How These Men Effectively Conquered Nigeria For The British
The British colonization of Nigeria tells a fascinating story of the Power of the Maxim gun.
The year is 1851. John Beecroft, the British Consul for the Bights of Benin and Biafra, holds a meeting with some British missionaries in Abeokuta, southwestern Nigeria.
By the end of the meeting, Beecroft is convinced to use his military powers to unseat Oba Kosoko, the reigning King of Lagos, in favor of his rival, Akitoye of Egba.
Kosoko had been hostile towards the missionaries and the British trading activities in Lagos and had made no serious efforts to end the ongoing slave trade in the region.
Beecroft hoped that replacing Kosoko with Akitoye would bring an end to the slave trade and stabilize the region for the spread of legitimate commerce.
In December 1851, John Beecroft ordered the bombardment of Lagos, forcing Kosoko to flee and never return. Akitoye becomes the new Oba and signs a treaty banning all slave-trading activities in Lagos.
But over the next 10 years, Akitoye and his successors were unable to bring the stability the British had hoped for. In 1861, Lagos was annexed as a British colony under the direct political control of a British governor.
The colonization of Nigeria had officially begun.
From the annexation of Lagos to the occupation of Sokoto, the entire process of colonization took over forty years. And since Nigeria was made up of different regions, it also meant that different tactics were attempted to gain control of these regions.
However, the most effective tool for British colonial expansion was its willingness to use its superior military might to subdue any opposition offered by the indigenous people.
How it Started
In the early nineteenth century, the country we now know today as Nigeria was made up of several regions around two predominant rivers. The river Niger from the west, and the river Benue from the east.
In the north of the rivers lies the Sokoto caliphate, founded by Usman Dan Fodio, who had previously led a brutal war that saw the unification of all the Hausa states into one Islamic empire.
The once-great but now crumbling Oyo empire and various other Yoruba states lie in the west.
In the east were various decentralized tribes, the predominant of which were the Igbos.
And in the south and middle regions were various distinct tribes and kingdoms that were largely autonomous.
BRITISH INFLUENCE
Around the middle of the nineteenth century, British agents started coming into Nigeria in three forms: Christian missionaries, traders, and political officials, all with the primary aim of increasing British influence in the region.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES
Although Christianity had been introduced to the region by the Portuguese as early as the 10th century, it did not play a major role in local politics until the 1840s.
In 1842, a group from the church missionary society in Britain landed in Badagry, Lagos, and spread to Abeokuta in 1846, and by 1890 they had established themselves as far north as Ilorin.
A similar situation occurred around the south and southeast, with the roman catholic organization becoming quite successful.
But Christianity did not spread significantly in the Islamic territories of the Sokoto Caliphate.
Christianity spread in the south because the indigenous people saw it as a spiritual advantage over their local rivals.
In addition, the missionaries established schools focused on teaching English to the locals and also encouraged Christianized Africans who knew the local languages to go into communities and preach the gospel to their countrymen.
One of such men and perhaps the most famous of them all was Samuel Ajayi Crowther — a former slave captured during the Yoruba wars that accompanied the fall of the Oyo empire.
Crowther became a major force for the spread of Christianity, becoming the first indigenous African bishop of the Anglican church in 1862.
While the rulers of the region sought the Europeans as political allies, the missionaries were more concerned about spreading their religion and ending slavery.
They believed that the cultures of the indigenous people were far inferior to theirs and therefore needed a complete overhaul.
This was the primary motivating factor for the annexation of Lagos in 1861.
From Lagos, the British made their way inland, slowly bringing Yorubaland under British rule.
In 1886, the British ended the terrible Ekiti-Parapo war, which had been ongoing for 15 years.
All sides were weary of fighting this war and welcomed the British as Peacemakers.
The British ended the war, but in return, they issued treaties declaring that all signatories direct future disputes with each other to the British governor in Lagos for resolution.
But this was not met without resistance.
The King of Ijebuland, suspicious of the motives of the British, outlawed them entirely for most of the nineteenth century.
But when he refused to discuss trade terms with the governor of Lagos, the British used this as an excuse to forcibly occupy the territory.
British troops subdued the entire Ijebuland in four days, sending a message to the rest of Yorubaland that a new supreme power in the region had arrived.
The people of the reconstituted Oyo also offered significant resistance to the British, but they soon met the similar fate of Ijebu. On November 12th, 1894, the town of New Oyo was bombarded and brought forcibly under British colonial rule.
BRITISH TRADERS
In the south, the Niger-Delta area and Calabar had been an important region for the sale of slaves. But as a result of the decline of the slave trade around the 1850s, the trade-in palm products became the most important source of wealth in the region, as it offered fewer barriers to entry.
Tensions were so high between the British traders and the coastal middlemen in the region because of the business model of the palm oil trade, known as the trust system.
Under the trust system, British firms on the coast would pay a certain amount to the coastal middlemen to procure a specified amount of palm oil.
The middlemen would use part of the money to purchase palm oil from hinterland dealers and bring the palm oil back to the British firms in completion of the bargain.
But there were only a select few middlemen doing this. Thus, giving them a huge monopoly in the market and making them lots of profits in the process.
Seeing the problems with the trust system, the British traders wanted to bypass the middlemen and trade directly with the hinterland dealers.
But two things held them back.
First, Malaria had threatened to cut short the life of any European who ventured beyond the coast.
And secondly, they had no idea how to get from the coast to their hinterland suppliers.
But with the emergence of some British explorers, things were soon to be changed.
Originally coming to the Niger from the west, British explorer Mungo Park, who journeyed from Timbuktu to the Niger in 1805, was the first European to discover that the river Niger flowed to the east.
Killed at the rapids of Bussa, Park was unable to follow the river to its termination. But in the 1820s, another explorer by the name of Hugh Clapperton revealed that the Niger flowed through Hausaland.
After Clapperton’s death, his Servant Richard Lander and his brother John followed the Niger to its confluence with the Benue.
The discovery of the extent of the river Niger led to the spread of missionary activities and trading influence into the interior.
In 1854, Dr. William Balfour Baike led a successful expedition to the interior of the Niger delta.
His expedition made use of Quinine as a preventive measure against malaria and proved that the Europeans could survive in the interior.
And now that the British firms could bypass the coastal middlemen, the local economies of big trading port cities, as well as other established British firms that relied on the trust system, felt threatened.
This led directly to calls on the part of both British traders and the coastal middlemen for the British government to aid them in restoring equilibrium to the system, which in turn laid the foundation for British colonization of the region.
Both local traders and British firms looked to the British consul to settle disputes and negotiate balances to the trust system. Indigenous political leaders also sought the friendship of the consul, preferring to cede authority to the British rather than their local competitors.
Through the position of a mediator, the Consul achieved a status of great power. When disputes over kingships or chieftaincies arose, the favorites of the Consul usually ended up winning out.
The growing power of Beecroft, the Consul for the Bights of Benin and Biafra, can be seen in the case of Calabar.
The Kings of Calabar’s two most powerful towns, Eyo Honesty II of Creek Town and Eyamba V of Duke Town, both welcomed missionaries in 1846, believing that this would lead to stronger relationships with the British Consul.
But the missionaries expressed concern over the lingering ritual practice of human sacrifice, especially that of slaves, and the killing of twins. And pressured Beecroft to intervene and put an end to the practice.
In 1850, Beecroft negotiated a treaty with Eyo and Archibong I (who succeeded Eyamba in 1849), banning human sacrifices and the killing of twins.
But when Old Town, a weaker neighbor of Creek and Duke Town, sacrificed several slaves in 1855, Beecroft completely demolished the town and forced its king to sign a similar treaty as a precondition for rebuilding.
In 1853, Beecroft deposed King Pepple of Bonny, who had been a thorn in the side of the British trading interests for over twenty years. Pepple consistently refused to give up his control of interior markets.
He then forced Dappo, Pepple’s successor, to sign a treaty that made his court the supreme judicial authority in Bonny, preventing the king from engaging in trade and waging war without the approval of the British supercargoes.
Thus, the once-great kingdom of Bonny ceased to be the most prominent state in the delta.
Another would take its place.
The Kingdom of Opobo, led by king JaJa, the most powerful ruler in the Bights of Biafra at that time, became a bustling town for trade and commerce in the delta.
JaJa’s ability to control the hinterland markets from Opobo angered the European traders.
But soon, even the mighty King JaJa would succumb to the ever-growing pressures of the British supercargos.
In 1885, Jaja was forced to sign a treaty that placed the Oil River Protectorate in the hands of the United Kingdom.
But he later violated the terms of the treaty and continued to deny the British access to his hinterland markets.
For this, he was deposed and exiled to the West Indies as a warning to other local rulers of the consequences of insubordination. He would die shortly after.
A similar fate met Nana, the Itsekiri governor, who was deposed and deported in 1894 after refusing British access to the Urhobo markets of his hinterland.
But after all these, the British were just getting started.
THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY
Rather than proclaim protectorate status over the Niger and Benue, the British took a different approach granting a royal charter in 1886 to a formidable British company called “The Royal Niger company,” established by this man: Sir George Goldie.
The charter gave the company the power to control the politics and trade of any local territories it could gain legal treaties, provided that the company did not interfere in local religions or customs, except in cases discouraging the practice of slavery.
Under the terms of the charter, the Royal Niger Company came to control the trade on the Niger, saving the British government the financial burden of direct colonial occupation.
Goldie’s primary objective was to monopolize the entire trade of the navigable rivers of the Nigerian interior.
Although the royal charter he received technically obliged him to promote free trade, it also gave him the power to organize trade in a way that would exclude all possible rivals.
In 1879, Goldie drew together the three largest British firms operating in the Niger to create the National African Company, which later became the Royal Niger Company (or RNC) in 1886.
He also bought out three French competitors in 1884 and used the power of the charter to exclude all competition, establishing high tariffs on imports and exports.
Such policies made the Royal Niger Company extremely unpopular among the other British supercargoes, who now recognized that Goldie had succeeded in simply replacing the monopoly of the coastal middlemen with that of his own company.
But by the end of the nineteenth century, three events would lead to the downfall of the RNC and convince the British government that direct colonial administration would be the only effective means of governing the Niger Territories.
First, by 1895, the Conservative Party had taken control of parliament and Joseph Chamberlain, a zealous imperialist, became the colonial secretary under Lord Salisbury’s new administration.
Chamberlain was not in support of the government having chartered companies. He preferred the progressive possibilities of a full-scale colonial rule through his office.
Second, the Royal Niger Company was proving how ineffective it was at promoting peace, stability in the region.
The catastrophe that illustrated this occurred among the people of Brass (a people located in the mangrove swamps of the Niger delta).
The mangrove swamp in which they lived was an inhospitable environment for agriculture, and so, they always exported items like salt and fish in exchange for foodstuffs from the interior.
Their primary channel for trading had always been the Niger, but with the emergence of the RCN, it was no longer legal for the Brass to conduct trade on the Niger.
They were required to pay all licensing fees on import and export, which they could not afford. So they made attempts to find alternative trade routes, but none were particularly successful. As a result, they eventually began to starve.
On the 29th of December 1894, the people of Brass, under the leadership of King Koko, revolted against the RNC.
They attacked the RNC headquarters at Akassa, carrying off much of the company’s properties and destroying its warehouses and machinery.
They even kidnapped several company employees, whom they later ritualistically ate as part of a spiritual ceremony to combat the smallpox epidemic that was also terrorizing their community.
Goldie demanded revenge and asked Claude Macdonald, the Consul general at Brass, to bring his subjects under the gun.
Macdonald ordered the town of Nembe in Brass to be bombarded, but the job was done half-heartedly, and the people of Brass were never fully brought under submission.
The final nail in the RNC’s coffin was the fallout between Chamberlain and Goldie over the protection of the northwestern frontier of the company from the French.
Despite the company’s extensive presence in the Niger, the French had not given up their quest to expand their political influence and develop trading networks on the river.
In 1897, they occupied Bussa, a region close to the RNC treaty zone but not technically within it.
From this position, they could build up the military strength necessary to challenge the RNC’s control over the Niger region.
Chamberlain wanted Goldie to use the company’s forces to secure the territory and drive the French out, but Goldie was reluctant to do this.
He wanted Chamberlain to do something to bring the Brass situation under control before he would undertake another expensive military operation.
But Chamberlain had no intention of meeting Goldie’s demands. Instead, he revoked the company’s charter in 1899 and created the West African Frontier Force under Frederick Lugard, Goldie’s former employee.
An accomplished colonial officer who had been instrumental in bringing the East African territory of Uganda under British rule, Lugard was charged with mounting a campaign for the Colonial Office, independent of the Royal Niger company, to push the French back from the Niger.
His forces succeeded in pushing the French from Borgu, leaving the Niger as firmly as ever in the hands of the British.
On the 1st of January 1900, the Royal Niger Company ceased to be the governing authority of the Niger and Benue. Its southern territories were amalgamated into a new Protectorate called the Niger Coast Protectorate.
The company’s northern territories became the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, with Lugard as the first high commissioner.
THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOKOTO CALIPHATE
With the Niger secured, the British turned its attention towards the Emirates of the Sokoto Caliphate.
Two reasons made the Sokoto Caliphate a more desirable region for British colonial expansion.
The first was that the territories of Bida, Ilorin, and Yola, which were under the British, were also under the influence of the Caliph. The British feared a revolt from the people.
Second, the Sokoto Caliphate offered yet another avenue for the French to take over the Niger.
The formidable British colonial officer, Frederick Lugard, fully convinced that the only effective way of securing the Niger coast protectorate was the military conquest of Sokoto, deposed the Emirs of Bida and Kontagora, and replaced them with people whose primary qualification to rule was the willingness to submit to his authority.
From these places, Lugard’s forces moved North into Bauchi and Gombe, and by 1902, they conquered Zaria.
The British forces now faced their greatest challenge in Kano and Sokoto.
Lugard’s forces occupied Kano after a few minor resistance on the 3rd of February, 1903, but fighting outside the city continued for several weeks afterward.
By early March, Kano fell.
Caliph Attahiru put up a stiff fight in Sokoto, but eventually, he was forced to flee.
Not content to allow the head of such a vast empire to reconstitute himself elsewhere, Lugard’s forces pursued Attahiru, killing him finally on the 27th of July 1903, some 200 miles southeast of Kano, marking the end of Usman Dan Fodio’s mighty caliphate.
The caliphate’s territories were incorporated into the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria under Emirs willing to accept British colonial rule. In 1904, Borno, which had always retained its independence from Sokoto, was occupied by British forces and added into the protectorate.
INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE
Though the conquest of Sokoto was the final act in setting the boundaries of Northern and Southern Nigeria, many parts of the Protectorate continued to put up fierce resistance to British rule.
But over the first decade of the twentieth century, these pockets of resistance were crushed by the British.
In 1901, British forces moved into the heart of Igboland and conquered the Aro. They believed that the Aro were the overlords of the entire Igboland, but they soon realized that they were wrong.
The Aro community was a spiritual power in Igboland, but political powers were decentralized to a large extent.
Over the next decades, the British soon found themselves conquering the interiors of Igboland, village by village.
In the Southwestern part of Igboland, a communal defense movement known as the Ekumeku caused trouble for British forces periodically from the 1880s until its final defeat in 1909.
Ekumeku was a decentralized militant group comprising soldiers from various communities in Western Igboland.
They fought against the Royal Niger Company in 1898 but later dispersed, only to rise again in 1900 to defend Asaba and its hinterland against the new government of the protectorate.
Defeated in 1902, Ekumeku rose again in 1904 and again in 1909, when the movement was finally annihilated by an overwhelming British force.
CONCLUSION
By the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, the British extended their colonial grasp over Nigeria more as a result of a superior military might and the willingness to use violence to achieve its ends.
However, the lives of the people of the Nigerian region will forever change, particularly in the latter half of the twentieth century.
