Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Senegal and The Gambia

Starting point is 00:00:00 Nestled in the heart of West Africa lie two nations with distinct identities, yet tied together by a common geography in history, Senegal and the Gambia. The landscape of this region wasn't always as fragmented as it is now. It wasn't until the 19th century that it was carved into the separate entities that we recognize today, a division that's persisted into contemporary times. Efforts have been made to bridge the divide, but the boundary between these two countries still presents challenges. Learn more about the fascinating story.

Starting point is 00:00:30 of Senegal and the Gambia and how their odd border came to be on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. If you just take a look at the map of Senegal and the Gambia, you'll instantly know that something is out of place.

Starting point is 00:01:22 Without any knowledge of the history of the region, your intuition will tell you, just by looking at the borders of the two countries, that something is not right. And if you're not familiar with the region, I've included a map of Senegal and the Gambia in the artwork for this episode, so you can see what I'm talking about

Starting point is 00:01:38 by just looking at your podcast player. Senegal completely surrounds the Gambia, save for a small section near the coastline. It's as if someone jammed a country inside to Senegal. I've heard it described that if Senegal were a mouth, the Gambia would be the tongue. At its narrowest point, the Gambia is only 20 kilometers or 12 miles wide. It is the smallest country on the continent of Africa. I've covered many small countries in previous episodes, so I'm not unaccustomed to them.

Starting point is 00:02:10 But even by the standards of small countries, the Gambia is odd. It's also very inconvenient for Senegal to have an entire independent country stuck in the middle of it. A simple trip that might take 30 minutes would require either two international border crossings or driving hours out of your way to go around the country. Normally when I do an episode about a country, I talk about a single country. But it's impossible to talk about either Senegal or the Gambia without talking about the other. So for this episode, they will get the double treatment. The collective region of Senegal and the Gambia is known as Senegambia.

Starting point is 00:02:50 It's both a historical term and a geographic term. The region of Senegambia refers to the two countries today, but traditionally refer to the region from the Senegal River in the north, down to the Gambia River in the south. However, there are also some who have defined the region as being even broader all the way down to Sierra Leone. It is the westernmost point in the African continent, and the first evidence of humans in the region date back almost three

Starting point is 00:03:14 150,000 years. There's ample evidence of ancient human activity in the region, most notably the Senegambian stone circles. The stone circles are in four major areas consisting of 29,000 stones, 17,000 monuments, and 2,000 individual sites. The Senegambian stone circles, located in both Senegal and the Gambia, is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The region was historically part of various Western African empires, including the Ghana-Modon. and Songhai empires. Much of the wealth of the region came from trade with the interior of the Sahara, much of which was transported on the Senegal and Gambia rivers, some of the only westward flowing rivers in the region. The Senegambia is located in the Sahel, which is the

Starting point is 00:04:01 arid region just south of the Sahara. It's arid, but it's not a desert. Unlike much of the Sahel, however, it does have a rainy season due to its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. One of the first profound changes to the region came in the 11th century with the arrival of Islam. The first converts to Islam were the Tukalore people of the Senegal River Valley. They're part of the greater Fulah ethnic group that live in the region. Islam was brought to the region by Berber and Toreg traders who came from North Africa as part of the Trans-Sahara trade routes. One of the primary forces of spreading Islam was the creation of Sufi brotherhoods in the

Starting point is 00:04:37 19th century. They successfully integrated Islamic practices with local traditions, contributing to a distinctive form of Islam that's found in Senegal and the Gambia. Everything I just mentioned is important background to understanding the region, but it doesn't explain the current situation with the borders between the two countries. That, not surprisingly, has to do with the arrival of the Europeans. The first Europeans to visit the region were actually the Portuguese, who had sailed down the west coast of Africa in an attempt to sail around Africa to get to India in the 16th century.

Starting point is 00:05:09 The Portuguese began the West African slave trade, which came to dominate. the region over the next several centuries. Eventually other European powers, such as the Dutch, British, and French attempted to establish a presence in the region. The French established their headquarters on St. Louis Island in what is today Senegal. Both the Portuguese and the French actually had a limited presence in the region with regards to the amount of land they actually controlled. Well into the 19th century, Europeans were mostly limited to islands that they controlled, which were often given to them by local rulers. With these islands, such as, Gory Island and St. Louis Island, slaves would be loaded onto ships that would then be taken to

Starting point is 00:05:48 the Americas. Starting in the later half of the 18th century, Europeans began to not be satisfied with just controlling islands off the coast. They wanted to control more of the interior. The French ended up controlling the Senegal River, which is currently located on the border of Senegal and Mauritania and flows all the way into Mali. As I mentioned, there are very few rivers in this part of West Africa, so being able to control a river was of strategic. importance. The rivers allowed for easy access to the interior of Africa, so they were highly prized. The British wanted in on the action, so they established a presence along the Gambia River further to the south. By 1828, the British controlled the river itself via gumboats and a one-mile-long

Starting point is 00:06:31 strip along the north bank of the river that was given to them by a local king. During the 1860s and 1870s, there was talk of a land swap between the British and French to unify the Senegambia region. The French would get the Gambia and the British would get some other French possession in Africa in exchange. After much discussion, the exchange never happened. As France began directly controlling more territory inland in Africa, the British responded by making the area under its control, that being the river and the banks on both sides, a colony in 1888. The French had always recognized British control over the Gambia River, and the British likewise recognized French control of the land outside.

Starting point is 00:07:12 of it. The question was, where exactly was the border between them to be drawn? The joint Anglo-French boundary commission was established, and a survey team arrived in the area in 1891. The border that they drew paid no attention to political and cultural realities on the ground. Many of the local rulers had their domain split between British and French control. There's a story that is always told that the border was determined by how far British ships on the river could fire a cannon onto either bank. That story is not true, but there may have been cannons fired from ships as warning shots. The end of result was a British colony along the Gambia River, with a strip of land along either bank,

Starting point is 00:07:54 ranging from about 5 to 10 miles from the river. The entire colony was 11,300 square kilometers or 4,400 square miles. By comparison, it's smaller than Connecticut, but larger than Delaware. English became the official language in British Gambia, while French was spoken in surrounding Senegal. Now fast forward to 1959. Decolonization is in full swing for British and French colonies. Senegal was merged into the Mali Federation,

Starting point is 00:08:24 which was a union of Senegal and Mali. The union was short-lived, and on August 20, 1960, both Mali and Senegal declared independence. In 1965, the Gambia achieved independence from Great Britain. The Gambia was initially part of the Commonwealth with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state, but it became a Republican 1970 after a referendum. And here I should note that the country's official name is the Republic of the Gambia. The word the is actually part of the formal and informal name of the country.

Starting point is 00:08:58 It is not called Gambia. While the countries were now independent, the problem of one country inside the other still existed. For example, Senegal had very strict trade policy, which favored French goods. The Gambia, on the other hand, had a very open trade policy with almost no tariffs. The end result was a large amount of black market activity with cheap goods being smuggled from the Gambia into Senegal. Steps were taken to solve this problem in the early 1980s.

Starting point is 00:09:27 In 1981, a coup attempt in the Gambia was put down by Senegalese soldiers at the request of the Gambian president. This resulted in both countries signing a treaty to create a loose union known as Senegambia. The two countries agreed to unite their militaries, security forces, economies, and monetary systems. Each country kept its own cabinet and president, but the Confederation itself had a president who was always the president of Senegal, and the vice president of the Federation was always the president of the Gambia. The marriage, however, was never a happy one.

Starting point is 00:10:01 One big issue was that of the military. The Gambia had no military, so they had to create one. They eventually did, but they were junior partners to Senegal. In 1989, there was a border issue with Mauritania, and Senegal removed all its troops from the Gambia to go deal with the threat. Another problem is that the Federation was mostly championed by elites in each country. There was little grassroots support for the Federation. Despite the same ethnic groups existing in both countries, relatively peacefully, I might add, there were many people at this point who had a unique identity as Senegalese or Gambian, and they didn't want.

Starting point is 00:10:38 want to lose it. The Federation formally ended on September 30th, 1989, with both sides agreeing that it was for the best. One of the unintended consequences of the end of the Federation was the rise of separatists in Senegal's Casamance region. If you look at a map, this is basically the lower jaw of Senegal, which is everything south of the Gambia. Both Senegal and the Gambia have had their own problems since achieving independence with democracy, but I would personally say that that both countries have done a better job than average compared to most African countries. Likewise, I've been to Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and Banjul, the capital of the Gambia. And I'd say that both countries have a significantly higher standard of living than other West African countries I visited, save for Ghana.

Starting point is 00:11:26 Today, the odd border situation still remains. There hasn't been any action taken to revive the Federation, but at the same time, relations between the two countries have been friendly, and they work together on a number of issues. So for the foreseeable future, it appears that the smallest country on the African continent will remain firmly entrenched, almost completely inside of another country. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Peter Bennett and Cameron Kiefer. Today's review comes from listener Lumino 77 over on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write, pure gold, and yes, that episode exists.

Starting point is 00:12:08 It took me decades, but as of a few years ago, I made curiosity. my guiding light in life. Best decision I ever made. Based on a recommendation from my longtime friend Brian, I started listening to this show on May 18, 2023, and I couldn't put it down. I still can't. I earn my key to the Ohio chapter of the Completionist Club

Starting point is 00:12:26 on December 31, 2023 with the salt episode. To say that you turbocharged to my curiosity is an understatement. I feel that I now have a much broader foundation of knowledge, which is the point of your show. It's not hyperbole when I say that I've shared hundreds of episodes with family and friends. As of this review, you're too unique episodes shy of 1100. Keep up the awesome work, Gary.

Starting point is 00:12:49 Well, thanks, Luminos. Curiosity is the foundation of all knowledge. If you don't want to learn, you will not learn. And if you want to learn, nothing can stop you from learning. And that's one of the biggest problems in schools today, is that they don't instill a sense of curiosity into children about the world around them. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you two can have it read on the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Senegal and The Gambia

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