There are many reasons to justify the assertion that Mama Tamba Jammeh, Chief of Illiasa from 1928 to 1962 was one of the greatest traditional rulers of modern The Gambia. He embodied tradition, modernity, sagacity and innovation. At a time when only European Colonial officials were capable of owning and driving cars, Mama Tamba owned lorries and cars which plied the roads and causeways he built in his area; when Europeans thought Africans were incapable of increasing the yields of their crops, he boosted rice production in his district making it the first Gambian region to be self-sufficient in food. This is his biography.