ABSTRACT

A long way to the west of the old grassland empires lay the country and coastland between the Senegal and the Gambia rivers, long since named Senegambia by European travellers and writers, but first reached by Europeans only in the fifteenth century. Soon after ad 1300 the Wolof people come into history as the makers of a small state, called Jolof, in the central part of inland Senegal. Up to the middle of the sixteenth century this empire was held firmly together by the government of the burbas. Although the Wolof proved strong enough to keep the Portuguese out of their country, they were unable to hold their empire together. One other development in Senegal should be noticed. This was the rise of a new state in old Takrur, north-east of the Wolof states. Southward from the Wolof states and Sine-Salum, along the Gambia river and the coast towards Sierra Leone, there lived small populations in the scrublands and forests.