In 1873, the Gambia colony became the first British West African colony to abolish debt imprisonment. The Gambia colony by abolishing debt imprisonment became part of a larger wave of mid-19th century advancements in progressive debtor reforms happening across the British Empire. Other British West African colonies also passed their own reforms: the Gold Coast colony established an insolvency court in 1853, and the Sierra Leone colony passed a bankruptcy act in 1862. Nonetheless, as will be explored in this article, the abolition of debt imprisonment in the Gambia colony was not inevitable. Rather, this abolition was a response to material and political transformations that occurred in the region after the creation of the British West African Settlements (BWAS) in 1866. The creation of the BWAS had significant impacts on the Gambian commercial credit system and on the main holders of debt within the colonial groundnut trade- Liberated African traders.
WISER Seminar Papers
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In this semester, the Trust seminar will explore questions of credit and debt on the African continent. In contrast with the argument that trust and confidence are synonymous (most evident in the Edelman Trust Barometer and the reporting around it), some of the most convincing scholarship argues for the direct association of trust with credit. Other researchers, studying informal African institutions, have found credit everywhere on this continent, but little that can be associated with trust. Some state institutions (like SACCOs in Kenya) and simpler penalties, like efficient bankruptcy laws, seem also to be instrumental in shaping the politics of credit. One key driver of credit systems is a secondary market, which depends in part on institutions and information that derive from (and support) fiduciaries. These are especially important in the contemporary tensions between firm-based and individualised credit systems. The seminar series this semester will explore some of these dynamics, examining how they have shaped the cultures and politics of debt and credit from the precolonial to the contemporary period.
Presented by : Lamin Manneh
5 Aug 2026 - 4:00pm
WISER Research Theme: