The city of Banjul has its own form of local government. The rest of the country is divided for administrative purposes into five Divisions each with a Commis sioner. The Divisions are sub-divided into Districts. The growth of representative local government is being fostered by gradually increasing the responsibilities of Area Councils, of which there are six. The names of these administrative units (with their headquarter towns indicated within brackets) and their populations at the last census in 1973 are:

There is also an Assistant Commissioner situated at Kerewan for the North Bank section of the Lower River Division.

There are a number of tribes, the most important being the Mandingo; Fula; Woloff; Jola; and Serahuli.

In Banjul the Woloffs form the largest element. An influential community is that of the Akus, mainly descended from detribalized Africans liberated in the early nineteenth century during the campaign against the slave trade. The official language is English and all State education, both at primary and secondary level, is in English, but each tribe has its own language. The principal vernacular languages are Mandinka and Woloff. There are numerous Muslim schools in which Arabic is taught for the better understanding of the Koran. The Christian Mission schools are Anglican, Methodist and Roman Catholic. There are relatively few Christians outside the Banjul area, and in the Provinces most people are Muslim although some sections of the population retain their original animist beliefs.

There are 94 Primary Schools with an enrolment figure, for the 1974-75 school year, of 22,629 of whom 7,430 are girls. Secondary education is provided by:

(a) 3 Senior Secondary Schools in Banjul, one in Kombo St Mary and one in Georgetown-total enrolment 1,591 including 424 girls.

(b) 17 Junior Secendary Schools going up to Form 4 of which 4 are in Banjul— total enrolment 4,200 including 1,140 girls.

Yundum College trains teachers and agricultural assistants. There are 99 students engaged in teacher training (68 men, 31 women). There are 2 vocational training institutions, one in Banjul and the other in Lamin-total enrolment 196, including 11 girls.

The principal sea port at Banjul has two Government-owned wharves for ocean-going vessels and a number of private jetties used mainly for the river trade. In 1974 328 ocean-going ships, trawlers and yachts of a net registered tonnage of 568,000 tons called there.

Banjul Airport is at Yundum 17 miles from the centre; the main runway is 7,300 feet long. Internal communications are by road and river. There are

approximately 790 miles of motorable roads, of which 330 rank as all-seasons. There is no railway. Gambia Airways is a handling agency but owns no aircraft. Banjul port is served principally by ships of Elder Dempster Lines and other lines of the West African Shipping Conference (Palm Line, Guinea Gulf, Hoegh Line and Nigeria and Ghana national lines). Airlines flying scheduled services to Yundum Airport are British Caledonian, Nigeria Airways and Air Senegal and Ghana Airways.

The Gambian Broadcasting Service opened in 1962 and is known as Radio Gambia. There is also a commercial broadcasting station called Radio Syd. Well over 90 per cent of exports from The Gambia consists of groundnut products. The following table shows the exports during 1973/74.

Imports in 1973-74 were valued at D63,495,000. In addition to groundnuts, Gambia farmers grow sorghum, millet and rice, the latter having now superseded millet in most of The Gambia as the principal crop for local consumption.

The Government financial year runs from July to June. The budget of the 1974-75 financial year proposed an expenditure of £5.98m and revenue of £5.92m, the balance to be made up by surpluses from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The Development Programme to cover the year 1st July 1974 to 30th June 1975 proposes expenditure of up to £3.95 million, of which aid from Britain will account for £1.41 million in the form of an interest-free loan repayable over 25 years. In the current Development Programme emphasis is being laid on agricultural, health and education.

The Gambia Government contributes towards the following Commonwealth Institutions:

The Rothamstead Experimental Station

The Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau and Associated Activities

The Committee of Information Phytosanitary Convention

The Commonwealth Forestry Association

The International African Migratory Locust Organisation

The West African Institute of Oil Palm Research

The United Nations Desert Locust Project

The Tropical Diseases Bureau

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

The British Leprosy Relief Association

The British Tuberculosis Association

The Commonwealth Broadcasting Conference

The Gambia's National Day is on 18th February, Independence Day.

HISTORY

The banks of the Gambia River have been inhabited for many centuries and a number of stone circles of ancient origin exist, but there is insufficient archaeological or written evidence to throw much light on the early history of the country.

During the fifth to eighth centuries A.D. most of the Sene-Gambian area was part of the empire of Ghana, whose rulers were of the Serahuli tribe, still strongly represented in The Gambia, and had their seat north of the Upper Niger (not in the country now known as ‘Ghana', of which only a small sector was an outlying part of the empire). The Ghana empire was gradually superseded by the kingdom of the Songhais, based on the bend of the Niger south of Timbuktu. The Songhai rulers were also of the Serahuli tribe. They became Muslims and vigorously promoted Islam.

About the thirteenth century A.D. tribes of Mandingo and Susus from the Futa Jallon plateau of Guinea shook off Songhai rule and established themselves in what is now Mali, from Bamako to Timbuktu. They assumed overlordship over the whole Gambia basin. What is now The Gambia was then probably mainly inhabited by Woloffs on the north bank and by Jolas on the south bank. The Mali rulers' names, Keita and Sonko, are still prominent names among Gambian Mandingos.

The Mali empire declined by about A.D. 1500 and its Mandingo leaders retired to their former lands in Futa Jallon, but they held influence over The Gambia as recently as the early eighteenth century. Later in that century the area was 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 the 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 to 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 the 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 any further enterprise in The 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 Banjul. Settlers, merchants and missionaries were sent out by Courland and forts were erected.

After the Restoration, English interest in The 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 the 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 the 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 The Gambia. After further fighting St Louis and Gorée were handed back to France in 1783 and Senegambia ceased to exist as a British Colony. The 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 The 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 (now Banjul) after the then Secretary of State for the Colonies. In 1821 The 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 The Gambia and Sierra Leone were united under a single administration until 1888.

Groundnuts first appear as an export from Banjul 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 The 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 The Gambia for territory further down the coast, but the proposal aroused such opposition in England and in The Gambia that it was decided to drop the scheme. The modern history of The 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 The 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 The Gambia was brought under the 'protectorate system' except Banjul and Kombo St Mary, which continued to be termed the 'Colony'. Between 1902 and the end of the war in 1945 the history of The 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.