The Gambia is often portrayed as little more than a geographical oddity, a strip of land engulfed by its much larger neighbour Senegal. It was once the centre of Senegambia, administered by Britain between 1765 and 1779. But there is another way of looking at it which reveals its importance and adds to current reflections on reparations for slavery.
Pape Chérif Bertrand Bassène has studied the history of The Gambia and southern Senegal. He argues that British and Portuguese sources point to the existence of “Sierragambia” – a dynamic Mande-Atlantic connection and maritime corridor extending from the Gambia River basin, through the Casamance and Cacheu networks, down to the Sierra Leone River estuary, which later became the Abolitionist Laboratory Loop.
