GAMBIA, the smallest and most northerly of the British West African dependencies. It consists of a stretch of land on both sides of the Lower Gambia. The colony, with the protectorate depend ent upon it, has an area of approximately 4,000 sq.m. and a popu lation (1931) of 199,5 20, a decrease of r r ,or o in ten years. The colony proper has an area of about 69 sq. miles. The protectorate consists of a strip of land extending r o km. (about 6 m.) on each side of the river to about 200 m. in a direct line (25o m. by the river) from the sea. The land outside these limits is French. Physical Features.—The. country derives its character and value from the river Gambia (q.v.), which is navigable throughout and beyond the limits of the protectorate. Away from the swamps by the river banks, the country is largely "bush." The region above McCarthy's island is hilly. The fauna includes a few mane less lions, a few elephants, leopards, several kinds of antelope, monkeys, bush-cow and wild boar. Hippopotami are found in the upper part of the river, and crocodiles abound in the creeks. The birds most common are bush-fowl, bustards, guinea fowl, quail, pigeon and sand-grouse. Bees are very numerous in parts of the country. The flora resembles that of West Africa generally, the mangrove being common. Mahogany and rosewood (Pterocarpus erinaceus) trees are found, though not in large numbers, and the rubber-vine and oil-palm are also comparatively scarce. There are many varieties of fern. The cassava (manioca) and indigo plants are cultivated.
The climate during the dry season (December–May) is con sidered fairly healthy for Europeans. The mean temperature at Bathurst is 77° F, the shade minimum being 56° and the solar maximum 165°. Up river the variation in temperature is even greater than at Bathurst, from 50° in the morning to at 3 P.M. being common at McCarthy's isle. The rainfall varies from 35 to 65 or more inches a year, the average is about 5o in. a year. Save for showers in May and June there is rarely any rain except between July and October. A very dry east wind known as the harmattan blows intermittently from December to March. The inhabitants, who are both thrifty and industrious, are al most entirely of negro or negroid race, the chief tribes represented being the Mandingo (q.v.), the Jolof and the Jola. Numbers of Fulani (q.v.) are also settled in the country. Some four-fifths of the natives are Mohammedans. Of the remainder, considerable numbers are converts to Christianity. The European residents are officials, traders or missionaries.
The capital, and the only town of any size in the Gambia, is Bathurst, pop. (1921) 9,227, including 265 Europeans (13o Brit ish) . ICis built on St. Mary's island, which lies at the mouth of the river, near its south bank, and is connected with the mainland by a bridge across Oyster creek. Founded in 1816, it is named after the 3rd earl of Bathurst, then Secretary of State for the Colonies. Bathurst is a fairly well-built town, the chief material employed being red sandstone. It lies about 12 to 14 f t. above the level of the river. The principal buildings face the sea. The market place is shaded by a fine avenue of bombax and other wide spreading trees. A trading station called Georgetown is situated on McCarthy's island, but the chief up-river port is Kuntaur (I 5o m. from Bathurst) . At Kuntaur ships drawing up to 17 ft. can berth alongside. Albreda is a small port on the north bank of the river, near its mouth, of some historic interest.
Surrounded, save seaward, by French territory, the Gambia is dependent upon its own resources, for while there is some entre pot trade, the French, in general, prefer to send their exports to their own ports rather than use the fine highway provided by the river Gambia. As it is, a good proportion of the trade is with France, which before the World War took some 75% of the ground-nuts exported. The nuts were sent to Marseilles for the extraction of the oil, which found its way to markets as "olive" oil. During the war the nuts went to England; since 1925 they have gone in fairly equal proportions to England, France and Hol land. The oil now forms a main ingredient of margarine. The other exports include palm-nuts and hides, but are almost neglig ible. The chief imports are cotton goods (from England), kola nuts (from Sierra Leone), rice, sugar and tobacco. The volume of trade had risen from about £600,00o annually in the period 1898 1907 to some L1,500,000 in 1914. There was an abnormal increase during and immediately after the war (in 1920 the volume of trade was nearly £5,000,000). In 1923, which may be regarded as a normal year, the volume of trade exceeded £1,710,000. In 1927 the value of exports was £999,000 and of the total the ground-nuts were worth £967,000. In the same year the value of imports was £863,000. The balance of exports over imports in the decade 1916-26 averaged £ 140,000 yearly. Shipping is chiefly British (771,000 tons in 1926 out of a total of 1,255,000 tons), with French and German ships next in order.
The Portuguese visited the Gambia in the 15th century, and in the beginning of the 16th century were trading in the lower river. Apart from a traffic in slaves their main object was to reach "the land of gold" supposed to be not far distant, and in fact considerable quantities of gold reached the lower Gambia from Bambara. It was on the initiative of Portuguese living in England that Queen Elizabeth, in 1588, granted a patent to "cer tain merchants of Exeter and others of the west parts and of London for a trade to the river of Senega and Gambia in Guinea." This company's operations led to no permanent settlement in the Gambia. In 1618 James I. granted a charter to "the Company of Adventurers of London trading into Africa," formed at the insti gation of Sir Robert Rich, afterwards earl of Warwick, for trade with the Gambia and the Gold Coast. This company sought to open up trade with Timbuktu, then believed to be a great mart for gold. Timbuktu was not reached, and the company's first agent, George Thompson, was murdered by natives after his ship, the "Catherine," had been seized and the crew murdered by Portu guese and half-castes. Dutch traders now appeared and about 166o a merchant named Vermuyden asserted that he had reached from the Gambia a country full of gold.
The Company of Adventurers had built a fort near the mouth of the Gambia. This was superseded in 1664 by a fort built by Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir Robert) Holmes on a small island 20m. from the mouth of the river and named Fort James, in honour of the duke of York (James II.) . This fort was built expressly to defend the British trade against the Dutch, and from that time the British remained in permanent occupation of one or more ports on the river. In 1723 Captain Bartholomew Stibbs was sent out by the Royal African company, which had succeeded the earlier companies, to verify Vermuyden's reports of gold. He proceeded 6om. above the Barraconda falls, but the land of gold was not found. From the 17th century the French had been rivals for the trade of the Gambia, but the treaty of Versailles in 1783 assigned the trade in the river to Britain, reserving, how ever, Albreda for French trade, while it assigned the Senegal to France, with the reservation of the right of the British to trade at Portendic for gum. This arrangement remained in force till 1857, when an exchange of possessions was effected and the lower Gambia became a purely British river. In the period between the signing of the treaty of Versailles and 1885 the small territories which form the colony proper were acquired by purchase or ces sion from native kings. During this period the colony had gone through an economic crisis by the abolition of the slave trade (1807), which had been since 1662 its chief financial support. The beginning of a return to prosperity came in 1816 when some British traders, obliged to leave Senegal on the restoration of that country to France after the Napoleonic wars, founded a settle ment on St. Mary's isle. From that year the existing colony, as distinct from trading on the river, dates. The Gambia witnessed many administrative changes. When the slave trade was abolished, it became dependent upon Sierra Leone; in 1843 it was made an independent colony, its first governor being Captain Henry Frowd Seagram, R.N. In 1866 the Gambia became a portion of the officially styled "West African Settlements," but in 1888 it regained, and has retained, a separate entity.
In 1870 negotiations were opened between France and Great Britain on the basis of a mutual exchange of territories in West Africa. Suspended owing to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War the negotiations were resumed in 1876. "Definite proposals were at that time formulated by which the Gambia was to be exchanged for all posts held by France between the Rio Pongas (Pongo river, French Guinea) and the Gabun. This would have been a comprehensive and intelligible arrangement, but so strong a feeling in opposition to any cession of British territory was manifested in parliament, and by various mercantile bodies, that the government of the day was unable to press the scheme." (Des patch of Lord Salisbury to the British ambassador to France, March 3o, 1892.) Nothing was done, however, to secure for the Gambia a suitable hinterland; the French pressed forward from Senegal and when the boundaries were settled by the Anglo French agreement of Aug. 1o, 1889, Great Britain was able to secure only a ten-kilometre strip on either side of the river as far inland as Yarbatenda, a town situated at the limit of navigability of the Gambia from the sea. By Art. 5 of the Anglo-French con vention of April 8, 1904, Yarbatenda was ceded to France, with the object of giving that country a port on the river accessible to sea-going merchantmen. No use was made of this privilege, the French preferring to divert trade to their own ports. Thus the Gambia has remained without access to the interior, an example of how political barriers can stifle the development of commerce.
The people of the protectorate are in general prosperous and contented. There was occasional trouble with slave-raiding chiefs; in particular with Fodi Silla who in 1894 ambushed a force under Capt. E. H. Gamble, R.N., the British losing 15 killed and 47 wounded. Another slaver, Fodi Kabba, was also a thorn in the side of the Government. With the co-operation of the French his stronghold (in French territory) was stormed and Fodi Kabba killed, March 1901. After that slave raiding ceased and the coun try enjoyed peace. Provision was moreover made by an ordinance of 1906 for the extinction of slavery itself throughout the pro tectorate. The Gambia has been self-supporting since 1871 and has weathered various economic crises, such as that of 1922, for example, when the French five-franc piece—the usual currency— was demonetized at the cost of a whole year's revenue.
See H. F. Reeve, The Gambia (1912) , a monograph by a retired official; The Gambia, a British Foreign Office handbook (192o) ; and the Annual Reports issued by the Colonial Office, London. (F. R. C.)