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JIHAD IN GAMBIA, 1861-1867

A Case Study

by

Abdin S. N. Chande

A thesis submitted to the Faculty~ .of Graduate Studies and Research

-il'! partial fulfillment of the requlrements for the degree

of Master of Arts

Institute of Is1amic Studies McGil1 University

Montreal @

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,; ABSTRACT

Author: Abdin S. N. Chande.

Title of Thesis: Jihad in Garnbia, 1861-1867: A Casè Study. .'

Islarnic Studies, McGi11 University.

Degree: ' l:1. A.

-The Garnbian Jihad broke out in 1861 in the Mandingo state

of Baddibu, but saon involved the who1e Garnbia region as weIl as

parts of Senega1. The immediate outcorne of the Jihad was.the

dislodgernent of the traditional leadership. However, Maba Diakhou,

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" . theoleader of the Jihad rnovernent, was kil1ed in 1867 in one of his

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rnilitary carnpaigns, and the Muslirns didrnot have tirne or opportunity

to conso1idate their gains. The political upheaval which threatened

the ~nterests of the European Powers, the British and the French,

led to the occupation and then division of Senegambia Dy these

Powers in the closing decades of the nineteenth aentury.

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Auteur:

'Titre de la Th~se:~

Departement:

~ Dip.l~me:

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RESUME " \

Abdin~S. N. Chande.

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La Guere Sainte en 'Gambie, 1861-1867: .

Une Etude de Cas.

Etudes Islamiques, Universit~ McGill.

M. A.

La Guerre Sainte'de Gambie éclata en 1861 dans la province , -Mandingo de Baddibu, (mais engloba oientôt toute la région de la

• Gambie ainsi que quelques parties du Senegal. Le résultat ,

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immédiat de la Guerre Sàinte fut le délogement des chefs /

traditionaux. Toutef9is, Maba Diakhou, le chef du mouvement de

la Guerte Sainte fut tu~ en 1867 au cours d'une de ses campagnes

militaires, et les musulmans n'eurent pas le temps ni l'occasion

de consolider leur gains. Le boulversement politique qui menaça

les int~rêts des puissance's européennes, les britanniques et les

français, mena à l'occupation et ensuite h la partition de la

Senegarnbie par ces puissances dans la derni~re décennie du

dix-neuvième siêcle.

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KCKpOWLEDGEMENTS

l would like to express my deep gratitude ta Professor

Uner Turgay for his constant encouragement, suggestions and

criticism in the'prepàration of this thesis from its

inception to i ts completion.

Thanks are also due to the staff and students (fellow 1

travellers) of the Insti tu te for whatever help they have

rendereà me, whe~~e~ this consist~1 of proo~reading my thesis, ,

as Pat,Dubuisson has done, or si~ply Offering sympathy and

moral encouragement, as Gutbi,Mansur, A. Khan and ethers

have dene.

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TAANSLILFATION , 1 .. .,

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In' this thesis, we have used\ th? Ins ti ~ute of Islamic r

Studies' transliteration system. However, we have also

retained and utilized Anglicized'or Africanized forro of

certain Arabie terms as they have appeared in our sources.

Thus for the follo~ing terms, names and titles, their Arabic-'

eq\1,ivalents are as indicated belpw. , -L

African. . . , . . . . . , .A~abic

Ahmadu, Amadu Ahmad

Alkadi, Alkali' al-Qadi

Almamy Imam

Amer ' Amir

'\ KhalIfa f "

Khalifa J

:/ Koran (Anglicized) Qur'an

Marabouts 1 MUz:~i tün / • 1

Mourid MurId

Shehu Shaykh . . ~, .,

cUt:hman Usman l!>-

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TABLE OF CONTENTS \ \

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ASkn6wledgements.

.'Transli teration . . . • . 1. • . . . 1

INTRODUCTION. . • • • -1 • • • .'. •

Notes to Introàuction.

CHAPTER 1:

'GAMBIA BEFORE 1800

1. 2. 3.

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The Historical Setting The Coming of Islam. . Ethnie and Religious Factors . Social, politic~l and Administrative System.

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13 18

Notes ta Chapter 1 . . . . ... • • • • l' • • • • 29

'CHAPTER 11:

THE SLAVE TRADE AND THE PE-ANUT TRADE: THE ECONOMIC BASES OF·TWO DIFFERING COMMUNITIES IN THE GAMBIA. . . . . . . . . .. .

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i. 3. 4.

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From the Trans-Sahara Trade to the Atlantic Trade . . . . . . Gambia's Role in Trade •. Slave Trade in the Gambian States. The peanui' or, "Legitimate" Trade

Notes ta Chapter 11.

CHAPTER III:

THE JIHAD MOVEMENT .

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35 40 46 55

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1. Background' to Jihad. . . • • . • .• 70 78

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2. Religious Revivalism in Senegambia .••••. 3. Conditions in Gambia Before the Jihad. • • .. 80 4. The Jihad Movement ana its Leadership. 86 S. The Garnbian Jihad and its Mode of Expression. 91

Notes ta Chapter 111 . . . . . . . " .

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CHAPTER IV: 1

THE POST-JIHAD PERIOD. ./113

1. The Successes and Fai1ures of the Movement ... 113 2. 'Changes in the Poli tical Status of the Gambia. 119

Notes to Chapter IV. 129

CONCLUSION. . • • • l' .. • 132

Notes to Conclusion. • 136

APFENDICES. . . ,~ . ~ .. t "t

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3.

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5.

Table of Slave Exports: Projected Exports of the French and British Slave Trade in the Cdhstal Regions of Africa,17l1-18l0 .....•. Table of Balance ,of Trade: Garnbian Imports and Exports for the period 1840-1890 (not

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inclusive) ..... , •... · 138 Table of Gambia's major Export: Peanut Exports for the Period 1835-1892 (not inclusive) .... Map: The Fourteen Mandingq States of the Eigh teenth Century . . . . .' . . . Map: Gambia After the Partition of Senegambia.

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140 141

B1BLIOGRAPHY. · 142

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.' INTRODUCTION:

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Islam reached Gamb'a around the fourteenth or early fifteenth

- \ . (/ centuries; by the ninet enth century it was well-established in

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the Iiegiort. In general, \Muslims were welcomed rn Gambia becau e

thei,r religious leader.s pr6vided educational and medical service

However, even when a viable Muslim community had emerged or t.."1e

number of Muslims was on the rise, as was the case in the

nineteenth century, Muslims continued to live with certain

poli tical and social disabilities. They were excluded, for \

instance, from direct participation in-the administration of the . ,

Mandingo states, terri torial un±.ts organised poli tically and

socÏ:ally on the prineiples pf pat~ilineal kinship and senioritYi l

Muslims of aIl ethnie'backgrounds ~re denied land ownership

rights. Despite this, many Muslims whO were involved in the ,

trade of peanuts (a major export item by the middle of the

nineteenth century) oecupied important po'si tions in the economy

of these states.

The slave trade, the major aetivity among ~e ruling elite,

. began in the first quarter of the nineteenth eent~ to decline,

which in turn weakened the tradi tional power base. ''è~ncomi tantly

'" European demand helped inerease theLpeanut trade and exp;anded the

economic power of the Muslims. The Muslims who were politically

and socially dis;franchised, and who therefore could not articulate

their increasing power through'the existing institutions, became

increasingly dissatisfied with the system.

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Against this backdrop, Jihad broke out in Baddibu and soon

engul fed the whole area. The Jihad movemen t, under the lea~ership

of "a man by the name of Maba, succeeded in overthrowing the

tradi tional system. The mili tary carnpaigns, how~ver, caused

considerable casualt~es, including Maba himself.

While the Gambian Jihad has a ttracted the attention of such

scholars as Charlotte Quinn and Martin Klein, 2 i t is still true 1

to say that this Jihad is among the least examined of such

movemen ts in West Africa or Western Sudan. Nonetheless, i ts ,

study poses a similar problem as with other Jihadsi that is,

whether or not religion alone, as a belief system. sufficiently

explains the causes for the outbreak of Jihad. I,n other words,

ta what extent did the ideology imbued in Jihad on one hand, Çlnd

the economic and social factors on the other play roles :ln the

movement in Gambia. The thesis will atternpt to address itself

to this issue.

Chapter l will provide the necèssary historical and social

background for the region. The -main emphasis in the thesis will

be placed on Chapters II and III, which will deal wi th the economic

basis of non-Muslim and Muslirn communities and the Jihad movement

respectively.

The Gambian Jihad invol ved the use of force to overthrow a

particular political or social system, and thus it may be

considered a forro of revolution. Indeed, the literature on West

-Africa re fers to the Jih-ads waged in tha t region as being reiigiOus'

revolutions. Also it was the expression of long-standing

grievances in Gambian society. 'i'hat is to say, there was a

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"nurturing" period - ... a prolonged period of objective economic

and social developm~n't -- before the simmering tensions and

t . t t d . t l' 3 unres ln s OCl.e y erup e l.n 0 a revo ut10n, ,

However, the Gambian Jihad cannot be considered or examined

solely in terms of mate rial factors; ideal factors, in :this case

the Is lamic ideology, hâve also to be ~ake~ in ~ account. 4

Islamic teachings and, in particular, the propHetic- example,

cons idered as a religious paradigm, make i t necessary for Muslims

to propagate Islam. This may involve the use of force in order

to extend the boundaries of Dar al Islam 50 th'at Islam could work

to produce the order on earth that the Koran seeks. 5 According

to Fazl ur Rahman, " ... when human religio-social endeavor is

envisaged in the terms in which we have understood the Qur'~,

jihad becomes an absolute necessity. How can such an ideological

,.. world-order be brought into existence withbut such a means?,,6-

Such verses as "Ye are the best communi ty sent forth unto matlkind;

ye command that which is reputable and ye prevent that which is , disreputable, and ye believe in Allah" 7 have been taken to mean

that Muslims are the moral' enforcers on the earth. Arguing on

these liI}es, Muhammad Asad explains that,

upon earth. 8 -

This is the moral justification of th~ aggressive activism ,cf Islam, the Justification of early Islamic conquests and its so-called "imperialism" .... For, according to the teachings of Islam, morat knowledge automatically forces moral responsibility upon man. A mere Platonic discernment betweèn Right an~ Wrong, with­out the urge to promote Right and to destrby wrong,. is a gross irntnorality in itself. In Islam, morality li

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dies wi th the human endeavour to establish i ts vict ry ..

Given this understanding, t~e waging of Jihad comes tO,be viewed

as a means to uni versali ze the message o~ Islam and to establish an

Islamic world state. 9

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NOTES TO INTRODUCTION

1. Charlotte A. Quinn, "~1aba Di~khou and the Garnbian Jihad, '\ 1850-1890," in Stufies in 'West African Islamic Bist~ry, , Vol. l, ed. John R. Willis (London: F'rank Cass & Co. Ltd.,

1'979), p. 237.,'

2. The works of these two. scholars, Quinn' s Mandingo KÏ<ngdoms of the Senegambia and Klein' 5 "Social and Economie Factors in the Mus1im Revolution- in. Senegambia", are used

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extensi vely in this study. In fact the original idea for this thesis stems fLom these two works.

This is a pre-condition for revolution. See, for example, James C. Davis, "Toward a theory of Rf!!volution,~ American Socio19gica1 Review 27:1 (February 1962), p. 17. See also by the i same author, "R~v.olution and the! J-curve," in

. Revolution and politic'al change. eds. Claude,E. Welch and Mavis B. Taintor (North Scituate and Belmont, Masc;.: Duxbury Press, 1972): 122-152.

Maxime Rodinson would dis agrée wi th this view ht>lding that 'ideology,plays a secondary role in' explaining conflicts. See,his book Islam and Capitalism, trans. S,rian Pearce, (London: Al-len oLane, 1974). Similarly Rudolph Peters in his book Islam and Colo,niaIism: the \-Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1979), argues that armed conflicts between groups arise out of a clash of material interests. Ideology serves only as an instrument for mobilizing mass suaP0rt . J

5. Fazlur Rahman, Major Thernes of the Qur" an" (Minn~apOlis: Bibliotheca Is1arnica, 1980), p. §).

6.' Ibid.

1. Koran 3: 110.

8. Muhammad Asad, Islam at the Cros~roads (Dalh0:!olSie, Punjab: , Arafat Publications, 1947), PPJ 30-31.

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, 9. Majid Khadduri, War and Peace' in the Law of Islam (Bal tirnore:

The JOhn Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 51. ' ,

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CHAPTER l

GAMBH\ BEFORE 1800 )

The HistoricaL Settin~

The tin y republic of Gambia in its present borders is

surrounded on aIl sides by terri tories belongi,ng to Senegal. It

has the shape of a finger-like projection and extends from the

'" mouth of the Garnbia river into tne heartland of Senegal about two

hunqred miles upstream. It averages; about ten kilometers èUstance 0-

from either side: of the Garnbia river. In terms of area, Garnbia is

about 3,978 square miles. l Like most of the senegambia,2 Garnbia

falls within the Savanna region climate. Except for sorne swampy

creeks along the river, the climate tends to be very hot and humid

in this giassland region. There is a dry and somewhat cooler

season from Novernber to April. The region receives an average

rainfall of 4,7 inches for 50 to 60 days from May/June to OctoberJ. 3

However, sometimes the rains fail and the results can be disastrous.

In terms of. the physical terrain, unlike other areas, it is a

low-Iying are~ with no mountain ranges to separate the coast from

the interior. This perhaps explains why at one time the Gambia ,

river region was part of the Mali empire because rnost large West

African empires have flou!ished in the open Savan~a region, as the

sea coast to the south presents a th~ck forest region that makes

communication or human movement difficult. Thus different

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ecological zones are suited for different types of systems or

organization, with the open Savanna region being best suited for

, centralized systems. What we have in mind here are empires such - -

as Ghana (not to be confused with the present Ghana), Mali and

songhai. 4

The present boundari~s of Gambia are very artificial, having

no relation to ethnie or geographical demarcations in the area.

The boundaries were first drawn in 1889 during a meeting between

the English and French delegates in Paris, and were only slightly

modified later. 5 They were meant to be temporary until such time

as the British would exchange Gambia with the French for sorne other

territory in West Africa under French control. This exchange never

took place. As a result, Gamb~a finds itself territorially dis-

possessed of free access to its natural 'hinterland, as weIl as

divided from its Kinsmen, the Wolof, Jola, Mandingo and Fulbe

6 people who l~ve in Senegal. ! '

Before the part~tion of Senegambia in the closing decades of

the ninetee~th century, much of the history of Gambia was not

restricted to the parts that comprise it today. Its history is

intertwined with that of the neighbouring regions. The treaty of

Versailles i~ 1783 made Gambia a British concern while in 1821 it

was declar~d a crowrl colony. However, France did~t give'up

control of an enclave on the right bank of the river (Albrèda) \' r

until 1857 when it was bought from her by Britain. The area that

was declared crown colony had its base at Bathurst (built in 1812)

on St. Mary Island on the Gambian t::oast where EU,rop'ean traders as

weIl as Africans liberated slaves -- resided. The colony did

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not i.nçlude, at least in terms of control, the Mandingo states in

the inland regions.

The history of Gambia is connected with that of the Senegarnbia

region as a whole, especially in the period when a series of ., migrations to the area were taking place.

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It iS aliejeJ -thae f},ese mljrat--iOnS' wlth t-,/rle 1 eYtJlved into distinct tribal patterns, many of which are evident to this

8 day. This is how the Wolof, Mandingo, and Fulbe people

established themselves in the various regions of Senegambia and

created first village or clan-based policies and finally large

kingdoms. 9 The seventeenth century witnessed the burgeoning of

these States into large and cornplex kingdorns with imperial or

rather courtly trappings of councillors (adviser~), bureaucrats

and military qfficials. The economic basis of these states was

for the rnost part village-oriented agriculture, although for the

people living near the rivers, the hinterland trade was important.

It is believed that Ptolerny and early Arab geographers wrote

about Gambia. However, the first European contact with the region

was in 1455 at the time of the Portuguese e'xplorations as part of

their ventures abroad. At that time the country is said to have

corne under the Mali empire before i t br9ke away in the seventeenth 1

century~O, Although the Portuguese maint~ined contact with Gambia . 1

and a few of them went as far as to se~tle in the area, they were

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mainly in terested Jin other regions of the Wes t African coast such

as the Gold coas t (presen.t Ghana) which provided more l ucrati ve

trade. Stories about the gold riches of Africa in such places as

the famed Wangara fired the imagination of many European

adventurers. The Trans-Sahara trade between the Moors of North

Africa and the peoples of ~vest Africa contributed about ten percent

of the gold supply needed for coinage in Europe. ll The rivalries

arnong the Europeans at home was transformed into conflicts abroad

especially from the latter part of the sixteenth century.l2 The

struggle was drawn out over the next two centuries,with Britain,

France and Holland vying with one another to assume a position of

dominance with respect to the world's mercantile trade. l3 This

struggle was extended to the Senegambia region, although it should

be pointed out that the major thrust of European trade was with

the more lucrative areas of the West African coast. This struggle

in Senegambia resulted in the Portuguese being squeezed out.

Englïsh merchants bought from the Portuguese exclusive rights to

trade with the people in the Gambia region. Nevertheless, Anglo-

French rivalry continued unabated with the French expanding their

interests in Senegal while the British sought to use the navigable

Garnbia river as the best way to penetrate into the interior of

Senegal. Their disputes were partially resolved when Gambia was

granted to the British by the Treaty of Versailles; the French

obtained a small enclave at Albreda. 14 Despite this, the ~ritish

made very li ttle attempt to penetrate up the river until the 1860' s

when the Jihad, under study here, took place.

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The Coming Of Islam

With respect to Islam in'the area, its arrivaI preceded that

of the first Europeans to make contact with the region. According

to Portuguese sources, Muslim advisers were present at the courts

of traditional rulers or kings of Gambia as weIl as of Senegal

15 ~ early in the fifteenth century. These advisers were the

Marabouts or 'Moors' whose land lies to the north beyond Senegal ~

river. Islam is said to 'have entered Senegal around the eleventh

centuryl6 although other reports mention that there were· Muslims 1

in Takrur (Lower Senegal), ancient Ghana and Kanem by the ninth '-

17 century. In any event, by 1040 the ruler of Takrur, a Fu1be

state, had converted to Islam and was supporting the Almoravid

Abü Bakr. 18

There were two routes by which Islam reached West ~rica. The

first was the Trans-Sahara route which the Muslim traders used.

It was through this route that rslam reached Senegal. Once it had

been established along the Atlantic coast to Senegal, it then

19 s~read eastwards across the Savanria country. The second route

20 was across the desert from Tripoli and Egypt to the Lake Chad

region. These ~ere the two principle- access routes -- excluding,

of course, the Red Sea area and the East African coast through ~~ ---------~

which Islam penetrated into the East African region -- by which

Islam reached West Africa.

In the case of Gambia, the Mali empire,2l which flourished in

the thirteenth century, included in its sphere of control the

Gambia river or Futa Djallon region. This empire, which pos'sessed i

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such famous centres of learning as Timbuctu and Jen1e, played a

role in the Islamization of the Mandinkas. 22 It i~ most li~.ly,

therefore, that these Mande-Dyula and other long distance trad~~-

from Mali brought Islam into this region around the fourteenth and

early fifteenth centuries. 23 In addition, as already mentioned,

Takrur, a Fulbe state in the Futa Toro, acted as a base or centre 1

throug~ which Islam reached Gambia, and beyond that to other parts

of wesk Africa.

Muslims were generally welcomed in the area as their religious

leaders provided educational and medical services. 24 In addition,

they prayed for the kings, handlp-d their correspondence and made

amulets for protection against aIl kinds of evil. 25 These amulets

were highly valued by both Muslims and non-Muslims and were to be

seen worn by them everywhere. The Muslims served as advisers and

consultants, and their knowledge was sought because they had

trading experience and had travelled widely.26 This is perhaps

because their leaders forrned the only literati group in the a~ea .

. AIso, through the Moors of North Africa, they kept in touch with

Islamic trends elsewhere. Wherever there was commercial activity,

Mus lirn traders were to be found there. In tirne, there was a clpse.

alliance between commerce and Muslim scholarship.27

The Muslim leaders or Marabouts were also sought for their .

medical knowledge. They knew techniques of bleeding and leeching,

curing fever by giving hot vapor baths and setting fractures. 28

As Moore 1 s report indicates the y were held in high esteern: Il They

have great veneration paid them by aIl the Mandingoesi insomuch

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that if any of them are ill, they apply to a Màhometan for a

,,29. h' . d h '. Il . cure. T ~s att~tu e, owever, was to change espec~a y ~n the

nineteenth century.

In return for their services, Muslims were given land to

settle. They buil t mosques and Koranic ·schools for their

children, and itinerant Imams were to be found in the Senegambia \ •

30 as early as the fourteenth century. The Marabout clâss

cansisted originally of Moors, but these were later joined by

Tukolor and Mande families who, in Wolofland, became Wolofized. 31

At this time the number of Muslims was small and Islam practiced

and preached by them is said ta have been superficial.

By the seventeenth century Islam ~as on the rise and there

were already s~parate Muslim villages arnong the Wolof and

Mandinka. 32 In these viII ages, mosques and schools could be found

and Muslim rituals regarding prayers, fasting and observance of

dietary laws, were carefully observed. The Muslims were quite

strict in adhering to Islamic practices although the majority of

the people in the area were either Muslim syncretists or followers

of traditional (ancestral) beliefs or so-called paganism. In

terms of conversion, Islam was to make significant inroads arnong

the Jambur or free peasants. Although the Muslin minority was

mostly rural and peàsant, it included almost aIl the petty

traders. 33 This was natural since Islam and trade tended to go

hand-in-hand.

34 Islam.

In other words, trade served as the handrnaid of

In this region, Muslim Marabouts were used by both the

Mandinkas and Wolofs as legal consultants and advisers. This was

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not aIl; many Mandinka sent their sons to Muslirn schools 35 and

"--rnany of these students adopted Islam. This, in faèt, is similar

• to the process in rnany parts of Africa d~ring the colonial

period. 36 As Kaba has noted in his article on the ?ubbanu

experience, the Koranic education has provided a criterion for

social rnobility and prestige in traditional societies. 37 1

The Marabouts formed separate communities and villages where

the drinking of alcohol was prohibited. The Muslims were said

t b' 'd' d . 38 d h h d d . k' o e more ~n ustr10US an product~ve, an t e ar - r~n ~ng

traditional warrior class was their antithesi~. These two groups

were later to clash as the level of polarization increased in

society. We shali discuss this in detail in a later chapteri

here suffice it to say that by the nineteenth century the,tensions

existing in society had matured and reached a breaking point. By

this tirne Islam was well-established and conversion was on the

rise, although the pagans and non-practicing Muslims (together

called Soninke) were still in the majority.39 .,

Despite certain privileges that the Marabouts may have

enjoyed owing ta their services to these states, Muslims in Gambia

lived with certain political and social disabilities. They were

excluded, for instance, from dir~ct pa~ticipation in the adminis­

tration of the Mandingo states 40- and Muslirns of aIl ethnic back­

grounds were denied land ownership rights. 4l Since land ownership

rights were based on generational levei (descent) and' Iength of

residence (therefore long established lineages benefitted from

this system), this rneant that Muslims, as late corners to the region,

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.. could not own land. Mus)ims were not the only group that' suffered,

héwever; strangers or members of certain minority ethnie groups

aiso laboured under the same burdens or disabilities.

" Ethnie and Religious Factors

A brief presentation of the ethnie map, the kingdoms and their 1

social and political organisation, will help explain the dis-

satisfaction on the part of the Muslims as weIl as the dissatis-

faction of other groups. During the nineteenth century there were

fourtecr small states ~long the b~ of the Gambia river, from

the Atlantic coast to Barrakunda r~lls about three hundred miles

'1 d 42 ~n an . These states or Kingdoms Niumi, Baddibu, Upper and

Lower Niani, and Wuli on the north bank~ Kombo, Foni, Kiang, Jarra, .

Namina, Eropina, Jimara, Tomani and Kantora on the South -- were

distinguished from their neighbors by the predominance of the

Mandingos, apd bi the focus of their river oriented economies. 48

ijowever, the Mandingos were not the only ethnie group in this area

although they were the majority. By 1800 there was a heterogenous

population which included the Wolof, Fula (Fulani) and Serahuli.

The Mandingos were spread over a large area of West Africa.

The Mali empire which had flourished between the thirteenth and

seventeenth centuries, was for the,most part a Mandink'a empire.

The Mandingos were exten~ively involved in commerce and trade so

that the travelling Muslim traders almost invariably were

Mandingos. 44 In the case of Gambia, the Mandingos had been

pushing westward and the JOl& who had reached the Garnbian coast

before the fifteenth century, were feeling their pressure. The

. 1

.- 1.

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14

Jolas were forced to move soutnward'away from'the river so that

by the nineteenth century they were of pe~~Ph~ral\~mportance to

45 the politics of the Gambia River Valley. They we~e to partici-

pate actively in slave trade as weIl as in selling rice and

beeswax to European and Mandingo traders. 46 The Mandtngos in

turn were feeling pressure from the large Wolof-Serer state of ,

Saloum bordering the Kin~oms of Niumi, Baddibu and Niani.

~ndeed,. Saloum maintaine~ a corridor of land as far as tl\~ Gambia

r$yer. Thus the Mandingo states had suspicions about the ~nten-

.t.4-ôns of their Wolof neighbours to the north. 47 \ \

Another important ethnie group, especially'in the nor~h

bank states, was the Fulani. In genè~al, the Fulanis ha~e sp\ar­

headed a 'gooa. nurnber of, mili tant Islamlc refo~ist movements· i~, , \

the Western Sudan. This i5 not all that eurprising, for as

wand~rers, they had not lost the nomadic spirit, the spirit of

dynamism whi_ch sei zes on causes wi th great enthusiasm. As

Ibn Khaldun perceptively notes in his Muqaddimah, nomads (such as ~

the Almoravids,'or Fulanis who in rnany cases did not possess

political status) were ideal for a spiritual mission once they

were uniiied under sorne banner or cause. Fulanis have a history

of migrations spanning a number of centuries, over a wide area

of territory. They were to be found as far east as Hausaland and

as far west as the lower Senegal, near the Atlantic ocean. They

did not all speak the sarne dialect but formed different dialect

groups. Moreover, they were either pastoralists and nomads

(cattle Fulani' or settlers (town Fulanis) and part time farmers.

The largest number of Musl~s were to be found in the latter group.

,.

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1 The Torodo, a Fulani dialept group, arrived in Gambia where they

1

built settlements as they had done elsewhere. This is how a

Torodo religious leader Ndiogou Ba, from Futa Tpro had setiled

.in Baddibu, a north bank state, where his son and future

revo1utionary leader, Maba was born in 1809. 48

Land was leased to the Fulani immigrants although they were

often exploited by their Mandingo overlordsi the immigrants for

example, were subjected tb heavy taxation. Desp,ite this, the

Fulanis did not put any serious resistance and often preferred

flight to vioience. 49 Meanwhile this exploitation causèd

increasing socio-economic discontent. Indeed, after the middle

of nineteenth century, under suèh leaders as Egue (Alfa Molo), .,

they began to assert themselves against their rulers in the so~th,

bank states. 50 In this study we shail focus more attention on

the north bank states, especially the state of Baddibu where

Jihad began because, Maba's Jihad was to be more successful in

the north,where he had a social base and personal following,

than in the south bank states.

Another important ethnie group were the Wolofs; the se

inhabited the land to the north of the north bank states. In

Gambia their number became s'ignificant only during the beginning

, ~ 51 of the second half of the n1neteenth century. They had moved

south from Saloum to such states as Baddibu. Between them the

Wolofs of Bad~ibu (Garnbia) and Saloum were to dominate'the Islamic

reformis-t movement in that area. By 1850 they had been inter­

marrying .with Mandingo, Serer and Fula Torodo. 52 Maba, the future

revolutionary leader, was himself a Fula Torodo although his mother

was a Wolof.

' . ..

.)

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The Serahuli were te be found sçattered throughout the area,

but for the most part t~ey were not permanent residents. In the

nineteenth century they càme from as far away as five hundred

miles to the east, and hired land from the Mandingo chiefs to

grow peanuts for two or three years, long enough to be able to

buy sufficient goods from the Europeans t after which they

returned to their homes. 53 The suppression cf slave trade and

the introductlon of peanuts to the area brought abou~~turtdamental

changes, the nature of which will be discussed in the follo~tn~-~

chaptè~s. The peanut trade facilitated the mobility of one

factor of production, namely labor. This is how the Serahuli

came to be in the area although they had no local ties. Because 0

~hey were mobile and witho~t local ties, this made them ideal ----~-

~eèruits for the mercenary armies~~~~ch Mandingo kingdoms as ~

Niumi in the 1840'5 and 1850's.54 ~~ --~ .

~

The economic advantages in the region attracted diffe~ ---- . . . . ----ethnlc groups the~. However, the Mandlngo remalned the

overlords in the area and could not be challenged effectively

because the Fula or Torodo were too divided, and the Jola too

fragmented and in retreat, and the Wolof were too few in these

are as. Thus, in general, these "Strangers" by paying heavy

taxes and providing services to the Mandingo aristocracy which

controlled the best lands, perpetuated and maintained their

d d l · h' 55 epen ency re atlons lp; Under these circumstance~, a broad

ideology-was needed to un~fy these groups. Islam was to be this h

ideQlogy which would unify the disaffected elements.

, r _ J

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17

We have thus far discussed the 'ethnie composition of the

area. There is no reason to believe that there we!e deep

eleavages hased on ethnie differences. If any ethnie g~oup

resented the Mandingo, it was because of the Mandingo's political ,

and economic exploitation and superior position. Thus, for

example, the Mandingo excluded Muslims from owning land not

because of their ethnicity, but despite their ethnicity. The

Torodo had to pay heavy taxes which they resented, while the best

lands in the area were reserved for the Mandingo overl~rds.

Were the Muslirns divided on the basis of ethnicity~ In

the r.ase of Muslim traders, they tended to be widely travelled

and to a large extent de-tribalized, and this tended to blunt

ethnie consciousness. Other Muslirn groups were aiso ethnically

unconscious but perhaps nQt tri the same degree as the merchants.

Nonetheless, aIl these groups perceived themselves as members , c of the Umma. Islam was the unifying factor, possessing as it does

that quality which blurs ethnie differences in,culturally

h ,. 56 eterogeneous commun~t~es; This does not rnean, however, that .

Islam will completely submerge local (ethnie) pecu'liarities nor

that certain frictions will no't display ethnie overtones; rather 't

that where there is friction, the issue is not ore of ethnic~ty,

but of inter-group competition. In other words, where there is

tension in society, ethnicity tends to surface, with ethnie rivalry r

serving,as a mask for sorne underlying socio-economic tension~.

This is LSO because ethnicity has the advantage of demarcating,

in physical terms, the "0 the r" ; tha t is, members of the opposite

group. However, having said this, we should point out that

, .... r"

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18

contrary to popular belief, much of pre-colonial Africa was not

very tribalized. Indeed, according to Geller, "In contrast to

the popular image of a tribal Africa, what is now modern Senegal

[and we may add, Gambia], like much of West Africa, was

detribalïzed and organized into chiefdoms ~nd states long before

the Adven t of European rule." 5 7

Sociat, Political and Administrative System

The political 'systems of the various ethnie groups in the

S~negambia were complicated, yet similar in many ways. The

reason for this similarity is that all of them were directly or

SB .' indirectly inspired by the Mande concept of royalty. The .'

inspiration for this model may be traced to the practice of a

Mandinka empire, Mali, which flourished from about the thirteenth

59 century. The Mande model was operative in the political set-up

of aIl ethnie groups in the area wi,th the exception of the Jolas.

There was one common denominator: the 'tradition of royalty. We

shall limit our discussion to the political organization of the

Mandingo states as these are the .focus of our study. J

In aIl the Mandingo kingdoms or states, there was a hierarchy o

of kings (Mansas)~ alkadis or alkalis, and eIders, who together 1

cons.tituted the government. The kings were hil,ghly revered and

tribute was pa1d to them by their subjects. However, the ~ings ~

could not act arbitrarily as there were constitutional checks. 60

They had to consult, for instance;-wit~ a council of Elders which

'represented other important free lineages. Thus the king could. f$

not grant concessions t~ any group (such as Europeans), declare •

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war or rnake peace wi thout the advice and apT?roval of a council

~composed of leaders of the major lineages in towns and villages);

nor could he afford to ignore the royal lineages because these

1d h · d " 61 h 1" 1 f 1, f cou cause ~s epos~t~on. T e po lt~ca ramewor~ or

succession was such that one or more royal lineages supplied

rulers on the basis of a system of rotation. Kingship in Baddibu,

for example, wa9 reserved to four families. It was an elective. ,

monarchy and succession to office was according to patrilineal

d · . t .. l 62 an pr~mogen~ ure pr~nc~p es. The king was elected by a small

council after which he was confirmed by an assembly of the

63 free-born. Because the lineages were to sorne ex~ent autonomous,

conflict in succession was unavoidable. Indeed, according to

Quinn, lia number o~ violations of the order of succession due

to ambiguities of polygarnous marriage and concubinage, the

, frustrations of collateral succession, and the cumberso~e pattern

of .rotation from one town to another" 64 did arise. This happened

in Niurni as well as in Tamani where there was a 'usurper'.

Each state had a King 1 a council of advisers or eIders and '

an armed force for purposes of defence and for imposing the

king's will if need be. 65 The king's power derived from his royal

office and status; in practice, this power depended on the size

of the military forces he could control. 66 It was with such

military power that he 'controlled the periphery. In the nineteenth

century his power to control the periphery had waned and this was

to spell disaster.

\

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~ For administrative purposes, each state was further sub-"

di vided into terri torial uni ts 0 f the vill age 1 ward and family

compound. Village administration was in the hands of a Satiyo-tiyo

or alkali (a vïllage headman representing the senior lineage of

67 the village) in counci1 with compound leaders. The alkadis or

alkâlis were important men in their own right and their wisdom

often determined the type of government. In their capacity as

officials of the state, they distributed land, administered

justice in minor cases and collected customs duties for the

king. 68 They also retained a small tax collected from strangers

leasing village land, and sorne portion of the good~ of traders

and travellers passing through the region. 69 In short, they kept

the machinery of government ~~nning. Their im~ortance was

derived f~om the f'act that amon them, was a group called Suma, 1

in Baddibu, Niani and a few other tates, consisting of potential

kings. This group of, ~lkali called

over a large are a of land than did

~_ possessed more authori ty

alkalis. The system

of rotary succession made each one of th a potential king with

the resul t that intrigue and ri va1ry were l.:-nevi table. 70

Each village was divided into wards which were administered

by ward leaders or kabilo-tiyoz 71 with the help of advisers.

The wards were settled by lineage segments who were represented

b · h 'Il . l 72 Y a senl.or man on t e VJ,. age councl. . . Invariably the

villages in the periphery were run by village chiefs and compound

heads. These villages had sorne form of autonomy as long as the

village recogni zad the ruler, paid i ts taxei' supplied men for

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public works and the militia and extended hospitality to officiaIs

'h 73 travers~ng t e area. Thus the whole system was kept together

by a network of linkages involving tradition, kinship patterns

and force. 74 There was also the rudiments of a kind of local

parliament. According to Quinn,

usually there was a public meeting place (bentang) for the village, a platfortn

where public affairs were transacted, daily gossip exchanged'by the men, and trials conducted. Bentang, the mosque if there was one, roaC:s leadinç to the village, walls, ditches ..• were communal institutions. ~ge g~oups (Kafo) organized on a village widé basis provided the labour to keep these town properties in order. 75

The king was the war leader and protector of the community's

interests. Under him, the post of (a defacto) Prime Minister,

if we may calI it that, was held by the chief of the caste groups,

often a blacksmith so that his humble origins would make him more

loyal to the kl'ng.76 l th 'l't h' f d'· .... n e ml 1 ary c a1n 0 comman ln many

of these states, the chief of the royal slaves was an importarlt

figure, often wealthy owing to the war booty or loot. He was

responsible for internaI order and protection of the -king. 77

His prestige was derived from the number of men he commanded as

weIl as the wealth he possessed. Below him in rank were a

number of provincial military commanders - the Kanta-mansas and \

farina mansas among the Mandinka. 78 These wielded a lot of

infl\Jence with the king. According to Mboge, "this is because

they were at one and the same time the tax-collectors, the

military conscriptors, and, more importantly, the guardians of

the state's integrity and of its frontiers".79

-.-- ------_._* -_ ..... --_ ....... _---_ .. ------------

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In terms of social orranization, these societies were highly

stratified, There were f1ur principal groups consisting of the

nobility on one hand, and the endogamous castes on the other,

The four principal groups were: 1) the nqbility, consisting of

actual and potential office holders at the level of government

(included in this list were their relatives) ;80 2) the free men

or commoners 81 (foro) ; 3) the artisans and praise singers

(nyamalo), each performing a social or economic functioni and

4) the slaves (jongo). We shall ex~ine these four groupings in

their order of importance. We may, however, mention at the

outset that the caste system servp.~ ta bar or exclude meMbers of

tl;le cAstes from "economic and social rights within the community,

including ownership of land, political office, and the taxes and

" benefits associated with it."82

At the apex of the social pyramid were the royal dynasties

providing the pool of eligible candidates for the crown, followed

by those rela ted to them by birth, marri age , and tradition., as

weIl as local chiefs possessing or exercising territorial

commands. 83 The king and his top officiaIs were of a· noble clan,

ancestrally connected with the Sunjata dynasty of Mali. 84 The

Kings' 'men' or warriors (called tyeddo in the Wolof areas),

though originally slaves of the crown, were to become an ,

appendage or subclass of the nobility. They achieved this by

virtue of their possessing the power to render or withhold

support to or from any of the political rivals to the crown. BS

, :

This Was possible since they possessed firearms and were, therefore,

a group to contend with. By tr?nsforming themselves into a

r

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sub-class of the nobility, thèy proved that although upward

social mobility in these societies was rare, it was not

, 'bl 86 ~mposs~ e.

The second stratum of this stratification consisted of

the free men (çommoners) who were mostly peasants or agricul-

turalists. The commoners formed the bulk of the population.

They were subjected to high arbitrary taxes and involuntary

contributions of cattle and crops to satisfy the needs and

whims of the ruling elites and the warrior class. 87 Despite

their higher status, they had less power than the warriors.

~onetheless, important chiefs and officiaIs (prp.~umably from

among the large farmers and notables) were recruited from

their ranks. 88

Below them were the castes proper (endogamous castes)

consisting of artisans and praise-singers '(called griots among

the Wolof); the latter were the official custodians of the

'1 d" d h' 89 commun~ty s tra ~t~ons an ~story. These castes perfo~d , ~

certain soèial and economic functions which were deemed desirable /

by society. In tneir ranks were included such occup~tional

groups as jewellers, blacksrniths, shoernakers, weavers, dyers,

and those dealing in leatherworks and pottery; in short, , .

artisans. Their monopoly of manual trades as weIl as their client-

relationships with the wealthy and powerful elernents in society

madé them generally more wealthy than commoners despite their

lower social status. 90 They monopolized econornic activity in the

"

,

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non-agricultural and non-pastoral sectors as indicated above.

They were endogamous as weIl as a professionally specialized

group, hereditary in character, and forming a kind of guild or

91 closed group. . They can be regarded as the technicians of

t d ·· l . 92 . d . h' l l ra ~t~ona soc~ety or a pre-~n ustrlal tee n~ca c ass.

Certain ethnie groups excelled in certain trades; thus the

Mandingo were notable traders in addition to possessing a fine

class of musicians, while the Wolof made good jewellers and

. . 93 pra~se s~ngers.

At the bottom of the social "heap" were the slaves or the

slave class. The status of the slaves depended on the status

of the master or the rnanner of the forrner's eaptivity.94 Thus

there were two categories of slaves. The first category included

those who were to be found not only in African societies but in

Muslim societies as weIl. These were the domestic slaves who

had become part-of the master's extended farnily, and who for

that reason, were not in the habit of being sold. In the ,/'

Mandingo kingdoms, these slaves perforrned an economic function;

they worked part time for their masters in addition to cultivating

95 land allotted to them. These slaves were generally weIl treated

and even perrnitted to marry and raise families. The second

category was made up by the slaves captured or ?ought. These

may be called trade slaves because they were often ~old before

they could establish or form any ties with the owner's farnily.96

In the Mandingo kingdoms and Senegambia in general, a number of

these able-bodied captives were actually captives of the crown.

- Jo. . . - -- --- --:!.. ---- .. -- -- - -- --------_ .... -.--_ ...

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, However, as we have seen, they ~ere t~ become, the highly

pri vileged mil i tary class that carne to forrR a sub-group of the

nobility. Others among them became advisers, bodyguards and

domestics. 97

The pictu~e that emerges from the preceeding discussion

reveals a complicated sy~tem of social organization among the

peoples of Senegambia. Society"was divided into four distinct .-'

groups and the position and status of these groups were clearly

described. Since the power of the kings was constitutionally

Iimited, political competition was centered chief1y on the

distribution of taxes and other revenues. 98

Although Mandingo society was highly stratified, there was

no form11 hierarchial system of state offices. Rather, according

to Quinn, " ... distribution of power ... seerns to have been in many

areas in formaI and 'responsi ve to the resources and capabili ties

of individual lIrlcumbents. ,,99 In this way the system favoured 1

kings land their lineages, depending on the skills of the ~ormer to

maniP4Iate the power st~uctures. AlI the important,economic and

social functions, however, were reserved for the core group of

families and their relatives, descended from the founder-settler

of the community. The king (Mansa) as the most senior lineage

leader could appropriate land and in return for its use obtain

, d 'b 100 serv~ce an tr~ ute. Travellers and traders passing thro,ugh

his state had to pay hirn not only custorns based on the value of

their goods, but also taxes on wood and water, as was the case

in Niumi. In 1795, for instance, each boat and ship had to pay

101 twenty pounds. Moreover, foreigners had to pay head tax while

" '------_.

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26

Britain and France paid tribute annually for James Island and

Albreda respecti vely. The king also rece~d part of the

proceeds of fines because he, along with his town council~

served as a court of appeal. The function of administering 1

justice and levying taxes was left to a chief magistrate (alkali)

of each town. Even th en , in many 'c"ases ci vil and criminal

institutions of Islam were resortedoto as these states did not

102 possess,a written language or a code of law. ...

The Alkali, on

behalf of the king collected taxes on village land; that is, the

Mandingo and Wolof paid a tithe on the harvest and on cattle.

In case of a threat of war, the alkalolu (plural for alkali)

collected a special tax on behalf of the king to finance war

103 ~. efforts. The kings invested most of their wealth in cattle,

which were inherited by an incumbent king, while the rest of their

wealth was invested in clients" mercenaries or slaves, his

d d " d' 104 truste a Vlsers an sples.

By the seventeenth century Muslirns had come to live in their

own vil~ages and wards where they were free to practice their

religion. In these settlements life was perrneated by Islamic

custom and law. Unlike the pagan or traditional communities

which were oriented toward large extended farnily units, Muslirns

1 d "d"" dl" 1 f"l 105 sett e as ln lVl ua s or ln nuc ear arnl y groups. In

terms of organisation, each Muslirn village had its own Mus1irn

alkali (secular chief) and alrnamy (religious leade~)~06 In

addition, Mus1irn wards attached to pagan cornrnunities had their

own ~r;sentative who represented the ward on the village

counc,~07 In these villages, however, the Marabouts came

1

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•

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27 .

wield both religious' and political authority.108 Quinn

describes the Muslim organisation as follows:-

. Above the village level a network of trading assocïations, educationpl ties, and fri~ndships linked Muslirn communities along the Garnbia; Muslirns settled together prirnarily because of common occupational and religious interests, rather than lineage ties. Many came as traders and travelled a great deal, leaving agricultural work to be perforrned by slaves and women. 109

Muslim towns along the Gambia were settled not only by

the Marabouts (religious leaders) and traders, but also by alien

. d h 110 1 l' m~grants an ot er groups. Moreover, not a 1 Mus 1ms oould «

be distinguished occupationally from their pagan agricultûral

, , III ne~ghbours. Indeed, pagan as weIl as Muslim children

attended the same Koranic schools. As· schools are an important I.lo

medium for acquiring values, many of the pagan children ended up

becoming Muslirns. In addition, sons of pagan parents who felt

unjustly treated in matters of inheritence, left their towns

to join the Marabouts or to establish their own Muslim villages. ll2

Thus many·disaffected elements found themselves joining the ranks

of Muslims, crossing tl"lt! "lineage line" and joining a society or

community whose ties eut aeross ethnie and state lines.

In this chapter, we have discussed the formation of Mandingo

settlements along the Gambia river, and presented the ethnie

configuration of the region,. We saw that in these Mandingo

communitiés land acquisition or land ownership rights were

related to generational level and length of residence. This system

favoured only a few important lineages and benefited them both

economically and politically.

,

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28

• The arrivai of Islam, and eventually the formation of a '

Muslim community, was to add 'a new d~mension to the society. On ,

one hand, Muslims were welcomed in Gambia because they brought

educatio~, provided rnedical services, worked as advisers and legal

consul tants and performed other services. On the other hand,

despite their services, they were discriminated against and

çould not own land or asp\re to political leadership. However,

Muslims were not the only group that laboured under thesel

disabi1ities; a1ien migrants and certain other groups a1fo did,

although it is still true to say that Muslims suffered on

religious grounds. More ver, this practice of differential

treatment for various gr firmly rooted in the

social and political sys of the Senegambian states. Society

was highly stratified with the exception of the warrior

class which by virtue of ossessing firearrns was able to transform

itself into a sub-class 0 the nobility - upward social mobility

was rare. The peasants, 0 tensibly the free men, formed the bulk

of the population but ery li ttle power. Islam made early

infoads among them.

It is clear that two d'stinct cornrnunities, the Muslim and

non-Muslim, had emerged in of the Mandingo states. These

cornrnunities drew their econo and social powers from different

sources, which would give ri political conflict.

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Nb~s ON CHAPTER l

1. This" figure is given in Jeune Afrique, eds., Africa 69/70 (New York: Africa Pub1ishing Corporation~ 1969), p. 278. DosteFt give~ a figure of 4,003 square m~les: See Pierr~ E. Dostert, Africa 1969 (Washington: Strykerpost PUblications, 1969),' p. 46.

2. ~ere, the term Senegambi~ means the region which is drained by Senega1 and Gambia River systems. For a wider rne~ning of the terrn, see A. Mboge, "Senegarnbia as a Historica1

. Region" in Se"negambia,' ed. R.C. Bridges (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Arrican Studies Group, 1974) pp. 35-58.

\ ~ Ibid. '\

\

4.' I~cidentally, these types of societies that are centra1ized have been said to efacilitate the spread of Islam; also, the presence of chiefs and islarnization have been 1inked See L. M. Lewis, "Islam and Tribal Politic9, Il in Islam

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

in Tropical Africa, ed. L. M. Lewis (London, 1966), p. 32. However, Lewis admits that there are many exceptions to the ru1e. See pp. 32-34.

Harry A. Gailey, Historical Dictionar of the {Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.

Ibid.

1.

Dostert, p. 46. Little is known about specifies; Dostert does not reveal the sotlrce of his information.

Ibid.

Gailey, Dictionary, p. 1.

Ibid.

Il. See F. D. Fage, A History of West ~frica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969).

; 12. Gailey, Diçtionary, p.

13. Ibid.

14. Dostert, p. 10. ~

15. See Alvis Ca Da Mosto, ~T~h~e~~~~~~~~~~~~~ G. R. Crone (London: Ha

trans.

li· Ibid.

Î

, •

30

and Empires of 33.

'17. G. T. Stride and Caroline Ifeka, Peoo1es ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

West Africa, (London: Nelson, 1971, p.

1&. Norah Latham, A Sketch-Map History of West Africa fLondon: 'fI Huiton Educational PublIcation,-1959), p. Il.

19. Ibid., p. 19 . ...

20. Martin A. Klein, Islam and-Imperialisrn in Senega1:

21.

..

Sine-Saloum, 1847-1914 (Stanford: Stânford uni versi ty Press, 19 6 8), p. 63. (Hereafter ci ted as Imperialism).

The emp~e of Ghana which flourished in the eighth century was overthrown by the Almoravids in the eleventh century, and by the thirteenth century had been absorbed ~r destroyéd by the ernerging Mali empire. In contrast,the next two large empires were controlled by Muslims: first Mali which flourished from the thirteenth to the seven­teenth century when it received fatal blows from the attacks of the Bambara; and then the Songhai empire, originally part of Mal i, broke away after Gao had asserted i tself; the latter empire lasted from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century an~ its decline is attributed to the attacks of the Moors,Fulanis and Tuaregs.

22. Charlotte A. Quinn, "Mabu Diakhou and the Garnbian Jihad, . 1850 - 1890", in Studies in West African Islamic History, l, ed., J.R.Wi11is (London: Frank Cass, 1961), p. 236.

23. Ibid.

24. We are deliberately avoiding using the term "Musl~m cl~ric" as i t conveys a different meaning from the term u1ama.

25. See, Richard Jobson, The Golden Trade (1623; r~print ed., London 1932), p. 67; T. E. Poole, Life, Scenery and Customs in Sierra Leone and Gambia (London, 1850); and Mungo Park, Travels of Mungo Park, ed., Ronald Miller (1,795; reprint ed., London 1954), p.28. '

26. Charlotte A. Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia (Evanston: North \vestern University Press, 1972), p.S.

~

27. Nehemia Levtzion, Ancient Ghana and Mali & Co. Ltd., 1973), p. 200.

28. Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms, p. 55.

(London: Methuen

29. Francis Moore, Travels Into the Inland Parts of Africa (London, 1738).

. '

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1

. . 1 , .

-. --- - .. - - _ .. ~---_ ... ~ ._------... -...-------

,

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il

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31

30. Walter Rodney r "Jihad and Social Revol'l;ltion in Futa Djall6n in the Eighteenth century," Journal of Historical Society of Nigeria 14:2 (June 19681,p. 272.

31. M~r'tin A. Klein, "1'he Moslem Revolution in Nineteehth Century Senegambia, Il in Wett A.frican History, Vol. 4, Boston University Papers on Africa, eas. Daniel McCall, Norman R. Bennett and J. R. Butler (Boston: African Studies Centre, Boston University,' 1969), p. 76. "

32. Martin A. Klein, "Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution in Senegambia, Il Journal of African History

33.

34.

13: 3 (1972), p. 427.

Ibid. ....

Islam attracted those whose lives were directed outward . (traders). See Philip D. Curtin et . al. , 'African' History

(Boston ,& Toronto: 1978), p. 364.. Islam was a religion of commerce and "'Gippealed to ethnie groups with a' c' ~ commercial calling (Ibid). In this conte«t, Caliph ,Umar is quoted 'as havin'g said: "Trading 1s the true test of man,

,and i t is in the operations of trade that his piety and réligious worth bec"ome known" - cited in E. W. Bovill, The Golden Trade of the Mo~rs (London: 1968), p. 236.,

~5. Park, p. 13.0

36.~ A good 'number'of African childrén sent to schools that were • • "1 for the mast part run by European ml.SSl.onal.res became

Christians.

37. Lansine Kaba, '!The Poli tics' of < Quranic Education Arnong M'uslirn Traders in the Wêstern Sud~n: The,. Subbanu . Experience," tanadian Jo~rnal' of African Studies 10:3 (1976), p. 409.

38. Klein," The Moslem R.eval u~ïon" " p. 79,

39. Quinn" "Gambian Jihad", 'p. 237., • 1

40., Astate being dividéd into "territorial units of village,_

41-

42.

ward and family compound, each organized poli tically and socially on the ,principles of patr;ilineal kinship and seniori ty, based on generat:ional lev.el· ~,nd length of residence." Ibid., p. ,239.

Ibid. , p. 237. Q

Ibid. , 236. ..

p. "

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w.

•• ,.-- ___ ' ___ '_' __ If-IE -'----- -.--------------::-----

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32

" Charlotte A. Quinn, "Mandingo States in Nineteenth century Gambia", in Papers on the Manding, ed., C. T. Hodge (Bloomington: Indiana Unive-rsity, 1971), ~. 205.

R~dney, "Jihad" , p. 273.

Quinn, Mandin9.0 Kin9.doms , p. 25.

Ibid. /

Ibid. , p. 24.

Ibid. , p. 20.

Ibid. , p. 23.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid. , p. 24.

Ibid. , p. 27>.

Ibid.

Ibid. J '" p. 28.

{.;"

That Isl~ possesses such a quality is the view of M.Watt and.other scholars. For a critical appraisal of this view and other accepted views wi th respect to why Islam has been

, more successful than Christiani ty in winning converts in , Afric'a, see W. Arens, IIIslam and Christianity in Sub­Saharan Africa: Ethnographie Rea1i ty of Ideology," Cahiers D'~tudes Africanes XV (1975), pp. 443-456. , .

57 ~ Sheldon Ge1l"r, Structural Chan es and Colonfal De endenc : Sen~gal 1885-1945, Sage Research papers 1n SOC1a SCl.ences (Beverly HUIs, London; Sage publications, 1976), p. Il. .,

. 58. Mboge,.p. 52.

59. 'Ibid.; p. 50.

60. H. O. Iodwu and F. Mahqney, "Peoples of Senegambia," in A Thousand Years of West African HistoEY, eds., A. Ajayi and Espie Ian (Ibadan~ Ibadan University Press, 1965), p.140.

6l. -.Quinn, paJ2ers, p. 21l.

62. Mboge, p. 53.

~

! 1

. 1 i 1

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63. l<lein, "Economie Factors" , p. 420.

64 . Quinn, Papers, p. 209.

65. Gailey, Di ctionar:t, p. 4

66. , Geller, p. 13.

67. Gailey, Dictionary , p. 4. ~

68. Idowu, p. 140.

69 . Q.uinn, PaEers, p", 206. , . v

70. Idowu, p. 140.

71. Gailey, Dictionary , p. 4.

72. Quinn, PaEers, p. 206.

73. Geller, p. 13.

74. Gailey, Di ctionar:t, p. 4.

75. Quinn, PaEers, p. 206.

76. Mboge, p. 50. See also J. Suret - Canale, "West Atlantic coast 1600-1800," in History of West Africa, l, eds.,

77.

78.

79.

80.

81.

82.

83.

84.

85.

86.

87.

88.

89.

M. Crowder and J. Ajayi (London: Longman, 1971, 1976).

Mboge, p. 52.

Ibid., p. 53.

Ibid ..

See Geller, p. 11.

seé Gailey, Dicti onary, p. 90.

Quinn, Papers, p. 207.

Geller, p. 11.

Mboge, p. 55.

Geller, p. 11.

Mboge, p. 55.

Ibid.

Geller, p. 11.

Ibid., p. 12.

34

-90. Ibid. , p. 12. , 91. Mboge, p. 56.

92. Ibid.

93. Ibid.

94. Geller, p. 12.

95. Mboge, p. 56,. See also Gel1er, p. 12.

96. Geller, p. 12.

97. Mboge, p. 57.

98. Quinn, Papers, p. 211. 1

99. Ibid. , p. 212.

100. Ibid. , p. 210.

lOI. Park, p. 13

102. Ibid.

103. Quinn, PaEers, p. 210.

104. Ibi,d. '.

105. I,bid. , p. 215.

106. Ibid.

107. Ibid.

108. Quinn, Imeerialism, p. 70. .

109. Quinn, Pa:eers, P. 215.

110. Ibid.

111. Ibid.

112 . Ibid.

. C

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CHAPTER II

THE SLAVE TRADE AND THE PEANUT TRADE: THE ECONOr.UC BASES or TWO COMMUNITIES

From The Trans-Sahara Trade To The Atlantic Trade

Trade existed between North Africa and West Africa for many

centuries. This was the Trans-Sahara trade characterized by

networks extending from the Sahel into the Savannas and toward

the Atlantic Coast, allowing exchange of goods between different

ecological zones--the Sahel, Savannas, rain-forests and coast­

l lands. From the north the carnel caravans brought salt and

luxury clothes, and took back with them gold. Other commodities

included in the Trans-Sahara trade were cloth, salt, iron,

captives, rice, kolanuts, millet, potts and sorne luxury goods

such as beads and prestige clothes. 2

Before the fifteenth century, African trade with the

MaghrIb served to link it with other parts of the world3

, the Middle East and Europe -- and north Africans acted as inter-

mediaries between West Africa and other parts of the world . . Thus the Trans-'Sahara trade served the interests of a much wider

region, increasingly gaining importance. There was a great

demand for gold in the MaghrIb as weIl as Europe where the

precious metal was needed for the purposes of sustaining the

monetary system. 4 On the other hand, salt was in great demand

-35-

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36

in the Sudan where the body loses much salt due to dehydrat-ion. 5

Hence the salt bars from the Sahanin mines such as at Taghaza

were highly treasured in the Sudan. The Saharan salt was

generally preferred because it was dry and solid and, therefore,

suitable for distribution over a vast area, whereas the maritime

salt from the Atlantic Coast was less suited to conveyance over

l d ' 6 ong ~stances.

The result of this trade was to make Muslim traders traverse

a very vast re<Jion, thereby es tablishing an extensive commercial

,network. For a trader who often acted as a Muslim missionary,

Islam must have served as a oassport to link him commercially \

and religiously to a very large region. The network of trade

was in time ~aralleled by the growth of educational links or

ties, thus expanding new ideas and trends, not to mention the

institution of pilgrirnage and its role in the dissemination ,of

ideas. By this method, not only dia Sufism la~er- reach the Sudan,

but also a band of Muslim scholars kept alive the tradition of

Jihad and carried or preached it wherever they went.

However, gold and salt were not the only items of trade in

, the Sudan; in places such as Kanem in Central Sudan where there

was no gold, the trade in slaves was importapt. 7 Slaves were

used for different purposes: to till land, to perform dornestic

chores, as porters -- substituting for beasts of burden -- or

8 1

as workers in salt and copper mines. They were sometimes

exchanged for horses needed by the military. Initially, a few

of these slaves rnay have found their way into Europe where they

1

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37 •

were used for domestic purposes. For the rnost part, however,

this wàs an internaI slavery and even at that, it was not the

main economic activity in these regions. This was ta change

later, for by the end of the fifteenth century, beginning with

9 the Portuguese, African slaves were exported abroad. According

to E. W. Bovill, "From the first, the Portuguese ha~ made a

point of capturing local people and se ding them back as slaves

10 to Portugal". This is in fact what t e Portuguese. did when

they first reached Gambia in 1447 hey built forts and

stations to trade with the inland parts.

This was indeed the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade

which began on a small scale but was to grow in volume a few

centuries later when other European powets joined the Portuguese.

The trade in human cargo can be regarded afi~he f~rst ·Scrarnhle

for Af~ica" although it was not a scramble for purpO,ses of

colonization. African slaves were needed, not for their services

as workers, but as human "machines" to be used as a means 0 f

production. In other words, these slaves were needed to serve

the interests of "primitive" capitalism.

Previous to this slave trade, Muslims and Christians,

especially after the former had been evicted from Spain, had

been enslaving each other around the Mediterranean region.

Nonetheless, wi th the rise in the Atlantic slave trade all other

forms of slave trading anywhere paled into insignificance. A

number of reasons have been offered for this. First, the fall

of Constantinople cut off tha(Black Sea slave trade; "hence

for the Mediterranean slave plantations such as those engaged in ,

1

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38

sugar production in Cyprus, Africa could be a viable external

Il ~ source. Second, even more important than the first and the

turning point in the slave trade, was that the Spanish settle-

ment of the West Indies required slave labour for their

l . 12 P antat~ons. Owing to the intensive labour in sugar

plantations, labour shortages existed in the West Indies, and

cheap African labour became an essential element. Indigenous

Indians could not satisfy this demand because they were said

to be dying off as a result of the diseases brought by the

Europeans. However, even after the sugar boom had ended, slaves

were still needed for the gold and,diamond mines of Brazil

during the eighteenth century. Finally, and most important of

aIl, was the transformation in the global economic system; ...

Europe's economic development necessitated a search for raw

materials abroad as weIl as developing the conquered terri tories

or new settlements in the Arnericas. When the industrialization

process was beginning to gather momentum, new demands were

created which could not be adequately met by Europe' s internaI

13 resources alone. Therefore, different parts of the world had

to be integrated into this emerging international system. This

is how the African cornmunities along the Western seaboard were

drawn into the Atlantic sectOr of the nascent international

economy as suppliers of labour for the European plantations and .. h .. .. th Am' 14 t e m~n~ng enterpr1ses 1n e er1cas. According to Forbes

Munroe, "Through the m~chanism of the Atlantic slave trade, l'lest

Africa joined the European-centred economy as a periphery to the

American periphery. ,,15 By joining in this system, Africa,

1 1

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according to Walter Rodney, was underdeveloped by Europe through

the exploitation of her cheap slave labour whiif at the same tirne

Africa contributed to the capitalist development of Europe. 16

Just how far Europe underdeveloped Africa either by retarding

her developrnent, promoting the neglect of agriculture or

depopulating certain areas is a hotly contested ïssue and beyond

the ,scope of this thesis. What cannot be denied, however, is

that the influence of the South Atlantic system reached far and

wide - to Africa for cheap labour, to Europe for managerial

staff and commercial direction, and to mainland South America

f '1 17 or monetary S1 ver. Africa was to be a supplier of cheap

slave labour and later, of raw materials when slave trade had

been abolished.

~he Atlantic trade began in the fifteenth century and by

the end of the sixteenth century cheap slave labour had become

the most important item of trade. Initially, the Portuguese,

followed by the Dutch, dominated the trade; later however, as

the rivalry increased among the European Powers, Britain

emerged as the dominant power by the eighteenth century. The

volume of trade picked up considerably so that between 1800 and

1865 alone, an estimated number of four million slaves were

t d t Am . 18 expor e 0 er1ca. The total nurnber of slaves that were

exported frOm Africa during the duration of the slave trade,

is estimated at between 15 to 20 million; if you include the

numbers of those who perished on the way, the figure could reach

much higher proportions. 19

" .

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Before 1600, perhaps as many as one-third of the slaves

came from seneg~ia,20 but thereafter Senegambia was not a

major source for slaves. Indeed, more slaves were taken from

21 " the slave coast and west-central Africa because these places

were more densely populated, and these two regions bore most of )

the brunt of the trans-Atlantic demand for slaves. Nonetheless,

in absolute numbers slave trade in Senegarnbia reached its peak

in the eighteenth century. By ~en slaves went through

Senegambia, not from i,t. 22 Slaves were coming from the interiar

regions due to senegarnbia's low population density. As regards

Gambia, Henry Reeve informs us that Gambia, as a harbour, was

lia favourite port of call for the slavers.,,23 Before 1650

slaves came from populations near the river banks; after 1650 an

increasing number of these slaves came from the interior24

although the trade was a constant factor along the coast.

Gambia's Role in Trade

1 0

Before we discuss the consequences of the slave trade on

the Garnbian states, we would like to briefly examine the raIe

of Gambia or Senegambia in the long-distance trade. To begin

wi th, flenègarnbia was not an isolated "region but deeply involved

in an international commerce through trans-Sahara trade long

before the development of direct communication lines with

25 Europe. There were for centuries itinerant merchants and long

distance traders to be found in Gambia. This is because the

location of Gambia on the caravan route had, from earlier times,

/

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41

attracted many immigrants in sear,ch of farming opportunities

or trade and commercial routes. 26 It was in this manner that

the Mande and other long-distance traders from the empire of

Mali had brought both trade and Islam to this area. However,

Mali's relations with Gambia went deeper than this because,

as Stride points out, "sometimes by peacefu'l infiltration,

sometimes by force of arms, the peoples along the Gambia river

and adjacent are as were brought into the Mali's sphere of

influ~nce. ,,27 The resul t of this association was that Gambia

was integrated into this trade network. In this long-distance

trade, the Mandingos were the middlemen in the Senegal-Gamb·ia

area and by the fourteenth century they had gained prominence

in the valley of Garnbia. 28

As various parts of North and West Africa produced different

goods or were endowed with different mineraIs, trade (that is,

long distance trade) became necessary.29 Thus in the case of

the Gambia region and its hinterland, the Mandingo conveyed

commodities such as gold and ivory from Jenne (Upper Niger area)

and brought back salt ta trade it in salt-deficit areas of

Western Sudan. Even with the coming of the Portuguese to the

Garnbia coast in the fifteenth century, the Mandingos continued

to be agents or rniddlernen for the interior trade. Using

Mandingos as their agents, the Portuguese took advantage of (' .

Gambia's location on the ancient caravan route to exploit the

inland trade for purpose of obtaining slaves.

However, although the long distance trade,was a lucrativ~

business and highly rewarding to merchant groups, it was closely

1 1

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42

intertwined wi th the ebb and ff ' 30 a a~rs. Thus

with the decline, of the Mali around the sixteenth or

seventeenth century, not to mention the establispment o~;he Atlantic trade, long distance trade may have suffered'. Beyond

this, however, the decline of the trans-Saharan trade. is

àttributed to a number of factors. On the North African side, .,.

Morocco was facing internal'quarrels as weIl as feeling military

31 -pressure from Christian Europe. Also, El-Mansur, who had

defeated the Portuguese, turned his armies against the Songhai

empire (this empire lasted between the fourteenth and sixteenth

centuries and had originally been part of the Mali empire).

Finally, and economically more important, Portugal, a small

nation with no resources, undertook explorations at the Gulf

f G · 32 o u~nea. This was to be the beginning of the Atlantic trade,

which when fully established, was to contribute ta the decline

of the trans-Sahara trade. 33 This view, on the other hand, is

not shared by C. W. Newbury who holds that the Atlantic coast

trade was never a substitute for the interior trade.

case in point he cites the example of the Ashanti. 34

As a '.

Mareover,

for sucl1 non-coastal .towns as Kano and other important centres

in Central Sudan, interior trade was still important.

Gambia did not seem to have been affected by the declinei

it continued te participate actively in trade with the interior ,-

regions. Thus, for instance, Darbo Jula, a Mandinka Jula

(mercrant) clan participated in the carriage and ex change of

salves, cloth, iron, salt, European manufactures and other items

---- _. -- ---

, 43 ,

of trade between low~r Gambia and the interior. 35 Indeed, by

the 1730s, according to Reeve, gold, slaves, elephant's tusks

j and beeswax were the chief items of trade on the Gambia. 36

When at the turn of the eighteenth century Mungo Park visited

Gambia, Gambia's main imports were firéarms and ammunition,

ironware, tobacco, cotton caps and a !ew articles of the

manufacture of Manchester. However, although sorne gold and a

few other items were exchanged for such attractive items as,

alcoholic spirits, guns and other ~tems we have mentioned aBave,

the trade in slaves was ta loom large and overshadow aIl other

forms of trade. It was to be the mainstay of the economies

of the Gambian states and was to'have far reaching repercussions,

of which more will be said shortly. Here suffice it to say

that the maritime states of Gdmbia had for a long time been

involved in trade with the inland regions, specifically by

supplying them with salt. ~hus, for example, the kingdom of

Niumi traded salt from the coast for products such as India~

corn, cotton clothes, elephant's tusks and small quantit1es of

Id .:1 th' 37 0 h h h d f go ~ust up e r~ver. n t e ot er an , caravans rom

the interior moved ta the coast bringing with them slaves and ;

ivory; these were sold at Kaur or NLumi~ Albreda, which belonged

to the French until 1857, and Saloum. 38 Moreover, around 1620,

as many as 300 asses carried commodities such as corn, hides, .. ~ ivory ahd o~naments of brass of British origin which crossed

the Sahara ta river parts below the Barrakunda Falls. 39

~

l '\

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By the severtteenth and eighteenth centuries the Atlantic

G trade grew in volume as Gambia and indeed the Wéstern Sudan,

were slowly integrated into an emerging international system.

In~tially, the Europeans relied on the Mandingos as middlemen ~ 4 ~ •

for the interior trade; in the nineteenth century or even before

that, however, both European traders and explorers in Senegambia

elsewhere, sought to probe the interior of Africa in

order ~o uncover her mysteries and discover what the continent

had to offer. Their numbers were too few and many succumbed

to malaria fond other diseases and died.

Throughout this.period whep a wide range of agricultural

prod~cts and manufactured goods entered into the trade or

. market, exchanges " trade was based on barter. In many places

there was also the widespread use of general purpose currencies

s\lch as cowrie shells and iron bars which had the attributes of

money.40 In Gambia, Park as weIl as Richard Jobson 41 observed

that among the people of the inland states trade was based on a

barter system. Pink mentions that the measure of value was

, 42 ' u~ually a bar of irone That is to say, a unit of one thing

t was said to be equal to a unit of another; for example,. twenty

l f b '1 Il f .. 43 eaves 0 to acco were equa to a ga on 0 sp~r~ts. To

peg this measure, the Europeans, apparently with limited

success, tried to set a bar as equal to two Shillings; thus

150 bars would equal 15 Pounds, the approxirnate price of one . 44

slave.

In contrast to the Garnbian hinterland, on the Gambian coast

~ trade was conducted through the medium of rnoney. This is

''t

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" 45 ..

~ecause by the later centuries the srnall presence of~Europèan

traders on the coast (the British had leased sorne land from the

Q

King of Barra) had stimulated the use of money •. As a res~lt,

. -the Mulattas or Afro-portuguese on the coast becarne a

'transitional elite' acquiring a ,degree of social importa~ce.4S

In other word~, African traders and salaried workers ernployed . , , . . in the ports and factories becarne an important 'transitional

elite' sorne of whose offspri~g had access to'European

d . 46 'e ucat~on. Accor'ding to !1eillassoux, "The widespread use

of money on :the coast [that is, the West African coast in

generalJ seems to have favoured the growth of social classes:

l 't' d h b " ,,47 a pro e ar.La t an a rnerc an t ourgeo~s~e ... Nonetheless, -i t t

is not with this group or groups that our study is concern~d

as they were living in an area that was riot under African rule.

Thi's is not to deny their importance, however, and we shall

refer to thern particularly in relation, to the outbreak of J

Jihad, when this rnerchant bou~geo~sie actively lobbied the

British Governor to side with the traditionalist or Soninke 1

faction against the (Muslirn) Marabouts. More importantly, we·

shall be focusin,g our attention on the inland states which up

to this time had rnaintained their independence despite the , l

presence of the Europeans on the coast. Earlier the African

rulers of Senegambia and the Europeans entered into treaties,

48 alliances and trade agreements as equals. Later, this was tè

change with the onset of the "Scrarnble for Africa" when

Europeans sought to extend their influence beyond the coastal

, ,

i r

.. ----.

..

46

'" regions or enclaves. In~the mercantile era and before the é'

rniddle of the nineteenth century, European interests in the area

were represented ?y chartered companies as weIl as individùal

traders whose prominence reached a peak in the slave trade.

Thereafter, European colonial rule was consolidated in the

interior in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.49

Slave Trade in Ithe Gambia.n States

Slave trade becarne important to the Senegambian states

because it accelerated the volume of trade throughout the

area. The Wolof state of Cayor,and the Serer state of Saloum

became even more important because of their saltworks. 50 In

~neral, however, lack of densely populàted hinterlands limited

'the growth or expansion of th~se states, not to ment~on the

presence of European factories along \he rivers and their

links with.the interior trade. 5l

The iS$ue of whether or not slave trade affected the

' . •

soci~l organization of these societies, and if it did, in what

way,needs to be examined. Did the econo~ic transformations

brought about by the Atlantic slave trade translate themselves

into new social and pol·i tical structures? Were the different

social classes affected differently? Klein believes that

. slave trade affected the social organization of the Senegambian

soèieties although he points out that the evidence for this is

flimsy. However, despite this admission he ventures te make"

sorne bold generalizations in spite of the fact that the social

o

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47

structures of these societies as noted by the Portuguese in

the earlier centuries, had not changed radically by the

eighteen th cen tury. Nonetheless, his attè,mpts are justified

as slave trade came to play an important role in the economies

of these states.

The first impact of the slave trade was the redistribution

of res~urces and the entrenchment of the warrior class. ln

other words, slave trade placed weal th and weapons (a means

of coercion) into the hands of the military class who lost no

opportuni ty in ens laving other people. 52 This is also the view

of Gell.r and other wri ters on the subject. 53 However, i t was

not only the nobility' (the ruling elite and the warrior class)

whe> benefitted from this trade; other groups such as the artisans

and griots (praise-singers) who had client relationship with

the elite, as weIl as middlemen groups in and around the

factories may have benefitted materially.54 Thus slave trade

strengthened the power of the ruling elite and enhanced the

prestige and numerical size of the warrior class. To the extent

that this was true, it contributed to the strengthening of the rY

~oercive powers of the state.

Second, slave trade contributed ta deeper social c:Üfferen­

tiation, and later polarization, of an elite of warriors and

noblemén from the mass of rank and file (peasants), and the

entrenchment and consolidation of the warrior class which in

sorne states formed about one-fourth of the population~ 55

This warrior class monopolized the trade whose proceec;'ls went

f 1

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48

a long way toward satisfying their habits of conspicuous ,

consumption. The weapons they~cquired through involvement in v

this trade, placed in their hands equipment which they used to

subjugate society. What was left of their profits was utilized

. bt" d d' . 1 .. 56 h . 1n 0 a1n1ng consumer goo s, an 1n part1cu ar sp1r1ts. T 18

made them develop a life-style radically different from that of

other groups such as the peasants and fishermen. 57 Members of

the warrior class were said to be a hard-drinking lot, scornful

of labour and menial work, economically unproductive and often

referred to by British and French observers as ~hieves li~

by pillag~.5a Thus slave trade, by introducing European

weaponry, contributed to the heightening of social tensions

becau~e i t led to the 'victimization of many innocent people.

Precisely for this reason friction developed betwa~n thi8

exploiting class of warriors and the oppressed class of peasants

among whom were Muslims. For instance, Yoro Dyao, a Muslim of

eli te origins, referred to Senegambia as "marked by the most

terrible violence, and most of the time, free men were taken,

were rendered captive without reason and sold ... so that the y could

buy for themselves horses, silver, guinea cloth and trade

liquor.,,59

Third, the slAve trade did in fact contribute to the

strengthening of the king's position or his powers to contain

internal conflicts. 60 Because the ruler's position depended in

part on his wealth and tbe~positions and privileges he oould

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bestow, any increase in his wealth had the effect of giving him

more control over the unruly warrior class, aiding h'i:m in

checking powerful provincial chiefs (including potential or . alternative rulers), and ensuring his control over Muslim

m;nor~t;es.61 Th f't 'f th l t d l d • •• e pro ~ s accru~ng rom e save ra e pace

at the king's disposaI funds with which OPPosi~n elements

could be dealt with.

Thus according to Klein, "The slave trade clearly led to

an increase in the volume of trade and it becarne important to

Senegambia states. While it was paralleled by a trade in salt,

palm ail and dried fish, slaves were the major export and

provided access to horses, guns and European luxury goods. ,,62

This is because slave trade provided or generated re~enues which

the nobility used to acquire the above named products.. These

revenues were ta flow upwards to the political and military

eli tes "providing them wi th above average levels of consumption

and resources ta redistribuEe to retainers, clients and

allies." 63

As regards the general economic basis of the Senegambian

states, in each of these states, the king and his army or corps

of military-administrative personnel appropriated or raised funds

for various purposes. These funds flowed directly from the

agricultural produce of the state-owned slaves or slaves of the

crown. They also "included taxes in kind levied on the peasantry,

tithes collected on cattle, booty seized in war, and proceeds

obtained from the slavé trade and other commercial activities. 64

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In addition, taxes were collected on goods across the state in

every town. Travellers returning as weIl as going to the

interior from Gambia were required to paya custom's duty.65

Trading took place along the Gambia river and European traders

had to pay taxes whenever thJ.y ventured inland. Moreover,

through every territory the traders passed, they had to present

traditional gifts to the rulers and pay for guides who would

protect thern in their ventures into the interior. Above aIl,

66 however, was the payment of dut Y on every slave a~ this came

to form an important source of revenue for the ruling elite.

It is obvious from the preceding discussion that the

abolition of slave trade was to have serious socio-economic and

political repercussions. However, before Wé discuss the

consequences, we would like to examine sorne of the reasons for

the abolition of slave trade. It is argued that by the end of

the eighteenth century Britain had lost America and so it was not

to her advantage any more to indulge in slave trade in a massive

67 way. Others argue that slavery was becoming less important

and the role of Africa in the emerging international system was

changing to that of a supp~ier of primary products. According

to Philip Curtin, by the eighteenth century the reproduction

level of the African slave population in the Americas or the

New World had reached an equilibrium and the dernand for imported

, d 1" 68 s~aves was ec 1n1ng. Concomitantly, European demand for raw

materials increasedi this changed the status of West Africa from

that of a periphery of a periphery (Americas), to that of a

periphery of the centré (Europe) .69 African economies were

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bècoming increasingly "peripheralized" as satellite economies

of Europe; this was to be the beginning of a dependency

) relationship that has lasted to this day.

It is also argued that the process of industrialization

is the chief explanation for the abolition of slave trade. Thus

Ali Mazrui holds the view that the momentum of industrial

revolution in the West had transformed the methods of production,

thereby undermining the slave trade or making slavery~Obsolete

and abolition of the slave trade possible. According to him,

Until then, slavery was a form of energy -human energy ta facilitate primitive modes of production, especially in North and South America, the Caribbean, and parts of the Middle East. As Europe and }he New World of the Americas industrialized f1rst, they

, discovered the obsolescence of slavery sooner than sorne Middle Eastern countries. Europe and the Western world therefore abolished

! slavery sooner than Arabia and parts of the Ottoman Empire. 70

Similar.1y, Eric Williams, the former premier of Trinidad, states

in his book7l that slave trade persisted as long as it did

because profits were high and sufficient to contribute to the

. d . lI' 72 1n ustr1a revo ut1on. Hopkins agrees with this view although

he does not put his case as strongly as Williams does. Basically,

Hopkins believes that the anti-slavery agitation (as exemplified

by the efforts of the Quakers and the Evangelical or reformed

sects, not to mention important figures such as William

Wilberforce) succeeded when it did only because "by the end of

the eighteenth century the basis of the old colonial system had

been-undermined by a number of developments which were primarily

economic in character."73

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As regards the abolition of slave tradè, the British

parliament passed an Act in 1807 which forbade British subjects

from engaging in slave trade. Other nations such as the United

States, Sweden, Holland and France followed suit although it

was Denmark (1802) which was the first nation to abolish slave

trade. However, the Abolition Act by itself was not sufficient

to end slave tradej it required the navy to patrol the sea and

apprehend illegal slaye shippers. When the Abolition Act was

enforced, slave trade was by no me~ns ended overnight, although

it is true to say that one indulged in it at high risks. In

the case of Gambia, the British navy patrolled the Atlantic j

coastlin~ using Bathurst as a base for anti-slav~ry campaign.

In general, the abolition of this trade took effect quite 1

guickly in the SenegambianJ~egion. This was due to the fact

that in Senegambia, as on he Ivory Coast and the Gold Coast,

where the British or the French maintained a military presence

or where the ports lay open to their warships, they were able

to use these facilities to end slave trade sooner. 74 It is

not surprising, therefore, that by the 1820s slave trade had

more or less ended. As Appendix l shows, exports of slaves

for the Senegambian region fel1 from 16.5 percent in the second

deca~ .of the eighteenth century to a mere .3 percent by the

opening decade of the nineteenth century. However, as we

indicated earlier, before 1600 as many as one-third of the

slaves came from the Senegarnbiai thereafter more slaves came

through Senegambia (from the hinterland) than from it.

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This explains why Appendix l shows a progressive decline in the

number of slaves comin~ from the area, thus reflecting a trend

which began as early as the turn of the sixteenth century.

From this table one can conclude that the anti-s1avery campaign

succeeded in ending slave trade in the region a1though it should .,

be pointed out that this process was already in effect before ,

the anti-slavery campaign began. By the turn of the ninetee~h

century the Bight of Biafra as weIl as Central and Southeast

Africa, high density population areas, bore the brunt of the

demand for slaves. .Nonetheless, al though' the sla,veS' taken from

Senegambia formed a relatively small percentage of the total

number of slaves exported, during the late eighteenth 1century

as many as 3,000 to 5,000 slaves were exported from the

76 Senegambian hinterland annually. This is -a high figure for

an area that is not densely populated.

The abolition of slave trade had serious economic and

poli tical repurcus sions for the Senegarnbian region as a whole :77

In the Gambia region, the 39 rulers or kings had little choice

but to agree, though they did 50 grudgingly, to abolish their

slave trade for a yearly subsidy of 300 British pounds, or 7

pounds 13 shillings. 10 pence apiece - which was less than tha

. f . 1 . 78 pr1ce or a 51ng e capt1ve. This indicates just how se+ious . .

a blow the abolition of slave trade was for thé Gambian rulers.

The British chartered company (tRe African Company) al&o faced

financia1 hardships as a result of the abolition of slave trade! 0

However, its problems were partly alleviated due to-a British

Government grant or subsidy amounting to 23,000 pounds

annually.79

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Thus with the winding down of the trade in slaves,

difficult times set in. The situation was partieularly acute

beeause' European traders, mainly interested in slaves, had not ...

fostered trade in natural produets such as gums, beeswax and

80 peanuts. In the case of Gambia, in 1817 her exports consisted

chiefly of beeswax; in addition, sorne quantities of hides, gold,

gum and ivory we~e exported, all of which came from regions

beyond the Barrikunda Falls or the Gambian hinterland.Bl

Nonetheless, the values of these items fluctuated and none ever

gairied prominence as a major export commodity. Timber

(mahogany) began to be exported in 1822, an~ in 1830 the peanut

d . f' . . . f . t . t 82 ma e ~ts ~rst appearance as an 1nslgn1 ~can export 1 em.

European traders on the Senegambian coast, mainly at

Bath'urst (Gambia), St. Louis and Goree (Senegal)," began to

devote their anergies in the quest for new products. This was , ;3 necessary for the.ir economic survival. As for the 1 cal African

rulers the abolition of the slave trade seriously eroded their

. econornie pos i tion and affeeted their pol i tical power. As a' ~

result, the whole region came into the rnidsf of open eonflict

and violence. The warrior.cla~s or militar~ arm of the ruling

efite, stepped up its pillaging of agriculturalists and traders

as a way of recouping its financial losses.

In general, ·the situation at this time was not bqd for'

West Africa. - ,

The mass production of gooàs by,the British"and

to a lesser extent French industry reduced the priee of -

manufactured goods in international markets more dramatically .

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than was the case for the priee of primary products for which

productivity increases were less-marked. 84 Nonetheless, both

regionally and globally, thi~ situation was to be temporary;

once these regions were fully ~ntegrated into the world

markets, their fortunes were tied to the whirns and fluctuations

of the international economy which, in time, came to favour

western nations. The reault was that not only were Africans

integrated into the world market, but the ground had been , ,

, ,

~ prepar~m for European political involvement which was to

1 · t' l' t' 86 cu m~na e ~n co on~za ~on.

/ • The Peanut or "Legi timate Il Trade

Without slave trade there was not much profit to be made

in the Senegambian trade. However, unlike sorne areas of West

Africa, the transition from slave trade to what carne to be

known as "legitimate" trade was less traumatic for Senegambia.

This was because of the emergence of the peanut trade by 1830.

In 1833 a rnodest purchase of peanuts was made in Gambia as was

87 the case in Senegal eight years later. By 1840 about 40 acres

of peanuts'were under cultivation on the island of St. Mary on

th mb ' 88 e Ga ~an Coast. Éy 1848, however, almost two-thirds of

Gambian exports consisted of peanuts. European nations,

especially France, imported peanuts for purposes of making soap.

Thus French imports of peanuts in 1845 arnounted to 66,802

quintals and increased to 134,000

in 1849. 89 As exports of peanuts increased,

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56 .. however, exports of gold, ivory, teak, gum as weIl as beeswax

fell. For exarnple, exports of gold, gu~, ivory and teakwood

whieh in 1836 had arnounted to 45,229 British pounds fell in 1857

90 to 63.2 pounds. NO reason is given for this in our sources.

At any rate, the decrease in exports of these items did not

rnean a worsening of the revenue situation as the growth of the

peanut industry just about made up for the difference.

Appendix II shows the total import and export figures for the

years mentioned, whi1e A~pendix III shows the value and amount

of peanuts exported for the period indicated. From the tables,

we can see that from around 1845, if not ear1ier, exports of

peanuts increased so much that by 1848 about two-thirds of the

91 ' exports consisted of peanuts. This represents the highest

recorded quantity or peanuts to be exported up to that time.

This was also refleeted in the price of this commodity. The

priee of peanuts rose from 4 pounds 4 shillings per ton in 1'835

to 12 pounds per ton by 1848. 92 However, between 1847-48 and

1865 priees for peanuts slowly. 93 Although exports rose more

fell in 1848,by 1850 the situati~n had improved and in 1854 the

exports were substantial. The people who benefited from the

peanut industry included merchants and new social groups that

controlled production. In partieu1ar, 'the Senegambian peasants

who grew peanuts reaped the benefits direct1y as did large

numbers of workers who began to appear on the scene due to the

lure of th' profits to be made in peanut production on the

b' , 94 Garn l.a Rl.ver. In other words, the exploitation of peanuts'

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brought about the appearance of the so-called "strange-farmer". '-v--'/'~ ./

These were migrant workers who leased land from the local rulers,

grew peanuts, sold them, bought European goods only to return to

their homesteads or country two or three years later.

'" tells us that:

The Sera-Wollies and Telli-Bunkus ... frequently coming from distances of not less than 500 or '600 miles in the interior, and in paying a small custom to the chief of the country in which they settle,'are permitted to cultivate the ground under his protection for one or 'more years, according to their agreement, and to sell the produce to the European mer chant or his trader. The greater proportion of the groundnuts is raised in this manner.... 96

95 Newbury

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Thus it was the legitimate trade which contributed to the commer­

cialization of labour and land. 97 AIso, it was the legitimate

trade which contributed to the relative affluence of Muslims .

who, although they had no rights to own land, had the right to

use it (usufruct) and receive income through production and trade.

The exploitation of peanuts brought about other economic

changes as weIl. Before the introduction of peanuts, the medium ,

of exchange up the Gambia river had been rnain~y through a system

of barter. However, with the arrivaI of these strange farmer~

from regions that were under the French sph~re of influence,

there was a need for actual money for pur~es of acquiring

98 European goods. The French five-franc pieceJ which was

already in circulation by this time, was proclaimed legal tender

by the British in the Gambia in 1843. 99

The economic transformations we have described thus far

served to strengthen the position of the Muslim religious leaders.

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They were the leaders of communities which were at odds with

the tradi tioniü eli te and they had both the capacity and social ,

base from which to attack or challenge the existing sys~em.

These leaders had a l'>clear ideol'Ogy in mind and within this

framework were able to criticize the existing system. To the

dissatisfied elements, both Muslims and non-Muslims -- for

example, peasants, members of ethnie;:: minority groups and migrant

workers -- Islam offered an ideological and socia~ alternative,

an economic and political system for reorganisation of society.IDO

Certainly nineteenth century Senegambia was no different from 1

other parts of the Western Sudan which were swept by a series

of Islamic Jihad~ that calleÇl for change in the name of religion • ... They had aIl experienced a~eriod of economi~ and social change,

with political repurcussions. Thus in the case of Senegambia, "

"with the winding down of the trade in slaves, the new 'legitimate'

trade ... was not merely a substitution for the old; i t shifted

the centres of wealth and power, as those in ~ position to profit ;>

from the slave trade lost out and new wea1th flowed to those who

101 could supp1y gum-Senegal, pa1m oil, or peanuts."

Before the beginning of legitirnate trade, rnerchants would

set up temporary quarters and carry on their trade until the

trading season was over and-then they wou1d leave. However, the

deve10pment of peanut trade resulted in the practice of traders

advancing goods on credit to subtraders who remained in business

aIl year long. I02 This was unsuccessfully resisted by sorne

traditional leaders, especia1ly in those areas which were under

French control. Because the French demand for peanut oil was 50

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substanti,al, this 'meant that CSambia ~as saon incorporated in a

103 French economic system. This is how Garnbia, like the rest "

af Senegambia, came ta be< integrated into 'a market ecanomy.

One of the irrunediate resul ts 'of this incorporation was tha t more l

~d more traders traversed the region canvey{ng goods and seeking

t t , f dd . 104 pro ec ~on rom ,tye 0 exact~ans. Similarly, agriculturalists J

near the navigable streams also began to participate in a "-'

market economy.l05

-In general, the French pursued a mare aggressi ve policy in

the inland states of S~negambia, especially du'ring the gavernor­

ship of Major Louis Faidherbé in 'the mid-1850s, t(n did the

British. According to Klein, "British policy in the Gambia

was frequently a response ta more aggressive French actions, and

cansisted largely of control1ing and defending Bathurst itself

while avoiding active involvements up-river. ,,106 However, both

the British and French sought to protect Goree and Bathurst

traders who were to be found up-river where they were often at

odds with the local rulers. In their pursuit of an aggressive

policy ( the French often sough t to exploit 10cal rivâlri:es.. in

rorder to further their own interests in the area. 107 We shall

elaborate on this in the, following chapte{s.

,The increased trade in peanuts; ~he legitimate trade"

enabied a new group to increase,its purchasing power and ,

accumul-ate sorne capital. This in turn created dema,nd for goads

which'previously were not accessible ta them. As a result of j ,

their increased weal th and independence they began to assert

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thernselves politically. This is because just as slave trade

had strengthened the traditional el ite, peanut trade placed

money, and by extension, guns in the hands of the peasa'nts. 108

The Muslims were aIse affected by these developments.

They had their own network of commercial as 'weIl as religious

ties. They lived separately so that they could put into

practice what their religion reguired of them. At the same time

the Muslims lived under certain disabili ties, having been

politically and socially disfranchised since ,they had no land \

ownership rights. With the abolition of slave trade, the

... tradi tional eli te found their economic and ~i tical powell base

to have been weakened. As a resul t the warrior class resorted

te violence, pillqging the property of the agricul turalists,

among whom Muslims cguld be found. The introduction and expansion

of the peanut industry shifted the focus of economic power, .

strengthening the position of the Muslims who already had a • b

social basis. However, it was not only the Muslims as traders

and agricul turalists who b~nefited from this new trade; there' "

were also migrant workers who. carne from long distances in order

te participate in this lucrative peanut ,industry. Many of the se

migrant workers joined the Muslims and sought protection' from . " . . the Muslim Marabouts. These groups began to buy guns from the

traders on the coast i~ order to defend t~~se~ flgainst the

attacks of the tyeddo.

, Society became increasingl'y polarized between t,wo fa.ctions

- the tradi tionalist (referred to as tyeddo in wolof or Soninke

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. in" the Mandinks langu.age) and the "Marabouts" (a terrn which ~

came to mean anybody who supported the Muslim side or who was

a member of Marabout - led Muslim communi ties) .109 Thus the" ,""" .

battle lines had be~n drawn and open canflict was inevitable.

The wars that were to break out came ta be known as the

Marabout-Soninke wars,.110 On the Muslim side, they were led \

by Marabouts or relig±ous leaders who sought,to reform society

from what they saw as excesses of paganism and tyranny. Islam

°was to be the political ideology oi the disaffected elements who

sought to displace the existing socio-economic system. On

the side of the tradi tional forces were those' who wanted to '. , , . ,

maintain the status quo a t al! cost. Esp,eéial"ly the mi li tary

class, having lost economic"power, became a 'roaming band of

warriors who lived by pilla~e. They resented the Muslims who

C;, were the main benef i6iaries of this shi.ft in economic pow~r.

The Muslims having performed their "hijra" to live in separate

, '

communities along the banks of the Garnbia river, found themselves

to be in control of the riverside trade as weIl as in possession

of land suitable for peanut production. These were to be the ;

bases of their power.

In this chapter, we have dealt with the basis of the ,

economic .power of the ruling elite. Thus we saw that slave trade'

was to have a big impact in entrenching and consolidatirig the

economic and political power base of the ruling elite. With

the ab?lition of slave trade, the economic and political power

of the ru.1ing elite and their allies, the tyeddo, were undermined.

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This led ta increased violence in the Senegambian region as a

whole. The introduction and expansion of the peanut trade,

mainly stimulated by European demand, was to have far reaching

eqonomic and political consequences. As a result, the Muslims

who were involved in peanut production, gained economic power

and sought ta translate it into political gains. This was

necessary because they had been excluded from sharing political

power and owning land. Other groups, such as the immigrant

workers, suffered as weIl but they did not have a social base;

therefore, they sought protection from the more organized and

more articulate Muslim Marabouts. The Muslims called for

reforms which the ruling elite was unable or unwilling to .

~nstitute. Moreover, Muslims were a constant target of ~eddo

attacks and pillage and began to acquire weapons in order to

protect themselves. The stage had been set for a confrontation 1

and even revoIt in the forro of Jihad.

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NOTES TC CHAPTER II

1. George E. Brooks, "European relations wi th Africa before 1870" in Africa, eds., Phy1is Martin and Patrick O'Meara (B1oomington and London: Indian University. Press, 1977), p. 115.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Nehemia Levtzion, Ancient Ghana and Mali (LOndOn~ Methuen Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1973), p. 171.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid., p. 174.

8. Ibid., p. 175.

9. Ibid.

10. E. W. Bovi11, The Golden Trade of the Moors (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 209.

11.

12.

Philip D. Curtin, "The Atlantic Slave Trade 1600-1800", in History of West Africa, Vol. 1. eds., J. Ajayi and M. Crowder (London: Longman, 1971, 1976), p. 307.

G. T. Stride and Caroline Ifeka, pe0f,les and Empires of West Africa (London: Ne,lson, 1971·, p. 208. .

13. Forbes Munroe, Africa and the International 1800-1960 {London: J.M. Dent & Sons Lt., 76, p.

14. Ibid., p. 13.

15. Ibid.

16. See walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeve10ped Africa (Washington, D.C.: Howard Un1vers1ty press, 1974).

17. Curtin, "Slave Trade", p. 302.

lB. Stride, p. 219.

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19. Stride' suggests fort y million. See p. 220. The matter is not as simple as that, however, as this has become a numbers game, at the root of which, one suspects, lie the ideological cornrnitment of an author or scholar. Thus sorne scho1ars quote a conservative figure or rationa1ize what happened and thus face the possibility of being accused of belittling the seriousness of this monstrous trade in order to free the West from responsibi1ity -- see Catherine Sugy's Critical review: "Curtin, Economie Change in Pre­colonial Africa", in African Economie History (1976): 106-110 -- whi1e others quote a not 50 conservative figure.

20. Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison: The university of Wisconsin Press, 1969), p. 227.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

3I.

32.

33.

This is the area around the Bight of Benin on the Atlantic Coast.

Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 231.

Henry F. Reeve, The Gambia (London: Smith, EIder ~ Co., 1912) .

Donald R. Wright, Ora1 Traditions from the Gambia ( Co 1 umb us: 19 79), p. 33 •

Sheldon Gel1.r, Structural Changes and Colonial De Sene~al 1885-1 45 Beverly H~ ls, London: Sage Publ~ca tions, 1976), p. 14.

Sulayman S. Nayang, "Political Parties and National Integration in Africa: A Case Study of the Garnbia Il in Serninar papers on African Studies (Washington, D.C.: Howàrd University, 1974), p. 248.

Stride, p. 199.

Reeve, p. 25.

Munroe, p. 25. ,

Ibid. , p. 28.

Stride, p. 170.

Ibid. , p. 17l.

' See Bovil1.

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34. For an analysis~f Newbury's views, see Claude Meillassoux, "Introduction", in The Development of Indi<;enous Trade and Markets in West Africa, ed. Claude Me~llassoux (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 49.

35. Wright, p. 33.

36. Reeve, p. 73.

37. Mungo, Park, T~e Life and Travels of Mungo Park (Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo & Co., 1880), p. 6. Or consult Ronald Miller, ed., Travels of Mungo Park (1795; reprint ed., London, 1954).

38. Wright, p. 41.

39. Richard Jobson, The Golden Trade (1623; reprint ed:, London: 1932), p. 114, as quoted in Sulayman Nyang, p. 248.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46,

47.

48.

49.

50.

Gellqr, p. 14.

Jobson, p. 156.

Park, p. 18.

Ibid.

Ibid. Elsewhere Park tells us that the priee of a single slave was between 15 and 20 pounds.

Meillassoux, "Introduction", p. 75.

Ibid.

Ibid., p. 76

Geller, p. 14.

Ibid.

Martin A. Klein, "Social and Economie Factors in the Muslim Revolution in Senegambia", Journal of African History 13 (1972), p., 421.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid., p. 422.

53. Gell~, p. 13. See also Charlotte A. Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms of the Senegambia (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972).

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54. Klein, p. 42.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid.

57. , Ibid.

58. Ibid.

59. R. Rousseau, "Cahiers de Yoro Dyao", Bulletin du Comitê d'Etudes Historiques 'et Scientifigues de PA.O.F., XVI (1933), p. 167 - quoted by Klein, p. 423, às quoted in Sy, p. 167; see Geller, p. 13.

60. Klein, p. 423.

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid., p. 421. Horses were quite important to these states. As early as the fifteenth century a h~rse could be traded for as many as six to fifteen slaves. Guns were to become an important item of trade after 1760, although horses continued to be crucial to the Senegambian armies. See Klein, p. 421. On the last point, see Raymond Muny, Tableau Geogra1hirue de l'Ouest Africain au Moyen Age (Daker, 96), "1,,<,

pp. 285-6, as cited by Klein.

63. Munroe, p. 30, Here Munroe is referring to the sophisticated West African states of the nineteenth century of which Seneg~mbia was a part.

\

&4..< Ge ll«r, p. 13. 1

65. Park, p. 2l.

66. Stride, p. 219. /

67. See Sj::,ride, p. 224 • ...--::::::-------

68. Meillassoux, p, 49. Se~ also Munro, p. 42. For a fuller discussion of slave trade in the'Senegarnbia, see Curtin, The Atlantic Slave 'Trade: A Census.

69. Munroe, p. 13. The concept of centre-periphery has been developed by a generation of developmental theorists such as C. Furtado and the Chilean Osvaldo Sunkel.

70. Ali A. Mazrui, Africa's Internationa~ Relations (London: Heinemann, 1977), p. 132.

71. Eric Williams, Capi talism and Slavery (New York: Capri corn Books, 196~l.

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72. For a discussion and critique of Eric Williams' thesis, see The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade From West Africa, (University Edinburgh: Centre of African Studies, 1965). This book is a collection of papers delivered at the' said centre. See also Roger Anstey, The Atlantic

73.

74.

75.

76 ..

77.

78.

79.

80.

81.

82.

Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760-1810 (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press 1975).

A. G. Hopkins, An Economie History of West Africa (New York: Columbia university Press, 1973).

Munr~e, pp. 43-44. However, along the Guinea-Sierra Leone / coastline, in the creeks of the Niger Delta and the Lagoons of the Bight of Benin, the Bight of Biafra (slave coast) and other places, slave shippers continued to sm~ggle slaves albeit at high risks. The Portuguese and Spanish continued to import slaves for their colonies, Brazil and CUba respectively; and they did not suppress the trade effectively or willingly until the middle of the nineteenth century or xhereabouts. They obtained slaves from West-Central and Southeastern Africa (Mozamoique). See Munroe, pp. 43-44.

Ibid.

Klein, p. 421.

The abolition of slave trade is also said"to have had adverse effects on econornic life in the desert. This was because trade was diverted from the old channels to newly opened channels. High on the list of casualtie~ was the ancient salt traffic. See Bovill, p. 9. Similarly, the abolition of slave trade in East Africa weakened the POIÎ'tical and economic pow~ of the Sultan of Zanzibar. .

'Francis Bisset Archer, ,(London: Frank Cass

Reeve, p. 90.

Ibid. - ,

.r- '\

and Protector te -p. 379.

J. M. Gray, A ,»History q,f 'thè Gambia (London: & Co. L t d. i, 19 6 6), p. 379.

Frank Cass

'"' Ibid.

, 83. Klein, p . 423.

84. Munroe, p. 45. , " ,

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r.

:..

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85.« Philip D. Curtin et al, African History (Boston, Toronto: Little, Brown And Co., 1978), P" 371.

86. Gell4r, p. 15. See also Klein, p. 424.

87. See Klein, p. 424 and also George Brooks, Yankee Traders, Dld Coasters and African Middlemen (Boston, 1970).

88. Gel14r, p. 15.

89. Meillassoux, "Introduction", p. 92.

90. Archer, p. 59.

91. Ibid.', p. 48. This trend continued and created a ' dependency on one crop-a feature of the Gambian economy to this day. This type of dependency has forced Garnbia from time to time ta import food - as was the case in the 1860'5.

92.

93.

94.

95.

96.

97.

98.

99.

100.

lOI.

102.

103.

104.

105 ..

106.

Ibid.,p.45. ,

Colin N~wbury, in Meillassoux, p. 93.

Curtin, African History, p. 370.

Gray, p. 383. v ;

(Coloni~l Reports: Gambia 1848, p. 319, sic. Serahuli) as quoted in Meillassoux, p. 96.

Hopkins, p. 126.

Gray, p. 342.

Ibid. The French trader rea1ized sooner than his British counterpart the need for rea1 money.

Meilla'ssoux, "Introduction", p. 56.

Curtin, African History, p. 363.

K11J7n, p. 425.

124.' Ibid. , p.

Ibid.

Ibi,d,. 1

Ibid.

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107.

69

) That French expansion was to result in a head-on clash

with the Muslim reforrners who had different ~aims and interests, is .the subject of a book, Islam and lmperialism in Senegal: Sine Saloum', 1847-1914 by Klein.

108. Klein, p. 424.

109. lb id., p. 428 •

110. Ibid., p. 424.

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CHAPTER III

THE JIHAD MOVEMENT

Background to Jihad "_ '.lJ l

The word 'Jihad' simply means to struggle, and as .'

2 Maududi adds, to struggle in promotion of a cause. The

struggle can be one pursued by an individual in which a person . in the process of every day living,continually struggles to

gain control or mastery over the lower self, or it can be a

collecti ve effort in which society or sta te seeks to implement

or realize the divine irnperative. While the former is "inwàrd"

in its focus, the latter is "outward" in its thrust. Without

belabburing the issue, we may go on to say that when people

-4 speak of Jihad, they are generally referring to those outward

explosions or movements -- that is, the military activities --

that have come to characterize much oi Islamic history. This

thesis is no exception as Jihad involving military activity is

the focus of our study.

When a Jihad is undertaken by Muslims, ideally the objective

is not t~ seeking of material gain or the attainment of glory

and honour, but the establishment of a just and equitable social

order·wi~h a view to fulfilling the Divine will. 3 Because

Jihad is a divine command, Muslirns are required or commanded to

fight with their li~es and goods in order to stamp out evil and

oppression in the world and implement . 4

God' s laws. 1

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~otwithstanding what'we have said above, it would be

inaccurate to say that Jihad means war or holy war as the Arabic

word for war is harb, not Jihad. Nonetheless, Jihad as a

struggle or constructive refarm movement does involve warfare,

war itself being an extension of intensive teaching and

preaching.5

This is clear in the life and career of Muh~ad,

t·he prophet of Islam. When in Mecca, Muhammad -was mostly a

preacher and a social leader, but in Medina, ~e was, among other

things, an qrbiter and military leader of Muslims. Muhammad's

successors were to continue with the task of spreading the

J

Islamic message 50 that within less than half a century a sprawling

caliphate had been established. This was to be the beginning of

a flourishing Islamic caliphate.

However, the Muslim world was to suffer a fate similar to

of past empires or cèntres of civilizations. The destruction

Baghdad by the Mongols in the thirteenth century was forboding

of what was to corne. Mus1im fortunes reached a low ebb especially

>---~r the sixteenth century when the power of the Turks was on

the I,wanei The next few centuries, up to or before the opening

of th~ tJentieth century, were a period of confusion arnong

Muslims as they began to face challenges from within and without.

It was in such an atmosphere that Islam as a historical force

began te reasser"'t itself. More specifically, revivalist or

reform movements began to appear in the Muslirn world as a

reac~ion or response ta military decline and subsequent cultural

threat from th~ West, especially in the context of the decline

7 of the Ottoman e~pire and increasing European encroachments.

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Before the appearance of these movements there was generally a .

formative period of expectations qf a Mahdi or millenerian

excitement which date back to the fifteenth century and which

were quite widespread in the Muslim world. B Particularly in

West Africa, the belief about the coming of Mahdi was quite

popular. This belief helped legitimize the role of such leaders

as Usman Dan Fodio of Hausaland. Millenerian excitement or

expectations were also quite prevalent in the Senegambian states.

In many ways the history of Islam in Western Sudan is

similar to the history of Islam in other parts of the Muslim

world. At one time there existed in Western Sudan such important

centres of learning and trade as Gao, Tirnbuctu and others; how-

ever, when the Moors with their muskets demolished the Songhai \

empire at the end of the sixteenth century it is believed that

the political as weIl as civilizing influence 'declined. 9 IWhat

followed was a reversion to the old idolatry.lO This did not

" mean, however, that Islam died out; rather that the number of

"

syncretists (those who mixed pagan with Islamic practices)

increased. At the sarne time Islam was at a low ebb in the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Hausaland while the non­

Il muslim Bambara states had grown strong. Nonetheless, just as

Muhammad Abdul Wahhab was to take up the fight or struggfe

against the syncretists of Saudi Arabia, there was scattered

throughout West Africa a band of Muslim scholars, mostly Fulani,

\ who sought ta uphold the banner of Islam against syncretists.

Thus the activities of these scholars was part of a general

awakening in the Muslim world at large. '1

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Although for the most part the spread of Islam in West

Africa was through peaceful means, the' Jihads that were waged by

Muslim scholars in later centuries should not be viewed as a

total departure from this norme That is'to say, there has also

existed in Western Sudan a tradition of militancy. In the

eIe~enth century, for example,the Sanhaja Berbers were ~o

convert and transform themselve~ into the militant Almoravids

who spread Islam to North Africa as weIl as the ancient Ghan~

12 area. The frugal and,puritan-minded Almoravids sought to ~

transform society on the basis of Islamic teachings. Similarly,

~uhammad Ture, 1ater known as Ask1a Muhammad l, was a conqu~ror

and an empire-builderi also he was a strict Muslim who, in 1493,

took Gao and thereafter buil t an empire to be known as Songhai ~ •

He was a patron of men of letters and was in the habit of

'seeking the advise of the religious reformer Al-Maghill± who on

one occasion involving civil war, endorsed Askia's actions as

constituting legitirnate Jihad. "

Islamic mi1itarism is not something that ernerged or developed ",

accidentally, but is part of the doctrine of Islam. It is from -il

the teachings of Islam that ~t rec~ives its impulsion. As a

tradition or set of ideas, Islamic militarism or what Hodgkin 6

calls "radical tradition" can be defined as: ,

a tradition which emphasises the rights of'common people against their rulers, takes an egalitarian

-~--aftitude eo- social differencès, is concerned with changing institutions as a precondition of changing human beings, demands the widest possible diffusion of knowledge and education, stresses the idea of an international community, the need for puritanism in personal life and the urgency of social change ;­justifying in sorne circurnstances the use of revolutionary methods to achieve it. 13

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Although this type of trqdition was present in Western Sudan, it )

is difficult te trace the ear1iest date of its impact on Western

Sudan., Thus while the Khawarij, who expressed ideas of

puritanical radicalism, had a definite presence and their

influence was fe1t in North Africa around the eighth and ninth

.centuries, there is not sufficient evidence to suggest that Eheir

ideas may have trickled down ta Western Sudan. 14 What's more, "

Hodgkin maintains that not even with the Almoravids do we know

the éxtent of the influence of their ideas about Islam in Western

15 Sudan •. What we do know, hawever, is that the Almoravids, by 1

setting

.~rocess By

an example (their mi1itary conqllests), speeded t1.p the .. of Islamization.

the end of thé sixteenth centurYl as we have indicated,

-

o

the p;ocess af decline was ,already in place in many parts of the , .

Musl~ world. During the next few centuries Muslims b~gan to

reaSsess their situ~tion and out of this soul-searching process

emerged militant revivalist movements. The ques\i.on of why these

mQvements took on a militant ferm or e~pression i5 also the

subject of our inquiry.

Several reasons have'been suggested for this militancy.

First, there was the religious excitement, particularly the sufi

... revival at a'l-Azhar, which exci ted the Islarnic ~orld .16 In

Western Sudan this was expressed either through a militant

Qadirism, or as was the case late:r;, through a militant T'ij a~ism. 17 ,

Second, Islamic messianism or millenerian expectations, which were

quite widespread in West Africa, explain this tèndency towards

militancy. In particular, the ideas of the eighteenth century

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Egyptian scholar, al-Suyübi, ~ad gained currency. Suyüti pre­

dicted that a Mahdi would appear at the end of the eighteenth

18 century. Even earlier than this was al-Maghilli who, as the

adviser to Askia Muhammad l, presented in a radical way the

doctrine of "rejuvinator" or "renewer" of Islam (al-Mujaddid) .19

He emphasized the idea of a just ruler who seeks to enforce the

Islamic system of taxation as weIl as other stipulations of

sharI' a. These seminal ideas were to take root and rnay partly

explain the religio-poli tical eruptions of the later centuries.

One factor needs to be pointed out: many of the Muslim

activists or leaders of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ~

tended to be ardent stlfis, and special powers were attributed te

them. This had the effect of increasing their prestige and

i'nfluence on their followers. Therefore, when they declared

Jihad, many of their followers heeded their call. Third, there ~..,., ' ....

was the ·i'n~titution of pilgrimage which played an important role

in preparing the careers of certain leaders for an active

peIitiàal life. Apart from its legitimizing role, the institution

of pilgrimage was important since it launched certain leaders

such as al-Haj j cUmar Tall, on a refermist course. 20 It was aiso

in Mecca 'th a t al-Haj j cUmar is said te have been appointed the -.",.

~ijani Khalifa or leader for West Africa by a certain Muhmnmad

al.-Ghal;i..21 The Tijaniyya order, founded in the eighteenth

century .in North Africa, became the moving force behind several

ninèteenth century revolutions. 22 Moreover, it was the Tijani fi'

Marabouts such as al-Hajj cumar and ~aba who were to resist French

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......, imper'ialism in the Senegambia area. Fourth, there was a growing /

Islamic consciousness on the part of the more learned Muslim ~

scholarsi this awareness went hand in hand with a calI for

radical reform. This being the case, the call for radical reforrn )

carne, not from the accomodationist scholars who held parochial

views on Islam, but from the m~re learned scholars with a . . universal outlook to Islam and who were in touch with the outside

Muslim world.23

These were the sharI'a-minded scholars who wanted

n~thing short of the creation of Islamic states. Fina1ly,

increased Islamic militancy is also explained by a nwnber of

factors ranging from 'the reluctance of Muslirns to pay non-Islamic

taxes to reformist activities on the part of the well-learned

Marabouts who were unwilling to compromise with paganism and

syncre ti sm. " The objectives of these revivalist movements was to reform

Musl'ims and a1so to found or create Islamic states. Therefor~,

in the name of religion, Jihads were waged by no less than twelve

Maraboutic personalities. Indeed, between the period 1780 and

1880 on1y, there were more than a dozen leaders who succeeded in

toppling the old regimes and rep1acing them with new ones. 24 A

discussion of sorne of these Jihads will shed sorne light on what ~

was. to happen in G~ia in the ninete~nth cent;ury.

First, there was the Jihad of Malik sI in 1680 in the region

of Bondu, south of tuta Toro. 25 This movement resulted in the

setting up of an Islarnic state. Another personali ty by the name

of IbrahIm Musa, a migrant from Masina-Hodh area to the Solima 1\

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area of Futa Dja1lon, conducted Jihad in 1725. In 1751 just as

this Jihad was on the verge of fai1ur~, Ibrahim Sori was able to

turn defeat into victory and eventua11y impose a dictatorship.26

The next theatre of Jihad was Futa Toro (Lower Senega1 River area) . where in 1776 Sulyman Bal, a Tukolor religious leader, was able

to topple the regime of non-Muslim Fulani rulers and forro a new

_----~s~~ate.27 He died in 1776 but not before he had estab1ished an

~

Is1amic state. This Tukolor revolution witnessed the emigration

of many Marabout families to Wolof and Mandinka areas. 28 This

~. . is how Maba's family came to he in the Gamb~an state of Badd~bu.

These newly arriv~ Marabouts quickly moved into leadership ro1es,

thus by-passing the local Marabouts. 29

From Futa Djallon and Futa Toro, Islarnic advance moved east-

w~rds to Central Sudan. Shehu Usman Dan Fodio, a Fu1ani re1igious

leader, conducted a Jihad in Northern Nigeria between 1804 and , 1810. This Jihad spread southwards to the fringes of Southern

Nigeria. Fol1owing Shehu's example, Ahmadu Lobo, the Cisse 'of

Masina conducted a Jihad in 1818 and in 1821 he set up his

capital at Harndallahi. 30 •

The first wave of Jihads thus far described were for the

rnost part led by,members of the Qadiriyya order; the next wave

of religiously-inspired revolutions were in the main led by

Tijanis. , -The most important of these was the one led by the 1

Tukolor leader, a1-Hajj ,cUmar the Tijaniyya Khalifa in West

Africa. His was a very ambitious Jihad during which he sough~ ... ---~

to use Islam to f~rge a large Islamic state incorporating the

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regions of Segu, Kaarta, and parts of Senegambia. His influence

spread rapidly, perhaps too rapidly, which explains why he was

to clash with the French as weIl as the established groups ~n

Masina. Further south on the fringes of the forest zone, during

the decade of the 1860's, Sarnoury Toure, a long-distance trader

with limited education attempted to unite various Mande peoples

31 and states into a vast political system. '

Religious Revivalism in Senegambia

Having discussed in broad terms sorne of the Ji~ads and the

extent of their influence on the West African region, it~remains

for us to ex~ine briefly only ~hose Jihads that took place in

senegambia~ Albei t brief, th~s will enab1e the reader to under­

stand the reformist tradition which existed in Senegambia

before the Gambian Jihad. "

As far as Senegambia is concerned, re1igiou~ reform or Islamic

revival goes back to the time of the Mauritanian-based scholar

NasIr al-DIn, who waged a Jihad in the 1670'5. 32 This movement.

spilled over into Futa Toro and the Wolof states. !9seerns th~~

the Gambian region was not very rnuch affected by this Jihad.

There was also the Jihad of Malik si which was the first of its

kind in Nest Africa. These were followed by the Jihads of 1725

i,n P'uta Djallon (on the fringes of the Senegambia region) and

1776 in Futa Toro. r.'

Sorne of the Marabo~ts who participated in

the latter Jihad were to migrate to Wolof and Mandinka areas.

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Apart from these revolutions, there was -also, in the nat~e

of revolts, Muslim confrontations with the established order in

such states as Cayor in 1790-1809 and Walo in 1830.33

In the

Gambia region, open resistance intensified in a number of Mandingo

states such as Wuli (1842) and Kombo. 34 The latter state

experienced outbreaks of violence in the 1840't as weIl as in the

1850's. The latter outbreaks were 50 serious that it required

the intervention of an Anglo-French force before the Soninke

could put down a Muslim uprising. In the' south bank area, the

Soninke of Kiang had earlier cru shed a Muslim revoIt at the end

35 of the eighteenth aentury. There were also disturbances in

the states of Jimara and Niani. Further south, most of the

Mandingo areas of the Casamance fell to the Muslims after a 1 1 , 36

long drawn-out struggle into the l850's. In short, there was . 1 1

strife throughout the whole are~.

On these poli tical dis turbanc'es or Muslim-Soninke conflicts,

Gray wrote:

There is evidence to show that the demonstrations which began about this date (1850) were repercussions of the Pan-Islamic movement, which had caused the French much trouble in Algeria in 18470 and 1848, and that emissaries from the.Mediterranean coast had arrived in Senegal and the Gambia to preach a Jihad, or holy war against the non-Islamic €ommunities. 37

As evidence for this Gray cites the example of a Moor by the name

of Hajj Ismacil who is said to have tra~ thro~g~out West

Africa preaching Jihad. However, although he had never been te

Garnbia, one of his agents, CUrnar , was quite active in Kombo on

his behalf. 38 True as this may be, we believe that the Mus,lim

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uprisings in the Gambia c~nnot'b~ explained purely in terms ot

extraneous factors, ~ver i~fluenti~~ t~ese m~y have been.

No doubt the political climate was 'favorkble fo; such a~tivities~ and the religious conditions were amenable to oùtside influences,

not the least the demonstrati'on effect; but to atternpt to explain , ,

these uprisings independent of the ~ocio-economic ahd political

developrnents in the region would not su~fi~e. In other wdrds,

local factors have to be taken into consideration when

explaining the emergence of tension and open conflict.

"

Conditions in Garnbia Before the Jihad _1

" By the middle of the nineteenth century the traditional

socio-economic system in Garnbia was in a state of decli,ne. Not' 'T

only was the position of the king deteriorating, but ~the state of ' ' \ ~

• 1

1 ' d' 39 t f fI' structures were a so l.n a l.sarray. Most sta, es we'Fe ee ~ng

pressure from within and without. Thus Niani, once the most

powerful river state owing to its incorne from taxes on caravans

-' and from export of slaves, was by now astate torn into small

j

kingdoms because of int~al strife. 40 Niani's position becam~

even worse as Upper Niani moved against Lower Niani and Wuli, a ..

neighbourirtg state, seemed ready to exploit the situation. 41

, However, Wuli itself, orice one of the more important states due

,to i ts location on the navigable section of the river, was faring

no better. With the abolition of slave trade, it çould no longe~

control the communities between the interior and the coast. As

a result, trade suffered ana the neighbouring Fula states seized

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th t · tl k W l' 4 2 ' 0 th e oppor un~ty to constan y attac u 1. Desplte ese

diff:lculties, however, Wuli was able to retaîn its independence .•

Further west towards the coast, the expansive policies of the

Bur Saloum threatened the independence of both Baddibu and Niurni.

In,addition, the establishment of the French at Albreda and the .'

British at Bathur~t,o as weIl as ;the development of peanut trade,

did not' augur weIl for certain states. For not only did the

peanut trade/favour such states as Baddibu, Niumi and Saloum,

but the shift in the pattern of trade in favour of the coastal .,~I... \

regions tended to isolate Kantora (a south bank inland state)

d 't 'hb 43 an l ,s nelg ours. ~f the situation was bad in the north, i~

was even worse in the south bank region, for the south bank

states were much weaker as many of them had degenerated into

loose confederations.44

In short, one could say about most

Mandingo kingdoms that they had lost their old vitality.

, The decline of the traditional system was aggravated by the j

central authority, meaping the power ~f the kings.

oSy this~ ime the kings could no longer control the warrior class

o~ ~~antli~g army. The tyeddo had degenerated into a roarning band

of ,pillagers wno,were hated and feared by many. Thlis was 0

'1 'parti~ularly true in Niumi, Baddibu, Kombo and other states. We

may cite the example of the Serahuli tyedpo of Niumi whb,'under

the leadership of Ansumana Jagga, burnt towns and villages and, the

45 king had to appeal to the British for help. The authority of

the kings was continually being defied. Thus although the custom

of'walling or fortifying towns had been the preserve of only t~e

,k:i,.ngs yet by the mid-nineteenth century the kings could no longer

prevent the Muslims from walling their towns.46 Howe~er, not aIl

•

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,~he problem of the kings were of their own making; ver~ often

they,'were ill-equipped or u(lable to change the situation. "''':The iIll

king of Baddibu, for instance, was only an înexperienced young

man of eighteen while the ruler of Niani was a fee~le old man. 47

I:J

There were also other reasons which contributed to the

decline of, the traditional authority. We have aIready seen in

the Iast s::hapter how the decline and eventual abolit.ion of slave ,

trade robbed the ruling elite of its major source of revenues, "

while the increased peanut production favoured the Muslims and

other produc~rs. These I~cal peasants along with the strange

farmers, \iere, to benefi t from the peanut trade because they

sold their produce directIy to Bathurst-based traders. 48

Simifarly, the dissemination or diffusion of cash and goods , , ,

served only to undercut a king's,monopolies instead of , 49

strengthening them. , The increasing European penetratio? also

aid not augur weIl' for traditional elites of 'Senegambia; it

served onlY,as a prelude to part~tion. However, the mest

irunedi,ate and significant challenge to the traditional elite was.

posed,by the Muslims. Their numbers were increasing and they , ,

were by now full-fledged memb~rs of a community that was ~n ,. , ~

"

contradistinction to the traditional or non~Muslim communities.

They were two contrasting societies "each with i ts laws and

customs interacting at sorne points but essentially opposed te'

" h th b' l If' . ,,50 eac 0 er at aS1C eve S 0 1ncorporat1on . The traditional

elite and their followers were religious pluralists or

syncretists givèn to heavy drinking. AIcohol came tq take on

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the symbolic role of differentiating the two communities or

groups.51 By ISSO-the ~erms 'Soninke', which had a perjorative

meaning as used by the Marabouts, and 'Marabout' had become

terms of socio-political classification in Senegambia. 52

However, not aIl Soninke were non-Muslims as less strict Muslirns

or alcohol drinkers were also classified under the same category.

By t~e mid-18S0's many riverside towns were ~ettled by

traders most of whom were Muslims. The Muslirn population was

increasin# due to natural growth ~nd immigration, and also due

to the pr~cess of conversion. As the Muslim communities grew,

50 did the pace and intensity of the teaching and preaching on

the part of the"Muslirn scholars.' Sorne of these scholars

were calling for radical reforms aimed at establishing a much "

stricter forro of IsI~. The Koranic schools attracted~the

~ children of Muslims as weIl as the children of non-Muslims.

by side wi th trade, the Mus'lims of the Ma.ndingo states had , 53

established a reputation fo;: learning ..

Side

While Islam was making a lot of gains, the same~could not

be said about paganismi it could ,not ritually match what Islam J, •

had to offer and hence appeared as an empty fo~alism.54 More~

over, paganism or anirnism itself had been undermined by Islam.

The cult of ancestral worship was no longer a compelling pro-

. position but a system wr~ught with weaknesses and problems.' As

a result, a number of important figures were to defect from the

Soninke camp. The son of the king of Kiang, for instance, becarne

a Muslim as a result of which he h~d to move to another village.

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There was also the case of the Suma (war leader) of Essau

" (Niumi), a member of the royal family, who became a Muslim, as

dl.'d h' 55 1S son.

These developments, especially the expansion of Islam,

closely paralleled Weber's ànd Durkheim's ideas on the phenomenon

of conversion, as surnrnarized by Thomas O'dea:

First, inclination toward certain kinds of religious doctrine~' on the part of people is highly influenced by their social position in society. Secondly, sorne religious ideas reflect more universal characteristics of the human condition and therefore have a wide appeal which transcends the divisions of social stratification. Thirdly, social change, and especially social dis­organization, result in a loss of cultural concensus and group solidarity, and set men upon a "quest for cornmunity" -- that is, looking for new values to which they might adhere and new groups to which they may belong. This implies that conversion -- the acceptance of new religions -- is itself closely related to needs and aspirations which are high~y affected by the social circumstances of the people involved, although social conditions are not a simple and unique'causal element in such cases. 56

That sorne members of the ruling elite were siding with the

Muslims, a politically disadvantaged group, reveals the extent

'of the disillusionment of many people with the traditional system.

~ society reveals the extent of its vigor and vitality by the

relative ability it displays in coping with new challenges In "

this instance, the traditional society, already undergoing the

agonies of transition, could not effectively check or diagnose

its problems. -There was dis satisfaction among aIl classes and

ethnie groups; and this served'to enhance the position and W

prorninence of the Muslirn shadow states. Non-Muslim students in

the Kor~nic schools, fqr instance, chose to stay and live in ,

the Muslirn cornmuni ty., Moreover, sons excluded from inheri tance

by their non-Muslim parents very often chose to join Muslirn , 'Il 57 Vl. ages .

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Despite its disadvantaged position, there were clear

indications that f1uslim power was on the rise. The Muslim

alkali of Jillifry, a coastal town in Niumi, received twice as

much revenue in rent from land leased to the Europeans as did the

king himself. 58 Moreover, the alkali in question, was given

to speaking for the king in public gatherings. By the mid-18S0's,

in the Mandingo sta~ of Baddibu a Muslim by the name of Jata

Jagne had emerged as the wealthiest man in this peanut-growing

state. S9

Unlike man y of the Seninke who did not fortify their

villages or towns, Muslims began to fortify many of their towns.

This was in direct violation of a stipulated rule or practice.

So limited were the powers of the Mandingo kings that, for

, .. instan'ce, a Muslim alkali monopolized power over Kataba (Niani)'

and th~~ould not do mucb. Muslims had grown so wealthy

from th~eanut trade that tpeir power was felt everywhere; for

example, the king of Baddibu was unable to travel without the • 60 permission of his head Marabout.

The beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century

,wa~,. therefore, to mark a new era in the Muslim-Soninke conflict"

and relations. While the changes of the first half of the

century were of a relatively less violent nature, the same

cannot be said of the changes during the second half of the

century; for by this time, these ch~ges were being transformed

from economic dissatisfaction to politically explosive situations.

Discontent was quite widespread among various segments of society;

however, two factors were needed before Jihad could materialize.

These were, strong leadership, and a wider ideological framework.

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The Jihad Movement And It~ Leadership

Among the leaders of the Garnbian Jihad movement, the' ~name

of Maba stands out above aIL others. The charismatic and

missioni2ing teacher Maba was born in 1809 in the Mandingo state

of Baddibu, one of the richest peanut-producing states. He was

" of Fulani origin, and his grandparents had ernmig~$ted from the "J ,"

Futa Toro area to Baddibu. He carne from a Marar)~utic family . '

and his father intended that he continue the family tradition by

becoming a teacher of the Koran. Maba received his elementary

training in Koran and SharI'a from hi~ father before he went to

Cayor for further education. 6l Haba' s younger, brother, Marnour

, ' . , "1 d' 62 N Dar~, was sent to Maur~tan~a to pursue s~m~ ar stu ~es.

While in Cayor, Maba distinguished hirnself as a studious and

intelligent student. His father's choice of this state for his

studies may have been deliberate, for Cayor was known as a ~lace

in.touch with new trends in North Africa, and also as a centre of o

Islarnic activity. It is likely, therefore, that Maba was

influenced by his teachers in an activist direction.

When in 1827 his father died Maba cQntinued with his

education leaving ~he care df tl)e family under one" of his younger

brothers. 63 Later he left Cayor for Jolo~ where he completed his

educa~ion. It was in Jolof, his mother's home state, that he

. f If' l h b h . , f 64 met Ma t~, a woman 0 roya arn~ y, w 0 ecame 15 W1 e. It was

that, according to tradition, Maba studied with a

- 65 Marabout who introduced him to the concept of Jihad. -Maha

settled down and began to preach. In tirne, he attracted a large

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following of stuq'~t); i t was these same studenJs who later

respon~ed to his calI whe~ Jihad was declared. His scrupulousness

as a scholar1won him many syrnpathizers and supporters in JOlot.

In 1849", responding to the pleas of his brothers, Maba

returned home to Baddibu to take oyer his father's work. On his

return he asked and received permission from the Man'sa (he may

.even have ~ttempted, though unsuccessfully, to convert tne king)

to erect a town which, when completed, included a f~rrn and schooL

't 66 ne~:r; ~ . This town was' called Ker Maba.

It was soon after his return that Maba met his spirifual~ "

mentor al-Haj j <1Jmar in 1850. Tradftion tells us that when the

67 two Marabouts met they prayed together for three days. In

this encounter, the head of the Tijaniyya order in West ~frica,

al-Hajj cUlmar, lectured Maba on the importance of the Tijaniyya

order as weIl as the Jihad. which he/cumar, proP9sed to bring to

rob' 68 Senega ~a. It is possible that Maba, as the head of the

Tijaniyya order in Garnbia, was responsible for Jihad in Gambia.

\ c At any rate, Umar had a strong influence on Maba, so much so

that when Maba later conducted his Jihad, he named his capital

f c,, 69 a ter .Umar s N~oro.

For the next ten years Maba peached quietly just as the • prophet had done for a dozen years or so in Mecca. This period

constituted the initial state of Jihad; that is, it was a period

70 c:f flspiri tuaI" Jihad or Jihad of the tongue. In the meantilne

M~a's sch?ol was attracting a sizeable nurnber of students

inc;luding the childre'n of leading 'farnilies.p'lMr nearby towns. 7l

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Most of these students were Wolof although sorne Mandingos as

weIl as rnembers of other ethnie'groups could b~ found abtending

there. In addition to the,students; there were also many "-

Marabouts who came to join Maba and this was not pleasing news

to the rulers. Ker Maba; as a town, became a centre of dis--.

content and a hot-bed of revolutionary scheming. It was around

this time that Maba's brother Marnour N'Dari began purchasing

supplies of arms and ammunition from Bathurst. 72

Maba had the makings of a revolutionary and this fact, drew

'to him many supporters, the most important of whom were the o

talibes (students) or disciples who formed the basis in the ~.

formation of a religious movement. It was from these students 1-

that Maba built,' according to one account, an arrny of 3,000

73 well-equipped men. Initially, however, éhese forces may have

been intended for the protection of Muslims against the attacks

of the warriQr class.

The Muslim,community was organized in such'a way that in

the case of an outbreak of hostili ties a large force could be

rnAilized in a short time. This was due to the fact that

military-like discipline (the sufi organization), characteristic

of the teacher-student rela'tionship, made mobil-i zation eas ier .

. ) The more prom1nent Marabouts had a network of talibe upon whose

74 loyalty they could rely. More~ver, the Marabouts could also

count o~ the support of members of their cornrnunities over whorn

they wielded both religious as well as' poli tical authori ty •

Nonetheless, it was the talibe who played an important raIe

in upholding the banner of Islam. Also, there were many Wolofs, ,

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, as weIl as a size~le number of Mandingo and Serer people, who

. , 75 ' turned to Marabouts, and in particular ta Maba, far leadership

and protection. These people eventually became Muslims and

supporters of the Muslim cause. J .

About the man himself, Maba was said to be'a very austere - ~

person and a strict fallower of the Tijaniyya arder. He was a

man of modest tastes wha always dressed very simply. Also, he was

a man of great religious zeal and desired to see noln-Muslims J

convert ta Islam and J.1uslims be treated fairly.76 Religion was

the pivotaI point of his life and the overriding factor in his

careeri it provided the basis for his entry into political

d~alogue with the traditional elite. He became an outspoken

critic of the tradi tional system which he saw as being morally

bankrupt.

As ~egards Maba's leadership, it was rnodelled on that of a

prophet. He had a message ta convey and he saught to attract

followers who would be the vehicle for the realization of the

message. The Islamic movement he built was very personal in

character; tha t is to say, there was no formal'i'zed structure

except for the leader and his band of' followers. 77 T~iS, ..

movement consisted of men who, a~med with an egalitarian and

puritanical ideolagy, were determined ta ~hange society on the

basis af Islamic principles and bring an end to political and

.' economic injustices existing in society.

It was on the basis of these injustices that Muslims, on or"

be~ore the outbreak of violence, began ta list a number of

grievances which became the justification for waging Jihad.

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• Briefly, first, the Muslims cornplained about being excluded

from sharing political power or'-1l>aving a raIe iF the state

organization. As the Muslims enjoyed a monopoly on literacy , .-

and their services were indispensable to the states, they could

not understand why they had to put up with politi!qal and social i

subordination to pagans whom they did not considtr as their

cultural superiors. 78 Secondly, the Muslirns were continually

harassed and pillag'ed, by the warrior class, and 'complained that,

on occasion, armed bands stole their wives, properties and

slaves. 79 Third, the restriction on the use of land, the •

granting of poor lands to Muslims, the imposition of heavy taxes

Ion strangers80 as weIl as the high taxes that Marabouts were

required to payas the wealthiest rnernber~f society, were bited 1

as e~aIJlple$ .,of Soninke oppression. 'Finally, th€j Marab.outs jWho

were concerned with reforming Muslims and conve~ting non-Muslims~ 1

complained that the traditional rulers of the Mandingo states

81 had refused to embrace Islam. Moreover, with the decline in

central autharity and the weakening of the administrative

apparatus, two factors that contributed to widespread lawlessness,

~uslirns were no longer convinced that the kings could control the

unruly warriar class, let alone rule effectively.

The Muslims were getting impatient about their situation;

they had already performed Hijra fram Dar al ~arb and they were

now arrning ta protect themselves. They saw how weak or

ineffe~tive the traditional elite had become and felt that this

elite was either unable or unwilling to make any concessions.

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Already sorne non-Muslirn gropps, especially members of ethnie

minorities, were seeking the protection ~' th'e. Marabouts ~om Q , t1t'" ~ t

.. they considered as a. viable counter-elj. te.

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The Muslirns were now in a state of rnilitary alertness. o

Tensions were very high and hostilities between the .two groups . or communities had reached an intolerable level. What was

1 needed was a spark to set off an already explosive situation.

This was provided,by the British in that fateful jear 1861. <'"

the local ruling elite who did not profit very much from" this

1 i trade. On a nurnber of occasions the European traders w~re /

<-.

pressured or imposed upon_by the local elite and the British

were~called on to protect them. On one occasion involving a

dispute between the Marabouts and Soninke the~e was damage te

property which ,the British claimed as their own. 82 ~Accordingly,

the British sent a punitive expeditiop consisting of three te

four warships and four companies of soldiers B3 to deal with

~oninke perpetra tors and also to restore peace~ In the course

of,their operations, the British troops, perhaps too rashly,

indiscriminately attacked or destroyed towns including those of

Mkrabouts despite Maba's appeals that his community be spared. 84

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"" , ~lthough bath the MarabDuts and Soninkes were invo+ved in the

initial dispute that triggered the British' attack, following J

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the peace treaty, it was the Soninke clanS that bore the brunt a

of the fines levied by the British', As can be e~pected, they

were distu'rbed about the fines and they attempted ta force the

Muslims to come up wi-th the amount. Thus the action of the .

British exercebated an already tense situation. Th~ B~itish

left ·the place"in ,greater chaos than they"had found it. 85 ~

Meanwhile, probably", ta allow 0 tempers ta subside," Maba

retired temporariiy to Bathurst. While there, ,he attempted to

wip the support of the British Governor. The ~ latter, /however, 1

who had little understanding of the gravit y of the situation.

~and the issues at stake for both parties involved, instead chose

86 " to offer him a pie ce' pf land on which to settle. Maba took the

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opportunity to buy weapons from the Bathurst ~erchants before

returning to Baddibu.

The situation had not improved in Baddibui there w~s still

a lot"- of confusion in the aftermath of the punitiv,e expeditiori.

More and more people of various ethnie and social backgrounds

flocked ta the Muslirn camp seeking the ?ro~ection of Mapa. It

was around this time that the Baddibu king, suspectihg Muslims

of treachery or collusion with the British during the punitive

affair, sent a force ta crush the Marabouts and kill Maba. In the

ensuing battle in which the king's son was killed, Soninke forces

were routed and forced ta flee. Maba then declared Jihad and

called on aIl Muslims of thé kingdom ta rally behind his

leadership. 87 He declared himself the Almamy (Imam) and proceeded

88 ta drum up support for the,Muslim cause.

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~efore the "king could take any action, Maba took the

initiative' to launch an attack on the king's town: The Sbninke

forces were de'feated and the king himself killed. Wi thin a few

weeks the tottering traditional system had been overthrown and

the Îoninke "~ut, ta flight to netg~bOuring states.

Thus almost oJlernigh,t Maba{.had been -transformed from a

scholar and teacher to an active warrior a~d politlcal' leader. 89

This transition'rnarked the end of Jihad by tongue; it was now '-

the Jihad of armS. Although Maba was now an active warrior, it"

is said that he bore no arrns nor did he personally fight in any . 90 '

of the wars that were to follow.- He acted as the.spiritual

leader, merely prayi'ng for his fighting men urging them to fight

91 on.

By 1862 it seemed as if the aims of the Jihad had been met. ,

Not being a man of politics, Maba desired to return to his farm

and continue with his teaching. He let the Brit1sh Governor

know that having rid the country of Soninkes, he had abolished

the institution of kingship, and by extension, aIl forros of

authority which had been maintained '~y plundering the property

of others'. 92 1 However, Maba's hopes proved prematurei Jihad was far from,

ove~. Hi~ disciples or talibes, along with local Muslims in

various parts of the Garnbia, had responded to his calI for

Jihad and accordingly taken up arms against the traditional

93 rulers. They were now hardpressed and they began to calI for

his help against the Soninkes. Maba responded by despatching to

Nium1 a force under the leadership of his brother. Maba himself 'Î ,1

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had to lead a force northwards into Saloum where a Mara~out force

-had just been defeated. Maba's campaigns will be discussed

further in this work. Here, suffice it to say that these

campaigns culminated in the subduing of Saloum in 1864.

As regards the campaign in Niumi, it'was marked by limited

success. Although Maba's brother'was at first successful, his

forces had to defend against exiled Baddibu Soninkes as well as 1 their Saloum allies. Thereafter, Muslims were not to regain 'the

momentum they had lost.' In 186~, despite partially successful

British attempts to mediate a solution to the conflict in Ni~i,

fighting flared up and continued for the next two decades.

While Maba's camp~igns proved succéssful in the north, the

same could not be said'about nis campaigns in the south. There,

his advance was ehecked by the Soninke and so he had to con-

centrate his energies in the north. However, his followers in

the south, such as Fode Kaba and Alfa Molloh, took up the calI /

to arms by raising the banner of Jihad.

One of the problems of the Jihad was that it had the

potential to disturb the status quo. The British Governor,

G. ~. K. D'Arcy, was aware of this. Despite his sympathies for

the Soninke, however, he could not do mueh because he was under

strict orders from London not ta get involved in local

94 battles. On the other hand, the MaFabouts, under the leader-

ship of Maba, did not want ta jeopardize their friendship and

working relationship with the British, as the Marabouts procured

f h · d' t . . B th t 95" most 0 t elr weapons an ammunl lon ln a urs .

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li , Th~~French, on the other hand, at 'least initiarly did

not reac~ unfavourably to t~e Muslims. Indeed, Governor (

l' Pinet-Laprade, unlike his succe,sor Louis F.idherbe, preferred

Mab~ to the traditional rulers ~f Saloum. This{was becausé • ~I 4

.~ had ended tyeddo pillaging and brought security ~o the

th b . . d d 96 h f area, ere y encourag1ng pean~t grow1ng an tra e. T ere ore,

.the French did recognize Ma?a as the Almamy of Baddibu and

Saloum (which he was to conquer in due cours~). 'In 1863

Governor Pinet-Làprade wrote:

The Marabouts ~- faithful.observers of the Koran, who are tired of the violence inflicted on them

Iby bands of drunkards like the tyeddo of Cayor, Baol, Sine, and Saloum, who live only by thievery -- resolved about a year ago to convert or destroy this brutalized and- useless race. 97

j

However, the Muslims and the French were bound to clash as

their interests were diametrically opposed. To begin with, Maba

did not recognize any terrï torial claims by the French or by any

other European power; the only thing he conceded them was their

right to trade. 98 Therefore, when Maba's military campaigns

extended northwards to areas which the F~ench claimed ~s

belonging to their sphere of interest, the French IGo,vernor >

demanded that Maba desist. from his course of action~ M'ab a

,replied that: "l, Ma Ba, do not understand what concerns you

in the affairs of Jolof, Kajoor [CayorJ, ~awol, and Sine

Do you love Infidels and ha te Believers?" ' 9 9 This reveals the

extent of the ideological gap or difference between Maba and

Governor F.idherbe. Whiie the former believed in his mission

to spread Islam, the latter~ as a European or Frenchman, saw

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himse1f as being the embodiment or representative,of peace,

orde,r, commerce, and above aIl, civilization. 100 The one was·,

interested in spreading religion, t\te other in protecting

commercial interests . -..

More specifically, the immediate cause for the c?ange

in French attitude towards Muslirns was the arrivaI of Macodou.

As Damel ( ruler) of Cayor, Macodou had renounc,e(1 a conces.sion

given to the French by his prede~ssor. This concession

~nvolved the extension of the right to the French to build a , ' . 101

telegraph line from ~t. Louis to newly founded Dak4r. ( ,

Macodou's action naturally angered the, Fre~; as a result, he

~ \Vas deposed and even"tually deported. In his place the French

imposed a weak and ineffective ruler.

Being out of power, Macodou now hoped that, with sorne

sCheming, he would at least be able to wrestle governorship of

Sal~um from his son. He arrived in Baddibu, where, as a pre-1

1

condition ta joining Maba, he had to shave his head and declare /

allegiance to Islam. It s~ems that his conversion was

politically motivated and we have no reason to doubt this. 102

At a/y rate, his association with Maba did not p1ease the French

who considered him as a potential threat to their interes~s ln ""

103 the Cayor-Baol area.

Earlier we mentioned that exiled Baddibu Soninkes apd theib

Saloum~allies attacked Bad~ibu; howevèr, the Marabouts,

especially after they had recalled part of their army which was

tied d'own in Niumi, were able to repulse "the invaders. Now wi th

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the arrivaI of Macodou who joined forces with Haba, the Muslims

went on the offensive. They marched northwards into Saloum and

were able to defeat the Saloum forces. Samba Laobe, the ruler

of Saloum and son of Macodou, wa~ deposed and eventually fled, 1

and his father took over as the new rJler of Saloum.

~hat the ~uslims did P9t know, how~ver, was that the

struggle OL contest for Saloum was far from over. The deposed ,

king returned with a force of 3,000 men to attempt to regain

h ~5 th'rone.I04 H l d f "t t th F h h • e appea e or aSS1S ance 0 e renc w 0

.~ had a garrison at Kaolack, but at first it seemed the French ", ,

Id sit on the sideline and watch the outcome of the conflict~

In the mean tirne Maba had arri ved wï th a force of more th an

10,000 men~nd th: battle was on. lOS At the end of the day,

the Muslims had the upper hand, but the intervention of the

french (the French brought their artillery ta bear on the

Muslims) changed the tide of the war in favaur of the Soninkes.

The Muslim army suffered considerable lossês and the son was

not able ta resume leadership over the state until the following -

year (1863) when his father died. Saon after his father's death'

the son himself died. Therefore, in 1864 Maba's for~e~, after

having'had time ta reorganize, marched in and triumphantly

~ recaptured Saloum.

In October 1864 Maba signed a treaty with the French whereby 1 --

his leadership over Bàddibu and Saloum were recognized in

exchange for respect1ng the boundaries as they were. However, it

was ObVlOUS that the treaty could not last long because the

interests of the two parties dld n~ coincide. The treaty simply

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gave Maba'~ peoplé time to trade gald and hide~ at Kaolack for

106 ~he mu ch needed grain for Maba's army. On their part, the

French attempted to persuade the British to Join them for a

two-pronged attack on Baddibu, but the British were unwilling

to commi t themselves as they were weary of costly foreign

wars. 107

When the FrencH had deposed Macodou as the ruler of Cayor

and rep1aced hlm with a puppet, they had not expected trouble

f - d f hl' . 1-0 8 rom anpther conten er or t e eadershlp, Lat DIor. In

1863 Lat Dior defeated both the forces of the puppet king and

the French in separ?te military encounters. Within less than

a year, however, the French were able to drIve him out of Cayor. f

Since a number of states weré unwilling to accept Lat Dior,

Maba, much ta the displeasure of the French, granted him

1 political asylum as soon as the ,former had agreed to embrace

Islam. Thus Lat Dior, like Macodou before him, embraced Islam

out of political considerations; in other words, he was

interestéô in regalni~g-control over Cayor. Nevertheless,

Qnlike Macodou, Lat Dior remained,a'faithful Musiim under the

influence of the Marabouts. 109

Lat Dior's arrivaI to Baddibu in 1864 was a boost to Maba's

forces. He was a skillful warrior and probably the most

formidable military leader that the French faced in

mb' 110 Senega la. Also, he brought wlth him much needed

111 experience as weIl as men who had been in action in Cayor.

112 Maba's forces now posed a threat to Cayor, Jalof, Baol and

Sln~; in short, ail of Senegambia. It was Jolof, the place

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where Maba had taught for sorne time, which was to be the next

target of Muslim attacks.

Prior to Maba~s'conquest of Jolof, he had tried though

unsuccessfully, to induce Tanor, the ruler of Jolof, to tryand

alleviate the misery of the Musll.ms of tha't state. Jolof

Muslims were ~n a dilemma. - Tf-they-coose to stay behind, they

had to put with with constant tyeddo attacks. On the other hand,

if they chose to emigrate to Baddibu (as sorne did in fact do on

the invitation of Maba), they did 50 at the risk of having their "

property confiscated and" their ho~ses burnt. 113 Wi th the death r

of Tanor, the new ruler and his successor, Bakantam, proved to

be more cooperative. Although Bakantam allowed sorne Muslims

to emigrate to Baddibu, he was not able to check tyeddo excesses

. hl' 114 agal.nst t e Mus lms. Bakantam's attitude towards Muslims

changed; the sporadic' Maràbout attacks into Jolof as weIl as

Maba's actions or pressure on Bakantam to convert had the effect

of making the latter reverse his earlier policy and begin to

punish the Jolof Muslims. This only served to heighten the .,'

tension and make i t li~ely that a mili tary confrontation would

resul "'1r.

Therefore, in June of 1865, despite hii treaty with the

French not to attack Jolof, Cayor, Sine and Baol (there were

already Muslim bands moving through Baol), Maba l'aunched an

attack into Jolof'. Apparently, ~.~h~se his timing weIl. It

was the rainy season and this mea~t thàt the French were more

susceptible to diseases. Also, b~cause of the muddy roads, they

could not bring the full firepower of their artillery to bear

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on Maba' s forces. 115 Wi thin less" than ten days the combined

forces of Maba and his ally Lat Dior were able to overrun

JolOf.116

In a crucial military encounter, the disorganized

Jolof armies were routed and their king fled. Actually the

Jolof armies stood nO,chance>of winning because even the Jolof ~~--~~

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With the conquest of Jolof, Maba was in direct contact with

Futa Toro, the breeding ground of rnany revolutionary activities

in Western Sudan. Maba is said to have received sorne aid and

even sorne volunteers from this area during his J~had. His

overtures with this Tukolor state greatly al~rmed the French and

made ,them suspect that Maba and his two lieutenants who stayed

behind in Futa, might coordinate a concerted campaign in aIl of >"

118 Western Senegal. ' The French were also afraid that Marabouts

might enter into an alliance with their co-religionists, the

Moors of Mauritania, and thus threaten theirinterests. These

fears were not justified. Indeed, Maba reassured the French

Governor, Pinet-Laprade that he had no intentions of attacking

the French so long as the French restricted their activities to

119 their areas of control. However, he could not accept their

claim to Baal, Sine and Jolof. 120 The French on t~eir part did \

When the rainy season was over, Maba had ta hastily return

home to dea1 with a revoIt led by Ousman Diop. Although the

revol t was put down, the very fact that there was an attempted

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101

insurrection demonstrated the first signs of division among his '''--

followers. The differences were to surface after the death of

Mab~ and were ta be a cause of friction and poli t~cal bicJçerings.

In November of 1865. the French, led by their Governor

Pinet-Laprade, attacked Baddibu with a very large force con-

sis.,tingjof bot~ the French, 3,000 in number, and their African

co-symp~thizers, the Soninkes, about 10,000 warriors. 121 The

~irn of Ithis expedi tion was to destroy Maba' s capital and several

other Muslim to~s considered as Marabout strongholds. The

:l'esul ts of the battle were far from conclusive. The French

suffèred casualties, including the Governor who was severely "

wounded; als,o, one-fourth of the European soldiers, many of

whorn were suff~~ing from fever, were either killed or

wounded. 122 Furthèrmore, Maba did not lose any territories

(his capital was rebuilt and more recruits arrived) although he

was never able to reconquer Jolof. 123 According to Klein, the

battle did prove one thing: "It made it clear that in spite of

their. technological superiori ty, the French did net have the

rnili tary power to assert themsel ves very far inland". 124

During rnost of the Jihad, Maba tried to ~void direct

c~nfrontàtio~ wi~h the British because he di~ not want to 1 1

jeopârdlze his rnilitary supply lines. Nevertheless, a con-1

frontation did take "place. The Marabout forces under the

leadership of a Muslirn commander, Amer Faal, resumed their

attack on Niumi and the- Ceded Mile, 125 a thin strip bf coastal

land acquired by the Br.i tish from the king of Barra. The British • responded by attacking and destroying rnany Muslim villages, after ,

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whioh Maba, not wishing t1 antagonize the British further, becarne

more than willipg to arnicably settle the issue with them. Maba

had probably less reason to clash with the British than with the

French who, under Governor Pinet-Laprade, were pursuing a very

active interventionist policy in the affairs of the Senegambian

states. Jihad took place at a time when the British and the

French, with varying degrees, were pursuing policies designed to

tap the wealth of the interior, especially of the Niger River

Valley. It was likely, therefore, that a confrontation between

them and local groups was bound to occur.

oespite the setback of 1865, Maba did not let tlpin his "'<;

pressures against the northern states. Thus during the rainy '-~--

season of 1866 he sent a srnall band ~of his Marabouts into Cayor,

126 Baol, Sine and even Jolof. Moreover, he continued to

threaten the Jolof state whose leader still refused to submit

(convert). The Jolof leadership was not to receive any respite

till a year later when Maba's political career, as weIl as his

earthly osojourn, came to an end. This proved to be ternporary

relief, for in 1870 Amadu Bamba declared Jihad in Jolof. 127

In April 1867 the French suffered a major defeat at Kaolack,

Saloum. At tpat time the French Governor could not do much as

he was under strict orders from France to remain on the

defensive. This situation was caused by a serious political 1

crisis in Europe; the Fr'anco':"'Prussian conflict 1 >which had the

128 . effect of immobilizing French troops in Senegal. This being . . the case, Klein is of the opinion that had Maba waited for two

more years (enough: time to build a grand alliance of Muslim

, 1

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groups or allies), he would have succeeded in checking the

French. 129 For it was around this time that Prussia, under the

strong leadership of Bismarck, defeated France. t

Maba had not taken advantage of the situation, but had

contjnued his military campaigns as before. It was in one such

carnpaign that he had l0st his life. That this happened in the

pagan state of Sine should perhaps be not all that surprising,

as Sine was one state where Maba did not have a Muslim 'fifth

colurnn' to help him. l30 The,battle in question teok place at

80mb. During the early hours of fighting the Marabouts had the

upper hand; but by early afternoen, 80ninke rein forcements had

arrived from all over Sine and the hard pressed t~ddo army

f h . h . 131 oug t w~t new v~gor. When it was clear that aIl was lost,

Lat Dior, the strategist and military expert, fled the

battlefield, while M'aba, a spiritual leader and a man true to

his cause te the end, remained behind and was killed as he was

praying on a prayer mat. 132 The Soninke victory which was

sealed bt the death of Maba was an occasion for rejoicing by " ,

both the Soninkes of Sine and the French. j,}",..

Wi th the death of Maba, the possibili ty of unifzring the

various ethnie groups such as the Mandingo, Fulani, and Wolof

behind a. single cause carne to an end. His de a tij>-a 1 so' rnarked . - 133 the end of the id~alic phase of the Jihad, for after hirn the

leaders were mainly political rather than religious.

In this chapter we have traced th;~, developrnent of the 0' C;;>

revivalist or reform movement in Senegarnbia. We have shown '-

that the tèndency towards rnilitancy has it$ roots in the,

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104

teachings o'f Islam. In particular, the poli tical and mili tary

campaigns of the prophet have left an indelibie mark on the

minds of the non-accomodationist Muslim scholars who have sought

to mould the character of their cornmunities on Islamic lines.

These scholars have ernphasized the need for reforrn in personal

as weIl as community life. Ultimately, what this called for ,0

was the establishmen~of an Islamic moral order in the society

where Muslims lived.

In Garnbia the process of establishing an Islam~c moral order

occurred at a tirne when important econornic changes were taking

place. In other words, the shift in economic power in favor of

the Muslirns hastened, if not precipitat~d, this process~ This

development was not w~thout its consequence~. ~t rneant that

the king's political power was undermined. It also led to

increased pillaging of the Muslirns by the warrior class. Tensions

mounted as the two cornmuni ties became more 'polarized and r1uslims

began to arm themselves. Finally, the d~ep-seated hostility

erupted into open conflict and violence. This marked the

beginning of the Garnbian Jihad. About six years later, however,

Maba, the leader of the JiQ8d movement, had been ~illed and this

signalled the end Of the idealic phase of the Jihad and the

beginning ,of chronic warfare. This warfare did not end until

the partitioning of Senegarnbi~iin the closing decades of the

nineteenth centurY"J \

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105

NOTES TO,CHAPTER III

1. .Koran, 4:1,08 and 22:77. See Hughes' Dictionary of ISlam, pp. 243-248. See also Yaqub Ali, hJ~had in Islam", Islamic Literature 15:5 (May 1969), pp. 21-31. For further study, see Majid Khadduri, l~ar and Peace in the Law 'of Islam, pp.' 51-140 and Rudolph Peters, Islam and Colonialism.

2.

" f: J~L

Abdul A. MaudûdI'1 Jihad in. Islam Publications L~d., 1976), p.S. and should notJbe confused with work on the sa~e subject.

Ibid., p. 29.

(Lahore: Islamic This is a small book

MaudüdI's voluminous

See, fo! example, Koran, 4:95, 9:111, and 3:157.

5. Murray Last, "Reform in West Africa: the Jihad movements of the Nineteenth Century," in History of West Africa, Vol. II, eds. Ade Ajayi and Michael Crowder (London.1974), p. 1.

6. Thomas Arnold, The Preaching of Islam (New York, 1913).

7. Bryan S. Turner, Weber and Islam p. 147.

(London & Bos,ton, 1974·), ,

8. M. Hiskett, "The Nineteenth Century Jihads in West Africa," in The Cambridge History of Africa, Vol. 5, eds. JOhn,E. Flint (Cambridge, 1976), p. 128.

9. Joseph Thompson, Mungo Park and the Niger (N.Y.C.: Argosy­Antiquarian Ltd., 1970), p. 246.

10. Ibid.; see also Stride, p. 143.

Il. Stride, p. 144.

12. Ibid., p. 134. At the height of its power, Ghana controlled territories stretching from the Upper Senegal area, to Upper Niger River area. Audoghast, its rival, was conquered and converted to Islam by the Almoravids. The founder of the Almoravid movement was Abdulla Ibn Yasin who had been influenced by the fuqaha of QayraWan.For more information on the Almoravids and the possible influence of their ideas on Western Sudan, see Paulo de Moreas Farias, "The Almoravids: Sorne Questions Concerning the Character of the Movement During its period of Closest Contact wi th the Western Sudan", Bulletin de L'Institute Francais d'Afrqiue Noir B. 29: 3-4 (1967), pp. 811-813, as referred to in Essays on Islamic \ Civilization, ed. Donald P. Little (Leiden, 1976), ~ p. 108. •

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106

13. Thomas Hodgkin, "The Radical Tradition in Muslim West Africa", in Essays on Islamic Civilization, ed., D. P. Little (Leiden, 1976), p. 103. ,

14. Ibid., p. 104. On the doctrines of the Khawarij, see El~e A. Salem, Political Theory and Institution. of the Khawarij

(Baltimore, 1956).

15. Thomas Hodgkin, "The Radical Tradition", p. 107.

16. Hiskett, "The Nineteenth-Century Jihads", p. 166.

17. Ibid.

18. Hodgkin, "The Radical Tradition", p. 112.

19. Ibid., p. Ill.

20. Hiskett, "The Nineteenth-Century Jihads", p. 166. ,

21. Ibid., p. 155.

22. Nehemia Levtzion, 1'Is1am in West African POli1:ics: Accommodation and Tension Between the 'Ulama' and. the Poli tical Authori ties" , Cahiers D'Etudes Africaines, XVIII (1978), p. 337. In the light of the above information, it i5 not' always true to say, as sorne modernists do, that sufi orders tend to keep al~of from wordly affairs. In West Africa in general, it was members of sufi orders who masterminded Jihad movements seeking religioûs and political reforms; the same can be said about North Africa (we have in mind here the Sanusiyya movement).

23. Klein, Imperialism, p. 65.

24. However, as Curtin correctly notes, for Jihad, the story has not been tald of unsuccessful revolts or palace coups. Afric~n History, p. 364.

each s\lccessful an equal nurnber of

See Curtin,

25. a~skett, "The Nineteenth-Centuri Jihads" , p. 130.

26. Stride, p. 149.

27. Ibid., p. 151. Abdel al Kader, the first Almarny sought ta extend the influence of this revolution to neighbouring Wolof states. However, the urge for expansion was inhibited as the leadership was soon to transform into a conservative land-owning aristocracy. See Klein, "Economie Factors", p. 430.

28. Klein, "Economie Factors", p. 430.

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107

29. Ibid. By sorne accounts this Jihad began as eariy-as 1810. l '

"30. J. F. A. Ajayi and B. O. Oloruntimehin, "West Africa in 1 the anti-slave trade era," in The Cambridge History of /

,West Africa, Vol. 5, ed'. John E. Flint (C~idge.L 1976) I~ p. 203. Stride and Ifeka mistakenly place the Jihad of Ahrnadu Lobo ta 1725 when c1ear1y the Jihad of Lobo took place in the nineteenth century. See Stride, p. 149.

31. Ibid., p: '204. The Jihads we have discussed thus far are the more well known ones. There were other Jihads as weIl; for exarnple,<: al Haj j Mahrnud le'd a minor Jihad in 1850 in the area of the bend of the'Upper Volta. See Hiskett, "The Nineteenth-Century Jihads ", p. 156.

32. Curtin, African History, p. 386. NasIr was able to unify a very large area. His policies tended to th~eaten the interests of both the French traders arid the traditional

"elites. (Klein, "Economie Factors," ,.p. 429). As a result, he had been killed by the end of the decade -­due to a military confrontation -- and the status quo ~as restored. See P. D. Curtin, "Jihad in West Africa: early phases and inter-relations in Mauri tania and Senegal", Journal of African History 12 (1971): 11-24!

33. For a fuI 1er discussion, see G. Mollien, Travels in the Interior of Africa, ed. T.E.Bowdich (London, 1967). See also Boubacar Barry, "Le Royaume du Wald, du trait€ de Ngio en 1819 l la conquête en 1855", Bulletin de L'Institute Francais d'Afrique Noir XXXI (1964),

34.

pp. 339-444, as referred to in Klein, "Economie Factors", p. 430.

Klein, "The Muslirn Revolution", p. 80.

35. Quinn, Mandin90 Kingdoms, p. 67. In Kombo, the missionary activities of the Wesleyan rnissionaries may have antagonized ' the Muslirns 'in the area. See Gray, p. 389.

36: Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms , p. 67.

37. Gray, p. 388.

38. Ibid. , p. 391.

39. Quinn, Pal2ers, p. 212.

40. Quinn, Mandingo K:i,.ngdorns, p. 3l. . f

41. Ibid. , p. 32.

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42.

C 43.

44.

45.

1;, 46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

.'

63.

64.

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.\

Ibid. , p. 3l.

Ibid. , p. 36.

L2( Quinn, Papers " p.

Ibid. , p. 213. ~ ,~-'"

,; Ibid. ~ , ,<

Ibid. '?

Ibid. , p. 214. -? 6'

Ibid. 3

Ibid.

Klein, "Economic'Factors lI, p. 427.

Quinn, PaEers, ~'. 214. , .. Quinn, Mandin9:0 Kin~doms, p. 60.

Ibid. , p. 63. ".,

Ibid., p. 64. At the outbreak of Jihad father and son found themselves fighting for opposite sides. ~

r

1

tThomas F. O'dea, The Sociology of Religion (Eng1ewood C1iffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966), p. 60.

Quinn, Papers, p. 215.

Quinn, ~1andingo Kingdoms, p. 65.

Ibid. 1 •

Ibid.

Ibid., p. llL2. o

Paul Marty, Etudes Sur L'Islam au Sénégal, Vol. 1. (Paris: Leroux, 1917) 1 pp. 175-6 as quoted in Klein, "The Moslem Revolution", p~ 83.

Quinn, ~andingo Kingdoms, p. 112.

Eunice A. Charles, precolonia1 Senegal: The Jolof Kingdom, 1800 to 1890 (Boston, 1977), p. 53.

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65. Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms, p. 112.

66. lb i 1" p. 112. 1

67. Charlotte À. Quinn, "Maba Diakhou Ba: Scholar Warrior of the SenegarnJ:,:>ia", Tarikh 2:3 (l968), p. 2.

68.

69.

7.0.

71.

72.

73.

7'4.

75.

76.

77.

Ibid. The Jihad began in 1852~ by 1863 a large Islamic empire had emerged extending from the Upper Niger River ~rea to parts of Senegal. The French wère ?uick to check Umar's east~ard expansion as it threatened1their

interests. Umar was killed in 1864 while putting down an uprising in Segu.

cUmar himself had been influen~ed by Muhammad Bello of Sokoto, whose daughter he had married;

Qutnn, Mandingo Kingd~s, p. 112.

Ibid., p. 113.

Ibid.

Archer, p. 76.

Klein, Imp~rialism, p. 70.

Bathily, p. 79.

Klein, "Economie Factors", p. 433 •.

Ibid., p. 433-4. However, as Weber has noted, although\ charismatic authority is important, especially in the' process of originating, it is also the most unstable form of authori ty. (~

84. Quinn, Tarikh, p.S.

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85.

96.

87.

88.

89.

90.

91.

o

;bid.i See also Hargreaves, p. 51.'

Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms, p. 108.

Quinn, Tarikh, p.S.

Hargreaves, p. 13.

Quin~, TarJkh, p.S ..

Ibid.

119

-

"On, approaching a town he ï'ntends to_destroy, he dismounts from his horse, orde,rs his praying carpet to be spread and calls for wri ting ptateri"als. A staff, of blind , M~rabouts now surround him, repeating in a low chant that God is great ... and Mahomet is His prophet. Mahaba then most earnestly writes grees, or charrns, which he hastily distributes to his warriors, who, as they now imagine . themsel ves doubly arme~ush to victory ar heaven". Thus wrote Governor DI cy to Secretary of State fo~ the Colonies, 8 August 186 ; cited in Klein, "EconGmic Factors" from J. M. Gray, p. 419. .

92. Quinn, Tarikh, p. 5. 1

93. Charles, p. 54 . . 94. Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms, p. 115.

i

95. Klein, Imperialism, p. 73.

96. :,Charles, p. 55. Quinn questions the view- that the French, or specifically Governor Fcidherbe may have sympathized with the Muslim side, at le~st initially. Klein's opservations: based on the study of the correspondences between Maba and Feidherbe, prove that the two men disagreed with each other from the beginning. In terms of their beliefs, they we~e ideologically poles apart. S7e Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms, p. 130.

97.

'9.8.

99.

Commandant of Gorée to Minister, 18 May 1863, FOM, Senegal l49a., cited in Klein, Imperi~lism, p. 79:

Charles, p. 55.

Maba to Governor, received 10 June 1864', ANS, 13G 318_, cited in Charles, p. 55.

10,0 • Klt=i.n, "The Moslem ~evolution", p. 85. . lOI' Ibid.

.<' 1 . "i)

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103.

104.

105.

106.

107.

10{

109.

III

1

For example, in the Saloum expedition wh~ ~aba helped Macodou captu"re Saloum, the latter had cele'brated the victory by getting drunk; as a result of this, and to indicatè his disapproval, Maba pulled out his men. What this meant was that the deposed or former king was able to regain-his capital. However, the two men were to renew their alliance and by September of the same

o year (1862), Macodou was able to re-take Saloum. Ibid., see pp. 75-77.

Kl~in, l'mperialism, p. 76. ,--'

Quinn,

Ibid. ernor'''D'Arcy writing on Maba' s forces hpd remarked that had never'seen "even in (East) India 50

imposing an array of warrÎJ?rs", CO/87/76, D'Arcy to Newcastle, 23 March 1863, cited in Quinn, Mandingo Kingàoms, p. 117.

Ibid.

Ibid. ,. Klein, "The Moslem Revolution''', p. 8'5.

\

Bathily, p. 77. When 1.ater Lat Dior regained his throne as the Damel of Cayor, he insta11ed Momar M'Backe, whom he had brought with him, as the QadI. M'Backe was the father of Amadu 8affiQa the man who was to found the ~ouride order; this order was responsible for ra1lying defeated pagan forces (1870's) to the banner of Islam. wi th M' Backe as bois QadI, Lat Dior was determined to use Islàm to reinforce his power. Although by 1870 the French had recognized him as ruler of Cayor~ he never tired of challenging them for the rest of his life (he died in 1886). Like Macodou before him, Lat Dior opposed the French telegraphic line; probably, he rèëogn"ized the implicatidns of such a line on the economic and political independence of the states involve!. Incidentally, in modern times, Lat Dior is viewed in somè quarters as a precursor to ~o~ern nationalists. He had

~ active1y opposed Fre~ch imperialistic designs in the Senegal area.

110. Klein, "Economie Factors Il,, p. 4'31.

Ill. Charles, p. 54.)

112. Maba's forces a 1itt1e bit ear1ier had numbered about 11J OOO men; however, by 1864, according to a ~ritish observer, this number had reached 17-20,000 men. See Klein, Imperialisrn1 p. 79.

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113. Charles, p. Q

56. .. l ,

Ibid. 114.

115. Ibid. , p. 60.

116. Ibid. , p. 5 B.

117. Ibid.

118. Robin Hallet, Africa to IB75 (Ann Arbor: 1970), p. Br. See also Quinn, Tarikh, p. 7. Fdr a detailed study of Muslim-French rivalries, see Klein, Imperialisrn and E. A. Charles, Pre-Colonial Senegal.

119. 'Charles, p. 79.

120. Ibid. t.f

121. Quinn,-Mandingo Kingdoms, p. 120.

123.

124.

Ibid. rs, p. 60.

Klein, Irnperia1ism,

125. Ibid., p. 87.

126. Charles, p. 65.

p. 86.

127. Ibid. See particu1arly pp. 67-81 for more information on this Jihad.

128. Klein, Imperi alism, p. 83. C;.

129. Ibid.

130. Klein, "The Moslem Revo1ution~' , p. 86.

13l. Klein, ImEerialism, p. 91.

132. Ibid.-

" 133. Quinn, Mandin~o Kin~doms , p. 158.

"

il' • :;

.. CHAPTER IV' •

• D

THE POST-JIHAD PERIOD

The Successes and Failures of the Movement

\

n

Despite his short career as a Muslim revolutionary, Maba,

the archi tect or ini tiator of the Gambian Jihad, was succe'ssful

in bringing about certain changes, both in religious and

political spheres, in Gambian society. Maba' SC poli tical

objectives were met quite early ln the Jihad campaigns; he had

succeeded,. in dis lodg ing an inept tradi tlonal rullng eli te in

Baddibu and insplring similar action, either by example or

direct ln vol vemen t, among Marabouts in other parts" of Gambia.

He replaced the tradi tional rê'gime wi'th a Muslirr. one, of which

he was the head. The Muslim state he founded was âivided into

provinces each of which was governed by a QadI (Muslim judge)

chosen by him, or one of his principal war leaders. l At the

centre, the Almamy (Maba) governed the state with the help of a

group of advlsers from the outlying distr~cts. Through these

advisers, Maba intended to follow the Islamic system of shüra

. (consultation), and with their help attempted ta implement

Islamic ideal institutions. He allowed, for instance, the

collection of only those taxes that were sanctioned by the

Koran. 2 Under these circumstances, there is very strong reason

1 --to believe tha~ his efforts ta implement sharI'a contributed~~~

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the widespread '-teaching GJf the Koran in the area. This is

similar to what happened ln Hausaland during the Jihad of Usman

Dan FodlO. In both cases, the Jih~d leaders sought to promote

a strong sense of religious awareness among th'eir subjects, by

encouraging the study of the Korau.

In spreading Islam, Maba succeeded ln converting disgruntled

" 1 subjects (mernbers of various ethnie groups who carne to join him)

and important figures such as Macodou and Lat Dior. Moreover,

c Maba can be considered as the only leader, after Umar, who came

close to unifying the Senegambian peoples agalnst French

cornrnerclal and political involvement in the area. 3 In their

bid to ,protect or expand their commerc.~al and poli tical interests .t- ,/

in the Senegambia region, th~ French had exiled, on two different

occasi'ons, two kings (Macodou and Lat Dior) of Cayor. Bo,th men were

to convert to Islam and join'forces with Maba. Lat Dior was the

more faithful follower of Maba, and when he regained his throne

in 1871, he set out to convert his society, with Islam serving

as an instrument for political integration. Maba's influence

extended even further north,than Cayor. His military campaigns

had taken hlm as far as Jolof. Although he had succeeded only

. temporarily in 8ontrolling the state of Jolof, hlS military

campaigns there contributed to the weakening of the traditional

leadership'so that by 1870 Amadu Bamba was able to conduct a

Jihad, at the end of which many tyeddo became Muslim. As t"

regards the south bank area of the Garnbia river, Maba's axample

had inspired such men as Foddi Kabba, one of his lieutenants,

who toppled the traditional leadership in the states from Foni

1 1 1 f. ,

115

'.

to Kantora, while in Kombo the Marabouts established themselves

as the rulers of that state by 1875. 4 In short, the efforts of

Maba and his successors, although the latter were not always

faithful to the cause that Maba had championed, paved the way

for widespread conversion to Islam in the aDea. Today over SO

percent of the Gambians are Muslims. 5

Not aIl the objectives ~f the Jihad were met however. In

fact, apart from promoting the widespread adoption of Islam, the

Jihad or the reform movement failed in realizing the desired 9 \

political reforms for which the Musli~s had fought. To begin . ,

with, Maba's ~ttempts to establish an Islamic state succeeded 1 1

• 1 only in so fat as he created a Legal community, otherwise no

1

rational struhture of government emerged. 6 That is to say,

because Maba was constantly fighting, he had hap no time to ",s

introduce new political structures that could sustain and

replace the ones in disarray.7 He had destroyed t~e old complex

and traditional system of government withoug developing an

alternative one. In '50 far as l-1aba was constantly involved in

warfare, he did not have time to devote his energies to tne daily

administrative affairs of the state, thus no semb+ance of a 1

strong or well-established central authority emerged even in his

!\/iifetime. S. Therefore, the division of'the state into adrninisJ

trative units and the introduction of the Islamié institutions

were often done on an adhoc basis. The problem wept deeper than

this, however, and had something to do wit,h the attitude of the

religious class towards authority. Maba and his Marabouts were

me$bers of a Sufi organizati~n and, therefore, tended to look

1

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116

askance at secular author i t,Y. 9 /

Indeed, Maba announced his

retirement and desire to return to his farm and school even befo;:-e

the wider objectives of the Jiha.d'had been met. IO This renuncia-

tion of power in 1862 was shart-lived as Maba had started a fire,

a revolution which could not be extinguished overnight. The

whole Gambia region became embroiled in warfare.

The Jihad created certain prob1ems rather than sol"{ed them.

The chronic warfare that accompanied the Jihad, particular1y the

mi1itary compaigns of Maba 1 s successors in the 1870 1 5, _ dig

nothing but further weaken the already weak state, paving the

way for later European conquest. In this manner the warring "

groups inadvertently served the interests of European

colonialism. Second -- and this reveals the instabili ty

associated wi th charismatic ' leadership -- the death of Maba

robbed the reform movement of i ts most outstanding figure. A

power vacuum was created which none of his successors could fill \.

As a result, internecine rivalry and political bickerings, which J

had already surfaced dur ing the time of raba developed among his 1

fo11owers.- Maba 1 s brother Marnour N 1 Der~, as the successor or 1 .

new Almamy, failed ta win the unreserved loyalty of the fighting

men. Also, he cou1d nat stop the internaI squabbles that

threatened the very exist,ence of the ~state. Underlying these

squabbles was the political aspirations of certain men. Even 1

du ring his li fetime Maba often had to con tend wi th the second •

rank of Jihad leadership, a group that was characterized by its

11 impetuosityïn mili tary rq.atters. Some of these men may have

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~ " resented the more conspicuous role or positions held by the

Wolof in the mov~nt. 12 Nonetheless 1 on the -whale Haba had

managed ta cultivate the support of most of the ethnie groups,

Mandingos included. This was more true in the Baddibu state

than in sorne of the other states of the Garnbia region. l3

The Jihad also created sorne social dislocations. The never-

ending fighting, for ~nstance, 1eft a refugee probl~m in its

wake. Both Marabouts and Soninkes crossed and cris-crossed

state borders i~ their search for politica~ asylum. During the

course of ~he Jihad, many Soninkes fled from Baddibu and Saloum

'eo seek the protection of the British in Barra while sorne , '

Mbslims fled from Jolef (where they were oppressed) as weIl as

other parts of Senegambia to join Maba ,and be u~der his

protection. Another serious developmen t was the emergence or

transformation of a mainly agricultural "working" community into

a conununi ty of warriors. Al thougl1 previously the,' Muslims had

depended on their own labour to cultivate 1and, by the time

Maba 1 s b'rother took over as the Almamy 1 Musl ims had become full­

time ~arriors. As a result they began to take advantage of an

internaI slave market system14 by exploiting slave labour and

15 the peanut trade. These slaves, who were obtained mostly

through raiding, were for the most part needed as a commodi ty

'. 16 to exchange for horses and guns for the warrlng groups. They

served, however, the needs or internaI demands of the local

market alone and were not for exporte \

The Jihad must certainly have influenced the volume of trade:

t'ie could not obtain any figures which alone could illuminate the

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exports, for examp1e, for the 1861-1867 period. l"le do have !

indica tions, on the other hand, to p:artially measure how the 1 1

economy'of Gambia fared du ring the ~eriod under study. During 1 1 1

the year of the Baddibu blockade if 1861 - the blockade was the 1

even t which precipi tated the Jihà4 - there was general increase

in the exports of peanut's, wax and beeswax, while the following

year Niurni experienced a r~se in the volume of peanut trad~

despite the outbreak of fighting in the state in the same 1year. 17

The next one or two years cannot have been that bad, for i t was

at this time that Maba, especially in Saloum, is said to have

~hecked tyeddo pi11aging thus bringing peace to the area and

th b . - t . d trade .18 It ere y encourag1ng peanu grow1ng an can,

therefore, be said that the first two to four years the Jihad

did not have much adverse impact on trade. The same cannot be

said, for the period beginning around the mid-1a60's, since 0""

Gambia suffered serious epidemics (the earliest being in 1859)

in 1~66, 1869 and 1872. These epidemics were so severe that

perhaps as many as a quarter of the population of the Garnbian

h . h d 19 states may ave per1S e . In addition, crop fai1ures in 1859,

1869, and even in 1876, 1879 and 1884, as weIl as the plunge in

peanut priees brought about by lower dernand ~n the world market,

20 served only to worsen the exports and revenues. However, it

h d f J. th f must be observed that t e tra e ared worse f 1n e years a ter

Maba than during his time. This is because warfare flared up in

the l870's disrupting peanut cu1tivation and trade. The chronic

warfare resulted in famine, disease and stagnation, and by 1880

peanut produètion had a1most collapsed along the Gambia River. 2l

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Thus, for example, although 1875 was a good year with exports

amounting'to 19,000 tons, yet this figure had fa11en to an aIl

time low of 3,000 tons by 1887. 22 However, warfare alone does

not fully explain export and revenue problems as international

factors were also to blarne. The period between 1880's and early

1890's were characterized by serious fluctuations in the peanut

priee; these fluctuations were due to the world depression. The

revenues were somehow improved ~hen the world depression ended

in the late l890's and demand for peanut oil for margarine

. 23 ~ncreased .

Changes in the Po1itica1 Status of Garnbia

There is one more item for discussion before we proceed to

examine how the two European Powers, the British and the French,

intervened in the Gambian or Senegambian situation to effect a

1 · . 1 l . \ po ~t~ca 50 ut~on. This relates to how the British and the"

French viewed the Muslim bid to extend their religious and, more

~mportantly, political influence in the area. In other words,

what was the attitude or reaction of these two to the Gambian

Jihad?

The British were perhaps reluctant bD further their policy

of territorial expansion in the aftermath of the losses in the • Ashanti war of 1863 in Ghana and the Indian mutiny of 1857. 24

They becarne more cautious and did not wartt to get involved in any

costly operatiqns or annexation. Already Britain had been

involved in a confrontation with the rulers of the Gambian state

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of Kombo when the British had acquired a few square miles of

land to serve as a rehabilitation centre for liberated slaves

and demobilized soldiers. 25 It was in order to discourage

confrontation in the future that London instructed their Governor

in Gambia not to interfere rnilitarily in the Soninke-Marabout

fighting. Dèspite these orders, and without the consent of the

British Government, Governor D'Arcy undertook minor military

operations at Albreda and near MacCarthy Island in 1864. 26

D'Arcy's hostility towards Muslims, sternrning for the most part ,

from his experience with the Indian mutiny, even perturbed the

British Under-Secretary for Colon~al Office. 27 This is more

surprising because Governor D'Arcy had earlier written in one of

his correspondences that, "it must ~e admitted that (Maba) has

protected our traders and invariably treated the Governerls

, Agent ... with respect and hospitality, guarding hirn in and out

6f the camp."28 D'Arcy's prejudices we~e further reinforced by

a group of sorne African traders, notably the Christian merchants,

who encouraged hirn not to cooperate with t4e Muslims.29

To say that the British had reservations on the issue of

annexation is not to say that they were not interested in prjr

moting trade and protecting their commercial interests. Indeed,

in the interests of'safeguarding the peanut trade, the Br~tish

from time to time used troops to protect t~aders in the inland

regions. The Bathurst-based traders were almost wholly dependent

on the peanut trade 50 that the disruption of this trade would

jeopardize their financial interests. Th~ir interests, however,

went beyond this; along with the rnissionaries and Governer D'Arcy,

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the British mer'chants from t·ime ta time pressured their

.. lq 30 h b . government ta pursue an expans10n1st po 1Cy. T e aS1S of

their argument was that s.ince Brit'ain claimed suzerain ~ower over

the Gambia area (this was sa since 1857), annexation was

justified.

During the early phases of the Jihad the British, just _as

the French, did not view the Marabout triumph with misgiving

because they regarded the Muslims to be better for trad~ as they

were a hard-working non-drinking group. Nevertheless, their

attitude changed as the conflict esca1ated "and fighting began

to threaten commerce .. This was particularly true in the era ot­chronic warfare àuring the 1870's and 1890'5. whether or not

trade was the,justification for British intervention, it should

be remembered that the British did interfere in the internaI

affairs of these states earlier, whenever it suited her purposes.

In 186~, for instance, Governer D'Arcy 1ed an expedition against

Baddibu. This expedition served only ta heighten the Marabout­/'

Soninke conflict and set in motion a series of events which

cu1minated in the dec1aration of Jihad. Similarly, 'when the

Marabout forces attacked Ni~mi arid the Ceded Mile, the British

responded by attacking Muslim~ villages. Notwithstanding this, it

is still true to say that the British preferr~d to use indirect

pressure wherever possible. More than this, the British did

not,wa?t to get invo1ved in any costly foreign wars. Accordingly, .. "

they instructed their Governor not to intervene i1 the middle and

upper river areas. Thus, on the\Marabout-Soninke conflict or

struggle of 1862, in Niu~i, Klein states that,

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Although militantly sympathetic to the Soninkes, the local British administration, under strict orders from

o London, was unab1e to intervene. Despite petitions fram Berending and other major towns for help, the British remained within their fort as the Marabouts drave off the Soninkes' cattle from beneath i ts wa1ls. / 31

The contrary was true with respect to the French. Th~ French,

especially under Governor FGidherbe (1854-61 and 1863-65), pursued

a very aggressive pa1icy tofurther their burgeoning colonial

in terests . In other words, they took a more active role to check

the spread of the Jihad. As long as the conflict was 1imited to

the Gambian riverside states the French did~ttemPt to challenge

the, Mus1ims. On the other hand, when the Marabout forces began '~

to threaten such states as Cayor and Jolof, peanut producing

states which the French regarded as being vital to their

interests in the Senegal area, the French interfered with the,

Muslims. ~he French and Marabout forces clashed in 1865 when a

French-Sonin~ force under the-leadership of Governor

Pinet-Laprade attacked Baddibu, and again in 1867 in Saloum. " '

In the light of the above, it can be said that whi1e the

British Governor was under certain ~straints regarding what he 1

could or could not do in Gambia, the French Governor had the

backing of his government in the.policies he undertook to

" protect or advance f~ench interests in the Senegambia. That is /

to say, the French (Governor could act more freely than could his

, 'h l" h' h' t t t:'1.. t Br~t~s counterpart. It ~s W1t 1n t 15 con ex ,ua we can

understand why during the course of the Jihad the British

restricted their action to exploiting the internaI conflicts,

either by using economic pressure or threats of armed intervention,

while the French went out of their way, using the military if need

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be, to check the spread of Muslim power in Senegambia.' Both

Powers, however, had one thing in cornmon: they sought to

stimulate limited warfare as a way of keeping local combatants

32 or hostile groups out of power. This was a c,lassic exarnple of

the case of divide and rule.

If Britain was pursuing a policy of retrenchment,in the

Gamb±a while she was also exploiting local çonflicts or warfare

as a way of keeping hostile groups out of power, what was

Britain's long-term intentions or interests in the region? It

was precisely to answer this qu~stion that the British Colonial

Office commissioned Colonel Ord (1864), Sir Arthur Kennedy

(1869), and Rear AdmiraI patey (1869) to report on British

interests in the Gambia. Their assessrnent ras not always

obj ecti ve or the resul t of a ba1anced evduation of the-

'situation. For example, Arthur Kennedy had stayed in Bath~rst

for only ten days, hardly enough time to give a proper'assessment

of the area. 33 AlI three of them agreed"that British interests

ff ' . . . h 34 were not su 1C1ent to warrant 1nvestment 1n t e area .. ...

Needless to say, the decision of these personalities or envoys

was influenced by the state of affairs ïn the Gambian states, D

particularly the total disruption in trade caused by chronic

warfare, drought and a serious cholera which took a heavy toll

of lives. Moreover, it was pointed out35 that mbst of the

trading activities in·the Gambia had been taken over by the

F h . 36

rertc cornpan1es. Acc9rding to Gailey,

This was far from true and an analysis of the imports/ and exports of the Garnbia in this period.shows that as regards value British Companies such as Thomas Brown, Thomas Chown, and Quinn and Company were still more important than their French competitors. 37

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The iecomm~ndation of these env.oys was that Britain should

exch~nge the GaÏnbi,an 1 osettlements for <sorne other' terri tory that

was. under French, control. Thys plan was strongly.opposed by

\ ~I " the British mer chants who were concerned wtth .the pos&ible

,financial 1055 that would result if Gambia changed hands. 38

Their case was taken up in London by the Manchester Chamber of

Commerce which lobbied on their behalf. Basically, these

merèhants argued that trade on the Gaffibia was increa~ing, not

" decreasing. Also that if Britain gave up Gambia, she also

virtually gave up the Niger. 39 But more important than this,

sorne of the merc'hants, perhaps wi,tl-} sorne exaggeration, poi.nted

out that they stood to lose one-fourth and two-thirds of thelr

investment and credit respectively.40

Discussio~s about the exchange of"territorie~ between Britain

and France first surfaced in 1866, but by 1876 negotiations had,

collapsed. The French"~ere interested in Garnbia which they o

, wanted to see abs9rbed by Senegal. They began to ex tend their

influence and control te sorne of ~he Gambian villages. This

alarmed the British who, after aIl, claimed suzera~nity over the.

Gambia area. The talks that followed whereby the two Powers

sought to r'each sorne kind of ~ettlernent, should be seèn within

the wider context of t~e d~vision of Africa into spheres of

influence and, ul t.i.rna'tely ," spheres of occupation.

The drawing up of b~undaries by European P?we~s was one

expression o~ "the phenornenon o~ the "Scramble for Africa".

France precipit,ated this division of territories in West A,frica.

According to Gailey, there are three reasons why France took up

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territoria~, irnperüüisrn. First,' scientific éuriésity which

made rnost European nations seek to explore or probe the' interior ,',

Qf Africai second, wounded prid~ after having lost in the

Franco~Prussian war made France lookpbeyortd Europe for her

ideqls of a greater France; and thirâ. and more important, the

econornic factors which made France and other European Powers seek

colonies as a source of supply for raw materials and a market

, 1 41 for rnanufactured goods. This should be.viewed against the

atternpts of European bureaucrats (for exarnple, those in France)

who devised large scale expenditures, both at home and abroad,

as ways of getting their countries out of the depression of

1873-1896. 42 It was out of this thinking that the French

undertook to construct railway and telegraphic lines in Algeria

and Senegal. The French expected that, once these projects were

cornpleted (especially the domestic ones),,' there would be a

dernand in the colonies for capital goods made in France; once

this happened, these colonies would be to France what ~ndia was,

to Britain. 43 In other wOFds, colonies co~ld be made to Serve

the interests .of the mother country. The spectre of chronic

warfare, increasing competition in t'he worl"d market as w,ell, as

the depression, were factors which induced Freney policy-

makers to ext~nd the scale of their commitment in the Senegal

44 area.

One additional factor should be mentioned, and that is the

European traders in Africa, through certain lobbies, pressured

or encouraged their respective governments to occupy the

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colonies. The occupation 'of colonies, they hoped, would resul t,/,

in undercutting the power of the African rnid~lernen.45 The

European traders resented the African middlemen to ~horn par-t of

• the profits wenti with these' middlemen out of the way, the

traders could deal directly with the producers. 1

It is not

surprising, therefore, that these traders ,were in favar of-

European colonization.

The Berlin Conference of 1884 provided the forum for a

di~cussion of the parti ti'an of Africa. Following this conference,

European nations vied with one another to carve out spheres of

.influence or ar·eas of occupation. This meant tha t the colonial .

climate had changed, and with it t~e fortunes of most, if nat

aIl, African states and kingdoms. In the Senegambia area, the

French cantinued to be active extending their sphere of influence.

They élashed with Maba's successors and followers in bath

Baddibu and Saloum, and this gave the French the excuse to

occupy a certain number of towns in Baddibu. Moreover, ~e

war-torn Senegambia, European traders as well as sorne African

cornrnJnities, tired o~~arfare and the destruction i~ had caused,

bègan ta send petitions asking for protection. The French were

quic~ ta react and they saon begap raising flags in important

north bank state towns. 46 This alarrned the British who began

to make sirnilar treaties in a few south bank states. Thus the

Frepch adv~nce in 1879 was to farce the British as weIl as

other European Powers in ather parts of the continent, to move

in and protect their areas of in teres t. Al though the British

had at ane time conternplated withdrawing from Gambia, French

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ir~volvement in sorne north bankl

s ta~e towns despi te their

renunciq,tion a few dec'ades earlier of aIl territorial rights

to the river's banks, awakened British dormant interest in their

sphere of ihfluenee. 47 It was in arder ta clear up this matter

that the French and British representatives met in Paris in

1889 to delineate their respective sphere of influence in the

~ 48 Senegarnbla. Afte'T lengthy negotiation, a compromise was

reached which pleased neither party. AIso, the boundaries drawn

were testimony to the absurdity of drawin~ arbitrary lines or

èreating artifical states without regard to ethnie or geoqraphic~J,.

division of an area. As a result, kingdorns split .uP, and a1so,

members of various ethnie groups found themselves on èither side l'

,

of the border. The interna tianal boundaries as mapped out by

an Anglo-French Carrnnissian in 1890-1, gave the Bri tish., at least

on pap<;r, increased authority. Under the terms af the partition,

British contraI increased from an enclave af perhaps 70 square

miles inhabited by about 14,000 people, to an area of over

4, 000 square mi les wi th a popula 'tian of more than 150,000

49 people., This was Garnbia, a territory extending from the south

of the Gambia river, ta a few hundred miles inland. Its greatest 1;

distance was 292 miles inland and 29 miles north ta south. 50 ~

,-lhat this meant was that Garnbia had no aecess ta i ts natural

hinterland, while Senegal, which the French had received, was a

bifurcated terri tory encl.rc1ing Garnbia on three sides.,

If the drawing of boundaries was a cumbersome process, the

establishment of European authority (the colonization process)

was less cumbersome. This is not to say that colonization was

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unopposed since Muslims and anti-French leaders put up resistance;

but since the wars had sapped the military strength of both the

Marabouts a.nd Soninkes, the French and British were able to move

in and easily defeat the local groups. While the French

resorted to military conquest as a way of acquiring territory,

the British relied on the exploitation of traditional

. l' 51 r~va r~es. The British took a longer period to pacify the

south bank states than they did the northern states which had

been more affected by the Jihad. While sorne Marabouts carne to

te~s or accepted the new order imposed by the British, others

resisted and were either killed, such was the case with Fode

Kabba (1892), or exi1ed, as was the case of Baram Sire of

Baddibu and Fode Sila. 52

Thus ended a period of half a century of chronic warfare.

The fighting, which underwent two phases, the idealistic

(Jihad proper) and non-idealistic phase, was the result of

tensions in society which had taken centuries to mature.

lasting feature of the Jihad was the rapid Islamisation

Senegambian region. Even those who had resisted Islam,

of

One

the

especia11y the tyeddo of Senegal, were to embrace Islam which

they saw as an alternative ta assimilation br E~ropean culture.

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2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

129

N0TES TO CHAPTER IV

Quinn, Papers, p. 217.

Ibid.

Klein, Im12erialisrn,' p. 92. 0

Ibid.

Quinn, Tarikh, p. 10.

Quinn, Mandinso . " 122. K1nsdoms, p.

Quinn, Papers, 218. T p. ..,

Quinn, Mandinso Kinsdoms, p. 125.

Ibid. cf. The Almoravids, (al though frugal-minded religious ascetics), did not shun poli tical authori ty when the opportunity presented itself in Andalusia. Nevertheless, even the Almoravids were not irrunune from the corrupting influence of political authority and before long they lost their frugality and simplicity and became dictatorial and eventually were thrown out o,f off,ice. Therefore, the Marabout' distrust of poli tic,al author i ty (th~ Marabouts were aware of s uch examples) was a ref lection of their concern Mi th the difficurty of . reconciling transcendental needs or values with the mundane affpirs of political life. But Islam is a religion with historical, apart from extra-historical concerns and one cannot shun poli tical life: àfter aIl, Islam ,emerged, right from its birth, as a system encompassing a political organization.

10. Ibid., p. 126.

11. Ibid., p. 128 .

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.; p. 129.

14.

15.

16.

17.

Slave labour had becorne one feature of the legi timate trade. See Klein, "S1avery, the Slave Trade and Legitimate Cornmere'e in Late Nine'teenth Century Africa", Etudes d'Histoire Africaine 2 (197l): 5-28.

Klein, "Economie Factors" , p. 434.

Ibid. ., Quinn, Mandinso 'Kinsdoms, p. 14:0.'

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19.

20.

2~1.

22.

'23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

Ch ar 1 es, p • 5 5 .

Quinn, Mandin go Kingdoms, p. 158.

Ibid., p. 140.

Ibid., p. i77.

Ibid.

Klein, "Economie Factors", p. 432.

Hargl!"eaves, p. 27.

Mboge , p. 57.

Hargreaves, p. 56.

Ibid., p. 82.

130

CO;87;80, D'Arcy to Cardwell, 24 October 1864, as quoted in Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms, p. 130.

Hargreaves, p. 52.

Ibid., p. 41.

Klein, Mandin~o Kintdoms, p. 115. Gailey points out that 'bhe prevail~/ng,-=a:t- itude in London at 'this time was one of retre~enrnent in all overseas ventures. See Harry A. Gailey, A History'of the Gambia (New York & Washington: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), p. 42.

32. See Boubacar Barry, "Le Royaume du ~'Jalo". On ,French Nest African policy, see C. W. Newbury and A. S. Kanya-Forstner, "French. Policy and the Origins of the Scramble for West Africa", ,Journal of African History 10 (1969): 253-276. See as weIl, Hargreaves, Prelude.

33. The Gambian settlements, despite their poverty, generated enough revenues to be self-sufficient entities. See Gailey, A History, p. 83.

34. Ibid., pp. 51,83-85 ff.

35. Rear AdmiraI Patey for one pointed out that there were five British companies, three of which were not doing weIl. In contrast, the four French establishments that traded in cash were prospering. See Gailey, A History, pp. 84-85.,

36. Ibid.,op. 72.

37. Ibid.

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38. Ibid. , p. 87.

39. Ibid. , p. 89.

40. Ibid. , p. 87.

4l. Ibid. , p. 97.

42. Munroe, p. 70. ,

43. Ibid. , p. 6 B.

44. Klein, "Economie Factors", p. 438. A1so exports of cotton seeds ~rom the United States and sesame seeds from Egypt cornpeted with Gambian peanut exports. Ibid.

45. See, for instance, Philip D. Curtin, Economie Change in Pre­Colonial Africa: Supp1ementary Evidence.

46. Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms, p. 178.

47. Ibid.

4 8. Ibid.

49. ,Ibid., p. 180. '~ambia and Senegal have recent1y establisbed sorne form of union between their two countries.

50. George Thomas 'Kurian, Encyclopedia 0l the Third World, Vol. 1. (New York, 19?8), p. 13.

51. Klein, "Econom~c Factors", p. 448.

52. Quinn, Mandingo Kingdoms, p. 181.

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Conclusion

The purpose of this thesis has been to examine sorne 'of the

factors that contributed to the Garnhian Jihad. This Jiha'd,

which begai in the Mandingo state of Baddibu and lasted fro~

1861 to 1867, caused the d~mise of one socio-political group and

the riS: to prominence of !another. Our thesis has attempted to

uncover forces that contributed to this process. Because the

conf1ict was part of an on-going process of "poli ticization" and

polarization of social groups in Séneg~ian society as a whole,

the conflict had to be viewed in a broader context. AIso, the

~ih;;:d had pol:itical implications beyond th\ bo'rders of the Gambia.

Thus, although the scope of our investigati~n was limited to the

study of the Mandingo states of the Gambia, \artiCUlarlY those

in the north/~~orne of the Wolof states of theSenegal were also "

treated albeit in a limited fashion; \ \ \

On the basis of our research, it is clear that the Gambian

Jihad cannot be understood'in terms of ~reductionist or rnono-

~al explanat~on. Rather, a number of factors were involved

and the exposition and elaboration of these const'tuted the

burden or thrust of oui thesis. In order to guide our research

we approached the problem on two levels. First, analyzed the

socio-economic developments in the region over a of

developrnents and the conflict in later times.

t,;irne in order to establish the relationship between hese 1 major

change, for exarnple, in the mode of production, the of

trade, or the basis of economic activity, was ied by a

restructuring of power relations in society. Clearly there were

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gainers and losers in this process. Second1y, we examined' . ,

c10sely the militant or reformist tradition in Seneg~ia in

order to explicate it, in so far as it accounted for the Jihad, ,

in terms of the radical or activist socio-political ethic

embedded in Islamic teachings and ideology. In short, our 1 1 l ' •

approach took into consideration both,material and idea1 factors.

For methodological purposes, the Gambian Jihad was studied ,

within the framework of a theory of revolution. According to

this theory, a revolution is the result of a long period of

'objective socio-economic development in which an aspiring class,

.in the interests of safeguarding its gains which the estabIjshed \,

class seeks-to deny or frustrate, turns revo1utionary in its

rnood. 1 And this is what happened in the Gambia. The shift in

economic activity from slave trade to peanut trade favoured the

Mu s IF' s as a social group. How~ver, Musl~ms, and also members of

ethn'c minority-groups~did not have Ian~ ownership rights and

coul not aspire to political leadership in the Mandingo states.

This was so despite the fact that Muslirns rendered educationa1,

medical and other services to these states. With their new1y

established econornic power Muslims presse~ further their

religious and political demands. Following our theory, we find

that by the second half of the nineteenth century Gambian society

was characterized by 1) a state of rising expectations, ')

2) increasing class and status antagonisms, 3) "alienization"

from political institutions, and 4) an attitude of intransigence

on the part of a politically inept ruling class that was not

willing to rnake any concessions. 2

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134

The Atlantic slave trade which began in earnest in the

sixteenth century and lasted for a number of centuries, had

serious consequences for Garnbian and Senegalese societies.

The beneficiaries of this trade were the ruling elite and the

warrior class, originally slaves of the crown but who attained

social mobility in a society where social mobility was rare.

What the slave trade did was to strength n and consolidate the

economic and political power base of the elite .. The

trade also led to increased violence. In words, the

introduction of European weaponry contributed to the heightening

of social ten~ions. We should remember that Gambian society

was highly stratified. Society was divided between the nobility,

who had many privileges such as the monopoly of political power

and access to the be'st lands and m~rnbers of thé' endogamous

b castes, including minority groups, whQ were excluded from certain •

economic and social rights. In such a society, slave trade- did

nothing but ~urther entrench social differentiation. With the JO.

abolition of slave trade, the economic and political power of the

ruling elite was undermined. This was accompanied by a new wave

of violence. The introduction and expansion of the peanut trade

shifted economic power from the ruling elite and the warrior

class in favour of the Muslims and other peanut growers. As a .

result the warrior class stepped up its pillaging of Huslirn

groups. The latter also began to acquire weapons as tensions in

society mounted. The ernergence of a religious movement and the

formation of military organizat!ons were the turning points in

the Marabout-Soninke conflict. By this tirne society had been 1

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135

polarized sufficiently for there to emerge two distinct groups

with determinaté boundaries and membership. The Muslims, who

now formed an effective counter-elite, began to attract

supporters into their ranks. This revealed the extent of the

~eaknesses of the traditional system which was undergoing a

process of decline. Wh~t's more, paganism itself had been r

undermined by Islam which, as a universal religion~provided a

powerful ideological alternative.

The preceding discussion has examined the sscio-economic ~

developments or mat~rial factors and the' extent to which they

contributed to the Gambian Jihad. No 40ubt material factors

pIayed a pivotaI role, but they do not alone explain the whole

situation. We -have discussed at length in Chapter three the -.' importance of the Islamic tradition of militancy which w~ highly

pronounced in the Senegambia region. In other words, the Garnbian

Jihad - as indeed other Jihads - can also be explained within the

wider context of the Islamic politico-military structure.

Muslims from the time of Muhammad have sought to change

institutions in society as a pre-condition for changing or

molding human character. t\fith this understanding, it is clear . .

that even if one could explain Jihad in terms of material

factors one would still have to make allowance for the ,fact that

in Islam moral and socio-economic requirements are regarded as

one. The fact that there is no Islamic moral or political order

'in place, no matter wh~t type of cleavages or tensions exist in

society, is sufficient reason, where other means have failed, to

wage Jihad.

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136

NOTES TO CONCLUSION

1. See James C. Davis, "Toward a theory", P_17. See also Crane Brinton, Anatomy of Revolution (New York: Vintage Boo~s, 1965). For a surnmary of theories of revolution, see Lawrence Stone, "Theories of Revolution",

'World Politics 18: 2 (January l~66) i l59-l76.

2. Brinton, p. 32. These are Brinton's observations with regard to the English, American, French and Russian Revolutions. '

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APPENDIX II

,;

Total ImEorts and Ex~orts For Selected Years

" Imports in Pounds Sterling Exports in pounds Sterling

1840 105,441 124,588

1841 96, 70 8 144,611

1842 111,154 146,939

1843 85,828 108,404

1844 96,153 156,753

1845 119,187 154,801

1846 95,403 164,846 ,

1847 90,706 178,090

1848 68,960 152,082 ,,.

l849 ------- 102,802

1850 ------- 142,366

1854 126,454 215,803

1866 108,190 158,370 " 1882 174,000 255,000

1886 69,000 79,000

1892 170,000 172,000 "

Source: Franci's Bisset Archer, The Gambia C010ny and Protectorate (Frank Cass & Co.Ltd., 1967), p. 45. ~

(a) The figures for the period 1849 onwards have been obtained from" pages 77 ,and 86. {

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