Jola

The Jola, or Diola, are a West African people of the lower Casamance in Senegal, The Gambia and northern Guinea-Bissau. Known for wet-rice farming in the coastal swamps and for village societies without centralised kingship, they remained largely independent until the colonial period. Many Jola resisted French rule, and the Casamance separatist movement after 1982 drew much of its support from them.