History of the Gambia

It is possible that the Carthaginian explorer Hanno the Navigator sailed as far as the Gambia on an expedition in the sixth or fifth century BC.

The first verifiable written accounts of the region come from records of Arab traders in the 9th and 10th centuries AD. In medieval times the area was dominated by the trans-Saharan trade. The Mali Empire, most renowned for the Mandinka ruler Mansa Kankan Musa, brought worldwide recognition to the region due to its enormous wealth, scholarship, and civility. From the early 13th century, the Kouroukan Fouga, Mali's constitution, was the law of the land. The North African scholar and traveller Ibn Battuta visited the area in 1352 and said about its inhabitants:

The negroes possess some admirable qualities. They are seldom unjust, and have a greater abhorrence of injustice than any other people. There is complete security in their country. Neither traveler nor inhabitant in it has anything to fear from robbers or men of violence.

The Songhai Empire, named after the Songhai people whose king assumed formal control of the Empire, came to dominate the region in the 16th century.

As time went on the area began to suffer from continuous Arabic and Portuguese invasion and looting. By the end of the 16th century, as the raids continued, the empire collapsed and was claimed by Portugal. The name Gambia comes from the Portugues word for trade, cambio.

In the late 16th century the British started travelling to the river Gambia, and in 1588 English merchants purchased from the Portuguese the exclusive right to trade between the rivers Senegal and Gambia. The transaction was confirmed for a period of ten years by Letters Patent issued by Queen Elizabeth I. Letters Patent conferring exclusive trading rights in the River Gambia were granted in 1598, 1618 and 1632.

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