Islam, Power, and Dependency in the Gambia River Basin: The Politics of Land Control, 1790–1940 9781580465694, 2016033865

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Islam, Power, and Dependency in the Gambia River Basin

Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora Toyin Falola, Series Editor The Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor University of Texas at Austin Recent Titles Kingdoms and Chiefdoms of Southeastern Africa: Oral Traditions and History, 1400–1830 Elizabeth A. Eldredge Manners Make a Nation: Racial Etiquette in Southern Rhodesia, 1910–1963 Allison K. Shutt Guardians of the Tradition: Historians and Historical Writing in Ethiopia and Eritrea James De Lorenzi Ira Aldridge: The Last Years, 1855–1867 Bernth Lindfors Population, Tradition, and Environmental Control in Colonial Kenya Martin S. Shanguhyia Humor, Silence, and Civil Society in Nigeria Ebenezer Obadare Nation as Grand Narrative: The Nigerian Press and the Politics of Meaning Wale Adebanwi The Rise and Demise of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Atlantic World Edited by Philip Misevich and Kristin Mann The Power of the Oath: Mau Mau Nationalism in Kenya, 1952–1960 Mickie Mwanzia Koster Cotton and Race across the Atlantic: Britain, Africa, and America, 1900–1920 Jonathan E. Robins A complete list of titles in the Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora series may be found on our website, www.urpress.com.

Islam, Power, and Dependency in the Gambia River Basin The Politics of Land Control, 1790–1940

Assan Sarr

Copyright © 2016 by Assan Sarr All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. First published 2016 University of Rochester Press 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA www.urpress.com and Boydell & Brewer Limited PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK www.boydellandbrewer.com ISBN-13: 978-1-58046-569-4 ISSN: 1092-5228 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sarr, Assan, author. Title: Islam, power, and dependency in the Gambia River basin : the politics of land control, 1790–1940 / Assan Sarr. Other titles: Rochester studies in African history and the diaspora ; v. 75. Description: Rochester : University of Rochester Press, 2016. | Series: Rochester studies in African history and the diaspora ; v. 75 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016033865 | ISBN 9781580465694 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Land use—Political aspects—Gambia River Watershed. | Islam—Gambia River Watershed—History—19th century. | Islam— Gambia River Watershed—History—20th century. | Gambia—Politics and government—19th century. | Gambia—Politics and government—20th century. | Senegal—Politics and government—19th century. | Senegal—Politics and government—20th century. | Guinea—Politics and government—19th century. | Guinea—Politics and government—20th century. Classification: LCC HD1024 .S27 2016 | DDC 333.3096651—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016033865 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. This publication is printed on acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America.

I dedicate this book to my late brothers Momodou and Mamud Sarr

Contents

List of Maps

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction

1

Part 1: The Period of Uncontested Soninke Dominance 1

The Founding of Mandinka Settlements

33

2

Land and the Politics of Exclusion

59

3

The Power of the Wild Spirits

84

Part 2: The End of the Old Order 4

The End of Soninke Rule

113

5

Spiritual Persistence through Change

137

6

The Politicization of Chieftaincy

162

Conclusion

182

Notes

187

Bibliography

221

Index

239

Maps 1.1

The Gambian river states

42

3.1

Land cover

87

4.1

Map of lower Gambia showing settlements

115

Acknowledgments Many people have helped me a great deal over the years and it is my turn to thank them. I start with Professor Donald Wright and his wife, Doris, for their enormous material support, encouragement, and friendship. My getting into graduate school is purely to their credit. Don and Doris are the best parents anyone could ask for. I have benefitted from the generosity and friendship of Professor Walter Hawthorne and his wife, Jackie. My relationship with Walter began in 2003 when he encouraged and assisted me in getting admitted to Ohio University to pursue an MA in African studies. While at Michigan State University, he served as my academic advisor. Over the years, Walter provided me with tremendous academic, emotional, and financial support. I couldn’t have completed this book without his support. In fall 2015, as chair of the Department of History at MSU, he also provided me with a fellowship to finish revising the book. He and Jackie were also so generous as to open their house to me; I stayed in their house for nearly four months. I wish to thank them and their wonderful children, Katherine and JD, for their hospitality and friendship. Professor David Robinson, who also co-chaired my dissertation committee, was extremely generous to me with his time, ideas, and support. I am a beneficiary of his kindness. As a mentor, he was always eager to help and support me in all of my academic pursuits. Moreover, Dr. Robinson made East Lansing feel like home. And his friendship continues to this day. Professors Wright, Hawthorne, and Robinson all read many early drafts of chapters of this book, and I want to thank them. A very long list of special friends and colleagues at Ohio University has contributed immensely to providing support for this book: Ziad Abu-Rish, Katherine Jellison, Diane Ciekawy, Mariana Dantas, Steve Miner, Robert Ingram, Araba Dawson-Andoh, Dean Bob Frank, Judith Grant, Ghirmai Negash, Brian Schoen, Kevin Uhalde, Ingo Trauschweizer, and many others. I want to thank Ohio University graduate students Goitom Negash, Tereza Kidane, Abdoulie

xii

Acknowledgments

Jabang, and Sana Saidykhan for all their help. It is also my great pleasure to thank colleagues, friends, informants, archivists and family members outside of Ohio University who all helped me in the process of researching and writing this book. Benjamin Lawrance, Toby Green, Emily Osborn, Pamela Kea, David Wheat, and Jeggan Senghor have all read parts of the book and they all offered me valuable comments. Cheikh Babou read a very early draft of chapter 2 of the manuscript. Special thanks also go to Professors Martin Klein, Mohammed Bashir Salau, Nwando Achebe, Aly Dramé, Ousman Kobo, Ibra Sene, Peter Alegi, Peter Limb, Joseph Lauer, and the late David Bailey for their support and friendship. Lindsey Gish, Saiba Suso, Momodou Bah, and Abdoulie Jafuneh gave me extraordinary support. Over the years, I benefitted from the support of Professors Tim Carmicheal, Bernard Powers, Rebecca Shumway, Rich Bodek, Donald West and several other colleagues in Charleston. Professor Bill Roberts of St. Mary’s College of Maryland has contributed immensely to my education, and his continued friendship has been crucial. I also want to thank my friends Bala Saho, Lumumba Shabaka, Joseph Bradshaw, David Glovsky and Jorge Felipe. No one deserves more thanks than my best friend and dear sister, Leslie Hadfield, for all her support and friendship dating back to 2004 when we were both students at Ohio University. I am indebted to the Director of National Records Service in The Gambia, Elizabeth Bahoum and her assistant, Kalilu Sonko. At the University of The Gambia, Professor Pierre Gomez, Ensa Touray, and Alagie Mbye offered me great assistance. I want to also thank Nicholas Kroncke for the maps. I cannot conclude this section without also thanking Professor Momodou Darboe. Generous funding supported the research for this book. First, the College of Charleston offered me the Faculty Research and Development Grant to visit The Gambia in 2011. Other support from the College of Charleston came from the Office of the Dean for the Humanities and Social Sciences, the History Department, and the African Studies Program. At Ohio University, the History Department offered me a semester-long leave that I devoted to finishing the book, and provided me with travel/research funds as well as generous book-completion funding. This would not have materialized without the support of all my colleagues in the History Department, particularly Sherry Gillogly, Brenda Nelson, Patrick Barr-Melej and once again Katherine Jellison. I have also received

Acknowledgments xiii

support from Claire Kimok at the dean’s office. The African Studies Program, under the leadership of a dear friend and mentor, Steve Howard, also supported me throughout the years. An Ohio University Research Committee (OURC) award and the College of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Research Fund were crucial in providing much-needed resources for the completion of this project. The University of Rochester Press and I gratefully acknowledge Ohio University’s History Department and the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs for their generous support of this publication. I thank the anonymous readers for their careful reading of the manuscript and especially for the excellent comments they gave me. I also want to thank the series editor Toyin Falola, the editorial director of the University of Rochester Press, Sonia Kane, Tracey Engel, Ryan Peterson, and the entire editorial team for their support. It was an absolute delight to work with Sonia’s team and the series editor. Special thanks to the numerous people in The Gambia who welcomed me to their homes and educated me on the issues I write about in this book. Let me conclude by extending sincere thanks and gratitude to my parents, Alhajie Macodou Sarr and Aji Fatou Drammeh, for their prayers, love, and support. Special thanks also go to my brother Yusupha Sohna and his wife, Adama, my brother Ousainou Sarr and his wife, Ndey Fatou Jagne, Pa Sarr, Omar Sarr, and Mam Cherno Sarr, and their families. Thanks to Ida Sarr and her beautiful children. This is also a time to remember loved ones who have left us too soon: my late brothers, Momodou Sarr and Mamud Sarr. Momodou, then a primary school teacher, was so encouraging that when he tragically lost his life, I felt that I lost my best friend. A few years later, another dear friend and brother, Mamud, passed away. Mamud taught me hard work. I also remember my late Quranic teacher, friend, and uncle, Pa Adama Jallow, whose prayers and support have continued to guide me. Cherno Baba Jallow, my childhood friend, also did not live to see this book. I miss all of these great people very badly. They will forever remain in my thoughts. My wife, Marion Mendy, supported me greatly. My children Aji Fatou Sarr and Alagie Mamud Sarr have colored my life with joy. I will be forever grateful to all these special people.

Introduction In March 1931, Major R. W. Macklin, Traveling Commissioner for the North Bank Province of British Gambia, gathered information intended to help the colonial government in Bathurst, Gambia’s capital city. He sought to establish what would be the “proper native authority” to govern this British West African colony through the practice of indirect rule. “Formerly,” Macklin wrote, “before the establishment of the Protectorate the country was ruled over by kings whom the Wolof termed Bur and Mandinka called mansa.”1 “Petty kings” assisted these kings.2 Prior to the imposition of colonial rule, each town was under the control of a “headman” (Wolof, burom-dekk, Mandinka, sateo-tio or alkalo, literally “town-master”). The alkalo could only deal with civil offences while they and the “petty kings” had to refer all decisions to the king for confirmation. In actual practice, matters did not always follow this course, depending to a large extent upon the relative strengths of the mansa, mansanding and sateo-tio (alkalo). But, Macklin noted, when the Gambian River states were split up between the French and British in the late nineteenth century the kings and “petty kings” disappeared (although, as Macklin noted, “a few lingered on in the possession of a few empty honours and titles, but deprived of all power, and were replaced by an entirely new creation, that of the ‘head chief’”). From the 1890s, British administrators replaced local elites with head chiefs who owed their positions to colonial administrators and were not, in all cases, descendants of the former rulers.3 Although Macklin’s story was written in the twentieth century and did not mention the land-based powers of the mansa, mansanding, and sateo-tio, he speaks to one of the several profound changes that gripped Africa in general and the lower Gambia region in particular over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From 1816, the year when Great Britain founded Bathurst with the aim of disrupting and ending the Atlantic slave trade, to the 1940s, Gambia went through a period of profound economic and political change.4 The decline of Atlantic-oriented slave trading in the river

2 Introduction

brought one level of disruption; the rise of “legitimate” (nonslave) trade and cash-cropping brought another; the spread of Islam and the decline of long-existing political systems a third; and fourth was steadily growing British strength and authority, followed by the formal imposition of British rule in the late nineteenth century. The Gambia is, in the twenty-first century, a thin sliver of a country on the coast of West Africa. It is unique in West Africa for its small size and riverine orientation. But it is also a microcosm of the larger region, constituted as it is by a rich mosaic of peoples, practices, and beliefs. By focusing on the history of this region, particularly that of the lower Gambia, the region where the river widens into the Atlantic Ocean, this book charts the way that land figured centrally into the political and social transformations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In so doing, this book departs from much of what has been written about land in precolonial Africa. In the Gambia River basin, land was not only central to the efforts by elites to maintain control over their subjects, but access to it was limited by beliefs which convinced people that spirits also occupied certain spaces, preventing their use. This study makes three important propositions about land and authority in Africa. First, it argues that land’s value does not lay simply in its materiality—its fertility and potential for productivity—but also in its cultural and social worth. Land along the Gambia River had a relational value; it was important for producing and sustaining power relationships. Several Mandinka chiefs and their courts, and later Muslim leaders, used their control of land and their spiritual power for influence and to keep others dependent upon them. Second, from the mid-nineteenth century, this relational value of land began to change as people sought land to exploit the market or because of its value as a commodity. This shift significantly weakened the traditional instruments that regulated how people related to their land. Over the course of the mid-nineteenth century, clerics were thought to have opened up more land for cultivation and habitation by driving away spirits. This partly facilitated the expansion of peanut farming, and the destruction of the forest cover. Third, the increasing Islamization of the Gambia region in the nineteenth century was a crucial turning point in how land was valued. As marabouts (Muslim clerics) used their own, quasi-religious-based spiritual power to combat and overcome that of the spirits, they opened up new land that was previously not available for human settlement

Introduction

3

or cultivation. Like their predecessors, these religious leaders also used these lands to keep people reliant on them through a system of patronage. The stories of battles that marabouts fought with spirits augmented their religious credentials while also bolstering their claims to land. In proposing these arguments, the book hopes to reopen the debate on the history of land in Africa in general and West Africa in particular, and to give it new directions by questioning the view that all Africans faced major challenges in broadcasting power over sparsely populated areas. Understanding the role spiritual beliefs played in shaping local ideas about land and the way land defined the relationships between elites and commoners, “firstcomers” and “latecomers,” as well as in state consolidation in Africa, is not merely an academic issue. This understanding is critical to the future of what Jeffery Herbst terms “millions of people in Africa who are at risk from the insecurity” that results from local-level conflicts often related to the struggle for access to or control of resources.5 Many communities in Africa in general, and the Gambia in particular, are grappling with ways to understand landownership and conflicts over access to resources. Generally, it is not possible to bring about a resolution of these conflicts without a deep understanding of their historical roots. The Historiographical Context

For many decades, landholding and land use practices in Africa, and particularly West Africa, have been important topics of study for anthropologists, geographers, and others. Landholding has been treated and analyzed as part of social and political organizations, economic systems, agriculture, and law and, as Daniel Biebuyck notes, as a “cluster of rights of social personalities and groups.”6 Yet, existing paradigms about land use in West Africa are generally grounded in materialist conceptual frameworks, while they also tend not to treat landholding as a deeply historical process. The first assumption is related to a “land ratio” argument, that land is abundant and what is needed to make it productive (i.e., people). Many historians, along with political scientists and anthropologists, have long believed that in Africa land was historically in abundance and that political and social systems operated there around the principle

4 Introduction

of “control over people.” Land, so this line of argumentation goes, is of little use or worth without the people necessary to make it productive. This is a historiographical interpretation with deep roots among Africanist scholars—a view largely invented by colonial officials and anthropologists.7 Jack Goody is one of the most famous anthropologists to popularize the view in the 1950s, and more so in the 1970s. For Goody, the basic difference between the economies of precolonial Africa and its Eurasian counterpart in relation to land tenure was that in Africa not only was land plentiful, it was less productive than in Eurasia. This, he claims, was due partly to technological limitations since Africans did not have the plow and African soils were poor. Thus, rights in land were less highly individualized than in Europe.8 According to Goody, the political consequences of this abundance in land relative to low population densities was that chiefs tended to exercised more control over people rather than over land. Consequently, the conditions for the forms of domination that obtained in the European Middle Ages hardly existed in Africa, except for slavery itself. That is why, according to this line of argumentation, slavery was important throughout much of Africa.9 In the 1970s and 1980s, as the materialist conception of history became popular among Africanists, land tenure continued to be a subject of interest for anthropologists and geographers. As Anthony Hopkins notes, historical research on property rights in Africa has concentrated largely, though not exclusively, on studies of slavery and its complement, wage labor.10 Many historians of slavery held ideas related to that of Goody or the similar “Domar hypothesis.”11 The “Domar hypothesis” is associated with Evsey Domar, who argues that from the second half of the fifteenth century Russia was engaged in long and destructive wars against its western and southern neighbors, requiring large forces that the state found impossible to support from its revenues. For this reason, the Russian state began to assign land to the servitors (i.e., the dependents of the nobility), who were expected to use peasant labor for either payments in cash or kind. Under this arrangement, the servitors would give the peasants a loan and permit them to work all or part of the land on their own. The system ended in a dismal failure because there was no scarcity of land in Russia. With this condition, it was the ownership of peasants and not land that yielded an income to the servitors (the nonworking landowning class).12 Domar proposed this argument as

Introduction

5

he was trying to explain the causes of agricultural serfdom or slavery (the two used interchangeably) in sixteenth-century Russia. Taken together, the “Domar hypothesis” and Goody’s work not only influenced the global historiography of slavery; they also impacted the literature on slavery in Africa.13 The view was attractive to many historians of Africa as it seemed to differentiate slavery in Africa from slavery in the Americas. By the mid-1980s, Africanists seized this idea and used it to understand slavery, as exemplified by a host of studies on the subject. Although John Thornton calls upon Africanists to move away from broad, simplistic assumptions about land-labor ratios and to think more carefully about differences between European and African conceptions of ownership, he contends that African law recognized the ownership of slaves rather than land. His explanation is grounded in a framework that seeks to draw an analytical distinction between the public and the private, the individual and the community, as if these were in opposition to one another. While he does not agree that people were thin on the ground, he believes that in Africa slaves were “the only form of private, revenue-producing property recognized in African law.”14 It was a major preoccupation in Western thought to try to delineate the boundaries between the private and the public, a distinction that other historians have since noted is not easily discernible in all African societies.15 The idea that there was “vacant land” in West Africa—so much of it, with so few people to work it, that humans did not regard possession of land as adding to their personal wealth, but instead regarded possessing other humans as the only real source of wealth—was rooted in a view that did not grasp the importance of spirituality in the conception and use of space in West Africa: land was not empty, but rather occupied by spirits, and where empty of human occupancy or use it was because of the potential for harmful interaction with these spirits. Around the Gambia River, spirits haunted land, and they posed a threat to human beings who occupied it. That belief system contoured the habitation of the region from at least the late eighteenth century well into the nineteenth century. What this assumption overlooks is that land had other meanings and associations, and was often connected to power relations. Moreover, places existed in Africa where land, because of its fertility, resources, and locale, long attracted efforts at control and, as

6 Introduction

a result, sparked initiatives to own, possess, and manage it. African land was not devoid of any significant value in African eyes, and historical analysis of land in Africa should avoid assuming a static representation of African law. Thus, generalizing about the absence of land ownership in Africa is risky. As Ugo Nwokeji writes, the assumption that landowners’ inability to sell land proves the absence of land ownership conflates landownership with commodification of land. For Nwokezi, the fact that Africans could not dispose of land freely does not necessarily mean that they did not own it in the first place. Relying on the works of Robert Baum and Walter Hawthorne, he cites examples of the Balanta and the Jola of Senegambia whose customs, for generations, allowed land to pass down from father to son. These examples may or may not be typical, he writes, but they call attention to how little we know about land ownership in West Africa before the twentieth century.16 Moreover, as studies on personal dependency and relationships between “firstcomers” and “latecomers” have shown, land and its allocation have long defined relations between clients and patrons, and therefore constitute a language to debate citizenship, or membership in a community.17 Such literature has improved our understanding of local authority in Africa as well as land’s value for production, and its role in sustaining power relationships, as well as in determining social belonging. This is particularly true for many of the works, written by anthropologists and post-emancipation scholars, that have shown that the desire to accumulate wealth-in-people was a distinctive feature of at least nineteenth-century African economies.18 By creatively employing the concept of wealth-in-people to analyze the complex relations between African elites’ and commoners’ considerations of economic, social, and political dimensions of land use and labor relations, Africanists also paid attention to varied forms of social dependency in Africa, the ambiguities of dependency, and why people seek to be dependent on others.19 They show that domination operates not simply through “coercion”; it also works through “concessions.” Furthermore, the view that Africans belonged to extended family and kinship networks is much noted by students of African slavery and the post-abolition era. One of the real contributions of these studies on African kinship and social structures is that they show that, in as much as Africans valued community and solidarity, their social groupings or communities were also fractured along the lines of gender, ethnicity, class,

Introduction

7

and religion. As Robert Harms contends, struggle to control people, especially where there was a shortage of labor, could result in competition among African patrons.20 Powerless Africans sometimes voluntarily sought dependency on powerful individuals or families. Being part of a community offered protection from difficult conditions such as hunger, war, violence, or fear of political oppression. In short, being a member of a community can present opportunities to dependents as well as power-holders. Accumulating wealth-in-people was certainly desirable to many African societies, but what many analysts of this concept have overlooked are the ways land was used to attract and keep these dependents.21 No one has yet explained carefully how the principle of wealth-in-people worked in Senegambian societies, nor has anyone considered its historical context. Current interpretations of wealthin-people tend to overlook the central questions relating to it: why and to what end? The most common way Africanists have interpreted African ideas about wealth-in-people is narrow: that they placed less premium on control of land and emphasized, instead, enlarging the kinship unit through polygamous marriages and procreation, the acquisition of slaves, and adoption. This book takes a broader view, based on an argument that African political, religious, and community leaders wanted dependents because controlling people not only conferred material benefits, but was at the heart of their spiritual and political understanding of their universe. In the Gambia region, building wealth-in-people offered prestige and power, and augmented one’s social standing. By focusing on the social and political value of land, this study hopes to produce a new analysis of the African geography of power by bringing together three current debates in African precolonial and colonial historiography, namely chieftaincy, land tenure, and invented traditions. As this book shows, investigating the social and political value of land over time offers a fuller understanding of forms of social belonging, the relationships between elites and commoners, as well as the processes of state consolidation in Africa. When Gambian elders state that people constituted wealth, they likely do not mean that people literally were the wealth, but that such people brought social and material things to their hosts, masters, kin/community, or families that constituted wealth. In the Gambian worldview, people who pursued material wealth and ignored social bonds and relationships were considered poor. They were

8 Introduction

kinless. The local term for this condition is tumaranke. In contrast, the rich person was the one that built community. Under this logic, wives, slaves, talibes (Quranic students) and children were highly valued. One of the most basic of Gambian Mandinka proverbs states “strangers make the village wealthy”—emphasizing that newcomers bring fresh ideas, energy, ambition, and perhaps material goods that will likely enhance the prosperity of most villagers. Political elites— everyone from village chiefs to rulers of the Mandinka-dominated states—could boast of significant political and economic power by controlling both land and people. Also, healing people, or protecting dependents from land and sea spirits reinforced one’s standing in society. Thus, control over land and people held a deeply spiritual as well as a material dimension, and this is something that Western-based scholars of African histories have ignored. Before the mid-nineteenth century people used land not so much to produce the material conditions of survival and enrichment, but to gain control over others, and to define personal and social identities.22 As numerous studies have revealed, landlord-stranger relationships often played a critical role in shaping interactions between European strangers and African landlords across the Upper Guinea Coast of West Africa. The advent of trans-Atlantic trading and the arrival of European and Euro-African traders on the coast provided local chiefs the opportunity to offer hospitality and protection to these strangers. Under these arrangements, Upper Guinean chiefs allowed traders to build or purchase a factory on lands provided by the chief. Also, the stranger sometimes married one of the chief’s female relations or dependents. In exchange, the stranger paid tribute to the landlord, the chief. The chief also inherited the goods of traders who died while residing in the chief’s territory.23 The willingness of Africans to provide land to European sailors and merchants was often critical to the success of European commercial interests, and there is every reason to believe that this practice predated the trans-Atlantic trade.24 Giving land in exchange for trade or other beneficial opportunities clearly indicates that the land had value for the giver. It also suggests that in the Upper Guinea Coast, there were differentials of power along class and ethnic lines, and controlling land was often critical in the creation of various forms of dependency. This interpretation is detailed in the literature on pre-nineteenthcentury West Africa and those who wrote about this—Dorjahn and

Introduction

9

Fyfe, Mouser and Brooks—have tended to focus on Afro-European land relations without considering how the practice shaped relationships among Africans in a noncommercial context.25 More recent studies on the landlord-stranger phenomenon in nineteenth-century West Africa have demonstrated that land augmented the “politics of difference” between people of distinct social classes and that relations of social dependence served as the foundation of many African societies.26 As Paul J. Beedle argues, relationships between “first-comers” and “strangers” were ones “of dependence and protection [and] involved power [which] was durable and regular.”27 But while Kenneth Swindell and Alieu Jeng, as well as many others, have offered compelling analyses of historical change which show that land control was indeed a basis for socio-economic differentiation, they draw heavily on the land-abundance paradigm. They either have accepted the view that Africans valued people more than land, or failed to tackle the contention that Goody and others advanced several decades ago.28 The Gambian case has enabled me to challenge a historiographical interpretation that stands at the heart of an array of studies of statecraft and politics in Africa. While Africanists have started paying attention to the political dimensions of land control, different versions of Goody’s argument continue to persist, with slight modifications but with continued emphasis on the view that in Africa land was not a scarce commodity.29 Political scientist Jeffrey Herbst contends, for instance, that “the fundamental problem facing state builders in Africa has been to project authority over inhospitable territories that contain relatively low densities of people.”30 For Herbst, much of contemporary Africa suffers from a relatively low population density, which makes it more expensive for states to exert control over a given number of people compared to Europe and other densely settled areas. It is the same argument Goody made several decades before.31 Recent debate on the nature of the nineteenth-century Asante state is an example of how Africanists persist in old assumptions about land. Generally, historians of the Asante agree that the political culture of the Asante state favored the self-acquisition of wealth, provided it contributed to royal (stool) revenues. Before 1874, the Asante state demonstrated the capacity to restructure and redistribute the ownership or sovereignty over lands and subjects.32 The king and his officials obtained revenue in a variety of ways,

10

Introduction

including taxing the income of people in the state and occasionally calling on the labor services of all subjects. According to Gareth Austin, this made the Asante state an unusually powerful polity by nineteenth-century West African standards. It was a state that such scholars as T. McCaskie believed had the ability to accumulate both “wealth in people” and “wealth in land.” But Austin has questioned the extent of the Asante state’s domination of wealth accumulation in the nineteenth century. For him, the Asante state was not only militarily powerful, but it also yielded the ability to control the lives of its own people.33 Austin believes that in most of the nineteenth century the state had no standing army or even a monopoly over conscription, and firearms were easily accessible. The king’s control over the population was therefore subject to important constraints. Austin partly supports his argument by citing Emmanuel Akyeampong and Pashington Obeng who claim that “despite the ruler’s claims, in Asante belief supernatural power was available to all.” The possibility for Asante dissidents seeking refuge in neighboring states and “the combination of low population density and a forest environment,” in Austin’s view, made it even more difficult for the state to control its people.34 Austin is persuasive in his argument. His work has offered an analysis that is rigorous and refreshingly historic.35 He shows that religion influenced African economic life, since it determined the day of rest from farming, as it did in monotheistic societies of the period. Similarly, he demonstrates that chieftaincy in Asante society was a sacred office, because chiefs were intermediaries between their royal ancestors and living subjects.36 If one compares his representation of Asante with the Gambia River basin, it is possible to see interesting parallels. Nineteenth-century chiefs in both places were very oppressive. While there existed a warrior class—people whose livelihoods depended on fighting wars—the Gambia River states had no standing armies. A few stories of individuals who chose selfexile in order to escape maltreatment by the Gambian chiefs exist. Many oral narratives also suggest that the availability of firearms contributed to the collapse of the Mandinka-led states. That said, the option of fleeing or revolting was often not an alternative for most people. On the one hand, due to family attachments, honor, and the fact that many people revered their ancestral ties with their homeland, many individuals did not consider seeking refuge elsewhere. On the other, the manipulation of the supernatural world

Introduction 11

was often an effective mechanism for control and it was available to certain African families, as the Gambian cases demonstrate. Revolt would not come until the mid-nineteenth century when marabouts replaced the Soninke ruling class. Gambian oral traditions support an interpretation of the region’s history that permits a new analysis of power. The study brings together three important topics in African precolonial and colonial historiography with a fuller understanding of the role land played in defining social belonging, relationships between elites and commoners, and state consolidation in Africa. Building on Nwokeji’s point, this study seeks to examine the changing nature of human dependency related to land in the Gambia River basin between the late eighteenth and the early twentieth century. When scholars focus on the productive uses of land, and its place in the economic history of Africa, they tend to overlook the many different values that Africans placed on land. For instance, many studies on the rise of “legitimate” trade, cash-cropping, or the decline of slavery focus on the ways in which the development of commercial farming had major economic and social consequences for African communities. There is a recognition that the transition to cash crops led to a different relationship with land. Population growth, urbanization, and cash-cropping resulted in the commoditization of both land and labor.37 Growing cash crops allowed individuals (including people of slave ancestry) to invest in land and dependents.38 Using money they acquired from selling cash crops, migrants or strangers would buy and clear new farmland or enter into an agreement with landlords, paying a share of the crop at the end of the season in return for land allocated to them for a season of crop growing.39 They would also pay tribute to local chiefs. Others rented land from their hosts, who were, in effect, the land’s owners.40 Long-distance, seasonal, and periodic movements of young men working in the cash-crop sector as clerks, porters, and migrant farmers played a role in the growth of commercial farming in West Africa. However, even Anthony Hopkins’s classic Economic History and Susan Martin’s stimulating book, Palm and Protest, are based on an assumption of an abundance of land without interrogating this presupposition.41 More recent studies on West Africa’s economic history often suggest that the expansion of the cash-crop economy entailed a transition from a sparsely populated rural economy in

12

Introduction

which cultivable land allowed generous fallow time, or was not cultivated at all, to a more populous, much more commercial agriculture in which little tillable space escaped cultivation altogether.42 Rotation cycles, Austin argues, became shorter, and much land was under permanent cropping.43 But what is missed in this assessment is that in much of Africa land was wrapped up in social, spiritual, and political ways of thinking which often eclipsed more purely economic calculations. Evidence from the Gambia region that follows does not fully support this demographically deterministic interpretation of land in Africa. While discussion of the transition from slave-trading to cash crops has tended to focus on colonial and postcolonial moments of change and on Western paradigms, they have missed the important African spiritual reality. The imposition of colonial rule sparked radical changes in how land was viewed in many African societies. It is widely acknowledged that the idea of an unchanging communal ownership of land that did not allow for private ownership and allocation of land was one constructed by colonial officials based on a snapshot in time at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. Steven Pierce suggests that this colonial construction highlights a general problem of the persistence of forms of knowledge that are simply wrong.44 Yet, examinations of colonial legal systems have shed critical light on the effects of the imposition of Western concepts of individual rights, which at times facilitated the dispossession of Africans of their land and the escalation of land disputes that ended up in (European) colonial courts.45 They show that as Europeans tried to introduce freehold notions of land tenure by creating European legal frameworks to regulate the alienation of land, land (at least in many African countries) was also being commodified as a result of colonial and neo-liberal policies.46 Many have also shown that land struggles intensified because of rising land values, an increase in population, or legal and institutional pluralism. The codification of land law in sub-Saharan Africa reflects a more general process of the formation of the colonial state.47 As Steven Pierce notes, the mechanisms of the colonial state were built on the basis of state regulation of land. The codification of land and the creation of colonial courts invited people to debate land rights and local histories. Combined with increased tendencies toward individualism, consumerism (including accumulation) and commodification often led to an escalation of land disputes across the

Introduction 13

continent. There were also wider social and environmental consequences including heightened gender (including intra-gender) conflicts and the exclusion of women from landownership.48 The growth of commercial agriculture led to the depletion of forests and colonial land tenure policies also had an impact on the institution of chieftaincy.49 For these reasons, one could argue that this literature contradicts the interpretations of land by such scholars as Goody, Fage, and Thornton by offering a more nuanced analysis of changing values of land and labor. Yet, echoes of Goody’s argument keep appearing, though in different form. Jack Glazier notes that among the Mbeere of western Kenya land control was not a basis for socio-economic differentiation because there was plenty of land available for everyone.50 Glazier’s argument contradicts the fact that “those who arrive first [thought of themselves as] superior to latecomers” and the claims to “firstcomer” and “latecomer” status is often contested.51 Glazier should have done more to consider that land’s value lies beyond its materiality and use. In other words, he should have considered an approach that takes into account land’s cultural and social worth. The notion that in Africa land was merely a means to economic production with little value beyond what it can produce is an oversimplification that sadly continues to be stated. Pierce has argued that in the Sokoto Caliphate, “controlling land was not the prime means of economic exploitation, which was one reason why slavery was economically important.”52 He quotes Lieutenant Governor Richmond Palmer, who once remarked that the “king is merely a custodian and not in any real sense the owner of the soil. . . . [This] merely means he has political control over the country.”53 Even though Pierce did not dispute the idea that the Sultan of Sokoto did indeed own all lands conquered in the 1804 jihad that created the caliphate, he believes that this form of ownership did not correspond to its apparent English counterpart. Individuals, he writes, had property rights in land that were well defined, as they were recognized in inheritance law, but “individual proprietary rights were less obvious because there was not much point in buying or selling land except in areas like the Kano Close-Settled Zone.” The emphasis here is on the market or commodity value of land. Stressing the market value of land is surely important, but it overlooks the many ways in which Africans regarded land ownership as a way to prove evidence of citizenship and social belonging. Berry

14

Introduction

and Glazier both analyze changes and continuities in the ways people made and exercised claims on land during the colonial and postcolonial periods. They demonstrate the importance of the competing reinterpretation of traditions of the past, and of historical memories.54 Their work shows that, because of present and past concerns about land, history is still being debated and reinterpreted over much of the continent. Berry warns specifically about assuming that land in precolonial Africa was devoid of any significance. And the old, romanticist views of precolonial African land tenure are increasingly being refuted (though the view that control was exercised more on people than on land is still widely held).55 In analyzing the tie between land and community membership in contemporary Tanzania, Paul Bjerk modifies this argument by claiming that “in East Africa political control over people in many areas was accounted in discourses of control over territory and the mutual obligations engendered in its allocation.” He agrees with the view that “wealth in people was regularly articulated through the act of allocating land to them.”56 For him, the discursive use of land shaped local debates about policies and constitutes a sort of institutionalization of memory.57 But Bjerk falls short of questioning “the plentitude of land” assumption. In doing so, he overlooks the fact that in many African societies land was not empty, but rather occupied by spirits, and where empty it was because of the potential for harmful interaction with these spirits. Carola Lentz rejects the claims that land in Africa was free and plentiful, and that political control tended to be over people rather than over land.58 Her work echoes Parker Shipton’s claims that land tenure in Africa relates one person to others or to things and, thus, access to land had always been political.59 For Lentz, Africans often argued, and continue to argue, about how far back in time one has to trace an attachment to a specific piece of land to claim ownership, and land ownership serves as a signifier of belonging to a local community.60 Her work, therefore, makes a welcome contribution to the literature as it challenges an idea long taken for granted. It shows that land had social and cultural worth and like Berry, Hanson, and many others, she examines the importance of land as a source of social and political legitimacy, and how control over land, more so than over humans, determined social hierarchy. In some ways, this study is similar to many of these works in that it demonstrates that across a tumultuous period, two groups of

Introduction 15

people living in the Gambia basin (chiefs and their courts, on the one hand, and Muslim leaders and their retinues on the other), controlled access to land and used their political power to keep people dependent on them for access to this productive resource. Yet, this study differs in significant ways from those of Berry, Lentz, and Sackeyfio-Lenoch. First, this book adopts an interpretation with implications relevant to environmental history. Discussion here of the spiritual associations that the land generated, and of the way that certain people could gain privileged access to those spiritual powers, while others could not, points to what might be considered an indigenous tradition of ecological preservation and protection. This suggests that local belief in the existence of “spirit lands” served an ecological function, wittingly or unwittingly, and through such beliefs religious specialists were able to attract and keep people (followers) as dependents. Second, unlike Berry, Lentz, Hanson, or Sackeyfio-Lenoch, this study does not emphasize the effects of colonialism or commercial agriculture on African land tenure practices, but rather their effects on Islam and spiritual change. This approach, while not devoid of important political and economic ramifications, demonstrates more clearly that the land around the Gambia River both inspired and gave form to a cosmology of ritual and belief. It also shows that local forces were important in altering family structures and unity as well as communities, and the ways people exercised control over land. African land tenure systems have rarely been studied in the context of Islamization and its effects on changing ideas or attitudes of Africans toward land. More work on the intersection between cash crops, jihads, and changing attitudes toward land, as well as an examination of Muslim and Mandinka aristocratic figures, will add new insights. This book is not only an examination of history from the perspective of insiders asserting that land was central to economies, politics, and identity, but it fills an important void because only a handful of scholars have examined the important political and social history of land along the banks of the Gambia River. Senegambian historiography generally neglects the study of land, though there are some analyses of land in the Middle Niger, the Senegal basin, and the Casamance-Guinea-Bissau region.61 Those studies reveal that the fertility of the land along river basins was an important reason why people settled in these areas and struggled mightily to maintain

16

Introduction

control over the land.62 But detailed historical analysis of land in the Gambia River basin has rarely been attempted. The shifts that are described in this book tell a lot about changing power dynamics and contestation over social belonging as they relate to the significant shifts in local beliefs on spirits and their ability to occupy certain spaces (land). The transformations that this study focuses on had far-reaching political, social, and economic consequences, particularly for farmers and rural communities. Here, there existed elaborate hierarchies with some people exercising more control over land and using their power to keep others dependent on them for access to land. By offering an in-depth historical analysis of land and the changing nature of chieftaincy in the Gambia, this book details waves of changes that caused shifts in conceptions of what could be owned and who owned what things and the value(s) that people attached to different kinds of land. As these conceptions shifted, conflicts along lines of gender, generation, and class erupted. These transformations occurred following the ending of the Atlantic slave trade and resulted, in the several decades after 1830, in the overthrow of the Mandinka aristocracy and royal control of land. The Gambia River Basin: Geography and Society

Before the British and the French partitioned the area around the Gambia River in the 1890s, the lower Gambia basin was not a unified political entity. No regional definition, let alone logic, corresponds to the 1889 international boundary created during the Anglo-French Convention in Paris to separate Senegal and The Gambia. Like many other national boundaries, the modern ones of The Gambia and Senegal are completely artificial, having nothing to do with ethnic or geographic lines of demarcation. In addition, the modern boundaries distort the pre-twentieth-century political and historical map of the region. This book avoids such mistakes by focusing on the parts of the region within a few miles of the Gambia River. Eighteenth-century European documentary sources show that the lower Gambia River area was well settled by farmers. People were mostly gathered into “over forty towns and villages, some of them with more than 2,000 inhabitants.”63 Although reliable census data are lacking for the pre-twentieth-century era, a mid-nineteenth-century

Introduction 17

visitor claimed that “a distant view of the most extensive landscape present[ed] nothing like human habitations; not that the country is without population, but because the principal towns are generally built beside a thicket, and oftentimes almost surrounded by it.”64 Land around the Suwareh Kunda Creek and Katchang on the north bank of the Gambia River was more populated than further up the river, and in some of the wooded areas in the interior. As late as the 1890s, an observer could report: “one may walk for miles without coming across a village. There, the trees and bush get heavier, and the towns fewer.”65 Other sources also point to a sparsely populated Upper Gambia, where before the late nineteenth century towns and villages were few and far between.66 The lower Gambia was a cultural zone and a tiny riverine enclave, where, a British governor’s wife reported in the 1950s, “most of the villages are scattered within easy reach of its banks.”67 The region comprised a narrow strip of land on both banks of the Gambia River’s lower reaches. The basin extended from the Atlantic coastline for over a hundred kilometers inland.68 Before the mid-nineteenth century, the region included much of the area that was formerly claimed by Mandinka rulers of the several river states that once flourished along the Gambia’s banks.69 It included several villages in the coastal area of Niumi-Bato, now part of modern Senegal, north of Niumi between Jinnack Creek and the Jomboss River.70 A number of villages that are now part of the southern region of Senegal, Cassamance and Kabada, were part of the region. Forests, marshes, savanna grasslands, and creeks, estuaries, lagoons, sandbars, and tidal islands were important physical features of the lower Gambia River basin’s landscape. In the eighteenth century, visitors to the area would have seen forest, estuaries, a river, marshes, and the broad savanna lands within a few kilometers of the banks of the Gambia River.71 The region had unique ecological, social, economic, and political characteristics that for centuries shaped the lives of the people who lived there. The region owed its importance to the Gambia River. Often described as one of the finest and the most navigable waterways in West Africa, the Gambia River flows from the Futa Djallon plateau in the modern Republic of Guinea and empties into the Atlantic Ocean.72 The river is wider near the coast, enabling larger vessels to sail into the interior toward the island of Georgetown (now called Janjanbureh) about 180 miles from Bathurst. The rate of flow of the Gambia River is

18

Introduction

seasonal. Between June and late October the river’s water rises above the banks and retreats during the period from November to June. James Webb points out that the determinate characteristics of flows, tides, and riverbanks allow the length of the Gambia River to be considered as a series of eco-zones.73 A key feature of the Gambia region is the number of islands and creeks found in the area. Many of these islands were and are still not inhabited. These include the islands Europeans called the Sea-Horse Islands (not far from Ballanghar), Elephant Island, James Island, Dog Island (called Charles Island in the eighteenth century) and Banjul Island. But while local inhabitants did not settle on most of these islands, they used them for gathering wood, keeping shrines, or as resting places for fishermen or boatmen. Written sources indicate that the region, especially the riverbanks, was generally well watered. Networks of tidal waterways and creeks stretched far inland where the river’s water was fresh. Among the largest of these creeks on the north bank are the Sanjal, Bambally, Katchang, Suwareh Kunda, Jurunku, Lamin, Buyiadu, and Jinnack creeks. Those on the south bank included the Dumasansang, Bai, Brefet, and Bintang. The vegetation in these areas was, according to Bella Southorn, “luxurious in all the palm species indigenous to the valley.”74 Dense mangrove swamps lined the river’s banks and the bolongs (tributaries).75 Some of these mangroves grew to the height of forest trees.76 According to nineteenth-century missionary and traveler William Fox, the land occupied by these mangroves was “always green.”77 Yet, little agricultural activity took place in this mangrove belt. The mangroves were often flooded by the river’s salt water and the land was swampy. The salt water rendered the land too acidic for growing certain crops. Saltwater constantly menaced the downstream reaches of the Gambia River.78 The advance of saltwater in coastal estuaries nonetheless failed to discourage lower Gambians from adapting rice cultivation. In the past, some groups built elaborate networks of embankments, dikes, canals, and sluice gates to prevent marine water from intruding into their fields while capturing rainwater to support the plants.79 Many of the big and prosperous rice growing settlements were found along creeks or the banks of the Gambia River. Behind the mangroves lay fertile alluvial lands suitable for rice cultivation.80 Swamplands, locally known as faros, were valuable because they were well-watered even during the long dry seasons.

Introduction 19

The Mandinka considered the swamps or the floodplains the most fertile areas. There were also fields in the upland areas where rice was grown. The dry rice matured rapidly and needed less water than its wet rice counterpart, though it produced lower yields.81 In Mandinka, the upland rice fields are often referred to as tendako and the wet or paddy rice situated in tidal saline and freshwater swamps are known as bafaro and wamifaro.82 Twentieth-century colonial reports indicate that “most of the areas where rice is . . . grown are lands which in the distant past were regularly inundated by the river and have slowly silted up until they are beyond the reach of tidal, and frequently river flood, effect. Commonly known as . . . faros, this marginal strip of land is divided up into irregularly shaped portions by low bunds made of weeds. These bunds act as boundaries and at the same time assist in holding rainfall water on the paddy fields.”83 In 1684, Francisco de Lemos Coelho described the Kingdom of Kombo, a state that used to be a major rice-growing region, as follows: “On the land to the south, and after passing Ilha do Banju or Bangu . . . The King [is] of the Falupa nation, and they said that the village in which he lives is the largest anywhere on the river. The land has much wax and rice . . . There is very good water to be found not far from the sea, and much rice if one wanted to buy some, but no other trade.”84 As stated earlier, the lands where rice was produced were valuable as a social, economic, spiritual, and political resource. Rice farming continued to be important—though it had lost its prominence—until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when peanut production took off. Many of the largest agricultural villages moved closer to the river “in order to reduce the costs of transporting their groundnut crop to the river port.”85 As we shall see in the next chapter, the lineages that founded these villages created traditions to legitimate their claims to such areas as their ancestral land. In the upland areas, farming was based on shifting cultivation, characterized by a cycle of clearing and burning vegetation, planting crops, weeding, harvesting, and fallowing. While the forest occupied a portion of the lower Gambia’s vegetation, most of the region was located in the westernmost extension of the savanna stretching out across the entire Western Sudan.86 These were the areas the Wolof called the jeeri. The jeeri was flat and consisted of dry, open woodland with well-spaced trees of moderate height, and tall grasses. Rev. John Morgan described these as tall grasses that grew from “twelve to twenty feet high, and fewer trees.”87

20

Introduction

These grasses were interspersed with many tall silk cotton and fat baobab trees. Morgan summed up his description of the savanna as follows: “the land over considerable spaces is clear. In connexion with the clear and partially cleared land, the thickets appear like extensive plantations of evergreen; and deciduous forest trees, skirting the park-like land, richly studded with detached clumps running out into single trees, give all the variety of foliage with which we are familiar in this country.”88 The major economic activity in the jeeri was grain cultivation. The most common crops that people grew for subsistence food were not varied. In the late eighteenth century, Mungo Park listed the number of grains that lower Gambians grew; these included sanio and basso, millet, rice, and corn (maize)—the latter was introduced to the region from the New World in the sixteenth century. One might also add to this list findo (the so-called hungry grass).89 These, he wrote, were cultivated in “considerable quantities.”90 With the development of peanut farming in the nineteenth century, however, much of the jeeri land was devoted, increasingly, to cash-cropping, the consequences of which, environmentally speaking, had been profound especially over the course of the twentieth century. Also, because the area was abundantly supplied with permanent waterways and pastures, making for good grazing territory, the jeeri land was used for the grazing of livestock. Like most Sahelian peoples, one of the major environmental challenges lower Gambians had to deal with was the seasonal pattern of rainfall. Erratic rainfall and occasional drought usually plagued the region.91 Past records of precipitation are lacking but the limited data we have suggest that rainfall had been quite unpredictable in the past. The rains generally began in June and fell heaviest in July and August. The rains often raised the river’s water level with increased chance of flooding in some areas. Typically, in these months the rains fell violently, with great winds, and much thunder and lightning. These were followed by lighter rainfall in September and October.92 In good years, the average annual rainfall reached 45.31 inches.93 Mungo Park remarked in his accounts that the dry months were “unfavorable to great exertion.”94 On his part, Morgan wrote, “this part of the African continent affords but little that is gratifying. The sky during seven months of the year is bright and cloudless; [During this time] the heat by day is intolerable [though] by night

Introduction 21

the temperature is pleasant.”95 Typically, between mid-October and May the dry season sets in, with the harmattan winds blowing across the region from the Sahara desert. The harmattans are dry, dusty winds, which blow from the Sahara into the Gulf of Guinea. During the day the temperatures were usually high and at night it dropped significantly. Human life along the Gambia River basin was mostly shaped by this seasonality in the rainfall pattern. In the dry season, those living close to the river often took to fishing, and farming; others tried to earn a living in trade or offering their labor in return for some form of compensation.96 The dry season was also a time when people participated more fully in wars or long-distance travel to trade or visit relatives. The movement of people—including troops—was especially difficult during the wet season.97 Until the twentieth century, there were few good roads linking lower Gambian villages to the commercial towns along the river. Often, people trekked, used canoes, or rode donkeys or horses to wherever they went. Goods were probably transported, mostly, to the interior through the river. The Political Context

For over four centuries, people living along the banks of the Gambia River lived in separate political units. A group of states clustered along the banks of the Gambia River between the Atlantic Ocean and the Barrakunda Falls.98 When Europeans first visited the Gambia River, they reported that the ruler of Mali was still the overlord of the Gambian Mandinka states. The king was said to have maintained political ties, perhaps loose ones, over these states.99 Around the beginning of the sixteenth century, these Mandinka states broke from Mali and joined their separate, small political units to form a larger state called Kaabu.100 Earlier, in the last decade of the fifteenth century, a group of nyancho (Mandinka warrior elites) from Kaabu had moved north of the Gambia River and took over an area on the southern edge of the weakening Jolof Empire.101 Subsequently, these lineages mixed with existing Wolof and Serer populations and became known as the gelewar. One of the distinctive features of such precolonial African states as those along the Gambian River was the emphasis elites placed on controlling people as opposed to possessing a geographically

22

Introduction

bounded territory with boundaries that were clearly marked. Both the slave trading and nonslave trading states appeared to have had this in common. As with political entities in the Middle Niger Valley, the Gambian states reproduced their form and institution through warfare. As Jack Goody and Richard Roberts state, warfare, which is often seen as a means of destruction, could be a productive activity.102 The structure of the precolonial state depended on successful military campaigns. Acquiring people was therefore necessary for the maintenance of the state. Similar to the Milo River Valley state of Bâte, in the Mandinka states male elites controlled political power and in so doing they used various techniques and strategies to cultivate, accumulate, coerce, manipulate, and mobilize their followers and subjects. Emily Osborn has shown that when men built states, they also made households, which they used as a foundation for building and reproducing the state. They relied on marital bonds and familial ties to build and organize the state. Political elites used the household as a site to express and display their power, wealth, and connections.103 In the Gambia, marriage alliances were critical to the maintenance of the integrity of the Mandinka states. But landlord-stranger relationships were equally important in defining land relations or access to land in this society. Until the second half of the nineteenth century, most of these people were subjects of Mandinka chiefs. Until the mid-nineteenth-century outbreak of the Islamic jihads, prominent Mandinka clans dominated the politics of the lower Gambia region. Richard Jobson observed in 1623: “at our first entrance (into the Gambia River) we find the Blackmen called Mandingos . . . [who] alone have the domination, their Kings and Governors being their seated . . . Lords, and Commanders of this country.”104 Those petty kings, Jobson continued, “had the title of Mansa, which in their language, is the proper name for the King.”105 These kings were mostly from Mandinka lineages who imposed themselves as rulers either through a series of conquests or alliances built with other indigenous groups. A 1732 map drawn by Captain John Leach shows a number of towns and small kingdoms, which Christian missionary William Moister described as “independent states.”106 These “Mandinkanized” states included, on the river’s south bank, Kombo, Kiang, and Jarra, and along its north bank Niumi, Jokadu, Baddibu, and Saloum. Each of these states had a diverse ethnic

Introduction 23

population and loose ties with the Mandinka state of Kaabu, which was located south of the Gambia River.107 The Wolof kingdom of Saloum formed a large enclave in the north bank area. The Jola and Fula, as well as the others, settled in villages of their own but under the control of the region’s ruling aristocracy, and many of them concentrated on farming. Historians have provided a thorough treatment of the western Mandinka states.108 They show that the Gambian Mandinka states were ruled by aristocratic warrior families often referred to as Soninke. In the only published monograph on land in the Gambia, anthropologist Pamela Kea notes that the concept of soninkeya describes the religious, ethical, social, and political way of life of the interrelated ruling families.109 Soninke was a political identity, which distinguished the ruling class from those they dominated. Kenneth Swindell and Alieu Jeng note how Soninke society displayed considerable stratification. There were royals, clerics, aristocrats and warrior elites, freemen (peasant farmers), the poor, artisan castes, and slaves.110 There was also a kind of interlocking of aristocratic families through marriage across the whole region from Saloum, through the Gambia and Casamance, to Kaabu. Many stories from the descendants of ruling families refer to these families as related to gelewar and the nyancho, all connecting their histories to the nyancho in Kaabu. These stories suggest that there was actual movement of families from Kaabu to these places, and from them one might surmise that the nature of soninkeya as a way of life and an ideology came from the nyancho elements in Kaabu. In fact, for centuries, the stories of the gelewar of Sine and Saloum, the ceddo of the Wolof states, or the nyancho of the Mandinka states have inspired countless Senegambians.111 Toby Green has recently argued against the notion of absolute Mandinka authority because he sees it as part of the “hangover of imperialist historiography,” but local oral sources almost uniformly attest to these aristocratic warrior families fitting the type of rulers Mandinka elders call kidi faye mansolu (meaning rulers whose authority is rested on their guns).112 Elders claim that kidi faye mansolu were so powerful that they easily killed or had opponents’ necks “tied around with a rope.”113 They suggest that even though elites cemented their political power by building alliances, this does not mean that there was no oppression or exploitation at the local level. Indeed, there were important social and political distinctions

24

Introduction

in society. Even though the Mandinka shared a common language, they were divided into two distinct groups. The first group was the nyancho aristocracy (also known as the Soninke), who embodied monarchy and traditional religion. The second group was the Mandinka Muslims, who prospered through farming, trade, and the teaching of Islam. Local traditions often associate the nyancho and gelewar with violence and oppression. With their horses, spears, and guns, these warriors terrorized peasants whom they raided and captured as slaves. Perhaps this is why John Gray described the Gambian states as petty districts which lacked unity and stability. For Gray, these states’ rulers were nothing more than “warlords, who rose and fell very often with astonishing rapidity.”114 Both European documentary sources and African oral traditions claim that the warrior class and their patrons were oppressive. As one missionary observed in the nineteenth century, 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.”115 Until the late nineteenth century, these chiefs ruled the area without significant interference from English traders and colonialists on the one hand, or from militant Muslims on the other. The mansa (Mandinka, king) was the head of the state. He represented the leadership of all the state’s separate lineages and the formal link with their collective group of ancestors. The historian Donald Wright states that the mansa was the embodiment of the state.116 As its head, he had a variety of responsibilities, primary among them being the keeping of order.117 Supporting the mansa was an army and a group of specialists such as hunters, blacksmiths and Muslim clerics, who helped him defend his family and territory.118 The powers of the mansa were not unlimited even when the states were at the height of their power. The mansa was required, at least in theory, to follow the advice of leaders of the principal lineages of towns and villages. Also, political competition between his states was not uncommon, and this posed challenges to the mansa’s authority. While succession disputes were probably rare in the Gambian Mandinka states, sharing of taxes, tolls charged on traders, and other revenues

Introduction 25

from the use of the land sometimes brought friction between competing lineages.119 Like the Portuguese and the French, British merchants acquired land from the Mandinka chiefs and on these lands they built their trading stations (commonly referred to as “factories”). The chiefs levied duties on Europeans trading in the area and charged them rents for the land they received. Some of the most prominent factories were found in Brefet, Geregia (situated near Bwiam), Tendaba, Albreda (also called Albadar), Kaur, and in numerous smaller trading ports along the river. British control over the region was only commercial. The Royal African Company and the Gambia Adventurers (under the Royal Adventurers) had monopoly control of the Gambia River trade.120 The Sources

In writing about shifting concepts of dependence through land control, this book relies on a variety of oral and written sources. European travelers’ accounts, letters, court records, scattered government circulars, annual reports, reports from special land commissions, colonial correspondences, and commissioners’ reports provide the documentary evidence for the examination of the shifting nature of dependence and land tenure systems along the banks of the Gambia River. The largest body of this written evidence comes from English documents because the French were primarily confined to their lone outpost in Albreda, twenty-five miles up the river on its north bank, which they abandoned for Senegal in 1857.121 Critics might argue that since outsiders left behind the documentary sources the records themselves mirror Western ideas or projections of dependence or land tenure in lower Gambian society, instead of what existed. Others might raise questions about the colonial context in which these documents were produced. For many historians, the colonial reports were tools relevant to the day-today operation of colonial rule.122 The “colonial ethnologies” were entwined with imperialism and sometimes their main objective was to “reproduce native society” for colonial or imperial purposes. This implies that at times the European colonial records projected a false image of African societies, emphasizing primitivity, backwardness, and tribal organization, treating Africans as different from

26

Introduction

Europeans and having “prelogical thoughts.”123 While these criticisms of the “European archives” are valid, this does not mean we should write off such data entirely. If used critically, they provide a valuable year-to-year chronology of developments during the period under study. They also provide rich ethnographic descriptions of local populations, as well as their customs and practices. Before the advent of colonial rule, the people of the Senegambia in general and those of the lower Gambia in particular produced less of the materials historians traditionally consider as evidence—that is, letters, diaries, travel logs, wills, property records, organizational papers, and government documents. This study compensates for this weakness by relying on oral traditions as well as interviews with a carefully chosen group of interviewees. It makes use of an archive that is to this day relatively under-utilized: the Gambia’s extensive oral history depository formerly known as the OHAD (Oral History and Antiquities Directorate). Created in the 1970s, OHAD (now RDD) houses tapes of interviews and recorded oral histories conducted by a generation of researchers and journalists from Radio Gambia. Parts of the collection date back to the 1950s. The archive has a rich collection of oral testimonies about the Gambia River and surrounding regions, with ethnographic information, genealogies of the major “elite” families, descriptions of ceremonies, and records of customs, migration, land tenure and conflicts.124 The study also draws from several dozen interviews conducted between 2006 and 2013 in many villages and towns along the Gambia River. The use of oral history as evidence has received its share of criticism over the past several decades, scholars pointing to numerous distortions and highly selective memories. Other critics say elite griots, particularly in urban areas, craft traditions to support their patrons’ claims to wealth, power, and authority. They could also fabricate traditions to appeal to Western sensibilities, which means that they tell what they think their visitors want to hear. At the local or village level, many oral traditions have been preserved over time precisely because they buttress elders’ claims to land and power. Yet, even lower-class families preserve traditions, which serve some kind of legitimizing function. This, as Martin Klein indicates, is “especially true of immigrant families or families whose sense of who or what they are is defined by the accomplishments of a hardworking early immigrant or by their sense of being different.”125 So we should not ignore such data. Whether or not oral traditions or histories tell us

Introduction 27

exactly what happened is not the only marker of their value to historians. As will be shown, traditions shared at the local level speak of the centrality of land as a store of wealth, producer of wealth, and marker of identity, offering important insights into the role of land control and ownership in these societies. The Organization of the Book

The study is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the period before the mid-nineteenth century and comprises three chapters. The first chapter deals with the Mandinka oral narratives about migration and conquests, exploring the role Gambian oral traditions played in the acquisition and retention of power. It demonstrates that groups of people who could persuade or force others to believe that their ancestors pioneered a place have been able to establish control over land and dominate its inhabitants. The chapter seeks to support the view that present concerns over land have in many ways informed visions of the past, just as past developments shape the present configurations of mobility, land ownership, and social belonging. Oral traditions were constructed in such a way as to bolster land claims and were perpetuated for precisely this reason. They therefore shed light on the themes of migration, conquest, and the settlement of the Mandinka, especially along the banks of the Gambia River. The second chapter examines the political dimension of land control. It discusses the ways in which the Mandinka ruling aristocracy—comprising the chief of state (mansa), village head (alkalo), and family head (kabilo)—monopolized the ownership of the land and kept the other segment of the population as dependents. It explores the close links between elite power, control of land, and social dependence. It shows that awareness of the role of land in the establishment and maintenance of power over people is important for understanding relationships between commoners and elites in precolonial Western Africa. Along with conquest, slave-raiding, marriage, and procreation, control over land enhanced the ability of elites to control people, thus increasing their ability to produce food, defend against aggression, and maintain the social hierarchy that was the very core of their centralized power in Mandinka-ruled Gambian states. Throughout the chapter, I attempt to show the centrality of land in lower Gambian political culture.

28

Introduction

The third chapter examines an important factor that determined local attitudes toward land and people by focusing on the spiritual beliefs of the region’s inhabitants. The chapter argues that the pre-Islamic belief in spirits regulated access to land and was itself an instrument of social control that kept people dependent on a small group of individuals and families for access to land. Belief in spirits and their ability to control land also had an ecological function, as much of the unoccupied forest was preserved because of it. In making this argument, I suggest that the size of population or the material value attached to the land were not the only important determinants in African attitudes toward land. The chapter also suggests that the growth of Islam did not root out all preexisting structures and beliefs. The second part of the book focuses on the changes that occurred from the mid-nineteenth century to roughly the 1940s. Chapters 4 and 5 examine major transformations that took place in the Gambia region from the mid-nineteenth century and how they affected the nature of social dependence (built around the control of land and people) that long fashioned interactions between privileged families and commoners. The mid-nineteenth century presents a major paradox in lower Gambian history. While the Senegambian Muslimled jihads weakened the social bonds that determined the relationship between elite Mandinka families and their subjects, the rise of cash-crop farming and Islam also gave rise to a new form of dependency that continued to allow landholders to generate both wealthin-people and to control land. Chapter 4 looks at the way in which the Soninke-Marabout wars (lasting between c. 1840 and 1900) weakened the aristocratic families’ monopoly ownership of the land. But while Soninke monopoly control of land and people was being broken, a new form of dependency emerged: the dependency on Muslim clerics by their students and on jihadists by their followers. The chapter further 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. As the region became increasingly fragmented, the chapter argues, the competition between villages increased, bringing intense jealousy between neighboring villages, and sometimes between individuals. The broad social change brought about by the

Introduction 29

jihads therefore put in jeopardy long-held ways of settling disputes. Local elders’ abilities to resolve conflicts weakened because of the disintegration of age-old ways. The fifth chapter explores another transformation, which came with the development of peanut production. It shows changes brought to forms of dependency and land control because of the arrival of newcomers and the change to cash-crop production through the middle of the nineteenth century. What enabled these changes was the transformation that took place in the social and spiritual sphere. The mid-nineteenth century was a period that saw remarkable internal movement of people across the vast expanse of the Senegambia. Some of the people who came to settle in the Gambia River area were marabouts and mystics who, along with their followers, cleared large tracts of land previously believed to be owned by spirits. They used their own, quasi-religious-based spiritual power to combat and overcome that of the local spirits. The chapter demonstrates that this put much pressure on the land, causing major ecological and environmental changes for the people living along the banks of the Gambia River. The final chapter focuses on the impact British rule had on land tenure and chieftaincy. The chapter brings together three central debates in colonial historiography, namely chieftaincy, land tenure, and invented traditions. It also deals with the introduction of British-inspired land legislation and strategies of rule, and the extent to which they weakened chiefly authority. But while the power of local chiefs decreased, kabilo (family) heads assumed more powers in regulating access to land. The conclusion emphasizes 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, political, and spiritual importance. Africans conceive of land as both a political and a social resource. It was a means by which some individuals, families, and communities created dependents. Two final points about the book are worth noting. First, while the general movement in the book is chronological, it is also thematic: the militant Islamic movements of chapter 4, the cash crop production of chapter 5, and the early colonial rule of chapter 6, overlap, and in effect cover the same time periods. Also appearing in various chapters is attention to gender issues, how men’s control of access to land likely emerged in the nineteenth century. Second, this book

30

Introduction

hopes to shed some light on the nature of precolonial African polities, and the conclusions drawn here may help us better understand issues of the precolonial state, and constructions of identities and societies.126 Thus, the arguments offered in this book pertain to a fundamental dimension of change, not only on land, but on the origins and development of the protocolonial African state. Finally, the study speaks to people outside of the field of history: anthropologists and political scientists interested in the roots of land conflicts in Africa and elsewhere will find the study useful.

Part 1 The Period of Uncontested Soninke Dominance

1 The Founding of Mandinka Settlements Origins of the Mandinka

The Mandinka are a group of agricultural peoples who speak one of the Mande languages and live in the heart of the savanna country between the upper Senegal and upper Niger rivers.1 By the time André Alvares de Almada visited the Gambia region in 1594, they were already firmly settled on both banks of the Gambia River, and by 1800, they provided the ruling class and most of the inhabitants of the region.2 However, their origins in the Gambia region are obscure. The most common explanation of their origins is that sometime before the thirteenth century small groups of Mandinka hunters, farmers, and traders moved west from their upper Niger River homelands and pushed across the western extension of the savannas of the Upper Guinea Coast. While in the area, they mixed with the indigenous population. In the thirteenth century, more immigrants moved into the region from the heartland of the Mali Empire.3 These Mandinka migrants founded several small states, and gradually extended their control over the Serer peoples and other groups.4 Much of what we know about early Mandinka history comes from oral traditions, and many of the Gambian traditions speak to the themes of migration, conquest, conflict, land, and settlement. Mandinka oral traditions deal with two periods in the history of the Western Mandinka: those dating to the period of uncontested aristocratic rule, and those from the period after the aristocratic families had been weakened by the militant jihads of the nineteenth century and then colonial conquest. The traditions that focus on the pre-jihad era are mostly concerned with

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Chapter One

the period between the thirteenth century and the second half of the nineteenth century, and how warriors led successful military conquests, thereby creating states.5 These traditions also deal with events related to the migration of the Mandinka from the center of the Mali Empire, which the Mandinka refer to as tilibo. In Mandinka, tilibo means “the land of the east” (literally “where the sun rises”). The second category of Mandinka oral traditions include those dealing with the period after 1860, following the collapse of the state of Kaabu, which long dominated politics and society across parts of southern Senegambia. The traditions recounted in Gordon Innes’ 1978 collection on Kelefa Sanneh belong to this genre of Mandinka oral narratives.6 This collection gives insight into the ethos of the nineteenth-century Senegambian warrior class, namely the nyancho and gelewar whose decline began during this century. Nyancho is the name for an elite class of warriors who resided in Kaabu and dominated society and politics for several decades. Among the most prominent nyancho families of the Gambia River region were probably the Sanneh, Manneh, and Sonko.7 Similarly, gelewar is the name given to nyancho in the regions of the former states of Sine and Saloum. According to Donald Wright, there are many oral traditions containing stories of a movement of gelewar families from Kaabu to the region around the Saloum River where they intermarried with the Serer (whom the Mandinka called Kasinka) they found there.8 The Joof and Jammeh of Niumi and Jokadu were considered gelewar families.9 The validity of Mandinka oral traditions as historical sources has been heavily contested. Critics believe that such traditions were “invented” in the very recent past and are being used to justify present-day concerns, rather than speaking to real happenings of the past. However, the patterns of migration and Mandinka hegemony found in many of the oral narratives correspond to the way we can see land use as political, through the success of powerful Mandinka families at seeking good well-watered land, and the presence of other groups in the worse land. The settlement patterns along the banks of the Gambia reflect this. For example, in Jokadu, the Mandinka villages of Bali, Bariya, Dasilami, and Tambana were located along the Miniminiyang bolong (the Suwarekunda creek) and close to the swamps bordering the Gambia River.10 In Baddibu, like in Kiang and Jarra, the large Mandinka villages of Bani, Gunjur, Saba, Kintekunda, and

The Founding of Mandinka Settlements 35

Suwarekunda were located near the riverside swamps whereas the Wolof and Fula settlements were further inland in the jeeri.11 While the Mandinka settled near the river in the villages such as Bintang, Brefet, Bullanjor, Kansalla, and Bondali Tenda, villages on the jeeri (which literally means “dry land”) or away from the river were mostly inhabited by the Wolof and Fula, except in the Saloum region.12 This is not a mere coincidence; it was a result of a process of domination in which power-holders maintained the best for themselves. Thus, nearly all villages located along the river are Mandinka-led settlements—mirroring Mandinka political and economic domination. It would be misleading to assume that all the Mandinka benefitted or participated in this system of domination and exploitation. It is more likely that many of them were labeled as “strangers” rather than as “owners” of any land. But it would be equally deceiving to presume that these political identities had no meaning in the lower Gambia region. For rice-producing people such as the Mandinka, the land along the river or near swamps was often considered the most valuable, particularly to prominent families.13 Since paddies are productive for generations, Jola and especially Mandinka villagers valued the rice fields. Although European records for the Gambia do not reveal a great deal of competition for land, systems of land tenure were very much an integral part of people’s social, political, and religious institutions. The ownership of these rice fields, as noted by one European observer in the early twentieth century, “nearly approximated lands held as freehold property . . . [and] the right of use seems to be more or less perpetual.”14 The size of one’s rice fields was a factor in determining a person’s or a family’s social standing. This is why rice farms were, as noted by a British observer in 1942, often “jealously guarded [and that] . . . from time to time, cases of dispute [over rice fields] . . . [were] brought before the courts of the province.”15 As will be seen, people and communities sometimes fought over the ownership of such valuable land. Drawing from a wide range of oral sources, the chapter follows Holly Hanson’s argument that political institutions developed when lords or chiefs who controlled land and people gradually gave up some of their autonomy to an emerging monarch with central power.16 Moreover, political power was deeply connected to land use and was retained in various ways, and created a bigger split between peoples with the emergence of ethnic identities. Thus, Mandinka

36

Chapter One

traditions of origin tell us much about important historical events related to land, identity, and settlement. They show that an origin at the seat of power lends an aura of authority to all institutions of authority, namely at the kabilo, village, and state levels. Most of the Mandinka traditions associated with elites or powerful lineages are tied to important personalities such as Tirimankang Trawally and Amari Sonko—two generals said to have been sent by Sundiata Keita, the founder of the Mali Empire, to conquer new lands.17 These oral traditions have long represented the basis upon which individuals, families, and even communities justified their claims to certain political office or the ownership of a village, which also included its land. Mandinka Oral Traditions

Since the 1970s, scholars have been collecting, analyzing, and critiquing Mande oral narratives.18 However, Mande historians in general and those of the Senegambia in particular do not agree on the value of these traditions.19 Donald Wright, one of the first historians of the western Mandinka to work closely with Mandinka oral traditions, has questioned the validity of the narratives for historical study. In 1974 Wright traveled to The Gambia to begin work on his doctoral dissertation, a study of a small Mandinka state (known as Niumi) at the mouth of the Gambia River. Within a few years of finishing his dissertation, Wright published two volumes of translated, transcribed, and annotated oral history of Niumi. The first one gives griot (professional bards’) accounts, the second those of village elders.20 In subsequent years, Wright authored several articles criticizing his own methods and interpretations of the precolonial history of the lower Gambia.21 He observed that many of the tales of migration and conquests were clichés that were traditionalists’ attempts to explain symbolically what they could not explain otherwise. For him, they explain the long process of cultural transferral rather than, necessarily, mass migration, conquest, and settlement.22 He also believed that several of the Gambian traditions of origin were fabricated at some time in the not-too-distant past, perhaps out of social and political necessity.23 Hence, he concluded, “neither griots nor informed elders nor anyone else had factual information about the precolonial period.”24

The Founding of Mandinka Settlements 37

Like David Henige, Wright believes that many African oral traditions are contaminated through “the process of incorporating written or printed materials into accounts.”25 In studying the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on Juffure and Albreda, Wright discovered that in these Gambian villages the stories residents tell about the Atlantic slave trade are not accurate accounts of the past. Wright asserts that the publication of Alex Haley’s Roots in 1976, and the subsequent television production of the same name based on that book, altered these accounts, so that today, in the minds of most Gambians, the story of the Gambia River slave trade is Haley’s story.26 Therefore, as Toby Green notes, the oral record for the Atlantic era is thin, and, as Wright states, much of it is distorted. Peter Mark added that oral traditions of the seventeenth century and before tell us more about what people think about their own history, rather than information about real past events.27 There is little doubt that some of the traditions which deal with the Atlantic slave trade could be fabrications. One of the problems with oral sources is the silence of self-censorship. There are aspects of the past that some elders would not want to reveal to a “stranger.” For example, when I pressed an elder griot named Sheriff Jobarteh to explain why in Banni and Saba landownership was such a contentious issue in the past, Jobarteh’s only answer was “not all history must be told.”28 Jobarteh was mindful of how revealing certain details about the past could jeopardize social harmony in his community. Certainly, he did not want to reveal anything which could anger an individual, family, or even the community. It seems also that Jobarteh’s fear was compounded by the growing conflicts over land in several communities in and outside of Baddibu, especially in recent years. In the nineteenth century, Reverend John Morgan described the griots in the following words: Among the Mandingoes, there are men called Finners, whose profession is to hold and transmit to posterity the origin and important events of their tribe and country. If hired, they spend days in reciting events; but from the character they bear, and the dealings of the Kings with them, no confidence can be placed in their narratives. Above all men, these savage Kings seem ambitious of immortalizing their names, and of being thought famous by posterity; to this end the traditionalists are bribed, and allowed unlimited license among their people.29

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Chapter One

In addition to the problem highlighted by Rev. Morgan, we also know that some elite griots in urban areas and popular tourist destinations craft traditions to gain wealth, power, and authority.30 They, too, could invent stories to appeal to Western, or visitors’, sensibilities or those of the families of their wealthy African patrons. They tell them what they want to hear, which lately has been a Roots-informed history. It appears that elders or griots in Albreda and Juffure say either what legitimizes their position or what they think foreigners want to hear (the Haley story) so they will keep returning. Critics further argue that African oral traditions are simply documents of the present, because they are told in the present.31 According to Thomas Spear, traditions are subject to continual reinterpretation as the words from the past take on contemporary meanings in the context of the present. In essence, they are the product of oral historians’ attempts to make sense of the past.32 For some, oral narratives condense what were likely complex interactions and protracted conflicts into neat and clear stories that often emphasize group cohesion or cooperation.33 One other criticism is that most griots or elders cannot give a precise date when things happened, because oral traditions are subject to lapses in memory in the long chain of transmission.34 In addition to the groundbreaking work of an older generation of Mande scholars, Jan Jansen’s extensive criticism of the use and methods of Mande oral traditions has significant implications for Mande scholars. By rejecting griot narratives as unhistorical, Jansen asserts that Mande griot narratives can only be located in the present, as griots deliberately seek to distort traditions as a way to manage present-day concerns. As Ronald Atkinson notes, oral traditions refer to the past and exist in the present. For some, this feature of oral traditions makes it impossible to determine with certainty what part of or to what extent any oral tradition is a past or present “sign.”35 Jansen went further in his argument to claim that he witnessed how griots changed and manipulated traditions to meet different needs. For him, griots manipulate traditions so as to enhance their standing and legitimize claims to certain farmlands.36 Stephen Bühnen notes that Jansen challenged Mande scholars to avoid taking genealogy at face value as recited genealogies do not always reflect factual ancestry. He also states that Jansen doubts the existence of effective imperial rule in medieval Mali.37 But unlike Jansen, Bühnen believes that aspects of Mali’s history transmitted orally cannot be simply dismissed as fabrications.

The Founding of Mandinka Settlements 39

While some of the skepticism for using Mande oral narratives is well noted, African oral traditions should be perceived as “ideal knowledge about the distant past.” We should move on from viewing them as unreliable sources of knowledge to seeing them as an archetype.38 Certainly, not all griot or Mande oral narratives are invented, fictionalized representations of the past. I reject the view that all African informants are or were always engaged in deliberate fabrication of history, and that there is no single oral narrative with some kind of memory built into it. As scholars have inclined to focus more on how they think oral histories are constructed by Africans, they have tended to overlook what they mean to the individuals or communities those stories relate to. Moreover, African oral narratives are nowadays treated more as suspect rather than as bodies of knowledge or ideas with deep roots. Many examples of oral histories speak to important historical events related to land, identity, and settlement. Historians can mine them for what they can tell us about these themes. At the local, rural level, what some see as “corruption” has not affected all traditions of origin. Commercialization might be important in some areas, but not in most of the villages where the majority of the village elders are not literate, and are hardly impacted by the commodification of history due to the influx of tourists from Western countries. While many elders have limited reading and writing skills in Arabic, most cannot read or write in European languages. Here, one can tap quotidian traditions which give a different story of the past. Thus far, historians of Mandinka have dealt with questions pertaining to long-distance trade including the Atlantic slave trade and state formation. My approach to the oral sources is slightly different, in that it considers what the oral traditions tell us not only about Mandinka political culture but also about the changes in the spiritual beliefs of the people of the lower Gambia River basin. Many historians have discussed the ways Africans used traditions to justify their claims to land and political power, but they have mostly focused on more recent times.39 As Stephen Belcher notes, Mande oral traditions “may be used for political traditions” to legitimize political power.40 Among the Asante, individuals and families usually made land claims by referring to oral traditions. In northern Ghana, elders have also used oral traditions to make claims to chiefly authority.41 Similarly, in modern Tanzania, local debates about land constitute a sort of institutionalization of memory, and

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Chapter One

among the Mbeere of Kenya, traditions represent “instrumental symbols people can effectively exploit for economic and political purposes.”42 Thus, historians should consider that there is some historical memory built into many African oral traditions and as such they should be read, analyzed, and understood as lenses through which lower Gambians conceptualized their religious, cultural, political, and social make-up. Across many parts of the African continent, control of land contributed to the definition of territoriality and social belonging.43 Stories of migration and settlement along the Gambia River, collected over the last half-dozen years, tell of how various regions of Gambia were settled, and the ways in which these traditions were used to justify the “first-comer” status of powerful families. Many prominent Gambian lineages claim direct descent from founder-settler ancestors, and therefore claim paramount rights of land ownership.44 The traditions are useful for a variety of reasons. First, they help to explain the “politics” of accessing, or losing, land and political power. Second, they show that one’s ties to a particular place or a piece of land could determine one’s social and political identity. Across the region, it was of primary social relevance to affiliate with a commonly recognized place name, and to be able to trace ancestral movement through known regions or villages. This enabled individuals and families to know their right “place” in society. In this sense, land was a social, cultural, and ethnic marker. However, belonging to a village by birth does not mean having equal access to land or political power with everyone born there. Third, the frequency of drought and warfare in the Senegambia region could only stress the importance of sometimes physically separated family units. In times of hardship it was necessary to call upon others, including distant kinsmen. People had to be able to identify themselves with their kinspeople. Political Centralization and the Formation of Ethnic Identities

Historians have long acknowledged the view that Africans have used traditions to express their historical association as the owners and users of ancestral lands.45 As Teresa Connor argues, in the Sundays River Valley, in South Africa, oral traditions were valuable

The Founding of Mandinka Settlements 41

avenues to explore the origins of the inhabitants. Connor argues that oral traditions can help indicate the degree to which local identities are influenced by experiences of disruption and displacement. Connor defines displacement as a form of population migration that involved some element of coercion, such as natural disasters, wars, or famines, as well as voluntary movement. Displacement created a multiplicity of meanings for different groups of people. Memories of lost lands, as well as feelings of nostalgia or remembrance, are valid means of maintaining contact with lost lifestyles and were continually reenacted in order to remind people of their origin and history.46 Gambian oral traditions reveal that ethnicity was spatially and politically constructed. In The Gambia, many of those who are descended from the founding lineages of the states of Kombo, Niumi, Baddibu, Kiang, and Jarra have long defined themselves as Mandinka.47 Ethnicity brought claims to land and belonging. Evidence suggests a very strong correlation between ethnic identity, settlement patterns, and competition for land and belonging. Thus, ethnicity should be seen as a marker of political identity—one that resulted from differences emphasized because of competition for land, political power, and citizenship in the pre-nineteenth-century jihad era. Competition for land and conflict hardened ethnic identities, however fictive their origins were. These struggles and competitions made it necessary for people to search for their “roots” and debate their history. The significance of precolonial ethnic identities in Africa is a subject of great controversy. Some historians believe that Portuguese, French, and British travelers had only the haziest knowledge of the variety of local cultures, and brought with them stereotypic ideas of ethnic and national make-up which may have applied to Europe at that time, but not at all to Africa.48 According to this argument, using modern ethnic labels to describe peoples in precolonial lower Gambia is almost equal to what Frederick Cooper calls “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 have been available to them.”49 Much of the literature, therefore, focuses on the creation of ethnic identities as a consequence of European colonial rule.50 Robert Baum has argued that the Diola (the French spelling of the word Jola) did not use a common ethnic label until they embraced

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Chapter One

Map 1.1. The Gambian river states. Map by Nick Kroncke.

a shared ethnicity in the face of increasing integration into a multiethnic Senegal.51 Before colonization, Baum contends, the Jola referred to themselves by their subgroup, the members of which spoke a common dialect of the Jola language. For him, even the category of the “subgroup” is quite fluid and thus cannot be projected back into a primordial past. Baum writes that the term “Jola” was given to a cluster of coastal communities, themselves of the lower Casamance, by Wolof sailors who accompanied the French into the region in the nineteenth century. The French used the label, but the Jola did not until much later. Other historians do not share the view that the term “ethnicity” should be dropped altogether as an analytic concept. For many, ethnic identities have long been important because they have given people claim to land, wealth, and power. Paul Nugent claims that the assumption that ethnic identities did not exist in precolonial times seems to obscure the historical reality, because early European travelers borrowed these ethnonyms from Africans themselves, and such ethnic labels “enjoyed remarkable longevity.”52 Walter Hawthorne argues that though European colonial policies did, in the twentieth century, bring ethnic identities to the fore, hardening them and raising their importance, there is no evidence that Europeans invented ethnic identities from nothing. For Hawthorne, to

The Founding of Mandinka Settlements 43

describe African identities as European inventions would be to misunderstand the nature of power in Upper Guinea.53 Mandinka, Fula, Wolof, Jola, Serer, Bainunka, Masuwanka, and speakers of the Jahanke language all lived on the land within few miles from the Gambia River. In this region, ethnic identity was very fluid, and there are many indications that people’s identities were removed. Even though these groups were fairly scattered across the region, there were places in the region politically and culturally defined as either Mandinka banko (land or country) or Jola territory. For instance, Mandinka elders in Sabach-Sanjal told me that, historically, Saloum belonged to the Wolof, though Martin Klein argues that, “the kings, or Burs, of both Sine and Saloum were chosen from among the guelowar, the matrilineage that led the Mandinka migration.”54 Like the Mandinka, the Wolof were firmly established in the Gambia River region by the fifteenth century. According to oral traditions, the Wolof entered the region from northern Senegal and established the state of Saloum, which before the 1800s was the only non-Mandinka kingdom on the Gambia’s north bank portion of the lower Gambia River. Wolof people also inhabited parts of Rip (Baddibu), Saloum, and Bathurst Island. The Wolof lived side-byside with Serer, particularly the Serer Niuminka and those of Sine. Communities of Wolof speakers were found on the south bank of the Gambia River as people fled their homes, mostly as a result of the religious wars of the second half of the nineteenth century, or they moved there in search of better farming land. However, both Niumi and Foni sources do not consider those areas as Wolof territory. The association of Saloum with a specific ethnic group, the Wolof, was a result of the political hegemony that prominent Wolof were able to establish in the region for decades, if not centuries. Gambian oral narratives about the precolonial period suggest a strong sense of ethnic identity among the people of the region. What the Mandinka oral traditions reveal is that ethnicity was an identity, because it brought with it claims to resources, especially land. A recent analysis of Kaabu’s history has come close to making a strong tie between identity and place, when Toby Green noted that “oral memories recall more of a ‘land of Kaabu’ than a Kaabu polity.”55 The association of ethnicity to a “place” or an ancestral land is significant because it relates to the point about elders who craved legitimacy to land at the village and state levels. There were respective social standings that differentiated people in all lower Gambian

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communities, and the differences in the conception of the past may be attributed to the struggle for power. Ethnicity was a marker of political identity. In part, the sharp differences that divided the Wolof, Fula, Jola, and other groups from the Mandinka resulted from competition for political power, including control over land. Donald Wright has offered a detailed history of the formation of the Niumi state. He described the process by which it was founded as involving a group of nyancho families “traveling in search of mansaya”—that is, ruling a territory (banko) and its populace.56 Residents of Niumi told Charlotte Quinn that the first Mandinka to reach Niumi were the Jammeh (a gelewar family), who constituted a branch of the ruling family of Baddibu Illiassa. According to Quinn, the Jammeh are said to have come originally to the Gambia region from Manding though some elders claimed that the Jammeh were Kasinka (Serer), and the Kasinka came from Kaabu and are descendants of the Sanneh and Manneh families of Kaabu. When the Sonko and Manneh arrived in Niumi they found the Jammeh already settled in the area. The first town the Jammeh built in Niumi was Bakindiki Koto (meaning old Bakindik). They also founded Sitanunku.57 Later, the Manneh followed the Jammeh. They, too, came from Kaabu to assist the Jammeh in fighting Saloum’s dominance over the area.58 Amari Sonko later came to settle in the region. Soon, members of the Jammeh, Manneh, and Sonko would form a succession that took the form of an elaborate system of rotation among seven towns settled by the three royal lineages: Bakendik and Sitanunku were under the control of the Jammeh; Kanuma and Bunyadu were controlled by the Manneh lineage; and Essau Jelenkunda, Essau Mansaring Su, and Berending were under the Sonko ruling family.59 Like the Jammeh, the Sonko had ties with other members of their lineage. As the story of Amari Sonko shows, conflict over land (which was partly related to competition over access to political power) has been a common theme in Gambian history. In Niumi, oral traditions make reference to the conquest of Niumi by warriors from Kaabu and Manding. These traditions claim that the Wolof were subdued by the Mandinka and the victors, the Sonko, were rewarded with land. These fighters were also promised a share of kingship in Niumi if they could end the tribute payments that state officials were paying to Saloum.60 With the alliance established by the Soninke warrior families, namely the Manneh, Sonko and Jammeh, Niumi came to

The Founding of Mandinka Settlements 45

be known as a Mandinka banko. It came to be defined by the identity of the state’s three ruling families, whom the Wolof called the Soce (meaning “Mandinka”). The Fula also called them Ceddo. From the Fula perspective, these were people who spoke the Mandinka language and were not Muslims.61 It is rare, as Donald Wright states, to encounter a Gambian oral narrative that does not begin by naming where the ancestors originated or whom they are believed to have conquered.62 For instance, according to Bamba Suso, when the Sanneh lineage arrived in Kaabu, they conspired against the Fula who had already been in the area. The Sanneh seized their land, but first by agreeing on the following: [The Mandinka told the Fula that since] . . . we 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 Fulas 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, 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.63

The account suggests that the term “Mandinka” was both a collective identity and a political label. In this story, the “Sanneh” represented the entire group that spoke the Mandinka language and dominated the political life of the people of the region. As the tradition that explains the origins of the people of Jarra show, the Jarrankas were suddenly given a history with a common heritage. This story traces their historical roots back to the “east.” In other words, the people of Jarra traced their origins to “Doutilla,” a “distant” home in the West African interior from which most of the Senegambian Mandinka claim to have originated. Doutilla might be how the English heard “dougou Tilibo,” “the place in Mali.” Mali, Mande, and Manding are variants of one name, writes Bühnen.64 Mungo Park also mentioned a place in eastern Gambia named “Dentila.” According to him, Dentila was a town known for trading, especially in cotton and iron.65 When

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the invaders arrived in Jarra, they found people already living in the area.66 Through conquest, the Jarrankas (meaning the people of Jarra), led by their chief, seized the land from Kiang and drove them west. Subsequently, the mansa of Jarra appointed an overseer to monitor the frontier between his kingdom and that of his defeated Kiang neighbors. Later, war between the two kingdoms erupted, and this time the Kiang people were pushed much further west possibly into present-day Foni, as Jarra expanded its territory.67 A similar story is still widely told in Jarra because it appears to provide the Jarrankas a common heritage and reinforced difference.68 And like the well-known story of Amari Sonko and his alleged defeat of Saloum, the tradition about the formation of the kingdom of Jarra, on the south bank of the Gambia River, invokes the role of warriors and people of noble origins in the founding of that state. In other words, Mandinka traditions make a clear distinction between elites and commoners. There are those stories that relate to the power-holders and ones that emphasize a nyancho warrior culture stressing bravery, honor, and superior birthright. Many of these Mandinka traditions acknowledge a nominal tributary status to the Mali Empire during the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries and continuing to exact tributes from the subject population.69 As Mamadou Diawara noted in his work on another part of the Mande world, there are narratives associated with different classes of people: aristocratic families, and the descendants of those that were once dominated.70 The “aristocratic traditions tell details of aspects from the past, laying the focus on inglorious episodes for others,” particularly enemies.71 In contrast, commoners and their stories are generally from one of two traditions: those who trace their origins to the servants of aristocratic families, and those of slave ancestry. The first group related their ancestors’ alliance with the princes, their political and military role, and their genealogy, while the second focused mostly on the slave past. Still in Jarra, local interpretations of the relationships between Badume and Bureng can be confusing, and as Wright notes, the story is not in accordance with Mandinka ideas of land ownership. The people of Bureng claim that their village was the first village settled in Jarra. It was later when the people of Badume asked for permission to settle.72 For Wright, this explanation does not fit well with Mandinka ideas of land ownership, as the Mandinka believed that new settlers in the area had to obtain permission from the

The Founding of Mandinka Settlements 47

original family to clear land for villages and to use surrounding land for farms. He concluded: “it is very unlikely that Bureng or even Badume were the first villages to be founded in Jarra.” However, what we see here is a Mandinka tale recited to justify the “firstcomer” status of the once powerful Sonko family of Badume who held the mansaya in Jarra. It is a story of “land loss,” narrated by the Sonko about when Badume (and not Bureng) assumed the power of granting permission to strangers who wanted land. As Sonko stated: “then the mansa was in Badume. He ruled all of Jarra.” In the Gambia, prominent families’ claims to founder status are made on the basis of genealogical links through the male line, but include people related through marriage or the mother’s line. Since lower-class families also preserve traditions, the content of Gambian oral traditions can vary depending on the sociopolitical status of the narrator; there are conflicting details about some events.73 Moreover, the traditions shared by Bainunka or Jola elders often contrast with the ones told by the Jatta or Sonko families of Kombo and Niumi. For example, the Bainunka or Jola stories emphasize oppression and land dispossession by incoming Mandinka groups. Thus, Gambian oral traditions reflect the political and social hierarchies that characterized precolonial lower Gambian society. These traditions can therefore help us to discuss social stratification as a dynamic historical process. The Mandinka who settled in the north bank region of SabachSanjal were also considered strangers. It was part of Saloum, which was by the late eighteenth century, if not before, defined as a Wolof country. An oral tradition that explains the founding of the village of Sarrakunda, a tiny Mandinka village located north of Bambally, indicates that the village was founded by a man named Kankuran Kumba. According to the tradition, Kankuran’s ancestors, the Camara clan, came from tilibo, and they spoke a common language, Mandinka.74 Before the Camara clan arrived in the Gambia River area, they settled in the Guinea-Bissau-Casamance area in what was then Kaabu. From the south, Kankuran’s ancestors traveled northward toward the village of Niani in the Upper Gambia River region. Niani, once a powerful state on the river, was located to the east of the Pakala district of the Wolof state of Saloum. A narrow creek separated the states of Niani and Saloum. It was in Niani where Kankuran was born. As an adult, Kankuran left his homeland to seek a new home in Farato, in the Sabach-Sanjal region.

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The migration of the Camara clan into the Gambia River region might have taken place in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century when Niani was disintegrating into small chiefdoms due to internal feuds.75 When Kankuran arrived in Saloum, the Wolof heavily populated the region of Sabach-Sanjal. Saloum (of which Sabach-Sanjal was a part) was defined as a Wolof country, often under the “territorial control” of a Wolof family. In this state, like in other parts of the lower Gambia region, ethnicity and descent both determined status. And status conferred political power.76 Although these Wolof families intermarried with the Mandinka, Serer, and Fula, they held political power as well as the land in Saloum and its principalities.77 However, Mandinkas founded some of the most important settlements in the area, including Bambally, Kunjata, and Tandaito. Elders say that when Kankuran arrived in Sabach-Sanjal the area was under the Wolof chief, Serign Gaye. Although Kankuran was from the nobility, he quickly settled down in Farato as a peanut and basso (a type of grain which the Mandinka called the “hungry grass”) farmer. Like all farmers, he wanted good land where he could peacefully settle down to farm. But a fortuneteller advised owners of Farato to relocate to more suitable land nearby, which was originally known to the people of the area as Madikaja banna saate. The seer was a cattle herder who had with him a black bull, which led him to a previously unknown pond, where the land was located. The land was full of silk cotton trees and baobabs, which were planted by wealthy people in times long past. Under the supervision of the elders who were led by a man called Sarra, the youths cleared the land, after which some of the villagers moved. Farato is now in ruins. That is how Sarrakunda was founded. While Kankuran’s story may be regarded as generalized and incomplete, and a fictionalized depiction of history, it is doubtful that the narrative does not contain partially accurate facts about the past. Whether Kankuran was a real person who moved into the Gambia River or not is unimportant. This is because we know that migrations of people from Kaabu, Manding, Futa Toro, and other locations within the wider Senegambia region to the banks of the Gambia River happened in the precolonial past and continued well into the twentieth century. Kankuran’s tale could have been a more recent example of a process that began long ago. Just as many of the widely known traditions relate to royal Mandinka clans or lineages,

The Founding of Mandinka Settlements 49

there are countless other traditions of origin that include the migration of family ancestors of ordinary people from the Mandinka homelands.78 Not all people who migrated from the “east” were warriors or Mandinka. In some ways, Kankuran’s story speaks to political and social transformations impacting identity and political centralization across the region. The story speaks to political relations, which as Bühnen notes, were expressed in the idiom of kinship and one might add landlord-stranger relationships.79 The tradition highlights not only political inequality between lineages, but also groups that speak different languages. Similarly, oral traditionalists consider the Foni districts, located on the western end of the Gambia River, as the ancestral homelands of the Jola people, though some Gambian Jola legend has it that the Jola, like the Mandinka, were from the east. Some of these stories suggest that from the east, the Jola moved into Kaabu and settled there.80 While in Kaabu, they lived in small-scale, relatively decentralized communities in the forest and near swamps located closer to the Atlantic Ocean and the Bintang bolong. The Jola cultivated rice and palm trees, domesticated cattle and pigs, and traded in beeswax. Before colonial rule, Foni was part of a vast region, which ran from the Cacheu River in the south, to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, the Allahin River to the north, and Bintang creek to the east. According to other popular legends, the Jola had ancestral links with the Serer but the identities of the two groups were defined by location.81 Two sisters, Aguene and Diambogne, were said to be traveling in a boat. As a result of rough weather, the boat capsized and broke into two planks. When this happened, Aguene and Diambogne both held to their planks and landed on opposite banks of the river.82 There is a slightly different version of this story. In the 1970s, Mbalufeh Janneh told Bakary Sidebe of the National Council for Arts and Culture that the Jola and the Serer came from two brothers, Ajang and Jambouyi. For Janneh, it was Ajang and Jambouyi, not Aguene and Diambogne, who were involved in the shipwreck. According to his version of the story, the two brothers separated. One of them settled in Foni, and the other in Niumi. It was a Fula herder who discovered and reunited them. The claim that the Jola and their Serer neighbors had ancestral links is puzzling. There is no evidence of a “split” which led to the two different ethno-linguistic groups.83 Also, the story explains the

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geographical location of the two ethnic groups, one located on the south bank of the river and the other on the north, but it does not indicate the river by name. Possibly, both groups tell this story to explain the peaceful co-existence that, historically, has defined their relationship. It is also telling that the content of the Gambian Jola traditions appears to be different from that of their Casamance neighbors. The story about the Jola coming from the east or Kaabu appears to be specifically of Gambian origin, because in reviewing the secondary sources on Casamance I could not find any references to this claim. According to Robert Baum the traditions of the Esulalu, a Jola subgroup, do not mention a prior place of origins.84 However, in spite of the claims by the Jola that they, too, were not the original settlers of the region, traditional stories from Mandinka elders and griots still acknowledge the Jola as one of the oldest groups in the region. Jola legends and traditions do not mention Mandinka dominance over Foni. In fact, fragmentary evidence offered by the Portuguese traveler Andre Donelha mentioned, in 1625, Jaroale as the name of the Bainunka king of Brefet (Foni), who was wicked. Jaroale’s nickname was “red cat,” symbolizing his ruthless attributes. The same source mentioned that Brefet paid tribute to the kings of Niumi and Bintang, whereas Bintang paid tributes to neighboring Kiang.85 In Kombo and parts of Foni, Mandinka elders also state that before the waves of migration from Manding, many of the area’s people were Bainunka.86 We know from Robert Baum’s research that the Bainunka dominated most of the lower Casamance during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.87 Toby Green recorded a Bainunka tradition that states that the first Bainunk came from a section of the Arabian city of Mecca called Baynounka.88 According to the Bainunka, the beginnings of Kombo can be traced back to a mythical figure named Ngana Sira Banna, who is believed to have migrated from the east to the western portion of the Gambia region. The tradition states that Ngana Sira Banna founded and ruled a kingdom that extended from the land that covered much of Kombo to what is now Guinea-Bissau. According to this tradition, the entire region south of the Gambia River to Casamance and Guinea-Bissau was therefore Bainunka land. It was the ancestral homeland of the Bainunka people, since “they were the first people to settle there.”89 Some sixteenth-century European sources mention the “Cassanga” (the name they used to refer to

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the Bainunka). Oral informants from Foni offer linguistic clues to the early dominance of Foni by Bainunka people. They note that the names of villages that Bainunkas founded usually begin with the word “kan” (meaning “place” or “home” in the Bainunka language). These include the villages of Kanjeba (later Jarrol), Kankuntu, and Kanfenda. If Bainunka and the Jola were dominant in Foni and Kombo before the arrival of the Mandinka, the nineteenth century was very different. At first, the Bainunka accommodated the Mandinka settlers. Gradually, the Bainunka were incorporated into Mandinka political culture or that of their other neighbors.90 The oral sources suggest that as prominent Mandinka families began to consolidate their power over the region, they increasingly saw themselves as the bankotiyolu (i.e., the owners of the land), though the control over Foni’s land was significantly weaker than in neighboring states. With Bainunka power and influence declining, the village of Kanjeba was renamed Jarrol and everyone else was pushed away from the important swamps and areas near the river.91 Although neither griots nor elders can give a precise date when Mande-speaking peoples began to settle along the banks of the Gambia River, some scholars believe it was some time before the seventeenth century that the Bainunka lost their land to invading Mandinka.92 For the Bainunka, the reasons they lost the land to the invading Mandinka was not external but internal: it began when a Bainunka king cursed his people after they tricked him and buried him alive.93 Thus, while oral traditions contain claims of long-distance migrations and conquest by invading group of Mandinkas, much of the content of these traditions describe very local-level processes. Written sources confirm the accuracy of claims of groups losing land to the Mandinka. Writing in the early 1700s, Francis Moore noted that “the kings are willing to give the Pholeys [Fula] Leave to cultivate Lands and live in their countries.” Moore further noted: They plant near their houses tobacco, and all around their town they open for cotton, which they fence in together beyond that are their corn-fields . . . I have chose [sic] to mention their various kinds of grains, now that I am speaking of the Pholeys, because they are the greatest planters in the country, tho’ they are strangers in it. They are very industrious and frugal, and raise much more corn and cotton than they consume . . . they settle commonly near Mandingo towns.94

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Moore was a witness to Mandinka political dominance over the land and other groups in the area. Oral traditions about Kombo indicate that the Mandinka who settled there were not from the area. A story of how one of Kombo’s ruling lineages migrated from the “east” and settled on land situated on the banks of the Gambia River could add a new perspective to the debate about the uses of African oral narratives in general, and the narratives of early displacement and land dispossession in particular. In 1973, Busumbala’s alkalo, Bakary Kutu Jatta, narrated the story to researchers from the Oral History and Antiquities Division office (commonly known OHAD), as his father would have narrated the story years or decades earlier. He states in his interview: You asked me to narrate a long history, the history of Kombo. I will recite it to you as it was narrated to me. I was told that Brikama, Busumbala and Yundum came together and settled on this land. The land was vacant. It happened that in Busumbala, there was a great hunter. His name was Karafa Yali Jatta. One day he was hunting in the big forest. His hunting expedition in the forest took him near the outskirts of the village of Sanyang. He heard a cock crowing and the sound of women pounding either rice or millet (coos). He said there is something happening in that place and he wanted to find out what it was. He started walking toward the village. He walked until he reached a cave. That cave was the place where the queen of Sanyang lived. Her village, Sanyang, was the previous owner of all this land. The queen was called Wuleng Jabbi. When Karafa and Wuleng saw each other, they quickly fell in love with one another. However, Karafa insisted that the queen will have to make him a king. The queen agreed and Karafa was crowned king of Kombo. They beat the royal drum at Sanyang to make the announcement. When Busumbala heard the drums, they started chanting “our nephew has taken the land.”95

A 1939 commissioner’s report recorded the same tradition, but unlike Bakary Kutu Jatta’s version of the story, it explained how Yundum-Busumbala and Brikama-Manduar-Jambur eventually separated and became semiautonomous.96 Another source suggests that it was not Wuleng Jabbi who fell in love with Karafa Yali. According to this source, it was one of the daughters of Wuleng Jabbi who married one of the strangers. When the marriage took place, Wuleng Jabbi resigned her position as ruler of Sanyang, surrendering the

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throne to her son-in-law, Jatta.97 In 1976, a griot from Brikama, Alhagie Bai Konteh, told his own version of the same story. According to Konteh, the founder of Busumbala was called Mansa Kaabu (the king Kaabu). Mansa Kaabu’s younger brother was named Karafa Yali Jatta, who was also a hunter.98 According to the story, there was a war in Karoni that forced the ancestors who founded Sanyang to flee Karoni and settled in a previously uninhabited forest known as sanyang sutubaa. Wuleng Jabbi, a mysterious figure, must have either pushed away the spirits inhabiting the forest or entered into a pact with them before she was able to inhabit a cave, which she made her home. The Jatta lineage, which ruled Kombo for several decades or so, acquired ownership of much of Kombo’s land after Karafa Yali met with the female ruler, Wuleng Jabbi, who agreed to host him and his followers.99 On this land they received from their host, the Jatta family founded the towns of Busumbala, Yundum, Manduar, Brikama, and Jambur. These towns “were self-governing, each with neighboring villages and land under its control.”100 David Skinner recorded another account stating that a “Jatta nephew of the Brikama mansa settled in Busumbala but retained a close relationship with the parent town.”101 According to this account, Kombo’s most prominent town was Brikama, and it was a son of a Brikama mansa who became dissatisfied with his political position, and decided to establish Jambur, and later his son founded Brufut. In any case, after the five principal towns of Kombo were founded, the rest of the land was left vacant and used only for hunting or for the gathering of wild fruits and forest produce. However, as the next chapter will discuss, all these “vacant” lands came under the territorial ownership of these newly created “royal” towns. Mandinka migration stories do not give reasons for individuals such as Amari Sonko, Kankuran Kumba, or Karafa Yali Jatta to have settled in the Gambia River area, other than their desire for power, hunting grounds, or fertile land. Historian George E. Brooks noted that environmental changes resulted in the concentration of Manding peoples in this narrow area. In Landlords and Strangers, Brooks claims that an expansion of Mande warriors, traders and smiths across western Senegambia occurred during the long dry period from about 1100 to around 1500. This drought led to the loss of trees in the northern portions of Western Africa, thereby triggering the Mande migrations. A brief wet period (1500–1630) followed

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but the drought only intensified in the subsequent decades.102 The more recent droughts were likely worse in the areas closer to the Sahara desert, including the Manding heartland.103 Declining precipitation might well have been enough to give rise to a steady migration of Manding peoples to the Gambia River basin. Previous interpretations of Gambian Mandinka oral sources have missed the important ways in which stories such as Karafa Yali’s open a lens through which we can examine pre-Islamic Mandinka ideas of land, and how they were shaped by their spiritual beliefs as well as identity. In many ways, the story of Karafa Yali is similar to that of another great hunter and state builder, Samake Demba. Like Jatta, Demba is claimed to have founded not only a town, Bali, but also the state of Jokadu situated on the Gambia’s north bank. He is said to have come from the “east” (Manding), settled first in Dalaba, in lower Baddibu, and crossed the Suwareh Kunda creek before arriving at thick bush. Once in the area, he decided with the support of rulers in Jarra and Kiang to establish the state of Jokadu. An important part of the story is that he arrived in the area during a hunting expedition to the state of Niumi. During this trip, he encountered the queen of Niumi Bakindik, Mama Handami Jammeh. The two fell in love and got married.104 Some of these traditions may tell us something about people and their thoughts.105 Many Mandinka stories of migration and conquest speak of the role of hunters as the first migrants and settlers.106 As chapter 3 will show, in village after village, there are stories of how hunters found new, worthwhile hunting grounds with fertile land and rich water reserves, built themselves a temporary hut, and then fetched their families and brothers to settle on what subsequently became their family’s land. The significance of Karafa Yali’s hunting story lies not just in what it says about the formation of political hierarchies and collective legitimacy; it also speaks to pre-Islamic Mandinka spiritual beliefs. Relying on Yali’s story, we can use reasonable speculations to help us historicize Mandinka oral traditions, because we know that during the pre-Kansala period (i.e., before the outbreak of the mid-nineteenth century Senegambian jihads or the destruction of Kaabu) Islam was not widely practiced in areas settled by the Mandinka. We know from written sources that Islam was a “late arrival,” and with the growth of Islam, the distinctions between the Muslims and the non-Muslim Soninkes hardened. Considering traditions of origin may therefore lead us to a fuller understanding

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of the intersection between spirituality and land control. In other words, these oral narratives can help us better understand local beliefs, attitudes toward land, and forms of social stratification.107 Mandinka oral traditions may also shed more light on wider African topics of migration, conquest, identity, or social belonging. As Pamela Kea writes, these narratives cannot be dismissed as mere myth, as they form a part of the “possessed past.”108 David Conrad writes that no historical inquiry of Mande history could be complete without acknowledging the vast corpus of Mande oral narratives that include the spiritual elements of myth, legend, and magic with links to iconic, conspicuous landscape features.109 The above-mentioned stories do not emphasize military conquest or large-scale migration, and while they are about how various regions of the Gambia river area were settled, and how prominent lineages justified their privileged positions and land rights, the stories are probably more useful in what they tell us about Mandinka ideas of social belonging, identity, and spirituality. Once again, these stories suggest that one’s ties to a place or a land relate to one’s citizenship or membership in a community; virtually every family living in the Gambia River area has stories about how their ancestors came to the region. The stories emphasize dislocation and land dispossession, and ethnic competition between the Mandinka and their neighbors. People asserted their identities (i.e., the elements of their social and political characteristics) during times of bitter rivalries over succession to leadership, or because of the need for more land as a way to distinguish themselves from their rivals.110 The sharpening of ethnic differences during this period reflects the political reality in which most Fula, Wolof, and Serer lived. European eyewitness accounts confirm many of the claims of the Mandinka-Fula relationship of domination and exploitation, as well as the rifts associated with the slave trade. In 1730, Francis Moore reported that the Jola inhabited the land of “Fonia” but they lived “a little way inland . . . They border close to the Mandingoes, and are bitter enemies to each other.”111 Decades later, Mungo Park also wrote that the “natives of the countries bordering on the Gambia, though distributed into great many distinct governments” could be grouped into four “great classes.”112 These were the Feloops (Jola), the Jollofs (Wolof), the Foulahs (Fula) and the Mandingoes (Mandinka).113 He further described the Wolof as a “powerful, and warlike race, inhabiting [a]

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great part of that tract which lies between the river Senegal and the Mandingo states on the Gambia.”114 While there was inter-ethnic mixing, Park noted how the language of the Wolof differed from that of the Mandinka, and the two groups were “frequently at war either with their neighbors or with each other.”115 In his account of his capture, Ayuba Suleiman Diallo described “the enmity between the Fulbe and the Malinke on the Gambia.”116 These accounts reinforce the impression that a strong sense of ethnic consciousness existed among people around the Gambia in the past. There are suggestions that early European travel accounts focusing on the region were mostly based on hearsay.117 Colonial administrators and European travelers before them drew much of their information from oral traditions and African informants. This gave them the confidence that they knew, and thus controlled, the local situation.118 Green notes that we need to read these accounts carefully.119 But evidence suggests that Mungo Park was an eye-witness to many of the issues he reported about in the Gambia River region. For instance, any good speaker of Wolof would see that Mungo Park had deep insights into the regional, social, political, and cultural dynamics of the area.120 His remarks about the linguistic and ethnic differences between the Wolof, Mandinka, Jola, Fula, and others are certainly accurate for the second half of the eighteenth century. Indeed, many Wolof and Fula families, like their Mandinka counterparts, have stories of how their ancestors came from distant homelands in Jollof, Futa, or the interior of Senegal to settle in the area. Some of these alleged migrants came as herders, marabouts, or farmers in search of good land to settle and farm. But the traditions of the Wolof, Fula, and other smaller groups are less centralized than those of the Mandinka. Karafa Yali and Samake Demba stories allowed descendants of the Jatta and Demba families and others attached to them to justify their position within the states and villages they lived in. We know that for more than a century the descendants of Karafa Yali Jatta have acted as hosts (landlords) in Busumbala, Kombo, thereby drawing on the prestige and status such an identity confers. Stories such as these suggest that remembering and maintaining affinities to one’s “homeland,” or lineage, served as a means of self-identification and survival in a relatively hostile environment. The frequency of drought and warfare in precolonial Senegambia reinforced the importance of these ties. In times of hardship or civil strife, it would be necessary to call upon

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others, including distant kinspeople, for protection. Traditions often cite how prominent Gambian Mandinka lineages would call on Kaabunkas (i.e., the people of Kaabu) for help during times of political uncertainty. When people were born in a village, they acquired certain birthrights, especially as they grew to old age. This was particularly the case for male members of the population, as women could be married off outside of their natal village. These ties allowed one to answer the question: who are you?121 “Not to know oneself” (meaning one’s history or “place” in society) was not advantageous to an individual. Individuals, therefore, had to know where their kinspeople were. Uses of Tradition

In sum, many elders in numerous locales along the Gambia River told me they were sharing what they knew about their history: the founding of their settlements, where their ancestors came from, what brought them to the Gambia River region, and whom they met upon their arrival. While some scholars have discounted the usefulness of oral narratives, this chapter considers the interpretative value that such traditions offer. These sources give us insights into what people thought, their spiritual beliefs, and their understanding of political power. It would be a mistake to think that all Mandinka oral traditions are myths or fictional depictions of the precolonial past. To consider Mandinka oral traditions as legitimate historical sources does not mean to accept them literally and uncritically. Historians should listen to the tales of the past that relate to local beliefs and expressions of African political thought, which the written sources may or may not offer, while paying attention to their shortcomings. It is equally important to consider the ethnographic setting of these oral narratives, and take into account what Wright said: that most “contain a core of truth, which fits into a pattern of events that were taking place across the region.”122 All the major Senegambian traditions, he writes, “contain in their structures information about precolonial Senegambian society, and each of the stories offers insights into Senegambia’s precolonial class structure and the nature and importance of political systems in the region.”123 These traditions constitute the entire “library” of the lower Gambia population, their worldviews, customs, and past, and have guided what elders decided for their societies.

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To deny the importance of wider ethnic identities in precolonial Senegambia is to ignore the preponderant role of conflict in the formation of political identities that were generally broad in geographical scope. Both the oral and written sources characterize the relationship between the Mandinka on the one hand and the Fula, Bainunka, and the Jola on the other. It is not a mere coincidence that both the oral and written accounts describe the plight of the Fula in the Mandinka-led states in a similar way. As people debated their identities and belonging in their societies, it became prudent to tell origin stories. Most oral traditions dealing with individuals and families made references to birthrights and birthplaces, which provided the language of the idiom of landlordstranger relationships. Remembering family and group origins and knowing where one belonged was vital for people’s very existence. Moreover, while many of these traditions allege that ancestors established themselves in the area via some form of military conquest, or people moving from one distant location to another, some tell simple stories of population movements, in which migrants exploited the long-held custom of the landlord-stranger relationship, and relied on social networks of (possibly fictive) kinship or blood ties. It was also common, as many of these traditions claim, for villages that grew in size to hive off, forming separate communities, often at a considerable distance from the parent settlement. In short, traditions of origin, although not the same as the history of the past, can be seen as shared perceptions of the past that articulate the content and meaning of that earlier period.124 These traditions point to the importance of founding narratives highlighting events or themes that stress the right of the original settlers’ descendants to hold political office, establish particular rights to land, and act as hosts to strangers. Many Gambians believed that Mandinka figures such as Karafa Yali migrated to the banks of the Gambia River because they wanted rich and fertile lands on which to farm. The sources also shed light on why the region’s settlement patterns evolved the way they did. Therefore, whether or not traditions of origin are “true” is not the only consideration when examining their value. For this study, what is critical is what they reveal about the centrality of land as a store of wealth, a producer of wealth, and a marker of identity. The next chapter will build on this by examining the political dimensions of land-control by the Mandinka ruling families which long monopolized political power along the Gambia River.

2 Land and the Politics of Exclusion Mandinka States

By the late eighteenth century, the Mandinka had succeeded in extending their political and social dominance over much of the lower Gambia River area. As the English traveler Francis Moore noted in 1730, even the king of Baddibu was a Mandinka.1 From Kombo to Jarra on the south bank and from Baddibu to Niumi on the north bank, it was Mandinka ruling families who were responsible for administering the several states along the banks of the Gambia River. These influential families included the Sonko, Jammeh, Manneh, Bojang, Jatta, Sanyang, and others. These several dozen families managed through the use of that political power to maintain monopoly ownership of most of the best land along the river.2 As a rice-growing people, the Mandinka succeeded in settling on fertile swamps and areas near the river and pushed everyone else into the jeeri. As Charlotte Quinn writes, “some of these lineages with traditions of direct descent from founder-settler ancestors claimed paramount rights of land ownership over the whole state.”3 While there are diverse interpretations of the power of precolonial states and their rulers, many have noted the need for more careful historical analysis of precolonial states in Africa.4 Precolonial African states operated differently from European ones, and the power that African kings or rulers exercised varied. For instance, Gareth Austin notes that precolonial African rulers (in this case, the Asante) had difficulty exercising control over people. For Austin, the Asante king had limited ability to control people because the state had no standing army, or even a monopoly over conscription, and firearms were easily accessible.5 As for the Yoruba kings, they exercised power primarily through military force or reputation, rather

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than allocation of land, and they accumulated wealth in the form of people and material goods, rather than collecting tribute from settlers on their land.6 In this sense, African chiefs were considered only nominal custodians of the land, and a council of elders could overrule their decisions.7 In Nanun, in northern Ghana, “chiefs had very little authority over the people.”8 But the situation in the Gambia region appears to be different, because between the 1790s and the 1850s the mansolu and their courts seem to have effectively exercised control over both land and people. Although land was not concentrated exclusively in the hands of a few wealthy and powerful landlords as in medieval Europe, the Mandinka rulers, their families, and other prominent lineages exercised important land-based powers that augmented their wealth and further reinforced their domination over other groups. The chapter shows that ties to land were crucial for access to political power both at the state level and at the local, village level. The historical evidence for the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries reveal important political dimensions of land control by Mandinka ruling families who governed communities that comprised two societies: one lineage-based, and one hierarchical in nature with monarchical power headed by a territorial chief. Within these broad categories, there were the nobility, the freeborn or commoners, and slaves. In virtually all the Gambian River states, the pattern of political organization was that the state was headed by the mansa who was then assisted by several officials, including the village heads (alkalolu) and lineage heads. Soninke Elders as Powerholders

The structure of the Gambia River states was centered on the royal families, which founded the ruling houses of several towns. These families filled the position of mansa on a rotational basis.9 An 1893 description of how a mansa was chosen in a traveling commissioner’s report may shed some light on the elaborate system of succession in the Gambian Mandinka states: The king’s eldest son is not always his heir. The law is that when a king is crowned he is given a slave wife by the people. The son of this woman is the future heir [regardless of] whether the king [has other

Land and the Politics of Exclusion 61 sons or none] prior to this marriage. It is so arranged that each town takes its turn as the king’s place of abode.10

Before the mid-nineteenth century, the region’s landholders carried with them the title bankutiyolu, “lord of the lands.” Moore described the rulers of the Gambia River states as “lords of the soil.”11 The mansa were generally accorded much respect from their subjects.12 He was assured of economic strength through a tribute system in which tax collectors brought payments for land use to the mansa’s court.”13 As will be demonstrated later in the chapter, by establishing monopoly control and ownership of the best land, they imposed taxes and excluded subjects and stranger populations from political office and from owning the best land.14 Many of the Gambia’s Mandinka ruling families were closely connected. They virtually all claimed to have either come from Manding or from Manding via Kaabu. While Manding (the heartland of the Mali Empire) was perceived as the ancestral homeland of the Mandinka, Kaabu was also an important political and cultural center. Toby Green describes the state of Kaabu as more or less “an umbrella form of identity, almost a trans-ethnic or certainly a translineage identity” that comprised many different groups.15 Among the ruling families in the Gambia River area, one can collect story after story about gelewar (the term ceddo not being used around the lower Gambia), all connecting them to the nyancho in Kaabu. Before the outbreak of the jihads, many of the rulers and lineages of these states (and others) regarded themselves as nyancho or gelewar and the remaining population called them Soninke. A story highlighting the strong bond that cemented the relationship between the states of Niumi and Jarra provides a good example of the special connection that once existed between the royal families of the two states. As noted in a 1906 report, a very popular covenant existed between the people of Niumi and those of Jarra. According to local traditions, in times long past the kings of Niumi, Jarra and Mali met at a certain town in Manding. During the meeting, the king of Manding told the other kings that there was a certain bird in the bush he wanted and if any of the two kings shot that bird and brought it to him he would give him his daughter to marry. After a long time the king of Jarra shot the bird but soon the Manding king realized that the king of Niumi had succeeded in seducing his daughter. Upon realizing the affair, the king of Manding ordered the killing or the

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imposition of a severe fine on the Niumi mansa. The Niumi mansa, however, pleaded with the Manding king to allow him to return to Niumi where he would obtain the hefty fine. In order to convince the Manding king to permit the Niumi mansa to leave his land, the king of Jarra agreed to offer his life to the Manding king in the event the Niumi king failed to return with the fine imposed on him. A certain day was fixed for the return of the ruler of Niumi. Upon arriving in his state, the Niumi king called his people and told them the story. When he did so, there was unanimous opposition to his decision to return to Manding. But the Niumi king insisted that he had given his word to the kings of Manding and Jarra and he intended to keep it. He left Niumi for Manding. He arrived late and found that the Jarra king had surrendered himself for his execution. Fortunately for the Jarra king, the people who were present at the execution place “saw someone running towards them waving a white cloth.”16 This turned out to be the Niumi king who had escaped from his people and returned to Manding as he had promised. Because of this, the king of Manding decided to free both men in addition to revoking the fine that he had imposed on the Niumi king. From this day, the kings of Jarra and Niumi made a covenant that peoples of Niumi and Jarra would always assist and help one another in every way. The nature of Soninkeya as a way of life and as an ideology came from the nyancho elements in Kaabu. Once again, the oral evidence suggests that there was a kind of interweaving of aristocratic families through marriage across the whole region from Saloum, through the Gambia and Casamance, to Kaabu. Donald Wright refers to elites who controlled society, politics, and the economy of the region as using marriage ties to form an “interlocking directorate.”17 Wright’s analysis of the epic of a well-known Senegambian warrior, Kelefa Sanneh, proves this point. According to a widely recited story, Kelefa was from Badora, one of the states of the Kaabu Empire situated along the middle Geba River in what is now Guinea-Bissau. Even though Kelefa lived in a world dominated by Mandinka mores and customs, griots claimed that he was a Jola rather than a Mandinka.18 Several sources highlight the significance of the land-based powers of Mandinka chiefs and families, especially in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In his recounting of his trek along the Gambia River in 1795, Scottish traveler Mungo Park tells of a man named Karfa, who rented from “the chief of Jindey . . . huts

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for the accommodation” of his slaves and a piece of land to farm. Karfa wanted his slaves to use the land to cultivate maize and other crops for their maintenance.19 In the 1930s, a British colonial officer, Major R. W. Macklin, learned that there were men who carried the title Karfa. According to Macklin, these were men whose wealth or power or position entitled them a say in public affairs, and their advice could not be lightly disregarded, though it is not clear if the chief of Jindey was one such man.20 While it is not clear in Park’s writing how many people depended on this chief for access to land, other sources suggest that across the Gambia River region rulers of states, chiefs, and members of prominent lineages controlled access to land because political and social power rested with them. Park’s words about Karfa highlight the significance of land in creating a system of dependency that gave elite families their privileged lifestyles. Before British authority began altering African customs—in the second half of the nineteenth century—land was central to elites’ maintaining power over their subjects and all others who came to visit or live on their land. In the Mandinka-dominated states along the Gambia River, as in other parts of the Senegambia, land could not be acquired as a simple commodity, nor could it be traded in such a way as to divorce it from the social and political context that gave it value.21 As in other African societies, land ownership was tied to the production and reproduction of dependent social and political relationships, which social scientists have broadly labeled landlord-stranger relationships. Such relationships involved power.22 Mungo Park’s observation confirms historian Charlotte Quinn’s assertion that the Mandinka chiefs had monopoly control of land.23 Park noted: Concerning property in the soil, it appeared to [me] that the lands in native 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 territory on condition of forfeiture if the lands were not brought under cultivation by a given period.24

Although the oral traditions do not agree on who settled Jarra first, they all agree that the mansa had to be informed of a stranger’s settlement in his state or that he had to grant that stranger permission to do so.25 A number of missionary sources confirm this. For

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instance, in December of 1823, soon after members of the Society of Friends arrived in 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. Also, in Kombo, in the 1820s, the mansa told missionaries from the Methodist church to travel around his “banko” (state) to identify a “place [they] liked to sit down [i.e., settle].”26 Following his instructions, these 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.”27 Wherever a mansa decide to settle a stranger, that person had to attach himself (or was assigned) to a local landlord—a host who would oversee the person’s dealings with others. Oral sources indicate that before mansa Demba Sonko took the throne as Niumi’s king in 1834, a group of strangers (Wolof) from Toro Cham in Lower Baddibu were granted permission to establish the village of Ndungu Charen, near the modern-day Senegalese border. The man who founded the village was Ma Sarr Jobe, who received permission from the Queen of Bakendik— that is, the Niumi mansa.28 Later, in the early nineteenth century, during mansa Demba Sonko’s reign, Wolof migrants were given permission to establish the villages of Ndungu Kebbeh, Fafanding, and Bantanding.29 As strangers and nonelite families, these Wolof and Fula communities generally occupied the jeeri where a large portion of the millet was coming from. This also included the Fula and Wolof settlements of Jokadu. They comprised the Toranka villages of Toro Alassan, Jisa, Batanding, Madina Modum, and Misra Alagi.30 Another oral tradition speaks to the power of the ruling class, particularly the ruler, in granting access to land to strangers. In Kiang, the Sanyang family believed that their ancestors, who came from tilibo and later passed through various destinations in Kaabu and upper Gambia, claimed that when one of their ancestors settled in a Kasinka (Serer) country, they found a Kasinka mansa (ruler) there. These migrants remained in the Kasinka country for a long time, but then the Serer chief thought they might be a threat to his authority. They were then forced to leave the Kasinka country where they must have cleared farmlands and built homes. The Sanyang

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were again on the move “searching for a place to settle.” They settled in Foni, in a place called Sandeng Bareto, before proceeding to Kiang where they founded Kwinella, Bateling, Kundong, and Manduar, and established a rotational system of mansaya based on seniority of the villages and the age.31 What is interesting about this story is that the narrative does not mention any populations that they found in Kiang. They claim that their ancestors “did not find anyone ruling” Kiang. The only people they saw were the ancestors of the Sanneh-Jifoyang who lived to the “east” of their newly established settlements. But they consider the Sanneh as their relatives, with historical ties going back to tilibo and Kaabu. Although recorded in the 1890s, another colonial report noted this quite clearly: “The land title question is simple; the land all belonged to the chiefs and kings either by conquest or occupation.”32 Another colonial report stated that rights on land were initially acquired by the first settlers on previously unclaimed land, or by a grant from a king or chief. The descendants of such original settlers have the right of usage, the right to lend land and to give it away. If a lineage dies out, the village head can reallocate its land to other people. In theory, once the land had been granted to the head of a compound, the village head could not take it away. Usually, a person borrowing land from a landlord would offer some kola nuts and a small part of the produce of the land to the landowner.33 In 1939, a local colonial administrator was told by Mandinka elders that, in times long past, “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 neighbours.”34 If anyone would doubt the power of the mansa over people and land, an 1821 incident in Mandinari, Kombo, reveals the truth. This incident was about a land dispute between the mansa of Kombo and the elders of the village. Records of land conflicts in precolonial Senegambian societies are rare, but the 1821 dispute suggests that the history of the Gambia River region was sometimes characterized by competition for power and resources. Kombo’s oral traditions indicate that Moriba Ceesay, the founder of Mandinari, migrated from Pakao in what today is Casamance to settle along the banks of the Gambia River. While it is not clear when exactly Ceesay arrived in Kombo, we know that the village was in existence in the early

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nineteenth century. According to David Skinner, the Bojang family of Kombo traced its origin to a migration into the Gambia region from Kaabu.35 The two original Bojang towns (namely Manduwar and Jambur) shared power with Brikama, Busumbala, and Yundum.36 When they left Kaabu, they came with their marabouts from the Touray and Janneh families. The Touray were settled at Jambur, Brikama, Kartong, and Pirang.37 Thus, when Moriba arrived he was given permission to found his own village by the mansa of Kombo, who at the time was based in Yundum. Like all strangers, Moriba had to pay taxes to the chief. As a report noted, “Land acquired by any person (or family) through being the first cultivator, carries with the ownership the obligation to pay tribute to the ruler of the land and it is about 2 bushels of rice for every 100 bushels the land yields. Usually no tribute was, however, paid for uncultivated areas.”38 Tribute was certainly a source of chiefly revenue. However, unlike the Akan and Yoruba states, where tributes resembled a tax on persons (or heads of households) rather than a rent on land, in the Gambia region the line between the two is blurred. One thing that seems certain is that throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries many African and European strangers were expected to pay for lands they “rented” from those the Mandinka called the bankutiyolu. Payment of tributes served to acknowledge the authority of chiefs and lineage heads, rather than representing payments based on the amount of land used or the goods produced from it.39 At times, the elites collected rice, millet, corn, and even cattle.40 Elsewhere in the Senegambia region, it was not unusual for the region’s rulers to interfere in matters of land allocation. Even in the Senegal River valley, where the laman (Wolof elders) of Waalo often acted as a manager of collective property, the king still had much uncultivated or unused land to distribute among relatives and allies, including warriors, notables, and religious leaders in his entourage. While he usually acknowledged the rights of the laman as land administrator, on occasion he was tempted to encroach on land under the laman’s control.41 In the Gambia, the mansolu used their power to not only extract tribute from several stranger groups and peasant communities, they also prevented these groups from access to landownership and its related privileges.42 The situation was no different in Kombo, where the ruling class understood the advantages that land control presented.

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Thus, when the mansa’s daughter, Madibba Bojang, got sick, she was taken to Moriba (who allegedly was a renowned cleric) to be treated. Afterward, the ruler gave his daughter to Moriba and declared that he would exempt Mandinari from paying taxes or tributes for using the land. Moriba continued to offer his services to the mansa and his family. When one of Madibba Bojang’s uncles later decided to move to Mandinari, he was warned by the reigning mansa never to claim the alkaliyya. This story about the relationship between Moriba and the Kombo mansa echoes the importance of marriage and alliances in either creating or maintaining the integrity of the state. It also highlights the centrality of land in the political and social history of the Gambia River basin. This story supports the argument that, if alliances were the means through which the unity of the lower Gambian states was forged, control of land was one of the most important ways of promoting such relationships. However, cooperation between families did not always generate harmony. For example, in 1821, the mansa seized a plot of land from the elders of Mandinari village and gave it to the Methodist missionaries who wanted to establish a church there.43 The 1821 dispute 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 their land to the missionaries, and contested the mansa’s right to do so. They also demanded gifts from the missionaries as a form of acknowledgment of their (i.e., the elders’) right to the land. They argued that “their being free men, born on the land, established their right to it.” The missionaries refused to honor the request for gifts, 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 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 neighbourhood by cutting down trees of great value.” 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.” A messenger was sent to call the strangers. John Baker, one of the missionaries, was ill and could not attend, but John Morgan attended

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with an interpreter. Under a large tree (a bantango), Morgan “found the king sitting on his heels, with about twenty principal men of the town in the same position forming a circle.”44 Morgan wrote in his journal that the meeting took place on May 5, 1821, and another source indicates that about forty men attended it.45 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 freemen of Mandinari, they deserved to be consulted by the mansa before he could alienate any land. 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. Historically it was not uncommon for rulers to allocate land to visiting Europeans: since the mid-fifteenth century Senegambian rulers had been allocating land to European traders who established factories on such land, and paid an annual subsidy or tariff to the “kings” or their representatives.46 Still, the elders challenged the mansa, insisting that they would send the missionaries out of their town. As tension grew, the mansa finally 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.”47 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 elders were subdued. They began to pray 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 petition, said with a loud voice, Ah’min, Ah’min.” 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” (items that were highly valued by the “lords” of the land).48

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The Mandinari case calls attention to how little we know about land ownership in West Africa before the twentieth century. The incident points to the fact that some chiefs exploited their political power to allocate land for their own self-interest and personal gain, in spite of the group’s opposition. It also suggests that the mansa’s land “rights” were superior to those of his council, because of his ability to exercise greater military and physical force. The dispute also may speak to the general feeling of insecurity people felt, which forced them to seek protection or to remain dependent on the aristocratic class. Between roughly 1645 and 1818 the Gambia region exported approximately 122,737 captives. It is not entirely clear how these captives were acquired or where they came from. However, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, much of the revenue for the Gambia River states came from taxes on caravans and from the export of slaves.49 According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade database, of this number 102,102 captives were disembarked in various ports in the Americas including Barbados, Saint-Domingue, Antigua, South Carolina, and the Chesapeake Bay.50 Historians are yet to fully assess the real consequences of this trade on the lower Gambia River basin, but some nineteenth-century missionary sources seem to suggest that the trade had a devastating impact on the region. As Robin Law states, “the procuring of slaves depended (mostly) upon organized violence.”51 Violence and slave raiding (along with drought and famine) have had profound dislocating consequences on Senegambia’s rural populations. Reverend Morgan, who arrived in the region barely two decades after the slave trade was abolished, observed that “the people of the [area] along the river were thinly scattered in small towns, generally reduced to a most wretched condition by the slave trade . . . they are annually subject to famine several weeks before the ripening of their first crops.”52 In the early nineteenth century, European visitors like Morgan would have seen how “the remnants of conquered and scattered kingdoms, now existing as small detached tribes, indicate the devastations of war.”53 The slave trade spread violence and, over a great part of this region, “plenty would almost certainly excite the avarice of marauding warriors, carrying with them war, death, famine, and slavery.”54 As Morgan observed, “owing to the devastations of war in every kingdom, all things appeared to be in an unsettled state” in the communities along the banks of the Gambia River.”55

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More than a century after Park’s travels, Dr. Emelius Hopkinson, appointed in 1923 as the Traveling Commissioner of British Gambia’s North Bank Province, traveled the region to meet elders of various communities. During one of his trips, he observed, “the women would go to the fields with men guards, as they did in the old days.” Walking with arms was a “custom which still prevailed in places when I first [went] to the Gambia,” Hopkinson noted, “though by then it was more or less a form, a relic of the past, as the guard was reduced to a few old men who sat and chewed kolas all day in the shadiest spot they could find.”56 Hopkinson’s story speaks to the general feeling of insecurity during the long period—dating back to the fifteenth century, perhaps, if not longer—of conflict and oppressive rule.57 While Mandinka dominance of the region dates much earlier, the oppressive nature of aristocratic rule may have only begun at the end of the eighteenth century and reached its height during the first half of the nineteenth century. Though observing twentieth-century conditions, Hopkinson’s observations reflect the feeling of insecurity in the precolonial period due to the oppressive and exploitative nature of aristocratic rule. Oral traditions indicate that before the second half of the nineteenth century the lower Gambia basin was under the sort of chiefs described as Kele Mansa or Kidifay Mansa (war king or gunfire king).58 These aristocratic families loved to fight wars, and their prosperity depended greatly on successful raids. An early record describing such a ruler is Francis Moore’s description of the ruler of Saloum. He wrote: the Bur “was so absolute that he will not allow any of his people to advise with him, unless it be his Headman (and chief Slave) called Ferbo (Master of the Horse).”59 Due to heightened security between the sixteenth and late nineteenth centuries, fortified stockades were constructed to surround most towns. To protect themselves and their population against raids, a number of villages in Foni and Niumi, as well as the important Mandinka settlements of Kataba and Dinkirai, had palisade walls. Not having a master, father, or a landlord’s patronage tended to increase one’s vulnerability; even a slave or a stranger needed to identify with a landlord who could offer protection.60 As an additional effort to secure themselves from raiders, people built their settlements in areas that were not easily accessible. Morgan stated, “a distant view of the most extensive landscape present[ed] nothing

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like human habitations; not that the country is without population, but because the principal towns are generally built beside a thicket, and oftentimes almost surrounded by it.”61 Farmers needed the protection the elites could offer just as elites needed people to cultivate the land. The sort of dependency on elites that is described here is similar to what Maxim Bolt refers to as the “dynamics of dependence,” whereby some individuals found ways to exploit their relationship with their “masters.”62 However, the condition of insecurity, combined with oppressive rule, produced among the villagers a sense of community across lineages. The Mandinari case may or may not be typical, since it is likely that Mandinka mansolu found ways to avoid conflict with other prominent lineages or their less powerful subordinates. While Kombo was a federation of semiautonomous towns, and oral traditions do not mention specific conflicts or wars between communities, the king was powerful.63 This communal cooperation was rooted in local power structures. Nevertheless, during the era of the kidifay mansolu, political insecurity was a problem for commoners and therefore created the need for a relationship of dependency or cooperation. In 1821 when Rev. John Morgan visited the Soninke stronghold of Kwinella, the capital of the Kiang state, he met the “king of Quinella” and requested “to be allowed to take land for their settlement at the cape.” But the mansa’s subjects forwarded strong objections to the king. The king said he would be glad to see Morgan settle in his kingdom, and that he had the power to grant land at the cape, though the people were opposed to it; so that they should rather choose another locality. The king’s name was Caliph (pronounced in Mandinka as Kalipha).64 It is unclear if the “king” only used the possible opposition of his subjects as an excuse to refuse the missionaries a particular piece of land, or if there was a real threat. Certainly, there were several important elite families living in Kiang at the time. Among them was the Sanyang, who came from Manding through Kaabu, and founded Kwinella, one of Kiang’s old Soninke capitals.65 Until the second half of the nineteenth century, the villages of Kundong, the port of Tendaba, Bambako, Jattaba, Nyoro-Jattaba, Sankandi, Tankular, and many others, were under the domain of the mansa based at Kwinella. However, the Sanneh who founded Genieri were also an important nyancho family whose presence in the area had to be reckoned with by the Sanyang family of Kwinella. Whatever the

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case it is clear that the king was not willing to use force to allocate land to the strangers. The success of the lower Gambian Mandinka states’ elites in accumulating wealth and following depended partly on coercion. Prior to the colonial takeover, mansolu and their sons could seize cattle, land, or even millet or rice granaries belonging to a subject, particularly if the subject failed to show deference to any member of the ruling family.66 Contemporary European observations support this. English documents describe the “King of Badiboo”67 as a “powerful robber,” noting that the mansa maintained his lifestyle by levying taxes on people for occupying the land and cultivating it.68 Also, in 1850, missionary William Fox noted that along the Gambia River subjects paid tributes “to the sovereign of the country for the land which they hold . . . Being thus dependent, they suffer much at times.”69 Donald Wright states that Niumi’s ruling lineages obtained surplus grain and cotton through taxation and slave production. “Following harvest,” he writes, “village heads supervised collection of about one-tenth of village production and conveyed it to the mansa’s village.”70 Local rulers also prospered from the tolls they charged on the goods of traders passing through their states.71 Apart from claiming descent from the founding ancestors, or having power through conquest, why was final authority over land under the control of chiefs and their courts? The elite families did this, many Gambian elders relate, simply because they held authority as the bankutiyolu. The king was a “robber” because his demands were excessive. Allocating land to people brought more people to render tax or tribute to the mansa’s family, more people to work the land, producing foodstuffs or keeping cattle. For example, Karfa’s story shows that landowners were able to collect rents from strangers seeking land favorably located in relation to export markets. Until the mid-nineteenth century, chiefs were partly interested in land because it enabled them to exercise control over “strangers”—both African and European—who paid tribute and taxes to the rulers for using the land.72 As Karfa’s relations with the chief of Jindey suggests, dependents or “strangers of any ethnic background paid taxes, rents or provided services” to the Mandinka aristocracy.73 Many of Senegambia’s nyancho families probably used “portions of the produce of the non-royal lineages in the state for the royal

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court and state soldiers.”74 J. B. L. Durand estimated that only one quarter of the Mandinka were freeborn, and they were related to the ruling class. The primary task of the other three quarters, according to Durand, was to till the land for their masters.75 What these sources reveal is that the mansolu, or chiefs, and their courts used their political power and monopoly control of the land along the river basin of the Gambia to keep everyone else, common people as well as slaves, in a dependent status. Related is the fact that controlling people through allocation of land as the bankutiyolu had another important purpose: to increase the number of dependents (wives, children, and slaves) to cultivate the land. Each mansa had royal fields and needed labor to work them. Members of elite families did not often do such work themselves; male members of such families provided protection, either through military or spiritual means, but they rarely indulged in physical labor. The royal fields were the largest within the state.76 And as Richard Jobson observed in 1623, “many hands made work light.”77 The mansajong (royal slaves) constituted an important source of labor for the ruling class. For example, these slaves cultivated the royal farms of Niumi’s mansa.78 Domestic slaves enjoyed certain rights, but they still worked in the fields to produce wealth for the elders. Along with other male members of their master’s family they grew crops, raised animals, fetched wood from the forest, and ran errands. But like other dependents, “the male [slave] generally had his own piece of land. As he grew older, he devoted more of his time to his own plot.”79 Mandinka elders insist that such land would not be considered the property of the slaves. The land belonged to the master’s freeborn family and it was under the jurisdiction of the head of kabilo.80 That means not all members of the kabilo enjoyed equal rights to the land. Just like strangers, slaves could never become kabilo heads in their owner’s household. Another important source of labor was young men provided by villages under the jurisdiction of the reigning mansa. By claiming to be the bankutiyo (the owner of the land), the mansa would also call on the young men from the villages under his authority to work on his fields.81 It was customary during the rainy season for villages to send their youth, at least once, to work in one of the mansa’s farms.82 Moreover, the mansa had granaries. These granaries were the most numerous, the first filled, and the last emptied.83 Harvests from the

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royal fields and contributions from his subjects enabled each mansa to keep a granary, which was also an important measure of wealth. Donald Wright’s interview with Jerreh Manneh in September 1974 reveals that “if a mansa lived at Bunyadu, then Berending, Essau, and all the other towns would choose young men of their towns for the mansa’s service . . . If he (also) needed cattle he would send to his towns and they would send some to him. If the people harvested millet they would give part of it for the livelihood of the army. That was the people’s duty.”84 It is impossible to determine precisely when the Soninke became an oppressive surclass, lording over and seriously mistreating their subordinates, but it is reasonable to assume that cornering wealth from the Atlantic trade of slaves, grains, and other commodities was at the heart of the process. Records show that by the eighteenth century, the states’ mansa largely lived off the proceeds of the commerce and the production of common farmers residing in their states. This, of course, created tensions that would come to a head in the nineteenth century. Also, the evidence supports James Searing’s claim that precolonial Senegambia’s monarchies were mostly predatory and exploitative.85 The plight of ordinary farmers was similar to that of people living in the Zonga community, founded in the nineteenth century, by Hausa strangers who settled among the Akan people. They paid “rent for land, and corporate presentation of tribute in the form of sheep and yam, [which] distinguished strangers from subjects.”86 Although chiefs commanded the largest number of slaves, most of those who worked for them were probably considered to be freeborn. Slaves could not be acquired easily, since their acquisition involved either raiding or declaring war against enemies. The easiest option was to turn to the lower class (badola in Wolof). Perhaps similar to nineteenth-century Sangalan, a people living in what is now part of Guinea, elites in the lower Gambia crafted traditions establishing their claims to control such scarce resources as land and labor.87 They treated many of their subjects as if they were slaves. A nineteenth-century source noted that the mansa’s subjects were “little distinguished from slaves in appearance. [The mansa] make[s] all under their power.”88 A few decades earlier, Mungo Park described the conditions of the Fula, a semi-pastoralist group, as living in a “state of subordination.” They held inferior rights to the land and were forced to work for their Mandinka overlords.89 Prior

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to the mid-nineteenth century, social and political dependence in this region resembled a kind of bondage. Though relationships between the aristocratic and the nonaristocratic families were often exploitative, many people sought such dependency. Families needed the protection of their hosts and especially the political elites. Living in small communities, often close to the king’s town, farmers and cattle herders sought protection. They were often contented with livestock rearing and farming.90 As Shula Marks writes, domination operates not simply through coercion; it also occurs under concessions.91 Being master-less in uncertain times increased one’s vulnerability, especially when faced with severe droughts, wars, and abuses from the often cruel and predatory nyancho aristocratic families. Mollein describes the people who may have been nyancho or gelewar as “more addicted to pillage and drunkenness than those who are converted to Islamism.”92 The mansaring families and other prominent lineages also benefitted economically by hosting strangers.93 For instance, in Baddibu, the founders of the village of Indea once claimed ownership of the land on which the village of Tunku was built. Tunku was originally known as Kunku-suo (farm house).94 Tunku’s residents used to send millet and other harvests to the family that founded Indea.95 Sources also indicate that the first resident of the village of Dutabulu, located about sixty miles east of Essau, were said to be Fula herders and agriculturalist who received land from members of the Foday Kunda kabilo.96 As part of the patron-client relationship, Ndibari Juta Bah, the head of the Bah family which settled in Dutabulu, regularly sent millet and milk to his landlords to affirm his dependency on the Foday Kunda family.97 This alludes to another point Bolt makes: that hierarchies of dependence were often important.98 The practice of using land to create connections or to incorporate strangers into African societies is widely acknowledged in the scholarship on African history, and in many African societies chiefs offered land as gifts to other people as a way to solidify their political power. For instance, as Holly Hanson has shown, Ganda clan elders and chiefs created social relations of obligation based on gifts of land. Similarly, oral tradition from Baddibu Saba indicate that a prominent family granted two brothers permission to settle on the land where the village is located.99 David Gamble identified these brothers as Tum-Fodee and Tum-Madibaa Singhateh.100 According to Gamble, the brothers came from the east but they first settled in

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Wuli (the east of the country) before moving west to Kiang Batteling. While in Batteling, they were strangers of the Sanyang lineage. The brothers left Batteling for Dai (Upper Baddibu) and then to Jammekunda (meaning literally “the place of the Jammeh”). While in Jammekunda, they told the king they wanted to settle on the western side of the state. After the king granted them permission, they founded the village of Saba. It was after they settled there that migrants from Gunjur (Baddibu) were allocated land to set up their own village. Elders of Saba also claimed that their ancestors gave land to the founder of Bani, Ndana Konteh, from Kontekunda, although the people of Bani say that they received the land not directly from Saba but from Gunjur and Jammekunda.101 But according to Sheriff Jobarteh, the well-known griot from Bani, the founder of their village received the land directly from the Soninke of Indea and Eliassa.102 While it is possible that these traditions are shaped by present-day concerns of the people living in Bani and Saba, they still suggest that land issues were and are intricately linked to matters relating to politics and contestation over power. To the west of Baddibu, Niumi’s Mandinka rulers and their families used land to attract important people to settle on their land. For instance, oral sources about Juffure indicate that an elite family, the Taal, founded Juffure, one of the most important commercial villages in Niumi.103 As early as the 1760s they became a recognized clerical family.104 Taal descendants say their ancestors came from Futa Toro, in the middle Senegal River valley, and built their settlement on the Gambia’s riverbank in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. The Gambian Mandinka called them Toranko (i.e., Fula speakers with origins from Futa Toro). Elders of this family claim that their ancestors settled on the land where Juffure is now located at the request of the Niumi mansa Jenung Wuleng Sonko, so they could be near enough to do divining work for him. Niumi’s elders also say that the same Sonko lineage that gave land to the Taal of Juffure rewarded another important clerical family, the Fatty of Aljamdu, land on which they founded their village.105 These sources suggests that, for Niumi’s rulers, allocating land enabled elite families to build alliances with other prominent families, attracted “wealthy” migrants, or rewarded clerics with land or wives for services rendered. Many local oral narratives tell how a marabout such as Sampa Taal came into the region, often on the request of a mansa, rendered his services to that chief, and received a wife and a plot of land in return.106

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Near Juffure was the town of Albreda (Albadar). Oral sources indicate that the founder of Albreda was hosted by a Niumi mansa, and both written and oral sources indicate that the heads of the towns of Albreda and Juffure were powerful and wealthy figures in the state.107 Francis Moore (1730) noted, “Albreda is a pretty large town near the River-side on the north, about a mile or two below James Fort [James Island].”108 In the late eighteenth century, S. M. X. Golberry wrote that the town was composed of more than one thousand houses, and the population amounted to more than seven thousand people. The alkalo of the town “controlled the heads of the four quarters of the town and was regarded as the senior alkalo of the state.”109 In the 1770s, the French who wanted to trade in the area were given permission to occupy a plot of land where they built their trading station. They received permission from the alkalo of Albreda, Bai Sonko, a member of one of Niumi’s royal families. The land was located about “400 yards west of the village, and near the bank of the river.” Across the river, in Kombo, during a time when the mansaya of Kombo had transferred to Brikama, another stranger was given permission by the Kombo mansa to found the village of Gunjur: the Darboe were granted land to settle by the Bojang rulers of Brikama.110 The Darboe were joined by the Muslim family of Touray, who are often described as Toranko from Futa Toro.111 The Darboe gave the Touray family a site where they could stay. In due course, the Darboe were converted to Islam, and gave the Touray the right to appoint the alkalo, though David Skinner heard a tradition that contradicts this claim. For Skinner, the Darboe themselves were Muslims. The “great-grandfather” of Foday Ibrahim Touray (Kombo Sillah)—the founder of Gunjur—was called Mama Toranko Jallow. According to Skinner, “the time of this migration was during the early to the middle eighteenth century.”112 The political and religious domination of Gunjur by the Darboe family continued until about the time the Soninke-Marabout wars broke out in the second half of the nineteenth century, when a man who ought to have been alkalo, Arafang Mama Darboe (a great warrior), with the consent of his family, asked the Touray to provide an alkalo as he was too busy fighting to look after the affairs of the village. Sometime later another warrior called Manjang Fing (neither a Touray nor a Darboe) was given the position of alkalo. He took the title of Kele Mansa or Kidifay Mansa (war king or gunfire king). After

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him the Darboe gave the position to Foday Silla Touray.113 A slightly different version of what happened states that the alkalo-ship went to the Tourays after Foday Sillah waged a war against the pagans of Kombo and he took the title of bankutiyo from the Darboe and the Jatta families of Gunjur and Busumbala.114 Whatever happened, it is clear that these families had used their claims to the ownership of the land as a justification for appointing their members as alkalo and imam of this historically important town. However, as discussed in the previous chapter, allocating land to strangers was also used to build alliances with strong families. In the Gambian river states no single lineage dominated the region after the sixteenth century. In Kombo, for instance, the elites designed a way of sharing political leadership through a rotating system of succession. Kombo’s Jatta and Bojang families, in Busumbala and Yundum, shared power. Similarly, in Niumi, it was the Manneh, Sonko, and Jammeh lineages which ruled the state in succession. The principal towns in Niumi that shared power among their three lineages are Bakendik and Sitanunku, where the Jammeh lived. The Manneh lived in Kanuma and Buniadu, whereas the Sonko owned the villages of Essau and Berending. There were also members of the Sonko lineage living in Niumi Lamin, Sika (also known as Baduma), and Sami but they did not appear to rule the state.115 Similarly, in Jokadu, the Demba lineage of Bali are said to have shared power with the founding lineage of the state and its royal town of Tambana. According to oral tradition, Tambana’s founders were related to the elite family of the village of Eliassa.116 After all, it was the Mandinka warrior, Sora Musa Jammeh, who founded Eliassa, Tambana, and Bakendik.117 In sum, Mandinka chiefs regularly transferred land to other lineages as a way to forge kinship bonds and build alliances with families to strengthen their grip on regional politics and the economy.118 Senegambia’s rulers were generally more willing to welcome wealthy migrants than poorer ones. Although the popular Mandinka proverb runs “strangers make the village prosper,” strangers with greater access to wealth attracted the most attention from local rulers.119 Those owning large herds of cattle, sheep, and goats were especially welcome settlers in the Mandinka-led states, but these people needed land on which to farm and graze their animals. Like land, livestock was a means of measuring not only a person’s wealth but also that of the community.120 In the Gambia region,

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individual rights to land did not mean that the individual or family was divorced from a communal view, even though individual rights to land did translate into power and wealth. Some of the wealthier strangers would marry into the elite families that either founded the community or administered it.121 As a Wolof put it in an interview, “a surga [a stranger, in this case a strange farmer] cannot refuse giving to his host.”122 Land and Village Politics

Evidence for the Gambian states is consistent with the familiar idea that chiefs and lineage heads exercised control over land principally by allocating it to others—followers, junior relatives, and subordinates, as well as strangers. That is, control of land also influenced local village politics and hierarchies. If strangers wanted land on which to set up their own village, it was customary to approach the mansa or one of his alkalolu. As a colonial report noted, all villages were founded by a “forefather of the reigning Alcaide, and the history of the town can always be given.”123 The first traveling commissioner of the North Bank province of the Gambia summed this up when he noted: The Alcaide of Kerewan will tell you that his town was built by a son of the Alcaide who built Katchang and that he is the seventh Alcaide. Generations must be reckoned by 80 years, as an Alcaide rarely dies under that age, so that the date when the town was built is not hard to find . . . The Alcaide is generally the brother of his predecessor, if there is no brother, the son succeeds but they tell me that sons are rarely appointed until they are old men as there is always a brother ready to be appointed. At one palaver I asked them what they did if there were no brother nor sons to succeed; a loud laugh went round the circle at such an idea, and they replied that such a thing had never happened, nor could happen.124

The alkalo was therefore influential at the local level. Mandinka elders told Commissioner Cecil Sitwell of the Gambia’s South Bank province that “it was the custom on the founding of a new town for the chief or king to appoint the alcaide; at his death he is succeeded by his brother; at the death of all the brothers it reverts back to the original alcaide’s eldest son.”125

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In the Mandinka states, alkalolu of prominent villages were likely to become mansa in time. In the states where power rotated between two or more lineages, the reigning mansa was required to consult the heads of the other lineages eligible for the office of the mansa. This was the case in Kombo where the Bojang family of Yundum and the Jatta of Busumbala would take turns in ruling the state; it was also the case in Niumi. The prominent figures always accompanied the mansa to important meetings and were often consulted. For instance, when Burungai Sonko was signing the 1826 treaty that ceded part of his state to the British, he had with him “his chiefs and Headmen—including Seney the Alcaide of Juffure.”126 In another treaty signed on November 18, 1850, “Amado Tall (Alkal[o] of Jillifree’ [Juffure]) and Mahmoudi Sankoora (Alkalo of Berending and brother of the king) accompanied Mansa Demba Sonko.”127 These individuals were either the oldest men of the senior branch of the line claiming direct descent from the original founder-settler of the community, or they represented them.128 Thus, it should not be surprising that these alkalolu were present when the treaties were being signed by Niumi’s mansa. 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 what would become known as British Kombo to the English. Members of the mansa’s delegation included one Ansumana Jatta (heir to the mansa) and Mardy Mariama (one of the state’s officials from Yundum). Ansumana Ceesay, the alkalo of Mandinari and Foday Ansumana Munang were with the king. Majiboo Ceesay, Bass Booroko, Moosa [Musa] Channang, Fody Barcarry, Janka Fatima, Kassee Koonkong and Samba Deber [Dibba] were also present at the meeting. Other members of the delegation included Ansumana Jarta, the chief or alkalo of Bedjulo [Bijilo] and Lamin Sinney [Sainey], the mansa’s eldest son), and the “head-men of Baccon [Bakau].”129 The alkalolu of these important villages “were the officials who distributed land, administered justice in minor cases, collected the king’s customs, and in general kept the machinery of the state going.”130 The position of alkalo was hereditary and according to Florence Mahoney the “senior Alkalo was an officer of actual and potential authority, who might one day become king when it was the turn of his town to provide candidate.”131

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The chiefs from towns and agricultural villages, their families, and other prominent lineages of the village enjoyed superior rights to the land. Charlotte Quinn has noted that both kabilo leadership and alkaliyaa were “associated with rights to the land and were passed collaterally within the lineage segment claiming to have first received these rights.”132 As French traveler Gaspard Mollien observed during his visit to the village of Pacour, in the land of Saloum, it “belongs to one man, who has peopled it with his slaves; their number already considerable, is constantly increasing.” In times of famine, he wrote, the village chief “bought these families with the produce of his lands, and under his paternal protection they all live in abundance. Their labour augments his wealth, and furnishes him with the means of doubling the number of his slaves every year.”133 But the village also had a council of elders drawn from the important kabilolu. If any important matters arose in any village, the council of elders was assembled to decide the matter. Punishment for an offense was, however, reserved for the village chief, since he alone had the right of life and death.134 The Intersection between Control of Land and Demonstration of Power

The argument that in Africa the ability to allocate land was a key to establishing and maintaining political and religious authority, and that land had nonmaterial attributes which determined its worth, is not new. However, by focusing on chiefs, this chapter emphasized the nature of political control over land and people, with implications for a greater understanding of relationships between commoners and elites. In addition to conquest, slave raiding, and marriage and procreation, control over land enhanced the ability of chiefs and other elites to gain control over people, thus increasing their production and reinforcing the social hierarchy and the centralization of power. The chapter is not arguing that all precolonial states were alike, of course, and local attitudes toward land differed among societies. However, in the Gambia, while aristocratic power depended on control of people, land was the foundation upon which this control rested. An important goal of this chapter was not to diminish the importance of slavery in West Africa, or to claim that no one has given land ownership serious attention. What I sought to investigate

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here are the important ways in which power and culture shaped land relations in some societies in precolonial West Africa. Any discussion of slavery or other types of dependency should take into account the larger, but subtle, socio-political and economic context in which they existed. By placing those who received permission to settle, farm, or tend animals in a position of obligation, allocation of land created, or at least reinforced, relations of authority and subordination between elites and commoners. It allowed the former to expand the number of their subjects and the obligations the subjects owed to the elites. The examples of missionaries and other early European settlers who were subject to the same obligations are particularly telling examples of the way Mande chiefs and elites used land to gain and maintain authority. Moreover, having a landlord or maintaining affinities to a prominent lineage offered protection and a means of survival in a hostile environment. In times of hardship or political uncertainty, it would be necessary to call upon others, including distant kins-people or powerful lineages, for protection and support. Because of this, less privileged individuals or families, along with the ruling class, developed a patron-client system that tended to allow the former to gain access to land and enjoy privileges. Because of the advantages land gave to the Mandinka aristocracy, they continued well into the first half of the nineteenth century to establish tight control over it, especially along the banks of the Gambia River. Control of land and of people reinforced one another. The ability to limit access to land provided a way for landholders to acquire dependents. With more dependents (children, students, clients, or slaves), greater amounts of land could be brought under use. It was easier for people in power to claim additional land since they were successful in creating traditions describing how the land became theirs. Attention to land tenure in the lower Gambia River, and particularly to the intersection between land and power, reveals that social, political, and religious considerations were no less important than purely economic ones. Africans’ own ways of thinking and operating were as important as economics in shaping how people perceived or claimed land. Distinctions between “subjects” and “elites,” “landlords” and “strangers,” or “first-settlers and “late-comers” were all rooted in power structures and are crucial in understanding the system of land tenure in the Gambia region. Every community in

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the lower Gambia valley had core lineages who considered themselves as the founders, owners, and therefore rulers of the land and the people living on it. We may never know for sure if some of the oral traditions cited here are reliable narrations of real happenings. But we know that, as Abdoulaye-Bara Diop argues for the Wolof, lower Gambian societies generally had much inequality, and patterns of political, economic and social domination.135 Mandinka family structure reflected a stratified tripartite social structure of free persons, occupational castes, and slaves, and a warrior class from the nobility, of which Richard Jobson observed in 1623: “these people stand much upon their dignity—i.e., their dignities of birth.”136 They held very strongly to social distinctions, particularly in matters of marriage and decision-making, at the family, the village, and even the state level. We also know that the land rights of some lineages were far superior to those of other families, and that many Europeans who visited the Gambia region in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mentioned that they paid rents and gave gifts to African chiefs in exchange for land to set up trading posts. If land was not the basis of political power, access to it was surely affected by local power dynamics.

3 The Power of the Wild Spirits Senegambia: A Region of Cultural Diversity

Greater Senegambia, the region between the Senegal River to the north and present-day Guinea to the south, has long held a variety of people, coming from different places and holding varied beliefs. Although the region was characterized by great cultural diversity, there was a constant mixture of peoples. Helping them live together were shared assumptions and cultural practices. Among these were basic beliefs in social hierarchies, polygyny, and lineage solidarity. But as important as any of these was a belief in spirits. For most Senegambians, spirits were involved, for good or bad, in such important activities as protecting oneself and one’s family, or producing offspring and enough food to keep them fed. Such spirits, people believed, lived in large trees, in rocks, in uniquely shaped termite mounds, in certain swamps or bodies of water, or elsewhere, and they owned some portion of the land. If humans wanted to settle on the lands owned by the spirits and have any chance at prospering on it, they had to deal with the potentially malicious ones. Such dealings required people with powerful resources. In most societies, these were either hunters, blacksmiths, or religious leaders. In 1821 the Methodist missionary John Morgan arrived in the Gambia to spread Christianity. He observed, “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.”1 But Morgan observed that people owned cattle, slaves, and wives. Like other early European observers of Senegambian societies, Morgan did not pay a great deal of attention to African ideas of land, perhaps because such Europeans seldom stayed on the land long enough to consider acquiring any of their own.2 As he looked around, it probably appeared to him that African populations were

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small and land was abundant. Thus, perhaps he reasoned, with plenty of land for any use, Africans did not bother over notions of who owned what parcel. But African attitudes toward the land were influenced by more than the size of population or the material value attached to the land. In many African societies, including those existing along the lower and middle reaches of the Gambia River, land and settlements were defined as much by the spiritual forces that Africans believed occupied and operated from these locations. And African understandings of land deeply influenced the dynamic character of their political, religious, and social culture—and vice versa. The Senegambia region was a place where the spirits played a key role in political and social institutions.3 Much has been written on the cultural meanings of land in African societies, past and present.4 Many have sought to understand the meaning and symbolism of African landscapes or sacred forests.5 Past findings show that control over land in much of Africa was tied up with religion, as some religions were place-bound, with pilgrimage sites.6 Sacred groves, for instance, often contained such historical features as burial grounds and sites of ancestral or deity worship. Parker Shipton points out how these “burial sites variously identify citizenship, ethnicity, clan or lineage.”7 The sacred sites also served many other purposes, including protection of biological diversity.8 In the Ogun state, in Nigeria, people believed that the sacred forest served as a habitat for deities that people worshipped for protection and healing, which in effect leaves the land protected from destruction. The gods protected them against illnesses or attack from enemies during periods of war, and offered them bountiful harvests.9 In discussing African perception of landscape in southern Africa, Terence Ranger writes that the formation of the Matopos hill in Zimbabwe “makes [it] a natural site for rain shrines” and that the rocks of the hill became a symbol of God’s endurance.10 Here, people called those swampy areas where no cultivation took place Inyutha, and they were considered very sacred sites. As sacred spaces, the swamps were used to determine whether the rains would fall or not. The shrines, which were also part of the landscape, were sites of political power. Priests served as the “natural” guardians of the “natural” shrines. These priests controlled the environment.11 Analyzing the deeply cultural meanings of African land reveals how religious beliefs informed the social construction of power, which then shaped ecological relationships.12 Although there is

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a rich body of scholarship on African environmental history, William Beinart writes, “an environmental approach to African history facilitates the mining of rich but still neglected seams of intellectual and cultural history.”13 This chapter seeks to build on this growing literature by expanding on the notion that the spiritual dimension of land constituted the very basis of African understandings of the human and physical environment.14 The chapter argues that (1) spirits were seen as occupying the land, but often such land constituted spaces outsiders viewed as vacant; (2) any discussion of a land/labor ratio is based on Eurocentric notions involving what the land could produce in relation to its occupancy, and Africans did not think this way; (3) only smiths and hunters had spiritual powers to quell the spirits that occupied lands, and they used these powers to be first-comers on lands and to acquire dependents, making spiritual power and land titles fundamentally linked; (4) Muslims eventually appropriated the powers to overcome the spirits occupying lands; and (5) the African worldview regarding land promoted conservation and ecological diversity. The view that sub-Saharan Africa was characterized by an abundance of land relative to labor is widely claimed in the scholarship on Africa.15 This view of history is based on materialist preconceptions, and it ignores the interpretations and beliefs of the actors of history. The claim has been made for precolonial Senegambia in particular, where some scholars argue that conditions in the nineteenth century were such that labor, rather than land, was the chief constraint on production. For them, the region was characterized by low population density made even lower by the slave trade, the resulting abundance of land, and the stagnation of agricultural technology, which kept Senegambia locked into a subsistence economy.16 For instance, in writing about the Kolda region of Senegal, Abderrahmane Ngaide notes that even though land was very fertile, it was little developed because of the small size of the population, who were also largely Fula pastoralists.17 While low population density and the stagnation of agricultural technology were important factors, these scholars have generally overlooked the influence of local spiritual beliefs.18 In this region, “spirit lands” served an ecological function and, as we will see later, the gradual weakening of such beliefs had devastating consequences for the environment. Hunters, smiths, and the mori (marabouts) were often successful in attracting followers or clients.19 People went

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Map 3.1. Land cover along the Gambia River. Map by Nick Kroncke.

to these religious specialists for spiritual protection. As “spiritual” warriors, the religious specialists were more or less de facto landlords or bankutiyolu, because they had land they could give to dependents. Many of these clients would also give portions of their millet, findo, basso, rice, and maize harvest to these individuals in return for their protection or blessing. Spirits in History

If the lower Gambia River basin had fertile rice swamps, flood recession areas, open grasslands, thick forests, and free and abundant unoccupied land, as some of the sources suggest, why was land not available to everyone who needed it? The reason was that the land was not “empty,” but occupied by spirits, which were avoided because of the potential for harmful interaction with them. The Mande people believed in the ability of spirits to harm those who trespassed on their lands. David Conrad writes that, in Mali, there

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are stories of entire villages “sometimes threatened by proximity to spiritually significant landscape features occupied by denizens of the supernatural world.”20 Like in Mali, along the banks of the Gambia River, local inhabitants believed in forest-dwelling spirits. This section will identify different forest-dwelling spirits, and religious practitioners who maintained ties or conflicted with them. It highlights ways belief in spirits increased the value of land because it made land a scarce object that only a few people controlled. The Mandinka and their neighbors made a distinction between the spiritual and the human realm, and this distinction has shaped their understanding of the ways humans should relate to land. Gambia’s best sources often describe beliefs centered on the power of supernatural forces in controlling access to land. This includes beliefs that spirits and other forces dwell in the soil, rocks, and trees. As in other parts of West Africa, many of these spirits had to be appeased through offering sacrifice; otherwise “loggers, for example, died or got injured.”21 As Donald Wright noted, many Mandinka believe that the original settlers of an area had a special relationship with the spirits (jinn) of the soil, which accorded the family rights to the land and water within generally specified bounds.22 As the process of Islamization intensified, the spiritual beliefs of the people changed, but this did not completely erase ancestral beliefs. The literature on the relationship between spirits and land is vast, but an examination of a few works shows that there are different types of supernatural forces, and their perceived existence partly determined how humans related to land.23 David Schoenbrun shows, for instance, that in the Great Lakes Region “people knew that there were spirits of the forests and plains, lakes and ridges, of drums, fathers, and mothers. [People] knew that the spirits lived in these places and that they also lived in the names of these places.”24 Ancestors of the people living in this region, Schoenbrun continues, changed their social world by restricting “access to land by developing patrilineal idioms of inclusion and exclusion based on landholding groups who promoted themselves as ‘firstcomers.’” The firstcomer groups converted their ancestral ghosts into territorial spirits, which were capable of blessing their power over their lands.25 However, as new challenges in the form of environmental uncertainty and conflict erupted, some of these groups invented mobile spirits concerned with fertility and the general prosperity of certain classes of territory, such as lakes or wilderness.

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Similarly, Kairn Klieman’s work on the western regions of the equatorial rainforest of Central Africa demonstrates that Bantu people in general, and the Aka in particular, “were able to insert their own ancestors into the category of spirits that must be supplicated to ensure the well-being of their people and lands.”26 They considered the Ezengi spirit the master of the forest, which rules over it with a lesser spirit (the master of the hunt). The Ezengi spirit was also responsible for the prosperity and fertility of all communities, and community elders, especially ritual leaders, had to consult ancestors and the master spirits regularly. In this region, “these supernatural beings were most influenced by individual comportment vis-à-vis the group.” The Aka believed that if an individual committed an offence against his or her own community, these spirits would rain terror on all in the form of calamities, famines, and epidemics.27 Numerous studies also show that elsewhere in Africa ancestors and earth shrines had control of the most important spiritual resource, land, and this gave them power. For instance, among the Dagara and Sisala of West Africa earth shrines—created from stones or other objects assumed to be spiritually potent—were vested with the power to settle land disputes.28 These earth shrines offered villages protection from spiritual hazards and served as the custodians of the land. In areas south of the Gambia River, the Manjaco of Guinea-Bissau believed that ancestors were the ultimate owners of all land and household property even though lifetime use-rights were divided up among the members of the kin group.29 These ancestors appear to have performed a similar role with those of Buganda, where the power of the dead over land was a major instrument in the ideological battle over who would control the most fertile land. Ancestral ties, Holly Hanson argues, legitimated the landowners’ control of the best lands, and the power of important buried ancestors to draw followers to the land around their graves helped to establish the pattern of access to land that came to characterize the Ganda state. In Buganda, clans buried their members on land that belonged to them, because the buried ancestors claimed the land for their descendants. The continuing cultivation of a grove with ancestors buried on it maintained a relationship between the living and the dead.30 The belief in spirits, in the form of jinn, is also widespread in Islamic Africa.31 A jinns (which is an Arabic word) is an animate spirit, invisible and immortal, either good or bad. Senegambians believed that jinns had their own dwelling places, usually in the

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forest and on large silk-cotton trees known as bantango.32 Bill Derman’s research in a small Fouta-Djallon village, in Guinea, shows that the jinns existed in many different forms and in many different places. Some jinns helped men achieve success. The jinns spirits of Futa Djallon were reputed to be either Muslim or animist. A good spirit lived in the large tree in the village and it did not harm anyone. But it is believed that if someone were to cut the tree, he would immediately die as a result of the spirit’s anger. Dusk was considered the time of the day when the spirits were most likely to do harm.33 Only specialists were able to discern whether the cause of an illness was by a spirit. Two kinds of specialists existed: the mbiledyo, who used non-Islamic means to discover and cure illness, and the karamoko, religious leaders whose powers were thought to stem from Islam.34 Spirits of the Lower Gambia River Region

Before Islam became the predominant faith in the Gambia region, almost every village had a shrine, and these shrines (jalang) were often established on sites isolated from most of the village inhabitants (e.g., on islands or in the forest). There were spiritual forces or spirits associated with these shrines. A good example of a land set aside for keeping shrines 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 powerful “jujus” (or charms). An 1830 English source indicates that Jerre was Sitanunku’s “fetish” place. The place was opened only to elders of the village, and no one was allowed to settle there. When in the 1830s the Agricultural Society of England, unaware of Sitanunku’s regard for the island, wanted to settle pensioners and Liberated Africans (i.e., Africans rescued by the British navy from slave ships on the Atlantic Ocean bound for the New World) there to grow hemp, the alkalo of Sitanunku objected. Although the British had promised him that they would give him annual customs in return for the use of the land, the alkalo insisted “they would rather give up custom than have the British on the Island.” When the alkalo was rebuffed, young men of Sitanunku “went to Dog Island and threatened some pensioners and others residing on the Island with destruction of their farms.” This incident

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occurred a few days before the British attacked Barra Point, where the “King of Barra . . . assembled all fighting men from neighboring village[s].35 While the British won the Barra War, their plan to establish a settlement on Dog Island was suspended. For the local inhabitants the British failed because of the spirits. Other written sources also mentioned the existence of malicious spirits occupying vast areas of land. In the early 1800s, missionary William Fox mentioned land on the banks of the Gambia River that locals called “Devil’s Point.” According to Fox, the people believed that the “prince of darkness is said to have a residence under that point of land . . . In passing this place the natives are in the habit of [giving something to the devil].”36 A 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.”37 A few miles away from this island, another place that Kombo’s Mandinka population called Sanimentereng was also uninhabited. The place was believed to be the abode of many jinns, in human form.38 Lower Gambians believed that these spirits also had their own favorite times of day: dawn and dusk, two o’clock in the afternoon (the hottest part of the day), and midnight. These were the most dangerous hours, when jinns were most likely to be out and about. Nighttime was when evil spirits, witches, and devils roamed the streets to prey on people.39 While a number of people believed that jinns could be land or sea spirits, most perceived them as land spirits. However, the ninki nanka, perhaps the most frightening spirit around the lower Gambia, was a sea spirit, a dragon-like creature with the attributes of a “devil.” Local residents, Lady Southorn writes, were “dogged by fear of devils and chief among these is the Ninki Nanka . . . [If] seen by a man is a sure sign of approaching death.”40 The ninki nanka kept many lower Gambians from fertile swamps, rivers, hills, and creeks, and was often believed to inhabit swampy forests.41 A 1906 commissioner’s report vividly describes the ninki nanka: The Mandingoes are firm believers in genii; every village is supposed to have two of these, a bad spirit and a good spirit. In some cases they say the village spirits or genii are male and female, sometimes the male is good and the female bad, and vice versa. A well-known Mandinka myth is the “ninki nanko”; this is supposed to resemble a gigantic crowned serpent which resides in the thickest bush. If a native sees

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Bad spirits like the ninki nanka were thought to cause drought or famine. While there is no specific historical memory of a drought or famine local informants believed was instigated by evil spirits, environmental disasters we know of from written records might have been interpreted as being caused by supernatural forces. Michel Adanson, who visited the banks of the Gambia River in the middle of the eighteenth century, witnessed “marks of the devastation” caused by the insects.43 Decades later, in the 1820s, John Morgan described the mayhem that typically follows after a locust invasion. As he stated, “at times the land [was] infested with locusts, which three days of east wind will frequently bring in swarms dense enough to hide the sun.” If they land, he wrote, “every trace of vegetation disappears, and the people having no stores, a famine ensues.”44 Roughly ten years later, William Fox observed “passing armies of locusts [which would] frequently obscure the sun like clouds.”45 Locust invasions frequently resulted in widespread hunger.46 Once again, none of these written accounts connect locusts to spirits but local oral sources often give some explanation of their causes as spiritually instigated.47 Most Senegambians believed that bad spirits caused intruders to suffer huge problems. According to Jali Kebba Susu, before Islam spread many people believed that bad spirits could appear in the form of bees or other animals inflicting harm on opponents.48 As if locust invasions were not enough, the region also suffered a “seven months drought” in 1821.49 Morgan added that, though the people “are surrounded by thousands of acres of land free for all, yet they are annually subject to famine several weeks before the ripening of their first crops. In their conversation they talk of the hungry season as being quite as much a matter of course as the wet and dry seasons which are periodical.”50 A few years later, in 1834, Fox wrote in his journal: “there is a want of rain this year to produce the necessary crops.”51 Fox noted the threat of “famine and scarcity” which often appeared whenever a drought struck the area. Gambian Mandinka stories suggest that spirits were thought to be extremely dangerous, making it risky to settle in a place already

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inhabited by “bad” devils. The existence of the belief in “spirit lands” might explain the numerous abandoned settlements on the banks of the Gambia. Trade routes changed, towns and villages were destroyed in wars, and localities acquired a reputation for unhealthiness or the malign influence of evil spirits.52 Spirits owned the lands they occupied, and if anyone unwittingly built his house across a pathway of a spirit, he ran the risk of deaths and illnesses, houses falling down, fires, or other disasters. Abandoned village sites have long been a curious feature of Gambian history. Time after time, settlements mentioned by earlier writers, that seem to have been of some importance in their day, have vanished completely. Many such villages and towns in Niumi, Kombo, Kiang, and Jarra have risen, flourished, and fallen to ruin.53 David Gamble described Wolof villages as “small and constantly waxing and waning, [and] breaking up.” He also writes: “Wolof families move about a great deal.”54 Philip Curtin notes how locals had adjusted to the particular problems of their environment.55 People usually responded to repeated natural disasters in a variety of ways, and relocation and migration were common strategies to deal with evil spirits. Although the historical records do not speak to any mass migrations taking place as a result of these problems, Curtin writes, “people were constantly moving back and forth, lured by opportunity or pushed by the usual pressures of war, pestilence and drought.”56 Indeed, villagers were liable to pick up and move for a variety of reasons: soils could lose their fertility (especially in the days before commercial fertilizers, and when 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. Many stories discuss the relocation of settlements. Kebba Jaiteh, an elder of Tankularr, relates that the site of the village moved at least eight times.57 He claims that three of these eight relocations occurred before the mid-nineteenth-century jihads.58 When asked why the village moved, he said “mysterious deaths caused by evil spirits and jinn, which occupied the original sites of the village” were responsible.59 For a long time, the vegetation within few miles from the river’s banks was protected from destruction because of such beliefs. As

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Alhaji Darboe told Donald Wright in 1974, “in those days beginning with Sika and going as far as Essau, it was all covered with trees. There was no bare land.”60 One of the most popular oral traditions narrated by elders in Tankular, one of the oldest commercial villages in Kiang, is that significant portions of their land were not considered habitable or ideal for farming.61 The elders of the village called such forest bula kinte (the site was an abode for jinns).62 Like the elders of Tankular, Niuminkas (i.e., the people of Niumi) also once believed that if jinns and “devils” occupied fertile soils, the harvests from these lands could be poor because the spirits would destroy the crops. The whole interior of Niumi, known to the British in the nineteenth century as “The Bad-Devil Area,” was uninhabited. Jumankari, as this particular land was called, was only five miles from the village of Sami. The Jumankari forest was long believed to be a place where jinns lived and they would ruin the lives of anyone attempting to farm there or settle on the land.63 On the south bank, in Mandinari, people also believed in the existence of such types of land.64 Jali Ngali Mbye mentioned several forests around Toniataba that people believed were occupied by spirits. These included Waali Jalibolo, Jalakong, Binke, and Gumdaa.65 The power of priests or similar religious figures in manipulating the supernatural world has been widely acknowledged in the historiography of West Africa, but Gambian sources add new empirical evidence revealing that people believed certain clerics, blacksmiths, and hunters were able to protect them from malicious spirits.66 The work that these religious specialists performed was similar to what Klieman found among the Bantu people of Central Africa. Among the Aka, the mokonzi (territorial chiefs) and botoke (ritual leaders with mythical origins) were viewed in much the same light as territorial chiefs. Klieman writes, mokonzi and botoke “were said to have ‘eyes in the night.’” In addition to possessing the power to work miracles and control the spirit world, they had the ability to interact with spirits after dark.67 The situation was no different in the Gambia region, where hunters, blacksmiths, and marabouts were thought to possess similar powers. However, while marabouts were followers of Islam, the early hunters and smiths were almost all soninke (or non-Muslims). They accumulated people and controlled land.68 Smiths, hunters, and marabouts could make mankano (mystical objects or charms which healers and diviners used to protect property by keeping thieves at a distance) from leaves, pieces of bone, or

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other objects.69 Mankano could be used to keep people away from a disputed land by either making them sick or killing them altogether. It is also believed that marabouts, as part of the work that they do (known in Mandinka as moriyya), can perform miracles to make people abandon their land or home to resettle somewhere far away. Hunters and Blacksmiths

Before the mid-nineteenth century, soothsayers, traditional healers, smiths, and hunters were considered to possess magical powers to intervene on behalf of the sick. Hunters and blacksmiths were the ritual leaders of the communities. Politically, they were independent and, therefore, did not seek permission from any humans other than more powerful diviners and soothsayers before settling on land. As Conrad writes about the Mande people generally, “all human relationships including matters determining political power and authority are framed according to both individual and community command of occult powers.”70 In village after village, elders tell stories of how hunters or blacksmiths found new, fertile land and rich water reserves, drove the spirits away, built temporary huts, and then fetched their families to settle that land.71 In some traditions, they accompanied members of a prominent lineage to establish a new community.72 Before Islam became the dominant faith in the region, each compound and every person was said to have a “good jinn,” a protector. Among the Mandinka, the original settlers of an area and their descendants often claimed to have special relationships with the jinns of a place.73 Traditions of Bambally, on the Gambia’s north bank, claim that some time before the late nineteenth century Sainey Darboe, a hunter from the Foday Kunda kabilo in Jarra Bureng, founded the village, during one of his hunting trips. Other sources indicate how a hunter founded the village of Sarrakunda. According to the story, a “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.”74 Another popular story tells us that Sora Musa (a great Mandinka mythical figure) was a warrior and hunter. From Manding, griots claim, he arrived in a place called Kande Kunola where he spent

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a night under a taboo tree.75 In that tree were two male jinns. The jinns warned him not to settle there because they were the owners of the land. However, the jinns told him of a creek he must cross and the place where he must settle. Once he reached and crossed it, he went upland to a place where there was a big taba tree. The jinns told him that there he could build a fence and claim that area as his settlement.76 Another story that illustrates this point is that of how the gelewar founded the Serer state of Sine (located just north of the state of Niumi), which Lat Grand Ndiaye told Donald Wright in 1975. According to Ndiaye, the gelewar came from Manding in Mali. Their migration to Senegambia began with a gelewar woman called Teneng Kuta, fleeing Manding with her slaves and all her belongings. She and her entourage crossed the Bafing River entering Kaabu, where she settled. While in Kaabu, the gelewar fought the Fula who were in control of the state. They beat the Fula and then left Kaabu with their slaves to come to Kular via Farafenni, Nioro, and Koutango. They settled in Kular where a man named Masa and his son, Masa Wali, lived. He was an outstanding warrior who often went hunting into the forest.77 It was Masa Wali, a gelewar, who Ndiaye said founded the state of Sine. It all started after he traveled from Saloum to Toubakuta (near the Atlantic and the Isles of Betenti, about a dozen miles southwest of the present-day Senegalese town of Sokone), to attend a ceremony.78 At night, during his sleep, the spirit of Sangomar (the one that ruled the whole land) appeared to him (Sangomar was the name given to the land located where the Saloum River enters the Atlantic Ocean). After Masa Wali returned to Saloum he told his mother of his encounter with the spirit, which occurred during a dream. He and his mother decided that he should return to Toubakuta to conquer the land. He prepared for his journey with his wife and entered a bush called Kajang. This village was near a swamp called Fatako. After leaving Fatako, he traveled through various places including Sandikoli, Sokone, Biil, and Marfakoto. From Marfakoto, he went to Marsule and then to Marloge, where he settled. While at Marloge, the spirit of Sangomar reappeared to Masa Wali. According to the tradition, they fought for seven days and nights, but the fight ended in a stalemate. The spirit told Masa Wali that he could not rule Sangomar. According to Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, Sangomar remained an independent land owned and controlled

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by the “jinns of Sangomar.”79 No one settled there or farmed the land. Even though Masa Wali could not defeat the spirit, the jinns told him that, if he wished, he would give him amulets to continue his pursuit of rule in another land. Wali accepted the “juju” from the spirit and left Sangomar for Sancha Fabura and built a capital called Mbissel. From there he began invading various villages that were under the laman (a Wolof title for the head of the lineage who had rights to use land in a particular area).80 The laman collected customs payments from those who worked the land.81 Military conquest was secondary to this story. Ndiaye emphasized the spiritual confrontation between a gifted warrior and the Sangomar spirit. Essentially, Wali was only able to acquire land and control a territory from his encounter with the spirit. As a gelewar, he owned the land and controlled all the people who lived in his kingdom. Slaves as well as young men from various communities cultivated his farms; but his economic and political power was secondary to his spiritual power. Wali’s story is one example of a spiritual leader who exploited his spiritual power in order to gain real political power. Similar traditions exist in Kiang and Jokadu. The individuals who founded the villages of Jattaba and Dumbuto were hunters. According to Jattaba’s tradition, Mbemba, the founder of the village, was a hunter from Jenier and the present site where Jattaba is located was the place where he rested after a long trek in the forest where he hunted game. In that forest there was a big taboo tree. When he killed an animal he would dry its skin under the tree. That is why the tree got the nickname Jattaba (meaning dry-skin taboo tree). It was later that he decided to settle there.82 In Jokadu, oral traditions also explain how a famous hunter and blacksmith, Hamadadu Segani Demba from Jokadu Tambana, was taken by jinns when he was a baby.83 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 jinns came and took Segani away. When the woman came she found that her baby was gone. Segani lived with the female jinns and her husband until he became grown. They gave him a gun, taught him how to hunt, and allowed him to return to his home. In the end, both Segani and Mbemba manipulated the supernatural world to found settlements on land the spirits had occupied. By engaging in spiritual struggles (or manipulating the spirit world), these hunters and religious specialists could pacify the

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“spirit lands” and convert them into places fit for human habitation or economic exploitation.84 As “conquerors” of the “spirit” lands, they often assumed the title first-settlers or “owners” of the land (lansaroolu in Mandinka). Narratives about spirits, even today, help to bolster the position of certain families’ claims to land. Hunters and blacksmiths were believed to be the only people to have the power to manipulate supernatural forces. They were able to make “juju” with parts from the front legs of a timpoo (an animal of the bear family). People believed that such spiritual objects could be used to drive away spirits or enemies from their homes,85 or to ward them off.86 Hunters and smiths were believed to have the ability to strengthen their own spiritual power, nyamoo, through such magical means as wearing amulets. Nyamoo was a vital protective force and was obtained from benign spirits, jinns, or other supernatural forces. Individuals with nyamoo could turn into an animal, and this made the distinction between human beings and the great animals shadowy and fluid. Most of their time they spent alone in the bush where they were thought to have developed special relationships with jinns and could learn their secrets.87 They could communicate with jinns and other spirits, which was vital in their power to settle new land and be the first-comers there. The charisma, fame, and perceived spiritual power of these individuals attracted people to them. They had religious power, which gave them political, social, and economic influence over people and land. Some time before the 1850s, a spiritual warrior conquered the evil forest which lay between Tubabkolong, Lamin, and Albreda. This man’s name was Masamba Koke Jobe. As a Wolof from the lower Senegal River, he came to Niumi during the time when Mansa Demba Sonko of Berending was ruling Niumi. Traditions claim that Masamba was a warrior and a relative of Lat Dior Diop from the Wolof state of Kayor.88 It is claimed that he initially came to the Gambia to secure ammunition for his brother, Lat Dior, from the British. When Masamba arrived in Berending, the Mansa hosted him. At their meeting, Masamba asked Mansa Demba if he could allocate him land to settle. The Mansa agreed but sent him to Tubab Kolong, where he met the elders who showed him the land at Banta. The Bantang Kiling forest was a portion of Niumi’s land, between the villages of Albreda and Lamin, that was considered evil.89 In addition to agreeing to allocate land to Masamba, Mansa Demba Sonko also gave Masamba Koke his daughter, Jebu Sonko, as his wife.90

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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 not only to ward off the evil spirits, but to fight them as well. Shortly after he settled there, his village began to prosper. He cultivated rice, tended livestock, and attracted more strangers to the region. Ultimately, conflict broke out between Masamba and Tubabkolong. Local informants say that 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 Tubabkolong that he had “conquered” the land by driving away the spirits, and made it a habitable settlement for human beings, and that the Mansa instructed the people of Tubabkolong to give him land. For that reason, he said, the land was his personal property, and not the property of Tubabkolong. This was one of the major reasons why the Mandinka went to “war” with Masamba Koke. In Kiang, people believe that with the help of smiths and hunters, settlers not only founded communities, but that these were in essence religious communities. In the villages of Kiang Nema and Bambako, located to the east of Kwinella, smiths and hunters appear to have created flourishing communities.91 But in order to maintain social cohesion, the families there developed ideologies of lineage which appeared to have successfully incorporated outsiders as full-fledged members of these settlements. For the smiths and hunters, this helped them to gain wealth, power, and prestige. James Sweet argues that, for the Gbe-speaking region in West Africa, “wealth, power and prestige were measured in people.” Along the lower Gambia River, this may have been the case, but land formed the basis for these attributes;92 in other words, only those with spiritual power over land could bring people to settle there. It is not clear from Gambian oral traditions when and where the belief in spirit lands came from, but one thing that seems certain is that many people surrounded themselves with hunters and blacksmiths for protection. Hunters and smiths were very close to the Mandinka ruling class. At times members of the Mandinka ruling class were perceived to be great hunters (as we saw in the case of Karafa Yali Jatta of Busumbala). Also, what seems obvious from the oral sources is that the association of certain religious and spiritual powers to certain groups of people (especially marabouts) and their

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ability to inhabit and make use of “spirit” lands was a means of social control. What local stories say about spirits suggests that “hunting” was perhaps a metaphor for knowledge of a territory or connection to land, and in essence establishing a claim on land through intimate environmental and ecological knowledge. Perhaps in the way explorers were mapping the land to control it, the Mandinka and others of the Gambia River region did the same through narratives of hunting. Muslim Clerics

Like hunters and blacksmiths, marabouts were, historically, critical figures in opening new territories for people to settle and farm. Some marabouts were allowed to live in separate towns and villages. They built religious communities, which gave them power and prestige. There were Muslims living along the banks of the Gambia River when the first English traders arrived on the Gambia’s Atlantic coast in the seventeenth century.93 The size of the Muslim population across nearly all of Senegambia grew slowly but steadily over the seventeenth and eighteenth, and into the early nineteenth, centuries, and Muslim clerics played a crucial role in the gradual expansion of Islam in this region. In the 1620s, English trader Richard Jobson observed that the “Marybuckes are separated from the common people . . . their houses or dwellings are separated from the common people, having their towns and lands set out . . . [in places where] . . . no common people having dwellings except such as are their slaves, that work and labour for them.”94 These exclusively Muslim settlements were called Morikunda or Fodekunda. The leaders of these communities, the Muslim clerics (Fode in Mandinka), were “encourage[d to] travel . . . they [had] free recourse through all places, so that howsoever the Kings and Countries are at warres, and up in armies, the one against the other, yet still the Mary-bucke is a priviledged person, and many follow his trade, or course of travelling, without any let or interruption of either side.”95 These communities had Quranic schools, where children memorized the Quran and where believers kept fast during the month of Ramadan and followed Muslim dietary laws. In describing the Gambian Fula, Mungo Park wrote that

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the uncharitable maxims of the Koran have made them less hospitable to strangers. . . . They evidently consider [other groups] as their inferiors. . . . Their government is influenced by the Mahomedan laws. . . . Among all these nations, the religion of Mahamet has made, and continues to make, considerable progress; but, in most of them, the body of the people, both free and enslaved, preserve in maintaining the blind but harmless superstition of their ancestors, and are called by the Mahommedans kafirs or infidels.96

One group that deserves special mention is the Toranka (Torodbe) from the middle Senegal River. “The Toranka are very learned people,” says Alhaji Darboe with the typical brevity of a family elder. “They did not come here as Soninke but as Muslims.”97 The Toranka were among the earliest settlers in Toniataba and they also founded Juffure.98 One of the brothers of Sampa Taal, the man said to have founded the village of Juffure, was a Toranka who settled in Toniataba, a village in the former Mandinka state of Jarra on the Gambia’s south bank, about one hundred miles upriver from the mouth, opposite Devil’s Point.99 The Muslims were not so much a tight ethnic or lineage grouping— most belonged to the wider Fula (Fulbe) ethnic and linguistic designation—as they were related people who came from the same region, Futa Toro—a region located in the middle of the Senegal River.100 The clerics of Juffure and Toniataba were tied to aristocratic families through marriage and various economic relationships and were therefore agents of the Mandinka states. In 1820 Gaspard Mollein wrote, “The Mohometan priests are always called upon to divide inheritances . . . The Mahometan priests enjoy an almost unlimited authority. They alone communicate with the Deity, and interpret his will, which they turn to the account of the object which they have in view. They have so artfully contrived to excite in the minds of the Negroes, a blind confidence in the papers which they call gris-gris.”101 Stories abound of Toranka marabouts waging spiritual battles against malicious spirits occupying parts of settled forests, using medicines, including amulets, to drive away jinns and ninki-nankas. Even before the midnineteenth century, many lower Gambians believed that marabouts were able to identify jinns, even those that appeared in a human form. As early as the seventeenth century, Senegambian courts had Muslim clerics serving as advisers, scribes, and spiritual guides.

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They prayed for the chiefs, and sometimes handled records and correspondence for the royal courts.102 Muslim clerics also came to be among those who could overcome the power of jinns and thus gain access to the land the jinns inhabited. The process by which many of these clerics come up with medicines was elaborate, requiring their embarking on spiritual retreats commonly known as khalwa. The term khalwa can mean anything from one seeking isolation in order to reflect on spiritual thoughts to the actual location of a Sufi-type retreat (a place in a relatively isolated area where people can commune with each other, think holy thoughts, and pray).103 There is a sense, too, that the khalwa was a retreat center where selected individuals learned a certain Sufi path (i.e., the khalwa was usually associated with a particular tariqa). Marabouts commonly embarked on spiritual retreats which would allow them to focus on fighting bad jinns and spirits. According to alkalo Dawdo Sowe, Cherno Omar Jallow, the founder of Medina Bafuloto, in Upper Niumi, defeated the ninki nanka of Jumankari by performing a khalwa. It was during the khalwa, Sowe claims, that Jallow devised the “weapon” that allowed him to drive away the spirits from the Jumankari forest.104 Marabouts, who secured lands for settlement, were therefore important landowners and landlords. As a Toranka cleric, Sampa Taal, like Cherno Omar, was a landholder. According to Kebba Jatta, Taal’s ancestors came from north of the Gambia River and founded Albreda. The man who built Albreda was Jatta Jaye, himself a marabout from the Wolof state of Kayor, southeast of Waalo, west of the kingdom of Jolof and north of Bawol and the kingdom of Sine. When he arrived in the area Sampa Taal hosted him. Eventually, Jatta asked Sampa to give him a piece of land on which to settle. In those days much of the land was covered with forest. Sampa told him to look around and settle on any portion of Juffure’s land. Where he settled, on the spot of present-day Albreda, there was a big cane tree. It was under that tree that he spent his days clearing the forest, bit by bit. That was also where he used to sit and read the Quran. After the forest was cleared, he built a compound called Fodekunda, and let his younger brother settle there. Sampa Taal later married into the Jatta family.105 Soninke chiefs needed the protection of these spiritually gifted individuals (the “spiritual” warriors, and the communities they formed) around them. In fact, they sought them out. As one

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informant stated in the 1970s, “people in Niumi say they used to come to find protective shrines in Bumare not far from Kwenilla. Bumare was a marabout village. It was founded by the Demba lineage, and people believe that there are still many dangerous spirits in Bumare.”106 The amulets made by marabouts helped to protect people and land against spirits. Since the spirits could return at any time, people continually sought protection from their marabouts. This gave marabouts the ability to control access to land and develop a relationship of dependency with people who followed them to live on that land. Only through their intercession, it was believed, could land be safely cultivated and cleared for settlement. Thus, power over land and land use in the Gambia River basin became inextricably tied to religious power, and that power, over time, became more and more Islamic. The relationship between migration, belief, and land settlement and use is so deeply woven into the cultures of people inhabiting much of Western Africa that it appears in many oral narratives. Some Mandinka elders claim that the Darboe clan came into the Gambia River basin after establishing the settlements of Pakao and Tending in Kaabu. When they arrived, they established the village of Dobo, near Bansang in the Central River Region. They also founded Dumbutu, in Kiang, and Dasilami, in Jarra. The ancestors of the Darboe came to the Gambia because they wanted land where they could settle, farm, and trade. The decisions of where to settle were attributed to mythical events in the past. When their ancestors came, it might be an animal or other mystical figure that helped them determine where to settle.107 For example, elders claim that a Wolof man from Kajoor named Ebrima Faal founded the village of Sanchi Pallen in Gambia’s Saloum district. According to one informant, “The village of Pallenba was recommended by a cleric to Ebrima Faal when the place was a big jungle.”108 Such stories make it clear just how important the role of marabouts and other mythical figures were to migration and settlement. Since the Mandinka believed that spirits appeared in the form of animals, countless stories of animals aiding migrants to find places to settle also exist. For instance, Seedia Darboe, then a seventyyear-old man, told Donald Wright in 1974 that Nyama Darboe, the founder of many villages in the Gambia, was a great marabout and he received much assistance from animals. From Manding, he left Pakao because an animal told him that if he stayed there he would

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not bear children. When Nyama arrived in the area, he had three things with them: a cutlass, a Quran, and a golden bracelet. The Darboe family is prominently featured in the stories of Mandinka migration, settlement and land control. For example, on his way from Pakao to the Gambia, Nyama Darboe met a man named Fa at Kasewang, who asked him where he was going. Nyama replied: I am traveling in search of land. He arrived at Bambally and spent seven years there. An animal told him that “this is not the place for you to settle.” As a result, he left Bambally for Kontekunda, in Baddibu. From Kontekunda, he proceeded to Baddibu Mandori before relocating to Essau. While in Essau, he later sent his brother, Ba Seedia Darboe, to settle in Niumi Lamin.109 One of Nyama’s brothers was said to have founded a village in Pakao, Casamance. Another built Nyani Dobo (in the central Gambia River region), a third built Kiang Dumbutu, and a fourth founded Dassilami in Jarra. Marabouts gave advice to kings about where they could settle. Elders claim that when mansa Demba Koto of Niumi wanted to settle on Jinnack Barra (an island near the Atlantic coast), before the nineteenth century, he had followed his marabout’s advice.110 Also, marabouts like Sanyang Bafuloto Saidy, who settled in Gunjur some time in the late nineteenth century, also extended their services to strangers and common people. Oral traditions suggest that not all clerics were welcomed by the ruling elites. Soninke chiefs sometimes allocated land to clerics in not-so-ideal locations. Perhaps taking a noted Muslim cleric to a known jinns habitation, and telling him the place was the only available one where he could live, was as good a way as any to get rid of him, since his host probably thought the marabout would refuse to live there. At the same time, informants seem to agree that it was dangerous for people to offend marabouts by outright refusing to give them land for settlement. By early in the nineteenth century many of the residents of the Gambia River region were Muslims. Conversion to Islam did not completely end peoples’ beliefs in spirits and their ability to occupy land, however, because the incoming Muslim settlers of the nineteenth century were willing to adapt to existing conditions and practices. Many of the Muslim settlers convinced community leaders and their followers that they could “heal the land” by driving away the spirits. Like hunters, the marabouts would manipulate supernatural beliefs in the name of “healing the land.”111 As religious specialists, they prepared

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amulets for their clients, offered consultations with individuals on appropriate places to settle or farm, and engaged in spiritual battles in an effort to free farmlands from malevolent supernatural forces.112 Islamic practice thus accommodated local relationships between religious forces and land use, and this relationship continued up to the onset of colonialism at the end of the nineteenth century. After the first third of the nineteenth century, Muslim communities gained in strength and began, here and there, to challenge the authority of the rulers. Eventually, the Muslims succeeded in destroying aristocratic rule and making Islam the dominant faith and practice across the region. The rapid growth of Islam in the nineteenth century has been attributed to immigration, mostly from areas north of the Gambia River, and the gradual conversion of local people among whom these strangers settled.113 But Islam only transformed spiritual beliefs, by Islamizing or appropriating them. The belief in spirits continued in new ways to determine the sites people considered habitable or suitable for agriculture. Such beliefs helped determine not only the value people attached to the land itself—spiritual, economic, or political—but it also regulated land-use practices. Belief, Conservation, and Ecological Diversity

In addition to founding settlements of their own, marabouts, hunters, and blacksmiths regularly advised people on where to settle or, equally important, about where not to settle. Belief in spirit lands was a strong instrument of social control. Studies elsewhere in Africa show this. For instance, Mohammed Maarouf’s recent work on jinns eviction in Morocco demonstrates how belief in spirits could serve as a means of controlling people. He shows that in Morocco, as in Ghana, Fouta-Djallon, and the Gambia region, jinns are believed to have the capacity to ruin a person’s life. As he writes, there always appears to be a jinns haunting a person and controlling his actions. In order for the individual to regain self-control, that jinns must be evicted. Thus, he concludes, ritual and myth represent an extremely effective form of ideological control. The inculcation of magical values and beliefs played a vital role in controlling people especially if it became a shared worldview.114 Because of the spiritual power of blacksmiths, hunters, and Muslim clerics, these “gifted” individuals were able to exercise some

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form of power; that is, many clerics, hunters, and blacksmiths were able to, using Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s terms, “enforce one’s own will on others’ behavior,” even though this kind of power was subtle and tended not to involve the use of coercive force. It was the product of local beliefs which generated a cultural convention, often producing obedience to norms and implicit rules.115 This kind of power relationship was therefore structural, rooted in the structure of a hierarchical society. For many people, lands that were home for spirits or jinns were simply not valuable. The region’s Wolof communities, like their Mandinka and Fula counterparts, believed in the usefulness of enforcing this strict spatial boundary between human settlements and those of the spirits, which only the spiritually gifted people can mediate. It appears that some “vacant” land was preserved out of perceived necessity, such lands providing protection from outsiders, a place to hunt or gather fruits and medicines, or a place for water run-off. As suggested earlier, the belief in spirit lands was one of the reasons for the marked difference between European and African understandings of what “vacant” land was. While Europeans were only looking at whether the land was settled or utilized for farming or grazing animals, to many Africans, these lands belonged to the jinns and powerful spirits. One of the consequences of this belief was that in the eighteenth century much of the river basin was covered with thick vegetation; belief in “spirit” lands had the unintended consequence of conserving the land and its vegetation. As we will see later, the gradual weakening of such beliefs had devastating consequences for the lower Gambian environment. As Michael Campbell suggested in his essay on the importance of sacred groves in Ghana, in the Gambia River region “spirit” lands represented early forms of conservation.116 These “spirit” lands were not the same as sacred forests, for people did not think they had any religious significance as areas to pray or offer libations; by contrast, “empty lands” were occupied by jinns that could be dangerous and were thus not “good” to go to. Alkalo Dawda Sowe claimed that his grand-father told him that there was nothing but forest between the villages of Memmeh and Tambana, in Jokadu.117 Sources from Foni, on the south bank, also suggest that forest covered the land between the villages of Sangajor, Njonkel, and Santankoto (the latter is now part of southern Senegal).118 Written sources support this claim. In 1750, explorer

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Michel Adanson wrote, “Here you see thickets impenetrable, not because of the thorns, for there are very few, but by reason the trees stand so close.”119 Almost a century later, in 1821, missionary John Morgan stated the “land, on near approach, [appears] clothed with green bush-wood, beneath the shadow of huge trees, above which, again, rose the shafts of stately palms, waving far aloft their crests of wondrous foliage, it was enough to make the uninitiated believe that he had reach some earthly paradise.”120 For Morgan, “the trees of the forest are many of them majestic in growth, beautifully varied in foliage, and splendid in bloom; but with the exception of a clematis, which spreads over the high trees, scenting the forest with an odour too strong to be pleasant, a sweet-scented tree or flower is rarely to be found. The branches of these beautiful trees are oftentimes the lurking-places of large serpents.”121 Early European observers often regarded the beauty of West Africa’s forest cover, particularly in the rainy season, as an indication of the general fertility of the region.122 For instance, visitors to the lower Gambia region regularly commented on the quality of the soils as Adanson remarked that “the soil [was] rich and deep, and amazingly fertile: it produce[d] spontaneously and almost without cultivation, all necessities of life, as grains, fruits, legumes, and roots.”123 Similarly, Mungo Park remarked, “nature has blessed the region’s people with abundant and fertile lands” European sources also stated, “The forest abounds with useful trees, such as rosewood, mahogany, and teak. Indigenous edible fruits of various kinds may be found.”124 In 1824, a report noted, “The soil upon [the] banks [of the Gambia River] and numerous islands is relatively fertile.” The report added that the fertility of the soil was so great that it was not necessary to employ more labor to till the land.125 William Fox observed that the scenery varied as “the trees assume a more variegated appearance, being rich in foliage, and splendid in their blossoms. The beautiful palm, monkey-bread, and stately mahogany trees, are conspicuous; and in many places the country wears the appearance of one extensive and majestic forest, and not [infrequently] the scenery is highly picturesque.”126 But people did not avoid the spirit lands because they wanted to preserve the forest or wanted to live in harmony with nature. Even in the present African context, as Celia Nyamweru and Michael Sheridan noted, “while the historical and spiritual aspects of sacred forests may enhance the motivation for conservation, they do not

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present sufficient motivation by themselves.”127 Yet, in the lower Gambia region, conservation appeared to have gone hand-in-hand with a spiritual approach to the world. The Soninke believed that malicious spirits occupied much of the land along the banks of the river, and this appears to have prevented the settlement of the area. For the people, not all un-cleared forests were vacant or unoccupied, even when living human beings were not using it for economic activities. Dealing with the Bad Spirits

Both Muslims and the Soninke believed in the spiritual aspects of land. Since spirits were believed to be the owners of some land and could be vengeful, people believed they would destroy humans who attempted to farm or settle on their land without their approval. Bad spirits caused untold suffering, including drought and locust invasions. Before the rapid Islamization of the Gambia region in the mid-nineteenth century, only blacksmiths, hunters, and traditional Muslim clerics controlled access to the spirit lands, because they had the ability to manipulate these supernatural forces. Their pronouncements were “believed to derive from supernaturally supported traditions.”128 Marabouts did not only have moral authority to exert supernatural sanctions, they were, by virtue of their ability to conquer the land from spirits, first-comers. As first-comers, they performed the role of jatigis (landlords) by welcoming strangers and accumulating dependents or followers. By manipulating supernatural forces, ritual leaders and their families acquired not only political power but also ritual authority.129 On behalf of their communities, they offered sacrifices, made medicines that treated people harmed by jinns and malicious spirits or amulets to protect them. Before the mid-nineteenth century, warrior families, hunters, and marabouts conquered the land along the banks of the Gambia River either militarily or spiritually. For centuries, these families had accommodated one another. At times, they intermarried and shared power with one another. Even though Islam influenced the religious views of the people, it did not force them to surrender their pre-Islamic beliefs in spirits. As I will discuss later, what Islam did was to appropriate the spirits by either converting them into Islam or driving them away from the

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area. Therefore, Islam has really been an addition to—not a substitute for—many (though not all) preexisting structures and beliefs. But as the next chapter will show, the concepts of power and domination are important in understanding systems of land tenure as they were practiced along the riverbanks of the Gambia during the late eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries. Of course, we cannot confirm the authenticity of claims concerning the occupation of land by spirits. What historians should be concerned with is the extent of such beliefs, and how they influenced local attitudes toward land. For the lower Gambia, such beliefs were just as important in determining where people would settle or farm as access to arable and fertile lands and proximity to the river and swampy areas. The absence of such discourse within the historiography of the Senegambia thus represents a failure of historical imagination. People with spiritual powers were believed to be of higher standing than other members of the community. These powers gave them the opportunity to gather followers, increasing their political legitimacy, and letting them regulate access to land.130 One thing that seems certain is that when Mandinka elders talk about the history of their villages, they are mostly discussing very local processes they believe took place. Most of the stories elders share do not pertain to large-scale transformations involving drastic ruptures or region-wide social, economic, and political dislocations. As the work of many Africanist scholars shows us, groups across much of Africa regarded spirits and ancestors as occupants of land, so that land perceived by outsiders as vacant was, in many cases, not empty at all. To now, however, few students of West African history have used this African understanding of land occupation and use to challenge Eurocentric conceptual frameworks that failed to grasp the importance of spirituality in the conception and use of space.

Part 2 The End of the Old Order

4 The End of Soninke Rule Overthrow of the Soninke Rulers

When a land dispute between the south bank villages of Sankandi and Jattaba intensified in 1899, the reigning Soninke king, mansa Koto, assisted by his elders, Tumani Messeng and Bakary Kumba Santang, held a meeting in Sankandi. At the meeting, mansa Koto decided that the land belonged to Jattaba. The residents of Sankandi strongly rejected the verdict, on the basis that the mediators were not fair.1 The elders of Sankandi insisted 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 Traveling Commissioner Cecil Sitwell, the representative of the new colonial authority. According to oral informants from Sankandi, when matters reached the commissioner, he again gave his judgment in favor of Jattaba.2 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—Sankandi would use it for a year and pass it on to Jattaba for the following year. Dari Bana Darboe, Sankandi’s alkalo, and his close associates, again refused to accept Sitwell’s judgment. Subsequently, the commissioner decided to travel to Sankandi to deal with the problem in person. On this trip, Assistant Commissioner Silva, mansa Koto, and six police constables accompanied the traveling commissioner to the Kiang districts. 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, who believed that mansa Koto and the European commissioner did not accord them appropriate respect, because the proper place to settle a problem was in a bantango or bantaba (i.e., the village meeting ground).3 Consequently, Darboe and his council declined to

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meet the commissioner and his entourage. In an attempt to force the defiant population of Sankandi to attend the meeting, the commissioner, his assistant, and the six police constables were killed. Mansa Koto also sustained severe injuries, and died later. The Sankandi-Jattaba land dispute was deeply connected to the Soninke-Marabouts wars of the second half of the nineteenth century, which continued well into the early twentieth century. During these wars, the general population, overwhelmingly rural farmers, rose up against the Soninke ruling families. These jihads were a turning point in the political and social struggle for land control. When the holy wars broke out, marginalized groups attacked Soninke rulers they perceived as representing a decaying social and moral order, which excluded them from land ownership. By declaring holy war against their rulers, one of their goals was to end the aristocracy’s “traditional” control over land. The Soninke-Marabout wars had huge effects on weakening Soninke authority (with consequences on their ability to control land across a wide geographic area), the rise of a new class of Muslims who used their political power to control more land and people, the weakening of the social fabric of many families, and growing land conflicts between neighboring communities. However, much of the scholarship on land in Africa focuses on colonial era as a moment of change, at least in other regions. Land becomes commodified through colonial and neo-liberal economic policies. The focus on Islam rather than colonialism is a new approach that this chapter emphasizes. It also builds on the widely accepted view that the oppressive nature of Senegambia’s old regimes contributed greatly to the outbreak of the holy wars. But the chapter goes beyond this to discuss the close link between the jihads and land.4 I argue that while the jihads can be understood as religious, social, economic, and political conflicts between two social classes—the Mandinka ruling class and their courts, on the one hand, and their subjects on the other—they can be understood more fully by also seeing them as conflicts among farmers. These conflicts divided individuals, families, and communities. Jihad in Kombo

Before the outbreak of the mid-nineteenth-century jihads the Gambia’s important ruling families, namely the Manneh, Jammeh,

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Map 4.1. Map of lower Gambia showing settlements. Map by Nick Kroncke.

Sonko, Bojang, Jatta, Sanyang and others had superior control over the politics of the region’s ministates, and consequently the land. With the jihads, the land-based powers which these families and others wielded began to weaken greatly. Dissatisfaction had been rumbling among large numbers of people across Senegambia for a long time before the nineteenth-century outbreak of efforts at political, social, and religious reform. Generally, religious motivations have been given as the reason for these uprisings. However, the sources suggest that other reasons might have been factors as well. Oral traditions often relate stories of the Gambian ruling aristocracy plundering villages, seizing cattle and stocks of grain, imposing unfair taxes, and excluding subjects or stranger populations from political office and owning the best lands.5 Though long tolerated out of a sense of necessity—a perceived need for protection by the ruler’s marauding warriors from outside threats—subject peoples had apparently had enough by the early 1840s. The exclusion from land ownership or controlling the most productive land also meant marginalization from the political system. As stated in the previous

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chapter, several families could not become mansa, alkalolu or kabilo heads, or sumas. Writing in the 1940s, 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. 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.6 Most of them saw the outbreak of the jihads as an opportunity to end their inferior status and dependency on the prominent families. When Islamic clerics began to preach jihad against these powerful lineages, the young, male members of families excluded from the privileges associated with land ownership were the first to join the revolution. Thus, the Soninke-Marabout wars cannot be fully explained without analyzing the social, economic, and political circumstances that gave rise to the uprisings. Kombo, like all the Gambian River states, had a significant Muslim population. Communities with big Muslim populations included Sabiji (Sukuta), Bakau, Mandinari, Pirang, Jambur, Brufut, Gunjur, and Sanyang.7 The first incident of armed rebellion occurred in Kombo where the royal families of Yundum, Busumbala, and Brikama (the Jatta and Bojang families) came under attack by forces led by militant Islamists. Several Kombo informants state that the Kombo jihad started after mansa Suling Jatta of Busumbala decreed that Mandinari and Sabiji must pay heavy taxes and tributes for their use of Kombo’s land. One might also recall the 1821 land dispute that the Mandinari elders had with the Kombo mansa, in which the king threatened them with severe punishments if they failed to obey his decision to grant Mandinari land to strangers.8 Before the 1821 dispute and later the jihad, Mandinari and Sabiji had held special status. Though established by Muslims, the villages’ land had been accorded them by the Kombo mansa who was at the time based in Yundum. Because the founders of the villages were reported to have married women from the Bojang ruling lineage, the mansa had exempted them from paying any taxes or tributes. The children these marabouts had with wives from Yundum were not considered of royal blood, but they had good standing in Kombo society. However, the mid-nineteenth-century era was a different time. When the royal title or office was transferred to Busumbala with mansa Suling Jatta facing an increasingly assertive Muslim population, he began to be uncompromising. His style of administration

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started mirroring those of the ceddo or gelewar military rulers of the Senegambian states. That is, his rule was increasingly becoming both oppressive and exploitative. As mansa and the bankutiyo, he imposed an oppressive and burdensome tax on the population. For instance, “Mansa Jomba Bojang of Brikama expanded the tribute system to include annual forced labor chores such as grass cutting, road repairs, and agricultural work; and the officials of Gunjur under the military leadership of Kang Kaba refused to obey the mansa’s instructions.”9 Between 1853 to 1855 two warriors, Foday Ousmanu (Omar of Sabiji) and Foday Kabba Touray, of Sabiji and Gunjur respectively, led forces on an invasion of Kombo. Not a great deal is known about these men prior to their leadership of the Kombo uprising. Harry A. Gailey writes that, before his arrival in the Gambia, Omar was a Mauritanian, who had taken part in Abdel-Kader’s uprisings against the French in Algeria in 1847.10 The two men led forces that jointly 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 Jatta, taking control of much of the state. Within months, almost everywhere in the region the militants and their growing numbers of followers attacked and seized control of the land. Gradually, in Kombo, the vestiges of aristocratic dominance crumbled. In 1868, Kabba Touray was succeeded by his brother, Foday Sillah, as the leader of Kombo jihadists from Gunjur. These forces attacked Yundum and Brikama, and drove away the remaining Soninke royal families. 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) and the much-weakened mansa was forced to retreat to Lamin, a town within 400 yards of the British boundary. When the British failed to intervene on his side, the mansa later surrendered to the Muslims, agreeing “to shave his head” and become a Muslim. In return, Foday Sillah gave him and his people land where they could settle and cultivate crops.11 After the defeat of Kombo’s Soninke aristocracy, Foday Sillah declared himself the new “Master of Kombo.”12 With this declaration it was understood that the Soninke had surrendered ownership of their lands to the “kingdom of Gunjur,” and Sillah was the new mansa. From then on, until his defeat in 1894, the British recognized Sillah as the chief of the part of Kombo he controlled, and paid him a stipend.

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Many Soninke were displaced, or their political power and control over land greatly diminished. On March 20, 1895, the commissioner of the South Bank met people in Kembuje from old Brikama who had fled the attack. Many of these came from Busumbala, Yundum, and Manduar, which Foday Sillah had attacked and destroyed. The towns of Pirang and Faraba Banta had “tried to hold their own against Foday Sillah” but they suffered many setbacks.13 There are many people at Silliti, Jibali, and Makunda in Casamance (near the frontier) whose ancestors are from Kombo, but were driven out by Foday Sillah.14 Because of growing instability, the English administrator of British Kombo eventually intervened. In 1874 he concluded a treaty with Sillah, agreeing to create a neutral zone between Yundum and the 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 a while, as the Muslims wanted to settle down and encourage farming, at least for that rainy season. But across the region the disturbances continued. The British were forced to invade Gunjur, and subsequently Foday Sillah and his followers were driven out of the area.15 Around the same time, the British turned their attention to Mandina Ba. The alkalo of Mandina Ba, Foday Manneh, was one of Foday Sillah’s generals and one of the leaders of the attack on Kembuje.16 The commissioner later arrested Foday Manneh and banished him from the country. The commissioner also burnt down the town on March 31, 1894, and made arrangements “for a new set of people to occupy the land and build a new town.”17 In Kombo, the Touray family of Foday Sillah replaced the Darboe lineage as the owners of the village of Gunjur and its land. As stated in chapter 2, according to oral traditions from Gunjur, members of a lineage named Darboe founded the village and another lineage, the Touray, followed shortly. While my informant claimed that the Darboe were non-Muslims and they later converted to Islam, historian David Skinner’s sources identified the “early” settlers as a Muslim clerical family, who came to Kombo from Upper Jarra and founded Gunjur after securing permission from the Brikama mansa. As founders of the town, the Darboe supplied the town chiefs (alkali) and imams.18 My sources indicate that when the Touray arrived to settle in Gunjur, they preferred to live on the outskirts of the village, but on land

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belonging to the Darboe family. Traditions state that it was a marabout who warned the leader of the Touray lineage that he should 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 join them. Since the Darboe were initial settlers in the area, they held the title of satetiyo (owners of the land). In a carefully worded agreement, the Darboe would hold the title of alkalo, taking care of issues dealing with land allocation and its distribution to strangers.19 The Touray, their strangers, later assumed the position of almammy—leading the growing Muslim community in prayers.20 In the late 1860s and 1870s, Foday Sillah took the alkalo-ship from the Darboe clan and administered the land himself. We may never know why this happened, but it is likely that the Touray were not pleased with their stranger status, which meant dependency on their host. Also, since land was a resource which could be used to compensate clients, to solidify his power base, Sillah had redistributed the Darboe land to different kabilatiyo in Gunjur, especially to the Manneh and Janneh families. My informants claim, further, that Sillah redistributed the land to the Manneh and Janneh kabilolu as a way of rewarding them for serving in his army. Ensa Touray, a native 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 Touray, “Foday Sillah asked Bunja, his general, what he can give him and Bunja’s response was he needed land where he and his family could survive.”21 At the state level, even the royal towns of Manduwar, Jambur, Brikama, Busumbala, and Yundum were seriously divided because members of Soninke ruling families had become Muslims and were competing for political control.22 More importantly, the Muslim residents of Kombo no longer accepted their position of subordination to the mansa, and sought political and economic independence.23 Consequently, they attacked their traditional rulers, and the landbased power of the Soninke families was greatly weakened. A remark that was likely based on oral recollection narrated to the commissioner by local elders in Gambia’s south bank villages summarizes this point: “About a hundred years ago,” wrote the commissioner of the districts of Kombo and Foni in 1939, “the marabou wars started

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and [the militants in] Gunjur began to expand and to conquer parts of the two Kombo kingdoms. As [they] conquered any part, the ownership of the soil of the conquered part passed to . . . Gunjur.”24 Oral testimonies collected by the commissioner of Kombo claimed that because of the Kombo jihads “certain villages with a strong Mohammedan party revolted from their kings and established their independence.” When this occurred, “the ownership of the village lands was considered to pass to the village concerned.” Subsequently, the newly founded Muslim kingdom of Gunjur “conquered the whole of the two kingdoms centered on Yundum-Busumbala and Brikama-Manduar-Jambur and drove out the kings. When this occurred, the villages which had established their independence previously acknowledged the king of Gunjur as their ruler and in so doing were considered to have surrendered the ownership of their lands to the kingdom of Gunjur.”25 Everywhere in the region, the descendants of Maba Jahou Bah and Foday Sillah and their generals became major landowners who not only had access to larger tracts of land; they also took over the title of chiefs and alkalolu. This was the case in Niumi, Kombo, Baddibu, and Saloum. Jihad in the North Bank

It was not only the Soninke families of Kombo that lost political control of Kombo’s land. On June 19, 1826, Niumi’s mansa, Burungai Sonko, ceded a portion of the land in Niumi, a mile-wide strip of its riverbank, the so-called “Ceded Mile,” to the British. From that point, anyone living on the land had to abide by British laws. This coincided with a time when many of Niumi’s residents (most of whom were Muslims) were already opposed to Niumi’s ruling elites. They disliked the elites for several reasons, but one was that the elites had “sold off” their fathers’ land.26 Across the north bank, jihad broke out in Baddibu in 1861 and threw many of the royal families into conflict with their subjects. That year, Maba, the son of N’dougou Penda Bah, declared holy war against the mansa of Baddibu, and attacked royal towns such as Elliasa and Indea. With about eleven thousand fighters, Maba burned down a number of towns and conquered lands under the control of Baddibu and neighboring Saloum. With support from the Muslim towns of Njabakunda, Salikeyne, and several other

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villages, he attacked another important political center, Indea, killing the mansa, Jereba Marong, and his son, and forcing large numbers of their followers into exile.27 At the same time Maba attacked the Soninke towns of Jumansar and Kubandar. He then put Jaiteh Jaba of Njabakunda in charge of this Mandinka region. In 1863, Maba invaded Kiang, the state just across the river from Baddibu, destroying numerous Soninke settlements around Tendaba.28 His forces also invaded Kwinella, one of the royal towns in Kiang, but suffered defeat. The following year, in 1864, Maba tried to set an example by encouraging farming in Baddibu.”29 According to Charlotte Quinn, Maba “ordered the whole of his subjects to cultivate the ground.”30 By attacking the Soninke, the fighters not only weakened their traditional political authority; they also challenged their status as bankutiyolu (owners of the land). David Gamble writes about the flight of Muslims and stranger families from their homes near the Baddibu royal town of Eliassa 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 village elders.31 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 insufficient for its needs and the marabouts remained dissatisfied with their lot. Gamble explains 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 if he desired.”32 Before the mid-nineteenth-century jihads, Jokadu was under the authority of the Jammeh and Demba lineages. After the death of Jaliya Jammeh, Sunkalona Demba of Bali became king. In 1862, the royal towns of Bali and Tambana (the chief Soninke towns) were attacked. Sunkalona Demba was defeated and the mansa fled to Kiang. Power then passed to the Wolof and Toranka population. The Muslims, led by Hamadi Ndongo and Mafalai Hamdala,33 assumed greater control of local politics, and administered matters relating to land.34 In Niumi, Muslims went after the Soninke rulers and their underlings. As the Soninke kings tried to remind villages with significant Muslim populations of their “stranger” status, people revolted against them. In July of 1866 the people of Tubabkolong, led by

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Amara Faal, launched an assault on Bantankiling and its nearby Soninke towns. Faal, a Wolof, burnt down the Soninke town of Sitanunku, and pillaged Masamba Koke Jobe’s town of Bantankiling, which the British called Fitzgerald Town.35 Clearly, Masamba was the target of the marabouts who saw him as part of the Soninke whom they wanted to overthrow. As Gray states, being Wolof and a Soninke, Masamba found it difficult to exercise any authority in the district.36 He was seen as part of mansa Demba Sonko’s family, since he married Sonko’s daughter Jebu Sonko.37 In less than a year after the 1866 Tubabkolong bombardment, “the marabouts had returned to Sika, where one Fodi Sonko had commanded his blacksmiths to rebuild the stockade and had given permission to the women of Sika to cultivate rice on their ricefields.38 In June 1867, the British Administrator, Admiral Charles George Edward Patey, tried to summon Foday Sonko and Cherno Say, his chief marabout, to Bathurst for a meeting, but Sonko declined because, according to a police report from the area, “the chiefs and headmen are all gone to Badiboo and he cannot say anything now until their return.”39 His defiance eventually forced the British superintendent at Albreda, Richard A. Stewart, to travel the four miles to Sikka. At their meeting, Stewart reported that Sonko “said to me that he is glad to see me but no time as he is come back and built his country and his father ground.”40 When Stewart further asked Sonko why he did not travel to Bathurst to see the governor, Sonko replied, “he cannot because he is hungry and he is upon hard work but when he is finished, he will send his man to the Governor.”41 Sonko insisted that “Sicca was the land of their forefathers [and] they had no wish to leave it . . . [because] they valued [it so much].”42 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 worried the chief police constable in Albreda. In the end, the English governor advised the constable “not to make any dispute but to live in peace with the marabouts.”43 This reaction signaled the change that the marabouts were now going to be an important force in matters of land allocation in the Gambia region. From earliest times there had been Muslims in Niumi, and some lineages, such as the Sonko, had both Soninke and Muslim sections.44 Foday Sonko was a member of the Sonko lineage, and also a Muslim. However, the Sonko of Sikka to which he belonged were

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not considered important decision-makers in matters relating to land allocation and state politics. For his part, Cherno Say was a Fula whose people often herded the cattle of the rulers of the state, and often suffered from the excessive demands of the ruling aristocracy. Thus, Sonko and Say formed an alliance against the Soninke.45 In 1906, Howard Lloyd Pryce, the commissioner of the north bank of the Gambia River who succeeded John Henry Ozanne, wrote 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.”46 Many people fought on the side of the Muslims simply because they wanted to end the “stealing [of] their wives, properties and slaves” by the Soninke.47 In 1867, Maba’s success in Baddibu encouraged nearly seven hundred Muslims in Niumi to revolt against the kingdom’s rulers. Maba’s brother, Abdou Bah, and a large army aided the rebels. Mansa Demba Sonko hired hundreds of fighters who were led by Ansumana Jarju, from the village of Chilla (near the Mandinka village of Jurunku). Jarju is often described as a Serahule (one of the ethnic groups in the area). Jarju was also said to have married one of the daughters of mansa Demba Sonko, and his force was comprised of Serahule and Bambara fighters.48 Eventually, the marabouts destroyed Berending, and according to a British report, killed “the king with many others and took away many alive.”49 The Soninke abandoned Berending. From Berending, the Muslims pushed on toward another royal town, Bakindikikoto (“Old Bakindiki”), located near the ocean, close to the modern Gambia-Senegal border. One of the major effects of these wars on the lower Gambia was that it replaced the Soninke with Muslim fighters who assumed the power to oversee land allocation. After the successful campaign, Maba’s sons and followers founded the villages of Pakau Njogu and Pakau Saloum in the Gambia’s Upper Niumi districts without seeking any permission from Sitanunku, Bakindik, or Berending. Ibra Mariam Bah (one of Maba’s sons) was said to have founded Pakao Njogu village. Ibra’s sister, Fatou Jobba (Jim) Bah, who was married to the marabout of Medina Serigne Mass, acquired a plot of land there and she transferred this land to one of her sons, Serigne Modou Kah.50 Fatou Jobba was also known as jeefulbe (a nickname for Fula women who had many cattle). She also had over thirty slaves. She used the slaves to cultivate her peanut and cotton fields. Similarly, the Bah family of

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Pakao owned a large tract of land and now that the powers of the Sonko, Manneh, and Jammeh of Sitanunku, Berending, and Bakendik had been weakened, they did not need to seek permission from them or pay annual tributes.51 The Berending attack drove the villagers south, toward the river, where they rebuilt in a safer place. After destroying the mansa’s village, the rebels threatened another, Essau, where the state’s traditional war leader, the suma, had built up a strong resistance.52 Initially, the British, whose presence in the region was growing, had opted for a policy of noninterference in the face of the insurgence. But quickly it became 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. With Masamba as a trusted ally, in 1862 the British decided to resettle nearly two thousand 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). In 1862, Gambia’s Governor George A. K. d’Arcy gave Masamba 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.53 In addition, both trade and agriculture were obstructed because of the instability; the British felt they had to intervene. They embarked on “punitive expeditions” against some of the marabouts. In 1866, the British Administrator of Bathurst ordered an English force to bombard Tubabkolong, forcing the marabouts to abandon Sikka.54 The British sent a colonial steamer, which “fired rockets over the marabout towns of Sika, Juffure, Albreda and Lamin until their populations fled into the bush.”55 Later, Masamba requested permission to relocate to the Britishcontrolled parts of the colony with his people, unless protection could be provided to him. He feared the marabouts in the towns of Sikka, Juffure, Tubabkolong, and other places would attack his town. In the end, Masamba was recognized “headman of this portion of the Ceded Mile”—that is, Bantankiling.56 However, his influence hardly went beyond his village. His father-in-law, Mansa Demba Sonko was no more. Despite the intervention of the British it was too late to save the “old order.” The marabouts proved to be widely supported and tenacious. Most importantly, Tubabkolong wanted to

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take back the land that Demba Sonko gave to Masamba. Masamba Koke’s story in Niumi is valuable because it serves as one example of the larger changes that took place in the region with important implications for understanding the nature of local politics surrounding land control. The results of the north bank jihads were equally decisive—the power of the Soninke families was broken and so was their monopoly control of the area’s land. While the Jammeh, the Sonko, and the Manneh families would continue to wield important influence over the region, it was weaker and often backed by support from the British. Jihad in Kiang and Jarra

On March 6, 1892, Foday Kabba’s lieutenant Sulayman Suntu plunged his south bank community into a debilitating civil and religious war. As noted in one of the British intelligence reports, Sulayman Suntu, “a chief of Foday Caba” who was based in Toniataba “will not allow any of the people to come here; he has stripped the roofs off the houses and cleared the ground all round ready to fight . . . On April 15, 1892, a messenger from the Alcaide of Kayaf came and reported that the people from the village of Toniataba were taking his cattle and sheep.”57 Some of these fighters joined forces with Foday Kabba to invade the Soninke town of Manduwar. The town of Manduwar, in Kiang, was abandoned during the Foday Kabba wars for “a hollow near the Vintang [Bintang] Creek, unhealthy and dirty.”58 Nearby, in Kiang, a long-standing quarrel erupted between Jattaba and Sankandi over the ownership of a rice field. An oral source indicates that the conflict began after a Sankandi woman, Mariama Darboe, went to marry a man in the village of Jattaba.59 In Sankandi, the Darboe kabilo are among the founder lineages of the village. They were the holders of the title of alkalo in Sankandi, and controlled a lot of land. As Mandinka, the Darboe family gave women rice farms when they were married. If the woman’s husband’s family did not have land to give her, she often acquired a plot from her father. As one colonial official noted in the 1940s, a woman could continue “to enjoy the right of use of her father’s rice farms after her marriage, possibly in a neighboring village; the woman’s daughters who bear

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their father’s name then continue to use this same land with the result that the mother’s family is in danger of losing all interest in it, unless they continually reiterate their claim.”60 But this transfer of land might only be temporary; indeed, 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, rice land could be kept within a man’s compound when husbands gave the rice farms of their mothers to their wives.61 But many women also inherited rice swamps from their mothers. As explained in one report, “rice swamps and the right of use descends in the female line . . . if a woman marries out of the village, if her new home is not far away, she will continue to cultivate her own rice farm in her natal village.”62 In practice, the land would continue to be the property of the woman (and thus by her husband’s family) so long as the marriage was in force and the woman had children who could inherit from her after she died. However, if the marriage broke down and trouble erupted between the families, such lands could be a factor of conflict not just between the families but their villages as well. It was in this context that Mariama Darboe was given the land as a gift from her parents when she married Lang Seyfo of Jattaba. Accordingly, she was expected to use the land to cultivate rice to support her new nuclear family, especially once she had children. It is not clear how long Mariama cultivated this land or how many years she spent in Jattaba with her husband. However, the tradition claims that she did not 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’s (it was land belonging to the Darboe family of Sankandi). This is what brought the two villages to a showdown. By the time Commissioner Cecil Sitwell led an armed party to solve the dispute, tempers were already at a boiling point. Moreover, the volatile climate had worsened tensions between neighboring villages with other longstanding problems—over the sorts of matters that villagers have argued and fought over for much of their history. Well before Commissioner Sitwell traveled to Sankandi, its elders had employed a blacksmith, Bollo Jobe, to mix

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gunpowder in preparation for conflict. With the gunpowder in hand, men of Sankandi lay in ambush, waiting for the commissioner’s entourage.63 Soon after the entourage was murdered, Foday Kabba took advantage of the conflict to grant support to the people of Sankandi. For their part, the British retaliated by launching a punitive action against Sankandi. The decision to send in a large expeditionary force was to avenge the death of the commissioners and their guards. The force arrived from Sierra Leone in January 1901 with the mission to “punish the towns implicated in the murder of the two traveling commissioners and six constables in the previous year.”64 Moreover, what started as a dispute between two families resulted in a region-wide conflict and the assassination of the state’s mansa. Europeans have long observed in Gambian Mandinka societies the importance of what they called “blood” vengeance. Among this group, a family needing help would call for assistance not only from immediate relations but from all the people in its kabilo or, if possible, the entire village.65 It was in such a fashion that the land dispute eventually became a conflict between Sankandi and Jattaba, and not just the families that were originally involved. At first, the elders of the Kiang district tried to engage in serious negotiations with the villages involved in the dispute, but without success.66 Concerned residents in neighboring villages reported the matter to mansa Koto Sanyang at his residence in Batteling—which is about eight kilometres from Sankandi and Jattaba. Batteling was at that time the seat of the chieftaincy. Yet, mansa Koto’s intervention did little to resolve the dispute. British officials who reported on this incident often claimed that part of the reason negotiations between the two villages were difficult was because of the religious climate of the time. The emergence of such fighters such as Foday Kabba, Foday Sillah, and Biran Ceesay encouraged villages such as Sankandi and Tandaito to take up arms against those that took away “their” land. And most of the documentary sources claim that the people of Sankandi were supported by Muslim reformer and warrior Foday Kabba and perceived themselves as Muslims, while viewing the residents of Jattaba as “pagans.”67 British officials, who held no love for Foday Kabba, insisted that he incited the people of Sankandi to war and they suggested that as a Soninke, mansa Koto’s legitimacy was rapidly waning in the eyes of the Muslims of Sankandi.

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While the need for captives or wealth might have motivated people like Foday Kabba to engage in the jihads, there were many who also joined the wars because they wanted to end Soninke domination as well as their own marginalization in local affairs, including inferior rights to land. The wars were a conflict over political control of the leadership of the state as well as of the village. At the state level, increasing animosity existed between the landlords, 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.”68 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 them, stealing their wives, property and slaves.69 The British responded by sending a force to invade Dumbuto before heading to Sankandi. The British attacked these two villages because they were actively involved in the conflict. Residents of the two villages were closely related, as many families who lived in Sankandi came originally from Dumbuto.70 Thus, an informant noted, the two villages were “like an elder brother and his junior brother or like a father and his son.” During the invasion of Sankandi, many of the village residents abandoned it and sought refuge in Medina Suumakunda, where Foday Kabba had his capital at the time. While popular memory of the Sankandi incident views it as an episode of resistance against British attempts to establish colonial rule in the Gambia, my reading of a wide variety of sources suggests that this is unrepresentative of what people in 1900 knew of the event.71 The murder of mansa Koto, and the weakening of the power of traditional ruling families to settle land disputes, were other factors. Although the Sankandi-Batteling conflict did not arise because people revolted against mansa Koto, it occurred at a time when such Soninke rulers were losing their legitimacy because of the jihads. These religious uprisings were aimed at overthrowing the institution and legacy these rulers represented, which included the monopoly of land by the local aristocracy.

The End of Soninke Rule 129 Community and Conflict: Inter-Village Conflicts

In addition to tensions at the family and state level, tensions and jealousies between neighboring villages across the whole Gambia contributed immensely to shaping 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.72 Kinship bonds were crucial in the control or ownership of land. Much value was placed on community. 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 person noted, if the family “agreed among themselves the land is usually cultivated as a whole for the benefit of all members.”73 Perhaps this is why G. H. Sangster, commissioner of the Kombo and Foni province, could “find no law by which property is to be divided up into certain proportions.”74 But while kinship bonds were strong, tensions sometimes characterized these kin-based societies, particularly in the mid-nineteenth century. Some male members of families living in Gambian villages may have been dissatisfied with the way in which property was shared, inherited, or even managed. It was not uncommon for conflicts to arise over the use of family property, especially when questions of inheritance arose. Sometimes disagreements arose and the land was subdivided among the sons, and in some cases the daughters, in varying proportions.75 European documentary sources indicate that “parents have all the ordinary power over their children, chastising them and making them work for them.”76 Parents, particularly fathers, also had a major say in when and whom their children would marry.77 In the 1890s, elders told the commissioner responsible for Kombo, Foni, and Kiang that they “do not wish to send their boys away.”78 One effective way to keep young men dependent on elders was through inheritance. Land in Mandinka and Wolof societies was mainly inherited by male successors. That means the kabilolu were also a means through which lineages managed land. On the occasion of a man’s death, his property and wives went to his children, but in practice his next brother held this in trust when the children were too young.79 If the deceased man’s male sons had already reached adulthood before his death, the oldest son of the first wife could

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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, 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. 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 property.”80 This was also the case among the Wolof: if a father died, his younger brother took charge of the boys and married their mother.81 In many cases, disagreements occurred because older sons who assumed their father’s property on behalf of the family kept the largest part for themselves and gave the younger brothers only portions of it. In others, trouble emerged when some children were prevented from inheriting their father’s property. For example, among the Jola, just like among the Mandinka, 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. 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 to the care of “his nearest male relation.” Yet, as a son he still might be forced to contribute to “pay off all the deceased’s debt whenever they are claimed.”82 Prior to the mid-nineteenth-century holy wars, those who were excluded from inheritance had limited options, since it was unthinkable to fight ones’ uncle or elders. They could either accept the situation and stay with their lineage, or move out of the community. But the outbreak of the jihad gave another option: to fight in the name of Allah. Young men who were either prevented from inheriting their parents’ property, or whose families were marginalized in their villages, joined the ranks of the militant jihadists to put an end to what they considered forms of social and moral decay. While parental control of young men is likely exaggerated in many of the colonial ethnographic sources, it might be reasonable to speculate that ambitious young men, eager to escape parental control, saw the revolution as an opportunity for a better life. Sources suggest that

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many young men fought because they anticipated material gains from their raids.83 In the Gambia, the spread of a militant Islamic ideology and the political instability that came with the jihads deepened social fragmentation. This fragmentation not only affected the ability of chiefs and their courts to control land or resolve disputes, but it resulted in some lineage heads losing authority over some of their dependents. Even kabilolu that shared power began to disagree over ownership of village land. Moreover, in the absence of a stable political center, inter-village conflicts over land intensified. Since at least the early nineteenth century, community and cooperation were important in dealing with conflicts over land. Referring to early traditions, one Gambian colonial officer wrote in 1939: 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 village were invited to join them to settle the dispute. Similarly, disputes inside the village were also settled in the same way by the elders of the different families concerned, who if necessary could take the matter to village elders. Even to this day, most Gambian village residents rarely take a land dispute to the courts.84

The jihads strained relationships and weakened the ability of communities to resolve disputes over land. In Baddibu, for example, the jihad that started with Maba Jahou Bah, after his death in 1867, gradually turned into a brutal war, which was devastating to the people living in the area. The height of this civil war occurred between 1877 and 1885, and it diluted the religious basis of the Islamic revolution.85 After the death of Maba, a massive political conflict between Sait Matty Bah, Biran Ceesay, and Gedel Mboge erupted. Maba’s demise permitted some members of the old aristocracy, such as Gedel Mboge, to assert control over the area. After the late 1860s and early 1870s, Mboge, the Wolof ruler of Saloum, who only became a Muslim shortly before his own death in 1895, took up arms to recover part of his territory seized by jihad forces.86 There was also a power struggle within Maba’s family. When Maba died a group of elders had chosen Mamur Nderi Bah, Maba’s cousin, to succeed him as the leader of the jihad and also as ruler of Baddibu (Rip). Sait Matty, Maba’s son, challenged this decision by taking up

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arms to fight his uncle. Seizing advantage of this, Biran Ceesay, one of Maba’s generals and a native of Kaur, began carving out a sphere of influence for himself. Ceesay, a famous mid-nineteenth-century military figure in modern Gambian history, came into conflict with both contending parties. This confusion gave Mboge 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 and Saloum, including the port of Kaur, remained under the control of Biran Ceesay, and he began exercising power over the distribution of land in his “kingdom.”87 As Martin Klein notes, in 1871, there were still many empty villages and unused fields in Saloum.88 The wars had driven ceddo as well as peasants from this area, and resettlement was a slow process. The civil war strained relationships between groups sharing land and pasturage because neighboring communities frequently found themselves divided between opposing sides during the civil war.89 Long-held ways of settling disputes broke down because of the larger disintegration of society. The elders’ ability to control young men, who had much incentive to abandon their agricultural villages for the urban areas or for the “wharf” or market towns, was weakened. Eager to escape parental control, these men saw the jihads as an opportunity to lead a better life. Others questioned their society’s age-old customs whereby men inherited the property of their deceased brothers. At the same time, local authorities who previously enjoyed legitimacy began to lose many of their privileges as Islam became increasingly popular.90 Conflict over land had always been a part of the modern history of the lower Gambia region. British records from the nineteenth century contain a number of reports of people there getting involved in disputes over land. Reasons behind the disputes varied. For example, a dispute over the ownership of rice fields erupted between the north bank villages of Sarrakunda and Tandaito. The uprisings intensified existing land conflicts, as in Sabach-Sanjal where the villages of Kumbija and Tandaito used the jihad to appropriate land previously controlled by Sarrakunda—and where we see how traditional conflict resolution broke down. The dispute apparently began during Biran Ceesay’s wars against Sarrakunda. Ceesay allegedly seized rice fields belonging to Sarrakunda and gave them to the people of Tandaito. Neither written

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documents nor oral sources offer insight as to why he did this, but it is possible that Ceesay granted the land to Tandaito as a reward for their support of his military ambitions.91 Ceesay had obtained control of the eastern side of the state of Baddibu, leaving Mamur Nderi Bah controlling the western side. Much of Sabach-Sanjal, the area where the towns of Sarrakunda, Tandaito, and Bambally were located, was under control of Biran Ceesay’s forces. From the late 1860s, the Gambia’s north bank was divided between warring factions. The elders of Tandaito likely gave their support to Ceesay because they wanted access to the fertile rice fields that the earlier settlers of the area monopolized. This is substantiated by oral traditions that claim the founders of Tandaito were strangers, migrants from Niumi-Sikka, some distance away, hosted by the ancestors of the people of nearby Dunyuto,92 and that Sarrakunda was among the oldest settlements in the area.93 Another possible cause of the dispute, however, is conflict over the limits of the boundaries of the rice fields bordering the two villages.94 Whatever the reason, Ceesay’s seizure of the land for Tandaito worsened the relationship between its inhabitants and the people of Sarrakunda. In the 1890s, the Tandaito-Sarrakunda land conflict erupted again, following the extension of British administration into the Gambian hinterland. J. H. Ozanne, the first English commissioner appointed to administer the North Bank Province, recorded the details of this conflict. In his report of 1893, Ozanne wrote, “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.”95 After Ceesay’s demise and the emergence of British administration in the Gambia in the early 1890s, the people of Sarrakunda saw the opportunity to regain their land. Ozanne continued, “The Alkali of Sarrakunda sent one of his wives to work a farm belonging to Tendito and the Alcaide of Tendito took away her hoe and sent her back.”96 But the British did not come to the aid of Sarrakunda. Ozanne reports he “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.”97 Around the same time that Ceesay seized Sarrakunda’s rice fields, Sarrakunda was on the verge of losing other parts of its land to people in the village of Kumbija.98 According to the commissioner’s report of 1898, the land in question originally belonged to the

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father of the alkalo of Sarrakunda. However, “in one of the small wars, this Alcaide’s father was driven out of the town and had to seek refuge elsewhere.”99 The incident likely took place in the 1870s or 1880s, when the region was affected by devastating civil wars. Subsequently, the land fell into the hands of Nderri Raumi, a Wolof chief residing in neighboring Senegal, who rented it to the alkalo of Kumbija. It is not clear when this happened; however, according to a report from when the French administration of Senegal recalled Raumi, the alkalo of Kumbija appropriated the land and worked it without interference until June 1892, when the alkalo of Sarrakunda “put in his claim to the British. They came to blows and the Alcaide of Sarrakunda soon retired from the fray, leaving the Alcaide of Kumbija in possession.”100 The disputed land was about half an acre and located outside the town of Kumbija, two miles from Sarrakunda. Commissioner Ozanne noted that it was a good spot for houses and several villagers were anxious to build on it. 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 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 governor].” Ozanne noted that the two communities “might be deterred from [claiming the land] if rent 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 any time, they would have to give it up.”101 The Last Days of Soninke Rule

Historical sources from the Gambia region suggest that some of those who fought against the Mandinka states during the jihad sometimes took part in the revolts because of socio-political and economic considerations. Many of the fighters, Gray claims, were Serahule, Serer, and Jola mercenaries with little interest in the religious differences between the Soninke and the Muslims. They simply sold “their guns to the higher bidder.”102 Contemporary English

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administrators in Bathurst held the same view. A report, dated 1867, by Colonel D’Arcy noted that all the “controversies with these [groups] have arisen out of the questions of property and plunder, and not out of any outrages upon life.”103 Countless other reports accused the leaders of Muslim revolutions of running an internal slave trade. While much of the negative characterization of Foday Sillah, Foday 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 of many of the marabouts.104 In other words, reasons for participation in the religious wars of the nineteenth century cannot all be found in religious motivations. Young men saw the jihad as an opportunity to better their lot. Possessing a weapon during times of war was empowering, and 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 saw the jihads as an opportunity for revenge. In addition, young men who were either prevented from inheriting their parents’ property or land, or whose parents were still considered strangers, joined the ranks of the militant jihad. For many, the reasons for their participation can be understood from the social and political context. As with nearly every other major event along the Gambia River prior to the most recent times, the desire for control of land played a major role in people’s decisions. Another 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 excessive taxation, and exclusion from owning good land. This adds new meaning to previous interpretations that the Soninke-Marabout wars had resulted merely from tensions between Muslim agriculturalists and established warrior elites. The consequences of these nineteenth-century Gambian jihads were deep and profound. They weakened the authority of some important Soninke families, including their control over land (despite attempts by the English to enable some lineages to keep their authority, most of the kingdom’s residents did not support the continued existence of the mansaya). The wars enabled villages to ally themselves with different, competing groups for control of agricultural land. They also provided disgruntled people the opportunity to join with others to end aristocratic rule and economic

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exploitation. The wars brought about widespread destruction of settlements, as well as, in some cases, interrupting agricultural activity. In one report, a commentator noted that “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 [and] marauders who were attracted by the water-way.”105 Even the physical appearance of the region was irreversibly changed by jihad. John Morgan noted 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 [one’s] lifetime?”106 Existing tensions and jealousies among neighbors, families, and patrons shaped the Soninke-Marabout wars just as the jihads also gave rise to some of those tensions. Uncles and brothers quarreled over matters of inheritance and landlords faced rebellious strangers.

5 Spiritual Persistence through Change Marabouts and Forest-Dwelling Spirits

In the 1820s, Captain Alexander Findlay, Commander of the British force in Gambia, described marabouts as “pests to society . . . all of whom were living upon the public.”1 Findlay’s account does not tell us how marabouts were “pests to society.” But evidence suggests that the marabouts were dependent on a host of people whom they used in turn to increase their wealth and standing in society. Marabouts had influence in society because people believed in the magic powers certain holy men such as marabouts claimed to possess.2 Their spiritual powers were believed to be superior to those of other members of the community. These marabouts used their power to convert “spirit lands” into human habitation or farmlands, which they claimed to own. In this way, marabouts succeeded in exploiting this belief in spirits to regulate access and control of land and people. The marabouts Captain Findlay described would become some of the region’s most important peanut growers and landowners. Their religious authority and privileged access to land allowed them to keep a relatively large number of dependents as wives, children, students, clients, and slaves.3 Even though Findlay’s remarks did not capture the changing ideas about forest-dwelling spirits and how those changes facilitated the expansion of peanut farming, a few years after he wrote, cash-crop farming expanded across the entire region. While materialist interpretations of the growth of cash-crop farming have contributed immensely to our understanding of the local agricultural history of the lower Gambia region, it is time for historians to look beyond materiality. In the Gambia region, the gradual weakening of the belief in spiritual control of the land was vital for

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the growth of commercial agriculture based on cash crops. As Islam expanded, economic transformations followed. It allowed marabouts to conquer spirits and render more land available. From the midnineteenth century, Muslim clerics led the conquest of the “evil” forests and later created settlements on those lands. To the people of this region, large tracts of uncleared forest did not imply, necessarily, an abundance of available land. Environmental historians have explored the many changes brought to the African environment by cash-cropping and European colonization. Many have, for instance, looked at the environmental consequences of colonial incursions, including appropriation of natural resources such as wildlife, forests, minerals, and land. They show that the process of natural resource appropriation (including of land) was at the heart of European colonization in Africa.4 While colonial states in Africa facilitated the exploitation of natural resources, some also became concerned about environmental regulation, including forest protection, game preservation, and soil and water conservation.5 The colonial states “imposed restrictions on a variety of African livelihood practices in local forest areas, from hunting game and cultivating crops to gathering wild foods and herbal medicines.”6 By doing so, conflicts with indigenous populations erupted. Africa’s environment also changed dramatically as technology and the growth of international commodity markets for cash crops dominated local economies.7 While the emphasis on changes induced by colonialism is justified and reveals much about Africa’s changing landscape, it overlooks other important factors which contributed to the adaptations. This chapter offers several examples demonstrating how the gradual weakening of the belief in spiritual control of the land was vital for commercial expansion. As Islam expanded, the influence of marabouts was elevated, and that of hunters and smiths weakened. As marabouts conquered spirits and rendered more land available, they facilitated the expansion of cash-crop production. Interview materials were particularly important, because they allow a focus on this aspect of the history of cash-cropping. These sources show that in the Gambia region, the growth of Islam and the beliefs in marabouts’ abilities to control spirits also transformed land-use practices, and spiritual beliefs continued to inform the social construction of power and peoples’ relationships with the land. Political and spiritual power determined forms of social dependency around land

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ownership. Just like in the Soninke era, “pre-Islamic” beliefs in the power of spirits and jinns to control space remained important even well into the twentieth century; a good bit of Mandinka cultural practice did not completely disappear with the broad acceptance of Islam. Ideas about spiritual possession of land persisted even when the region was experiencing massive socio-economic-political change in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many of the area’s residents continued to believe in the spirits of the ancestors and of forces in the soil, rocks, and trees of the area. Yet, to date very little attention has been paid the effects of the growth that cash-cropping had on local attitudes toward land, especially in the spiritual realm.8 The Growth of Peanut Farming

In 1823, the Wesleyan Mission in the Gambia River region started a “groundnut scheme” on their model farm at MacCarthy Island. They employed Liberated Africans, who were called “recaptives,” to work on the farm. The “recaptives” were slaves freed by the British navy, which in the early nineteenth century began intercepting illegal slaving ships leaving West Africa. In 1824, the British Commander in Bathurst, Sergeant George Rendall, considered resettling about “one or two hundred Liberated Africans” in the region. Rendall proposed that these Liberated Africans would be involved in cultivating the land so as to relieve government from the “expense of their support.”9 By 1836, Reverend William Fox, the head of the Wesleyan Missionary Society on MacCarthy Island, had employed between thirty to forty Liberated Africans in cultivating peanuts on a farm belonging to the mission. The farm was approximately 600 acres of land, which the British administration in Bathurst granted the mission in 1833.10 In 1838, more Liberated Africans arrived in the Gambia, and many of them were given land on which to cultivate the nuts.11 While most Liberated Africans did not take up peanut farming or agriculture, the story highlights an important transformation. In 1833 a small purchase of peanuts was made.12 In 1834, 213 baskets of peanuts left the Gambia for Great Britain, and by the 1850s Gambians were exporting, on average, over ten thousand tons of peanuts a year. By the 1890s, peanut production had become so successful

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that Commissioner J. H. Ozanne remarked in 1893, “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 from elsewhere.”13 By the end of the century, peanut exports rose to about thirty thousand tons a year.14 In 1903, a European observed that “the ground nut crop [was] the natives’ only source of revenue”15 Since the mid-nineteenth century, the cultivation of peanuts had occupied the lives of a majority of the people living along the river.16 The story of how exactly lower Gambia shifted from cultivating many different grains to producing peanuts has not been fully told. Scholars have rightly noted that once peanut farming began, there was an increased demand for labor and more land was cleared for cultivation. They have also shown that the transition to cashcropping introduced fundamental political, economic, and social changes across the region; but they have not realized that the transformation of African spiritual beliefs was vital for commercial expansion.17 The literature demonstrates that the transition of African economies from subsistence agriculture to cash-cropping was relatively rapid. Three broad arguments have been offered in an attempt to explain this change. While the reasons are convincing, they do not provide a full explanation of why more land was made available for the cultivation of cash crops. First, the role of the market (i.e., the demand for peanut oil in Western Europe) has featured prominently in this scholarship. The development of peanut farming in West Africa in general and the Gambia in particular was facilitated by the established commercial networks of trade created by African merchants and European firms.18 It was also aided by the heightened demand for peanut oil in industrial Europe during the nineteenth century and the resulting relatively attractive prices offered to farmers. Thus, African growers simply responded to the markets outside of Africa. For farmers living near points of trade or navigable streams, this meant an increasing involvement in a market economy.19 In other words, the sale of peanuts was not simply a way to acquire cash or European imports; it was crucial to the maintenance of peasant households. As James Searing writes, part of the earnings was reinvested by purchasing livestock, and young dependent males could marry by using money earned from cash crops to pay the bridewealth.20

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Second, some historians argue that, in the nineteenth century, “labour rather than land was the chief constraint on production.”21 John Tosh, for instance, writes that “[many assumed that] tropical Africa was endowed with substantial unused land. Prior to the Second World War, land shortage was, with few exceptions, unknown.”22 Since land was available in abundance, those who wanted land simply asked for it, and were assured of getting it. In some cases, as Klein suggests, it was not even necessary to ask for it, because there was free land for everyone.23 What was in shortage, many would argue, was labor. In the Gambia region, the export of cash crops necessitated the use of large pools of labor. Related to this land-labor paradigm is the third common explanation of why cash-cropping took off. Anthropologist Peter Weil has discussed the significance of slave labor in the development of cashcrop farming in the Gambian Mandinka state of Wuli. He writes, “the economic adaptation of Wuli and many other societies of Senegambia and the Western Sudan to the legitimate trade with Europeans and Americans after the demise of the Atlantic slave trade entailed a dramatic shift to the production of agricultural commodities through the extensive use of slave labor.”24 Pamela Kea seems to agree. She states that “the use of slave labor in groundnut production must not be underestimated as slaves made up from one-third to one-half of the population of most parts of the Western and Central Sudan.”25 In Wuli, participation in the legitimate trade in agricultural commodities meant an increase in the total amount of land cleared by personal male slaves for their owners and themselves to produce more peanuts.26 The use of slave labor in cultivating peanuts was a common practice; it happened in Mali and Senegal, and, as Mohammed Bashir Salau recently demonstrated, in Kano, northern Nigeria.27 In Baddibu, Maba Jahou Bah (discussed in chapter 4) also used slaves to cultivate peanuts.28 Other historical sources on the Gambia support this point. As the 1894 Traveling Commissioner’s report for the North Bank indicates, in Saba (a village located near Kerewan) there were a number of old Mandinka slaves who lived in their own compounds with as many as twenty of their children and grand-children. These slaves took orders from their “headmen” or “masters.” They also worked for their masters “from 6 to 10 am and from 2 to 5 pm; the remainder of the day they worked for themselves.”29 In some communities, slaves were also expected to

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hand over some portion of their produce to their master. According to Commissioner Ozanne, “a tenth part of their coos [was paid] to the Alcaide. The last is also paid by the freeborn, and is called charity.”30 Ozanne further noted that the people of Saba were more exacting. The slave-owners in Saba not only required the labor of all their slaves, they taxed them as well. As late as the 1890s, it was estimated that “every headman has one or more slaves who[m] he feeds but does not cloth[e] . . . at Kaur where there are more old people than elsewhere they expressed their thanks to [the British] for not depriving them of their servants in their old age.”31 While the British colonial officials told many of the slaves in Kiang that they must not live near their old masters, many of them elected to return to their masters.32 The slave, like other dependents in the family, was also given a plot of land to cultivate.33 In the Gambia, slaves worked for their masters at least five days per week. But according to one report, “the remainder of the time he worked for himself.”34 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.”35 The impact of the nineteenth-century religious conflicts on farming activities across the region should, however, not be overlooked. As Martin Klein shows, the cultivation of peanuts created a hunger for labor and from the 1860s the Soninke-Marabout wars produced many of the slaves who worked on the Gambia’s peanut fields.36 By the late nineteenth century, slave labor and migrant farmers were the two main sources of labor for peanut growers.37 But at the turn of the twentieth century, it was getting harder for landowners to rely on slave labor to cultivate peanuts. This was because of the role of the colonial state in weakening the institution of slavery. By encouraging chiefs to fight slavery, traveling commissioners used the language of emancipation. One of the first complaints that the newly appointed traveling commissioner for the north bank faced was the refusal of the slaves of Saba to work for their masters. According to Commissioner Ozanne, the alkalo of Saba complained to him that one of his old Mandinka slaves, Dua Burama Ceesay, had refused to work and had told all the other slaves that they were free.38 Many former slaves tried to emancipate themselves. But while declining, the exploitation of slave labor continued in Saba, as in many other areas across the region.

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Some scholars focusing on other regions suggest that the exploitation of slave labor by peanut farmers reduced dramatically in the twentieth century.39 For instance, James Searing contends that by 1903 slave labor was no longer crucial in peanut production in the lower Senegal basin.40 Landowners were able to respond to the demand for peanut exports by seeking labor from a variety of sources: family, migrant farmers, and slaves, as Alieu Jeng and Kenneth Swindell have shown.41 Swindell and Jeng on the one hand and Klien on the other all agree that, at first, when peanut farming began, family labor was most important. Up until the 1860s, local residents such as the Serahule often employed the services of their women, children, servants, and domestic slaves to cultivate their peanut farms.42 The long-distance, seasonal, and periodic movements of young men working in the peanut sector as clerks, porters, and migrant farmers played a role in the growth of peanut farming.43 The expansion of peanut production was greatly encouraged by the presence of thousands of migrant farmers in the Gambia River region.44 George Brooks cites one of the first recorded accounts of this population movement in the governor’s annual report for 1848. This report shows that labor migration was already well under way less than a dozen years after the large-scale commercialization of peanut farming had commenced.45 Swindell also cites the reports of Bertrand-Bocande, who commented on the inhabitants from the interior entering into the peanut trade, and on the “caravanes de travailleurs” who came into the neighboring Casamance in the rainy season to cultivate peanuts on the land around the European trading posts.46 Mandinkas distinguished the rainy-season migrant farmers from strangers they called lungtangolu. The rainy-season migrant farmers were called samaalalu, the equivalent of the Wolof terms nawetaan kat or surga.47 Many of the migrants came from Mali or northern Senegal. The Mandinka called the Malian migrants to the Gambia Tilibunka—meaning people from tilibo (the east). Hundreds, if not, thousands of other migrants came from Casamance and GuineaBissau, south of the Gambia River. The migrants from Mali and Guinea-Bissau included Masuwanka and speakers of various Mande dialects. As Brooks writes, some of them were “The Sera-Wollies 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

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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 proportion of the groundnuts exported is raised in this manner.”48 In northern Senegal, where declining rainfall and vegetation posed challenges to the livelihoods of farmers, the migrants were mostly a diverse group of Fula Serer and Wolof speakers.49 Not all migrant farmers were long-distance migrants. Several young men “leave their father’s yards, and go to another town, where they work on the same system as the other strangers.”50 Most preferred to return home after the rainy season, though some of them settled in their host villages and were allocated land. For instance, in 1893, a stranger called Lamin wanted to settle in the village of Eliassa on the Gambia’s north bank in Baddibu from a neighboring 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.”51 Before settling permanently in the lower Gambia River, several of these men married local women. Through this, a good number of them acquired land from their host families and had children who 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.”52 For example, Musa Konateh, who lives in Bafuloto, told me that his father, Edrissa Konateh, came from Mali about a century ago and settled in Niumi near the village of Memeh (closer to the border with Jokadu). He left Jokadu and went to Bafuloto where the almamy (imam) and alkalo, Yoro Sowe, hosted him as a stranger. Yoro also gave him land and a wife, Penda Sowe. Edrissa and Penda had many children, including Musa.53 Migrant farmers were therefore able to take over surplus land for cash-crop farming. As more land was made available to farmers and their families, more migrants poured into the Gambia to cultivate peanuts. Before the end of the nineteenth century, most migrant farmers tended to settle on the Gambia’s north bank. The Wolof and Mandinka settlements in Baddibu, on the north bank, were among the earliest areas to cultivate peanuts as cash crops, and peanut cultivation required labor, which meant a demand for new workers. So like the family of thirty that settled in Bantankiling in November 1892, numerous other families migrated to the peanut-growing

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areas and were provided with land. Through this system of dependency, prominent landowners accumulated wealth and power and in turn used that to attract more dependents.54 Across the river, however, it appears that the expansion of peanut production on the south bank, particularly in Foni, was somewhat slower than in the north bank. As late as 1895, colonial records indicate that the main crop the Jola produced was corn (maize), palm oil and most importantly, rice. Rice farming was still important especially in the Mandinka communities near or along the river and swamplands. According to the commissioner of the district, only a few of the Jola “took to groundnuts.”55 By the first few decades of the twentieth century virtually everyone in the south bank was involved in some aspect of peanut cultivation or marketing. Migrant farmers played a critical role in expanding peanut farming. For instance, in 1893, Commissioner Sitwell estimated that about “twelve to fourteen hundred Fulas from Kabada moved from Kanjuranta to settle in town near Jarrol.”56 Several other migrant farmers who arrived in the North Bank came from the banks of the Gambia River: Saloum, Kiang, and Fulladu.57 Normally, strangers arrived without money and left their families behind. They looked for a landlord to provide them with seeds, food, housing, and protection. He also loaned them tools, and granted land.58 In return, the landlord received from the “strange farmer two day’s work per week and one dollar out of every ten that the stranger gets for his crops.”59 On the remaining days, however, the stranger would cultivate his own peanuts on a plot of land that the landlord provided. In other situations, the landlord would also receive ten percent of the strange farmer’s crop after the harvest once the farming season was over.60 According to a colonial source, this “is the only way in which land is leased.”61 While the stranger had obligations to his landlord, the latter too had obligations toward the former. In general, the landlord held himself responsible for the stranger’s good behavior. The landlord was also regarded as a “father figure.” An unmarried tenant frequently looked to his landlord for help in amassing the bridewealth 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 bad year, he could ask his landlord for help. This was like a contract because should any party to the

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agreement die, his successor, as family head, would have to renew the arrangement. The stranger was forced to be both marginal and partly included within the community.62 Cooperation between stranger-farmers and their hosts was always necessary because of the power landlords had in providing access to land.63 This 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 ethnic groups prospective tenants were to be accepted only if they were “well-mannered,” not “ungrateful,” “honest” and “likeable.” Compatibility was important since in some instances the tenant’s household would become virtually a part of his landlord’s household. The question of labor was extremely important as, before the introduction of the plow or the mechanization of peanut farming, the cultivation of the crop was labor-intensive. There was little or no mechanization. Farmers used simple tools such as the hoe, cutlasses, axes, rakes, and other basic implements. My informants described the old method of cultivating peanuts as konko, which involved simple farming tools and methods of sowing and weeding the nuts. Landowners needed many young men and women to clear, sow, weed, and harvest their fields. Because of the influx of migrant farmers, several new agricultural villages were founded. In 1893, Commissioner Sitwell noted that “many new towns are being built, some are offshoots of the towns, and others are being built by people coming over the French territory; whenever possible I advise them to build their new towns and to clear their new land as near the Creek and River as possible.”64 The commissioner’s report noted that in Kiang, the “Wongoro people,” who might have been ethnically Fula, settled the region in relatively large numbers.65 These migrants came from between Januba and Lau Batori in Kabada and founded new villages. The narrated history of Kabada—a Fula-dominated region in parts of Kiang and Jarra, and extending into Casamance—has it that the original inhabitants of Nioro (i.e., the ancestors of the present inhabitants of the village) were predominantly farmers and herdsmen who constantly moved from one place to another in search of pasture for their cattle. Kabada, like tilibo, was considered a center (and for some a homeland). According to oral traditions, the founders of Nioro (also known as Nioro Kabada) adopted that name so as to remind people that its inhabitants came from Kabada. Over time,

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the village hived off and the settlement was named Jattaba, hence Nioro Jattaba. In the nineteenth century, Kabada was widely considered to be part of Fulladu, but its physical location is within Kiang West, located within a mile of the Bintang bolong. In the colonial period, some people from Nioro moved to settle in a village in Kiang Central and referred to the new settlement as Nioro Angalleh (“Angalleh” means “English”). Around the same time, more Fula moved to the Casamance region of Senegal and established a new settlement they called Nioro Fransi (referring to the village of Niori then located within French territory).66 By 1906, more migrant farmers from French territory were arriving in the Gambia region. They wanted to plant peanuts.67 Across the river, in lower and central Baddibu, the population was estimated to be twenty thousand in 1902. The Traveling Commissioner stated in 1905 that practically every inch of land in these two regions was cultivated.68 Many of these migrant farmers settled in and around the wharf towns such as Bambally, Tamtenda, Sarrakunda, and Kunjata. These were popular destinations for migrants because of the vibrant economic activity around the wharfs.69 Katchang, Kaur, Farafenni, Balanghar, and Nianimaru, as well as the border villages of Nokunda, N’Gen Sanjal, and Kansala also had many strangers.70 Although it is likely that many of the strangers who settled on the banks of the Gambia River did not plan to stay in the area for long, a sizeable number of migrants did settle permanently. Several other Fula and Wolof villages were founded in the early twentieth century. For instance, a 1923 report recorded that, “in Upper Niumi [as in other parts of the region] the crop (peanuts) was larger than last year, mainly due to the new villages started recently in the so-called “forests.”71 One of the consequences of the growth of new settlements was the shortage of agricultural land in some areas. For instance, in 1894, the Commissioner of the South Bank Province observed that “there [was] no land in the whole of Kiang, Jarra and Niamina.”72 Another consequence of these developments was the growth of commercial agriculture, which led to the destruction of much of the forest cover.73 As discussed in chapter 3, there is a general feeling among many of my informants that the spirits which inhabited the swamps (e.g., the ninki nanka) were far more malicious than the spirits of the jeeri (e.g., the kondorong).

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At the same time, some old villages relocated to places considered better for both human settlement and peanut farming. For instance, in Saloum, in the late nineteenth century, the alkalo, almamy, and nearly all the people of Panchang left the old site of their village to establish a new town they called New Panchang.74 People moved from their old sites for a variety of reasons. First, some considered moving away from the river and the swamps was a necessary spiritual and practical retreat—that is, to avoid malicious spirits. Second, some big rice-growing communities near the river relocated away from the swamps to the sandy regions, where the soils were more appropriate for peanut cultivation. In the past, it was in areas near creeks or marshes where the most important rice fields were found, and while Mandinka men cultivated basso (Guinea corn, which the Mandinka called the “hungry grass”), findo, sorghum, millet, and maize, women cultivated rice in those locations.75 Third, others, like Panchang, chose their new location because it was close to a wharf. 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.”76 In any case, the relocation away from the swamps could be interpreted as villagers placing more value on the type of land where peanuts were grown, and these were the lands that men cultivated. Moving village sites away from the rice-fields forced the primary rice growers—the women—to walk a mile or two before they could reach their farms. The following remarks by the commissioner sum this up: Insufficient rice is grown for the needs of the population, and large quantities are imported to make up the deficiency. There has been a marked increase in the acreage devoted to the cultivation of these foodstuffs. The farms are worked by the men, though amongst the Jollofs and the Fulas the women assist, especially away from the swamps of the neighbourhood. . . . The larger grains known as basso and kinto have done very well.77

While the drop in rice production was due to a number of factors, this quote shows a shift from rice to cash crops. This shift led to the neglect and marginalization of rice farming. Rice was no longer the “king’s crop”—borrowing the phrase from Ugo Nwokezi.78

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Spirituality and Ecological Change

Assuming that people could simply walk into an uninhabited forest and clear any land they wanted is incorrect. Often, people consulted and relied on others for access to land. One of the key developments that took place in the Gambia region in the nineteenth century was the rapid expansion of Islam. Although the jihads might have contributed to the growth of Islam, Muslim clerics might have played an even bigger role. Between the 1860s and the 1940s the Gambia River region could boast of a long list of Muslim clerics locally known as marabouts. These marabouts included Njimeti Fatty of Toniataba, Cherno Omar Jallow of Medina Bafuloto, Serigne Mass Kah of Medina Mass, and a host of others who founded villages of their own. These clerics were responsible for opening up new uninhabited and unused land by either converting the spirits to Islam or driving those that refused to convert out. While many of these marabouts were originally Fula, there were also Wolof, Jahanke, and Mandinka marabouts. Many of them migrated into the region from Futa Toro, Pakao (Casamance), or other Islamic centers where they are said to have spent time studying. People also say that these individuals were not only learned Islamic scholars; they understood Islamic sciences and mysticism. As Traveling Commissioner of the North Bank Province, Major R. W. Macklin, wrote in 1932, “Some of these teachers are really highly educated men. [O]ne, a Mandingo, now dead, . . . evolved a calendar whereby he could convert the days of the moon into days of the month, and even overcame the difficulty of leap year.”79 Abdulai Oudh Sheik Sidia, a Mauritanian scholar, visited the Gambia in June 1933. During his visit, he praised Arafang Braima Darboe by stating, “[Darboe] was well versed in the Koran and the more advanced books of Muhammedan Law.” The oral sources describe marabouts such as Sheriff Malaien of Farafenni, Arafang Braima Darboe of Sitanunku, and Arafang Kemu Jammeh of Essau as waliyu. The waliyu is considered a learned man. He was also believed to have “eyes in the night.” These clerics commanded respect at a time when non-Islamic practices of divination were losing it. The traditional hunter was no longer a profession or occupation that most people aspired to. The types of divination hunters performed were seen as un-Islamic; both hunters and blacksmiths were known to consult idols and bad spirits. What hunters did was

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viewed as more or less synonymous to Soninkeyaa. Similarly, a marabout had more prestige than a blacksmith. Sons of griots, smiths, and hunters all wanted to learn the Quran with the hope of learning the secrets of Islamic mysticism. The most prominent marabouts were often wealthy. As historian Charlotte Quinn noted decades ago, one of the wealthiest men in Baddibu, in the second half of the nineteenth century, was a local marabout called Jatta Jagne.80 He was not only the alkalo of Njabakunda, he was also considered to be the leader of the Mandinka Muslims in Baddibu.81 Jagne was one of Maba Jahou Bah’s “principal war leaders.”82 To fight the mansa of Baddibu, Maba enlisted Jatta’s support.83 As the head of a big compound, an alkalo and a marabout, Jagne likely commanded many dependents who carried out his farming activities. He must have had access to large tracts of land, where he cultivated peanuts. There are countless stories of lower Gambian marabouts performing miracles and karamas (wonders). For instance, one of the great wonders of Njimbeti Fatty—a cleric who came from Kiang Manar— that residents of Toniataba share is how he conquered the perilous forests of Waali Jalibolo (situated near the bolong or tributary), the forest of Jalakong, Binke (located in the flood recession area which the residents of Toniataba would later transform into productive rice farms) and the forest of Gumdaa.84 Before his arrival in the area, these forests were believed to be populated by spirits, many of whom caused problems for people who attempted to settle in or near their dwellings. Along with his student, Sillading Demba Taal—a Toranka man from the Taal family of Juffure—Njimbeti led prayers to defeat the spirits. He performed a khalwa during which he was able to unlock the secrets that would help him in his fight against the spirits.85 In Niumi, another marabout, Serigne Mass Kah, founded Medina Serigne Mass.86 According to oral sources, the Kah traced their origins back to Senegal, and Serigne Mass Kah settled in Niumi where he and his son, Momadu Kah, “liberated” the forests of Banalenge and Bantangkoi from jinns and kondorongs (kondorongs were humanlike jinns that were very short and malevolent). It is believed that kondorongs would appear to a lone individual in either the bush or their farms and ask to wrestle. If the kondorong threw the farmer to the ground, the latter would either die or be paralyzed.87 In addition to fighting spirits, Kah also established a school where he

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taught “advanced Arabic.”88 Another marabout, Cherno Omar Jallow, the son of Cherno Momodou Jallow, founded the village of Medina Cherno (or Medina Bafuloto). Oral traditions claimed that Cherno Omar Jallow, from Futa, came to settle in Niumi, probably around the end of the nineteenth century or the beginning of the twentieth. That is why the Mandinka gave them the name, Toranko, which means people “from Toro.” By referring to Cherno Omar as a Toranko, the Mandinka were simply saying that they were strangers to the Gambia River region. However, the Torankos like Cherno Omar founded villages of their own, and they became important landowners who exercised the role of host, jatigi. They possessed power with an element of this privilege being ownership or control over land that helped guarantee their wealth, status, and sense of being elites. The elders of Jurunku who gave him land where Cherno could set up his own village hosted him. According to alkalo Dawdo Sowe, Cherno Omar Jallow defeated the ninki nanka of Jumankari by performing a khalwa. It was during the khalwa, Sowe claimed, that he devised the “weapon” that allowed him to drive away the spirits from the Jumankari forest.89 He offered sacrifices (goats and cows) and buried powerful amulets and poured naso (spiritually reinforced liquid often made by writing Quranic verses on a slate and then washing the powerful secret prayers into a container). 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 faro was the home of a wicked ninki nanka. This area was part of land that Colonial Commissioner Emilius Hopkinson described in the 1920s as the significant portion of Niumi’s land that was wooded and uninhabited. The resident Mandinka “[thought] of [that] land as being inhabited by bad devils and spirits.”90 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.”91 A man mentioned in an interview that some open land close to his village was called mbay dee (meaning “cultivate and die”). Anyone who tried to farm on that land was killed by spirits.92 He claimed that in the past these lands were numerous in the area because the spirits and jinns in the area outnumbered the people. Because of Cherno Omar’s spiritual power, it is believed, the marabout drove the ninki nanka into the river. He also drove out the notorious spirits in the forests of Nambu and for many years

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successfully cultivated parts of Jumankari. Upon successfully defeating the spirits, 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.93 Building on his legacy, one of his sons, Alhagie Cherno Baba Jallow, succeeded in strengthening the reputation of Medina Bafuloto as a center of Islamic education. An English source dating to the 1920s cited Medina as an important center of Islamic education.94 Jallow’s story, or that of any of these marabouts, lacks any historical treatment in spite of the fact that they could provide a window for understanding spiritual power as it relates to land. While the growth of Islam brought numerous changes in the way people used their land, many Muslims continued to hold some beliefs on the power of jinns and the tendency for them to live in certain forests. Lower Gambian Muslims classified spirits into the dyuldi (the Muslim jinn) and the keferi (the heathens).95 Only the evil, heathen spirits cause trouble for human beings. This classification reflects the integration of Islamic and non-Islamic beliefs. However, the impact of Islamization gradually challenged some of the preexisting beliefs in spirits and spirit lands. Typically, before any peanut farmer started clearing an uncultivated forest, they would consult a marabout, who would use divination to ensure that the land was safe and a productive place to live and farm. The farmer would then be asked to offer sacrifices and protect the place by burying spiritual objects, made by the marabout, on the land itself. Marabouts were well-positioned to lead the expansion of cash-cropping in the nineteenth century. With the growth of Islam, Soninke chiefs were already weakened and hunters and blacksmiths lost their ability to attract and keep as many dependents as they used to have. It was the marabouts who benefited from the attacks on slavery by the colonialists, as they had talibe labor. These developments, I argue, reflected spiritual transformations as well as economic ones. Given the immense spiritual power they had, clerics assisted prominent families to solidify their power base. With their help, local chiefs and their lineages could get rid of evil spirits which occupied their forestlands. Clerical work (especially Islamic learning) represented a different kind of distinction and power, and one not necessarily under the control of chiefs. However, sources hint that the ruling class offered many clerics land, because they brought with them people, material wealth, and spiritual power.

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With this land and other related privileges, clerics were able to reinforce their power and standing in society. Marabouts manipulated spiritual beliefs to attract following. They in turn converted their religious clients into political and economic retainers, but when compared to the chiefs, the power that marabouts held was less concentrated, and marabouts flourished in societies after the very fabric of the old Mandinkanized states was torn. Moreover, the story of Cherno Omar and others reveal that when some Mandinka elders discuss conquest they are not simply referring to a military event, but a conquest of spirits. With the growth of peanut farming, many people found good reasons to invent stories about how their ancestors once settled an area or hunted in a nearby forest. People began to tell stories about how their parents or grandparents conquered an evil forest, transforming the land into viable farmland. So-called virgin land cleared and cultivated “cannot in any circumstances (at least in theory) be dispossessed.”96 The people in a better chance to take advantage of this opportunity were the “traditional” landowners—those who had a strong claim to the ownership of the land. Another group of people this opportunity tended to benefit were the marabouts, such as the almamys and the Foday (a name referring to a Quranic teacher), who not only were believed to have the powers to fight evil spirits and extend their cultivated land areas, but also had the means to support a number of dependents, sometimes including slaves, talibes (Quranic students), and foster children, as well as their own biological children. Talibe Labor

The performance of karamas (wonders) are important because they helped augment the reputation and standing of marabouts in society. This in return helped them to attract more dependents and followers. The adaptation of African spiritual symbols into Islamic practice might have made the Muslim faith more meaningful for people. A comprehensive listing of all lower Gambian marabouts and their towns is yet to be developed. In the early nineteenth century, the possibilities of residential Quranic study were limited in the Gambia region. There were probably only a few pockets of Islamic learning centers to which students were attracted. However, by the 1860s, there were many flourishing Muslim villages known for Islamic

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teaching.97 Two decades later, marabouts of the south bank had formed religious enclaves, which provided a destination for talibes, who became an important source of labor in the peanut fields of their teachers.98 This development transformed the region’s settlement patterns forever, altering social mores. Many of the migrants to the Gambia region were Muslims.99 According to Macklin, by the 1930s, “there [were] schools in nearly every village at which the Koran [was] taught.”100 Governor D’Arcy referred to the Serahule (whom he described as a nomadic “tribe” of Mohammedan farmers from Senegambia) as being the principal cultivators of peanuts.101 But these migrants were not only Muslims; a good number claimed to be marabouts. These clerics settled in villages or created their own, attracted students and followers, and performed their magico-religious work, which the Mandinka call moriya.102 Over time they built followings in their neighboring villages. Numerous oral sources suggest that many of the “marabout villages” located along the Gambia River were founded between 1850 and 1920. As noted earlier, examples of such villages include Medina Bafuloto on the north bank, and Toniataba on the south bank. As early as the 1840s and 1850s, north bank chiefs and marabouts relied on their slaves, migrant labor, and other dependents to produce peanuts. Aside from slavery or the labor of migrant farmers, lineage heads, especially in Mandinka communities, were often successful in mobilizing labor outside of their households, through kafos (social groups or associations), village work groups arranged in male and female age-sets.103 As Kea notes, “it was not uncommon for Islamic brotherhoods to make use of the labour of their disciples in the cultivation of groundnuts.”104 Talibe labor was not just limited to that offered by the marabout’s own students; it included the labor of neighbors and followers. Because the marabouts were often respected elders—important community leaders—elders of nearby villages would often mobilize their young men to work on the marabout’s farms. Thus, while slave labor contributed immensely to this growth, one should not overlook the important role of “free” labor. Marabout settlements such as Daru Rilwan, Medina Serigne Mass, and Toniataba had many talibes. Quranic students worked and studied under their teacher and spiritual guide, working in their master’s fields, when they were not going about their learning.105 They worked hard, tending the fields and cattle by day, and studying at

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night or before dawn.106 Hard work, especially in the fields, was believed to have moral and religious importance, in so far as it keeps the mind and body away from temptation.107 Work performed in the service of a sheikh was regarded as an offering to God, through the founder of the brotherhood or through one’s marabout.108 The labor that these students offered enabled marabouts to farm large areas of land. Writing about the Murid of Senegal, Donal Cruise O’Brien describes the Quranic School as a “working daara.”109 He writes that, historically, the daara was an instrument of exploiting the labor of Murid-talibes and followers. In part, O’Brien’s interpretation of the history of the Muridiyya focused mostly on the political and economic dimensions of the organization. Recently, Cheikh Babou turned our attention to the religious motivations of the brotherhood’s leaders and their followers, while not neglecting the role of politics and the economy. Rather than describe the daara as a “working daara,” Babou sees it as a “daara tarbiyya”—an institution that focused primarily on the “education of the soul.”110 The daara was obviously a source of voluntary labor and many of the students were happy to work for their marabouts. While a colonial report noted that “the natives have the greatest objection to sending their children away to a large Mahomedan town to what they call ‘learn book’ . . . [because] it is the loss of labour,”111 oral sources indicate that this was rarely the case. Muslim communities with significant numbers of talibes included Medina Serign Mass, Aljamdu, Medina Seedia, and Daru-Rilwan, all in the north bank, and Toniataba and Sikunda on the south bank. Some of these centers of Islam predated Medina Bafuloto. With this voluntary labor available to them, marabouts earned the reputation of being the most successful farmers in the region. Although Muslim clerics used slave labor, it is probably true that their economic survival was not significantly dependent on servitude alone. Since clients and students worked the lands of Muslim clerics willingly, coercion or violence was unnecessary, and they could often avoid the expensive route of acquiring slaves. Slavery was one of many types of dependency, existing alongside many other types of labor.112 Building ties with a marabout also provided people with access to land. Marabouts often gave some of their most loyal followers wives, built them compounds and maintained their families.

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Certainly, marabouts were not the only peanut growers. In virtually every household the labor that young men and women provided was crucial for the production of peanuts. The head of the family usually had a huge peanut farm. There was also a millet and maize field for the family. Young men and senior wives were allowed to have their own fields. The compound head was responsible for providing land to members of his household. While senior wives, brothers, and sons of this man owned the produce of their labor, the land which they cultivated was perceived to be the property of the entire family, but under the control of the most senior member of the household. The compound head thus often exercised some control on the income of his dependents. But if a land-owner left “his town with his family and settl[ed] elsewhere, the land would be held by the headman of the town or given by him temporarily to someone else, but if any of the family of the rightful owner returned they could claim the land and it would be restored.”113 As stated earlier, by 1923, the amount of peanuts produced in Upper Nuimi grew, partly because of new villages, many of them located in areas that were part of the so-called forest.114 Although there is no written record of the numbers of talibes that went to Medina Bafuloto to study under Cherno Omar and his son, a report in the 1890s show that “at Suarakunda [Suwareh-kunda] there were 20 strangers from Pakau (from the middle Casamance region) who had come to that town to study under the Almami.”115 In an interview, a disciple of Cherno Omar’s son, Basirou Jallow, told me that Medina Bafuloto had seen several hundred Quranic students, if not more.116 Many of these people, as in Suwareh-kunda’s case, “cultivated a small portion of land to support themselves and paid Alcaide rent for using the land.”117 The marabouts tended to have the biggest farms. In addition to benefiting from free labor, marabouts were among the first to use horses and other animal-drawn tools to cultivate peanuts. Wealthy individuals like Arafang Braima Darboe bought horses, cows, and mechanized tools such as seed-sowing machines and plows, whereas most commoners were only able to afford donkeys. In many villages, farmers who relied on donkeys were generally perceived as being poor. In contrast, horses and cows were signs of wealth and prestige. Moreover, with cash crops the economic value of land was augmented. From the oral sources, it seems that relationships between landlord and strangers was important, but as a commodity/

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capital-generating relationship began to take shape, competition for land started heightening. As demonstrated in the previous chapter, while family ties were generally very strong, and the head of the family had considerable authority over any matters which concerned the family, jealousy and competition between half-brothers and co-wives sometimes complicated matters. If the family agreed among themselves, the land was usually cultivated for the benefit of all members. If, however, they could not agree, the land was subdivided among the sons, and in some cases the daughters, in varying proportions.118 Records of this are rather scanty, but Mandinka informants told me that sometimes households or even villages would split. In Mandinka, the offshoot of a parent village or compound is called bajonko. If dependents wanted economic independence, they could either move away to become migrant farmers or they could borrow land from other members of the community, though it was very difficult to escape the system of social dependency. As a twentieth-century colonial source noted, “The powers of the parent over his children are absolute” but conflicts over land were not unheard-of.119 I collected many stories of disputed lands in which claimants resorted to fighting over land spiritually. Contestants would consult marabouts who would give them mankano and other powerful medicines with the hopes of keeping rivals out of the land.120 A 1906 source described the Mandinka as “a very superstitious people; they cover themselves with gri-gri and also put it on their stacks of groundnuts, corn, etc. also on bearing fruit trees; this later is called ‘mankano’ and is supposed to do bodily harm to the thief.”121 Only a relatively few cases of land disputes in the rural areas have been reported in colonial records. Mandinka farmers and their Wolof or Fula counterparts rarely went to court, and preferred burying objects on disputed lands or casting spells prepared by marabouts. Defeat of the Spirits, Destruction of the Environment

The rapid disappearance of the West African forests, including sacred forests has received some attention from Africanists.122 Several factors have been identified as causing it. Historians have explored the environmental consequences of colonial incursions, including appropriation of natural resources such as wildlife, timber,

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minerals, and land. This process was at the heart of European colonization in Africa.123 In addition, other research has focused on the economic and political factors that stimulated cash-crop production and drove shifts in land-use practices.124 Combined with a cheap and efficient transportation system, demand for African agricultural produce in Western Europe stimulated a boom in cash-crop production, impacting the forest.125 While the focus on Europe and European colonial states’ activities in restructuring the social and ecological landscapes of their African subjects is warranted, it is equally important to consider other factors. As peanut production expanded, more land was needed for cultivation. What was a sparsely populated rural economy, within which cultivable land was allowed generous fallow time or was not cultivated at all, became a more populous, much more commercial agriculture in which little tillable space escaped cultivation altogether. Rotation cycles became shorter, and much land was under permanent cropping.126 But as this study argues, focus on this point is a bit narrow. An important connection has been drawn between the rapid disappearance of sacred groves and the spread of Christianity or Islam.127 Some have claimed that conversion to both faiths contributed “to the neglect of cultural beliefs that are in support of the sacred forests.”128 The rate of firewood-collecting, hunting of wild animals, and expansion of farmlands into previously known sacred forests was intensified. But this analysis is too narrowly centered on sacred groves and overlooks the numerous sites thought to belong to wild spirits. There is need for an in-depth historical treatment of this topic by adding examples that offer some perspective on environmental history and change in land-use practices. Evidence from the Gambia region reveals a close relationship between the growth of cash-cropping, spiritual change, and forest loss. In this region, farming, like in much of tropical Africa, was based on shifting cultivation, 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, it was then permitted to return to fallow under forest cover.129 Due to this practice, much of the Gambia’s vegetation disappeared, especially over the last century or so. As noted earlier, in the eighteenth century, European travelers to the area described the land as “generally covered with woods,” especially in the southwest, where palm trees dotted the landscape.130 But slash-and-burn agriculture contributed

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immensely to the severe forest loss.131 By annually burning the grass, farmers made sure that “the brushwood is kept down; except in dense jungles, or under the shade of large trees, where the grass cannot grow.”132 Bushfires were frequent. The use of burning as a method to clear a piece of land or a forest likely intensified with the growth of cash-crop farming in the second half of the nineteenth century.133 An 1884 British report mentions a growing problem of exhausted soil, 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.”134 Another report noted in the 1890s that the “forests [in the North Bank] are disappointing, the trees being small, and far apart, no doubt due to the land having been previously in cultivation and abandoned for richer land further north.”135 One by one the spirit lands kept getting smaller and smaller. Jumankari, Bulakinte and Banalenge all became farmland and villages. Though the spiritual influence on ideas about land occupation lasted into the twentieth century, it was at a minimal level. For instance, under the leadership of the alkalolu and other Muslim families, the residents of Dumbutu continued to attach considerable importance to sacred trees and other respected locations throughout the area. Mark Schoonmaker Freudenberger and Nancy Ann Sheehan discovered “five sacred trees, for instance, . . . around Dumbutu. Some areas are used for prayers, while others are the location of ceremonies organized by women to call for rain.”136 But much like what happened in the Beng forest in Côte d’Ivoire, as the trees the spirits called home got destroyed, the forest spirits moved in search of new homes.137 In 1912, Englishman Henry F. Reeve commented on the result of this transition. He wrote that in the Gambia “there [were] no traces of forest left of sufficient area to form a reserve.”138 Sources also suggest a rapid depletion in the quality of soil. One colonial report noted, “the old soils, with the exception of the old mangrove forests and some swamps, are deficient in minerals needed for cultivation.”139 Historian James Webb shows that by the time of World War II good agricultural land on the uplands were scarce. Yields from the farms were relatively low because of the region’s exhausted soils.140 The 1905 commissioner’s report for lower Baddibu noted, “The country though eminently suitable for

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the cultivation of the ground nut is not by any means as fertile as Niumi and Jokadu, it is very open and very sandy.”141 However, the rich grazing land, with stunted bamboo groves scattered across it, still offered good pasturage and few obstacles to the movements of the Fula pastoralists and warriors.142 The Changing Meaning of Land

Land was tied to the production and reproduction of social and political relationships.143 Through the first two decades of the twentieth century, farmers living in the Gambia region were forced to attach themselves to members of prominent families in order to support themselves. Lacking spiritual (and political) power but needing land to cultivate, they turned to marabouts who they believed had the power to manipulate the supernatural world. Local Gambian traditions indicate that before the spread of Islam across the region the spirits in lands were so numerous that land for human habitation or agricultural purposes was limited. However, through the work of many marabouts, these spirits were conquered or converted to Islam, thus rendering the land available to humans. Indeed, in much of Africa, various meanings and symbols were associated with the land and these meanings and symbols changed over time.144 Control over land in much of tropical Africa was tied up with the major religions, as with kinship or politics, and land related people to other people, spirits, or things.145 Usually, those who could persuade others to think that their ancestors pioneered a place by either conquest (defined broadly), settling an area first, or manipulating the supernatural world, could establish claims to a particular plot.146 Until recently, one element seldom considered in studies of land ownership in Africa was the reality of the perceived spiritual world that surrounds many sub-Saharan African societies. Outsiders tended to be aware of this spiritual realm, but frequently could not learn details about spiritual beliefs or considered the role of spirits in African cultures as something of a curiosity. But in some societies, at least, spirits were the original occupants and possessors of the land, and their control of land persisted over the centuries in spite of the changing economic, social, and political forces. Such belief in spirits increased the value of land beyond any strictly utilitarian logic.147

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In the Gambia region, cash-cropping succeeded due partly to the transformation of the spiritual landscape. The population of the Gambia River area was growing especially at the turn of the twentieth century (though census data for this period is not very satisfactory). But oral sources suggest that cultivators came to the banks of the Gambia River in search of suitable land where they could grow and market peanuts. To respond to the demand for peanuts, it was necessary to convert “spirit lands” into usable lands. As a result of this shift in the belief in spirits, the social configuration of the Gambia River region was forever altered. While marabouts were not the only important producers of peanuts, they played a distinctive role in the “peanut revolution.” Many marabouts such as Jatta Jagne became influential landowners because of their ability to lay claim on lands that people believed were previously infested with evil spirits, by either appeasing the spirits or driving them away. With the growth of peanut production in the 1830s, many migrant farmers, young men (freeborn, talibes, and slaves) turned to marabouts like Cherno Omar Jallow, Njimbeti Fatty, and Arafang Braima Darboe for knowledge, protection, and access to land. By the end of the nineteenth century, marabouts had replaced the hunters whose influence, at least in Gambian popular memory, appears to have dwindled.

6 The Politicization of Chieftaincy A New Generation of Chiefs

Sometime during the second half of the nineteenth century, an important family from the village of Katchang, in lower Baddibu, left to settle on land located along the Suwareh Kunda Creek on the Miniminiyang bolong. The town they founded was named Kerewan. However, the family kept ownership of its ancestral land in Katchang.1 They left the land under the custodianship of the alkalo of the village to rent out as he liked. The condition was that the alkalo and elders of Kerewan were always called in when a new alkalo “had to be appointed in Katchang.” When the newly appointed British traveling commissioner, J. H. Ozanne, chose a new alkalo in Katchang in 1893, the Kerewan alkalo sent his messenger to “approve the appointment” and put the new alkalo in charge of the Fatty lands.2 In accordance with local customs, the Fatty family had rights to that land and, it had to be returned if any member of the family demanded it.3 As stated earlier, before the imposition of British colonial rule over the Gambia region and before militant jihadists succeeded in seizing power, prominent Mandinka families such as the Fatty of Katchang exercised more control over land.4 Also, when peanut production took off in the mid-nineteenth century, migrants who came to the Gambia region to grow peanuts rented land from local chiefs and families such as the Fatty, which by 1890 amounted to “three dollars (presumably per acre) or they gave a share of the crop or labor to their landlord.”5 But soon the practice of consulting the elders of the Fatty lineage on matters related to Katchang land was about to change. How did colonialism impact lower Gambian social and political arrangements around land control? What happened to the close link between chieftaincy and land control?

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Colonial laws eroded chiefs’ and alkalos’ control over land, settlement, and taxes. They created ideas of communal ownership of land, and of ownerless land. By focusing on this important political shift, the chapter describes a post-Islamic transformation of land under the colonial regime. Once again, land was more than an economic resource; it was also relational and identity-laden. Colonial land policy led to a double standard: Europeans established laws on land ownership, but then said Africans could not own land because it is not part of their “tradition.” This chapter tells an untold story of how stripping land ownership from chiefs was the fundamental component of a complete reorganization of the Gambian chieftaincy, and in response families of many social statuses and origins created new methods to exercise power.6 Land, Chieftaincy, and “Invented Tradition” in Colonial Africa

The view that European colonialism impacted the nature of chieftaincy and land tenure in Africa is not new, as is the view that colonial policies invented ideas of communal ownership of land, which many colonial observers assumed were timeless. The goal of this chapter is to bring together three central debates in colonial historiography: chieftaincy, land tenure, and invented traditions. It recognizes the belief that chieftaincy structures in Africa have been dynamic. Across the continent, chieftaincy structures have “continuously regenerated in rapidly shifting sociopolitical and economic contexts.”7 Even before the imposition of colonial rule, chieftaincy had retained its importance as a “critical medium of class formation, intergroup competition and communal aspirations.”8 Over the years, many studies have explored the interplay between the struggle for state power and resources such as land. The scholarship shows the many ways European colonialism impacted chiefs and their role as “custodians” of land. For instance, in northern Ghana the colonial government attempted to control access to land, but, according to Wyatt Macgaffey, chiefs, educated elites, and European interests succeeded in keeping the government at bay by insisting that all land was communally owned. According to Donald Ray, while chiefs lost much of the legislative component of sovereignty to the colonial state, they retained residual control over customary land.9 In most cases, colonial-era chiefs

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managed to support the government’s land policies while leaving aside the question of who could act on behalf of the community. So, a model of African land tenure emerged in which the chief managed land as a trustee on behalf of the community.10 However, the customary land regimes are artifacts of colonial and postcolonial rule.11 Steven Pierce puts this in another way: that Europeans invented or fetishized African land tenure.12 European colonial officials claimed that specific “traditions” or African customs were old, yet the overwhelming evidence reveals that they were quite recent, and actually European, in origin.13 In some parts of Africa, the colonial state succeeded in dismantling monarchies. For instance, in the Asante state, the British did not make new chiefs as they did in the Northern provinces of Ghana. The British left Kumasi in confusion, and one consequence was that “the hierarchy of chiefly authority was thrown open to contestation, as senior officeholders scrambled to protect or advance their positions within the new order.”14 Similar developments occurred in Buganda. Colonial policies undermined the protective role of chiefs, resulting in the deterioration of reciprocal obligation, which had long been a key feature of land tenure in Buganda, as in the Gambia. Among the Ga people of Ghana, the colonial authorities sidelined the priestly authorities who, traditionally, exercised power by virtue of controlling access to land.15 In the end, new chiefs with no land-related power—“landless chiefs”—emerged.16 We also see instances where colonial chiefs appropriated communal land to create their own private plantations, which elicited much local resistance.17 Catherine Boone demonstrates that “colonial subjects sometimes resisted the new political and economic institutions (as when they rejected the administrative chiefs). . . . [The colonial state] taxed, conscripted, imposed corvée, and used coercion to pop up the colonial chiefs.”18 In other words, African subjects resisted the oppressiveness and exploitation of the institution of chieftaincy in colonial Africa. No wonder chiefs’ power to allocate unused land in some parts of Africa dwindled during the colonial and postcolonial period.19 Compared to the kabilo heads, the Gambian chiefs assumed less control of land.20 The takeover by the British did not mean that strangers could no longer attach themselves as clients of chiefs. What it meant was that from the 1890s, many of these strangers did not need the permission of chiefs before they could settle in the

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region to grow peanuts on land allocated to them. In the Gambia, chieftaincy became entirely territorial, replacing the previous system of overlapping allegiances, which was only partially related to where people lived.21 Erosion of the Land-Based Powers of Chiefs

In 1893, the British formally amalgamated the conquered ministates of the Gambia River basin, which now became part of the British Empire. On April 27, 1892, British forces destroyed “the strongly fortified town of Toniataba.”22 They also captured Gunjur in 1893.23 The extension of British rule across the Gambian hinterland had numerous consequences for land tenure. Around 1940, a few Mandinka elders told the commissioner of the Kombo and Foni a story about a major change that took place in the region after the imposition of colonial rule over the district. According to the elders, “after 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.” But in the view of 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.”24 As noted in chapter 1, for the Mandinka, conquest was considered a legitimate way to acquire land. The quote suggests that after the conquest by Britain, the administration of “village” land was mostly left in the hands of community elders such as kabilo heads and alkalolu. That same year, the Administrator of the Gambia, Robert B. Llewelyn presented an ordinance to the Legislative Council outlining the conditions under which a plot of land in the “Ceded Mile” (in Niumi) was held by the firm of 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 village. 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

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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 allowed the government to levy a tax on Arthur Reis, though it stated 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.”25 If this gave Niumi’s chiefs and alkalolu any hope that their land-based powers would survive, they would soon realize otherwise. In 1896, the government passed the Protectorate (public) Land Ordinance.26 It was transformative. First, the ordinance provided for the creation of Native Courts in each district. These Native Courts or Authorities were often called Native Tribunals. The Head Chiefs, appointed by the commissioners, presided over these courts and were often assisted by a few alkalolu (headmen from other towns in the district).27 The Native Courts were responsible for trying minor cases, including disputes over land. An ordinance passed in 1902 empowered the Native Tribunals to manage land disputes within their jurisdictions.28 Second, the legislation placed the management of the “public lands” (i.e., lands where no “legitimate” owner was found) in the hands of the colonial government. Soon after the passing of the legislation, the commissioners were asked to inform all alkalolu and chiefs that all “vacant” lands now belonged to the colonial state. As one of the north bank commissioners’ reports noted: “[Alcaides] understand that all unoccupied land belongs to the crown.”29 The view that there were large tracts of vacant land on both banks of the Gambia River, especially in the Niani, Saloum, and Jarra districts, was widely held in the colonial administration.30 As the commissioner of the South Bank Province noted, “There is a large quantity of fresh land being cleared by existing towns particularly in the Districts of Soma and Jappeni. . . . There is much more land good for cultivation than the Native population can or will attempt to cultivate.”31 The commissioner added that such “vacant” lands were suitable for the growing of crops and if the jihads ceased, people could acquire “good fields” and invest their capital. The commissioner also believed that the land was capable of producing many other “products than are thought of at present.”32 The government attempted to encourage private investors and agricultural firms to take up tracts of land for agricultural purposes, as it was now able to issue “land certificates.”

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Some alkalolu, especially in Baddibu, Sabach, and Sanjal, rejected aspects of the 1896 Protectorate ordinance, arguing that “there [was] no unclaimed land” in their districts or villages.33 These chiefs and alkalolu maintained that all the uncultivated lands had owners.34 In the south bank region, the people later convinced the commissioner that “there is no land in the whole of Kiang, Jarra and Niamina.”35 But the provision of the ordinance that allowed for the appointment of chiefs by the Colonial Administrator meant that the chiefs, unlike their predecessors, received orders from the governor (based in Bathurst), and they lacked the autonomy their predecessors once enjoyed. Before this, succession to the position of chief (mansa) and alkalo was hereditary. It was a custom for an alkalo or a chief to be succeeded by his brother, and not his eldest son. But in 1893, during one of the meetings Commissioner Ozanne had with his now subordinated chiefs and alkalolu, he broke the news that “succession by blood would now be stopped as it was contrary to English customs . . . 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 [and chief]. Any headman who was fitted for the post might now be elected as Alkali, subject to approval of the Governor.”36 The alkalolu present at the meeting seemed quite surprised by the announcement of this change. At first, they laughed and asked the commissioner “not to talk on such matters as they did not want their lives shortened” and “that the commander was putting ropes round their necks.”37 While the British would appoint many chiefs and alkalolu from the old Soninke families and their counterparts, they would also appoint people from outside these families. In 1902, another ordinance was passed that outlined the powers of the governor, which included appointing and dismissing any “head chief” and “the headman.”38 The major changes in land use and land rights were not always driven by colonial administrators or the courts, but in the Gambia the manipulation of the institution of chieftaincy and its accompanying land reforms had important implications in regional and local politics.39 The colonial interference with the succession of chiefs or alkalolu gave rise to competing traditions of authority. Ownership of a village or a district meant different things to different people. For example, in Kombo, where the Jatta and the Bojang lineages of Yundum, Busumbala, and Brikama had traditionally maintained power,

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people sometimes contested the government’s decision to appoint chiefs from the Cham and Touray families of Sukuta (Sabije) and Gunjur. Moreover, when the British declared a protectorate in Jokadu in 1895, the local population favored appointment of the head chief from the Fofana of Dassilami. The government appointed Sambu Fofana as chief of Jokadu. Fofana was from a strong Jahanke Muslim family in Dassilami. After the death of Sambu in 1902, Buli Fofana replaced his brother as chief. After Fofana’s appointment as chief, the Jammeh and Demba lineages of the royal towns of Tambana and Bali refused to accept his authority.40 In 1924, Buli was dismissed.41 With the dismissal of Buli, the people of Jokadu were again unable to agree on a successor either from Dassilami, Bali, or Tambana, and the chieftaincy passed in 1924 to Alfa Nalla Khan, a Toranko of Kuntaya.42 Descendants of the old Soninke lineages constantly questioned Khan’s legitimacy as chief. In Lower Niumi, competition for chiefly authority (justified by claiming ties to the title of bankutiyolu) also increased during the colonial period. The Sonko and Manneh families of Lamin, Sikka, and Sitanunku often gossiped about who the “owners” of the district were.43 But the frequent appointment and dismissal of chiefs complicated the situation. For instance, in 1911, Mfamara Sonko, who had served as chief since 1906, was dismissed.44 But the Manneh who once shared power with the Sonko succession were disappointed when another member of the Sonko lineage was appointed to replace him. This blatant disregard for the customary rules of succession weakened the legitimacy of the establishments to which people once turned when disputes over land arose. To strengthen their new claims to land and power, the families from which colonial chiefs were appointed (i.e., Cham, Touray, Fofana, and Khan) began to invent traditions claiming descent from chiefly families.45 Oral sources about Gunjur and Sabije state that their ancestors arrived in the area and decided to settle on vacant land. According to Malick Touray, his ancestors did not seek permission from any chief or king. For him, his ancestors had legitimate rights to not only claim ownership of land located within Kombo, but that they, too, could become chiefs.46 The interference of the colonial state in the local politics gave rise to a more local level of conflicts over land and provided fertile ground for tensions in village politics. One result is that local and village traditional histories are highly contested and politicized. However, they can tell us much

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about how political competition at intra-lineage or intra-communal levels intensified during the colonial period. The politicization of chieftaincy was complicated by the autocratic and unpopular tendencies of some of the colonial chiefs, and not just in the Gambia.47 The creation of the Native Authorities in 1892 gave some important powers to the colonial chiefs. But some of the chiefs used their new-found power to accumulate wealth (including land and people, as in sons, wives, slaves, and migrant farmers). As noted by a colonial officer, P. E. Mitchell, at times these Native courts were corrupt.48 Mitchell concluded, “not all ‘native lands’ were administered for the use and common benefit . . . of the communities concerned.”49 In addition, some of the chiefs, especially the son of Chief Nalla Khan, Seyfo Abu Khan, were apparently exacting and punitive.50 Yet, Mandinka elders describe the chiefs whom the British appointed to oversee various administrative districts as politique manso (chiefs whose authority was acquired from politics, not custom). As elder Malick Touray of Gunjur claimed, if an ordinary person insulted a politique manso, nothing terrible was going to happen to him because the chief wielded no significant authority.51 While some of these chiefs were powerful and feared, their authority, if compared with that of their predecessors, was greatly diminished, and in some districts invited competition for power and land. Touray’s claim about the relationship between the people and the politique mansolu appears to be supported by what a commissioner noted in his report in 1893: that the “Alkalis [and chiefs] 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 British].”52 Chiefs such as Maddikuli Touray, the head chief of Gunjur, faced opposition from the people of their districts. Within few years after his appointment as chief, Touray struggled to win the support of his people. But, according to the commissioner of Kombo, the chief stood up against the people, “informing them that he had been appointed by the British Government, and that he proposed to stand by his orders until the return of the Commissioner.”53 When I asked my informant Malick Touray—a resident of Gunjur, and himself a member of the Touray family—where this opposition must have come from, he quickly replied that it was the Darboe whose ancestors founded Gunjur.

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The colonial state usurped many of the powers chiefs had traditionally wielded. The state’s representatives could now grant permission to strangers who needed land, in return charging them rents or tributes. Two years after the passing of the public land ordinance in 1896, a report noted that it was now possible for land to be obtained “from government for agricultural purposes on easy conditions on payment of 2d. per acre per annum for 21 years.”54 When British forces burnt down the village of Mandina Ba (located only a few miles east of Brikama) in the 1890s, and banished the alkalo Foday Manneh (suspecting him of being a supporter of militant jihadists), the commissioner “made arrangements . . . for a new set of people to occupy the land and build a new town.”55 Decades later the government allocated land grants to individuals and private European firms, charging them rent. The state, for example, granted a plot of land at Balingho (located near Bambally on the Gambia’s north bank) to a man named Habib Musa and his wife Aminata Musa.56 It is not clear what groups of people were settled in Mandina Ba village. However, the Protectorate ordinance gave the commissioner or the colonial government the power to grant permission to strangers to settle in any part of the colony. As more strangers came to settle in the region, often with the encouragement of the colonial government or its collaborators, it became harder for old lineages to exert control over the villages and land they once ruled. Several chiefs and alkalolu faced difficulty in collecting the “farm rents” that the government expected them to collect from compound heads who employed strange farmers to work in their fields. As a rule, the alkalolu would hand over a percentage of the total amount of the “farm rent” that they collected to the head chief of the district. The chief, in turn, was required to pay this amount into the Native Treasury, which was under the purview of the commissioner. But since many of the chiefs and village heads lacked legitimacy, it was hard for them to convince people to pay the rents to them. As Sitwell noted in one of his reports, “when first I went into that district they flatly refused to entertain any idea of the laws with regard to licenses, farm rents and slavery.”57 As the opposition intensified, “the alcaides seemed especially pleased at the idea that the responsibility of punishing their people has now been taken off their hands . . . many people have come to me with complaints . . . which I referred back to the alcaides.”58

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In the past, alkalolu came from very powerful lineages (lineages that either exercised authority at the state level or had the backing of the mansa). That meant they wielded a great deal of authority. Just like the mansa, some alkalolu had the power to seize land from subjects and punish those who failed to pay deference to their authority. Although rarely seen, the alkalolu of the precolonial era could also banish people from their villages as well as seize land that such individuals once worked.59 But from the 1890s, with the politicization of chiefly authority by colonial authorities, combined with contestation over the ownership of the village (and its land) that resulted from such politicization, land in many Kiang villages and across the lower Gambia region became a hotly contested resource.60 As Trevor Getz has shown regarding the Fante chiefs in the Gold Coast, many colonial chiefs relied on British power to exercise their authority. In Foni, where power was historically more dispersed, chiefs had difficulty exercising their newfound authority.61 In 1897, Foni’s newly appointed chiefs appeared to be the weakest. Nyahinki Badjie of Kangaramba, a Jola, was appointed as chief of Foni East, controlling Bondali and its surroundings, though the commissioner remarked that his authority was very weak. The district had “a native tribunal but up to date it has never sat . . . [since] the people will not appeal to their own headmen,” the commissioner noted.62 By 1895–96, “The Commissioner’s and Native courts are beginning to work well, not that there are many cases . . . [but] The Headmen are pleased with the powers vested in them and the support they receive from the Government.”63 Yet, Kansalla district (which was also part of Foni East) had no head chief.64 The first appointed head chief of Bintang district died shortly after his appointment and, according to the commissioner, “up to now it has turned impossible to find a good man to succeed him.”65 A contemporary source summed up the general situation in the Foni districts by stating that “Fogni is 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.”66 According to the report, “The big [man] 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.”67 This is not surprising since, as Martin Klein argues for Sine-Saloum, Senegambia’s “peasants were more willing to yield to the demands of a legitimate

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chief.”68 But the situation in Foni was also different from eastern Saloum during the first few years of French colonialism, where the absence of a Resident officer (district officer) in the region gave the chiefs greater independence.69 Commissioner Ozanne observed similar problems in the north bank when he wrote, “I have noticed this year a growing tendency on the part of the natives to bring complains to me, in preference to going to the Alcaide.”70 The chiefs in Jarra faced similar challenges. For instance, in 1903, the head chief, Foday Darboe, resigned and was replaced by Arafang Lang Jarjusey. According to the south bank commissioner, the district “under the late Head Chief, who was an old man with no influence over the headmen, was allowed by him to do what it liked, but this I am pleased to report has been altered since the appointment of the present Head Chief last April.”71 The commissioner considered Arafang Lang Jarjusey a strong man in contrast to the head chief of Central Jarra, Jolali Dampha, who was “well liked” but had “no real influence over his district.”72 The situation was similar in Eastern Jarra. The region was in an unsettled state and the commissioner of the south bank blamed the Head Chief, Arafang Lang Sedi Sally. The commissioner noted that the people of the district wanted the position of head chief to be given to the headman of Bureng, a nephew of the old head chief who was deposed in 1899, though he remarked that “the present Head Chief is a very strong intelligent man and the people all respect him and will obey as he is practically their hereditary chief.” In 1905, the commissioner appointed Nfamara Darboe of Bureng as Head Chief of Eastern Jarra.73 Five years before that appointment, the colonial government introduced another measure which further undermined the landbased powers of the chiefs and alkalolu: the Public Lands Acquisition Ordinance, granting the governor more power to acquire land for public purposes, even if it required the use of force. The Grants and Dispositions Ordinance, introduced in 1902, empowered the governor to retrieve previously granted land for public purposes and compensate holders. In 1904, legislation was passed to provide for the registration of title to land to private owners: the Land Transfer (Colony) Ordinance 1904.74 While the legislations provided for the regulation of compensation and laid down procedures to deal with land disputes, in general, they failed to empower the chiefs and alkalolu to exercise the sort of authority their predecessors had.

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In 1913 the government decided, at least in theory, to grant the Native Authorities more powers over the administration of protectorate land. That year, a new protectorate ordinance sought to strengthen local courts and “to take cognizance of and enforce native land customs.”75 The new Protectorate Lands Ordinance ensured that no protectorate land was to be occupied by a foreigner or government or could be alienated by anyone through sale, unless the person first obtained the consent of the Native Authority and the Divisional commissioner. It was aimed at protecting lands in the wharf towns, which was increasingly been bought by private firms for business purposes.76 This included lands situated in Brefet, Bajana, MacCarthy Island, the Ceded Mile, and British Kombo. While the legislation must have been an attempt to address local concerns in the wharf towns, it still ensured that final authority in matters of land allocation was vested in the market, the courts, and the colonial administrative officials, and not the chiefs and alkalolu. Between 1932 and 1945, the government adopted additional measures that would expand private forms of ownership. It first introduced the Alien (Acquisition of property) ordinance, which decreed that foreigners could “hold real and personal property in the colony in the same manner as natural born British subjects.”77 A new protectorate lands ordinance passed in 1945 stipulated a similar statement. This ordinance laid down conditions on which “nonindigenes” such as Moroccan, Syrian, and Lebanese traders, could occupy protectorate land, requiring the approval of the District authority and the Divisional commissioner. The Senior Commissioner was responsible for approving any tenancy for a term exceeding three years, as well as leases. Leases were to be registered in the Colonial Registry within sixty days, and a copy deposited for entry in the Divisional Land Register. Appeal against the revised rent could be made to the governor, whose decision was final. The ordinance further stipulated that no tenant could mortgage, sublet, or dispose of land without the consent of the district authority. Lease agreements would lapse if the land was unoccupied for more than two years. The ordinance also declared that certain areas of the colony were now included in the “protectorate system.” Some colonial officials “strongly [objected] 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.”78 Another official

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added, “it would be a very great mistake for the Government in dealing with land to bind its hands by statutory regulations.”79 The commissioner of the South Bank Province contested the idea of “public land” as stipulated in the ordinance, because “all land was more or less occupied when the protectorate was established.”80 This, according to him, “means that the Government’s right to grant leases and charge rents in wharf towns is in nearly every instance, at the very best, dubious.” He further stated that all “person who have obtained such leases” have no legal security of tenure.81 The commissioner reasoned that such lands at the wharf towns or elsewhere should be acquired by negotiation with the owners or occupiers. The colonial government policies could not reach every small agricultural village. The ordinances were likely to be enforced mainly in wharf towns and major villages. As the commissioner of Kombo and Foni stated in 1940, once the British pacified the remaining kingdoms, people living outside of Bathurst and British Kombo regarded the land as belonging to the British, but since the new “owners” did not exercise such rights, “every community could keep their own land . . . so that the land in the Kombo districts (except the Kombo St. Mary District) was considered to be owned by those villages which were in existence at the time Government” conquered it.82 In the end though, chiefs and alkalolu were marginalized.83 As one of the commissioners noted, in the south bank, “no land belonged to any person (whether a ruler or otherwise. . . . No land was vested in a ruler, as ruler.”84 Obviously, the commissioner’s point is consistent with the argument that Europeans confused matters with rationalizations for their actions: Africans did not concern themselves with ownership of lands not in use, the conquerors regularly argued, and chiefs had rights to alienate lands in sales or treaties. However, when the commissioner stated that “no land was vested in a ruler, . . . the land belonged to the tribe . . . the ruler merely had the right to allocate, with the consent of the tribe the use of any land,” he was referring to a radical departure from the past.85 While chiefly authority on land declined, kabilo heads continued to manage their “village” lands on the basis of their customs, not European values; but their authority was limited. Kabilo heads gave land to strangers, and in return collected rents. Also, under the protectorate system, alkalolu were responsible for collecting the “yard”

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tax, the pasturage fees and the “strange farmers” tax.86 The commissioner of the South Bank Province claimed that the latter tax was “again regarded as being similar in kind to the tax which used to be paid every year to the king by every strange farmer.”87 In most villages the alkalo, in consultation with kabilo heads and heads of prominent lineages in the village, distributed land to strangers. As one report states, alkalo “either gives them vacant land or land beyond the areas already cleared.”88 Ozanne’s remarks sum this up more vividly: “Every native owns besides his allotment in the town a piece of land near-by, varying in quantity from ¼ to 1 acre.” This land was either cultivated by the owner or rented or loaned to another person. Ozanne further stated the land outside these “native farms” belonged to the town, and that the open space around a town generally belonged to the Alcaide’s family. If any stranger wished to settle there, the alkalo would consult other members of the prominent lineages as to the size of land he or she would be given. Ozanne concluded that the people of his province certainly had “a very good title to their allotments; having received them from their ancestors.”89 But the authority of these kabilo heads did not extend beyond the village or the kabilo land. In most agricultural villages, people could not simply buy land. As one colonial source noted, “the idea of selling land is entirely outside the Native conception of land tenure; land may be obtained by consent of the person who has a right to its disposition.”90 For example, in Barra village, an educated man was paying money to an “owner” of a plot of land, including buildings on it. This individual thought that his payment (it was not clear if it was paid annually or as a lump sum): Conferred on him the right to hold the land and buildings in [perpetuity]. He was soon told that the land on which the buildings stood was the property of the village as a whole and that the payment to the owner he had made should be regarded as for the use of the buildings (erected by the owner) and the occupation of the area, but did not constitute any right to the freehold of the site. Land cannot be bought. After careful explanation, he understood the point; it seems that he was only trying on his claim to permanent possession. The individual, who let him sit down on payment, lives in Bathurst, whether or not she claims freehold rights on the area, is not known.”91

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The oral sources confirm what the Commissioner of Kombo wrote in the 1930s and 1940s, stating 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.”92 The stranger “can be dispossessed at will without compensation for any buildings he may have erected. He must, however, be given reasonable notice and be 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 could not destroy them even if he wanted to use the land for building. The “tenant” could even freely sell these trees to other outsiders at any time. The exception was 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. Land in Bathurst and the British Kombo

The situation in the colony was a bit more complex.93 In areas controlled by the alkalolu and powerful African families such as the Jobe and Jaiteh families of Serrekunda and Bakau, people acquired land following African customs that required the payment of kola-nuts and accepting to abide by landlord-stranger requirements. In such situations, land was not only exchanged as a material object (or commodity), it was also perceived as a resource that helped individuals and families to maintain power. Landlordstranger relationships continued to prevail in settlements such as Bakau and Old Jeshwang. In these settlements, the alkalo and other prominent members of the towns hosted strangers. By doing so, they allocated land to these strangers, and the latter were often reminded of this dependence.94 But in the areas where the British were in charge, the state issued short and long-term leases or grants. In return, it charged fees.95 The government awarded numerous grants to private companies and individuals in parts of Bathurst and Cape St. Mary’s. A number of crown grants were issued between January 20, 1846, and May 19, 1893.96 Private firms like Maurel and H. Prom, Maurel Frères, B. T. Co Ltd, S. C. de Sénégambie, Cie Francaise, and Barthes and Lesieur, and individuals like Samuel J. Forster were awarded titles

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to plots of land in different locations.97 Individuals and firms, for example, were granted lands located in the “most valuable site in the town [of Bathurst especially around] the east of Wellington Street.” French merchants and Signares (wealthy Mulatto and Senegambian women mostly from Goree and St. Louis in Senegal) often 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 store (of stone materials) and put one of his sons in charge of the business.98 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. The office divided up the land into thirty-six lots of about four thousand square feet each. The plots were leased to Africans for periods of twenty-one years. These were “eagerly taken up by the Africans who lived in congested parts of Bathurst.”99 In 1914 few private firms were granted leases on the lands they occupied. These private firms used these lands to erect small buildings for boat-houses, storing various kinds of materials (e.g. bricks, coal, etc.), and for repairing boats and gutters. In Kombo, leases were granted for the most part in the residential neighborhood of Cape St. Mary (near Bakau and within few miles of St. Mary’s).100 With the exception of a few cases, nothing longer than a yearly lease was granted in this particular area. The conditions of registers were poor and this likely increased 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.” The land officer stated that he 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.”101 As early as 1824, the Administrator of Bathurst had acknowledged the need for “A Secretary’s office for the preservation of Records and the Registry of Grants . . . there existing no means at present of securing public documents etc. which will no doubt hereafter occasion great confusion and mischief.” This report noted 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

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registered.”102 The author of the report recommended changes to the way grants were executed or designed. To curb the situation, drastic measures were needed, but the colonial government lacked the necessary manpower; due to a shortage of staff, there were long delays in processing deeds in the Lands Office.103 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 was vital for “Government to have in its possession an accurate document whereon all the lands granted can be seen and for the purposes of improvement.”104 The most complicated problems appear to have been the cases where there were no documents to support individual claims to property. Several property-holders living in Kombo and nearby Cape St. Mary did not keep legal documentation of their property. One informant told me that it was not the custom of their ancestors to keep documents of ownership. According to him, “paper is a European thing.”105 Ethnographic records dating back to 1906 support this view. As one report notes, the “Mandingos do not appear ever to make written wills. A man will occasionally when dying direct his heirs to give some particular part of his property to someone outside the heirship 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.”106 A colonial source suggests that some of the Africans who had documents had either lost them, or they had been destroyed by pests, fire, or other causes.107 There were sometimes property disputes in the courts.108 For instance, on January 9, 1917, Hannah Gaye and her brother, Charles B. Gaye, were involved in a legal battle over the inheritance of their deceased mother’s property, situated on 2nd Gloucester Street, in Bathurst. The case first appeared before the Qadi (Muslim judge) of the Mohammedan court and was later transferred to the Supreme Court.109 On February 2, 1917, another dispute involving a trader from Fez, in Morocco, appeared before a judge in the Supreme Court to defend what he believed was his property.110 Ben Abdoulie, the trader, wanted the Supreme Court to reverse an earlier judgment passed by the Qadi of the Mohammedan court, which 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.111

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In 1936, there was a court case between Shatta Savage and Fatmatta Jobe—two sisters who were contesting rights to a piece of property in Bathurst. This property was located on 33 Long Street, and it belonged to Sultan Davies. He lived on the property for twenty years. He died in 1900 leaving his three daughters: Haddy Secka, Fatmatta Jobe, and Shatta Savage. At the time of the court case, Hadi and Fatmatta were about fifty and Shatta was about sixty. Haddy lived in the property from 1903 to 1930, when she went upriver, but while she was away, she received her part of the rent from the property. Fatmatta also lived there, but when she got married, she moved out to live with her husband. She and Shatta Savage also received their part of the rent from the property. Even though Momodou Ceesay was identified as Fatmatta Jobe’s son-in-law, Ceesay joined her “half-sister,” Shatta Savage, in court to lay claims on the property.112 This confusing case might have been made clearer if there had been documents proving anyone’s ownership of the property, but there weren’t any. Before the colonial era, cases such as this would have been taken to the alkalolu or chiefs, not an institution like the Mohammedan or Supreme Courts. This was an example of a subversion of the powers of the chiefs. The new system created another center with its own leadership, power relations, and symbolic resources. Before this, the chiefs’ office was the focus of authority. In general, chiefs or alkalolu could no longer take back land they already allocated to strangers. As one colonial source indicated, as long as any member of the community who had been allocated land remained on the land, the right to use the land could not be taken away or refused. If the right to use such land was refused without cause or for an inadequate cause, the person or community applying for it could appeal to the community which originally allocated it, and they had the right to compel its use to be granted to the applicant.113 By the 1940s, some colonial officials were convinced that African customs had never recognized the notion of land taxes or rents. For instance, a colonial source indicates that it is wrong to assume that customary ownership of land had existed from time immemorial. For him, many of the customary laws that regulated land ownership during his time had “grown up since the Europeans came.”114 The officer found it “extremely hard to believe the rectangular yards in straight lines which one finds in [Bakau] and elsewhere are really native at all . . . I believe myself that the “yard” system follows a

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foreign model. Certainly the term “yard owner” owes nothing to a native mode of thought, to which the idea of individual ownership of land is foreign” and indeed repugnant.115 The report further stressed that it was impossible to discuss African land tenure without dealing with European ideas. The author of the report doubted if a word for “tax” or “rent” existed in the Mandinka language. He concluded that it was Europeans who introduced ideas of charging rents from the land and that the idea of an individual becoming a landowner was of foreign origin. But in Kombo, where the population has largely settled following the ceding of land to the crown, the inhabitants regarded the yard tax as a form of rent.116 Until 1902, the Manager of Kombo collected rents from all people who occupied “lots in that area.” About four decades later, the commissioner of the Kombo and Foni reported an oral tradition that summarized the local reaction to these taxes: Every year the “kings” of the “kingdoms” of Yundum-Busumbala and Manduar-Brikama-Jambur demanded a tax payment in money, clothe, gunpowder or goods from their dependent villages; this “tax” however was considered as a tribute, that is to say a payment in return for protection.117

The tax, which the colonial government levied on its subjects, was considered by “native opinion (and still is) as being equivalent” to the rent paid to the kings of Kombo in the early days.118 That is, it was regarded as a payment for protection. The commissioner implies that the Africans viewed the yard tax “as a payment of one sort or another for the right to own the land.” According to the commissioner, this is why the mansa of Kombo regarded the English Governor as his stranger and therefore “under his protection and this feeling continued after the annual rent ceased.”119 Colonial officers could no longer bear witness to chiefs or alkalolu performing the roles of their predecessors. The Era of the Politique Manso

Relations between chiefs and people were often nested in a web of affinity and power far more subtle than just the distinction between “free” and “not free.”120 Before the imposition of European colonial

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domination in Africa, in a number of African societies, it was from the chiefs that traders or foreigners leased land.121 Maintaining ties with the chief was important for accessing land and expanding one’s influence in society. Thus, the chief’s compound was always full of people, and he had a big entourage wherever he went. He often had many wives (at least four) and children. Some of the chiefs were feared and almost all of them were wealthy landowners. But the appointed chiefs had less political power than those who preceded them. Although chiefly authority had started declining well before the last decade of the nineteenth century, the land-based powers of chiefs and alkalolu were swept away by a series of colonial policies. These included the abolition of local customs related to succession, and the introduction of a series of ordinances which allowed colonial officials to not only issue land grants and leases, but also to collect farm rents. It also included the power to grant permission to strangers to settle in any part of the region. These policies undermined the authority of the “old” Mandinka aristocratic and clerical families, increasing contestation over who owned the village and its land, and over who had authority to assume the power of alkalo of the village and its surroundings. It seems the surest way to assume such powers was now through the commissioner. It is important to note that this chapter does not argue against the idea that African actions had an impact on local systems of land tenure. But since colonial authorities could not exert control over every small village and all African customs could not be abolished, kabilo heads assumed greater independence in matters of land distribution and allocation. In a number of cases, chiefs could not allocate land to anyone without the consent of these elders. Similarly, the alkalolu who exercised this role in villages could not do so without acquiring the consent of other village elders. This is probably what anthropologists observed in the early twentieth century, confusing matters when combined with their assumption that African customs had not changed since the distant past. More recently, historians and historically oriented anthropologists have moved toward accepting the notion that Africans long tended to recognize a form of land ownership that was communal: large groups—the state, the village, or large clans—possessed and parceled out land for individual or small-group use.

Conclusion This book is aimed at reevaluating the political and social history of the Gambia region by focusing on land’s role in that history. Land control cannot be divorced from the Senegambia region’s larger history, because land was a vital political and social resource. Across the lower Gambia basin, there was an important distinction between “landowners” and people considered to be “stranger” populations. To this day, many families claim ties to certain places and share similar customs relating to inheritance, land tenure, and marriage and divorce. The analysis presented here both confirms and challenges some common assumptions of African attitudes toward land and people. It details important political, spiritual, and environmental shifts in a part of Africa that underwent significant changes from the nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth century. By using the prism of land, the book sought to explain the dynamics of power and domination as practiced in Senegambian society, which for over a century shaped the relationship between commoners and elites. The book attempts to reconstruct the life of the Mandinka aristocracy and their interactions with their subjects—the latter being mostly farmers, not traders. As a predominantly agrarian society, lower Gambian elites long recognized that controlling land would enable them to solidify their rule and increase their wealth and status just as controlling commerce would. They used their political power to distribute land to farming communities under their authority or control. The book attempts to bring together central debates in “slave studies” and African colonial historiography: chieftaincy, land tenure, and invented traditions. It does this by exploring the ways in which control of land by a group of people shaped relationships of social dependency over time. It draws heavily from scholarship on the social and political history of precolonial Africa and it highlights land’s value for production and sustaining power relationships.

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The book discusses how land’s value has changed over time, starting with early settlement by Mandinka farmers, who settled along the river and surrounding rainforest in a spiritual and material grid of meaning and ownership. Like many West African origin stories, the Gambian traditions are replete with accounts of brave hunters venturing into the uninhabited forests (and claiming that the place was “empty,” or populated by spirits which either helped them acquire the land or which were driven away from it). In village after village, there are stories of how hunters or marabouts found new, fertile land and rich water reserves, drove the spirits away, built temporary huts, and then fetched their families to settle that land. Hunters and blacksmiths were seen as spiritually gifted individuals, the only people to have the power to manipulate these supernatural forces. When some of the Mandinka elders discuss conquest, they are not simply referring to a military reality. By engaging in spiritual struggles with the spirits (or manipulating the spirit world), hunters and religious specialists could pacify the “spirit lands” and convert them into places fit for human habitation or economic exploitation. As “conquerors” of the “spirit” lands, they often assumed the title of first settlers or “owners” of the land. Like in the Black Volta region, in the Gambia, narratives about spirits and lands, even today, help to bolster the position of certain families’ claims to land. People often turn to the settlement history and events that had taken place during their ancestor’s times to make claims to land. The powers of hunters and blacksmiths let them gather more and more followers, increasing their political legitimacy. Belief in spirits may have been an instrument of social control—that is, a way to regulate access and control of land and people. The powers exercised by these Soninke elites did not go unchallenged. From the late 1840s into the early 1900s, the lower Gambia experienced remarkable political, social, and economic change. These changes described in chapter 4 occurred before the backdrop of British intervention in politics and the economy, and the increase in the numbers of Muslim “mystics” or marabouts. Although the marabouts were the most influential actors in shaping lowerGambian 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

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of the “Ceded Mile” in 1826, MacCarthy Island in 1827, and “British Kombo” (including Cape St. Mary) by 1840. They looked upon militant Muslims as a threat to their authority and, in places, would intervene to prop up old Mandinka ruling lineages whom they could more easily manipulate. From the mid-nineteenth century, “landless” and politically marginalized peasants rose up against the aristocracy when Muslim reformers proclaimed a jihad to spread Islam. The consequence of these holy wars was momentous. The outbreak of the Muslim revolution, known locally as the Soninke-Marabout wars, resulted in widespread instability, interrupting trade and agricultural activity. Although an effort at reviving Islam, the wars were also a rejection of non-Muslim aristocratic rule and of their control of land. 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 who, like those they overthrew, used their control of land to keep people dependent on them. Conflicts over ownership of land escalated greatly over the second half of the nineteenth century as a result of these changes. The book analyzes several of these conflicts, placing them in their historical context, and argues that they are the result of a breakdown of traditional methods of resolving conflict, a product itself of the enormous changes taking place at the time. Thus, while historical analysis of the jihads and the “peanut revolution” has improved our understanding of the social, economic, and political changes in the region during the nineteenth century, scholars have often overlooked the importance of land conflicts. That is, historians have rarely analyzed the effects of the nineteenth-century religious transformation on ideas of land and the environment. Two major developments are significant in understanding the history of cash-cropping in the Gambia region. First, the development of commercial farming had tremendous economic and social consequences for African communities. During the late nineteenth century, a number of land-owning families move to other places and started welcoming strangers (not just people with slave ancestry) into their new settlements. A number of the strangers flooded into the Gambia states, and these migrants raised over a third of the peanut crop along the river. It was not only individuals who moved; villages also relocated to either take advantage of access to markets or because of other factors. Bigger villages tended to break

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into separate communities, often at a considerable distance from the parent settlement, because of bitter rivalries over the succession of leadership or because of the need for more land. Villages also relocated to either take advantage of access to markets or because of other factors such as the need to access land. Peanut growers wanted not only good land, but land where access to the river (for transporting peanuts to market) was easier. With more sources of labor available to the alkalolu and lineage heads—who had control over extensive acres of land—more land was brought under cultivation. “New” and “dangerous” lands were cleared and rights over its ownership established by individuals or families thought to have driven the spirits out. Second, the mid-nineteenth century also saw the growth of Islam in the Gambia. This increasing Islamization did not erase some of the ancestral beliefs on the spiritual occupation of land. Beliefs in the power of spirits to control space remained important well into the twentieth century. Marabouts opened up new lands by driving spirits away and cultivating peanuts in those areas. Now with more sources of labor available to the alkalolu and lineage heads—who had control over extensive acres of land—more land was brought under cultivation. In other words, there is evidence showing that pre-Islamic spiritual influences of African ideas on land lasted into the twentieth century, long after the “Islamization” of the region. In the lower Gambia region, rising population density during the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries contributed to altering the traditional ways people related to the land. But it would be misleading to think that all the changes had to do with bigger populations and the commercialization of agriculture; shifting religious beliefs and related political transformations enabled such changes, too. A gradual alteration of the natural environment followed the expansion of peanut production. The shift in spiritual beliefs of the people (as well as from grain production to cash-cropping) resulted in massive deforestation as new lands were cleared for planting peanuts. Before this change, “spirit lands” served an ecological function. Some “vacant” or preserved land was necessary, since it provided protection from outsiders, a place to hunt, gather fruits, and medicines, and a place for water run-off. I do not mean that people in this region were conscious of the environmental implications of their spiritual beliefs. My sources do not, in fact, lend themselves to such a conclusion. But once local ideas about spirits changed, an

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assault was waged against the land, and the consequences of shifting attitudes toward land were profound. Lastly, colonial rule was not the only influence on the change in African institutions along the Gambia River. I agree with James Ferguson, who noted that even as colonialism shattered the old social systems and drew the entire subcontinent into a world of wage labor and commoditization, people continued to be struggled over. Heavily outnumbered, the new rulers appointed new chiefs to serve on newly established native tribunals, but the new chiefs were almost always men from prominent families—families linked either to the old non-Muslim (Soninke) aristocracy or to the Muslim families that led the nineteenth-century wars. But unlike previous Mandinka rulers, these chiefs had few powers. They no longer exercised power as absolute “monarchs,” and their authority largely rested on the support they received from their colonial superiors. Chieftaincy was politicized, and land’s political and social value persisted.

Notes Introduction 1. NRS, ARP 32/3, North Bank Province, Major R. W. Macklin, Traveling Commissioner, March 4, 1931. 2. Macklin wrote that the Wolof called these “petty kings” bumi and the Mandinka called them mansanding. 3. NRS, ARP 32/3, North Bank Province, Major R. W. Macklin, Traveling Commissioner, March 4, 1931. 4. Several excellent studies have discussed these important changes, for example, Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa; Hughes and Perfect, A Political History of The Gambia; and Gray, A History of the Gambia. 5. Herbst, States and Power in Africa, 4. 6. Biebuyck, “Land Holding and Social Organization,” 99. 7. See H. I. Nieboer, Slavery as an Industrial System; Pierce provides a discussion of a colonial administrator’s view of land tenure in Nigeria’s Northern Provinces. Palmer, as he was called, was the Lt. Governor of the colony, and he wrote in 1926 that the real difference between African ownership and European ownership was that the former was not alienable (Pierce, Farmers, 101). 8. Goody, The Social Organisation of the LoWiili, 37. 9. Goody, Technology, Tradition, and the State of Africa, 21–37; see also Klein, Peasants in Africa, 13, 20, and 22. 10. Hopkins, “Property Rights and Empire Building,” 797. 11. The list of slavery studies that make references to this argument is extensive. Some of these studies include: Egerton, D. R., Games, A. et al., The Atlantic World: A History, 33–36; Manning, Slavery and African Life, 32–33; Fage, “Slavery and the Slave Trade,” 400; Miller, Way of Death, 43, 44. 12. Evsey D. Domar, “The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis,” 18–32. See also Domar, “The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: a hypothesis” in Capitalism, Socialism and Serfdom, 225–38. 13. Historian Martin Klein, for instance, cites Domar. See Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa, 11; see also Austin, Labour, Land and Capital in Ghana, chapter 8; Northrup, “Nineteenth-Century Patterns of Slavery and Economic Growth in Southeastern Nigeria,” 2; Hopkins, An Economic History, 24. 14. Thornton, Africa and Africans, 72–97.

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15. Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors, and Kings, 197. 16. Nwokeji, “Slavery in Non-Islamic West Africa” in The Cambridge World History of Slavery, 84. For more on Hawthorne and Baum, see Hawthorne, Planting Rice ; Baum, Shrines of the Slave Trade. 17. Bjerk, “The Allocation of Land,” 256. 18. Berry, Chiefs Know Their Boundaries, xxxvi. 19. Ferguson, “Declarations of Dependence,” 223–42; B. Cooper, “Ambiguities of Dependency,” 40–89; Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa. 20. Harms, Games Against Nature, 66. 21. See Ferguson, “Declarations of Dependence,” 226; Guyer and Belinga, “Wealth in People as Wealth in Knowledge,” 92; Perinbam, Family, Identity and the State in the Bamako Kafu, 1. 22. Shipton and Goheen, “Introduction,” 307; see also Shipton, “Land and Culture in Tropical Africa,” 347–77. 23. Fields-Black, Deep Roots, 47. 24. Brooks, Landlords and Strangers, 38–9. 25. Dorjahn and Fyfe, “Landlord and Stranger,” 391–97; Mouser, “Landlords-Strangers,” 425–40; Brooks, Landlords and Strangers. 26. See Kea, Land, Labour and Entrustment ; Swindell, “Migrant Groundnut Farmers in the Gambia,” 452–72; Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town,” 1980. 27. Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town,” iii. 28. Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, Credit and Climate, 88. 29. See, for example, Hanson, Landed Obligation ; Berry, Chiefs Know Their Boundaries ; Lentz, Land, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa ; Macgaffey, Chiefs, Priests, and Praise-singers. 30. Herbst, States and Power in Africa, 11. 31. Herbst, States and Power in Africa, 11–12; Perinbam, Family, Identity and the State. 32. Austin, Labour, Land and Capital in Ghana, 27. 33. Austin, Labour, 37–8. 34. Austin, Labour, 43. 35. Austin, “Between Abolition and Jihad” in From Slave Trade to ‘Legitimate’ Commerce, 105. 36. Austin, Labour, 38–39. 37. Berry, Cocoa ; Hill, The Migrant Cocoa-Farmers. 38. Mann, “Owners, slaves and the struggle for labour” in From Slave Trade to ‘Legitimate’ Commerce, 149. 39. Berry, Cocoa, 90–91. 40. Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, 47. 41. Hopkins, An Economic History, 35; Martin, Palm Oil and Protest, 6. See also Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, 369.

Notes to pp. 12–15 189 42. Austin, Labour, 8, 70. 43. Austin, Labour, 1. 44. Pierce, Farmers, 8. 45. C. K. Meek, Land Law and Custom in the Colonies ; Lund, Law, Power, and Politics in Niger ; Roberts, Litigants and Households ; Lund, Local Politics, 2; Chanock, Law, Custom and Social Order ; Sackeyfio-Lenoch, The Politics of Chieftaincy ; Berry, Chiefs Know Their Boundaries. 46. After independence, neo-liberal economic institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and multinational corporations intensified these processes by promoting the commercialization and privatization of land. 47. Pierce, Farmers, 2. 48. See for example Watts, “Idioms of Land and Labor,” 157–93; and Kea, Land, Labour and Entrustment. 49. Sackeyfio-Lenoch, The Politics of Chieftaincy, ch. 2–5; Berry, Chiefs Know their Boundaries. 50. Glazier, Land and the Uses of Tradition, 1–2. 51. Shipton, “Land and Culture in Tropical Africa,” 350; MacGaffey, “Changing Representations in Central African History,” 193–95. 52. Pierce, Farmers, 2. 53. Ibid., 101–2. 54. See Berry, Chiefs Know Their Boundaries ; Glazier, Land and the Uses of Tradition. 55. See Ferguson, “Declarations of Dependence,” 226; Osborn, Our New Husbands Are Here, 8; Sweet, Domingos Alvares, 33. 56. Bjerk, “The Allocation of Land,” 255. 57. Ibid., 256. 58. Lentz, Land, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa, 9. 59. Shipton, “Land and Culture in Tropical Africa,” 351, 354. For a more detailed discussion, see Berry, “Access, Control and Use of Resources,” 1–5; Berry, “Hegemony on a Shoestring,” 327–55; Berry, No Condition is Permanent. 60. Lentz, Land, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa, 14. 61. See, for instance, Robinson, “The Islamic Revolution of Futa Toro,” 185; Guèye, “Essai: Sur Les Causes et Les Consequences de la Micropropriété au Fouta Toro,” 98; Kane, La Première Hégémonie Peule: Le Fuuta Tooro de Koli Tengella à Almaami Abdul ; Lam, La Fièvre de la Terre ; Maïga, Le Bassin du Fleuve Sénégal: De la Traite Négrière au Développement Sous-Régional Autocentré ; Curtin, Economic Change ; Bara-Diop, La Société Wolof, 120–31; Diouf, Le Kajoor au XIXe siècle: Pouvoir Ceddo et Conquête Coloniale, 23–25, 32–41; Barry, Senegambia, 11–33, 304. For a later period, see Galvan, The State Must Be Our Master of Fire ; Baum, Shrines of the Slave Trade, 29; Linares, “From Tidal Swamp to Inland Valley,” 557–94; Hawthorne, Planting Rice.

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62. For instance, Michal Tymowski and Maurice Delafosse’s work on the Niger River valley demonstrates that 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. (Tymowski, Le Développement et la Régression Chez les Peuples de la Boucle du Niger à l’époque Précoloniale, 13; Delafosse, Les Civilisations Négro-Africaines and Haut-Sénégal-Niger). 63. Quinn, Mandingo, 30. 64. Morgan, Reminiscences, 85. 65. NRS, ARP 32, J. H. Ozanne, Travelling Commissioner Reports-North Bank 1893–1932 (60) Vol. 1, North Bank 1893. 66. Southorn, The Gambia, 32; Gray, A History of the Gambia, 1. 67. Bella Southorn was the wife of Sir W. Thomas Southorn, Governor of the Gambia from 1936 to 1942. For more on her description of settlements in the Gambia, see The Gambia, 36. 68. NRS, PUB 11/17, Report of a Socio-Economic Survey of Bathurst and Kombo St. Mary in the Gambia, February 9, 1956, 4; Gailey, Historical Dictionary of The Gambia, vii. 69. In the Wolof state of Saloum, power was in the hands of the Bur (Wolof for “king”). 70. Wright, “The Epic of Kelefa Saane,” 293. 71. Hughes and Perfect, A Political History of The Gambia, 6; NRS, PUB 11/17, Summary of Crown Lands. 72. NRS, CSO 1/2, November 1, 1824. 73. Webb, “Ecological and Economic Change,” 544. 74. Southorn, The Gambia, 140. 75. Hughes and Perfect, A Political History of The Gambia, 6. 76. Southorn, The Gambia: The Story of the Groundnut Colony, 28. 77. Fox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions, 232. 78. Carney, “Landscapes of Technology Transfer,” 10. 79. Carney, “Landscapes of Technology Transfer,” 10. 80. Mahoney, “Government and Opinion in The Gambia,” 2. 81. Baum, Shrines of the Slave Trade, 29. 82. Carney and Watts, “Disciplining Women?,” 654; Webb, “Ecological and Economic Change,” 547. 83. Blackburne, Development and Welfare in the Gambia. 84. Gamble, South Bank of The Gambia: Places, People and Population, 9. 85. Webb, “Ecological and Economic Change along the Gambia River,” 545. 86. Madge, “Collected Food and Domestic Knowledge in the Gambia,” 282; Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 40. 87. Morgan, Reminiscences, 82–83. 88. Ibid., 83.

Notes to pp. 20–24 191 89. Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa, 9; NRS, ARP 32/1 Traveling Commissioner’s Report for the North Bank, 1894. 90. Park, Travels, 9. 91. Madge, “Collected Food,” 282; Gray, A History of the Gambia, 1; Curtin, Economic Change, 15; Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 40. 92. Gray, A History of the Gambia, 3. 93. Gray, A History of the Gambia, 11. 94. Park, Travels, 233. 95. Morgan, Reminiscences, 83–84. 96. Park, Travels, 233. 97. Gray, A History of the Gambia, 3. 98. Quinn, Mandingo, 4. 99. Ibid., 35. 100. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 69. 101. In the Gambia River region, the term Soninke has different connotations. 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. 102. Goody, Technology ; Roberts, “Production and Reproduction of Warrior States,” 400. 103. Osborn, Our New Husbands Are Here, 2–3. 104. Jobson, The Golden Trade, 34. 105. Jobson, The Golden Trade, 60. 106. Moister, Memorials of Missionary Labours in Western Africa, 34. 107. Barry, Senegambia, 21; Hawthorne, Planting Rice, 31; Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 33; Green, “Architects of Knowledge, Builders of Power,” 91–112; Hawthorne, From Africa to Brazil, 67. 108. See Weil, “Mandinka Mansaya,” 1968; Quinn, Mandingo ; Wright, The Early History of Niumi. 109. Kea, Land, Labour and Entrustment, 64. 110. Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, 49; Kea, Land, Labour and Entrustment, 36. 111. Wright, “The Epic of Kelefa Saane,” 288. 112. See Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 50. 113. I am grateful to Professor Momodou Darboe for pointing me toward the meaning of this phrase. 114. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 83. 115. The Christian Traveller, 97. 116. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 94. 117. Quinn, Mandingo, 29; Gamble, Traditional Mandinka Agriculture, 29. 118. Klein, Islam and Imperialism in Senegal, 63.

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Notes to pp. 25–36

119. Quinn, Mandingo, 45. 120. Gray, A History of the Gambia, 69. 121. Quinn, Mandingo, xv. 122. For example, see Conrad, “Oral Sources on Links between Great States,” 37; Bellagamba, “Slavery and Emancipation,” 14. 123. Wilder, The French Imperial Nation-state, 65. 124. For more on this archive, see Bellagamba, “Before It Is Too Late,” 29; 35. 125. Klein, “Studying the History of Those Who Would Rather Forget,” 209. 126. Green, “Architects of Knowledge, Builders of Power,” 94–5. Chapter One 1. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 34. 2. Hair, “Ethnolinguistic,” 250. 3. Quinn, Mandingo, 38; Wright, “The Epic of Kelefa Saane,” 291; Brooks, Landlords and Strangers. 4. Klein, Islam and Imperialism in Senegal, 8; Barry, Senegambia, 18. 5. Green, “Architects of Knowledge,” 93. 6. Innes, Kelefa Saane. 7. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:52. 8. Ibid., 2:67. 9. Ibid., 2:53. 10. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 85. 11. Ibid., 110. 12. Terenma Sanyang and Ebou Kolley, interviews. 13. NRS, ARP 28/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, South Bank Province, 1894; and interviews with Alkalo Luntang Jaiteh and Ba Saney Bojang. 14. NRS, CSO 10/71, Letter from CNBP (Commissioner North Bank Province) to Colonial Secretary, Banjul June 26 1942. 15. Ibid. 16. Hanson, “Queen Mothers and Good Government in Buganda” in Women in African Colonial Histories, 221. 17. David Conrad, one of the preeminent American scholars of Mande oral traditions, has curiously published nothing on the Gambia per se, but his work with the Sunjata tradition is extremely relevant to the western Mande. There is further discussion of the significance of Tira Makan Traoré (Tiramakang Trawally), Sundiata, and tilibo in an essay by Stephen Belcher in In Search of Sunjata, 89–107.

Notes to pp. 36–40 193 18. Some important publications on Mandinka oral history include one of the texts published by Innes, performed by Bamba Suso (a renowned Gambian griot) in The Kingdom of Kaabu ; Niane, Histoire des mandingues de l’ouest ; Camara, Gens de la parole. 19. Green, “Architects of Knowledge,” 95. 20. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, vols. 1 and 2. 21. Wright, “Requiem for the Use of Oral Tradition,” 399. 22. Wright, “Beyond Migration and Conquest,” 337, 339; Wright, “Requiem for the Use of Oral Tradition,” 403–4. 23. Wright, “Requiem for the Use of Oral Tradition,” 403. 24. Ibid., 401. 25. Henige, The Chronology of Oral Tradition, 12; Henige, “Oral Tradition as a Means of Reconstructing the Past,” 169–90. 26. Wright, “The Effect of Alex Haley’s Roots,” 295–318. 27. Mark, A Cultural, Economic and Religious History, 2. 28. Sheriff Jobarteh, interview. 29. Morgan, Reminiscences, 116. 30. Some concerns about the reliability of Mandinka oral narratives are in many ways justified. One can find some, though not many, inconsistencies in some of the narratives. Scholars must also weigh the fact that most Gambian oral narratives do not conform to Western notions of historical periodization. 31. Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, xii. 32. Spear, “Oral Traditions: Whose History?,” 168; Spear, “The Interpretation of Evidence in African History,” 17. 33. Osborn, Our New Husbands Are Here, 16. 34. Spear, “Oral Traditions,” 165. 35. Atkinson, The Roots of Ethnicity, 28. 36. Jansen, The Griot’s Craft, 9. See also a succient summary of Jansen’s criticisms of Mande oral narratives in Osborn, Our New Husbands Are Here, 15. 37. Bühnen, “Brothers, Chiefdoms, and Empires,” 114, 116. 38. Green, “Architects of Knowledge,” 100. 39. See for example, Berry, Chiefs Know Their Boundaries, xviii; Glazier, Land and the Uses of Tradition Among the Mbeere of Kenya, 28; MacGaffey, “Changing Representations in Central African History,” 189–207. 40. Belcher, “Sinimogo, ‘Man for Tomorrow,’” 105. 41. Lentz, “Of Hunters,” 193. 42. Bjerk, “The Allocation of Land,” 256; Glazier, Land and the Uses of Tradition, 27. 43. Moyo, Tsikata, and Diop, Land in the Struggles for Citizenship in Africa, 3. 44. Quinn, Mandingo, 17.

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Notes to pp. 40–48

45. Connor, “The Frontier Revisited,” 290; Connor, Conserved Spaces, Ancestral Places, 1–30; Berry, Chiefs Know Their Boundaries ; Glazier, Land and the Uses of Tradition among the Mbeere of Kenya, 28. 46. Connor, “The Frontier Revisited,” 307. 47. This state may have been named after the kingdom of Jaara (in Mali). For more on Jaara, see Mamadou Diawara, “Searching for the Historical Ancestor” in Ralph Austen’s In Search of Sunjata, 111–40. 48. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 57. 49. Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 18. 50. Atkinson, The Roots of Ethnicity, 12. A recent essay by Toby Green makes the connection between colonialism and the invention of ethnicity in Africa (see Green, “Dimensions of Historical Ethnicity in Guinea-Bissau” in Guinea-Bissau: Micro-State to “Narco-State,” 19–35). 51. Baum, Shrines of the Slave Trade, 62. 52. Nugent, “The Historicity of Ethnicity,” 127, 129. 53. Hawthorne, From Africa to Brazil, 9. 54. Mba Neneh Sabbally and Arafang Sainey Sanneh-Darboe, interviews; Klein, Islam and Imperialism in Senegal, 8. 55. Green, “Architects of Knowledge,” 96. 56. Wright, The Early History of Niumi, 31. 57. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:35–36. 58. Quinn, Mandingo, 38. 59. Ibid., 39. 60. Ibid., 39. 61. Jali Ngali Mbye and Alkalo Dawda Sowe, interviews. 62. Wright, “Beyond Migration and Conquest,” 335. 63. Sidibe, “The Story of Kaabu: Its Extent,” 3. 64. Bühnen, “Brothers, Chiefdoms, and Empires,” 114–15. 65. See Park, Travels, 329. 66. NRS, Banjul, ARP 28/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, South Bank Province, November 27, 1893. 67. For more on the Mandinka-Bainunk relationship, see interviews with Nbalifele Janneh, Lamin Fatty, and Alhagie Bai Konteh. Transcriptions of the tapes available at the RDD collection in Fajara. 68. Alhagie Kebba Jaiteh and Jali Ngali Mbye, interviews. 69. Brooks, Landlords and Strangers, 45–6; Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms, 10. 70. Diawara, La Graine de la Parole, 63–66. 71. Diawara, La Graine de la Parole, 70. 72. Quinn, Mandingo, 166. 73. See, for example, Klein, “Studying the History,” 209. 74. Mba Neneh Sabally, interview. 75. Quinn, Mandingo, 31. 76. Bühnen, “Brothers, Chiefdoms, and Empires,” 112.

Notes to pp. 48–53 195 77. For discussion of intermarriage, see Quinn, Mandingo, 24. 78. Babou, Fighting the Greater Jihad, 36. 79. Bühnen, “Brothers, Chiefdoms, and Empires,” 112. 80. Ebou Kolley, interview with Sana Saidykhan. 81. This tradition is also recorded in Ferdinand de Jong, “A Joking Nation: Conflict Resolution in Senegal.” In early 1975, Lamin Ndure, the village chief of Mbissel in Senegal, told Donald Wright a similar version of this story (see Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:183). 82. de Jong, “A Joking Nation: Conflict Resolution in Senegal,” 393–94. 83. Mbalufeh Janneh, interview with Bakary Sidibeh, 1971. Interview transcripts available at RDD. See also NRS CSO 2/94, Report on the Jolah People, their customs & habits, 1906. 84. Baum, Shrines of the Slave Trade, 63. 85. Andre Donelha, 1625, in Gamble, The South Bank of the Gambia, 72. 86. Wright, The Early History of Niumi, 9. 87. Baum, Shrines of the Slave Trade, 64. 88. Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 48. 89. Alhagie Bai Kunteh, “History of Kombo,” RDD tape catalogue #321 (1976). Also, see Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 55. 90. See Baum, Shrines of the Slave Trade, 64. 91. Kebba Suso, interview by Assan Sarr and Yusupha Sohna; see also Alajie Bajinka, interview with Sana Saidykhan. 92. For this weakness of oral traditions of history, see Spear, “Oral Traditions,” 165. For more on Mandinka settlement in Kombo, see Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers,” 21. 93. Jali Kebba Suso, interview. 94. Moore, Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa (1755?), 21–23. 95. Alkalo Bakary Kutu Jatta, interview with Bakary Sidebe. 96. NRS, Banjul, CSO 10/71, the Secretariat Confidential File, Gambia No. 2544, December 24, 1939. 97. NRS, Banjul, CSO 10/71, the Secretariat Confidential file, Gambia No. 2544, December 24, 1939; also, see Alhagie Bai Konteh, interview with Bakary Sidebe, and Alkalo Bakary Kutu Jatta, interview with Bakary Sidebe. 98. Alhagie Bai Konteh, interview with Bakary Sidebe. 99. Some of the oral histories of the Gambia list “muso mansas” on their “kinglist,” but it is hard to conclude if that was really significant of matrilineality, though some have noted that the nyancho/guelowar were defined matrilineally. There is also a sense that some of the people who occupied Gambia-Casamance-Guinea-Bissau before the Mandinka came were matrilineal, but by the late eighteenth century, the Western Mandinka were certainly patrilineal. Among the Wolof, matrilineages were also important for the aid and education of small children. However, the patrilineage was the

196

Notes to pp. 53–60

grouping for inheritance of political status and property (Quinn, Mandingo, 24). 100. Skinner, “Islam in Kombo,” 90. 101. Ibid., 90. 102. Brooks, Landlords and Strangers, chapter 6. 103. Webb, Desert Frontier, 5. 104. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 75. 105. Spear, “Oral Traditions,” 166. 106. Barry, Senegambia, 22. 107. Camara, The Epic of Kelefaa Saane. 108. Kea, Land, Labour and Entrustment, 68. 109. Conrad, “From the Banan Tree of Kouroussa,” 386–7. 110. Quinn, Mandingo, 24. 111. Moore, Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa, 25. 112. Park, Travels, 42–3. 113. Ibid., 21. 114. Ibid., 23. 115. Ibid., 23–24. 116. Curtin, Africa Remembered, 27. 117. Horta, “Evidence for a Luso-African Identity in ‘Portuguese’ Accounts,” 116. 118. Robinson, Paths of Accommodation, 52. 119. Green, “Architects of Knowledge,” 100. 120. See Park, Travels, 24. 121. Hartwig, “Oral data and its historical function in East Africa,” 477. 122. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 69. 123. Wright, “The Epic of Kelefa Saane,” 288. 124. Achebe, The Female King, 30. Chapter Two 1. Moore, Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa, 15. 2. Quinn, Mandingo, 27; Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town,” 24; Fafa Jobe, interview. 3. Ibid., 17. 4. Osborn, Our New Husbands Are Here, 6; Green, “Architects of Knowledge, Builders of Power,” 94; MacGaffey, Chiefs, Priests, and Praise-Singers, 3. 5. Austin, Labour, 43. 6. Berry, No Condition is Permanent, 120–21. 7. See, for example, Mungazi, The Struggle for Social Change in Southern Africa, 34; Wood, Alan Dixon and Matthew McCartney, Wetland Management and Sustainable Livelihoods in Africa.

Notes to pp. 60–65 197 8. MacGaffey, Chiefs, Priests, and Praise-Singers, 21. 9. Ibid., 90. 10. NRS, ARP 28/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, South Bank 1893–99. 11. Moore, Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa, 37; see also Quinn, Mandingo, 37. 12. Mahoney, “Government,” 5. 13. Skinner, “Islam in Kombo,” 90. 14. Quinn, Mandingo, 16. 15. Green, “Architects of Knowledge,” 96. 16. NRS, CSO 2/94, The Laws and Customs of the Mandingos of the North Bank Territory of the Gambia Protectorate, 1906. 17. See Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 120. 18. Wright, “The Epic of Kelefa Saane,” 288–90. 19. Park, Travels, 330. 20. NRS, ARP 32/3, North Bank Province, Major R. W. Macklin, Traveling Commissioner, March 4, 1931. 21. Barry, Senegambia, 30. 22. Hanson, Landed Obligation, 4–5. 23. Pierce, Farmers, 6. 24. Park, Travels, 241–42. 25. According to some sources, it was the Badume people who gave land to the Sonko. Badume is today a small village located about one hundred miles upstream from the river’s mouth, on the Gambia’s southern bank near Elephant Island. Bureng is a larger village, about seven miles east of Badume. For more on the relationship between Badume and Bureng, see Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:162–66. For more on the role of the mansa, see Kabba Jaiteh, Tankularr, August 7, 2008, Tankularr, Kiang, LRR; Jali Kebba Suso, Wuli Passimas, URR, August 12, 2008. 26. Cited from The Christian Traveller, 170. 27. Cited from The Christian Traveller, 170. 28. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 11. 29. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 29; Wright, “The Early History of Niumi,” 95–98. 30. Alfusainey Marong and Aja Kaddy Njie, interviews. 31. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:153–55. 32. NRS, ARP 28/1, Travelling Commissioner’s Report, South Bank 1893. 33. NRS, PUB 11/17—Charles D. Van der Plas, Report: a Socio-Economic Survey of Bathurst and Kombo St. Mary in the Gambia, 27–28. 34. NRS, CSO 10/71: “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

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Notes to pp. 65–70

Commissioner’s Office South Bank Province, Cape St. Mary, Gambia, April 30 1940. 35. Skinner, “Islam in Kombo,” 89. 36. Ibid., 99. 37. Ibid., 91. 38. NRS, CSO 10/71, Confidential Dispatch to the Colonial Secretary in Bathurst from the Commissioner’s Office South Bank Province, Cape St. Mary, April 30, 1939. 39. See, for example, McCaskie, State and Society in Precolonial Africa; McCaskie, “Office, Land and Subjects in the History of the Manwere Fekuo in Kumase,” 189–208; and compare with Amanor, “The Changing Face of Customary Tenure,” 55–80, and Boni, “Indigenous Blood and Foreign Labor,” 161–85. 40. T. C. McCaskie made a similar argument for precolonial Asante. See McCaskie, State and Society in Pre-colonial Asante, 37. 41. Barry, Senegambia, 28. 42. Landing Mustapha Janneh and Alkalo Aja Takko Taal, interviews; 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 R. H. Gretton and the governor was Sir Thomas Southorn. 43. Morgan, Reminiscences, 24. 44. In the past, every Mandinka village used to have a bantango or bantaba. It was the village meeting ground—a place where all important matters concerning the village were discussed. The Wolof term is penche. 45. Cited from The Christian Traveller, 170. 46. Klein, “Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution,” 425. 47. Morgan, Reminiscences, 28. 48. Morgan, Reminiscences, 21–22, 29. 49. Quinn, The Mandingo, 31. 50. David Eltis, Stephen D. Behrendt, David Richardson, and Herbert S. Klein, eds., Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, http://slavevoyages. org. 51. Law, “Horses, Firearms, and Political Power in Pre-colonial West Africa,” 113–14. 52. Morgan, Reminiscences, 2. 53. Ibid., 116. 54. Ibid., 3. 55. Ibid., 121. 56. NRS, ARP 32/3—E. Hopkinson, Traveling Commissioner, July 7, 1923—report for North Bank Province, 1923–32. 57. See Green, The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. 58. Jali Kebba Suso, interviews; see also Gamble, “The South Bank of the Gambia,” 14.

Notes to pp. 70–73 199 59. Moore, Travels, 87; Mahoney, “Government and Opinion,” 5. 60. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Kataba was the capital of the Mandinka state of Niani. Dinkirai was a small town with a solid fortified wall in the Gambia’s Upper River Sandugu district. See Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 79. 61. Morgan, Reminiscences, 85. 62. Bolt, “Comment: the Dynamics of Dependence,” 243. 63. Skinner, “Islam in Kombo,” 90. 64. Morgan, Reminiscences, 21–22. This is also a common title for a kinglike leader. 65. Quinn, Mandingo, 55; Gray, A History of the Gambia, 386. 66. Alhagie Kebba Jaiteh, Tankularr, Kiang, Lower River Region August 7, 2008; Alhagie Faa Ceesay, Mandinari, Kombo, Western Region, August 8, 2008, and Jali Kebba Suso, Wuli Passimas, URR August 12, 2008. 67. Most of Baddibu’s mansas came from the Jammeh lineage of Eliassa (sometimes written as Iliasa). They are said to be related to the Jammeh lineage of Sitanunku, in Niumi. See Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 7. 68. Parliamentary Papers, Vol. XLIV December 10, 1868, and August 11, 1869, 526. 69. Fox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions, 237. 70. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 99. 71. Quinn, Mandingo, 18, 28; Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers,” 24–25. 72. Brooks, Landlords and Strangers, 135; Quinn, Mandingo, 27; NRS, CSO 10/71: Confidential Dispatch from Governor of Sierra Leone, Douglas Jardine, to the Secretary of State for Colonies, April 1940. 73. Quinn, Mandingo, 28. 74. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 35. 75. Durand, A Voyage to Senegal, 41. See also Mahoney, “Government,” 12. 76. Quinn, Mandingo, 41; Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 54. 77. Jobson, The Golden Trade, 158. 78. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:40–41. 79. Klein, “Servitude among the Wolof and Sereer of Senegambia,” 346. 80. Alhagie Kebba Jaiteh, Tankularr, Kiang, Lower River Region August 7, 2008; Alhagie Faa Ceesay, Mandinari, Kombo, Western Region, August 8, 2008. 81. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 35. 82. Jali Kebba Suso, Wuli Passimas, URR August 12, 2008. 83. People also measured their wealth by the size of their millet and rice granaries.

200

Notes to pp. 74–78

84. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:40–41. 85. Searing, West African Slavery and Atlantic Commerce, 28–43. 86. Shack and Skinner, Strangers in African Societies, 9. 87. N’Daou, Sangalan Oral Traditions, 4. 88. Anonymous, The Christian Traveller in Western Africa, 97. 89. Park, Travels, 15. 90. Moore, Travels, 32–33; Mahoney, “Government,” 11. 91. Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa, 2. 92. Mollien, Travels in the Interior of Africa, 69. 93. In Mandinka, the word mansaring means “little mansa.” Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:67. 94. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 129. 95. Sheriff Jobarteh, interview. 96. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 136. 97. Sheriff Jobarteh, interview. 98. Bolt, “Comment: the dynamics of dependence,” 244. 99. Sheriff Jobarteh, interview. 100. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 106. 101. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 106. 102. Sheriff Jobarteh, interview. 103. Located near Albreda and the British-controlled James Island, Juffure is where African-American Alex Hailey claimed his family’s ancestor, Kunta Kinteh, was born. 104. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 109. 105. Ibid., 96, 109. 106. Kabba Jaiteh, Tankularr, August 7, 2008, Tankularr, Kiang, LRR; Alkalo Dawda Sowe, Baffuloto village, Upper Niumi District, July 23, 2006; Imam Alhajie Momodou Lamin Bah, Serrekunda, KSMD, June 30 2006; Alkalo Luntang Jaiteh, Bakau, June 9, 2006; Tida Touray and her son, Momodou Fatty, Serrekunda, April 21, 2008. 107. Alfusainey Marong, interview; Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 9. 108. Moore, Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa, 40. 109. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 56–58. See also Golberry, Fragments d’un voyage en Afrique pendant les années 1785, 86, 87. 110. Skinner, “Islam in Kombo,” 93. 111. Malick Touray, interview. 112. Skinner, “Islam in Kombo,” 93. 113. Gamble, “The South Bank of the Gambia,” 79. 114. Malick Touray, interview. 115. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 8. 116. Sheriff Jobarteh, interview; Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 75.

Notes to pp. 78–85 201 117. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 94. 118. For a discussion of this in Wolof society, see Searing, “God Alone Is King,” 13. 119. The proverb is cited in Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 38. 120. Jali Kebba Suso, Wuli Passimas, URR August 12, 2008. 121. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 50. 122. Imam Siaka Jobe, interview. 123. NRS, ARP 32/1, Travelling Commissioner’s Reports, North Bank 1893–1932, 60. 124. Ibid. 125. NRS, ARP 28/1, Cecil Sitwell, Traveling Commissioner for the South Bank Province, December 27, 1893. 126. NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Reports-Annual Report (no. 195), 1896. 127. Parliamentary Papers (Great Britain), Select Committee on Africa (West Coast), House of Commons, Gambia Treaties. Session: February 7 to July 6, 1865. Vol. V, 410. 128. Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms, 13. 129. See Reports from the Select Committee on Africa (Western Coast), Session: February 7 to July 6, 1865, 411. For an archival reference on the treaty, see NRS, CSO 1/2, Despatch from Acting Gov. Macaulay to Earl Bathurst, June 28, 1826. 130. Mahoney, “Government,” 5. 131. Mahoney, “Government,” 4–5. 132. Quinn, Mandingo, 13. 133. Mollien, Travels in the Interior of Africa, 69–70. 134. Mollien, Travels in the Interior of Africa, 60. 135. Bara-Diop, La Société Wolof. 136. Jobson, The Golden Trade, 71. Chapter Three 1. Morgan, Reminiscences, 121. 2. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 11–39. 3. Barry, Senegambia, 22; Skinner, “Islam in Kombo,” 96. 4. See Tengan, The Land as Being and Cosmos ; Shipton, “Land and Culture in Tropical Africa,” 347–77. 5. Sheridan and Nyamweru, African Sacred Groves, 149–78; Babalola et al., “Roles of and Threats to Indigenous Cultural Beliefs,” 41–50; Shipton, “Land and Culture in Tropical Africa,” 347–77; Cocks, Dold and Vetter,

202

Notes to pp. 85–91

“‘God Is My Forest’-Xhosa Cultural Values Provide Untapped Opportunities for Conversation,” 1–8. 6. Shipton, “Land and Culture in Tropical Africa,” 361. 7. Ibid., 361. 8. Babalola et al., “Roles of and Threats to Indigenous Cultural Beliefs,” 41–42. 9. Ibid., 42–43. 10. Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 19, 21. 11. Ibid., 23, 25. 12. Sheridan and Nyamweru, African Sacred Groves, 3. 13. Beinart, “African History and Environmental History,” 271. 14. Greene, Sacred Sites and the Colonial Encounter, 1–2. 15. Austin, “Resources, techniques, and strategies south of the Sahara,” 589. 16. Barry, Senegambia, 31; Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, 44. 17. Ngaide, “Logiques d’héritages et Superposition de droits,” 69–98. 18. Goody, Technology, Tradition, and the State of Africa, 21–37; Langlois, “An Introduction to Jack Goody’s Historical Anthropology,” 6. 19. In Mandinka, mori means Muslim. 20. Conrad, “From Banan Tree of Kouroussa,” 385. 21. Gottlieb, “Loggers v. Spirits in the Beng Forest, Côte d’Ivoire Competing Models,” 149–63. 22. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:166. 23. Gordon, Invisible Agents, 2. 24. Schoenbrun, A Green Place, A Good Place, 6. 25. Ibid., 123–26. 26. Klieman, “The Pygmies Were Our Compass,” 157. 27. Ibid., 81. 28. Lentz, Land, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa, 82. 29. Gable, “Women, Ancestors, and Alterity,” 105. 30. Hanson, Landed Obligation, 32–33. 31. Derman, Serfs, Peasants, and Socialists, 225; Maarouf, Jinns Eviction as a Discourse of Power. 32. Gamble, “Accounts of Supernatural Beings,” 2. 33. Derman, Serfs, Peasants, and Socialists, 225. 34. Ibid., 226. 35. 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, 1831; PRO CO 87/5, 41, Lt. Governor Rendall to R. W. Hay, Government House, Bathurst, July 30, 1831. For more on this, see Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 138–39. This case is also mentioned in Mbaeyi, “The Barra-British War of 1831,” 617–31, and in less detail in Mbaeyi’s book, British Military

Notes to pp. 91–94 203 and Naval Forces in West African History, 1807–1874, 76. Finally, see William Moister (who visited in 1831), Memorials of Missionary Labours, 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. 36. Europeans referred to the area near Balingho as “Devil’s Point.” They most likely took the name from the people living near the towns of Farafenni and Kaur. See Fox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions, 245–46. 37. Morgan, Reminiscences, 1–2; Moister, Memorials of Missionary Labours, 206. 38. Gamble, “The South Bank of the Gambia,” 60. See also Innes, Sunjata: Three Mandinka Versions, 100–101. 39. Saine, Culture and Customs of Gambia, 43. 40. Southorn, The Gambia, 250; Gamble, “Accounts of Supernatural Beings,” 7. 41. Gamble, “Accounts of Supernatural Beings,” 7. 42. NRS, CSO 2/94, Law and customs of the various communities in West Africa. The laws and customs of the Mandingos of the North Bank Territory of the Gambia Protectorate 1906. 43. Adanson, A Voyage to Senegal, 161–2. 44. Morgan, Reminiscences, 3. 45. Fox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions, 35; 235. 46. Morgan, Reminiscences, 2. 47. Alhagie Kebba Jaiteh, interview. 48. Jali Kebba Suso, interview. 49. Morgan, Reminiscences, 115. 50. Morgan, Reminiscences, 2. 51. Fox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions, 354. 52. Southorn, The Gambia, 33. 53. Ibid., 388. 54. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia” (April 1999), 10. 55. Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial Africa, 15. 56. Ibid., 15. 57. See Gamble, “The Gambia.” 58. Kebba Jaiteh, interview. 59. Kebba Jaiteh, interview. 60. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, Vol II (1980):140. 61. Tankular village was mentioned in a 1734 map of the Gambia region. 62. Alhagie Kebba Jaiteh, interview. 63. Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interview. 64. Alhagie Faa Ceesay, interview. 65. Jali Ngali Mbye, interview.

204

Notes to pp. 94–98

66. Maier, Priests and Power ; Macgaffey, Chiefs, Priests, and Praise-Singers. 67. Klieman, “The Pygmies Were Our Compass,” 185–86. 68. See Ranger, “Voices from the Rocks,” 25. 69. Jali Ngali Mbye, interview. 70. Conrad, “From Banan Tree of Kouroussa,” 386. 71. See Alhagie Bai Konteh, interview; translation available at the RDD as Tape Catalogue # 612; Alkalo Bakary Kutu Jatta, interview; translation available at the RDD collection as Tape # 223C: 50–70; Lamin Jammeh, Alkalo Ndamboy Sanyang, Siringka Sanyang and Lang Kumba Sanyang, interviews; translation available at the RDD collection in Fajara as Tape No. 5178; Tonyonding Darboe, interview; translation available at the RDD collection in Fajara as Tape No. 5162; Mba Neneh Sabally, interview; Arfang Sainey Sanneh-Darboe, interview. 72. See Brooks, Landlords and Strangers. 73. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 1:42. 74. Mba Neneh Sabbally, interview. 75. A taboo is a kapok tree, associated with spirits because it lives a long time and has holes where people believe spirits and animals can hide. 76. Abdoulie Samba, interview by Donald R. Wright, cited in Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 1:132. 77. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:171. 78. Ibid., 2:178. 79. Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interview. 80. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:171. 81. Ibid., 2:178. 82. Alkalo Tonyonding Darboe and Imam, interview by Bala Saho, Lamin Yabo and Lamin Nyagadou, translation available on file as RDD in Fajara Tape# 5162; Alkalo Bunang Sanneh, interview by Bala Saho and Lamin Yabo, translation available at the RDD collection in Fajara as Tape# 5177; Alhagie Bai Konteh, interviewed by NCAC staff, translation available at the RDD office as Tape Catalogue # 612; Bakary Kutu Jatta, Alkali of Busumbala, interviewed by NCAC staff, translation available at the RDD office in Fajara as Tape # 223C, 50–70. NCAC is the acronym for the Gambia’s National Council for Arts and Culture, while RDD is the section of the NCAC’s Research and Documentation Division, where all the oral history collections are kept. 83. Sheriff Jobarteh, interview by Donald R. Wright, cited in Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 1:101. 84. Kamara, Two Hunting Tales of the Senegambia, 2–3; Kamara, Innes, and Sidibe, Hunters and Crocodiles ; Hoffman, Griots at War; Camara, “The Hunter in the Mande Imagination,” 121–32. 85. Personal conversation with Bala Saho about the meaning of “timboo,” which I found in one of my oral sources. Saho called his elder brother, Alhagie Sunkung Saho, who relayed this information.

Notes to pp. 98–106 205 86. Saine, Culture and Customs, 42–3. 87. Kamara, Two Hunting Tales of the Senegambia, 2–3; for a discussion of a similar practice, see Pratten, The Man-Leopard Murders, 16. 88. Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interview. 89. Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interviews; Haddy Mboob, interview. 90. Imam Alhajie Momodou Lamin Bah, interview; Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interview. 91. Alhagie Faa Ceesay, interview. 92. Sweet, Domingos, 33. 93. Jobson, The Golden Trade, 78; Park, Travels, 49. 94. Jobson, The Golden Trade, 78. 95. Ibid., 78. 96. Park, Travels, 13, 49. 97. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:140. 98. Jali Nyali Mbye, interview by Ensa Touray and Alhagie Mbye; Alkalo Aja Takko Taal, interview. 99. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:140. 100. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 132. 101. Mollien, Travels in the Interior of Africa, 62. 102. Klein, Islam and Imperialism in Senegal, 63. 103. Khalwa is also defined as that period of meditation between the recognition of an emergency and its resolution. See Skinner, “Islam in Kombo”; Robinson, The Holy War, 32. 104. Alkalo Dawda Sowe, interview. 105. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 2:144–45. 106. Ibid., 2:156–7. 107. Seedia Darboe, Sanyang, interview by Donald R. Wright, cited in Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 1:28–29; Alhagie Bai Konteh, “History of Sanyang Bafuloto Saidy,” interview by NCAC staff, translation available at the RDD collection in Fajara asTape Catalogue # 621. 108. Pa Modou Faal, interview. 109. Ibid., 28. 110. Unus Jatta, interview by Donald R. Wright, cited in Wright’s Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 1:38. 111. Pa Modou Faal, interview; Alhagie Bai Konteh, interview by RDD, translation available at the RDD collection in Fajara as Tape Catalogue # 621. 112. Arafang Sainey Sanneh-Darboe, interview. 113. Quinn, Mandingo, 65. 114. Maarouf, Jinns Eviction, 247–8. 115. Eriksen, Small Places, Large Issues, 158. 116. Campbell, “Traditional Forest Protection,” 225–32. 117. Alkalo Dawda Sowe, interview.

206

Notes to pp. 106–118

118. Ebou Kolley, interview. 119. Adanson, A Voyage to Senegal, 164–65. 120. Morgan, Reminiscences, 4. 121. Morgan, Reminiscences, 84. 122. Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa, 13. 123. Adanson, A Voyage to Senegal, 164–65. 124. Morgan, Reminiscences, 84. 125. NRS, CSO 1/2, November 1, 1824. 126. Fox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions, 33. 127. Sheridan and Nyamweru, African Sacred Groves, 6. 128. Brown, “Patterns of Authority in West Africa,” 262. 129. Jali Kebba Suso, interview. 130. Webb, “Ecological and Economic Change,” 555–6; Kea, “Maintaining Difference and Managing Change,” 366, 370. Chapter Four 1. Alkalo Bunang Sanneh, “Sankandi-Battelling Land Dispute,” interview by NCAC staff, translation available at the RDD collection in Fajara as Tape No. 5177. 2. Annual Report for 1901 available on microfilm at the Michigan State University Library. 3. For more on bentang, see Park, Travels, 19. 4. See Babou’s Fighting the Greater Jihad, 20–32; Searing, “God Alone Is King,” 3–74; Robinson, The Holy War of Umar Tal ; Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms ; Klein, “The Moslem Revolution,” 69–101; Klein, “Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution,” 419–41. 5. All the following interviews supported this claim: those with Malick Touray, Jali Kebba Suso, Alhagie Kebba Jaiteh, Alhagie Faa Ceesay, and Imam Alhajie Momodou Lamin Bah. 6. Gray, History of the Gambia, 388. 7. Skinner, “Islam in Kombo,” 91. 8. See Morgan, Reminiscences, 24–28. 9. Skinner, “Islam in Kombo,” 97. 10. Gailey, Historical Dictionary of the Gambia, 110. 11. Gray, A History of the Gambia, 455. 12. Oliver and Sanderson, The Cambridge History of Africa, 218. 13. NRS, ARP 33/1, Reports on Kombo, Foni and Kiang 1894–99 (Cecil Sitwell, Traveling Commissioner), 2–3. 14. NRS, ARP 33/1, Report of Kombo for the year 1895 and 1896. 15. Ibid., 8.

Notes to pp. 118–122 207 16. NRS, ARP 33/1, Reports on Kombo, Foni and Kiang 1894–99, 2–3. 17. Ibid., 4. 18. Skinner, “Islam in Kombo,” 91. 19. Ibid., 94–95. 20. The man who led the Kombo jihad, Foday Ibrahima Touray, was descended from a long line of Muslim clerics. But his mother’s name was Mbesine, and some claim that she was a Jola while others suggest that she was a Kasinke (Serer, from Sine). There are also some who suggest that she was a slave from the royal court at Brikama or the daughter of the king of Sine, Albure Njie. Maley Touray, Foday Sillah’s father, obtained her as a wife after converting her to Islam after another marabout predicted that Mbesine would bear the future ruler of Kombo. Around 1840, Foday Kang Kabba, Maley’s elder brother, took Foday Sillah to study with a notable Jahanke cleric in Darsilame, Pakao (eastern Casamance). 21. Personal conversation with Ensa Touray, a native of Gunjur, August 4, 2008. 22. Skinner, “Islam in Kombo,” 99. 23. Ibid., 97. 24. 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. 25. Ibid. 26. Alkalo Dawda Sowe, interview. 27. NRS, CO/87/74, Report from Governor d’Arcy, August 8, 1862; Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 98. 28. Quinn, Mandingo, 117. 29. Ibid., 97. 30. Ibid., 97, 455. 31. Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town,” 68–69. 32. Imam Alhajie Momodou Lamin Bah, “Maba and the History of Islam in the Gambia,” interview. 33. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 76–77. 34. Sheriff Jobarteh, interview. 35. Archer, The Gambia Colony and Protectorate, 100. 36. Ibid., 427. 37. 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 cleric) is held in Bantang Kiling in his honor. His true religious affiliation is therefore not clear to me. 38. NRS, CSO 1/14, Administrator in Chief’s Letter, Government House, Bathurst, Gambia, August 31, 1867.

208

Notes to pp. 122–126

39. NRS, CSO 1/14, Letter from Richard A. Stewart, Corporal of Police to His Excellency Major Anton Acting, Administrator, dated British Albreda, June 29, 1867. 40. NRS, CSO 1/14, Letter from Richard A. Stewart, Corporal of Police to His Excellency Major Anton Acting, Administrator, dated British Albreda, July 13, 1867. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. NRS, CSO 1/14, Report by Colonel Anthon, Acting Administrator, Essau, Barra Point, August 30, 1867. 44. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 26. 45. Alkalo Aja Takko Taal, interview; Alkalo Dawda Sowe, interview. 46. NRS, CSO 2/94, Laws and Customs of the Mandingoes of the North Bank Territory of the Gambia Protectorate, 1906. 47. Quinn, Mandingo, 68; also, see Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town,” 25, 68; Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 6–7. 48. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 23, 76. 49. NRS, CSO 1/14, Report by Colonel Anthon, Acting Administrator, Essau, Barra Point, August 30, 1867; see also Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 146; Quinn, Mandingo, 114–15. 50. Imam Alhagie Momodou Lamin Bah, interview. 51. Ibid. 52. NRS, CSO 1/14, Government House, Bathurst Gambia, August 31, 1867, no. 22. 53. Quinn, Mandingo, 135. 54. See CSO 1/14 Colonel Anthon, August 30, 1867; statement of John Day, Colonial Interpreter, August 30, 1867; 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 R. A. Stewart, Corporal of Police, British Albreda, to Major Anthon, Acting Administrator, Bathurst, dated Saturday, July 13, 1867; see also Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 148. 55. Gray, A History of the Gambia, 427; Quinn, Mandingo, 135. 56. Gray, A History of the Gambia, 427. 57. NRS, CSO 23/3, Expedition against Foday Kabbala, ex-king of Fogni. 58. NRS, ARP 33/1, Reports on Kombo, Foni and Kiang, 1894–99, 7. 59. Lamin Jammeh, Alkalo Ndamboy Sanyang, Siringka Sanyang and Lang Kumba Sanyang, “Sankandi-Battelling Land Dispute,” interview by NCAC staff, translation available at the RDD collection in Fajara as Tape No. 5178. 60. NRS, CSO 10/71, Letter from CNBP to Colonial Secretary, dated June 26, 1942.

Notes to pp. 126–132 209 61. Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, 85. 62. NRS, CSO 10/71, Letter from CNBP to Colonial Secretary, dated June 26, 1942. 63. Annual Report for 1901. 64. Ibid. 65. NRS, CSO 2/94, Laws and Customs of the Mandinka, 1906. 66. See Lamin Jammeh, Alkalo Ndamboy Sanyang et al., interview. 67. See Alkalo Bunang Sanneh, interview. 68. Quinn, Mandingo, 68. 69. Ibid., 68; Beedle, “Citizens and Strangers in a Gambian Town,” 25, 68. 70. Tradition has it that the site of the settlement of Sankandi was originally called Bawdal, and it had a lake where traders used to wash and rest after long trips. The oral sources also claim that Dumbuto’s Soninke name was Kehnokoto, and the person who founded the village was a hunter. 71. Several Gambians—even today—believe that such incidents were bold statements of anticolonial sentiment. For instance, in one of the interviews in RDD about Sankandi an informant claimed that “Sankandi and Kembujeng were the only two villages where whites have been killed” and added that Sankandi’s name became Suuma Kunda “because of the annoyance their ancestors had against the whites.” 72. Quinn, Mandingo, 62. 73. Confidential Dispatch from Governor of Sierra Leone, Douglas Jardine to the Secretary of State for Colonies, April 1940. 74. NRS, CSO 2/94, Reports on the Jolah People, 1906. 75. NRS, CSO 2/94, Laws and Customs of the Mandinka, 1906. 76. NRS, CSO 2/94, Reports on the Jolah People. 77. Ibid. 78. NRS, ARP 33/1, Reports on Kombo, Foni and Kiang, 1894–99, 8. 79. Hawthorne, “Migrations and Statelessness,” 139–50. 80. NRS, CSO 2/94, The Laws and Customs of the Jollofs, 1906. 81. Ibid. 82. Ibid. 83. NRS, 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. 84. NRS, CSO 10/71, Native Land Tenure, December 20, 1939. 85. Quinn, Mandingo, 195. 86. See Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 6–7. 87. For more information on Mboge, see Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 7; Quinn, Mandingo, 163. 88. Klein, Islam and Imperialism in Senegal, 102. 89. Quinn, Mandingo, 62.

210

Notes to pp. 132–138

90. Imam Alhagie Momodou Lamin Bah, interview. 91. Quinn, Mandingo, 8. Quinn’s work on the Senegambian Mandinka states shows that this was uncommon. She writes that, during the wars, Pakala Bati Xai supported Sait Matty, and neighboring Panchang was on the side of Biran Ceesay. 92. Mba Neneh Sabbally, interview. 93. Arafang Sainey Sanneh, interview. 94. Mba Neneh Sabally, interview. 95. NRS, ARP 28/1, Travelling Commissioner’s Report, South Bank 1893–99. 96. Ibid. 97. NRS, ARP 32, Travelling Commissioner’s Reports, North Bank 1893– 1932 (60). 98. A few years before Commissioner Ozanne dealt with the SarrakundaTandaito land dispute, he dealt with another one in Bambally. 99. NRS, ARP 32/1, Travelling Commissioner’s Reports, North Bank 1893–1932 (60). 100. NRS, ARP 32/1. 101. NRS, ARP 32/1. 102. NRS, CSO 2/94, Laws and Customs of the Mandinka, 1906. 103. Colburn’s United Military Service Magazine and Naval and Military Journal, No. CCCCLXVI September 1867, “Settlements of the Gambia” by Governor D’Arcy, 4. 104. Malick Touray, interview; Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interview; and Imam Siaka Jobe, interview. 105. NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Reports, Annual Report for 1894. 106. Morgan, Reminiscences, 121. Chapter FIve 1. NRS, CSO 1/2, November 1, 1824. 2. NRS, ARP 32/3, North Bank Province, 1924, 10. 3. Sanneh, The Jakhanke Muslim Clerics. 4. Beinart, “African History and Environmental History,” 271–2. 5. See Ranger, Voices from the Rocks, 39–66; Beinart, “African History and Environmental History,” 269–302; Tropp, “Displaced People, Replaced Narratives,” 207–33; Ford, “Reforestation, Landscape Conversation, and the Anxieties of Empire,” 341–62; Akyeampong, Between the Sea and the Lagoon, 19. 6. Tropp, “Displaced People, Replaced Narratives,” 211. 7. McCann, Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land, 3.

Notes to pp. 139–142 211 8. Afolayan, “Land Policy, Cash Cropping and In-migration into Ife Southern Area of Nigeria,” 87. 9. NRS, CSO 1/2, November 1, 1824. 10. CO 87/24, Huntley to Russell, April 22, 1840; Parliamentary Papers Reports on the West Coast of Africa, February 3–August 12, 1842, 186. 11. Southorn, The Gambia, 184. 12. Klein, “Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution,” 424. 13. NRS, ARP 35/2 Colonial Reports, No. 229 (Annual Report for 1897). 14. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 140–41. 15. NRS, ARP 28/2, Traveling Commissioner’s Report on the South Bank Province, 1903–27. 16. Webb, “Ecological and Economic Change,” 543–65. 17. See Swindell and Jeng, Migrants ; Weil, “Slavery, Groundnuts, and Capitalism,” 77–119; Mark, “Urban Migration, Cash Cropping, and Calamity,” 1–14; Brooks “Peanuts and Colonialism,” 32; Southorn, The Gambia; Tosh, “The Cash-Crop Revolution in Tropical Africa,” 79; Bowman, “‘Legitimate Commerce’ and Peanut Production in Portuguese Guinea,” 87. 18. Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, 4. 19. Klein, “Social and Economic Factors,” 424. 20. Searing, “Conversion to Islam,” 74. 21. Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, 43. 22. Tosh, “The Cash-Crop Revolution,” 81–82. 23. Klein, Peasants in Africa, 13; Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa, 68; Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa, 231–36. 24. Weil, “Slavery, Groundnuts, and Capitalism in the Wuli,” 83. 25. Kea, Land, Labour and Entrustment, 37. 26. Weil, “Slavery, Groundnuts, and Capitalism in the Wuli,” 107. 27. See Weil, “Slavery, Groundnuts, and Capitalism in the Wuli,” 77–119; Hogendorn, “The Origins of the Groundnut Trade,” 30–51. 28. Ibid., 69. 29. NRS, ARP 32/1, Travelling Commissioner’s Reports, Vol. 1 North Bank 1893–98. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. For more on the challenges of emancipation, see Bellagamba, “Slavery and Emancipation in the Colonial Archives,” 5–41; Klein, “Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution,” 434. 32. NRS, ARP 33/1, Reports on Kombo, Foni and Kiang, 1894–99, 8. 33. Morgan, Reminiscences, 3; ARP 32, Travelling Commissioner’s Reports, Vol. 1 North Bank 1893–1932 (60). 34. Bellagamba, “Slavery and Emancipation in the Colonial Archives,” 15–16; NRS, ARP 32, Travelling Commissioner’s Reports, Vol. 1 North Bank 1893–1932 (60).

212

Notes to pp. 142–145

35. NRS, ARP 32, Travelling Commissioner’s Reports, Vol. 1 North Bank 1893–1932 (60); Bellagamba, “Slavery and Emancipation in the Colonial Archives,” 21. 36. Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa, 68. 37. Kea, Land, Labour and Entrustment, 36. 38. NRS, ARP 32/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, 1894, 49–50. 39. Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa, 68. 40. Searing, “God Alone Is King.” 41. Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, 61. 42. Ibid., 94–5. 43. Swindell “Serawoollies, Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers,” 94; Tosh, “The Cash-Crop Revolution,” 82. 44. NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Reports, No. 229 (Annual Report for 1897). 45. Brooks, “Peanuts and Colonialism,” 29–54; Swindell, “Serawoollies, Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers,” 94; Kea, Land, Labour and Entrustment, 38. 46. Swindell, “Serawoollies, Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers,” 95. 47. See Kea, Land, Labour and Entrustment, 38, 46; Searing, “Conversion to Islam,” 82. 48. Brooks, “Peanuts and Colonialism,” 43; Newbury, “Prices and Profitability in Early Nineteenth-Century West African Trade,” 96. 49. NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Reports No. 229. 50. NRS, ARP 32, Travelling Commissioner’s Reports, North Bank, 1893. Also, see Ba Saney Bojang, interview; Imam Saika Jobe, interview. 51. NRS, ARP 32, Travelling Commissioner’s Reports, North Bank, 1893 (60). 52. Musa Konateh, interview; Haddy Mboob, interview. 53. Musa Konateh, interview. 54. See Cruise O’Brien, The Mourides of Senegal, 2–3. 55. NRS, ARP 33/1, Reports on Kombo, Foni and Kiang, 1895–96. 56. NRS, ARP 28/1, Travelling Commissioner’s Report, South Bank, 1893–99. 57. NRS, ARP 32, Travelling Commissioner’s Report, North Bank 1893– 1932 (60). 58. 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,” 452–72; Swindell, “Family Farms and Migrant Labour,” 3–17; Swindell, “Serawoollies, Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers,” 93–104. 59. NRS, CSO 2/94, The Laws and Customs of the Mandingoes of the North Bank, 1906. 60. Governor R. B. Llewellyn to Secretary of State for Colonies, CO 87, no. 64 of June 16, 1894, Enclosure no. 2.; NRS, CSO 2/94, The Laws and Customs of the Jolah, 1906.

Notes to pp. 145–151 213 61. NRS, CSO 2/94, The Laws and Customs of the Mandingoes of the North Bank, 1906. 62. Kea, Land, Labour and Entrustment, 10. 63. Swindell, “Migrant Groundnut Farmers in the Gambia,” 452–72; Swindell, “Family Farms and Migrant Labour,” 3–17; Swindell, “Serawoollies, Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers,” 93–104. 64. NRS, ARP 28/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Reports Vol. II, South Bank 1893–99. 65. NRS, ARP 32/3, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, July 7, 1923. 66. Alhagie Kebba Jaiteh, interview. 67. NRS, ARP 28/2, Report of the South Bank District, July 4, 1906. 68. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 121. 69. NRS, ARP 32, Travelling Commissioner’s Reports, North Bank (60). 70. Swindell, “Serawoollies, Tillibunkas and Strange Farmers,” 99. 71. NRS, ARP 32/3, Annual Report, North Bank Province, 1923. 72. NRS, ARP 33/1, Reports on Kombo, Foni and Kiang 1894, 7–8. 73. Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, 84. 74. “Makka” is a corrupted form of Mecca. A number of Senegambian villages (founded during the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) were named Makka. 75. NRS, ARP 28/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Report SBP, 1894. 76. NRS, ARP 32, Travelling Commissioner’s Reports, North Bank (60). 77. NRS, ARP 28/2, W. B. Stanley, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, South Bank Province, 1903–27, 174. 78. Nwokeji, “African conceptions of Gender and the Slave Traffic,” 47–69. 79. NRS, ARP 32/3, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, North Bank Province, 1932. 80. Quinn, Mandingo, 65. 81. Ibid., 162. 82. Ibid., 121. 83. Ibid., 128–29. 84. Members of Njimbeti’s lineage are said to be also in Toubabkolong, Niumi, Katchang, and Kerewan in Baddibu. 85. Jali Ngali Mbye, interview. 86. NRS, ARP 32/3, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, North Bank Province, 1932. 87. Alkalo Dawda Sowe, interview. 88. NRS, ARP 32/3, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, North Bank Province, 1932. 89. Alkalo Dawda Sowe, interview. 90. PRO 60/2, E. Hopkinson, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, North Bank Province, 1921.

214

Notes to pp. 151–157

91. Fox, A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions, 245–46; Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 43. 92. Alkalo Dawda Sowe, interview. 93. Medina is derived from the name of the Muslim holy city in Saudi Arabia. Medina Bafuloto is commonly known as Sarreh (“Keur” in Wolof) Cherno—meaning the village of marabouts. The village gained much of its popularity during Alhagie Baba Jallow’s reign (c. 1940–92). The religious symbolism of this village is today celebrated in the form of Mawlud Nabis and Ziyaras. The religious family of Kerr Cherno and their followers are all Tijanis. 94. NRS, ARP 32/33, Annual Report for the North Bank, 1921, 37. 95. Derman, Serfs, Peasants, and Socialists, 224. 96. NRS, CSO 10/71, Confidential Dispatch to the Colonial Secretary in Bathurst from the Commissioner’s Office South Bank Province, Cape St. Mary, April 30, 1939. 97. Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, 55. 98. Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, 55; Annual Report, 1888. 99. Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms, 65. 100. NRS, ARP 32/3, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, North Bank Province, 1932. 101. Cited in Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, 47. 102. Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa, 55. 103. Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, 63. 104. Kea, Land, Labour and Entrustment, 36. 105. Alkalo Dawda Sowe, interview; Imam Alagie Momodou Lamin Bah, interview. 106. Quinn, Mandingo, 56. 107. Ibid., 90. 108. Ibid., 91. 109. O’Brien, The Mourides of Senegal, 164. 110. Babou, Fighting the Greater jihad, 2–5; 73, 81, 105–8. 111. NRS, ARP 33/1, Reports on Kombo, Foni and Kiang, 1894–99, 7. 112. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 5; Searing, “Aristocrats, Slaves, and Peasants: Power and Dependency in the Wolof States, 1700–1850,” 475. 113. NRS, CSO 2/94, The Laws and Customs of the Mandingoes of the North Bank, 1906. 114. NRS, ARP 32/3, North Bank Province, 1923, 9. 115. NRS, ARP 32/1, Report by Commissioner Ozanne, June 16, 1893. 116. Basirou Jallow, interview. 117. NRS, ARP 32/1, Report by Commissioner Ozanne, June 16, 1893. 118. NRS, CSO 10/71, Confidential Dispatch to the Colonial Secretary in Bathurst from the Commissioner’s Office, South Bank Province, Cape St. Mary, April 30, 1939.

Notes to pp. 157–160 215 119. NRS, CSO 2/94, The Laws and Customs of the Mandingoes of the North Bank, 1906. 120. Ibid. 121. Ibid. 122. Babalola et al., “Roles of and Threats to Indigenous Cultural Beliefs,” 41–42. 123. Beinart, “African History and Environmental History,” 271; Akyeampong, Between the Sea and the Lagoon, 104–58; Kreike, Environmental Infrastructure in African History ; Falola and Brownell, Landscape, Environment and Technology in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa. 124. Scales, “Farming at the Forest Frontier,” 501–2. 125. Ibid., 509, 511. 126. Austin, Labour, Land and Capital in Ghana, 1. 127. Greene, Sacred Sites and the Colonial Encounter ; Babalola et al., “Roles of and Threats to Indigenous Cultural Beliefs,” 42–43. 128. Babalola et al., “Roles of and Threats to Indigenous Cultural Beliefs,” 42–43. 129. But usually the person would seek permission from the elders of the community, drawn from families of founding or ruling lineages. In other words, land was not free for the taking. 130. Wright, Oral Traditions from the Gambia, 1:16; Park, Travels, 8, 324. 131. Scales, “Farming at the Forest Frontier,” 500. 132. Morgan, Reminiscences, 82. 133. In the early 1900s, Henry F. Reeve wrote that “native hunters sometimes believe that bush fires are caused by sparks from the horns of bull Buffaloes fighting for the cows.” Reeve, The Gambia, 237–38. 134. NRS, PUB 11/17, Report of Socio-Economic Survey of Bathurst and Kombo St. Mary in the Gambia, February 9, 1956. 135. NRS, ARP 32/3, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, North Bank Province, 1893. 136. Freudenberger and Ann Sheehan, “Tenure and Resource Management in the Gambia: A Case Study of Kiang West District,” USAID/The Gambia (August 1994), 9. 137. Sheridan and Nyamweru, African Sacred Groves, 5. 138. Reeve, The Gambia, 236. 139. NRS, PUB 11/17, Report by UN: Summary Crown Lands, 9. 140. Webb, “Ecological and Economic Change,” 548. 141. NRS, ARP 32/3, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, North Bank Province, 1902–21, 6. 142. Quinn, Mandingo, 430. 143. See Shipton, Mortgaging the Ancestors ; Shipton, “Land and Culture in Tropical Africa,” 347–77; Berry, Chiefs Know Their Boundaries; Dorjahn and Fyfe, “Landlord and Stranger,” 391–97.

216

Notes to pp. 160–164

144. Luig and Von Oppen, “Landscape in Africa,” 7–45; Greene, “Contested Terrain” in Sacred Sites and the Colonial Encounter: A History of Meaning and Memory in Ghana, 109–31; Akyeampong, Between the Sea and the Lagoon, 104–26. 145. Shipton, “Land and Culture in Tropical Africa,” 361. 146. Lentz, Land, Mobility, and Belonging in West Africa, 4; Shipton, “Land and Culture in Tropical Africa,” 350, 354. 147. Appadurai, The Social Life of Things, 108; see also Shipton, Mortgaging the Ancestors ; Shipton, “Land and Culture in Tropical Africa,” 347–77; Goody, Death, Property and the Ancestors; Berry, Chiefs Know Their Boundaries; Dorjahn and Fyfe, “Landlord and Stranger,” 391–97. Chapter Six 1. NRS, ARP 32/3, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, North Bank Province (1893–98). 2. In January 1893, the newly established colonial government appointed two travelling commissioners, one for each bank of the river, to travel through the country. The government called the newly acquired districts the “protectorate.” Commissioners J. H. Ozanne and Cecil Sitwell patrolled regularly, for eight months each year, an area comprising Niumi, Jokadu, Baddibu, Sabach-Sanjal, Kombo, Foni, Kiang, and Jarra. The government also divided the region 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.” See NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Reports, Annual No. 143 (Annual Report for 1894). 3. NRS, ARP 28/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, South Bank Vol. II (1893–98). 4. Shack and Skinner, Strangers in African Societies, 5. 5. Musa Konateh, interview; see also Swindell and Jeng, Migrants, 52. 6. See Sackeyfio-Lenoch, The Politics of Chieftaincy; Tonah, “The Politicisation of a Chieftaincy Conflict,” 1–20; Macgaffey, Chiefs, Priests, and Praisesingers; Berry, Chiefs Know Their Boundaries. 7. Vaughan, Nigerian Chiefs, 1–2. 8. Ibid. 9. Ray, “Chief-State Relations in Ghana,” 58. 10. Macgaffey, Chiefs, Priests, and Praise-singers, 144. 11. Boone, Property and Political Order in Africa, 65. 12. Pierce, Farmers and the State in Colonial Kano, 6. 13. Ranger, “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa,” 211–62. 14. Berry, Chiefs Know Their Boundaries, 2–3.

Notes to pp. 164–168 217 15. Sackeyfio-Lenoch, The Politics of Chieftaincy, 3–4. 16. Boone, Property and Political Order in Africa, 288. 17. Ibid., 217. 18. Ibid., 44. 19. Ibid., 201. 20. Jacobs, Environment, Power, and Injustice, 52. 21. Hanson, Landed Obligation, 183–84. 22. NRS, ARP 35/1, Annual Report for 1892. 23. Gamble, “The South Bank of The Gambia,” 13. 24. NRS, CRN 1/10, Commissioner’s Office, South Bank, April 30, 1940. 25. Report from Robert Baxter Llewelyn, Administrator, October 20, 1893. 26. NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Reports, Annual Report (No. 195), 1896; see also NRS, CSO 2/373, Land Officer’s Report, 1919; NRS, CRN 1/10, Commissioner’s Office, South Bank, April 30, 1940; Gray, A History of the Gambia, 483. 27. Hughes and Perfect, A Political History of The Gambia, 50–51. 28. Report from Sir George Charden Denton, Governor, April 11, 1902, No. 7. 29. NRS, ARP 32/3, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, North Bank, 1893. 30. Ibid. 31. NRS, ARP 28/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Reports, South Bank 1893–99. 32. Ibid. 33. NRS, ARP 32/3, Traveling Commissioner’s Reports, North Bank, 1893–1932 (60). 34. NRS, ARP 32/3, Traveling Commissioner’s Reports, North Bank, 1893. 35. NRS, ARP 33/1, Reports on Kombo, Foni and Kiang 1894–99, Cecil Sitwell, Traveling Commissioner, 7. 36. NRS, ARP 28/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Reports, South Bank 1893–99. 37. NRS, ARP 32/3, Traveling Commissioner’s Reports, North Bank, 1893–1932 (60). 38. Report from Sir George Charden Denton, Governor, April 11, 1902, No. 7. 39. Kristin Mann has argued that changes in land use and land rights were not always driven by the practices of Africans with each other, and later in the colonial courts. For more on this, see Mann, “African and European Initiatives in the Transformation of Land Tenure in Colonial Lagos,” 223–48. 40. Alfusainey Marong, interview.

218

Notes to pp. 168–172

41. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 78. 42. Ibid., 77–78. 43. Aja Haddy Mboob, interview. 44. Gamble, “The North Bank of the Gambia,” 30. 45. Alfusainey Marong, interview. 46. Malick Touray, interview. 47. See Wamagatta, “British Administration and the Chiefs’ Tyranny in Early Colonial Kenya,” 371–88; Wamagatta, “African Collaborators and Their Quest for Power in Colonial Kenya,” 295–314. 48. NRS, CSO 10/71, Report from Government House, Bathurst, Gambia, No. 72, May 29, 1946. 49. Ibid. 50. Alkalo Dawda Sowe, interview; Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interview. 51. Malick Touray, interview. 52. NRS, ARP 28/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Reports, South Bank 1893–99; NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Reports, Annual No. 143 (Annual Report for 1894). 53. NRS, ARP 33/1, Reports on Kombo, Foni and Kiang 1897–98, 2. 54. NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Reports Annual No. 264 (Annual Report for 1898); NRS, CSO 10/71, Native Land Tenure, 1939. 55. NRS, ARP 33/1, Reports on Kombo, Foni and Kiang 1894–99, 2. 56. NRS, CRN 1/10, Land Grants North Bank, From Commissioner North Bank Province to The Colonial Secretary, June 13, 1933. 57. NRS, ARP 28/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Reports, South Bank 1893–99. 58. Ibid. 59. Alfusainey Marong, interview. 60. Alhagie Kebba Jaiteh, interview. 61. NRS, ARP 28/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Report SBP, 1893–99; Getz, Slavery and Reform in West Africa, 113. 62. NRS, ARP 28/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Report SBP, 1893–99. 63. NRS, ARP 33/1, Reports on Kombo, Foni and Kiang 1895–96, 7. 64. Foni West consisted of Brefet and Bintang districts. Brefet was placed under Lang Sanyang, who was described as “half Mandingo and half Jolah.” 65. NRS, ARP 28/1, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, South Bank Province, 1893–99. 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid. 68. Klein, Islam and Imperialism in Senegal, 210. 69. Ibid., 207. 70. NRS, ARP 32, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, North Bank Province, 1893–98.

Notes to pp. 172–176 219 71. NRS, ARP 28/2, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, South Bank Province, 1903–27. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid. 74. This legislation was repealed by the Land Transfer (Repeal) Ordinance of 1918. See NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Reports, Annual No. 195 (Annual Report for 1896); NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Reports, Annual No. 143 (Annual Report for 1894). 75. This ordinance was repealed and replaced by the protectorate ordinance of 1935. See NRS, CSO 10/71, Report from the Government House, Bathurst, Gambia, No. 72, May 29, 1946. 76. Ibid. See also NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Reports, Annual (No. 325) 1900; NRS, CRN 1/10, Land Grants, Confidential Dispatch, April 30, 1940. 77. NRS, CSO 10/71, Native Land Tenure (reply dated June 24, 1948, to dispatch No. 46 of March 5, 1948, regarding the preparation by a Land Tenure panel of a bibliography of published sources relating to African land tenure. The letter is from an Officer Administering the Government (The Gambia) to A. Creech Jones, Secretary of State for the Colonies). 78. NRS, CSO 10/71, Dispatch No. 21, dated March 2, 1946. 79. NRS, CSO 2/373, Dispatch No. 48, dated March 14, 1919. 80. NRS, CRN 1/10, Land Grants, Confidential Dispatch, April 30, 1940. 81. Ibid. 82. NRS, 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. 83. Hughes and Perfect, A Political History of The Gambia, 52. 84. NRS, CRN 1/10—correspondence from Commissioner’s office, South Bank Province to the Colonial Secretary, Bathurst, April 30, 1940. 85. Ibid. 86. NRS, ARP 32/3, Annual Report for the North Bank Province, 1923–33. 87. NRS, CRN 1/10, Commissioner’s Office South Bank, April 30, 1940. 88. Ibid. 89. NRS, ARP 32, Traveling Commissioner’s Report, North Bank Province, 1893–98. 90. NRS, 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. 91. NRS, CSO 10/71, letter from CNBP to Colonial Secretary, dated June 26, 1942. 92. NRS, CRN 1/10, correspondence from Commissioner’s office, South Bank Province to the Colonial Secretary, Bathurst, April 30, 1940.

220

Notes to pp. 176–181

93. The Mandinka called British Kombo Kombo Tubab-banko. It means “white man’s land in Kombo.” 94. Alkalo Luntang Jaiteh, interview. 95. NRS, CSO 2/373, Report from the Lands Office, 1914. 96. Ibid. 97. NRS, CSO 2/373, Colonial Secretary’s Office Minute papers, No. 708, 1920; see also Manager of the Kombo’s Cash Book 1874–90. 98. NRS, CSO 1/2, November 1, 1824. 99. NRS, CSO 2/373, Lands: Report by Land office, 1913. 100. Ibid. 101. NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Reports, Annual No. 195 (Report for 1896). 102. NRS, CSO 1/2, November 1, 1824. 103. NRS, CSO 2/373, Dispatch No. 48 of March 14, 1919. 104. Ibid. 105. Alhagie Mangkodou Sarr, interview. 106. NRS, CSO 2/94, The Laws and Customs of the Mandingoes of the North Bank, 1906. 107. NRS, ARP 35/2, Colonial Reports-Annual No. 195 (Report for 1896); NRS, CSO 1/2, November 1, 1892. 108. Outside of Bathurst, disputes over priority in settlement are historically rooted. For more on this, see Kea, Land, Labour and Entrustment, 72. 109. Supreme Court Record Book, Civil, December 1, 1916–22. 110. Ibid., Tuesday, February 6, 1917. 111. For more on these cases, see Supreme Court Civil, February 26, 1950–July 1952. 112. Ceesay told the court that when Sultan Davies died around 1900, he was twenty-seven. A resident of 22 Clarkson Street, Ceesay was a civil servant and a clerk at the post office. 113. NRS, 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. 114. NRS, CSO 10/71, Enclosures to Gambia dispatch no. 96 of June 24, 1948. 115. Ibid. 116. Ibid. 117. NRS, CRN 1/10, Commissioner’s Office South Bank Province, April 30, 1940. 118. Ibid. 119. Ibid. 120. Cooper, Decolonization and African Society, 27. 121. Shack and Skinner, Strangers in African Societies, 95.

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Index abandoned villages, 48, 93, 95, 123, 124–25, 128, 132, 148, 159, 184–85 abundance of land, 3–4, 9, 11, 13, 85–86, 138, 141, 166 access to land, 2–3, 14–16, 22, 28, 29, 40, 63–64, 66, 82–83, 88–89, 102–3, 108–9, 116, 120, 133, 137, 146, 149–50, 155, 161, 163–64, 181, 183, 185 Adanson, Michel, 92, 107 Albreda (Albadar), 25, 37, 38, 77, 98, 102, 122, 124, 165 Alhagie Cherno Baba Jallow, 152, 214 alkalo (village head/chief; alkalolu pl., alkaliyaa), 1, 8, 27, 36, 39, 52, 60, 67, 72, 77, 78, 79, 80–81, 119, 121, 134, 148, 163, 165, 166, 167, 171, 174, 175, 179, 181, 174–76, 179, 181 ancestral land, 19, 40, 43, 162 Asante, 9, 10, 39, 59, 164 Austin, Gareth, 10, 12, 59 Babou, Cheikh, 155 Baddibu (Rip), 34, 37, 41, 43, 44, 59, 64, 75, 76, 131–32, 141 badola (commoners in Wolof), 74 Bah, Fatou Jobba, 123 Bah, Ibra Mariam, 123 Bah, Maba Jahou, 120, 121, 123, 124, 131–32, 141, 150 Bah, Mamur Nderi, 131–33 Bah, Sait Matty, 131–32 Bainunka, 43, 47, 50, 51, 58

Bambally, 18, 47, 48, 95, 104, 133, 147, 170 banko (land/country in Mandinka), 43, 44, 45, 64 bantango (village meeting place in Mandinka), 68, 90, 113, 198 basso (guinea corn), 20, 48, 87, 148 Bathurst (Bathurst island), 1, 17, 18, 43, 91, 122, 124, 135, 136, 139, 167, 174–77, 178–79, 183 Baum, Robert, 6, 41, 42, 50 Berending, 44, 74, 78, 80, 98, 123, 124 Berry, Sara, 13–14, 15 blacksmiths, 3, 15, 24, 53, 86, 95–100, 149–50, 152 Bojang, Madibba (daughter of the mansa of Kombo), 66–67 bolongs (tributaries), 18, 34, 49, 144, 147, 150, 162 Brooks, George, 9, 53, 143 Bur (Wolof word for king), 1, 43, 70, 190 Busumbala, 52–53, 56, 66, 78, 80, 99, 116–17, 118, 119, 120, 167, 180 Casamance, 15, 16, 23, 50, 103, 104, 143, 147 cash cropping, 2, 11, 12, 13, 15, 20, 23, 24, 138–40, 144 ceddo, 10, 23, 45, 61, 117, 132 Ceded Mile, 120, 124, 165, 173, 184 Ceesay, Biran, 127, 131–33 Ceesay, Moriba, 65–67

240

Index

chiefs (Mandinka chiefs), 4, 8, 10, 11, 14, 22, 25, 35, 60, 62, 63, 64, 69, 74, 75, 76, 79, 81, 163–65, 169–70 chieftaincy, 7, 10, 13, 16, 29, 127, 162, 163, 167, 169, 185–86 citizenship, 6, 13, 41, 55, 85 coercion, 6, 41, 72, 75, 155, 164 colonialism, 15, 105, 114, 138, 162– 63, 172, 186 commoners, 3, 7, 11, 27, 28, 46, 60, 71, 82, 156, 182 communal ownership, 12, 163, 181 community, 6, 7, 14, 35, 37, 44 Conrad, David, 55, 87, 95 control of land, 7, 8, 9, 13, 16, 26, 35, 40, 55, 60, 79, 81 control over people, 4, 7, 8, 10, 14, 21, 35, 60, 79, 81 conquest (military and spiritual), 22, 27, 33–34, 36, 44, 46, 51, 54, 55, 58, 65, 72, 81, 97, 138, 150, 153, 160, 165, 183 conversion of spirits, 90, 152 cultivable land, 12 Darboe, Mariama, 125–26 Demba, Samake, 54, 56 dependency, 6, 7, 8, 11, 28, 29, 63, 71, 75, 82, 103, 116, 119, 138, 145, 155, 157, 182 dependents, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 22, 73, 74, 171 Domar hypothesis, 4–5 domestic slaves, 73, 143. See also slaves domination (Mandinka political dominance), 6, 10, 22, 35, 50–51, 55, 59, 60, 62, 75, 77, 83, 181–82 drought, 20, 40, 53, 54, 56, 69, 75, 92–93, 108

ecological preservation, 15, 28, 86, 105–8, 185 environment, 10, 13, 20, 56, 82, 85–86, 88, 92 ethnicity, 35, 40, 41, 41, 42, 43, 44, 48 European (colonial) courts, 12, 166, 167, 169, 171, 173, 178–79 exploitation, 23, 70, 75, 98 extended family (kabilo; kabilolu pl., lineage heads), 6, 36, 39, 73, 75, 81, 164, 174–75, 181 famine, 41, 69, 81, 89, 92 faros (swamplands), 18, 19, 35, 51, 59, 85, 87, 91, 126, 145, 151, 159 first-comers (founder-settler ancestor), 6, 9, 13, 40, 47 Foday Kabba Dumbuya, 125, 127–28 Foni, 43, 46, 49, 50, 51, 55, 65, 70, 106, 119, 145, 171–72 forest, 2, 10–13, 16–17, 19–20, 28, 49, 52–53, 87, 88, 89, 90–91, 94–98, 101–2, 106–8, 138, 147, 149–53, 156–59, 183, 185 Fox, William, 18, 72, 91, 92, 107, 139 Fula, 23, 35, 43, 44, 45, 51, 64, 74, 76, 101, 151 Futa Toro, 48, 76–77, 101, 151 Gambia, The, 2, 16, 36 Gamble, David, 75, 93, 121 gelewar (warrior class), 10, 21–24, 34, 43, 44, 61, 75, 96–97 Glazier, Jack, 13, 14 Goody, Jack, 4–5, 9, 13, 22 Gordon, Innes, 34 grain cultivation, 20, 51, 72, 107, 140, 148, 185 granaries, 72–73, 74, 199 Gray, John, 24, 116, 122, 134

Index 241 Green, Toby, 23, 37, 43, 50, 56, 61 Guinea (Republic of Guinea), 74, 84, 89 Guinea-Bissau, 15, 65, 143 Gunjur, 34, 76, 77, 78, 104, 116–20, 165, 168, 169 Haley, Alex, 37–38 Hawthorne, Walter, 6, 42–43 Hopkins, Anthony, 4, 11 Hopkinson, Emelius (commissioner, North Bank Province), 70, 151 hunters, 3, 15, 24, 33, 54, 86, 95–100, 149–50, 152 imam, 78, 118, 144 inheritance, 8, 13, 101, 129–30, 136, 178 insecurity, 3, 69, 70, 71 invented traditions, 7, 11, 29, 34, 39, 163–64, 182 Islam, 15, 24, 28, 54, 77, 88, 90, 94–95, 100–105, 108–9, 132, 138–39, 149, 152–53, 158 Jabbi, Wuleng, 52–53 Jahanke, 43, 149, 168 Jallow, Cherno Omar, 102, 149, 151, 156, 161 Jallow, Mama Toranko, 77 James Island (James Fort), 18, 77 Jammeh, Mama Handami, 54 Jansen, Jan, 38 Jarra (Jarra state), 22, 34, 41, 45–47, 54, 59, 61–63, 95, 103, 146, 172 Jarrankas (people from Jarra), 45, 46 Jatta, Karafa Yali, 52–54, 56, 58, 99 Jatta, Suling, 116–17 Jattaba, 71, 97, 113–14, 125–27, 147 jeeri (inland areas), 19, 20, 35, 59, 64, 147

jihad (holy war), 15, 22, 33, 54, 61, 77, 114–15, 129–31, 142 Jobe, Masamba Koke, 98–99, 122, 124, 125 Jobson, Richard, 22, 73, 83, 100 Jokadu, 22, 34, 54, 64, 78, 97, 106, 121, 144, 160, 168 Jola (French spelling, Diola), 6, 23, 35, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 49–51, 55, 130, 134, 145, 171 Juffure, 37, 38, 76, 77, 80, 101–2, 124, 150 Kaabu, 21, 23, 34, 43, 44, 45, 48, 49, 50, 54, 61, 62, 96, 103; Kaabunkas (people from Kaabu), 57 Kabada, 16, 145–47 Kasinka (Serer), 21, 33, 34, 43, 44, 48, 49, 50, 64, 96, 134, 207 Kea, Pamela, 23, 55, 141, 154 Keita, Sundiata, 36 khalwa (spiritual retreat), 102, 150, 151, 205 Kiang, 22, 34, 41, 46, 54, 64, 71, 76, 99, 103, 146–47 kingship networks, 6–7, 49, 58, 78, 129, 160 kinless, 8 Klein, Martin A., 26, 43, 132, 141, 142, 143, 171 Kombo, 19, 22, 41, 50, 51, 52, 53, 59, 64, 65, 77, 78, 80 Kumba, Kankuran, 47–48, 53 laman (Wolof elders who claimed ownership of land), 66, 97 land disputes, 12, 13, 65, 114, 125– 27, 131–34, 178 land grants, 170, 172, 176–77, 178, 181 land ownership, 6, 13, 14, 40, 59, 63, 75

242

Index

land registers, 177–78 land rights, 12, 79, 81 land tenure, 4, 7, 14, 15, 25, 35 land-labor ratio, 5, 86, 141 landlords (Bankotiyo-Bankotiyolu pl.), 11, 35, 51, 61, 64, 66, 146. See also land ownership landlord-stranger relationships, 8, 9, 22, 63, 145–46, 156, 176 low population density, 4, 9, 10, 12, 85–86 Madina (Medina), 64 Macklin, Major R. W. (traveling Commissioner, North bank province), 1, 63 Mali Empire, 21, 33, 34, 36, 38, 44, 45, 46, 48, 50, 54, 61, 62, 71, 95–96 Mandinari, 65, 67–69, 71, 80, 94, 99, 116 Mandinka (Soce), 45; Mandinka aristocratic families, rulers, and elites, 2, 6, 8, 11, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 33, 34, 45, 62, 63, 69, 74; Mandinka-led states, 10, 21, 22, 23, 36, 63, 70, 72, 78, 80; Mandinka Muslims, 24, 150 mansa (Mandinka word for king, mansolu pl.), 1, 15, 22, 24, 46, 53, 60, 61–62, 71, 72, 76, 80 mansanding/mansaring (Mandinka word for lesser king), 1, 75 Mboge, Gedel, 131–32 Mecca (Makka), 50, 213 Medina Bafuloto (Kerr Cherno/ Medina Cherno), 102, 149, 151– 52, 154–56 migrant farmers, 8, 9, 11, 35, 37, 64, 70, 72, 74, 75, 77, 78, 79, 143–47, 170 Mohammedan Courts, 178–79 Mollein, Gaspard, 75, 101

Morgan, John (missionary), 19, 20, 37, 38, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 84 Muslim leaders (marabouts, Muslim clerics/mori) 2, 3, 11, 15, 24, 56, 76, 86, 94–95, 100–105, 108, 123, 137, 149–52, 154–57 Native Authorities, 169, 173 Native Courts. See European colonial courts Native Treasury, 170 Niani, 47–48, 166, 199 ninki nanka (a kind of spirit), 91–92, 101, 151 Niumi (Niumi state), 22, 34, 36, 41, 43, 44, 47, 49, 50, 54, 59, 61, 62, 64, 70, 72, 76, 80 nyancho (warrior class, Mandinka), 10, 21, 23, 24, 34, 34, 44, 46, 53, 61, 62, 71, 75 O’Brien, Donal Cruise, 155 OHAD (Oral History and Antiquities Directorate), 26, 52 oppression, 7, 10, 23–24, 47, 70–71, 74, 114, 117, 164 Osborn, Emily, 22 Ozanne, John Henry (Commissioner North Bank Province), 123, 133, 134, 140, 142, 162, 167, 172, 175 Pakao, 65, 103–4, 149, 207 Park, Mungo, 20, 45, 55, 56, 62, 63, 74, 107 patronage, 3, 70 politique manso (colonial chiefs), 169, 171–72 population growth, 11, 28, 147, 161, 185 power, 6–7, 11, 16, 23, 42, 63, 138; political power, 15, 22, 24, 35, 39, 40, 41, 44, 48, 59, 60;

Index 243 supernatural (spiritual power), 10, 97, 151 private ownership (or freehold or individual ownership), 4–5, 12, 13, 173, 175, 178, 180 Qadi (Muslim judge), 178 Quinn, Charlotte, 44, 59, 63, 81, 121, 128, 129, 136, 150 Quranic schools (daara), 100, 155 Quranic students. See talibes Quranic teacher, 153–54 rainfall, 19, 20, 21, 144 rice cultivation, 18, 19–20, 145, 148 rights to land. See land rights Russia, 4–5 Saloum, 22, 23, 34, 35, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 96, 132 Sankandi, 71, 113–14, 125–28 Sanneh, Kelefa, 34, 62 Sanneh, Mansa Koto, 113–14, 127–28 sateo-tio (Mandinka word for village head/chief). See alkalo Searing, James, 74, 140, 143 Senegal, 16, 25, 42, 43, 86, 141, 144, 147 Senegambia, 6, 7, 23, 26, 34, 36, 48, 62, 63, 65, 74, 78, 84–85, 89 Sillah, Kombo. See Touray, Foday Ibrahim Sine, 23, 34, 43, 124, 171, 207 Sitwell, Cecil (traveling commissioner, South Bank Province), 79, 113, 126, 145, 146, 170 Skinner, David, 53, 66, 77, 118 slavery, 4, 5, 13, 123, 141–43, 155 slaves, 8, 23, 24, 60, 63, 69–70, 73–74, 81, 96–97, 123, 128, 139, 141–43

social belonging, 6, 7, 14, 16, 40, 41 Soninke (non-Muslim; soninkeya, Soninke chiefs), 11, 23, 24, 44, 54, 61, 62, 71, 74, 102–4, 108, 117–19, 150, 152, 168 Soninke-Marabout war. See jihad/ holy war Sonko, Amari, 36, 44, 46, 53 Sonko, Bai (alkalo of Albreda/ Albadar), 77 Sonko, Burungai, 80, 120 Sonko, Demba (Niumi mansa), 64, 80, 98, 122, 123, 124, 125 spirits (jinns), 2, 8, 14, 15, 16, 53, 84, 88–89, 90–91, 93–100, 104, 108, 139, 150–52, 159 spirituality, 5, 12, 15, 39, 54, 55 strangers. See migrant farmers succession disputes, 24 supernatural world, 10, 88, 92 Swindell, Kenneth, 9, 23, 143 Taal, Sampa, 76, 101–2 talibes, 8, 153–56 Tandaito, 48, 127, 132–33 taxes, 8, 11, 60, 66, 67, 72, 116, 175, 179–80 technological limitations, 4, 86 Thornton, John, 5, 13 tilibo (means the “east”; refers to Manding), 34, 45, 47, 62, 64, 65, 146; Tilibunkas (people from tilibo), 143. See also Mali Empire Toranko/Toranka. See Fula Toubabkolong bombardment, 121, 122–24 Touray, Foday Ibrahim, 77, 78, 117–20 trans-Atlantic slave trade, 8, 16, 37, 39, 69 Trawally, Tirimankang, 36 tributes. See taxes tumaranke. See kinless

244

Index

unoccupied land. See vacant land Upper Guinea Coast, 8, 33, 43, 50 vacant land, 5, 52, 53, 65, 86, 87, 106, 108, 109, 166, 168, 175, 185 village chiefs. See alkalo village elders. See alkalo violence, 7, 69, 155 Waalo (Senegambian state), 66, 102 waliyu (great marabout), 149 Wali, Masa, 96–97 warrior class. See ceddo; gelewar; nyancho

wealth, 22, 42, 60; wealth accumulation, 10; wealth-in-land, 10; wealth-in-people, 6, 7, 10, 14 Webb, James, 18, 159 wills, 26, 178 Wolof, 35, 42, 43, 44, 47, 48, 64, 79 wonders (karamas), 150, 153 Wright, Donald R., 24, 34, 36, 37, 44, 45, 46, 57, 62, 72, 74, 88, 94, 103 Yundum, 52, 53, 66, 68, 78, 80, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 180