Banjul – Founded as Bathurst on St Mary’s Island in 1816
In April 1816 Tumani Bojang, King of Kombo, ceded Banjul Island to the British commandant Alexander Grant. Grant set up a garrison and trading post to control the estuary and suppress the slave trade. The island was renamed St Mary’s Island and the new town Bathurst, with streets laid out in a grid and named after generals of Waterloo.
Even earlier, in 1651, the island had been leased by the Duke of Courland. Bathurst quickly attracted Wolof, Aku, Lebanese, Syrian and European settlers, becoming the heart of the colony. In 1973 the city took the name Banjul, and today it is the capital of the Gambia, linked to the mainland by bridges and ferries.
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