ABSTRACT
Niumi was intricately connected to, while simultaneously connecting, a diverse group of regions near and far, through commerce analogous to the circumstances described by Braudel (1972) in the Mediterranean. My analysis of Niumi’s Atlantic experience is inspired by Ferdinand Braudel’s (1972, 1973) classic study. For him, the Mediterranean region was the central actor, tying several smaller areas, communities, and individuals together through regional interaction connected by the sea and water-based commerce. His analysis is a shared history of comparatively small entities that were experienced through contact and exchange. This spatial history is seen to operate at distinct paces and in various forms of time, depending on the level of analysis – micro, macro, or something in between. The beginning, middle, and end of the trade exhibited differing schema and structural manifestations on the local level. These networks overlapped and became integrated instead of succeeding one another in a clear narrative chronology of bounded units of time. Beginning with the expansion of Mali and the migration of the Mande peoples into the Senegambia in the early fi rst millennium AD up until the eve of Gambian independence in 1965, the region has been incorporated into multiple overlapping global economies (Wright 2010). The Atlantic history of the Senegambia, and Niumi, is one of constant struggle and negotiation between incoming groups in a continual attempt to gain the upper hand in commerce. The local rulers in Niumi and at the port town of Barra, above all, expressed an early desire to control and profi t from the new trade. In the sixteenth century, the Luso-African merchant André Donelha (1977: 139) noted that even though the Portuguese typically traveled straight to the upriver polity of Cantor, they were in the habit of leaving someone behind with goods to trade in Barra to appease the Niumimansa who required customs from them so that their ships might enter the river (see Figure 1.1 ). For the traders interacting with the mansa described by Donelha, this was an act of appeasement. In the mansa ’s opinion, he was given the advantage, allowing his successors to take advantage of the Europeans’ desire for African commodities and slaves. Mansas were able to dictate trade along the river for several centuries by allowing ‘stranger’ populations to settle and pay for the privilege of carrying out commerce. It is the persistent commercial interactions, and the intensity of the European nation’s desire to control the trade along the Gambia River, that has had the greatest impact on local economies, settlement, production, and daily life.
