James Island

Over parts of three centuries it was occupied by Portuguese, Dutch, French and British.
It changed hands often, more than once between the French and British.
It was first called St. Andrews Island and then St. Andrews Fort by the Portuguese.
French renamed it St. James and it stayed James with the British.
In the center of the river, it was considered a strategic location by all.

HISTORY OF JAMES ISLAND (1456-1860)   

1456 Luiz de Cadamosto and Antonioto Usodimare sailed up The Gambia River as far as Baddidu.  On their way they discovered a small island in the middle of the river "shaped like a smoothing iron".  While they were there one of their sailors, a man named Andrew, died and they buried him on the island, naming it St Andrew's island after him

The Portuguese, like the English and the French who followed them into the river, were looking for a way to the interior of Africa, a way to riches of the fabled empire of Mali and even to the Nile River.  The Gambia was for long considered to be one of the main highways into the heart of Africa.  

1651 In an attempt to establish an empire, the Duke of Courland began building a fort St. Andrew's Island after acquiring it from the ruler of Niumi.  At the same time he also bought from Niumi a small plot of land at Juffure, on the north bank opposite St. Andrew's Island.  During the next few years Courland become involved in a war between Sweden and Poland and was unable to supply the Island.

European trading companies established forts to protect their traders from the indigenous population and pirates as well as to defend their claims to trading monopoly form the encroachments of other traders and other nations.

Juffure us an old town in Niumi, predating the 17^th Century.  From the time Europens first occupied the Island until the time they abandoned it in the 19^th century, Juffure served as the chief trans-shipping post from the mainland to the Island.  The economy of Juffure was tied to the fortunes of the occupants of St. Andrew's Island and the inhabitants took care to remain on good terms with the Island dwellers.

1661 The Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa was chartered and given a trading monopoly in West Africa  by Charles II.  During that same year the English

 seized the Courlander fort on St. Andrew's Island under the pretext that it was a

 Dutch Island, England being at war with Holland at this time.  It was renamed  James Island after James Duke of York, who was interested in the Royal Adventurers.

1672 The Royal Adventurers went bankrupt and the  Royal African Company took over their holdings.  The RAC made made James Island the base of their operations.  The Chief Factor was in command of a small garrison and a small staff of civilian traders.  Sub-factories were stationed at various places up and down the river for the next 100 years, the main sub-factories included MacCarthy Island, Barrakunda Falls, Banyon Point (Banjul Island, Bintang and Juffure.

1681 The French obtained a grant of land at Albreda from the ruler of Niumi.  In the 1630's St. Louis had been founded and Senegal had been recognized as a French colony.  The Senegal Company, successor of two other companies, had several trading stations in the interior  of Senegal and along the Senegal River.  From 1681 until the French ceded Albreda to the British in the 19^th century, this trading station proved to be a thorn in the side of the British, who were unable to exclude the French in peace time because their right was guaranteed by treaty; and they were unable to exclude them in wartime because they lacked the money and the manpower. The history of French and English trade in The Gambia River reflects the history of their relations in Europe.  War at home meant War in the farthest reaches of their trading empires; peace at home meant armed true elsewhere and intense efforts to curry the favour of the local population in order to obtain their exclusive trade.

1689-1697 King William's War

In the first year of the war, the factor at James Island led a successful expedition against Albreda and some of the interior French factories.  A few years later the French seized James Island without a shot being fired in resistance because it was undermanned and short of food.  They destroyed the walls and bastions and either destroyed or spiked the guns. Neither the RAC nor the Senegal Company made any attempt to re-establish their trade until after the war. In 1697 the Treaty of Ryswich returned the affairs in Senegal and Gambia to the status quo ante bellum .  The RAC rebuilt James Fort immediately.

1698 The RAC lost its monopoly in trade in The Gambia and was forced to share the trade with other English traders.  Nevertheless Parliament continued to require them to maintain their forts and buildings.  In return for this service they were supposed to get ten percent of other traders' profits, but this tax was often evaded.

1703 - 1713 War of the Spanish Succession

During the course of this long war the French seized and plundered James Island several times.  Each time the fort was ransomed back by RAC officials.

The French and English Companies tried to agree to make The Gambia and Senegal neutral zones, but their governments would not allow them to maintain this agreement.

In 1708 the garrison at James Island mutined because of discontent over bad conditions arising from the disruption of trade and consequent lack of suplies from England.  The following year, those few still left on the Island gave up, spiked the guns and left, some of them disappeared; some contined to eke out a living by trading with the few goods that were left until the end of the war.

In 1717 the Treaty of Utrecht left the Status quo ante bellum in north-west Africa.  The RAC decided to rebuild the fort. But they were no longer receiving their ten percent tax and had trouble supplying the fort.  It was finally re-occupied in 1717.

1719 Pirates seized the Island after some resistance and carried off all the goods and slaves.

1720 - 1729 Periodic English-French trading quarrels led to raids and counter-raids on each other's factories.

1725 The powder magazine at James Island accidentally exploded,  killing eleven of the nineteen Europeans on the Island and destroying much of the fort.

1745 -1748 War of the Austrian Succession

In 1745 Albreda was destroyed and not rebuilt until the Treaty of Aiz-la Chappelle in 1748.

1750 -1752 Due to increasing shortage of funds, the Royal African Company was no

longer able to support its obligations in Gambia.  A new Company of Merchants Trading to Africa was formed, controlled by an executive committee of merchants.  James Fort still remained as headquarters.  However, the Royal African Company was not formally divested of its charter until 1752; and the resulting interim confusion further weakened English trade.  The French at Albreda took advantage of this lapse to secure a virtual monopoly of trade while turning the rulers of Niumi against the English.  Some minor skirmishes took place on the river.

1756 - 1763 Seven Year's War

 James Fort was able to bear off some French privateers with the help of some British Ships in spite of being undermanned and in bad repair.  A year later a British landing party bombarded and burned Albreda in spite of determined resistance by the inhabitants.

 The Treaty of Paris in 1763 handed all of the Senegal, except for Goree Island, over to the British.  But the position of the French in The Gambia was not touched by the Treaty; so the French reoccupied Albreda.

1764 - 1765 As usual there was a great deal of friction and mutual bluffing between the English at James Island and the French at Albreda.  For example a British landing party was driven out of Albrda after a scuffle with local inhabitants.  The French finally withdraw their guns from Albreda and relations became a bit easier.

1765 - 1783 The Province of Senegambia was created

 The English decided to combine the government of their new possession, Senegal, with that of Gambia.  The River Gambia was placed under a Lt. Governor, headquartered at James Island.  He was directly responsible to the Governor at St. Louis or the Senegal River.

This whole period was marked by a series of clashes between French and English traders or their servants.  The people of Niumi, especially the inhabitants of Albreda, were continuously being drawn into their quarrels because of their adherence to the French.  The situation was aggrivated by the inability of the Governor and the Lt. Governor to get along.

In 1768 one of the worst of many clashes between James Island and the inhabitants of Albreda took place after the British seized a Niumi interpreter and he died under mysterious circumstances of James Island.  Five hundred Niumi men in 20 canoes attacked the Island, and were barely beaten off by the poorly prepared and poorly disciplined inhabitants of the fort.  Relations were back to "normal" by the next year however.

1771 Albreda was in a very low state due to the English success in keeping the French from the upper river and the bankruptcy of the French East India Company.

1776 - 1783 War of American Independence

In 1778 the French declared war on England and almost immediately captured Goree and St. Louis.  The next year James Island, as always under supplied, surrendered without firing a shot; and the French destroyed the fort with a few barrels of power.

The British continued to trade in the river and to fight with French privateers until the end of the war.  But from this date onward James Island ceased to figure in Gambian history.

In 1783 the Treaty of Versailles returned Senegal to the French, who also retained their right to Albreda.  England retained James Island and The Gambia River was given the additional right to trade in guns at Portendic.

1793 - 1814 The Napoleonic War

During the Napoleonic wars, French privateers periodically harrassed British shipping in The Gambia, and Albreda was abandoned.

In 1808 the slave trade was abolished by England.

The 1814 Treaty of Paris gave the French the right to resettle Albreda and re-affirmed England's right to share the gun trade at Portendic.

1816 After the Napoleonic wars, James Island was considered again as a place to establish British headquarters, but it was in ruins and prohibitively expensive to rebuild.  Moreover, it was thought that a fort on the mouth of the river might be more strategically placed to make sure that no more slaves were shipped out particularly since Albreda was still active in the slave trade.  Therefore the English bought Banjul Island from the ruler of kombo, and the town of Bathurst was built.  James Island was abandoned permanently.

1857 The French finally renounced the right to Albreda in return for British renunciation

 of the Portendic trade.

 Since 1814 neither side had been able to benefit very much from its rights because of the obstructionism of the other.  The amount of ill feeling caused by being in each other's sphere of influence more than out weighed what little economic advantage there was.