any protectorate land without the

approval of the Divisional Commissioner, for a period not exceeding twenty one years,”

 

years. Part IV provides for acquisition of land for public purposes. Order no. 3 of 1948 delegates certain
of the Governor’s powers to the Senior Commissioner. The protectorate ordinance of 1935 (amended by a
series of legislations in 1935, 1944, 1946 and 1947) declared that certain areas of the colony were now
included in the “protectorate system.” This included lands situated in Brefet, Bajana, MacCarthy Island,
the Ceded Mile and British Komb). Henceforth, all “native” law and customs relating to succession,
marriage, divorce, and the tenure of land existing in the protectorate, and which were compatible with the
principles of English law, applied to these lands. But this seems to be contradicted by an earlier report,
dating back to 1896, which states that by legislation those parts of the old colony known as the “Ceded
Mile” and McCarthy Island were for administrative purposes, included within the protectorate. This has
been done with the object of putting these outlying places under the travelling commissioners and on the
same footing as the adjoining protectorate [ARP 35/2 Colonial Reports-Annual No. 195 (Report for
1896)]. In January 1893 two travelling commissioners were appointed, one for each bank of the river, to
travel through the country and ascertain what there was either in shape of towns, or people or anything
else, within the boundary, for there was absolutely no data of any sort to work upon, with the object of
establishing some form of “civilized Government and to put a stop if possible to slave-dealing within the
protectorate” [Source: ARP 35/2 Colonial Reports-Annual No. 143 (Annual Report for 1894)]. The
protectorate is patrolled regularly for eight-months in the year by commissioners for about hundred miles
(rather more on the North Bank) up the river as well as in Combo and Fogni. It has been divided into
seventeen districts, each placed under the management of a Head chief, appointed by the Administrator,
from whom he takes orders and to whom he is responsible for the peace and maintenance of good order in
his district.

5 This ordinance was repealed and replaced by the protectorate ordinance of 1935

188

he/she shall lose rights over such lands. In addition, the ordinance proclaimed that no
land in the wharf towns shall be occupied by a foreigner unless he obtained permission
from the local authorities in the district where the town was located. 26

The wharf towns, such as Ballanghar, Brefet, Bambally and Kaur also caught
the attention of the colonial government. Even though these towns were located in the
interior of the Gambia, they remained important commercial centers, especially with the
development of the peanut trade. In order to take advantage of the trade along the
Gambia River, several of these trading companies needed land in these towns. As a
result, the government was issuing grants to private individuals and businesses in these
areas. Thus, in 1919 the Wharves Ordinance was passed with the aim of regulating the
process of issuing grants in the wharf towns. This ordinance stipulated two forms of
grants. The ﬁrst pertained to Wharves already in existence and the other was earmarked
for applications for approval in the future.27

Problems of Land Allocation in the Colony,
the Wharf Towns

What I described above refers to the “laws” passed by the administration in an
attempt to regulate land tenure. However, in practice there were “irregularities in the
granting of the lots by a dispatch which was sent to the Secretary of State by the Lt.
Governor on the July 14 1836.” From early on, the authorities anticipated irregularities
in the granting of the lots by a dispatch which was sent to the Secretary of State by the
Lieutenant Governor on July 14 1836 asking for the appointment of a “Surveyor of

Lands” this appointment does not appear to have been made until April 1 1914. This

 

26
27 CRN 1/10 Land Grants-Conﬁdential Dispatch, April 30 I940
CSO 2/373 Dispatch No. 48 of March 14 1919

189

again was a fertile ground for conﬂict over who owns what. Consequently, about the
end of 1913 it was decided not to dispose of any more freehold in the town as land was
becoming so scarce and presumably conﬂicts were escalating. Even the British ofﬁcials
on the ground admitted that conditions of registers were poor—which accentuated the
problem of encroachments. For example, a British ofﬁcial lamented that encroachment:

was a very difﬁcult matter to resolve owing to the unsatisfactory condition of

registers, so many measurements being missing and others inaccurate and as

mentioned no sketches at all in some cases. I was handicapped as many had

ii; grants by fire and various other causes. It is regrettable that the matter

was

not attended to at the time as now one does not know how man more of these

cases there are to come forward in the absence of a correct list. 8
In 1824 the government acknowledged the need for “A Secretary’s ofﬁce for the
preservation of Records and the Registry of Grants . . . [because] there existing no
means at present of securing public documents etc. which will no doubt hereafter
occasion great confusion and mischief.” Indeed in several instances, the dispatch noted,
“it will be found already that two different persons hold grants for the same allotments
and in others that the title deeds are not duly recorded or registered. It may therefore be
deemed extremely necessary to make an immediate revision of the grants before they
get beyond the power of remedy. A surveyor is much required to regulate the town lot
and survey the whole of the Island which he can now do as it is sufﬁciently cleared for
that purposes.”29

In addition to these poor registers, oral sources also suggest that several property

holders living in the peripheries of Bathurst and British Kombo did not care to keep title

 

28
29 ARP 35/2 Colonial Reports-Annual No. 195(Report for 1896)
NRS, Banjul, CSO 1/2 1824

190

deeds and/or written wills. One informant told me in one of my interviews that it was
not the custom of their ancestors to keep title documents. According to him, no one
needed to provide a document to proof that he owned something. “Paper is a white
man’s thing.”30 This claim is supported by ethnographic records dating back to 1906.
As one report notes, the “Mandingos do not appear ever to make written wills.
Occasionally, when dying, a man would direct his heirs to give some particular part of
his property to someone outside the family but there are no rules to that effect and it is
incumbent on the heirs to carry out the wish of the deceased unless they please. The
appointment of executors is not customary.”3 I Some of those Aﬁicans who even
procured title deeds did not guard them. This is probably because these documents did
not mean much. They either lost them or gradually deteriorated because of exposure to
pests and the climate.32

Moreover, the problem of keeping record of deeds was exacerbated by the
shortage of staff. Often, there were long delays in processing deeds in the Lands
Ofﬁce.33 As the 1919 report indicates, the workload in the ofﬁce Secretariat “continued
to increase.” Consequently, until 1919, the Lands Ofﬁce was never able to survey all of
the important towns on the River banks in the protectorate. That year, the Surveyor of

Land wrote that it is vital for “Government [to] to have in its possession an accurate

 

30 . . . .
Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interview by author, tape recording, Medina Baffuloto, Upper Nrumr, North
Bank Region, , July 13, 2006.

NRS, C SO 2/94- “Mandinka” Inheritance The Laws and Customs of the Mandingoes of the North
:Bank, 1906

2
33 ARP 35/2 Colonial Reports-Annual No. 195(Report for 1896); CSO 1/2
CSO 2/373 Dispatch No.48 of 14.3.1919

191

document whereon all the lands granted can be seen and for the purposes of
improvement.” 34

Other problems associated with poor documentation often arose. One of the
most important of these was encroachments. According to documentary sources, from
Victoria Street and Clifton Road, expropriation of land and/or encroachment by the
Africans became rampant throughout the town. The matter of encroachments was very
difﬁcult to deal with owing to the unsatisfactory condition of registers. Several
measurements were missing and others inaccurate and as mentioned no sketches at all
in some cases.

Around the end of 1913 it was decided not to dispose of any more freehold in
the town as land was becoming scarce. Numerous land disputes in Bathurst and the
surrounding areas were brought to these courts where laws guided an established
institution dealt with cases instead of relying on the so-called customary procedures
involving community elders. Even in the protectorate, the traveling commissioners held
regular magistrate courts in the protectorate. A number of Gambians took advantage of
the courts as a means to seek redress. For example, between 1916 and January 9 1917
Hannah Gaye and her brother, Charles B. Gaye, were involved in a legal battle over the
inheritance of the deceased mother’s property located 2 Gloucester Street, in Bathurst.
The case ﬁrst appeared at the Mohammedan Court and was later transferred to the

Supreme Court.35 On February 2 1917, a trader from Fez, in Morocco, appeared before

a judge in the Supreme Court to defend what he believed was his, property. 36 Ben

34
lbid
35
36 Supreme Court Record Book: Civil #1 December 1916-1922
Supreme Court Record Book: Civil #1 December 19l6-1922---Tuesday 6th February 1917

192

Abdoulie, the trader, wanted the Supreme Court to reverse an earlier judgment passed
by the Qadi of the Mohammedan court, which presumably favored a woman named
Aminata Bah. In the end, he was able to win the case by proving that the ordinance that
introduced the Mohammedan court (passed in 1905) only concerned West Africans, not
Moroccans.37
Opposition from the merchant community also checked the extent to which the
colonial government could manage land in the urban areas. Even though government
adopted regulations that granted it the power to increase the yearly rent charged on
grants issued to private ﬁrms, it sometimes had to listen to the merchant community.38
For instance, after the Lands Ofﬁcer made surveys of a number of properties in Bathurst
and recommended in 1914 that the government increase the fees that merchant ﬁrms
pay for using certain lands; his decision was petitioned and eventually dropped. These
ﬁrms “strenuously objected to the high scale of rent which they were called upon to

pay.”39 Another problem was the complaints from local area merchants petitioning the

 

37 . . .
There are countless other cases available in court records. In fact, some of them Include the case of

Shatta Savage and F atmatta Jobe. The case involved a property situated on 33 Long Street and belonged
to Sultan Davies who died in 1900. In 1903 another Sultan Davies entered into occupation of the
prOperty. He too died in 1936 leaving her daughters Hadi Secka, Fatmatta Jobe and ward female, Shatta
Savage. These three are aged about 50, nearly 50 and about 60 years respectively. Hadi lived in the
property from 1903 to 1930 when she went upriver but she drew the rents. Fatmatta lived there from 1903
to 1940 when she got married and moved to her husband’s place. She also received rents. Shatta Savage
also lived there from 1903 to 1930 when she got married. She also received rents from the property. No
trace of any documents.
Another case involved a man named Momodou Ceesay who lived in 22 Clerkson Street---a civil servant,
clerk at the Post ofﬁce. Fatma Jobe is my mother in law. Hadi Secka is full sister to Fatma Jobe. Shatta
Savage is half sister. 33 Long Street belonged to Sultain Davies who died around 1900 when l was 27
years of age. In 1903 another Sultan Davies went to live in the premises. Sultan Davies (2) lived there
for 20 years. He died in 1936. Hadi Secka, Fatma Jobe and Shatta Savage have lived there on the
premises since they were children. Shatta Savage is about 60. Hadi Secka is about 50 and Fatma Jobe is
close to 48 or 49. These three lived there until they were married.
Case adjourned until the plaintiffs come down from upriver. {For more on these cases, see Supreme
Court Civil #26 February 1950 — July 1952

38
39 CSO 2/373 Dispatch No. 48 of 14.3.1919
CSO 2/373 Report from the Lands Office, 1914

193

allocation of land to French traders. A notable case occurred in 1824, during the early
days of the settlement of Bathurst, when local merchants complained against the
government who granted land to the “French men and leave them to settle there for the
purposes of carrying on trade.” French merchants and Signares oﬁen bought property in
Bathurst. A good example is one Mr. Baudin who resided in Goree but was issued
grants of land in Bathurst. Mr. Baudin built a stone store and put one of his sons in
charge of the business.40 The merchants of Bathurst did not like this but it is not clear to
what extent they were successful in deterring the government from allocating land to
these French traders.

B. Contradictions in Colonial Land Policies

Contradiction in colonial policies in Africa is widely acknowledged in African
history. For instance, R. E. Downs and S. P. Reyna writes that “colonial land tenure
policy at times worked for the preservation of indigenous land tenure systems, and other
times favored the introduction of European land codes?“ Also, in his book, The French
Imperial Nation-State, Gary Wilder describes the “fundamental contradiction between
the universalism of colonialism and its particularizing tendencies.”42 He suggest that
while colonialism encouraged reform on several fronts, “many recognizable aspects of
modernity were notably absent from or prohibited in most colonial societies; examples
include free labor, private property, abstract individuality, impersonal common law,

disenchanted civil society, and representative government.”43

40
NRS, C SO 1/2

41
R. E. Downs and S. P. Reyna (ed.) Land and Society in Contemporary Aﬁv‘ca (Hanover and London,
Eniversity Press of New England, 1988), p. 9

2
43 Gary Wilder, The French Imperial Nation-State, p. 5
lbid, p. 9

194

A number of documentary sources seem to conﬁrm R. E. Downs and S. P.
Reyna’s and Wilder’s claims. Colonial ofﬁcials often claimed all unoccupied lands as
public lands. They also frequently issued some of these lands to private ﬁrms and
individuals on freehold title basis or as short and long-term leases. In fact, in the colony,
the state was a major advocate of applying the common laws of England in its newly
acquired colony and many colonial ofﬁcials worked hard to make private ownership of
property applicable. Since from a western viewpoint the proof of one’s claim to the
ownership of certain space was by possessing a will or a document showing the legal
entitlement to that property, many of them began to advocate for the registration of
land. It was widely believed that issuing “land certiﬁcates” to individuals, private ﬁrms
and companies would encourage capitalists to take up tracts of land for large scale
commercial agriculture or trade which would eventually prevent future conﬂict over
land. Leases were granted to numerous individuals in residential neighborhoods in Cape
St. Mary.

Elsewhere in Bathurst and Cape St. Mary’s, the government also awarded
numerous grants to private companies and individuals. A number of crown grants were
issued prior to 1846, but this was when the administration of the Gambia was under
Sierra Leone. More grants were also issued between January 20 1846 and May 19 1893.
From 1893 to 1904, however, no grants were issued until the end of 1914.44 Private
ﬁrms like Maurel and H Prom, Maurel Freres, B.T. Co Ltd, S. C. de Senegambie, Cie

Francaise and Barthes and Lesieur and individuals like Samuel J. Forster were awarded

 

44
NRS, CSO 2/373-Lands: Report by Land ofﬁce.
195

titles to certain land in different locations.45 Individuals and ﬁrms, for example, were
granted lands located in the “most valuable site in the town [of Bathurst] between the
east of Wellington street.” As one report from the Land Ofﬁce indicates, “the river bank
had for years been occupied by the mercantile ﬁrms and used to a considerable ﬁnancial
advantage by then at no cost to themselves, as Government had never taken up the
question of the rights of the ﬁrms to occupy.”46

The government also embarked on a number of schemes, granting short and
long term leases or grants of land located in the colony. In return they charged fees,
which constituted an important source of revenue for the government. In addition, under
the Dulton scheme, certain uninhabited lands near Half Die, in Bathurst, and in areas
where the land was frequently inundated were reclaimed and ﬁlled. These were then
divided into “lots of a convenient size and have been leased to the natives for periods of
twenty-one years.” The ofﬁce divided up the land into thirty-six lots of about 4,000
square feet in size. These were “eagerly taken up by the Aﬁ'icans who lived in
congested parts of Bathurst.” These comprised of families that had no opportunity of
obtaining land in the city. In return, the government charged them annual rent for
occupying the land.“ Prior to this, the land was used as a dumping ground for refuse. In
the report, the land ofﬁcer claimed that the congestion had been relieved with the
reclamation of this seemingly extensive dumpsite.

In 1914 and the “various ﬁrms were given the opportunity of taking a lease on

the lands they occupied. This they were pleased to do as they were then secure in their

 

45 .
NRS, CSO 2/373 Colonial Secretary’s Ofﬁce Minute papers, No. 708, 1920. See also See Manager of
the Kombo’s Cash Book 1874-1890

46
NRS, CSO 1/2 November 1 1824
47
NRS, CSO 2/373-Lands: Report by Land ofﬁce

196

occupation, for the time being in any case.” This area was used by a number of private
ﬁrms for erection of small buildings for boat houses, storing of various kinds of
materials (e. g. bricks, coal etc.) and for repairing boats and gutters. With the exception
of few cases, nothing longer than a yearly lease was granted in this particular area.

The situation in the hinterland, however, was different. Here, villagers were
allowed to administer land the way they deemed appropriate even though the
government would occasionally interfere in local matters. Colonial administrators in

some cases interfered in succession to certain political offices which people acquired

 

through land and birth rights. Occasionally, the commissioners appointed Alkalos. This
implies that they frequently tried to interfere in local politics, by altering
succession/inheritance practices. For example, it was a custom that at the death of an
Alkalo, who was mostly the eldest male descendant of founding family that established
the village, he was succeeded by his brother and not his eldest son. At one “palaver,” in
1893, Commissioner Ozanne was puzzled by this.48 Consequently, he informed the
Alkalos that
[S]uccession by blood would now be stopped as it was contrary to English
customs. [He noted] that if the Governor of Bathurst died his son would not be
made Governor, but a stranger would be appointed. And so it must be with the
Alkali. Any headman who was ﬁtted for the post might now be elected as
Alkali, subject to approval of the Governor. The Alkalis who were present at
the meeting seemed quite indifferent to the question of their successors.
However, they laughed and asked the commissioner not to talk on such matters
as they did not want their lives shortened. One Alkali said laughingly “that the
commander was putting ropes round their necks.”49

The Alkalo’s expression is no doubt a manifestation of his waning political power and

inﬂuence. As soon as the protectorate ordinance was passed in the 18905 the powers of

 

48
4 ARP 28/1- Travelling Commissioner’s Report-South Bank 1893-1899
9 . .
ARP 32 Vol. 1 North Bank , Travelling Commrssroner Report, 1893-1932 (60)

197

local rulers began to be checked by the colonial state. As one commissioner lamented,
the Alkalos now fully understand that they have no power to settle cases — be it land
disputes or otherwise — in their towns. All cases have to be referred to [the district
commissioner, who was a British].50 Moreover, the Governor wielded so much political
power that the ofﬁces occupied by the Alkalos and seyfolos were directly under the
supervision of his representative in the protectorate: the commissioner. For example, a
1902 ordinance outlined the powers of the Governor which includes appointing and
dismissing any “head chief” and “the headman.”51
However, in other areas, the British could not exercise authority even if they

wanted to introduce Western property regimes. These include the numerous small and
isolated villages often. inhabited by people that hardly came into direct contact with the
colonial administration. Even though the 1894 Protectorate ordinance proclaimed that

all “unoccupied” land was now public land, in these villages control of land continued

to exercise by families, kabilo heads and Alkalos. These groups continued to do so by
relying on their customs, not European legal codes. Alkalos continued to consult kabilo
heads, give land to strangers and in return collect rents from these strange farmers. As
one report states, he “either gives them vacant land or land beyond the areas already
cleared.”52 Even in areas that were already under effective British control, Alkalos were
responsible of collecting the “yard” tax, the pasturage fees and the “strange farmers

tax.”53 But here again, as the commissioner of the South Bank Province writes, the

 

50
ARP 28/ 1 Travelling Commissioners’ Report for the South Bank province; ARP 35/2 Colonial
Reports-Annual No. 143 (Annual Report for 1894)

51

Report from Sir George Charden Denton, Governor, April 1 l 1902, No. 7
52

CRN 1/ 10 Commissioner’s Ofﬁce South Bank, April 30 1940
53

ARP 32/3 Annual Report for the North Bank Province, 1923-1933

198

“strange” farrners’ tax was “regarded as being similar in kind to the tax which used to

be paid every year to the king by every strange farmer?“

Some parts of the “protectorate” were not effectively controlled by the colonial
state. For example, in British Foni, which was brought under the protectorate system,

early in 1897, it was difﬁcult to implement policies there. But according to one report,

Foni was

and always has been a very difﬁcult country to handle owing to the fact that
the peOple will not recognize any head chief over them or even headmen of
towns, or groups of stockades. The big men of each stockade is his own king
and recognizes no one as being in authority . . . The people living in his
stockade obey him only as their superior. Thus it will be somewhat a

troublesome place to administer.55

These districts, like the rest of the protectorate, had a native tribunal “but up to date it

. has never sat, the commissioner always trying all cases; the people will not appeal to

their own headmen . . . Kansalla district, which at present has no head chief.”56

Furthermore, the government also attempted to “reproduce native society” by
creating native authorities to preserve “customary tenure.” Members of the native

authorities tried minor offenses and matters relating land disputes.S7 Created in 1892,

these native authorities were established in every district. They had their own courts

 

54
CRN 1/ 10 Commissioner’s Ofﬁce South Bank, April 30 1940

55 Later on, for administrative purposes the British had divided up the territory into two districts: Foni
east and F oni west. Each district was further divided into smaller units. Foni East comprised of Bondali
district, under Yanu Badjie of Kangaramba, a Jola. Foni West comprised of Brefet district under Lang
Sanyang of Brefet. This identity of this man very much reﬂected the demographic composition of his
district. He was regarded as half Mandinka and half Jola. In Vintang (Bintang) District the government
had a difﬁcult time to get successor to the chieﬂaincy after the unfortunately death of the head chief.
Similarly, in Karrenai District, it was “impossible to ﬁnd a good man to succeed Gullimandi Badjie” as
head chief. [Source: CSO 2/94-The Laws and Customs of the Various Communities in West Africa,

1906}
56
ARP 28/1 Traveling Commissioner’s Report SBP, 1893-19005; CSO 2/94-The Laws and Customs of

$6 Various Communities in West Africa, 1906.
NRS, ARP 35/1-Annual Report for 1892 No. 80

199

often called native tribunals. The head chief appointed by the commissioner presided

over these courts and were assisted by four “headmen” or Alkalos from other villages in

the district. Theoretically, land was vested in on these native authorities. For example,

an ordinance passed in 1902 empowered the native tribunals to manage land disputes

within its jurisdiction.58 In some ways, the creation of the native authorities reinforced

the powers of individuals from prominent lineages and solidiﬁed their ability to exercise
control over land. Paradoxically, many of the individuals that were appointed in these
native authorities were descendants of the lineages that centuries ago monopolized

much of the land in the Gambia River’s lower basin or descended from marabout

families. Moreover, it is important to note that not all “native lands” were “administered

for the use and common beneﬁt . . . of the communities concerned,” as espoused in one
report.59 For example, a top colonial ofﬁcial, P. E. Mitchell, even admitted that

sometimes these native courts were corrupt.60

Colonialists had their own imagination of African societies. Many of them

wanted to depict African societies and cultures as radically different from those of
Europe. As result, some of them tended to exaggerate the importance of community as
opposed to individual agency. This is illustrated by a report which indicates that “the
most an individual can have is the right to use land and the right to alienate the right of
use” to another person or group.“ The report further claim that when a new village was
established, the Alkalo of this village would “roughly divide [the village land] amongst

the yard owners.” However, the report continues, “it should be borne in mind that when

 

58 NRS, CSO 2/3 73-Report from Sir George Charden Denton, Governor, April 11 1902, No. 7
59 CSO 10/71 Report from the Government House, Bathurst, Gambia, No. 72, May 29 1946
60 lbid

6' lbid

200

the term dividing land is used, it should not be thought of as allocation of precise piece
of ground with all boundaries carefully marked and pointed out in situ. The term does
not mean much more than that the Alkalo vaguely indicates the direction in which the
yard might farm.”62

While collectivity was important in lower Gambian societies, it was certainly
not true that all members of a community had the same access to land. In fact, the above
claims contradict what earlier documents show. For example, in the 18903 traveling
commissioner Sitwell described chiefs as the “owners” of the land. Alkalos and their
families had their own land. As traveling commissioner Cecil Sitwell noted, “The open
space round a town generally belongs to the Alcaide’s family.”63 These people, he
concludes, certainly seem to have a very good title to their allotments; having received
them from their ancestors. But as highlighted in the ﬁrst chapter, in the lower Gambia
basin, the mansa was the ultimate overlord of the land. This means that he did not
always consult his “council.”

The contradiction in the attitude of colonial officials towards land tenure in the
Gambia is also reﬂected in the documents, reports and letters they wrote. For example,
in his report, a colonial officer claimed that twentieth century property regimes in the

Gambia had roots in Europe. He wrote that

What really troubles me is this—how much of the native custom we read about
is really native custom; i.e. has existed from time immemorral, and how much
of it has grown up since the Europeans came? For example, I ﬁnd it extremely
hard to believe the rectangular yards in straight lines which one ﬁnds 1n
[Bakau] and elsewhere are really native at all .. . . I believe :nyself that the
“yard” system follows a foreign model. Certarnly the term yard owner owes
nothing to native mode of thought, to which the rdea of indivrdual ownership

62 lbid ’
63 NRS, ARP 28/1- Travelling Commissioner’s Report-South Bank 1893-1899

201

of land is foreign and indeed repugnant. In the Kombo in particular I believe

the p0pulation has largely either been planted there or settled there since the

cessation of land to the crown. Until 1902, the Manager of Kombo collected

rents from all people occupying lots in that area. The rent rolls exist to this day.

I am certain that in the Kombo the inhabitants regard yard tax as a form of

rent.64
This ofﬁcial further stressed that it is impossible to discuss African land tenure without
dealing with European ideas. Hence, he had “doubt if the Mandinga language” used an
indigenous term for words like rent. For him, it was Europeans who introduced ideas of
charging rents from the land. He also believed that the idea of an individual becoming a
landowner was of foreign origin. Decades later a report from 1940 gives the impression
that the Africans were gradually recognizing the possibility of charging tenants for
using the land. As the report states, the “charging of rent or the payment of a sum of
money to obtain the right to use a piece of land for building purposes was also very
slowly been [sic] adopted in a few isolated and scattered examples. It however applied
mostly in holdings by one or other of the Europeans or Syrian ﬁrms.”65 According to
these two reports, therefore, the idea of renting land to tenants was not widespread and
was a European inﬂuence on Gambian society.

However, the evidence contradicts the assumption that the payment of rent or
taxes on land was foreign to pe0ple living along the banks of the Gambia River. As
shown in chapter two, such rights were mostly exercised by the aristocracy and not their
subjects. In the late 193 Os, the commissioner of the Kombo and Foni collected some

oral traditions that claim that the “rent” paid to the “kings of Kombo in the early days

was undoubtedly considered by native opinion (and still is) as being equivalent to this

 

64
CSO 10/71 Enclosures to Gambia dispatch no. 96 of the June 24 1948
65
CRN 1/ 10 Commissioner’s Ofﬁce South Bank Province, April 30 1940

202

tax [which the colonial government levied on its subjects]” —i.e. it was regarded as a
payment for “protection.”66 For the commissioner, the yard tax was viewed by the
Africans “as a payment of one sort or another for the right to own the land” and thus he
claims the Mansa of Kombo regarded “the English Governor as his stranger and
therefore in a measure as under his protection and this feeling continued after the annual
rent ceased.”67 The commissioner further claimed that “originally such taxes were no
doubt in the nature of payment for protection (i.e. tributes), but before the coming of the
English Administration they had, by all accounts, deﬁnitely come to be regarded as a
regular means of public revenue (i.e. a tax).”68
In sum, then, one could say that while the freehold notions of property rights
existed in some corners of Colony, the deveIOpment of private property rights in the
countryside was not encouraged by the British. Colonial land tenure policy at times
worked for the preservation of “indigenous” land tenure systems, and other times
favored the introduction of European land codes. Colonial laws and practice had room
for both systems. Obviously the ordinances brought some changes to local systems of
land tenure. Generally, they had the effect of deepening a process that had long began —
i.e. the development and coexistence of aspects of individual and collective forms of

ownership. Prior to this period, the nineteenth century jihads and the growth of cash

cropping brought about conditions whereby larger extended families broke-up into

 

6 . . . .

I trust the content of this report more because the commrssroner noted that he relied extensrvely on
local informants as opposed to colonial officials who only wanted to show that Africans were changing
git/eh backward customs in favor of those of Europe.

CRN 1/ 10 Commissioner’s Ofﬁce South Bank Province, April 30 1940. The kings of Kombo, Niumi,

Baddibu, Kiang and Jarra all demanded a tax payment in money, cloths, gunpowder or goods from their
dependent villages.” This tax, according to this commissioner, was considered as a tribute, that is to say a
payment in return for protection.

CRN 1/10 Commissioner’s Ofﬁce South Bank Province, April 30 1940
203

smaller units. These units would divide up the land among themselves, each unit
managing its own share. Indeed, local processes and the changing economic and social
dynamics in the villages continued to further the process of land fragmentation.

Management of Land in Gambian Villages:
A Look at the Twentieth Century

By the early 19005, the district commissioners posted in the lower Gambian
hinterland asserted that the Mandinka, Wolof, Fula and Jola all recognized individual
and collective forms of ownership in their customs.69 Sons were inheriting their parents
just as families were also making decisions over the distribution and allocation of land.
At a certain level, as one report notes, “the village has no rights over the prOperty of the

deceased [since] ownership of land . . . descends from father to son [and it] includes the

taking of any fruit from trees that may be growing thereon . . 3’70

Yet, in most villages the management of land was not only family or individual
problem. Alkalos and kabilo heads continued to host strangers by providing them with
land just as communities were aiding their members during times of disputes. As one
report indicates, “inter—village land disputes [were] commonly settle by agreement
between the elders of the villages concerned. If this is not possible, the elders of a
neighboring village are invited to join them and endeavor to settle the dispute.”7| The
report further noted that “disputes inside the village are settled in the same way by the
elders of the [compounds] concerned, who if necessary take the matter to the village

elders.”72 It was however rare that a land dispute to be taken to court.73

 

69 . .
CSO 2/94 Laws and customs of the various communities m West Africa, 1906
70
NRS, CSO 2/94—The Laws and Customs of the Mandingoes of the North Bank, 1906
71
CRN 1/10- Land Grants North Bank, 1939
72 Ibid

204

It was this very make up of lower Gambian rural communities that sometimes
made land ownership a contentious issue. However, it was also the same reason why
conﬂicts were successfully managed by those involved in such conﬂicts. A case that
illustrate how a community could get involved in a dispute over the ownership of some
land occurred between residents of the two villages of Sami and Medina Bafuloto
sometime in the ﬁrst half of the twentieth century. This land was located in Jumankari,
in Niumi. According to the informant, the land belonged to his ancestors because it was
his father that cleared the land presumably during the period when the spirits abandoned
parts of the forest. But the “conﬂict” erupted when Tilibunka from Mali began clearing
the land in preparation for the start of the rainy season. This man was a surga (or
strange farmer) hosted by another man in the village of Sami, who also claimed to be
the “owner” of the land.74

Eventually, the “conﬂict” involved the villages of Sami and Medina Baffuloto
because it involved individuals and families from both villages. However, the ﬁght was
not physical but a spiritual one. Tillibunkas were generally feared for their powerful
jujus. The village of Sami was also reputable for having good mangkanoolu but perhaps
they did not match those of Medina Bafuloto —a village with a reputation having a
strong marabout family of Toranka origin. As the conﬂict began, each side buried gallaj
or mangkanoolu on the land. That year, none of them was able to farm that land but by
the end of the rainy reason the Tillibunka fell ill. He was allegedly possessed by the

mangkanoolu and he returned to Mali. Similarly, his landlord fell ill but decided to

 

73 Ibid

74
Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interview by author, tape recording, Medina Bafuloto, Upper Niumi, North
Bank Region, June 13 2006

205

travel to Medina Bafuloto with other members of the village to apologize to the owners
of land for the trouble he caused while seeking help for his illness.

Clearly, in the lower Gambia region the management of land was both an
individual and a collective matter. In many instances the boundary between the
individual and the community continued to remain blurred. Yet, as indicated earlier, it
was a major preoccupation in Western thought to make the analytical distinction
between the public and the private, as if the individual and the community are in sharp
contrast and opposition to one another”. This sharp distinction however was not
recognized wholeheartedly in many Gambian villages over course of the twentieth
century.

The twentieth century was another important era in the history of the Gambia, at
least for the marabout. The period saw the arrival of hundreds, if not thousands, of
young men from other parts of the region. Many of these young men came to study
under a marabout. These students helped their marabouts to cultivate peanuts and millet
for the upkeep of the marabout’s family and his numerous talibes. While many of these
students eventually returned to their homes, several of them stayed and were given land
and wives to marry. This was especially common in the marabouts towns of Jana
Sikunda, Jarra Barrow Kunda, Medina Bafuloto and Aljamdu.

In reality, there was no free land available to newcomers. Even uncultivated and
unused lands were often associated with some mythical ﬁgure whose descendants
“claim” its ownership. Thus, when people wanted land, they would ﬁrst approach an

Alkalo who in turn would consult the heads of the families that “own” the unused land.

 

75
Nwando Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors, and Kings: Female Power and Authority in Northern
lgbo/and, 1900-1960. (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2005), p. 197.

206

Sometimes it was the Alkalos’ own family. In any event, the settler would have to be
given permission to use the land for agricultural purposes. In some instances,
permission was sought every year.76

Local customs required that a stranger seek permission from his host before he
could erect a building on a land that is given to him. The Commissioner of Kombo
wrote in the 19305 and 19405 that, “by original custom a person obtaining a site for
building or other purposes inside a village is entirely at the mercy of the person from
whom he obtained it.” The stranger “can be dispossessed at will without compensation
for any buildings he may have erected. He must, however, be given reasonable notice
and he [was] allowed to take away the materials of any building which he has erected.”
But if he planted any permanent trees on that land, these remained his property and the
landlord cannot destroy them even if he wanted to use the land for building. The
“tenant” could even freely sell these trees to other outsiders at anytime. The exception is
if the landlord had warned him not plant any permanent trees on the land. In that case,
the ownership of the trees reverted to the landlord once the tenant vacated the land.

According to oral traditions, at times the land tenure system described above
tended to breed confusion and hence conﬂict between and among families. In such
instances, however, community leaders tried to settle the misunderstanding. Disputes
inside a village were often settled by the Alkalo and the elders of the families

concerned. Inter-village land disputes were commonly settled by agreement between the

elders of the villages concerned. If this was not possible, the elders of a neighboring

 

7
6 Ibid

207

village were invited to resolve or settle the dispute. Even in the 19005 it was rare that a
land dispute was taken to court.77
Lastly, in the protectorate village elders continued to hinder transaction of land
based on cash. This was even recognized, at least in writing, in the protectorate
ordinance. The ordinance stated that “in no circumstances can land be permanently
alienated by sale ——not even to Government.”78 As stated in the previous chapter, for the
landlords keeping people dependent was far more advantageous to them than selling
land and one way to attract dependents was to give land to settlers. This continuation of
this tradition was made possible because of the availability of strange farmers in the
Gambia’s villages. As one report noted, there were always a large number of strange
farmers [in the Gambia’s districts] every year who come from French territory to plant
ground-nuts.”79 Thus, the landlord stranger relationship that deveIOped as a result of the
growth of cash cropping continued well into the colonial era. In fact, colonial
administrators were highly interested in attracting migrant farmers and encouraging
them to settle in the Gambia permanently.
Conclusion

In sum, this chapter draws from documentary sources to challenge the view that
once British administration established itself in the Gambia, Africans shifted to private
property rights. The sources themselves depict the sorts of ambiguities in the colonial

land policies described earlier. While it does not seek to diminish the importance of

 

7
7 Ibid

78 I

CSO 10/71Report from the Government House, Bathurst, Gambia, No. 72, May 29 1946. Even in the
colony, the market value of land was low as late as in 1901 and seldom did it even change hands by
purchase. In fact, according to Annual Report of 1901 it is impossible to give a deﬁnite price for it. The

rent charged by the government for lands in British Combo is at the rate of two shillings per acre. [For
more see, ARP 35/2 Colonial Reports—Annual (No. 325) 1900].

9
ARP 28/2- Report of the South Bank District, July 4 I906

208

colonialism on notions of landownership in the Gambia’s lower river, it argues that
colonial land policies were often contradictory and far from consistent. As such, the
chapter explores the extent to which European notions of ownership took roots in lower
Gambian communities. It highlights continuities and changes in attitudes toward
ownership land in urban and rural communities, a series of colonial land policies and
the contradictions in these policies.

Colonial administrators were equally committed to “reproducing native society”
and in some areas of the country they simply did not have much control there, at least
initially. They passed “laws” declaring that there will be no interference in “customary
tenure” —meaning local customs would continue to be the basis of administering
protectorate or provincial land. This also meant that English property law would not
apply to the rural communities. When Britain declared the “protectorate system” over
the Gambian hinterland, the newly established government passed a series of
legislations. One of the most important of these, the protectorate ordinance, proclaimed
that “all native laws and customs existing in the protectorate, whether relating to matters
of succession, marriage, divorce, dowry, the right and authority of parents, the tenure of
land . . . continue to remain in full force.” This implies non-interferences in “customary
tenure.” Local community leaders were therefore appointed to serve in the native
authorities as the “custodians” of “communal” land. They settled disputes, allocated

land to strangers and collected rents from strange farmers. In short, the British

“invented” their own understanding of ownership in African societies- Thus they

209

created the Native Authority system whereby land was “administered for the use and
common beneﬁt all members of the communities concerned.”80

Conversely, the government exercised the right of issuing grants to private
individuals and ﬁrms. In the protectorate, this mostly applied to lands located in Wharf
towns. In the colony, the deveIOpment of private property was encouraged. This was
done by passing a series of legislations to help protect individual rights to property. The
main goal of passing these legislations was to introduce the common law of England to
the Gambia, including English law referring to the transfer of land. These efforts were
however undermined by bureaucratic and/or administrative problems.

Bureaucratic bottlenecks and several other factors fiustrated or slowed down the
appropriation of European ideas of ownership in Gambian communities. It could also be
attributed to the conﬂicting government agendas and the response of the Africans
therefore, retarded the implementation of European ideas of freehold ownership of land,
where plots would be registered and individuals given title documents. Thus, it is
important to recognize that the impact of colonialism on ideas of ownership varied from
the colony to the more remote villages in the protectorate. The changes to land tenure in
the Gambia’s lower reaches cannot therefore be attributed solely around the time of the

onset of colonial rule, when Europeans brought their notions of property rights formed

through long experience with mercantile and industrial capitalism.

 

80 .
CSO 10/71 Report ﬁ'om the Government House, Bathurst, Gambra, No. 72, May 29 1946
210

Conclusion

In sum, this dissertation examines change and continuity in land and property
rights in the Lower Gambia region, across the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
As can be seen in the previous chapters, it questions the assumptions of most of the
literature that African societies have generally valued people more than land, and that
the sense of property was a colonial and modern imposition. It does this by focusing on
two groups of people: the mansas and their courts and the marabout who from the
middle of the nineteenth century became increasingly inﬂuential as the process of
islamization intensiﬁed. Precisely, the study discusses the historical factors that shaped
the position of these lower Gambian landlords and their dependents and how the formal
British takeover of the Gambia changed the ways in which people managed land.

Some three or four decades ago, the study of land tenure systems in Africa was
an important ﬁeld in anthropology but not in history. Even though many historians were
interested in the changes in property rights, an overwhelming majority of them focused
on slavery, the slavery trade and the development of wage labor and especially in

colonial Aﬁica. Changes in land tenure were neglected, if not overlooked. It seems land
was not perceived as worthy subject of historical inquiry. Of course, there are studies
focusing on other river regions in West Africa that may constitute an exception. For
example, the historiography of the Niger River valley shows that the land was valued

and that certain individuals had special rights to them. These people, especially the

elites charged a tax on the tenants.1 Also, in the middle Senegal‘valley, elites took

 

See for example, the work of Michal Tymowski, Le Développement et la Regression Chez les Peuples
de la Boucle du Niger [1 I 'e’poque Précoloniale ([Varsovie] Wydawni twa Uniwersytetu Warszaw-skiego,
1974), p. 13; Maurice Delafosse. Les C ivilisations Négro-Africaines (Paris : Librairie Stock, 1925) and

211

special interest in controlling land because the land was considered valuable.2 This is
because the middle valley constitutes a rich ﬂoodplain, allowing its farmers to grow a
dry season crop and thus provide important insurance against the uncertainties of

rainfall agriculture. This asset, according to him, has made Futa the bread-basket of the

region, and has attracted herders, traders, and settlers to its soil throughout its history.3
But overall land in Africa has not received an important place in historical study.4 More
precisely, the land situation along the banks of the Gambia River has been rarely placed
in its historical reality.

Even for the anthropologists, they approached land tenure in such a way that
suggests it never changed —-and hence it was static and unchanging.S They used the
terms customary, communal, or corporate to describe the social arrangements governing
land allocation and land use in various parts of the continent. These terms not only
conjure up an image of unchanging and antiquarian customs but also imply social
egalitarianism than is supported by historical evidence.6 Obviously, a number of

anthropologists have raised questions about the presumed rigidity of local systems of

 

Maurice Delafosse, Haut—SénégaI-Niger (Soudan francais) [microformz series d’etudes pub. Sous la
direction de M. Le gouveneur Clozel (Paris : E. Larose, 1912).

Youssouf Gueye, “Essai: Sur Les Causes et Les Consequences de la Micropropriété au Fouta Toro,”
Bulletin de 1 ’1. FAN. T.XIX, sér. B, No. 3 1-2, (1957); p. 98 and Oumar Kane La Premiere Hégémonie
Peule: Le F uuta Tooro de KoIi Tengella a Almaami Abdul (Paris: Karthala; Dakar-Fann: Presses
universitaires de Dakar, 2004).

David Robinson, “The Islamic Revolution of Futa Tom,” The lntemational Journal of African
(Historical Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1975), p. 185

The exception here is East and Southern Africa where numerous historians have examined the conquest
and eventual seizure of fertile lands from the indigenous by invading Europeans. However, West
5Africanists, in general terms, are not that interested in changes in land before the twentieth century.

Birgit Englert and Elizabeth Daley. Women ’5 Land Rights and Privatization in Eastern Africa
(Woodbridge, UK; Rochester, NY: James Currey; Kampala [Uganda]: Fountain Publishers; Nairobi
[Kenya]: EAEP; Dar es Salaam [Tanzania]: E&D Vision, 2008), p. 4.

John W Bruce and Shem E Migot-Adholla, Searching for Land Tenure Security in Africa (Dubuque,
Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1994), p. 4

212

land and they suggested that land tenure arrangements in Africa are dynamic and have
historically adapted to changing political, economic and technological changes.7

This study shows that land tenure systems along the banks of the Gambia River
did not only transformed fundamentally over time, but the conditions that shaped land
tenure were ﬂexible and dynamic.8 The major source of changes in land tenure in this
area includes conquests, migrations, the development of cash cropping and the
nineteenth century jihads. Before British authority began altering African customs and
the rise of militant Islam, male members of the Mandinka ruling aristocracy managed,
through the use of political power, to maintain monopoly ownership of the best land
along the river’s banks, which enabled them to use the land to increase their wealth and
to further strengthen their political power. The tendency was for the burden of taxation
and other forms of exploitation to be placed on the subjects of the mansas including
stranger families. Initially this made the latter more dependent upon the elites, who
assumed positions of authority in kabilo, village and state level. Chapter two shows that
these elites sought in land not just wealth but also political power and access to labor.
Women and outsiders, in particular, were forced to seek permission from the men of the
ruling aristocracy. Also kabilo heads and Alkalos used their ties to the land to attract
dependents around them. Arguably, this is a form of landlord-tenant relationship — a
form of patron-client relationship established around the access, “ownership” and/or
control of land.

The “royal” monopoly control of land was however challengedand brought to an

end during the nineteenth century jihads. As shown in chapter three, the jihads gave

7

lbid
8

Ibid

213

many people the opportunity to challenge their former patrons, who were in the end
successfully removed from power. More than ever before, families also tried to
refashion inheritance rules by allowing sons to inherit from their fathers. This
development coincided with the growth of cash cropping, which likewise occasioned
far-reaching economic and social changes. With the expansion of peanut production,
“old” towns ﬂourished and new ones emerged. But one major consequence of the
growth of cash cropping was process of further land ﬂagmentation. In many instances,
large kabilo households broke up into smaller dabadas forming a banjonko and
situating itself on the periphery of the larger extended family. A similar process
frequently involved a number of families who hive'off from their village forming a new
settlement on the outskirts of the old settlement.

Indeed, the continuity and changes in local systems of land tenure were striking.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, the old landlord-stranger relationships were
recreated to suit an emerging economic system: cash cropping. The growth of cash
cropping brought about a dynamic relationship between landlords and their strangers
and/or dependents. This relationship transformed strangers as well as dependents and
gave them a distinct outlook. This outlook has been described as “marks of tenancy.”
Strangers and/or dependents often gave their hosts “rent” or tributes to their landlords
and recognize the latter’s authority. In addition, the landlord was often regarded as a
“father-figure.” An unmarried tenant frequently looked to his landlord for help in
amassing the bride-wealth necessary for marriage, for advice, and for mediation in the
event of a dispute. Should the stranger or dependent need material assistance (e.g. food

and seeds) in a bad year, he could ask his landlord for help. Thus, it is important to note

214

that ‘landlord-stranger’ relationship were more than simple economic agreements. It
was on a person-to-person basis. Often, it was important for having a landlord as patron
since such patrons would usually have been members of the ruling lineages of a town or
kingdom -— that is those who traced descent from ancestors who either cleared the bush
to form original settlement or conquered the land from others. These families were often
thought of as been in the position to provide protection to their dependents from warfare
or raiding in exchange for a payment or their labor. By drawing from documentary and
oral sources, the dissertation documents the impact of these major events on systems of
land tenure in the lower Gambia region. All these changes have had direct implications
for land tenure, and lower Gambian society found the social means to adjust their tenure
patterns to their new circumstances.

The use of oral sources (in the form of individual and group memories of past
attitudes towards property and property ownership) is crucial to a study of this nature.
In many remote villages located along the banks of the Gambia River one can ﬁnd
people who can speak of changing notions of property ownership that they have
witnessed or have knowledge of. This is even more important if one considers the fact
that before the advent of colonial rule, the peoples of the Senegambia in general and
those of the lower Gambia in particular produced less of the materials historians
traditionally consider as evidence — i.e. letters, dairies, travel logs, wills, property
records, organizational papers, and government documents. Obviously, Europeans who
either lived or visited the area in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have
produced a considerable body of evidence vital in understanding African systems of

land tenure. These documents were in the form of European (in both English and

215

'l“

French) travel accounts, letters, court records, scattered government circulars, annual
reports, reports from special (land) committees, colonial correspondences, and most
importantly commissioner’s reports.

Overall, I make three important arguments in this dissertation. First, in
challenging the view that Africans generally valued people more than land, the
dissertation examines the political and social uses of land. In doing so, it shows that in
considering land tenure in the lower Gambia River the peoples’ social, political and
religious considerations are no less important than the purely economic ones. This
means that to emphasize on the productive uses of land is to overlook the value
Africans placed on land. This is because Africans' own social and political way of
thinking and operating were as important as the economics in shaping how people
perceived or claimed land. Land has been a key focus of economic and political
struggle among people living along the banks of the Gambia River. Most of these
struggles over land have been about power and the ability to use land to control people.
In fact, the value of land lay in the ability of people to exercise power over others by
controlling peoples’ access to it and as Sara Berry writes, long before the era of
European conquest, the allocation and transfer of authority over land served as an
important avenue of political competition and control among Africans.9 In fact, the
ability to control or claim ownership to land depended on one’s identity as a woman, a
freebom, an Islamic scholar, even as a slave. As a matter of fact, differentiation among
individuals, households and communities depended not only in their size and

demographic composition, but also because the households of certain individuals such

 

9
Sara Berry, C hiefs Know Their Boundaries: Essays on Property, Power, and the Past in Asante, 1896-
I 996 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann; Oxford: James Currey; Cape Town: David Philip, 2001), p. xix

216

' l“

as chiefs, Alkalos and Imams could create larger farms since they were able to summon
additional labor from their slaves, clients and strange farmers. In this way, controlling
people was a means of land accumulation. '0

Second, I argue that continuity and change in systems of land tenure can be
explained through the convergence of signiﬁcant changes occurring in lower Gambian
society during the “proto-colonial” era —i.e. the period representing the late pre-colonial
and early colonial era. The transformations discussed in the dissertation occurred
following the ending of the Atlantic slave trade and resulted, in the severed decades
after 1830, in the overthrow of the Mandinka aristocracy and royal control of land.
Many lower Gambian village residents only had the right of use to the farmlands they

cultivated and newcomers had to seek permission from those in authority before they

could establish their own settlement on the land or to use part of the land to cultivate

crops.ll It was in the mid nineteenth century when the aristocracy’s monopoly control
of land was challenged and brought to a ﬁnal end in a series of jihads.

Third, I also argue that the expansion of cash crop production (i.e. peanuts) in
the mid nineteenth century did not lead to the growth in the market for land in rural
communities. In most Gambian villages, until the end of colonial rule, local customs
continued to forbid the transfer of land that involved some form of monetary exchange.
In fact, Western inﬂuence on local attitudes toward property was minimal in most
Gambian villages. Although native tribunals — comprised of men appointed by the

European district commissioners — were created and empowered to deal with matters of

 

10
Kenneth Swindell and Alieu Jeng. Migrants, Credit and Climate: The Gambian Groundnut Trade,
1834-I934 (Brill Leiden: Boston, 2006), p. 84

l l
NRS, CSO 10/7l-Native Land Tenure, I939
217

land tenure, these councils hardly altered the customary rules used to claim ownership
to land. As a matter of fact, the position of the colonial administration with regard to
land tenure practices was often contradictory. While it frequently advocated for a policy
of non-interference in so-called customary tenure, it declared that all unused land in the
colony and protectorate was taken over by the colonial state.
Indeed colonialism quickened the pace of changes in land tenure by intensifying
the process of land ﬁ'agmentationl2 and the adoption of Western property law.
However, in the Gambia, most of these changes occurred in urban areas and the wharf
towns -—which were often part of the Colony. Lands in these areas were declared Crown
land. '3 Here, both Aﬁicans and non-Africans were usually given the opportunity to
hold land under such tenures. But, as I indicated in the previous chapter, it is
misleading to assume that British notion of freehold ownership was adopted and
enforced across the Gambia region. In most Gambian villages, access to land continued
to be determined by local factors, even where the state regarded itself as owner of the
land.14 It is equally misleading to assume that processes of land fragmentation only
began in the twentieth century with the onset of colonialism. This chapter highlights
the contradictions in colonial land policies in the Gambia and shows the changes and
continuity in land tenure in the colonial setting.
As the chapters show, my approach to land in this study is both chronological

and thematic. The chapters on the militant Islamic movements, the cash crOp production

 

12

John Bruce, “A Perspective on Indigenous Land Tenure Systems and Land Concentration” in R. E.
Downs and S. P. Reyna (ed.) Land and Society in Contemporary Africa (Hanover and London, University
3655 of New England, 1988), p. pp. 31-32

Ibid, p. 23

14

John Bruce, “A Perspective on Indigenous Land Tenure Systems and Land Concentration” in R. E.
Downs and S. P. Reyna (ed.) Land and Society in Contemporary Africa (Hanover and London, University
Press ofNew England, 1988), 23

218

and the early colonial rule overlapped considerably, and in effect covering the same
time periods. This is important to highlight because historians often draw a sharp line
between the pre—colonial era and the colonial. But the historical circumstances of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries Gambia region does lend itself to this sharp
dichotomy. This period represent an era that is perhaps best described as the “proto-
colonial” era — i.e. that era marking the transition from the pre—colonial to the era of
colonial rule.

The century was marked by increasing involvement of Europeans (i.e. the
British) in the Gambia. As early as 1816, the British had settled on St. Mary’s Island,
built a small garrison there with a sizeable administration. Gradually, it expanded its
“spheres of inﬂuence” to the Gambian hinterland by amalgarnating MacCarthy Island
and the Ceded Mile as well as Kombo St. Mary. But until the second half of the
nineteenth century, mansas ruled the kingdoms that were located along the banks of the
river although the British tended be involved either as allies or mediators in the wars
that brought about their downfall.

The Gambia is a perfect place to explore changes in land tenure during the “proto-
colonial” period. The presence of the British in the area made it possible to ﬁnd a
sizeable body of written documents. Many of these documents enables a historian to
look at the evolving nature of land tenure in the early nineteenth century, from a time
when most of the lower Gambia region was under the control of African chiefs (with a
relatively minimal intervention by the British). It also it allows for an examination of
both change and continuity in pre-existing practices and ideas well into the turn of the

twentieth century — a period when the Gambia became a part of the British Empire.

219

The effect of this approach is to nuance or complicate the assumption about
interest in people versus land and to show that lower Gambian societies value both,
perhaps differently and differentially. It provides for an opportunity to challenge the
assumption that “customary” rights over land ensured equal access to land all members
of the community. Customs regulating access were generally discriminatory. As seen
mentioned earlier, the only people that were favored were people from prominent
lineages such as mansas, Alkalos, kabilo heads, marabouts and families who enjoyed
the privileged of being ﬁrst-settlers. Slaves, younger men and women as well as recent
migrants could not compete with older men of freebom class over the control of some
land. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, land was used by the landed
aristocracy to create dependents around them. These provided the “landlords” with the
access to labor, rent and people that they can exercise some level of authority over
them. Thus, even if landownership was not the basis of economic differentiation in
much of Africa, in the lower Gambia valley it shaped social differentiation, and these
were no less important in shaping its society and history.

Furthermore, the proposition that sub-Saharan Aﬁica was characterized
historically by land abundance and labor scarcity are broadly upheld.15 However, this
study not only challenges this view but it also argues that value is not solely determined
by population density or material constituents and people had a different view of which
land was vacant or not. For people living along the banks of the Gambia River, “vacant”
lands were not necessarily vacant. They viewed many of the “uncleared” forests as

places where spirits dwell, meaning that they were often occupied by supernatural

 

15

Gareth Austin, “Resources, Techniques, and Strategies South of the Sahara: Revising the Factor
Endowments Perspective on African Economic development, 1500—2000” Economic History Review
(2007), p. 1

220

beings who will not tolerate their being disturbed. Moreover, some land possessed
spiritual value, which also means that belief in spirits shaped local attitude toward land.
Even in the twentieth century, farmers continued to rely on marabouts and diviners or
nearby shrines to defend their property during times of conﬂict.

In the worldview of the people of the Lower Gambia region, there were “good”
and “bad” spirits. The good spirits/gins were Muslims and the very bad ones were
kaﬁrs, non-Muslims. Areas that were occupied by the ginne kaﬁrs did not constituted
bad agricultural land or residential area. Ordinary people, who attempted to cultivate
such areas either died, became impaired for the rest of their lives, secured poor harvests
or abandoned their settlements forever. There are numerous abandoned sites along the
banks of the Gambia River. But marabouts and diviners have in the past built a
reputation of possessing the kind of power needed to drive away evil spirits from a
forest or settlement. Yet, in discussing African land, many historians fail to differentiate
between types of land. They often failed to distinguish between “spirit” lands, upland
ﬁelds, swamp lands, and lands located in urban settlements. However, in the Gambia, as
in many places, fertility, proximity to a river, and urban “space” all inﬂuenced attitudes
to property ownership.

The nineteenth century changes necessitated the clearing of new land for the
expansion of peanut farms. But since people believed that spirits occupied most of the
uncultivated and un-cleared land, the marabouts had important role to play in this
overall process. People believed that these are individuals who could convert
undesirable land into a place suitable for residential or agricultural use. Marabouts were

instrumental in negotiating with the invincible forces to leave the land. At times, they

221

managed to convert the animistjinns into Islam and drive away those that refused to
accept the faith and allow people to use the land.

There is a need to disaggregate property rights. For example, there is a
distinction between use rights and the forms of titular control that was exercised by the
mansas who accorded their dependents use rights to the land. In turn, the mansa ’s
subjects kept the land so long as they did not commit any crime warranting their
banishment or failed to pay their naamo (i.e. taxes). Obviously, this form of right over
prOperty existed in early nineteenth century and before. A distinction between family
rights and individual rights can also be made. However, the two were not always
discernible. The notion of communal ownership of the land is questioned.

I hope this study will be of importance for Gambians as well as others in Africa as
they struggle with ways to understand practices of landownership and property
conﬂicts. In Gambia, as elsewhere, many conﬂicts during and since the pre-colonial
period have centered on control of property particularly land. It is not possible to move
toward long-term resolution of today’s conﬂicts over land and resources without a deep
understanding of their historical roots. This study focuses squarely on those roots,
while, at the same time, exploring traditional means to resolve conﬂicts—means rooted

in local power structures.

222

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Selected Primary Documents

Anderson, Michael. A Voyage to Senegal, the Isle of Goree and the River Gambia 1727-
1806 ([London, 1814?])

Blackbume, K.W. Development and Welfare in the Gambia, Report, June 1943

Delafosse, Maurice. Haut--Se'ne'gal—-Niger (Soudan franlilcais) [microforrn]: series
d'etudes pub. sous la direction de M. le gouvemeur Clozel. Paris : E. Larose, 1912.

Fox, William A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions on the Western Coast of Aﬁica
(London: Aylott and Jones, 1850) .

Hecquard, Louis Hyacinte. Voyage sur la Cote et dans I ’interieur de I’Aﬂique
Occidentale (Paris: Bénard, 1855)

Jobson, Richard The Golden Trade: or, A Discovery of The River Gambra, and the
Golden Trade of the Aethiopians (London: Printed by Nicholas Okes, 1623)

Johnson, Samuel (Rev). The History of the Yorubas: From the Earliest Times to the
Beginning of the British Protectorate (C .M .S. Nigeria, Bookshops Lagos, 1921)

Moister, William. Memorials of missionary Labours in Western Aﬂica, The West Indies
and the Cape of Good Hope (London, Patemostter Row, 1866)

Kamara, Bakari. Two Hunting Tales of the Senegambia. Oral History and Antiquities
Division, Banjul, 1980

Morgan, John. Reminiscences of the Founding of a Christian Mission on the Gambia.
(London: Wesleyan Mission House, 1864)

Park, Mungo. Travels in the Interior of Africa First Journey -1795 -1797 (Edinburg:
Adam and Charles Black, 1878)

The Christian Traveller in Western Africa. (London Charles Knight and Co. 1841)
Unpublished Sources

Beedle, Paul Julian. “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town” Thesis (doctoral)--
University of Cambridge, 1980

Gamble, David P. Traditional Mandinka Agriculture. Gambian Studies, No. 49.
Brisbane, California, February 2006

223

 

“The North Bank of the Gambia: Places, People, and Population (B)
The Wolof Area: Sabah and Sanjal, Lower Saalum, Upper Saalum” (Brisbane,
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