Kunta Kinteh Island, which was once called James Island and St. Andrew's Island, is located in the Gambia River. It is about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the river's mouth and near Juffureh in the Republic of the Gambia. Fort James is situated on the island. The island is less than 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) from Albreda, which is on the northern side of the river. As an important place related to the West African slave trade, Kunta Kinteh Island is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This listing includes other nearby sites, such as a ruined Portuguese chapel and a colonial warehouse in Albreda, the Maurel Frères Building in Juffureh, and Fort Bullen and Six-Gun Battery, which are located at the mouth of the Gambia River.
History
The first known record of European contact with the island dates to May 1456, when a Portuguese expedition led by Italian explorers Alvise Cadamosto and Antoniotto Usodimare anchored near the island. They buried one of their sailors, named André, on the island, which they named St Andrew's Island in his honor. In 1458, Diogo Gomes also anchored near the island during his expedition. A Portuguese settlement called Santo Domingo was established on the northern bank of the Gambia River, across from St Andrew's Island, during the 15th century.
The first European settlers on the island came from the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, a state that was under the control of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. This region also had other colonial holdings nearby. However, the English Crown had granted the island to two separate companies in 1588 and 1618. In 1651, settlers built a fort named Jacob Fort, after Jacob Kettler, Duke of Courland. The fort served as a trade base. Major Fock, a Courland soldier, was in charge of the settlement and oversaw the construction of fortifications on St Andrew's Island. These structures followed the standard rules of military engineering at the time. The main building was rectangular, with triangular bastions at each corner. However, the fort lacked a water supply and relied on the King of Barra to provide water for its operation.
The Duke of Courland aimed to create a permanent settlement on St Andrew's Island, so he sent married couples and a pastor to the island. The first pastor was Gottschalk Eberling, who was replaced in 1655 by Joachim Dannefeld. A small church made of cane and with a thatched roof was built on the island, where Eberling and Dannefeld preached. A supposed gold deposit near the river led the Duke to plan a full expedition to the Gambia. Since few Courlanders had experience in Africa, he relied on foreign help. On September 6, 1652, the Dutchman Jacob du Moulin was appointed as the Director of the Gambia, while Frederick William Trotta von Treyden, a Courlander, was named his lieutenant.
Three ships—Crocodile, Patientia, and Chur—were given to Moulin. Problems arose during the expedition, and in December 1652, Treyden wrote to the Duke calling Moulin a "light-hearted knave." After sailing in March 1653, the expedition ran out of supplies and had to return. Moulin was later arrested for stealing the Duke's money. A second expedition in 1654 was led by a Danish explorer, Philip von Seitz, but he abandoned the mission in Hamburg and took 15,000 rixdollars from the Duke.
After these failures, the Duke turned to his own people. Captain Otto Stiel, a Courlander who had visited the Gambia before, was appointed as Governor of the island and its commander. In 1658, the Duke and his family were captured by a Swedish mercenary during the “Deluge,” a Swedish invasion of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Communication between Courland and the island was cut off for about two years.
Because of this, the Dutch West India Company made an agreement with the Duke's representative in Holland, Henry Momber, to resupply and take control of the island. Momber agreed without instructions from the Duke. The Dutch sent soldiers to the island to seize it. Stiel opposed this, but when the Dutch promised to pay the garrison, the soldiers mutinied and returned to Holland with the new troops.
In 1660, the Dutch lost control of the island after a French privateer working for Sweden attacked the fort at night, drove out the garrison, and plundered the island. The privateer later met a merchant ship from the Groningen chamber of the Dutch West India Company. Due to a communication breakdown, the ship refused to buy the island back and claimed it belonged to the Duke of Courland, not the Amsterdam chamber. Momber contacted Stiel, who was living in Holland, and Stiel returned to the island on a ship provided by the Groningen chamber.
A few weeks later, three ships from the Amsterdam chamber arrived and demanded Stiel's surrender. He refused, and the Dutch landed, bringing heavy firepower to the fort. With only a few men, Stiel had to surrender. However, when the King of Barra saw Stiel being evicted again, he helped by capturing Dutch soldiers who had landed at Juffure for water. The King demanded Stiel's return and was joined by other native leaders, including the King of Kombo. After a four-week standoff, the Dutch gave in. The fort's commander left it without supplies and partially destroyed before returning it to Stiel and the Courlanders. Over the next eight months, the garrison was reduced to seven Europeans.
The Dutch briefly controlled the fort from 1659 until the English captured it in 1661. The Dutch handed the fort over to the English in 1664.
The English renamed the island James Island and the fort Fort James, after James, the Duke of York, who later became King James II of England. The Royal Adventurers in Africa Company managed the area, using it first for trade in gold and ivory and later for the slave trade. On August 1, 1669, the company gave administration of the area to the Gambia Adventurers. In 1684, the Royal African Company took control of the Gambia.
In 1695, the French captured Fort James after fighting with English sailors, but by 1702, the English had regained full control. The fort was destroyed and rebuilt several times during conflicts with the French and pirates. On June 13, 1750, the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa took over administration of the Gambia. Between 1758 and 1779, the Gambia was part of British Senegambia.
The Six-Gun Battery (1816) and Fort Bullen (1826), now part of the James Island UNESCO World Heritage Site and located near the mouth of the Gambia River, were built to stop the slave trade after it was banned in the British Empire in 1807. These are the only known structures in the region built to prevent slaving, rather than support it. The sites, along with the island, were abandoned in 1870.
On February 6, 2011, at the request of New York artist Chaz Guest to Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, the island was renamed Kunta Kinteh Island to give it a Gambian name. At the renaming ceremony
Legacy
Kunta Kinteh Island is losing land quickly and is now about 1/6 the size it was when the fort was active. Remains of several British buildings, including a small cell used for the most difficult prisoners, a small jetty, and some skeletal baobab trees still exist. The ruins have been protected with a covering. Because the island is near sea level, waves sometimes hit some of the remaining structures during high tide and storms.
Kunta Kinte, a character from Alex Haley's book and TV series Roots, is now connected to James Island. The book explains that Kunta Kinte was one of 98 enslaved people brought to Annapolis, Maryland, by the slave ship Lord Ligonier in 1767.