penetrated by Fula invaders, whose ancestors had come from North Africa and who went on to found the Emirates of Northern Nigeria.

The first Europeans to visit the River Gambia were a Venetian and a Genoese, commissioned by Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal to lead an expedition along the African coast to the south of Cape Verde. They arrived in the River Gambia in 1455, but only proceeded a short way upstream. In the following year they proceeded farther up the river and got in touch with some of the native chiefs. When they were near the river's mouth 'they cast anchor at an island in the shape of a smoothing iron, where one of the sailors, who had died of fever, was buried. As his name was Andrew, being well loved, they gave the island the name of St Andrew'. For some three centuries afterwards the history of the European occupation of the Gambia was largely the history of this island.

This discovery was followed by attempts on the part of the Portuguese at settlement along the river banks. The number of settlers never appears at any time to have been large and such few as there were intermarried with the African races. The European strain in their descendants rapidly diminished, but Christian communities of Portuguese descent continued to live on the banks of the Gambia in separate villages well into the middle of the eighteenth century.

In 1580 a number of Portuguese took refuge in England, one of whom piloted two English ships to Gambia and returned with a profitable cargo of hides and ivory in 1587. Thereafter certain London and Devon merchants purchased the exclusive right to trade between the Rivers Senegal and Gambia; this grant was confirmed to the grantees for a period of 10 years by letters patent of Queen Elizabeth. The patentees reported that the Gambia was a river of secret trade and riches, concealed by the Portuguese. In 1612 another attempt by the French to settle in the Gambia ended disastrously owing to sickness and mortality.

Letters patent were subsequently granted other adventurers, but no attempt was made by the English to explore the river until 1618. The expedition in that year had for its objective the opening of trade with Timbuktu. Leaving his ship in the estuary the commander proceeded with a small party in boats. During his absence the crew of his ship were massacred by the Portuguese, but some of the party managed on their return to make their way overland to Cape Verde and thence to England. In the meantime a relief expedition had been sent out under command of Richard Jobson, who gave a glowing account of the commercial potentialities of the River Gambia in his Golden Trade. But his expedition had resulted in considerable losses and a subsequent voyage, which he made in 1624, proved a complete failure. The patentees made no further attempt to exploit the resources of the Gambia.

In 1651 Cromwell granted a patent to certain London merchants who established a trading post at Bintang. Members of the expedition proceeded as far as the Barokunda Falls in search of gold, but Prince Rupert entered the Gambia with three Royalist ships and captured the patentees' vessels. After this heavy loss the patentees abandoned further enterprise in Gambia.

In the meantime, James, Duke of Courland had obtained from various chiefs the cession of St Andrew's Island and land which is now the Half-Die quarter of Bathurst. Settlers, merchants and missionaries were sent out by Courland and forts were erected.

After the Restoration, English interest in Gambia was revived as the result of information which Prince Rupert had obtained in 1652 regarding the reputed existence of gold. A new patent was granted to a number of persons, who were

styled the 'Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa' and of whom the most prominent were James, Duke of York and Prince Rupert. The Adventurers sent an expedition to Gambia which arrived in the river at the beginning of 1661. It occupied what is now 'Dog Island' and erected a temporary fort there. This expedition seized St Andrew's Island from the Courlanders and gave it the name of James Island, which it retains.

In 1677 the French seized the island of Gorée near Dakar, and the history of the next century and a half is the history of a continuous struggle between England and France for political and commercial supremacy in the regions of the Senegal and Gambia. By 1681 the French had acquired a small enclave at Albreda opposite James Island. Except for short periods, during which trouble with the natives of Barra or hostilities with England compelled them temporarily to abandon the place, they retained their foothold there until 1857.

In the wars with France James Fort was captured on four occasions by the French, namely, 1695, 1702, 1704 and 1708, but no attempt was made by them to occupy the fort permanently. At the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 they recognised the right of the English to James Island and their settlements in the River Gambia. In 1779 the French captured James Fort for the fifth and last time. They so successfully demolished the fortifications that at the close of the war it was found impossible to rebuild them, and thereafter James Island ceased to play any part in the history of Gambia. After further fighting St Louis and Gorée were handed back to France in 1783 and Senegambia ceased to exist as a British Colony. Gambia was once more entrusted to the care of the African Company which, however, made no attempt to administer it.

When the African slave trade was abolished by Act of Parliament in 1807, the British were in possession of Gorée. With the co-operation of the Royal Navy, the garrison of that fort made strenuous efforts to suppress the traffic in the River Gambia which was being carried on by American and Spanish vessels, but the slavers offered stubborn resistance.

At the close of the Napoleonic Wars Gorée was returned to France. On the recommendation of Sir Charles MacCarthy and in order to suppress the traffic in slaves, Captain Alexander Grant of the African Corps was despatched to establish a military post in Gambia. James Island was found to be unsuitable, and on 23rd April 1816 Grant entered into a treaty with the Chief of Kombo for the cession of the island of Banjul. It was renamed St Mary's Island, and the settlement, which was established there, was called Bathurst after the then Secretary of State for the Colonies. In 1821 Gambia was placed under the Government of Sierra Leone and was administered from Freetown until 1843, when it was created a separate colony. Again in 1866 Gambia and Sierra Leone were united under a single administration until 1888.

Groundnuts first appear as an export from Bathurst in 1835. Thereafter they rapidly replaced the beeswax, ivory and skins, which had hitherto formed the main items of external trade.

From the late eighteenth century and throughout the early and middle nineteenth century there was bitter and protracted religious dissension in the rural areas, cutting across tribal groups, between the Marabouts, strict followers of Islam, and the Soninkis, who were not prepared to abjure animist customs and liquor. As a consequence of this civil strife various chiefs sought protection from the British established at Bathurst and treaties between the British and the chiefs were concluded. In 1826 a strip along the north bank of the River opposite

Bathurst was ceded to Britain by the Chief of Barra. In 1823 Grant had acquired Lemain Island, about 170 miles up the River, to be made into a settlement for liberated African slaves. He renamed it MacCarthy Island and it became the headquarters of a Wesleyan Mission. In 1840 and 1853 areas of the mainland adjoining St Mary's Island were obtained from the Chief of Kombo for the settlement of discharged soldiers of the West India Regiment and of liberated Africans. In 1857 Albreda, the French enclave in Gambia which had proved a constant source of friction, was handed over to Britain in return for concessions up the coast. The British Government was at this period desiring to reduce its liabilities and consolidate its areas of influence in West Africa. In 1870, and again in 1876, it entered into negotiations with the French for the exchange of Gambia for territory further down the coast, but the proposal aroused such opposition in England and in Gambia that it was decided to drop the scheme.

The modern history of Gambia dates from 1888, when the administration was once again separated from Sierra Leone and a Gambia legislature was established. In the following year delimitation of the boundaries between Gambia and Senegal was put in hand. For several years thereafter much of the country was unsettled but gradually the Government negotiated treaties of British protection with all the principal chiefs along the River. The last, and most important, was the treaty concluded in 1901 with Musa Mullah, Chief of Fulladu. Thereby it became possible to pass the Protectorate Ordinance of 1902, under which the whole of Gambia was brought under the 'protectorate system' except Bathurst and Kombo St Mary, which continued to be termed the 'Colony'. Between 1902 and the end of the war in 1945 the history of Gambia was uneventful. There were years of booming trade during and directly after the 1914-18 war and a period of deep depression during the 1930s, but the general picture was one of political tranquillity and very gentle economic advance. The pattern of the single cash crop, the busy 'trade season', and the wet season, slack in business but devoted to farming, soon became established and has remained very much unchanged ever since.

CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

When the small British settlements on the Gambia River were again formed into a separate Colony in 1888, the usual form of Crown Colony government was set up, with an Executive Council and a Legislative Council. The Executive Council consisted of the Administrator and three other officials; the Legislative Council consisted of the Administrator as President, the three other members of the Executive Council and two nominated unofficial members. In 1893, after the creation of an administration in the Protectorate, the Legislative Council of the Colony was empowered to make rules by Ordinance for the government of the Protectorate, subject to the understanding, as expressed in the Protectorate Ordinance of 1894, that ‘all native laws and customs in force in the Protected Territories which are not repugnant to natural justice nor incompatible with any laws of the Colony which applies to the Protectorate shall have the same effect as regulations' made under Colony Ordinances. However the Protectorate did not at first have any representative on the Legislative Council.

The title of 'Administrator' was changed to that of 'Governor' in 1901. By 1902 the only settlement remaining under direct Crown Colony government was the Island of St Mary, of about five square miles; the remaining territories of what was then known as the Colony being administered under the Protectorate

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system together with the rest of the Protectorate. In 1915 the Legislative Council was enlarged, there being in addition to the Governor, four officials and three nominated unofficial members one of whom was to be a person to represent the business community and the other two were to be African Christians from Bathurst. In 1921 one of the latter was replaced by an African Muslim. In 1932 the Council was further enlarged by the inclusion of an African member nominated by the Bathurst Urban District Council (formed in 1931) and by the inclusion also, of one of the Commissioners from the Protectorate. Thus the Protectorate was represented for the first time on the Council. Until the end of the 1939/45 war, the Legislative Council continued to consist of the Governor, the Colonial Secretary, five official members (one of whom was a Commissioner from the Protectorate), and four unofficial members.

Under a new Constitution agreed in 1946 the principle of election was introduced for the first time, the Legislative Council consisting of the Governor, the Colonial Secretary, three official members, six unofficial nominated members and one elected member to represent Bathurst and Kombo St Mary which now together formed the Colony for administrative purposes. Of the six unofficial members, two were to represent the Colony and four the Protectorate. There was thus an unofficial majority. In 1947 the membership of the Executive Council was also enlarged to consist of the official members of the Legislative Council and three nominated unofficial members, of whom one was normally the elected member for the Colony. A second elected member was added in 1951. The first Gambian political party, the Democratic Party, was formed in 1951 by the Reverend John C. Faye, and two others, the Muslim Congress Party and P. S. N'Jie's United Party, in 1952. In May 1953 the Governor invited thirtyfour leading members of the community to meet to consider proposals for a new constitution; and from this resulted the constitution of 1954. Under this the Legislative Council was composed of the Governor, five ex officio members, two nominated unofficial members, seven elected members from the Colony (four directly and three indirectly) and seven elected members from the Protectorate, four of these being chosen by the Divisional Councils and three by the Chiefs. For the first time there was also an unofficial majority on the Executive Council, and three of the six unofficial members were appointed to act as Members to head Ministries.

There was criticism of this constitution because it gave too much power to the District Commissioners and chiefs of the Protectorate; and in 1959 representatives of the political parties made proposals which resulted in the 1959 Constitution which came into operation in 1960. The Legislative Council was replaced by a House of Representatives of thirty-four persons, with four ex officio members, three nominated members, seven directly elected members from the Colony, twelve directly elected members from the Protectorate and eight representatives of the Chiefs. There was an elected Speaker and Deputy Speaker. At the same time all six of the unofficial members of the Executive Council were given Ministerial posts. The elections which took place in May 1960 saw the rise of the Progressive People's Party under the leadership of D. K. (now Sir David) Jawara. Dissatisfaction with the continuing influence of the chiefs, and also with the appointment by the Governor of P. S. N'Jie as Chief Minister in 1961, resulted in the Secretary of State agreeing to further constitutional changes and these came into operation in April 1962. The office of Premier was created, and the Executive Council consisted of the Governor as Chairman, the Premier and eight other

Ministers. The House of Representatives had seven elected members from the Colony and twenty-five from the Protectorate, two members nominated by the Governor after consultation with the Premier (without voting rights), the Attorney-General (also without voting rights) and four members elected by the Chiefs. Finally, under the Gambia (Constitution) (Amendment) Order in Council 1963, Gambia attained full internal self-government on 4th October 1963. The Governor withdrew from the Executive Council which became a Cabinet with a Prime Minister and eight other Ministers.

CONSTITUTION

The Gambia Independence Act, 1964, laid down that on and after 18th February 1965 all those territories which had been comprised in the Colony of the Gambia or in the Protectorate of the Gambia should form part of the independent sovereign country of The Gambia. The Constitution of The Gambia is set out in The Gambia Independence Order 1965. It provided for a Parliament consisting of Her Majesty The Queen, who was represented in The Gambia by a Governor-General appointed by her, and of a House of Representatives. In April 1970 a national Referendum was held on whether to accept a new style Republican Constitution. This constitution had been adopted by Parliament in December by 27 votes to 5. The result of the referendum was 84,968 for and 35,638 against, thus giving Sir Dawda Jawara's government the mandate. The main difference in the new Constitution is the creation of a post of President, replacing the Governor-General; a Vice-President is also allowed for.

The House of Representatives consists of a Speaker and the following other members; 32 members, who are known as "elected members" and who are elected on the basis of universal adult suffrage in 32 single-member constituencies whose boundaries are prescribed by a Constituency Boundaries Commission to contain as nearly equal numbers of inhabitants as the Commission deems practicable; four members who are elected by the Head Chiefs from among their own number by secret vote and who are known as Chiefs' Representative Members; the Attorney-General; and three members who are known as “nominated members" and who are appointed by the President; but these three nominated members do not have a vote. Members must have attained the age of 21 years, and be able to speak English well enough to take part in the proceedings of the House, which are conducted in that language. All except the nominated members must be citizens of The Gambia. Certain persons are debarred from membership, as for example, persons of unsound mind and those who owe allegiance to a foreign power or state, those who are undischarged bankrupts and those who are serving or who have within five years of the date of their nomination or appointment completed serving a sentence of imprisonment for a term of six months or more. The Speaker of the House of Representatives is elected from among the members of the House or from persons who are qualified to be elected as members; and when elected from among the former, the Speaker must vacate his seat in the House. The Speaker has neither an original nor a casting vote. A voting member must vacate his seat in the House, if in the case of an elected member, he ceases to be registered as a voter in elections of elected members to the House of Representatives or he ceases to be qualified to vote in such election; in the case of a Chiefs' Representative Member, he ceases to be a Head Chief; or, in the case of the Attorney-General, if he is not an elected member, if he is removed from office.