Kunta Kinteh Island - History

History

The first European settlers on the island came from Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (dependency of Poland), who also had other colonial possessions in the area. They called it St. Andrews Island, though the English Crown had previously granted the island to two separate companies in 1588 and 1618. In 1651, the settlers built a fort that they named Jacob Fort after Jacob Kettler, the Duke of Courland, and used it as a trade base. The Dutch briefly held the fort from 1659 until the English captured it in 1661; the Dutch formally ceded the fort to the English in 1664.

The English renamed the island James Island and the fort Fort James after James, the Duke of York, later King James II of England. The chartered Royal Adventurers in Africa Company administered the territory, which initially used it for the gold and ivory trade, and later in the slave trade. On 1 August 1669, the Company sublet the administration to Gambia Adventurers. In 1684, the Royal African Company took over Gambia's administration.

In 1695, the French captured Fort James after a battle with English sailors. They returned it in 1697 but then captured it again in 1702. The fort was destroyed and rebuilt several times in this period, both in conflicts between the English and French and by pirates. On 13 June 1750 the Company of Merchants Trading in Africa assumed the administration of The Gambia. Between 25 May 1765 - 11 February 1779, The Gambia was part of British Senegambia

The Six-Gun Battery (1816) and Fort Bullen (1826), now included in the James Island UNESCO World Heritage Site and located on both sides of the mouth of the River Gambia, were built with the specific intent of thwarting the slave trade once it had become illegal in the British Empire after the passing of the Slave Trade Act in 1807. These sites along with the island itself were abandoned in 1870.