History Corner
With BY BERRAY SOWE
National Archives of The Gambia
Introduction
Between 1959 and 1962, The Gambia underwent a profound political transformation that can be described as a “Green Uprising” — a revolt by the rural Protectorate against the dominance of urban-based political parties and elites in Bathurst, now Banjul.
The concept of a “green uprising”, as developed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, describes a situation in which a political movement rooted in the countryside challenges urban political forces for control of the state. Such an uprising generally requires three conditions: a deep divide between urban and rural society; the emergence of rural leadership capable of articulating the grievances of the countryside; and an opportunity for rural elites to compete for political power.
Archival records from The Gambia suggest that these conditions had emerged by the late 1950s. The resulting political mobilisation contributed to the formation of the Protectorate People’s Party (PPP), later renamed the People’s Progressive Party, which challenged the established urban political order.
Records preserved at the National Archives of The Gambia, particularly PUB 11/22 and PPP1, indicate that established urban political parties eventually suffered a major setback at the hands of a new rural political elite. The PPP promised to end the dominance of urban political interests and to redirect national resources, employment and political representation towards the provinces.
Yet the political transformation was not without contradictions. The party’s early relationship with the Protectorate chiefs deteriorated rapidly, while internal tensions later emerged between President Dawda Jawara and sections of the Mandinka political establishment that had been instrumental in the party’s rise.
Urban monopoly of Gambian politics
Modern political parties emerged in colonial Gambia following the 1951 Constitution, which expanded opportunities for political participation and representation.
The Democratic Party was established in 1951 by the Rev. John Colley Faye, followed by the Gambia Muslim Congress, founded by Ibrahim Garba Jahumpa in 1952, and the United Party (UP), established by Pierre Sarr Njie in 1954. George St. Clair Joof also founded the short-lived Gambia People’s Party in 1954.
These parties were predominantly urban-based, with their political activities centred on Bathurst and the surrounding urban areas.
The political marginalisation of the Protectorate was particularly significant given its economic importance. Rural communities produced much of the country’s wealth through groundnut cultivation, the principal export commodity, yet remained politically and socially subordinate to the urban elite.
Archival material from the President’s Office dating from 1971 describes the relationship between rural society and the urban areas as one characterised by patronage, dependency and, at times, contempt and neglect.
This imbalance provided fertile ground for political mobilisation in the provinces.
The acceleration of decolonisation in the late 1950s also exposed the limited participation of the Protectorate in constitutional negotiations. The September 1959 constitutional talks, in particular, heightened concerns among provincial communities that political power would simply be transferred from the British colonial administration to Bathurst-based politicians.
The emergence of a new rural elite therefore became increasingly important.
Unlike the traditional chiefs, this emerging group possessed some Western education and administrative experience and was determined to assert itself politically. Many came from modest backgrounds and worked as government functionaries, primary school teachers, clerks, small businessmen and other professionals.
They also faced barriers when they sought employment and further opportunities in Bathurst, where the urban Aku and Wollof communities occupied influential positions in commerce, government and politics.
The colonial administration, meanwhile, continued to regard the chiefs as the principal representatives of the Protectorate.
The long exclusion of the Protectorate
The political exclusion of the Protectorate had deep historical roots.
Nominated Gambian representation in the Legislative Council began in 1883, when J.D. Richard was nominated. In 1915, two nominated members represented the African Christian community in Bathurst. In 1922, one of these positions was allocated to a Muslim representative, with Alhaji Ouman Faye becoming the first holder of the seat.
By 1932, three nominated African representatives from Bathurst were represented in the Legislative Council. However, no suitable representative was identified from the Protectorate, and a European official represented the interior.
Although a nominated seat was eventually allocated to the Protectorate in 1932, direct representation remained largely concentrated in Bathurst and Kombo St Mary.
Direct representation was extended to the Protectorate only in 1960.
The political insecurity of the provinces increased as the prospect of British withdrawal became more imminent. The constitutional discussions of September 1959, from which the Protectorate was excluded, reinforced fears that political power would be handed over to Bathurst politicians without adequate safeguards for rural interests.
The chiefs were unable to provide an effective political response. Consequently, a modern provincial political movement emerged under a new generation of rural leaders.
The emergence of the PPP
Several voluntary associations serving social and charitable purposes had emerged among provincial migrants living in Bathurst during the 1950s. These organisations provided an important foundation for political mobilisation.
Mandinka youths in Bathurst and Kombo St Mary were particularly active in encouraging Sanjali Bojang, a prosperous but largely uneducated Mandinka elder, to transform his Protectorate People’s Society into a political organisation capable of challenging the established urban parties.
The society, initially known as the Kombo and Niumi Progressive Society, had primarily been concerned with arranging burials for provincial Mandinka who died in Bathurst.
Its transformation into a political organisation marked an important turning point.
In December 1959, the Protectorate People’s Party emerged under the formal leadership of Dawda Jawara, then known as David Jawara. Jawara, one of the few Mandinka graduates of the period, had recently been appointed Government Principal Veterinary Officer.
The party provided the Protectorate with a new political platform and articulated grievances that had accumulated over decades.
The 1960 Lennox-Boyd Constitution further strengthened the rural political challenge by expanding representation and providing for territorial elections with greater executive responsibilities.
Of the 34 seats in the new House of Representatives, 19 were elective, with 12 allocated to the Protectorate. In addition, the chiefs were to elect eight representatives from among themselves.
The 1960 general election demonstrated the strength of the emerging rural movement. The PPP won a majority of the elected seats but did not command an overall majority in the House.
The subsequent attempt to form a coalition government proved difficult. Relations between the PPP and the chiefs deteriorated, while the United Party, in alliance with the chiefs and other elected members, emerged as the dominant force capable of forming a government.
UP leader Pierre Sarr Njie was subsequently invited to lead the first African administration in The Gambia.
The PPP ministers resigned in protest and began campaigning for fresh elections.
Those elections were held in May 1962 and proved decisive.
The PPP won a clear victory, completing what can be described as the political “ruralisation” of Gambian politics. The Green Uprising had succeeded in transferring political power from the established urban parties to a movement rooted in the Protectorate.
The changing relationship with the chiefs
The PPP’s relationship with the traditional chiefs, however, deteriorated soon after it assumed control.
Within two months of taking control of the Ministry of Local Government following its electoral victory, the PPP dismissed 13 chiefs, according to the historical records cited in this study.
During its first decade in power, the PPP appears to have relied extensively on the colonial Deposition of Chiefs Ordinance to remove chiefs considered politically unsuitable.
Many of the affected chiefs subsequently aligned themselves with the United Party.
The episode illustrates one of the central contradictions of the Green Uprising. The PPP had emerged from a movement seeking to strengthen the political voice of the Protectorate, yet its relationship with the traditional authorities of the provinces became increasingly contentious.
Jawara and the shift from the Mandinka cause
The most significant political tension, however, developed within the PPP itself after its decisive victory in 1962.
According to archival records preserved at the National Archives of The Gambia, particularly PPP1 and PUB 11/22, Jawara and the PPP leadership gradually moved away from an explicit emphasis on what the records describe as the “Mandinka Cause” towards a policy of national reconciliation.
The shift was partly driven by the practical demands of governing a modern state.
The new government inherited a civil service in which educated Aku and urban Wollof officials occupied many important positions and possessed considerable experience in government administration and parliamentary procedures.
The PPP leadership therefore faced a difficult choice. An immediate attempt to replace the existing bureaucracy with Mandinka personnel could, according to the historical analysis cited in the archival records, have created administrative disruption.
Instead, the government retained much of the existing administrative structure and sought to work with the educated urban elite.
This policy disappointed some Mandinka supporters who had expected the PPP’s victory to produce a more fundamental redistribution of political and economic opportunities.
The policy of national reconciliation also strengthened Jawara’s personal political position.
Although Jawara was a university graduate, his social background and relatively low-caste origins contrasted with those of some senior members of the party who, despite having less formal education, came from higher-status traditional families.
The growing presidential style of leadership, combined with the appointment of Wollof and Aku officials, gradually altered the balance of power within the PPP.
The Green Uprising was therefore progressively moderated by the demands of national administration and political consolidation.
The 1972 crisis and the return of internal rebellion
By the 1972 general election, tensions within the PPP had resurfaced.
The decision by Jawara and the National Executive Committee to renominate most members of the party’s parliamentary group provoked resentment among younger party supporters who had expected opportunities to contest parliamentary seats.
Nineteen independent candidates subsequently entered the parliamentary contest, many of them young provincial Mandinka who had become dissatisfied with the direction of the party.
The rebellion, however, lacked the support of influential elders and senior PPP figures. Many former opponents of the government had either withdrawn from politics or reconciled themselves with the ruling party.
Nevertheless, opposition to what was increasingly perceived as presidentialism, as well as resentment over the government’s policy of courting the urban Wollof establishment, remained strong among sections of the Mandinka community.
The discontent became more visible in 1973 following the so-called “Butut Affair”, which involved Sheriff Mustapha Dibba, then Vice President and Minister of Finance and a founding member of the PPP.
Dibba, a Mandinka from Badibou, resigned from government following allegations concerning his family’s involvement in smuggling activities in neighbouring Senegal.
According to the archival records, Mandinka residents from Badibou travelled to the capital and hired a local cinema where they held a meeting to protest against Dibba’s treatment and what they regarded as the broader marginalisation of the Mandinka community.
Around the same period, another meeting of Mandinka elders was held in Gunjur. It was organised against the wishes of the party by Ablai Fadia, a member of the PPP National Executive Committee.
The meeting adopted resolutions criticising the government’s treatment of the Mandinka community and called for reforms to the public service appointment system.
Fadia was subsequently expelled from the PPP.
The episode demonstrated that the tension between the original objectives of the Green Uprising and Jawara’s increasingly national political strategy had not disappeared.
From rural revolt to national politics
The political transformation that began in the late 1950s fundamentally altered the trajectory of modern Gambian politics.
For decades, the Protectorate had remained politically marginal despite its economic contribution to the country. Political parties were concentrated in Bathurst, while constitutional negotiations and political institutions largely reflected the interests and experiences of the urban elite.
The emergence of the PPP changed that balance.
The party gave the rural population, particularly sections of the Mandinka community, an organised political voice and provided a vehicle through which provincial interests could challenge the established urban order.
Its electoral victories in 1962 marked the culmination of the Green Uprising.
But political power also transformed the movement.
Once in government, the PPP had to balance its original provincial constituency with the demands of governing a multi-ethnic and administratively complex country. Jawara’s policy of national reconciliation, his reliance on the existing civil service and his efforts to broaden the party’s political base gradually moved the PPP away from its original rural and Mandinka-centred political posture.
By the early 1970s, this transformation had generated a new generation of internal opposition.
The political tensions that emerged in 1972 and 1973 therefore reflected more than ordinary party disagreements. They revealed an unresolved question at the heart of the PPP’s history: how could a movement born out of rural and ethnic political grievances transform itself into a genuinely national party without alienating the communities that had brought it to power?
The history of the Green Uprising suggests that the PPP succeeded in breaking the urban monopoly of Gambian politics, but its subsequent evolution exposed the difficult compromises involved in transforming a movement of protest into a governing party.
Conclusion
The introduction of modern party politics in colonial Gambia initially left the Protectorate largely on the margins of political decision-making. By the mid-1950s, however, growing political awareness among educated provincial residents, particularly among young Mandinka activists, created the foundations for a new political movement.
The formation of the Protectorate People’s Party in 1959 provided the rural population with an organised platform to challenge the dominance of Bathurst-based political parties and elites.
The PPP’s electoral breakthrough in 1962 represented the culmination of the Green Uprising and marked a decisive shift in the country’s political landscape.
Yet the movement’s victory also created new challenges. Jawara’s decision to pursue national reconciliation, retain much of the colonial administrative structure and broaden the party’s political base brought him into conflict with sections of the Mandinka political establishment.
By the early 1970s, those tensions had contributed to serious internal divisions within the PPP.
The history of the Green Uprising is therefore not simply the story of how the Protectorate conquered the political centre. It is also the story of how a movement born from rural exclusion struggled to reconcile its original provincial and communal demands with the broader responsibilities of national governance.
Reference sources
- Hughes, A. and Perfect, D. (2008), Historical Dictionary of The Gambia, The Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland; Toronto; Plymouth, UK.
- Huntington, S.P. (1972), Political Order in Changing Societies.
- National Archives of The Gambia, PUB 11/22.
- National Archives of The Gambia, PPP1.