Kunta Kinteh Island (James Island): Gambia River Fort Since 1651

Kunta Kinteh Island, known for most of its history as James Island, is a small island in the Gambia River that held a European fort from 1651. Built by settlers from the Baltic Duchy of Courland and captured by the English ten years later, it became a key base of the Atlantic slave trade in Senegambia. Its ruins are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a place of remembrance.

The Courland fort

The Duchy of Courland, in present-day Latvia, was a small state under Polish overlordship. Its ambitious ruler, Duke Jacob Kettler, built up a merchant fleet and sought colonies. In 1651 Courlander settlers obtained the island from local rulers and built a fort there, called Fort Jacob, along with posts on the river bank. The island’s position in the middle of the river made it easy to defend and allowed control of shipping heading upstream.

The colony was fragile. During the Second Northern War Duke Jacob was taken prisoner by the Swedes, and in 1659 the Dutch seized the fort. Courland briefly regained it, but in 1661 an English expedition under Robert Holmes captured the island. It was renamed James Island and the fort Fort James, after James, Duke of York, the brother of Charles II.

English base and slave trade

The island became the headquarters of English trade on the Gambia River, run first by the Company of Royal Adventurers and from 1672 by the Royal African Company. Traders bought gold, ivory, beeswax and hides, but above all enslaved people brought from the interior and from conflicts in the region. Captives were held on the island before being shipped to the Caribbean and North America, often by way of the Middle Passage.

Life on the island was harsh for everyone, but above all for the captives. The island had no fresh water of its own, so water had to be brought by boat from the mainland, and disease killed many European soldiers and traders within months of arrival. Enslaved people were confined in cramped conditions until enough had been gathered to fill a ship, a wait that could last weeks. Some had been marched hundreds of kilometres from the interior along the river trade routes, which linked the coast with markets as far away as the upper Niger.

The Gambia River made the fort especially valuable. Ocean-going ships could sail far upstream, and smaller boats went further still, so the English used the island as a hub for a network of trading stations along the banks. Through this network they competed with French traders based in Senegal and with Portuguese-speaking Afro-European merchants long established on the river.

The fort depended on relations with the neighbouring kingdom of Niumi on the north bank, whose rulers charged customs and could cut off food and water. France, which had a trading post at Albreda directly opposite, was a constant rival.

Wars, pirates and decline

Fort James changed hands repeatedly. French forces captured and damaged it several times, including in 1695 and 1702, and in 1719 the pirate Howell Davis seized and plundered it. Rebuilt each time, the fort was finally destroyed by the French in 1779, during the American War of Independence, and the British did not rebuild it.

After Britain abolished its slave trade in 1807, new forts were built nearer the river mouth, such as Fort Bullen at Barra, to help suppress illegal slaving. James Island was left to erosion, which has shrunk it to a fraction of its 17th-century size.

Heritage and memory

In 2003 UNESCO inscribed James Island and Related Sites on the World Heritage List, including Albreda, Juffureh, the Portuguese chapel and San Domingo, Fort Bullen and the Six-Gun Battery in Banjul. The site was renamed Kunta Kinteh Island in 2011 after Kunta Kinte, the ancestor traced to Juffureh in Alex Haley’s 1976 book Roots. Visitors, including many from the African diaspora, now come to the island and to the museum in Albreda, much as they visit Gorée Island in Senegal.

Conservation is a serious challenge. Tidal currents and storms continue to wear away the shore, and parts of the ruins have already fallen into the river. Gambian heritage authorities, with international support, have built protective works and stabilised walls, but the long-term survival of the island remains uncertain. Historians also caution that Haley’s Roots mixes documented research with storytelling, so the island’s new name honours a symbolic figure rather than a precisely documented individual.

Timeline

• 1651: Courlander settlers build Fort Jacob on the island.
• 1659: The Dutch seize the fort while Duke Jacob is a prisoner of Sweden.
• 1661: English forces under Robert Holmes capture it and rename it James Island.
• 1695 and 1702: French attacks damage the fort.
• 1719: The pirate Howell Davis plunders Fort James.
• 1779: French forces destroy the fort; it is abandoned.
• 2003: The island and related sites become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• 2011: James Island is renamed Kunta Kinteh Island.

Why it matters

Kunta Kinteh Island shows how even small European states competed for a share of African trade, and how the Gambia River became a route by which many thousands of people were taken into slavery. Today its crumbling walls are a memorial to them and a reminder of the links between West Africa and the Americas.