Gambian politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries may be characterized as conforming to a “patrician” model. It was dominated by a handful of educated Aku and Wolof who lived in Bathurst. This political elite was linked in a clientelist relationship with a larger number of Aku and Wolof in the Colony, but the Protectorate was largely excluded from the political process. The elite was by no means homogenous, but was divided into factions which were drawn up on the basis of personal and family connections, social and religious status, political ambition, and ethnic identity. The rivalry between these factions was the essence of politics, particularly after World War I.

The Forster family headed the dominant faction throughout this period. The first Samuel John Forster was appointed to the Legislative Council in 1886 and remained a member of it until his death in 1906. One of his sons, also called Samuel John, filled the vacancy and continued to serve until his death in 1940. The younger Forster was assisted by a network of relatives, friends, and clients, the most important of whom was his nephew, W. Davidson Carrol. Carrol was expected to become his political heir, but his untimely death in 1941 brought the Forster political dynasty to a close. This enabled the main rival faction in Bathurst politics, headed by Edward Francis Small, to secure representation on the Legislative Council for the first time.

The Rise of the Forsters: 1886–1900

Samuel J. Forster was born in Bathurst, probably in the 1830s or 1840s. His father was a freeborn Ibo trader who traveled to Freetown from Nigeria with two of his brothers to make a living and had then moved on to Gambia. A Wesleyan Methodist (either by birth or conversion), S. J. Forster worked as a clerk in the Commissariat Department in Bathurst in the 1860s before resigning to concentrate on commerce. He specialized in trading in rice and, thanks to family connections in the interior, he prospered; by 1875, he was said to be the owner of a house and land worth some £300, which made him one of the wealthiest men in Bathurst. As indicated in Chapter 3, he was a leading opponent of cession in the mid-1870s, but does not appear to have been involved in the Gambia Native Association (GN Assocn) in the late 1870s and early 1880s.