History of Guinea-Bissau
Items traded included pepper and kola nuts from the southern forests, iron from the savannah-forest zone, salt and dried fish from the coast, and Mandinka cotton cloth.
[7]: 4 Products were commonly sold at markets and fairs, held every seven or eight days and sometimes attended by several thousand buyers and sellers from up to 60 miles (97 kilometres) away.
[8] According to oral tradition, Tiramakhan Traore invaded the region to punish the Wolof king for insulting Sundiata and went south of the Gambia River into the Casamance.
Formerly-secure possessions in present-day Senegal, the Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau were cut off by the expanding power of Koli Tenguella in the early 16th century.
[5]: 13 [12] Kaabu's ruling classes were composed of elite warriors known as the Nyancho, who traced their patrilineal lineage to Tiramakhan Traore.
A Fula army led by Alpha Molo Balde [fr] laid siege to the earthen walls of Kansala for 11 days.
[13]: 14 The Mansaba Dianke Walli, sensing defeat, ordered his troops to set the city's gunpowder on fire; this killed the Mandinka defenders and most of the invading army.
The Biafada people inhabited the area around the Rio Grande de Buba in three kingdoms: Biguba, Guinala, and Bissege.
[4] Although Portuguese authorities initially discouraged European settlement on the mainland, the prohibition was ignored by lançados and tangomãos who assimilated its indigenous culture and customs.
[4]: 142 In 1520, measures against the lançados were eased in 1520; trade and settlements increased on the mainland, which was populated by Portuguese and native traders and Spanish, Genoese, English, French, and Dutch.
[23] The poorly-manned and provisioned forts were unable to free the lançados from their responsibilities to the native monarchs (their hosts), who could not expel the traders because their goods were in great demand by the upper class.
[4]: 243–4 With the end of the Iberian Union in 1640, King João IV attempted to restrict the Spanish trade in Guinea which had flourished for the previous 60 years.
In Cacheu, famine had wiped out the slave troops in charge of defending the fort, the water supply remained in Manjak hands and the lançados, their Africanized descendants and the locals were losing customers; Captain-Major Luis de Magalhães lifted the embargo.
During this period, the power of the Mali Empire in the region was dissipating and the farim of Kaabu, the king of Kassa and other local rulers began to assert their independence.
[4]: 186–7 Enslaved people were instrumental in developing the plantation economy (particularly in Cape Verde), growing indigo and cotton and weaving panos cloth which became a standard West African currency.
[27] People were enslaved in four primary ways: as punishment for law-breaking, selling themselves (or relatives) during famines, kidnapped by native marauders or European raiders, or as prisoners of war.
[4]: 208, 217 Most wars were waged to capture slaves for sale to the Europeans in exchange for imported goods, resembling man-hunts more than conflicts over territory or political power.
African rulers held power in the countryside, and frequent attacks on, and assassinations of, the Portuguese marked the middle decades of the century.
The dispute over the status of Bolama was resolved in Portugal's favor with mediation by U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant in 1870, but French encroachment on Portuguese claims continued.
[30][31] To meet the Congress of Berlin standard for "effective occupation", the Portuguese colonial government began a series of largely-unsuccessful "pacification campaigns" until the arrival of Captain João Teixeira Pinto in 1912.
Supported by a large mercenary army commanded by Senegalese fugitive Abdul Injai, he quickly and brutally crushed local resistance on the mainland.
Initially committed to peaceful methods, the 1959 Pidjiguiti massacre pushed the party towards more militarism and relied on the political mobilization of the peasantry.
Aided by the jungle terrain, it had easy access to borders with neighbouring allies and large quantities of arms from Cuba, China, the Soviet Union, and left-leaning African countries.
An army uprising which triggered the Guinea-Bissau Civil War in 1998 displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and the president was ousted by a military junta on 7 May 1999.
An interim government turned over power in February 2000, when opposition leader Kumba Ialá took office after two rounds of transparent presidential elections.
The presidential election resulted in victory for opposition leader Kumba Ialá of the Party for Social Renewal (PRS), who defeated Malam Bacai Sanhá of the ruling PAIGC.
[47] Vieira was assassinated on 2 March 2009 by (according to preliminary reports) a group of soldiers avenging the death of joint chiefs of staff head Batista Tagme Na Wai, who had been killed in an explosion the day before.
[48] Vieira's death did not trigger widespread violence, but the advocacy group Swisspeace noted signs of turmoil in the country.
On the evening of 12 April 2012, members of the country's military staged a coup d'état and arrested Pereira and a leading presidential candidate.
[52] Former vice chief of staff Mamadu Ture Kuruma took control of the country and began negotiations with opposition political parties.
