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Title:Turncoat colonial administration: the Gambian experience
Author:Omasanjuwa, Akpojevbe
Periodical:Research Review (ISSN 0855-4412)
Geographic term:Gambia
Subjects:World War I
World War II
colonial policy
food shortage
Abstract:The paper examines the effects of the two World Wars on the population of Gambia, as they fulfilled their obligations to the British Empire as colonial subjects while Britain, mainly on economic grounds, failed to fulfill its obligations as a colonizing power. The effects of World War I, principally an unprecedented shortage of commodities, food shortage and resulting starvation, lasted until the outbreak of World War II and continued during that period. As in all other African colonies, wage increases or trade benefits resulting from the profit of the wars were not commensurate with the substantial workloads (including groundnut production) of the population. The deprivations and adversities experienced by the Gambian people were inextricably linked with those of their neighbours in Senegal whose shared colonial boundaries separated the French from the British, but not the indigenous population. The conditions Gambians were subjected to from 1914 to 1945 were at variance with the self-styled (colonial) intentions of the British in The Gambia. App., bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [ASC Leiden abstract]