Nigerian Historical Studies

NIGERIAN HISTORICAL STUDIES By the same author: Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria, 1842–1914: A Political and Social ...

Author: E.A. Ayandele

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NIGERIAN HISTORICAL STUDIES By the same author: Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria, 1842–1914: A Political and Social Analysis Holy Johnson, 1836–1917: Pioneer of African Nationalism The Educated Elite in the Nigerian Society African Historical Studies

NIGERIAN HISTORICAL STUDIES E.A.Ayandele, B.A., Ph.D. (London) Professor of History and Vice-Chancellory University of Calabar

FRANK CASS

First published 1979 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS AND COMPANY LIMITED Gainsborough House, Gainsborough Road, London, E11 1RS, England This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/. and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS AND COMPANY LIMITED c/o Biblio Distribution Centre 81 Adams Drive, P.O. Box 327, Totowa, N.J. 07511 Copyright © 1979 E.A.Ayandele British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Ayandele, Emmanuel Ayankanmi Nigerian historical studies. 1. Nigeria—History I. Title 996.9′01′08 DT515.7 ISBN 0-203-98807-8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-7146-3113-2 (Print Edition) All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of Frank Cass and Company Limited in writing.

FOR ADEFẸMI

Contents Acknowledgments Preface

1 How Truly Nigerian is Our Nigerian History?

viii x

1

2 Britain and Yorubaland in the Nineteenth Century

13

3 The Yoruba Civil Wars and the Dahomian Confrontation

28

4 Observations on Some Social and Economic Aspects of Slavery in PreColonial Northern Nigeria

43

5 Background to the ‘Duel’ Between Crowther and Goldie on the Lower Niger 1857–85 6 The Relations Between the Church Missionary Society and the Royal Niger Company, 1886–1900

52

7 The Missionary Factor in Northern Nigeria, 1870–1918

90

69

8 The Collapse of ‘Pagandom’ in Igboland

109

9 The Missionary Factor in Brass, 1875–1900: A Study in Advance and Recession

125

10 The Phenomenon of Visionary Nationalists in Pre-Colonial Nigeria

133

11 The Colonial Church Question in Lagos Politics, 1905–11

148

12 Lugard and Education in Nigeria, 1900–18

162

13 The Ideological Ferment in Ijebuland, 1892–1943

176

Index

192

Acknowledgments Chapter one is a historiographic reflection put before the Historical Society of Nigeria in Kano in December 1968 and both it and Chapter thirteen, an offshoot of my Ijẹbu History research project, have appeared in African Notes (Bulletin of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan); Chapters two and three were originally contributions to a proposed multi-authored book on Nigeria, a proposal that died with the civil war: together with Chapter twelve, written a year ago, they are being printed for the first time; Chapter four has appeared in The Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies; Chapters five, six, seven, and eight have been published in the Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria; Chapter nine has been published in The Bulletin of the Society for African Church History; Chapter ten is a contribution to a book of essays presented to Afrophile Professor G. S.Graham, John E.Flint, and Glyndwr Williams (eds.), Perspectives of Empire (London, 1973); Chapter eleven has appeared in Odu (University of Ifẹ Journal of African Studies.)

Preface The collection of writings brought together in this book was written within the last ten years in different circumstances and for different purposes. However, they have one thing in common: they were intended to shed new light, or strike new depths, or widen scope of knowledge on some aspects of Nigerian history in the context of the author’s researches. Certainly a work of this kind cannot possess the organic unity of a book purposely conceived as a monolith. Nevertheless, it has a unity of style and approach usually absent from multi-authored, organically conceived books. Notwithstanding the fact that historical scholarship on Nigeria has grown in size and depth in the past quarter of a century, I am consoled by the fact that the intention behind each chapter in this book has been achieved. Limited as it is to some aspects of Nigerian history in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and restricted in its geographical scope, the pieces do reveal in some measure, relevant and tantalizing historiographical issues. There is no need for me to reveal the background of this collection except to express my gratitude to those who should remain nameless, who have encouraged me to put together selected writings of mine concealed in journals and other specialized publications which, by their very nature, are not available to the wider world. One more word of thanks. Mrs Grace A.Bassey, my secretary, Miss Eme Bassey and Mr Sam R.Akpan produced the manuscript joyfully in record time. E.A.AYANDELE Calabar July, 1978

1 How Truly Nigerian is our Nigerian History? Although the conscious application of the academic mind to the study of the African past has been going on for less than a quarter of a century, sufficient progress has been achieved to justify a number of searching questions. Up to date, and quite rightly, such questions have been mainly historiographic, underlining the peculiar methodological challenges and problems confronting the historian of Africa. They have been concerned with the variety of sources the historian may have to tap, the care he must take to winnow European activity per se from the documents, the avid interest he should take in other disciplines, and so on. In this chapter, I shall take the availability and fruitfulness of sources for granted, and deal rather with questions of interpretation and approach. More specifically, I shall deal with five kinds of imbalance in current historical writing about Nigeria. First, there is the tendency of historians to allow relations between the peoples of the Atlantic seaboard and the European intruders to dominate, if not monopolize, their writings—a tendency which gives the impression that the history of these peoples is made up entirely of such relations. Second, there is the serious error of interpreting the external relations of the seaboard peoples against the background and interests of the European intruders. Third, there is the over-emphasis on factors making for disunity and the neglect of factors making for unity which characterizes much writing on the pre-colonial period. Fourth, there is the fact that the large ethnic groups receive a great deal of attention from historians whilst smaller groups receive practically none. Fifth, and most important of all, there is the tendency to write the history of the cream of society rather than of the people. With the singular exception of the Yoruba peoples, whose nineteenth century warfare and urban development have been studied in their own right,1 internal developments among the seaboard peoples have so far been relegated to the background. The emphasis has been on the relations of the Edo, the Ijaw, and the Efik with the world of Europeans. Even the historical writings on the Yoruba cannot be entirely absolved from criticism on this count, for writings on the Ẹgba and on the Ijẹbu nineteenth century pertain far too strongly to the relations of these peoples with the British. And what evidence have we that relations with the European intruders provided the most important events in the nineteenth century experience of the peoples of Southern Nigeria? Were there not exclusively internal happenings during the period which weighed as heavily, if not more so, on the minds of these peoples? The two scholarly studies of the Ẹgba and the Ijẹbu in the nineteenth century may be used to illustrate this point. In his excellent pioneering work on the Ẹgba,2 Dr Biobaku finds it difficult to discuss their politics, economics, and social life except in relation to British influence. And yet there is ample evidence to show that relations with the British in Lagos provided no more than some out of the many events which the Ẹgba regarded as crucial features of their experience in the second half of the nineteenth century, and that

Nigerian historical studies

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there were political, social, and economic events, by no means determined by the British presence in Lagos, which constituted the real core of Ẹgba history during this period. One may mention the constitutional experimentation between 1845 and 1891 on which there is ample material; the internal bickering among the innumerable chiefs, which resulted in the weakening of solidarity after the abortive Dahomian attack of 1864; the economic relations with Ẹgbado and Ijẹbu which made Ketu, Ibẹrẹkodo, and Ipẹru important markets for the Ẹgba; the frequent smallpox epidemics and the annual destruction of houses by fire; the implacable adherence of the Ẹgba to their traditional religion.3 Similar comments are applicable to Dr Ayantuga’s work on nineteenth century Ijẹbu history.4 Despite the title of Dr Ayantuga’s thesis on this subject, the substance of his achievement is his analysis of Anglo-Ijẹbu relations. And yet a perusal of the historical names of Ijẹbu Ode age-grades up to the eve of the 1892 expedition gives us one among many indications that during this period it was events inside Ijẹbuland that engaged the thoughts of the people—not the diplomatic negotiations between their rulers and the British, and not the ideas about Ijẹbuland entertained by the British and by the Ijẹbu Saro5 based on Lagos.6 No less serious is the infection of historical thinking by overweighting of the alien economic and political interests of the Europeans—interests which obviously inspired the despatches of consuls, governors, and traders to the Colonial or Foreign Office. Thus the matter-of-life-and-death attitude of these intruders to trade-routes—an attitude determined by their metropolitan economic milieux—has pervaded historical writing on Southern Nigeria.7 The African attitude, determined by consideration of the political implications of open routes, has been largely ignored. When the Ẹgba and the Ijẹbu persistently closed their routes to the British in Lagos, these peoples were conveying the message that they did not look upon routes in predominantly economic terms, that they would not have economic relations with the intruders at the expense of their sovereignty and territorial integrity, and that European presence on the coast was not a sine qua non for their existence and wellbeing.8 The same argument holds for the Enyong, Akunakuna, and Umon peoples of the Cross River. These peoples did not regard the palm oil trade with the British, through the Efik, in the way that British industrialists and traders looked at it. For these peoples sovereignty came first; and since their sovereignty was threatened by the British desire for unrestricted and direct movement along the river, they preferred to withhold oil from the British rather than allow the intruders to violate their frontiers.9 Emphasis on factors making for disunity at the expense of factors making for unity has been a striking feature of writing on the pre-colonial era. In our generation this approach has been particularly encouraged by writers of local histories who seek to project presentday political animosities into the past by emphasizing ethnic or sub-ethnic exclusiveness and denying the existence of excellent neighbourliness, co-operation, community of feelings, and sense of identification. Such a wholly negative approach obviously contributes to present-day political difficulties. More important in the context of the present discussion, it is almost certainly unhistorical. Much as we are entitled to draw attention to the precolonial wars between the Fulani and the Nupe, the Sura and the Angass, the Ifẹ and the Ondo, the Ibani and the Kalabari, we are not telling the whole story unless we also stress the factors for unity and cooperation that existed before the advent of the white man. And these factors were many. Consider for example the mosaic of inter-state routes that linked the south and the north;

How truly Nigerian is our Nigerian history

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and think not only of the economic role the routes played but also of the diffusion along them of religious, social, and political ideas. Few people realize that in the eighteenth century the natron used by the Efik came largely from the Chad basin; that in the same century the Ijẹbu were the specialist makers of a coarse type of cloth used by slaves and poor people in Northern Nigeria; that up to 1830 the larger part of what is now Nigeria regularly patronized the market of Kulfu, near present-day Kontagora; that for a long time the Edo trafficked with the Nupe and bartered their camwood for manufactured articles of northern origin;10 that as late as the second half of the nineteenth century, the Nupe were the most excellent weavers in the textile establishments of the cities of the far north; that Ijaw men from Nembe were trading directly as far north as the Nupe kingdom before 1841; that the Yoruba obtained their horses from Tripoli through Kanuri middlemen long before the nineteenth century; that, as slaves, a large number of Hausa were an economic asset to the Yoruba. Even Igboland was not completely closed to the rest of Nigeria before the advent of the British; trade went on between the Igbo and their neighbours, and many Igbo went to the north as slaves.11 Historical writing should also accord due recognition to the large political units and empires which embraced diverse peoples and, for varying periods, achieved stability and commanded the loyalty of their component groups. Of these, the Kororofa Empire, the Edo Kingdom, and the Old Ọyọ Empire are examples that readily come to mind. In terms of vision, the jihadists of the nineteenth century deserve some credit for the capacity at least to dream of a Caliphate that would embrace all the areas that lay between the Hausa States and the sea. A final point worth considering in any discussion of factors making for unity is the fact of the harmonious relations which existed between rulers on the inter-state level. The commonest way in which rulers got in touch with each other involved correspondence by symbolic messages. I have come across evidence that in December 1842 messengers of the Sultan of Sokoto were with odẹkẹ in Abẹokuta;12 that the Sultan of Sokoto made some effort to pursuade the Yoruba to end their civil war,13 that Balogun Ogundipẹ, the uncrowned king of the Ẹgba for nearly a quarter of a century, offered advice to the Etsu of Nupe in 1870.14 In a multi-ethnic nation like Nigeria, the question arises: which ethnic groups should have their activities given preference to and treated as representing historically crucial episodes? Perhaps the biggest danger here is the tendency to see the history of Nigeria as the history of its three largest ethnic groups. This danger scarcely arises for periods before the twentieth century. For such periods, evidence of all kinds is relatively thin, and people are forced to write about those groups which are represented in it and neglect those groups which are not represented. To date, historians of Nigeria have depended very heavily on written documents; and for periods before the nineteenth century such documents seem, if anything, to favour the study of the smaller ethnic groups. Thus many smaller groups such as the Edo, Ijaw, and Efik feature prominently in them, whilst major ethnic units such as the Yoruba and Igbo scarcely appear. For the nineteenth century, the balance is somewhat different. Several additional smaller units turn up in the documents, but so do the Yoruba and the HausaFulani. However, several middle-sized groups such as the Ibibio, the Borgawa, and the Maguzawa Hausa still remain off-stage, and so too do the Igbo. Though an increasing expertise in the use of oral tradition may swell the bulk of the evidence and partially


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change the existing balance of emphasis, it seems unlikely that these early periods will ever lend themselves to the ‘big group only’ treatment. It is in the present century that the danger becomes real. So far as the last seventy years are concerned, there is a mass of written documentation and rich oral tradition to exploit for almost every ethnic group in the country—large or small. Inevitably, this embarrassment of riches brings with it a very real problem of selection. And if the present tendency to write the history of one’s own ethnic group continues, selection is bound to favour the three giant ethnic units at the expense of the remaining five hundred-odd minor groups. Selection on such a basis is bound to be detrimental to Nigerian historiography. First of all, we have no justification for assuming that economic, political, and social developments among the major ethnic groups provide valid models for developments among the minor groups. Second, the intrinsic interest of social and cultural institutions is frequently out of all proportion to the number of people who support them. One has only to reflect on the intricacies of secret society government among the Ekoi, the rich complexity of music among the Igede, the development of an art practised entirely for its own sake in the masquerade ballet of the Kalabari, the evolution of a unique and austerely beautiful sculptural style among the Afo, to realize the truth of this proposition. Third, even in terms of their impact on the broader cultural and political scene, the importance of small ethnic groups is frequently out of all proportion to their numbers. Here again, Ekoi secret societies provide an apt example, for these institutions, with their awe-inspiring cult-houses and their apparatus of masked executives, have been borrowed and sometimes re-fashioned by a great diversity of neighbouring peoples. Thus we find their offspring in many of the States of the central Cameroons, among the Efik and some of the Ibibio, and among a number of the more easterly Igbo groups. To take a more radically contemporary example, the importance of the Bachama people in the Federal Army is out of all proportion to the size of the ethnic group they hail from. And so too is the importance of the Ijaw in the naval and amphibious operations of the Federal forces.15 I now come to the fifth and most important kind of imbal-ance in historical writing about Nigeria: the tendency to write the history of the cream of society rather than of the people. With regard to Africa generally, it is questionable how far historical writing to date can claim that its accounts are more of the people than of a section of the people. There has been a tendency among historians to study the past of peoples—the Fon, the Ijaw, the Ndebele, the Funj, and the Arab-Berbers, to name but a few—through the spectacles of their kings. It can of course be argued that in certain respects, for example in their resistance to imperialist European intruders in the nineteenth century, Mzilikazi of the Ndebele, Ademiyẹwo Fidipotẹ of the Ijẹbu, Jaja of Opobo, Mohammed Ali of Egypt, and Moulay Abdel Rahman of the Sherifian Empire were authentic spokesmen for their peoples. But this does not justify the inclination of historians to give almost exclusive attention to the rulers and to assume that all important events in the experience of their peoples revolved around them. Historical writing on Nigeria is no exception to the general trend. Many professional historians of this country, in writing about the last century and a half, have given us, albeit unwittingly, what amounts to a history of the aristocracy. This aristocracy may be subdivided into two categories. On the one hand, there are the traditional patricians—e.g.


5

kings, emirs, chiefs, and nobility (the latter being exemplified by the Aro and the Fulani). On the other, there are the parvenu patricians conventionally referred to as the ‘educated elite’. It was members of this numerically insignificant aristocracy who were presented over Radio Nigeria on the eve of independence as ‘eminent’ and ‘Nigerian’.16 It is through the biographies of members of this class—Shehu dan Fodio, Nana Olumu, Jaja, Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, and James Johnson—that what are regarded as the salient developments in Nigeria over the past one hundred and fifty years are being portrayed. This way of looking at the Nigerian past raises a crucial point in the philosophy of history; and it is a matter over which we should begin to have second thoughts. In the first place, it is clear that our selection of individual members of this class for the honorifics ‘eminent’ and ‘Nigerian’ is based more on values and aspirations derived from the modernized sector of the country’s present day life than on the opinions of the masses in the society which these individuals inhabited. This is particularly obvious in the case of the Saro, who made up the greater part of the parvenu patrician class in the nineteenth century. Not only were the mental, cultural, social, and political aspirations of these expatriates at variance with those of the vast, unlettered majority. Most of this majority did not even see them as a part of their own society, let alone as makers of its history. Thus the Saro were actually disowned in Lagos, where in 1855–6 the indigenes wished to expel them,17 and in Abẹokuta, where in 1891 the authorities begged them to leave.18 In Ibadan, where they were few and far between, they were looked upon with undisguised contempt. In the Niger Delta and Lower Niger areas, they were looked upon, in the words of a CMS secretary, as ‘Black Englishmen’. Despite these facts, historical writing on Nigeria has focused its attention on the largely unaccepted Christian religion paraded by the parvenu aristocracy,19 on their aversion to the all-essential institution of slavery, on their ill-digested, alien-orientated, political and constitutional aspirations,20 on their infinite hope in the triumph of literary education, and on their cultural nexus with the non-Nigerian world. The question we should answer at this point is whether our study of pre-colonial Nigeria should concentrate on the activities and aspirations of these expatriates at the expense of the hopes, sense of values, and activities of the millions who had never been in exile either physically or mentally or culturally. The authentic history of Nigeria in the precolonial decades of the nineteenth century should, I contend, emphasize the aversion of the indigenous peoples to the intruders, their passionate attachment to traditional religion, their amusements and fun, their non-literary but nonetheless elaborate system of vocational and ethical education, their inter-family and inter-clan relations, their ways and means of curing diseases, their social welfare schemes and humanitarian concepts, their cosmological ideas and faith in the virtues of sacrifices, and their belief in the indispensability of the slave economy. These were among the facets of social life that constituted the quintessence of the real history of the people in the pre-colonial nineteenth century; and it is through a study of such facets that we can enter into the thoughts and aspirations, the fears, hopes, and outlook on life of the people. In this respect, it would seem that such social anthropologists as C.K.Meek, M.G.Smith, G.I. Jones,21 and the Tiv chronicler, Akiga,22 have succeeded more than professional historians in presenting the history of the people in the pre-colonial era.


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Partly because they belonged to a world remote from the instincts and sense of values of present-day westernized professional historians, and partly because there are not many references to them in the written documents, the traditional patricians have received much less attention than their parvenu counterparts. But this is not to say that, in relation to the plebeian majority, the traditional patricians have not received excessive attention. For instance, the special treatment accorded to the Fulani aristocracy of Northern Nigeria, at the expense of the Hausa majority and of other ethnic groups, is clear beyond need of comment; and the primacy that is being accorded the Aro in Igbo studies is equally evident. Indeed, it seems that the more remote the traditional patricians were from the masses, the greater the attention they have received from the historians. As a result, Ọbas and kings are better known than Ogboni and Ekpe (freemasonry-like institutions among the Yoruba, and Efik and Ibibio respectively), in spite of the greater representativeness of these cults among Yoruba and Efik respectively. Without the slightest intention of deflating the precolonial rulers of the nineteenth century, whom it has become the habit of historians to portray as heroes, the applicability of the term ‘eminent’ to Kosọkọ and Jaja may be questioned. For us, reading our history backwards, Kosọkọ and Jaja were bold fighters against the British imperial threat, veritable forerunners of the nationalists of the colonial era. But did these potentates appear to their contemporaries as ‘eminent’, and, if so, in what sense? To a substantial part of the populations of Lagos, Ọtta, Ipokia, Abẹokuta, Badagry, and Ado—areas over which Kosọkọ attempted to make his political influence felt—this man was ‘eminent’ not because he was a defender of the territorial integrity of Yorubaland; rather, he was eminent as an ingrate who toppled an uncle who had been exceptionally kind to him; he was eminent as an astute meddler in the politics of other kingdoms.23 To Ademiyẹwo Fidipotẹ of Ijẹbu, who gave asylum to Kosọkọ and his party, he was again an ingrate, who turned Ẹpẹ (part of Ijẹbuland) into his domain—an event that became the excuse later employed by the British to annex this piece of Ijẹbu territory to the Lagos Colony and Protectorate.24 It is doubtful whether even Kosọkọ saw himself in the nationalist garb in which we are accustomed to seeing him, for he deliberately ended up as a tool of the British Government in Lagos against the ‘Africa for the African’ movement of the reviled Dosunmu.25 Or consider the much romanticized Jaja. For the Kalabari, Okrika, and Bonny I jaw whose primary concern was free commercial relations with the Europeans, Jaja was ‘eminent’ only in the sense that he undermined the commercial prospects and the prestige of their kingdoms. For the Ibuno of the Qua Iboe River, forcibly conquered, subdued, and exploited by this extraordinary ex-slave king, Jaja was not eminent in the sense that he resisted the British imperial threat to the Niger Delta. All along in his career until 1886, when differences began to occur between him and his European friends, Jaja was a collaborator with the British against the interests of other sections of Niger Delta society. In what sense did he represent the aspirations and will of the Niger Delta peoples? He enriched himself and the State of Opobo, which he had founded with the aid of nondisinterested white friends; and he was loved and feared mainly by the Opobo people. He compromised the sovereignty and territorial integrity of parts of the Niger Delta by his acceptance of the Treaty of 4 January 1873 which was dictated to him by the British Consul. In an unblushing manner, and again at the expense of the territorial integrity of parts of the Niger Delta, he contended that European traders had the right to move freely


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in the creeks of Bonny.26 He sent troops to fight on the side of the British against Ashanti. Surely, to his neighbours, Jaja was first and foremost a meddler in other people’s affairs. In Northern Nigeria, where the distinction between classes seems to have been somewhat blurred by the opportunities at the disposal even of slaves in matters of government, historical writing has nonetheless been biased in favour of the Islamized aristocracy. The doctrine of Islam, whose adherents formed a minority of the population until the middle of the nineteenth century, has monopolized the attention of professional historians. Its potential capacity for unifying society and its answers to the problems of life make up the bulk of their writings on this area. Though the result more of accident than of design, the fact that the two most recent scholarly historical works on parts of Northern Nigeria in the nineteenth century are on Sokoto and its Caliphate is a pointer to the excessive favour Islam currently enjoys in the historiography of Nigeria north of the Niger and Benue. For Northern Nigeria in the nineteenth century, then, the neglected theme is not, as some would claim,28 the ‘Islamic Revolution’ initiated by Usuman dan Fodio, but such themes as the customs and institutions of the common people, their indigenous religion, and their reaction to Islam which, after all, was an alien religion. Partiality in favour of the aristocracy is as much a feature of writing on the colonial period as it is of writing on pre-colonial times. It is evident in the popularity of the theme of Nationalism, which centres almost exclusively on the educated elite—the parvenu patricians to whom the British ultimately transferred power.29 It is even more evident in writings on the theme of Native Administration, whose popularity in recent years has threatened to exceed that of Nationalism. In the Indirect Rule system sponsored by the British rulers in Nigeria, it was the chiefs whom the British officials knew directly and through whom these officials sought to know the wishes of the people. But as the system also involved bureaucracy, it gave the parvenu patricians an opportunity to work hand in glove with their traditional counterparts. The Native Administration was the virtual monopoly of the aristocracy—the chiefs as Presidents of Courts or Members of the Judicial Council, the educated elite as clerks in charge of the various departments of the Administration. The result was that these two aristocratic classes became the real wielders of power, in so far as this was possible under the guidance of British supervisors. But although it was at the local level, through the African officers of the Native Administration, that the inarticulate, largely unlettered masses were affected in matters of taxation, sanitary reforms, and cases concerning marriage or land, the writings on this theme to date have centred almost entirely on the Administration as an impersonal machine and on the chiefs. Only occasionally do the masses as a part of the Native Administration come into the picture—this when writers have to deal with the riots that flared up from time to time against the oppression of the African patricians and the British supervisors. One is bound to ask what sort of history it is that portrays the activities and thinking of the governors—the British supervisors, the chiefs, and the bureaucrats—to the complete oblivion of the people whom they were expected to govern. And yet it is largely this kind of account that we have had of Native Administration in Nigeria—whether we think of accounts by such British rulers as Lugard, Cameron, Temple, and Crocker, or of such scholars as Perham and Kirk-Greene.30 It is true that a new type of administrative history has appeared in the works of Peter Lloyd, A.E.Afigbo, Obaro Ikime, J.A.Atanda, and Philip Igbafe, where the people receive greater attention than the impersonal machinery


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of administration.31 But even these accounts, largely because of the nature of the documentary sources on which they have relied, give prominence to the British and to the two classes of patricians, and largely ignore the unlettered masses. My awareness of this fundamental imbalance in writings on the theme of Native Administration is due more than anything else to experience derived from my own study of this topic in Ijẹbuland. Such experience has convinced me that for the colonial period as for the pre-colonial the researcher should seek out the feelings, thinking, and experience of the majority of the people and give them priority over those of the aristocratic classes. For the Ijẹbu masses did not regard the Native Administration established in their country in 1918 as designed for the furtherance of their interest. Under the effective control of the traditional patricians (the chiefs) and the parvenu patricians (the bureaucrats), the Administration, protected by its British supervisors, became a machine for the oppression and exploitation of the masses. It seemed to the common people that the two classes of patricians had ‘come to an understanding’ to cheat and oppress them.32 So, as they had some faith in the British supervisors, to whom the patrician oppressors did not want them to have access, they ignored the Native Administration and appealed directly to the District Officers, the Residents, and the Lieutenant Governors for the redress of their grievances. Certainly to the masses of Ijẹbuland, and perhaps to the masses in other parts of colonial Nigeria, a history of British rule portrayed through the spectacles of the Native Administration would not be acceptable as their history. Of course one is bound to sympathize to some extent with our scholars of Indirect Rule: they may have failed to get the masses into their picture because the areas they have investigated lacked those unique features of Ijẹbuland—a numerically large literate public and an active corps of letter-writers. Because of the intense activities of Christian missions, who deployed a disproportionately large part of their resources in the Ijẹbu country, a sensitive public aware of human rights had been created by 1918. It became impossible for the literate section of the community to be cheated by Native Court clerks or chiefs. But even the unlettered masses became aware of their rights through the activities of the letter-writers. It was these tribunes of the masses who conveyed the feelings and grievances of the people to the British supervisors. It is to the existence of the letter-writers, through whom the grievances and experiences of the masses were known to the British supervisors, that the absence of an Adubi Rising or Oke-Iho Rebellion or Aba Riots from colonial Ijẹbuland should be traced. The files of grievances, experiences, and protests are bulky and many in number. An analysis of these files shows clearly the points at which British rule touched the common people, points conspicuously absent from the works of administrative historians to date. By far the most important and most explosive grievances concerned marriage problems; there were also issues of land mortgages, acts of cheating of producers by middlemen (again parvenu patricians), protests by such petty traders as fish-sellers and gari-sellers, cloth peddlers being squeezed out of business by European firms, and contestants for chieftaincies. As the forum to which these issues had first to go, the Native Court became a notorious institution. At courts the traditional patricians presided, whilst the parvenu patricians acted as interpreters and clerks. The two classes of patricians were hand in


9

glove, the chiefs perverting justice and the clerks keeping inaccurate records, both having received bribes. In areas like the Ọyọ Province where the number of the elite was small and British supervisors gave the traditional patricians a blank cheque, the masses became victims of the blackmail of the chiefs and clerks, hence the dread which these classes evoked in the popular imagination. But in the Ijẹbu country the letter-writers were in a position to stand up to. the machinations of the patricians. Quite fearless, and a specialist in the use of a phraseology which, although dismissed by an irate British supervisor as a ‘flow of ungrammatical, unintelligible rhetoric’,33 was nonetheless telling and evocative, the letter-writer usually sent petitions above the heads of District Officers and Residents to the Lieutenant Governor. The result was that the British supervisors could not afford to throw petitions into the waste-paper-basket, aware as they were that explanations could be sought for and queries served from Headquarters. In Ijẹbuland, then, to the dismay and unconcealed bitterness of several officers, the British had to do their job—supervise effectively, rather than leave things entirely in the hands of the Native Administration in which the masses had no confidence. Kept ceaselessly on their toes, District Officers and Residents were mortified that they had to be ‘constantly engaged, probing alleged grievances, and re-reviewing cases before the necessary covering letter and documents are prepared for Headquarters’.34 The letter-writers in Ijẹbuland were very aggressive. Unsuccessful and dissatisfied litigants, whether they failed in the Provincial or in the Native Court, were persuaded by these professional scribes to try their luck in petition. Old cases, long since assumed settled, were resurrected. Letter-writers became advisers on legal procedure and were inclined to assist their clients in holding up the execution of judgments. To the consternation of the British supervisors, letter-writers endeavoured to get cases prejudged by sending them written protests. Whatever his grievances—real, imaginary, or frivolous—the ordinary Ijẹbu man came to repose great confidence in letter-writers. They were an asset to him in several ways. First, they were preferable to the official interpreters whose integrity was very questionable. Second, they had the patience to record grievances, a patience which neither the District Officer nor the Resident, always in a hurry to attend to other matters, could afford to cultivate. Third, unlike lawyers, letter-writers demanded fees within the reach of the common people. So menacing did the letter-writers become from the view-point of the British supervisors, that after the Second World War the latter made moves to put an end to their existence. Under the pretext that they, the Administrative Officers, would henceforth be readily accessible to the public, they appealed to the people to come to them directly. But it was all to no avail. The people continued to patronize their well-tried friends, whose code of conduct had been clearly defined in an Ordinance of 1917, and whose number had multiplied rather than diminished. This ultimate failure of the British supervisors to win the affection of the people of Ijẹbuland is perhaps the best single commentary on the patrician-controlled Indirect Rule system. It is certainly a warning to those scholars who insist on looking at the system through the spectacles of the patricians rather than through those of the masses.


10

In concluding, I should like to deal with two broad objections that may be raised by my critique of the tendency to write the history of the aristocracy rather than of the masses. Leadership in State and society, it may be contended, has more often than not been the monopoly of a minority. The majority never bother about government and politics so long as their normal lives are not interfered with and their susceptibilities are not aroused by the violation of immemorial laws and customs. However, since our concern here is history and not political science, the issue of leadership per se does not arise. The issue that arises concerns the events regarded by most members of a society as important, and these do not necessarily revolve round the aristocracy or the gargantuan figures of our writings. Such events may have diminished significance for us, in the context of our westernized outlook and sense of values, but for the people and the age we claim we are writing about, they may have been of all-absorbing interest. Thus for the Efik of the nineteenth century, the accounts of the Eyambas and the Eyo Honestys and of the traditional aristocracy—which form the sum-total of information transmitted to us so far by historians—do not represent the salient events in the experience of the people. For the Efik masses, the salient events included such things as the administration of justice by the esere bean ordeal (a poisonous bean used by the Efik to ascertain guilt of and pass judgment on people accused of witchcraft), the fattening of women, the rule by Ekpe, inter-town relations, relations with neighbours in the interior, and the observance of indigenous religious practices. The same observation could be made about the relation between current versions of the nineteenth century history of almost any Nigerian group and the actual salient experiences of the ordinary men and women of that group. As I have shown, the same observation could be made again for almost any Nigerian group in the colonial period. The second objection is that the data upon which a history of the people might be based are in most cases simply not available. My answer to this objection is twofold. One, that absence of data does not invalidate my critique of the present form of historical writing on Nigeria. Two, that from the third decade of the nineteenth century onward, evidence of the requisite kind is not entirely lacking. The accounts of travellers and explorers alone, which are considerable for this period, contain insight into the economic life, social conditions, and habits of many peoples in the territory. They provide ample data about routes, local and long-distance, about articles of trade within and between States, about diplomatic relations and warfare between peoples, about the tastes of people in matters of food, dress, and fashion, and about the style of life and thought-patterns of various classes in society. For later periods, the example of the Ijẹbu letter-writers provides a pointer to the often unsuspected richness of written primary sources bearing on the values and attitudes of the common people. Finally, there are the dividends which field-work and the collection of oral testimony could yield, especially for a history of the people over the last seventy years. NOTES 1 For work of this type on nineteenth-century Yorubaland, see J.F.Ade Ajayi and R.S.Smith, Yoruba Warfare in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge, 1964; Bolanle Awe, ‘The rise of Ibadan as a Yoruba power in the nineteenth century’, unpublished D.Phil. thesis, Oxford


11

University, 1964; S.A.Akintoye, ‘The Ekiti Parapo and the Kiriji War’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Ibadan University, 1966. 2 S.O.Biobaku, The Egba and Their Neighbours, London, 1956. 3 CMS CA2/031, Letters and Journals of S.A.Crowther; CA2/056, Letters and Journals of James Johnson. 4 O.O.Ayantuga, ‘The Ijebu and their neighbours: 1851–1914’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, London University, 1965. 5 Saro—the popular name for people of slave origin or descent, returned from exile in Sierra Leone. 6 National Archives, Ibadan, Ije Prof. 1/656. 7 See for instance A.B.Aderigbigbe, ‘The expansion of the Lagos Protectorate: 1861–1900’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, London University, 1959; J.C.Anene, Southern Nigeria in Transition, Cambridge, 1966. 8 J.P.Haastrup, Report of the Deputation of the Native Inhabitants of Lagos to Ijebu Ode, Rhodes House, Oxford (APS); CMS G3/A2/03, Wood to Lang, 19/8/1885. 9 Anene, pp. 103–4, 182. 10 H.Clapperton, Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa from the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo, London, 1829, pp. 135–139; R.Lander, Records of Clapperton’s Last Expedition to Africa, London, 1830, vol. 1, pp. 181–3. 11 H.Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, London, 1858, vol. 2, p. 507. 12 Methodist Missionary Society Archives, London (Letter Box Gold Coast 1842–1843), T.B.Freeman to General Secretaries, 4/1/1843. 13 National Archives, Ibadan, CMS (7) 4/1, J.B.Wood’s File. 14 CMS CA3/04(a), Ogundipe to Masaba the King of Tapa, 9/4/1870. 15 For these examples of the significance of smaller ethnic groups for the historian of Nigeria, I am grateful to Robin Horton. 16 See Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (ed.) Eminent Nigerians of the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge, 1960. 17 J.H.Kopytoff, A Preface to Modern Nigeria, Madison, 1965, pp. 129 and 270. 18 E.A.Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria 1842–1914: A Political and Social Analysis, London, 1966, pp. 52–3. 19 See for instance Ayandele; Kopytoff; J.F.Ade Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria 1841– 1891: The Making of a New Elite, London, 1965; J.B.Webster, The African Churches among the Yoruba 1888–1922, London, 1964. 20 J.S.Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism, Berkeley, 1958; T.N.Tamuno, Nigeria and Elective Representation: 1923–47, London, 1966. 21 See for instance: C.K.Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, Oxford, 1937; M.G.Smith, Government in Zazzau: 1800–1950, London, 1960; G.I.Jones, Trading States of the Oil Rivers, London, 1963. 22 Akiga Sai, Akiga’s Story, trans. Rupert East, Oxford, 1939. 23 CMS CA2/031, S.A.Crowther to Venn, 30/9/1856. 24 CMS CA2/07, Awujale to Captain Foote, 2/11/1852. 25 CO 147/4, Freeman to Newcastle, 31/12/1863; Co 147/6, same to same 19/4/1864. 26 FO 84/1401, Hartley to Earl Grenville, 20/2/1874. 27 D.M.Last, The Sokoto Caliphate, London, 1967; R.A. Adeleye, ‘The overthrow of the Sokoto Caliphate 1879–1903’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Ibadan University, 1967. 28 See for instance: H.F.C.Smith, ‘A neglected theme of West African history: The Islamic Revolutions of the Nineteenth Century’, JHSN, 2, 2 (December 1961). 29 Many of this group sing their own praise-songs in autobiographies. See for instance: O.Awolowo, Awo: the Autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Cambridge, 1960; N.Azikiwe, Zik: a Selection from the Speeches of Nnamdi Azikiwe, Cambridge, 1961; Sir A.Bello, My Life, Cambridge, 4962.


12

30 F.D.Lugard, Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, Edinburgh, 1922; D.Cameron, My Tanganyika Service and Some Nigeria, London, 1939; C.L.Temple, Native Races and Their Rulers, Cape Town, 1918; W.R.Crocker, Nigeria: a Critique of British Colonial Administration, London, 1916. M.Perham, Native Administration in Nigeria, London, 1957; A.H.M.Kirk-Greene, The Principles of Native Administration in Nigeria: Selected Documents 1900–1947, London, 1965. 31 P.C.Lloyd, ‘Local Government in Yoruba towns’, unpublished D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1958; A.E.Afigbo, The Warrant Chiefs: Indirect Rule in Southeastern Nigeria, 1891–1929, London, 1972; O.Ikime, ‘Itsekiri-Urhobo relations and the establishment of British rule: 1884–1936’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Ibadan University, 1965; J.A.Atanda, ‘The new Oyo “Empire”: a study of British Indirect Rule in Oyo Province: 1894–1934’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Ibadan University, 1967. 32 National Archives, Ibadan, Ije Prof. 3 J6/1922, ‘Memorandum on Ijebu Administration’ by W.Buchanan Smith, 10/5/1922. 33 National Archives Ibadan, Ije Prof. 1/1290, Minute dated 23/7/1948. 34 National Archives Ibadan, Ije Prof. 4/J165 vol. 2, Ijebu Province Annual Report 1932.

2 Britain and Yorubaland in the Nineteenth Century Anglo-Yoruba relations can be traced to the seventeenth century when many British slave dealers such as Archibald Dalzel and Robert Norris established themselves in Whydah, Allada, and Porto Novo, ports on the Atlantic seaboard extensively used then by the Ọyọ Yoruba. In the eighteenth century this contact was strengthened by British commercial activities in Badagry, a town already partly inhabited by the Yoruba. By the early years of the last century British traders had begun to visit Lagos and to record useful information on the politics, customs, and trading activities of the Yoruba inhabitants of this island and the adjacent Ijẹbuland.1 However, it was not until the third decade, when Clapperton and the Lander brothers passed through the Old Ọyọ Empire, that the people in the interior had direct physical contact with the British. Coinciding with the last years of the decline of the empire, the inhabitants of the Ẹgbado and Oke Ogun parts of the empire received these explorers warmly and eagerly. The visitors were looked upon as people able to provide solutions to the political and social problems on which the empire had begun to founder. The Alafin, Majotu, expressed to Clapperton the desire to have the British help him ward off the Fulani menace and bring to book the Ilọrin rebels. Richard Lander was offered the premiership and military command of the empire! This eagerness of the people of the Old Ọyọ Empire and this desire of the Alafin to use British nationals for the cure of the malaise of his decadent dominion should be noted as a rehearsal of what was to happen in Yorubaland during the Kiriji War of 1877 to 1893, when there was a universal appeal by the Yoruba rulers for the British to put an end to this war, an appeal that provided the British with an excellent pretext to establish their suzerainty over the Yoruba country. Anglo-Yoruba relations in the nineteenth century were determined from the British end by three groups of agents—missionaries, traders, and secular officials. The activities of these groups of agents before the British consolidated their rule in Yorubaland should not be isolated as the popular books tend to suggest. In the nineteenth century the behaviour of one group impinged on that of the other. Although, with the benefit of hindsight, we can discern the fact that the ultimate objectives of the three groups were not necessarily identical, yet it is clear that their activities in the pre-colonial period were in many ways complementary. Missionaries did not see themselves merely as propagators of the Christian faith: they believed that it was part of their task to improve the material lives of their wards. This involved the advocacy and encouragement of an economy that would put Yorubaland in contact with the industrial countries of the world, the primary objective of the European traders. The traders in turn were a part of the Christian Victorian society which held the view that a Christianized community was more likely to adopt the Western style of life in material tastes than a ‘pagan’ society. The secular


14

officer—usually a naval officer or a man of military experience—was invariably a Christian whose conception of his role in Yorubaland as a watchdog of British imperial interest included the protection of the missionary and the trader. Moreover the three groups of agents shared similar ideas. They all wanted peace and stability for Yorubaland; they would welcome a new kind of law and order that would displace the ‘accursed despotism’ of the indigenous ‘pagan’ government; they all were disgusted with some Yoruba customs and institutions, including ‘fetish’, human sacrifice, slavery, slave hunting, and slave dealing—all of which they would like to see disappear. Furthermore the three groups were British patriots where the threat of foreign competition was concerned. The administrative officer in Lagos kept an anxious and watchful eye on the activities of the French in Porto Novo and the western periphery of Yorubaland; the mission-ary would not like to see any power other than Britain establish suzerainty over Yorubaland, for fear that his religious programme would be interfered with under an alien regime; the trader, too, was apprehensive that a foreign power would enact fiscal regulations to discourage British commercial enterprise. It is true that these groups of agents bickered with one another over the methods and approach to adopt on a number of issues in their relations with the Yoruba. But these bickerings, usually a paper affair for the attention of the Colonial Office or the mission headquarters in London, were hardly known to the Yoruba. As far as the latter were concerned all white people were a family, as birds of the same feather, and there were many occasions when they flocked together. Yoruba knowledge of, and contact with, the British increased progressively throughout the century, but not uniformly. Contact varied from place to place both in point of time and in intensity. Until the last quarter of the century, British influence was confined to the western half of the country, that is from Badagry and Shaki in the west to Lekkie and Ilesha in the east. But from 1875 to the time of the Ijẹbu Expedition (1892), British attention and influence spread to the eastern half, that is the area inhabited by the Ondo, the Ijẹsha, and the Ekiti. Immediately after the Ijẹbu Expedition British contact spread over the country until by the beginning of the present century the Pax Britannica had been established throughout the length and breadth of the Yoruba country. Throughout the nineteenth century the reaction of the Yoruba to the British—the point this chapter wishes to emphasize—varied from town to town and from one tribal group to another. From the beginning some chiefs welcomed the British, whilst others regarded them as dangerous intruders to be ejected from Yorubaland. The point to emphasize is that on all occasions the real determinant of the attitude of each people or group was their interests. Take for instance the conflicting attitudes of the two dominant and neighbouring tribal groups of the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu to the British advent in Yorubaland in the middle of the nineteenth century. For political and economic reasons the Ẹgba became the greatest patron of the British from the beginning, hankering after the missionaries, the consuls, and the liberated Ẹgba, usually referred to as the Saro. Since the Owu War of 1817–24 the Ẹgba had suffered severely at the hands of the Ọyọ, the Ifẹ, and the Ijẹbu. Not only were the Ẹgba driven away from their fatherland but they were pursued to, and threatened in, the fortress of Abẹokuta, founded about 1830. Surrounded by enemies but desirous to survive, they found an opportunity to expand their political and economic influence westward in the hopelessly divided Ẹgbado country and coastward to Lagos and Badagry.

Britain and Yorubaland in the nineteenth century

15

Under the able leadership of odẹkẹ, a corpulent man with a large and powerful frame who had led the Ẹgba to Abẹokuta, the Ẹgba were able to contain the threats from the Ọyọ and Ijẹbu. This was the time when a number of liberated Ẹgba began to arrive back in Abẹokuta from Sierra Leone in 1839 and began to encourage odẹkẹ to invite the British for military and material succour. The important thing to note is that the Ẹgba leader felt the need for British aid. As he told Thomas Birch Freeman, the Methodist pioneer of missionary activity in Yorubaland: ‘My people [the Saro] told me they were sure their friends in England would not neglect them, but I feared they would not come so far. Now I see you, and my heart rejoices; and as you have come to visit us, I hope the English will never leave us.’2 In contrast were the Ijẹbu, who had political, social, and economic reasons for never wishing the British to install themselves in Yorubaland. From the seventeenth century when, it is said, they achieved independence of Ọyọ, their country had been relatively peaceful. As intermediaries between the Europeans on the coast and the interior people, they had become prosperous. Their farms were well cultivated, largely with slave labour; their houses were superior to those of their neighbours; they were healthy and corpulent. Even in the last days of the Old Ọyọ Empire the sufferings and extremities of others were an opportunity for the Ijẹbu. They were able to fish in troubled waters by persuading the anti-Owu and anti-Ẹgba allies of the Owu War to establish their bases of operation in the Ijẹbu country .They found the trans-Atlantic slave trade a blessing rather than a curse to their country. Then there was the fact that the Ijẹbu were very proud of their culture, customs, and institutions and they did not wish to be infected with any alien culture. They did not wish to be visited by any European, for them an inferior being and an ill-omen. Unlike the Ẹgba they refused to have back the liberated Ijẹbu, in their judgment people who had discredited and disqualified themselves for Ijẹbu citizenship by imbibing an alien culture and religion. In sum the Ijẹbu wanted the traditional order maintained. Intrusion from the European world was likely to disturb this order, against the real interests of the Ijẹbu. Self-interest, then—the very consideration that made it imperative for the Ẹgba to welcome the British—determined the unconcealed hostile attitude of the Ijẹbu to the British intruders. Further in the interior, beyond the Ẹgba and the Ijẹbu, the Yoruba knew the British largely through the missionaries. Response to the religious intruders varied from place to place according to local interests. According to missionaries, Muslims encouraged some chiefs to reject them in such places as Ilọrin and Ketu. In all the villages between Abẹokuta and Ketu white people were regarded as harbingers of evil; they ascribed the disaster that had befallen the Ẹgbado and Oke Ogun territories traversed by Clapperton and the Lander brothers to the white visitors.3 In Ile Ifẹ, regarded by the Yoruba as their place of origin and the seat of their spiritual head, the Ọni refused to have any missionary. But in the other large towns such as Ọyọ, Isẹyin, Ọtta, Ogbomọshọ), and Ibadan, missionaries were seen as a political and economic asset. Many chiefs believed that patronage of missionaries would enlarge their prestige, whilst others felt that caravans would troop to any town where a missionary was to be found. This was why Kurunmi, the efficient and masterful ruler of Ijaye, ordered that missionaries should settle in Ijaye only, and not in other parts of his extensive domain. Although missionaries were spreading British influence in the far interior in a manner to be analysed later in this chapter, it was with the Ẹgba and the Ijẹbu mostly that the


16

British were to deal until the outbreak of the Kiriji War. The pattern of Anglo-Yoruba relations that emerged in these years was as follows. Up till the outbreak of the Ijaye war Anglo-Ẹgba relations were very cordial and Anglo-Ijẹbu relations severely strained. But after the British had forced King Dosunmu to sign away the island of Lagos to them, and it had become clear that the British were manifesting imperialist intentions against the Yoruba country, both the Ẹgba and the Ijẹbu turned uncompromisingly hostile and adopted an identical attitude of hostility to the British for the rest of the century. Although from the beginning there were not wanting in Abẹokuta individuals opposed to Anglo-Ẹgba friendship, the Ẹgba authorities believed that their association with the British had worked in Ẹgba interests. In 1846 the Church Missionary Society and the Wesleyan Missionary Society established themselves in the Ẹgba capital. Four years later they were followed by the Southern American Baptist Mission of the United States. Henry Townsend and Samuel Ajayi Crowther, both of the CMS, made themselves advocates of what they conceived as the true interests of the Ẹgba, which they wished to see the British satisfy. It became the habit of missionaries to paint the Ẹgba in romantic terms, as a good-natured people, ill-used by their slave-holding neighbours, a people who hated the slave trade and wished for connection with the British so that the latter might put an end to the nefarious traffic; they were portrayed as a people thirsty after Christianity and anxious to do legitimate commerce with the British. As Samuel Ajayi Crowther noted in his journal: Abẹokuta which is the only place in the interior willing to be directed by England and promises to give up the slave trade for legitimate commerce, and even suggested to Her Majesty’s Consul the best way of accomplishing this most desirable object, has become the enemy of those nations interested in the slave trade. Whatever other causes may be assigned, that Abẹokuta has sided with England and received missionaries to the fall and ruin of the slave trade is the sore point with the King of Dahomey and all slave trading powers.4 Time and again the missionary supporters in Britain stressed that their Government would be performing a worthy and chivalrous task on behalf of Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization by defending the Ẹgba against all their foes—the notorious slave dealers of Lagos, Badagry, Ijẹbu, Porto Novo, and Dahomey. Largely through the representations of the missionaries, the African Times, perhaps the first weekly in Britain liberal to the African interest, founded in 1860, became an ardent advocate of the Ẹgba cause, and Abẹokuta began to play host to a number of naval officers and consuls, among whom might be mentioned John Beecroft, Henry Grant Foote, Richard Burton, John Duncan, Commander Bedingfield, and A.T.Jones. No other Yoruba group received the attention of the British enjoyed by the Ẹgba. By 1861 there were twenty-two white people, including three traders, in Abẹokuta, about 2,000 Christians and 265 children in school. The majority of the population remained uncompromisingly ‘pagan’ and the Saro, many of whom were themselves slave dealers, held the English language as a second revelation to mankind. Politically the Ẹgba derived a number of advantages from their connection with the British. Although without external aid the Ẹgba had defeated the Dahomians in 1845 and


17

in subsequent engagements scored victory over the Amazons, the military help given by the British and the missionaries should not be underrated. Henceforward the Ẹgba felt that they were under obligation to the British. Other activities of British secular agents and missionaries which the Ẹgba regarded as advancing their political interests included the bombardment of Lagos (1851) and deposition of their archenemy, Kosọkọ, the reinstatement of their protégé, Akitoye, the expulsion from Badagry in 1851 of antimissionary and anti-Ẹgba chiefs, and the settlement of the dispute between the Ẹgba and Ado on terms favourable to the former. The Ẹgba enjoyed economic benefits as well. The British encouraged them to produce palm oil, kernels, cotton, ginger, and pepper for export, in exchange for European articles that improved their material tastes. By 1874 there were ginneries in Abẹokuta. By the early sixties, however, the Ẹgba had begun to regret their association with the British. Conflict between the two peoples was inevitable. From the days of odẹkẹ the Ẹgba had expected the British to give them military and material support gratis and lend themselves as a veritable tool for the advancement of purely Ẹgba interests. But in 1861 the British began to hesitate and rationalize about how far it would be advisable for them to aid the Ẹgba, and to define the purpose of the help they were giving. It occurred to many British secular agents that by 1861 the Ẹgba had ceased to fight defensive wars, that they were turning the aggressor, and that it would be indiscreet and against British interest to give the Ẹgba a blank cheque in their relations with other Yoruba groups. Anglo-Ẹgba conflict became apparent during the Ijaye war of 1861–5. At the outbreak of this war the Ẹgba asked the British to help them in driving away the Ibadan from Ibadan, the Ẹgba fatherland, and attack the Ijẹbu and Dahomians. Naturally the British, who did not see themselves as merely a tool of the Ẹgba, decided to be neutral. This neutrality was misconstrued by the Ẹgba as an unfriendly act. To worsen the situation McCoskry, the Governor of Lagos, became ostensibly hostile to the Ẹgba whilst Captain A.T.Jones, who had been sent to Abẹokuta to report on what help the British could give to the Ẹgba in the war, became a persona non grata. His insistence on visiting Ibadan was regarded as an anti-Ẹgba move and it was alleged that he had accepted bribes from their Ibadan enemies. It was in this charged atmosphere of anti-British hostility among the Ẹgba that the British decided to formalize their occupation of Lagos. Against the declared opposition of Dosunmu, Akitoye’s successor, the British announced that Lagos had become a British possession and forced the Ọba to sign a treaty to that effect on 6 August 1861. This was not an eventuality the Ẹgba had expected. The implications of the British presence in Lagos were clear to the Ẹgba. From the island of Lagos the British could, by a display of force, assimilate the rest of the Yoruba country to Lagos Colony. In such an event the Ẹgba were likely to be the first victim. The hitherto neurotic favourable disposition of the Ẹgba gave way to unconcealed anglophobia; gratitude gave way to curses. Many in the Ẹgba capital began to regret their contact with the British and other Yoruba rulers became indisposed to receive missionaries ‘lest it should lead to political results.’5 Specific acts of the Lagos Government during the tenure of office of J.H.Glover (1865–72) reinforced the suspicions of the Ẹgba that the British would gobble them up. Finding the behaviour of the Ẹgba army in Ijẹbu Rẹmọ injurious to British trade, Glover attacked them in Ikorodu and inflicted upon them a humiliation they could not be expected to live down easily. As the Glover Papers have testified, Glover manifested a


18

decidedly pro-Ọyọ prejudice by patronizing The Yoruba National Association whilst annoying The Lagos Ẹgba Party by looking for alternative routes to Ẹgba and Ijẹbu ones to the interior. This plan, if carried out, would have the effect of undermining the economic progress of the Ẹgba. Then in 1867 Glover began to lay claim to Ebute Mẹtta, just north of Lagos island, an area the Ẹgba regarded as belonging to them. With the help of some of the Saro who shared the anti-British feelings of the chiefs, the Ẹgba visited their rage upon white missionaries in Abẹokuta in the famous Ifọle (demolition of missionary property) of 1867. They found it difficult to believe that the white missionaries might not have been privy to the aggressive anti-Ẹgba policy of Glover. The Ẹgba apprehensions about the intention of the British in Yorubaland were not without some foundation. By 1861 the Colonial Office had come to regard Abẹokuta as a protégé of the British and the governor of Lagos had declared ominously in 1864: ‘They [the Ẹgba] well know that one or two things must happen; either the British Government will give up Lagos, or Lagos must gradually absorb the adjacent countries. It is a question which, in my mind, admits no manner of doubt,…it is but a question of time’ .7 The Ijẹbu reaction to the British in the circumstances described above may be best imagined. The paramount ruler of the Ijẹbu, the Awujalẹ, refused any meetings with importunate white traders. According to the traders, goats, sheep, and fowls were sacrificed in the villages to appease the gods who were believed to have been incensed at the mere appearance of the white man in the Ijẹbu country. All trading activities were confined strictly to the markets of Ejinrin, Ikosi, and Ikorodu, beyond which even the educated Africans from Lagos were not permitted to go. The British bombardment of Lagos became gall and wormwood to the Awujalẹ, partly because Kosọkọ, the deposed king, was an Ijẹbu through his mother and partly because the Awujalẹ shared the views of Kosọkọ that the slave trade was not an evil for the Yoruba and that the territorial integrity of the Yoruba must be preserved against the threat of European intruders. The Awujalẹ was confounded by the British occupation of Lagos and time and again he lectured the British to reinstate Dosunmu to his traditional authority. The Awujalẹ not only proscribed missionary enterprise in his domains but sent messages to other parts of Yorubaland that missionaries should be driven away from the country.8 The ever-increasing hostility of the Ẹgba and the Ijẹbu to the British was largely expressed by the closing of their routes to Lagos. It is important to emphasize here that historians of Yorubaland, indeed of other parts of Africa, have tended to read a predominantly materialistic purpose into the attitude of pre-colonial African society to the routes with which they maintained contact with the Europeans on the coast. But, unlike the European traders and administration who viewed the traditional routes primarily in terms of their commercial function, the Yoruba did not perceive their routes essentially in terms of their trade value. The Yoruba, in this case the Ẹgba and the Ijẹbu in particular, did not put trade with the British in Lagos before their sovereignty and territorial integrity. This was why the Ijẹbu would not allow foreigners, even other Yoruba groups, unrestricted use of their routes; this was why in 1891, at a time the British began visibly to threaten Ẹgba independence, the Ẹgba boasted that they would close their routes to the British for fifty years; this was why when in 1883 some British businessmen were contemplating a railway line to pass through Abẹokuta, the missionaries warned that the Ẹgba would not tolerate an ‘iron horse’ which would seem to them a threat—a coup de main—to their sovereignty. The Yoruba did not regard trade


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with the British a sine qua non of their existence and prosperity. Rather they were concerned with the necessity to preserve their contented life, solidarity, well-knit social system, moral purity, and their customs and traditions. More to the point was the fact that the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu, like other Yoruba groups, conceived the routes primarily in a political sense, as part and parcel of the power-politics of their country. Although the element of selfishness was there—in the sense that the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu did not want the more interior peoples to undermine their middlemen’s position by unrestricted access to the coast—this was not the major factor. The Ẹgba and Ijẹbu perceived that unrestricted access to the coast for the interior peoples would encourage Ibadan, Ekiti countries, and Ijaye to import arms. It was obvious that a State like Ibadan, dedicated to unbounded militarism, would not hesitate to add the Ijẹbu and Ẹgba to their subjects. The fear that the Ibadan ‘world spoilers’ would gobble them up was the greatest reason why these two tribal groups refused Ibadan direct access to Lagos until the establishment of the local Pax Britannica. More disconcerting to the two tribal groups was the demand of such interior people as Ibadan, Iwo and Ekiti towns for open routes and rivers for greater contact with the Lagos Government at the very time when the imperial ambitions of the British were becoming apparent. For the wishes of these interior States were being reciprocated by the European traders. As early as 1861, for instance, an English merchant had appealed strongly to the Colonial Office to construct a timber railway to connect Lagos with Rabah on the Niger, through Abẹokuta and Ibadan, Ogbomọshọ and Ilọrin.9 Missionaries in Abẹokuta and Ibadan also began to declare the wish to see the routes opened, particularly the Ijẹbu route, the shortest between Lagos and Ibadan. The concurrent wishes of the interior chiefs and British intruders for greater commercial relations with one another had serious political implications, inherently inimical to Ẹgba and Ijẹbu interests. In fact the apparently commercial desire of the interior chiefs was primarily political and strategic. The Ibadan, the Ijẹsha, and the Ekiti wanted the routes to upset the traditional middlemen pattern of trade and thereby have the balance of power tipped in their favour. It is significant to note that from 1864 onwards individual Lagos administrators discerned the political motives of these peoples and saw the potentialities of these motives for the advancement of British interests. In pursuance of the policy of divide et impera, the British administrators decided to establish friendly relations with these peoples, as a counterpoise to the anti-British agitation among the Ẹgba and the Ijẹbu. As Governor Freeman put it in 1863, the British should establish ‘friendly relations’ with Ibadan so that ‘we may make good use of them to counterpoise the influence of other tribes’.10 By 1872 the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu had been annoyed by the Lagos Government to a point of desperation and the Colonial Office had to recall Glover. Whether by accident or by design Glover employed liberated Ọyọ Yoruba, the traditional rivals of the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu, in his administration. Apart from Palma and Lekkie, Ijẹbu islands which the British had forcibly annexed, Glover located Ọyọ Yoruba on Ijẹbu soil as ‘police men’. Rumour was strong that the Ijẹbu, the Ẹgba, some Saro in Lagos, and Dosunmu were actually planning a forcible ejection of the white people from Lagos in 1872. Glover’s successor, John Pope-Hennessy, reversed his policy, appeased the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu and succeeded in persuading the two tribal groups to once more open their routes to the British in Lagos.


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Irritating and economically harmful as the frequent closing of the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu routes was to the British, the routes problem was not as serious for them as that posed by the civil war to their imperial interest until the last quarter of the century. After all, on the whole, the British succeeded in their commercial relations with the Yoruba. The mutual advantage of the commercial relations to the British and Yoruba made trade trickle through the routes even when relations were most severely strained. In fact, as many of the administrators themselves discovered, trade with the Ẹgba and the Ijẹbu could be brisk and long as long as it had no political implications. But until the Kiriji War compelled them to revise their attitude towards the British, the Yoruba were determined to ward off any political intrusion from the British. The latter’s political interest had been clearly manifested by their forcible occupation of Lagos. Since this event the British had lost ‘weight and prestige’ in the eyes of the Yoruba.11 Consequently vis-à-vis the British, the Yoruba treated the civil wars as a domestic problem about which they wanted no interference from the white intruders. When, therefore, at the outbreak of the Ijaye war, British secular agents and educated Africans offered to ‘mediate’ with the combatants, they were told to mind their own business. During the war two British governors had to swallow the humiliation of being told by the Ẹgba ‘most insolently’ that they, the British, should not interfere in Yoruba affairs. Secular agents such as H.S.Freeman and J.H.Glover very much would have wished to interfere in Yoruba affairs, either under the pretext that the economy of the British in Lagos was seriously affected by the civil wars, or under the humanitarian platitude and pretext that they wished peace and stability for the entire country and wished to suppress slavery and slave raiding. However the British had no physical power with which to put into effect their pious wish: only a large army equipped with terrific weapons could have frightened the combatants to keep the peace and assume a friendly disposition to Britain. Nor could the usual policy of divide and rule, which was working in favour of British influence in contemporary Gold Coast, have been successful in Yorubaland. On the Gold Coast the pro-British Fanti were the coastal peoples and willing collaborators against Ashanti in the interior, thereby making the British a factor in the power-politics of the country. But in Yorubaland an effective liaison with the pro-British Ibadan, Ọyọ, and Ekiti in the interior was vitiated by the coastal geographical location of the anti-British Ẹgba and Ijẹbu. Indeed for the greater part of the century the British in Lagos never had on the spot the military capacity to compel the two recalcitrant tribal groups to bend themselves to British wishes. Then there was another factor. The Colonial Office was hardly ever convinced of the advisability and possibility of success of any forward or aggressive policy and, therefore, time and again warned its agents against activities that were likely to provoke the Yoruba. It was all these factors that determined the passive role of the British during the civil wars. Since the recall of J.H. Glover in 1872 every governor became a pacifist. Conscious of British prestige, the governors had to behave in such a way that the British should not be insulted. This, in practical terms, meant that they had to keep aloof, in dignified isolation, and behave as mere spectators in the power-politics in Yorubaland. In the circumstances they devised the policy of using educated Africans as intermediaries, a measure that safeguarded British prestige, no matter the reaction of the combatants to these intermediaries. Among the educated Africans used in this way were J.A.O.Payne, an educated Ijẹbu of the royal family, and P.Martins, an Ẹgba repatriate from Brazil who


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was to become important in the judicial department of the Ẹgba United Government of 1898 to 1914. Partly because of the unabated hostility of the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu to the British, and partly because these two tribal groups could not in the circumstances described above be coerced, the British had to shift their attention to the Ondo route which had been explored in 1871 by Glover and opened up by the CMS Ondo Mission in 1876, a year before the outbreak of the Kiriji War. Until the last decade of the century this route became the artery of trade between Lagos and the hinterland countries of the Ondo, Ijẹsha, Ibadan, and Ekiti. The British made themselves the watchdog of this trade route by patrolling the eastern lagoons and by making annual gifts to the Mahin and Western Ijaw inhabitants of the eastern portions of the lagoon. Ironically, however, this very time, when the British were maintaining dignified isolation and were giving the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu much less anxiety, coincided with the outbreak of the Kiriji War and a change of attitude by a larger section of the Yoruba to the British. Faced with a suicidal war, the Yoruba had so distrusted themselves that all machinery for a domestic solution of their problems had broken down. According to the missionary records, the rulers of Ibadan and Abẹokuta wished a quick end to their dispute in the middle of 1877. According to the Reverend Daniel Olubi,12 the majority of Ibadan chiefs wanted the British to intervene in the dispute and Ilọrin, Ifẹ, and Ijẹbu sent to Ibadan that they did not want the latter’s dispute with the Ẹgba to develop further. But since the British would not take the appeals of Ẹgba and Ibadan chiefs and the representation of mission agents seriously, the quarrel of 1877 escalated into the dimension beyond the control of those who wanted peace restored to the country. The Ọni of Ifẹ, whose traditionally-respected spiritual position might have been expected to influence the combatants to consider the virtues of peace, was already discredited. For Ile Ifẹ had not escaped the disastrous consequences of the disturbed times. The refugees from the Old Ọyọ Empire who had been allowed to settle in Modakẹkẹ, just outside the town of Ifẹ, turned upon their Ifẹ hosts and destroyed the town in 1882. The Ọni Elect, Chief Derin, had to seek refuge at Oke Igbo, the Ondo territory which the Ifẹ had occupied in the evil days of the Ondo earlier in the century. Chief Derin did make some effort to bring the combatants together, but he had to confess that he was at the end of his tether and that only the British could bring about peace. The Alafin of Ọyọ was even more discredited. With the disintegration of the Old Ọyọ empire by the fourth decade and the emergence of Ibadan and Ijaye, he had been stripped of all the substance of authority which he used to enjoy in the empire. Ibadan had become an overmighty subject. Moreover both the Ẹgba and Ibadan discovered that Adeyẹmi I, Alafin from 1875 to 1905, had no interest in the making of peace as such, and that he was more concerned with retrieving most of the traditional power that he had lost than wishing for a return of peace to the country as a whole. Therefore he intrigued with Ilọrin against Ibadan, with the Ẹgba against Ibadan, and even sent to the Ondo to close their route against Ibadan. Then there was the fact that, pressed on the west by the Dahomians, the Alafin was constrained to appeal to the British for direct help in 1881. The Sultan of Sokoto, who made two attempts between 1879 and 1883 to bring about peace, could not be taken seriously. For in 1879 Ilọrin had been instigated to take up arms against Ibadan and heavy fighting soon began with Ilọrin at Ọffa. By 1883 all important warriors from both camps had declared the wish that the British should intervene on


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behalf of peace, clamouring that only the British could achieve this desired end. On the Ibadan side Latosa, the Are, made Samuel Johnson, later the historian of the Yoruba, his ‘adviser’ and begged, through this CMS agent that the British should intervene; also in the Ekitiparapọ camp Ogedemgbe, the generalissimo of the confederation, importuned the British, through J.B.Wood and Charles Phillips (both CMS agents), to intervene in the war and bring about peace. The Yoruba appeals through missionaries to the British to intervene in their affairs should make us pause a while for a consideration of the missionary factor in AngloYoruba relations. Three Protestant missions and one Catholic worked in the territory in the second half of the nineteenth century. The first to establish themselves in the country were the Wesleyans who began work in Badagry in 1842 and were followed four years later in Abẹokuta by the Church Missionary Society. In 1850 the Southern American Baptist Mission founded their first station in the Ẹgba capital. The Society of African Missions, with its headquarters in Lyons, established themselves in Lagos in 1864 but did not go into the interior until 1880. This was because, they alleged, the British Protestant missions discouraged them. Missionaries were the effective pathfinders of British influence in pre-colonial Yorubaland. Their friendly disposition towards the chiefs and the ethics of their propaganda had the value of predisposing the chiefs to acceptance of British rule. Many of the rulers had no ethical basis to doubt the missionaries’ doctrine. Essentially they preached the gospel of peace, they deplored inter-tribal warfare, and denounced human enslavement; they lectured many of the chiefs on the immense power of Britain and the advantages that would accrue to States like the Ẹgba, the Ibadan, and the Ekiti through friendly disposition towards the British. This was the substance of the impression which the educated Yoruba from these States gave to their natural rulers about missionaries. There was also the role played by mission-trained educated Yoruba in the spread of British influence in the territory. Their attitude toward the British was not one of repulsion but of gratitude, and they had their conception of what was in the best interest of Yorubaland. Like the British they hated such anti-British rulers as Kosọkọ and the Awujalẹ of the Ijẹbu; like the British they wanted the economy of Yorubaland to become part of the world economy, and they wanted unhindered movement throughout the length and breadth of the country and open roads and routes from the interior to the coast. They did not want the British to seize control of their country as such, but they believed that British presence was indispensable to the stability and prosperity of the country. Most of these educated Africans longed to see Christianity displace the traditional religion and a few did not hesitate to suggest that British ‘residents’ should be sent to the interior as advisers to, and guides of, the traditional authorities in matters of enlightenment and ‘civilization’. Perhaps the two individuals who have left their thoughts most vividly behind in their records are Samuel Johnson and Charles Phillips, whose influence on the Yoruba authorities over an extensive area was considerable. It is not surprising, then, that in their official reports on the interior to the Lagos Government they often added views of their own to which the chiefs, to whom they were honorary secretaries, might not have subscribed. Samuel Johnson had his recipe for the Yoruba. In his judgment the British should sign treaties with the Ijẹ in which the latter would be compelled to keep open their routes and receive an annual sum from the British;13 the rivers and routes to Lagos should


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be opened and the Ibadan encouraged to concentrate their effort on legitimate commerce with the British. This, Samuel Johnson alleged, would tame them to beat their swords down to ploughshares. As an Ọyọ Yoruba, indeed a grandson of Alafin Abiọdun, he wished solidarity for all Yorubaland under an Alafin who would be restored not only to his traditional authority, but also administer areas that had never been ruled from the imperial capital in the palmiest days of the Old Ọyọ Empire. Charles Phillips was an even greater unblushing advocate of British influence in Yorubaland. He argued that the Lagos Government should make itself ‘dreaded’ by the Yoruba inhabitants of the south-east and develop the hinterland.14 He wanted the British to annex Atijẹrẹ, a town on the eastern coast, and abolish slavery. He believed that the white man would have magical effects on the Ondo and therefore appealed to the CMS for several years to send a white missionary to the Ondo district, so that the Ondo might be convinced that his work had the backing of the mysterious white man! But apart from the pro-British tendencies of the educated Africans, the British missionaries were not immune to patriotism and there were many occasions when they advocated, or approved of, the use of force by the secular officers. This kind of idea began to be entertained even before any converts were won to the Christian faith. As early as 1843 Thomas Birch Freeman had urged the British Government to ‘protect’ Abẹokuta and Badagry, the rulers of which ‘have intreated [sic] me to state how very anxious they are to enjoy the protection of that country [Britain] which they know to be the best friend of Africa’,15 The slave trade in Whydah and Lagos, he also declared, should be suppressed ‘effectually’. The Ẹgba case was particularly stressed. They were, he said, an innocent people ‘surrounded by several hostile Tribes who derive their support from the slave trade’ and the British should warn Lagos that ‘severe punishment’ would be meted out to her should she molest Badagry or Abẹokuta. Like the missionaries in other parts of the continent, the British missionaries could not help being patriotic, particu-larly when their interests were menaced by Roman Catholics, who happened to be French nationals and patriots as well. For sectarian reasons many of the Protestant missionaries deplored the advent of the Romanists in Abẹokuta in 1880 and their activities, in favour of French imperial interests, were carefully and painfully watched in the Ẹgba capital in the next decade. Apart from the fact that the Protestant missionaries feared the ‘false’ doctrine of the Romanists in Yorubaland, they were also apprehensive of the prospects of their missionary work should the territory fall under French influence, an event which many of the Catholic priests worked for consciously. It was perhaps the Ẹgba who knew the weight of the imperialistic implications of missionary enterprise, for the Protestant missions became a thorn in the side of the Ẹgba authorities. The Saro came to be regarded as protégés of the British in Lagos. It was largely to neutralize this British influence that the Ẹgba authorities began to patronize the French priests. So incensed against the British did the Ẹgba become that in 1888 they signed the Viard treaty which virtually put the Ẹgba under a French Protectorate. According to the French priests, Viard, the man who claimed to be an authentic representative of the French Government, did not intend to sign a treaty with the Ẹgba; it was the latter who hankered after it.16 It was in the face of this spontaneous wish of the Ẹgba that the treaty ceding the Ẹgba territory to France was signed and witnessed to by the Catholic priests at the request of the Ẹgba. The Ẹgba were ‘a free and an independent


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nation and were in no way favourably disposed to the English’. They had come to know and love the French ‘since the advent of the Catholic Missionaries in their midst’.17 So embittered against the British did the Ẹgba become that in 1891 they requested all the Saro to leave their capital whilst asking the French to stay on. Then they wanted all their commercial relations with the British ended by closing down the routes to Lagos. They wanted all trade to be done with the French in Porto Novo through Ajilete. It is not surprising, then, that the British responded to the appeals of the combatants at Kiriji by asking missionaries to carry out the necessary negotiations. These negotiations were really the achievement of Samuel Johnson and Charles Phil-lips. Left to the combatants themselves, they did not expect that the British should undermine their sovereignty in any way. The terms of agreement which terminated the Kiriji War were in the interest of the peace and stability of the Yoruba peoples. But the British did not encourage negotiations out of sheer disinterestedness. They saw in the extremities of the Yoruba an excellent opportunity that should be exploited to promote their imperial interest. They asked several chiefs in the interior to come down to Lagos to ‘sign’ treaties, a clause of which invested the foreign affairs of Yorubaland in the British. There is no evidence that the people who thumb-marked the ‘treaties’ ever understood their content and implications; it is also of legal interest to ascertain whether the ‘representatives’ sent down to Lagos by the various States were given the mandate to ‘sign’ the treaties and whether, according to Yoruba laws, power could be mandated in such a fashion. Perhaps in the flush of the felicity of the peace that had been restored through the intervention of the British, the ‘papers’—as these certainly seemed to the Yoruba rulers—had no intrinsic significance of their own, and could not be conceived as harbouring any danger to themselves and their sovereignty. Had they understood these so-called treaties in the way the British would like us to believe, then they would have accepted British rule spontaneously and without grumbling when the British began to put their treaty claims into effect. It should also be noted that the British did not assert their treaty claims immediately. The power of these ‘treaties’ lay in the future when they could be used as pretexts for enforcing British suzerainty over a large part of the Yoruba country. Indeed in the Ekiti country British presence was welcomed and missionaries were hailed as the heralds of peace, but only for as long as the integrity of traditional rulers was not affected. At best the British presence in 1890 was conceived in a way that meant only maintenance of a new form of law and order, but no more. In no place did the people look forward to interference in their laws and customs; nowhere did the people expect a tampering with traditional institutions. Territorially the British in 1890 had only the Colony of Lagos. However, in the next decade the British began to establish suzerainty over Yorubaland in a spasmodic and subtle, and never in an elaborate, manner. There was much room for a modus vivendi between the British and the different Yoruba States. Interested mainly in the free flow of trade to them in Lagos and exclusion of other European powers from Yorubaland, the British saw no need for an elaborate administration in Yorubaland in the last decade of the century. The return of peace to the country was accompanied by the development of the cocoa tree, the planting of rubber, and the granting of timber concessions—all of which strengthened and enriched Anglo-Yoruba commercial relations. Already the Anglo-French agreement of 10 August 1889 had removed French competition from Yorubaland.


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It was in the commercial and political interest of the British to avoid an expensive administration as long as this was not a sine qua non for the maintenance of peace and stability in the interior. Nor did the British wish to alienate the chiefs, whose good will was indispensable to the maintenance of law and order, by usurping their authority hastily and completely. The traditional rulers, particularly the Ijẹsha and Ekiti chiefs, saw the British presence as a stabilizing factor in society and did not actually wish that the British should leave, as long as traditional authority was not interfered with. Consequently the British took their time in establishing their administration in Yorubaland. Until 1895 only one captain, Captain Bower, was asked to supervise the maintenance of law and order in Yorubaland outside the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu dominions. It was not until the end of the century that other officers were put in Ilesha, Ondo, and Odo-Ọttin, to settle problems brought to them by the chiefs of those areas. The Ẹgba were allowed to govern themselves by the Ẹgba United Government, founded in 1898 by the order of the British Governor. Gradually between 1898 and 1914 the British gnawed away the independence of the Ẹgba until the latter year when, thanks to internal trouble within Abẹokuta, Lugard cancelled Ẹgba independence. This is not to say that the Yoruba in these areas accepted the skeleton administrative establishment of the British and the gradual usurpation of their sovereignty by the British without any murmur or with felicity. In most parts there were irritations at the British presence and minor incidents occur-red here and there. But outside Ijẹbuland and Ọyọ no serious conflict arose between the British and the Yoruba. It was with the Ijẹbu and the Alafin of Ọyọ that the British had to come to blows. It was in the logic of things that Anglo-Ijẹbu relations should culminate in the British use of maxims and seven pounders. From the British point of view the Ijẹbu were intractable and unyielding traditionalists, absolutely impervious to British ideas of enlightenment and civilization. For the Ijẹbu refused to have missionaries, and would not have unrestricted movement of other Yoruba in their country. Nor would they have their routes thrown open to all and sundry. They wished their society to remain what it had always been; they wanted no intrusion of any kind from the British. As Samuel Johnson, who passed through the Ijẹbu country in 1887 observed, Ijẹbu laws were like those of the Medes and the Persians. But the British, particularly the missionaries, were very keen on entering the Ijẹbu country and on using the short Ijẹbu routes to the interior. There appeared in Lagos in September 1891 a new governor, G.T. Carter, who had imbibed an anti-Ijẹbu bias before he ever set his foot in Lagos. His attitude to the Ijẹbu was so menacing that the Ijẹbu authorities did all in their power to avoid a head-on collision with the British. To this end, in response to the peremptory summons of the hectoring governor, the Ijẹbu sent a delegation to satisfy the British on two counts—apologize for an alleged insult to a previous governor and declare the routes open. These requests were granted but the British were not satisfied. Carter insisted that a treaty must be signed, a demand the delegation declared they had no mandate to grant. Carter, however, got the prepared treaty ‘signed’ by two educated Ijẹbu Lagosians who had neither authority nor authorization to do so. Incensed though the youths in Ijẹbu Ode were, the Ijẹbu Ode authorities did all that was possible to give the British no excuse for military action. Missionaries were allowed free passage and, according to their testimony, were well treated. But a number of incidents drove the Ijẹbu to the verge of desperation. The Ibadan, who had never been


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happy with the exploitation of their extremities by the Ijẹbu since 1883, became wildly joyous and sent down a number of incorrigible individuals to Lagos through the Ijẹbu route. The Ijẹbu were not only jeered at but their farm crops were seized and a number of people enslaved! Without proper investigation of the outrageous behaviour of the Ibadan, the CMS missionaries presented the Ijẹbu as the guilty party to the British Government and urged the latter to enforce the treaty that had been ‘broken’ by the Ijẹbu. In May 1892, for ‘breaking’ a treaty that they had never signed, the British caused fire and sword to descend on Ijẹbu Ode and a part of the Ijẹbu country was annexed. An administration was set up, directed by the British and making the Awujalẹ a mere cypher. In the case of Ọyọ the Alafin, Adeyẹmi I, had by 1895 a number of grievances against the British. In 1881 he had approached the British Government, through the missionaries, for military help against Dahomian incursions into what remained of his domains in the Oke Ogun area, and he would very much have appreciated it if the British would restore peace to Yorubaland with himself as the paramount ruler. His association with the British, through the missionaries, had proved a success up to 1888 and his pretensions to power were flattered profusely by the British. However, the doings of the British, particularly after the expedition against the Ijẹbu, made it clear to him that the seizure of his suzerainty by the British was only a matter of time. In 1893 G. T.Carter observed that the Alafin did not wish him to visit Ọyọ, but nevertheless he compelled the Alafin to ‘sign’ a treaty he neither liked nor cared to respect. In the October of the following year the Alafin had to witness the spectacle of Captain Bower solving the problems that arose out of the civil war in Okeho, a town eighteen miles from Isẹyin, where the writ of the Alafin was expected to run. So infuriated did the Alafin become that, as Bower reported, he sent a number of his bodyguard to waylay and apprehend him.18 A few months later Bower decided to force a showdown with the Alafin and found a pretext in the legally valid castration of one Sanusi who had had an affair with a wife of the Asẹyin, the paramount chief of Isẹyin. Even by the treaty ‘signed’ by the Alafin in February 1893, Bower had no right to interfere in this purely domestic affair and due exercise of the Alafin’s traditional authority.19 Bower put before the Alafin impossible demands, including submission to public scolding by the British officer and acceptance of a Resident. No Yoruba ruler, much less a first-class ruler like the Alafin, would accept such humiliating terms. The result was the bombardment of Ọyọ in November 1895, an event that struck terror in the hearts of the Yoruba rulers. The rest of Yorubaland read the writing on the wall. It was no use resisting the British with their deadly weapons. Fear gripped the Ekitiparapo, too, when in 1895 Ogedemgbe was put in chains by Captain Bower and was exiled to Iwo. Other acts of humiliation of Yoruba rulers were to follow. In 1896 the Awujale was beaten up by a number of Government servants sent to drag him out of his palace by a British military officer. In the following year the Hausa soldiers stationed in Ogbomọshọ entered the palace of the Balẹ and removed, as their own property, seven of his wives. Two years later the military officer stationed in Ilesha hounded into jail chiefs who continued to flog their wives according to traditional sanctions. Even the Ọni of Ifẹ was not to escape the humiliation in stock for the natural rulers in the new order. Thinking that his writ still ran in his domains, the Ọni declared opposition to the erection of a church at Modakẹkẹ. To his stupefaction the Resident in Ibadan, Captain Fuller, informed him that if his opposition to Christianity did not cease he would lose his throne! Little wonder that the Ọni gave an


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order to his chiefs to erect a church. British suzerainty in Yorubaland had become an agonizing reality. NOTES 1 J.Adams, Remarks on the Country Extending from Cape Palmas to the River Congo, London, 1823, p. 97 ff. 2 Methodist Missionary Society Archives, London, T.B.Freeman to General Secretaries, 4/1/1843. 3 T.J.Bowen, Adventures and Missionary Labors in Several Countries in the Interior of Africa from 1849 to 1856, Charleston, 1857, p. 130. 4 Church Missionary Society Archives, London, CA2/031, Samuel Ajayi Crowther, Journal Entry for 5 March 1851. 5 Public Record Office, London, CO 147/4, British subjects in Abẹokuta to Glover, 30/10/1863. 6 Royal Commonwealth Library, London, Glover papers, ‘Native Questions Roads to Interior’ in Bundle 10. 7 CO 147/6, H.S.Freeman to Newcastle, 9/1/1864. 8 E.A.Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria 1842–1914: A Political and Social Analysis, London, 1966, p. 57. 9 CO 147/2, Memo entitled ‘Timber Train Road’ by N.McLeod. 10 CO 147/2, ‘Private and Confidential’ Memo by Freeman dated 10/3/ 1863. 11 Moloney to Sir Samuel Rowe, 12/5/1881, Encl. 2 in No. 1 in C.4957, Correspondence Respecting the War between Native Tribes in the Interior 1887. 12 CMS CA2/011, Olubi to Maser, 5/9/1877. 13 Chief Olotufure Papers (Ijebu Ode), Samuel Johnson to Sir Alfred Moloney, 26/2/1890. 14 CMS G3/A2/02, C.Phillips to Governor, 29/8/1881. 15 Methodist Missionary Society Archives, London, T.B.Freeman to George Maclean, 11/5/1843. 16 Les Missions Catholiques, 1891, p. 342. 17 SMA Archives, Rome, Planque’s Letter Books, vol. 1, Planque to: 27/6/1889. 18 National Archives, Ibadan, File 275/1918 ‘Extract from P.P. No. 434 Enclosure to G.T.Carter’s Despatch to S. of S. Government House 6/12/1895’, Bower’s letter dated 28/2/1913. 19 For details see E.A.Ayandele, ‘The mode of British occupation of Yorubaland in the second half of the nineteenth century: The Ọyọ episode’ Odu (University of Ife Journal of African Studies) 2, 2 (1967).

3 The Yoruba Civil Wars and the Dahomian Confrontation The series of wars in which the Yoruba fought among themselves in the nineteenth century has misled many historians to see Yoruba history in this century in purely military terms. Certainly, in this century, these people fought one another with a frequency and a ferocity that confounded European observers. It seemed to missionaries and British secular agents that the Yoruba were possessed by the demonic spirit and were suffering from psychic disorder to the extent that they were incapable of appreciating the external dangers that threatened them as a people. Prominent among these external dangers were the Fulani Jihad, the megalomania of Dahomey, and the imperial ambition of the British. Throughout the century each tribal group gave its ‘incorrigible selfishness’ priority over the solidarity of the race. Hence the Ibadan, the Ijẹbu, and the Ilọrin were at times prepared to co-operate with Dahomey against the Ẹgba; the Ekitiparapọ, the confederation of Ekiti and Ijẹsha who fought a war of liberation against imperial Ibadan from 1877 to 1893, did not hesitate to invoke the aid of the Fulani rulers of Ilọrin against Ibadan. Indeed, as shown in the last chapter, by the eighties all the important paramount rulers and military leaders of the country had invited the British to intervene in their affairs and thereby put an end to the fratricidal warfare in their society. However, the civil wars have been emphasized out of focus. In his popular book, The History of the Yorubas, Samuel Johnson devoted all but 187 of 648 pages to the nineteenth century and its wars, as if to say that the Yoruba engaged in nothing else except fighting throughout the century.1 Echoing a similar impression one of the authors of Yoruba Warfare in the Nineteenth Century asserted: ‘During almost the whole of the nineteenth century the country of the Yoruba was beset by warfare. It was the scene of a fratricidal war which lasted over 70 years’.2 It may be noted, however, that the three major wars, namely the Owu War (c. 1820–7), the Ijaye War (1860–5), and the Kiriji War (1877–93) lasted only a total of twenty-eight years. Nor were all the Yoruba necessarily involved in all these wars. The Ondo and the Mahin did not participate in these wars; the Ijẹsha and Ekiti did not involve themselves in the first two, whilst the Ẹgbado and Oke Ogun people were passive spectators in the wars. Moreover the term ‘war’ should not be conceived in the sense of the wars of contemporary Europe. Pitched battles were few and far between, warfare was not as brutal as Solferino and Sedan, implements of fighting remained largely bows and arrows, spears, swords, axes and shields. Weapons of precision were not used extensively until the era of the Kiriji War. The point that is being stressed here is that the history of the Yoruba in the nineteenth century was not solely, or primarily, that of interminable warfare. Other developments, to which students of Yoruba history should devote equal attention, include the increase in their commercial dealings with the European traders at the coast and their genius at

The yoruba civil wars and the dahomian confrontation

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constitution-making to meet the exigencies of the times. The appetite of the Yoruba for European goods, in return for oil palm, kernels, cotton, ivory, grew keener progressively in the century. By the sixties most of the peoples in the interior had begun to demand the development of rivers and improvement of roads to increase their commercial enterprise with Europeans. Moreover, even when they were at war with one another they did not sever commercial links with one another. The Dahomians, the Ẹgba, the Ijẹbu, the Ibariba, and the Ọyọ met regularly at Ketu; Abẹokuta became an important centre of trade for the Ibadan and Ijẹbu; the Ijẹbu and Ẹgba traded with each other at Ipẹru, and the Ibadan and Ijẹbu at Oru. It was also in this century that Ijaye, Ibadan, and Abẹokuta developed out of the ruins of the Old Ọyọ Empire and evolved constitutions that guaranteed internal peace, dispensed justice, and left until this day relics that are woven into the texture of the administrations of Ibadan and Abẹokuta. This is not to say that the civil wars of the nineteenth century are not important in themselves. Indeed through them we can understand the complexity of the power-politics of the Yoruba people, the diplomatic skill of their leaders, the unbounded ambition of individuals, the dedication of individuals and communities to liberal ideas like political freedom, the sanctity of immemorial customs and institutions, and the desire of States to see maintained something like the balance of power. Paradoxically, too, was the longing of all for some sort of peace. However, the terms of peace favourable to one faction were necessarily injurious to the other. The records make it abundantly clear that the quest for peace was paramount in the thinking of the warriors. Nothing can be further from the truth than the view of many contemporary missionaries and Lagos Government officials that the Yoruba wars were motivated by, and fought on behalf of, slavery and the slave trade. Each major war was fought with the aim of solving a number of issues, but, as we in our time have discovered, wars do not necessarily solve problems; in fact they have a tendency of creating fresh and more intractable ones. This was the experience of the Yoruba in the nineteenth century. State fought against State; the leaders of the States distrusted one another; one State rejoiced at the other’s difficulties, and one leader’s extremities were seen by the other as his opportunities. The wars assumed dimensions not envisaged by the originators and the results were not what they had bargained for. One war after the other made peace more and more elusive. This point of elusive peace should be at the back of the reader’s mind in any analysis of the civil wars. In other words the three major wars that will be briefly reviewed cannot be understood in isolation. The Ijaye War (1860–5) broke out partly because the Owu War had settled nothing and had created new problems. The following problems remained unresolved: no edifice had replaced the traditional system of the Old Ọyọ Empire; the Ẹgba were partially dismembered and dislodged from their original home; the emergence of Ijaye and Ibadan, both of them aggressive States, changed the political map of Yorubaland. But by the time the Ijaye War broke out the following new issues had appeared: the Ẹgba had renewed their strength and were being bolstered up by English missionaries and English officials; there had arisen conflicting political and economic aspirations of the Ẹgba, the Ibadan, and the Ijẹbu over the question of access to European traders on the coast; and there had also existed the attempt of Dahomey to get other Yoruba tribal groups to fight against the Ẹgba. They Kiriji War (1877–93) in turn acquired the problems not settled by its two predecessors and a number of fresh problems


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created between 1865 and 1877. Among these were the irredentist movement among the educated Ijẹsha and Ekiti to free their fatherland from the imperial yoke of Ibadan and the determination of the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu to prevent Ibadan from becoming powerful to the extent of threatening their sovereignty. The Hegelian philosophy of Thesis and Antithesis producing Synthesis and so on explains aptly the pattern of the civil wars in Yorubaland in the nineteenth century. THE OWU WAR, 1820–7 Two problems arise out of this war. The first is that no definite date can be fixed for the start of the war, but it was certainly between 1817 and 1820. According to eye-witness accounts the war lasted seven years, after which Owu was starved to submission and destroyed. The second problem is the question of the site of the Owu that was destroyed, for two sites of Owu have been discovered. There is Owu Ipole, only eight miles southeast of present-day Apomu, a very important market patronized by the Ọyọ, Ifẹ, and Ijẹbu people. Since Apomu was central to the events that led to the outbreak of war, several historians believe that this must be the Owu that was destroyed and an investigation into the site conducted by Professors Akin Mabogunjẹ and J.D.Omer-Cooper revealed ‘impressive’ ruins that showed that Owu Ipole was about seven miles in diameter.3 But on the other hand the description of the Owu involved in this war given by Dr E.G. Irving, a CMS missionary who came to Ibadan in 1853, is that of Owu-Ogbere which was very close to present-day Ibadan. However, the causes and consequences of the war are not in doubt. Several factors were responsible for it. According to a Yoruba scholar the origins of the Owu War are to be found in the decision of Abiọdun, Alafin from 1774 to 1789, to make the slave trade the basis of the economy of the Old Ọyọ Empire.4 For when Awolẹ, his successor, could no longer obtain slaves from traditional non-Yoruba nurseries he was tempted to prey upon the Ifẹ, thereby breaking the tradition that the Ifẹ were sacred, immune to enslavement. It would appear that the Alafin, Awolẹ, also had the desire to extend his authority over Apomu, a market hitherto under the direct rule of the Ifẹ. Thus a state of war existed between the Ọyọ and Ifẹ, the latter seeing no reason why the former could not be captured and sold into slavery. At this point the Olowu, who probably had never found the Ifẹ palatable neighbours, had greater respect for the Alafin than the Ọni and therefore seized the control of Apomu, under the pretext of implementing Alafin Abiọdun’s instructions to prevent the sale of Ọyọ Yoruba as slaves. Apomu became anti-Owu and the Ifẹ declared war on the Owu. This was the time when an apparently small incident widened the circle of Owu’s enemies. A quarrel broke out over pepper between an Owu man and an Ijẹbu woman. The Ijẹbu made this incident a pretext for joining the Ifẹ in declaring war upon Owu. This was an ideal situation for the large number of adventurers from the dismantling Old Ọyọ Empire who had everything to gain from the confused state of affairs. They joined hands with the Ifẹ and the Ijẹbu against Owu and brought the latter to its knees after seven years. The population was scattered in different parts of Yorubaland, the greatest number settling in Abẹokuta after 1830.


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The consequences of the destruction of Owu were disastrous for the Yoruba. For the first time in their history they began to sell their own people in large numbers across the Atlantic, through the ports of Lagos and Whydah. As the history of Sierra Leone in the second quarter of the nineteenth century shows, the Yoruba (called Aku) constituted the largest ethnic group among the peoples rescued by the British on the Atlantic. The Ijẹbu were the greatest beneficiaries from this traffic, having been helped by their use of firearms, on a considerable scale for the first time in Yoruba history. They became prosperous on the slave trade until its abolition by the British in the middle of the century. If the mission records are to be believed, the sale of war captives by the Yoruba continued until the middle of the century and slave dealers were to be found in Abẹokuta, Ijaye, Ipokia, Ado, Oke Ọdan, and Ketu, to name but a few. One other major result of the destruction of Owu was that it aggravated the disunity among the Ẹgba and led to the destruction of one Ẹgba town after the other in their traditional home in the forest. The Ifẹ and Ijẹbu allies, with the adventurers and desperadoes from the Old Ọyọ Empire, attacked the Ẹgba town of Ikija for harbouring Owu refugees, to the undisguised delight of other Ẹgba towns. The other Ẹgba towns did not perceive that their own end was near. With Ipara, an Ijẹbu Rẹmọ town, as their base, the allies, under the leadership of Labọsinde and Mayẹ, destroyed one Ẹgba town after the other. According to one account, as many as three hundred towns of Ẹgba were swept away and of all their settlements only one—Ọba—escaped destruction; about half a million Ẹgba perished by the sword or famine and thousands were sold into slavery.5 The disaster that befell them persuaded them to seek refuge in Abẹokuta about 1830. Here about 153 townships, each bearing its own original name, gathered themselves. The settlement of the Ẹgba in Abẹokuta created problems for other Yoruba groups, particularly the Ẹgbado who regarded Abẹokuta as their patrimony. The Ẹgba began to expand, occupying other peoples’ lands. About 1832 they attacked Ijanna and Ilaro, two key Ẹgbado towns under the suzerainty of the Alafin. They established authority over the Awori, Ilobi, and Ihumbo and moved towards the territory of the Ketu Kingdom. In this direction Imala, Kesan, Ilogun, Ipaya, Aibo, Afọn, and Mẹkọ were subdued. Until the establishment of British rule the Ẹgba imposed a kind of political and economic domination over the Ẹgbado country. Moreover the political and economic ambitions of the Ẹgba drew the coastal States into the vortex of Yoruba politics, for the Ẹgba involved themselves in the politics of Lagos, Badagry, Porto Novo, Ipokia, and Ado. Naturally the State of Dahomey, situated west of Ẹgbadoland, became provoked by the activities of the Ẹgba in the Ẹgbado country and the coastal areas. The result was that the hostility of Dahomey, the ‘ferocious Lion of the Forest’, for the Yoruba was exacerbated. The Owu War also resulted in the birth of modern Ibadan. Having ravaged the Ẹgba, the Ifẹ soldiers and their Ọyọ guests decided to settle in the strategically favourable military camp of Ibadan, hitherto an Ẹgba settlement. After a struggle for power between the Ifẹ and Ọyọ elements, victory went in favour of the latter, under the leadership of Oluyọle. Ibadan enjoyed a mushroom growth, in terms of population, and became the military engine of Yorubaland against the onslaught of the Fulani jihadists. By the way it arose Ibadan became an overmighty subject and an incorrigible State. All adventurers from all Yorubaland were welcome and, if they had talents, were recognized. Here was an ideal situation for individuals to nurture unbounded ambition;


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here was a society that had little respect for sanctity of traditions; it was par excellence a meritocracy based largely on military valour and adroitness. A State that ignored the sanctions upon which the Yoruba were used to priding themselves could not have been expected to respect traditions in inter-state relations. Consequently Ibadan’s appetite for success and exercise of authority over others was greater than that of any other State and she fed it by nonobservance of conventions and the use of physical force. An Ibadan empire was built at the expense of the territorial integrity of the Ijẹsha and Ekiti, whilst Ibadan intruded into areas claimed by Ijaye and the Ẹgba. Even as late as 1883 Are Latosa, the dreaded Field-Marshal and virtual ruler of Ibadan, sent assassins to put an end to Alafin Adeyẹmi’s life.6 The emergence of the new polities of Ibadan and Abẹokuta, each with unbounded imperial ambitions, and in the case of the latter with a past to avenge, boded ill for the harmony of the Yoruba in the nineteenth century. But in the meantime another formidable polity had begun to appear. This was Ijaye, another traditionally Ẹgba settlement that had been seized by the Ọyọ Yoruba. It was administered by Kurunmi, a stern man with a brilliant military career behind him. The power-politics of Yorubaland became more bewilderingly complex than ever at the emergence of Ijaye, Ibadan, and Abẹokuta. There developed power struggles between these States and between individuals. The Ẹgba could not live down the bitter memories of their dislodgement from their ancestral home, whilst Ijaye and Ibadan began to rival each other for supremacy in Yorubaland. In the meantime the economic contact with the Europeans along the coast was beginning to create tension between the rival States. The interior people began to wish for direct and unrestricted access to the coast, a wish inimical to the interests of the geographically fortunate Ẹgba and Ijẹbu. Even the interior States of Ijaye and Ibadan competed in diverting caravans to their markets. But apart from the struggle for supremacy between the new States, there was the fact that the Alafin in Ọyọ did not become fully reconciled to the loss of the substance of power to Ibadan and Ijaye; in the circumstances the Alafin could not be a passive onlooker. He became a wily man and an intriguer, aiding one State against the other in the hope that they would all finally wear one another out and thereby pave the way for a restoration of the Alafin’s past glory, splendour, and power. THE IJAYE WAR, 1860–5 This was the potentially explosive state of affairs in 1860 when the Ijaye War broke out. No one State or one individual can be held as being solely or primarily responsible for it; the issues involved were many, complicated, and incapable of solution at the conference table; armed conflict was inevitable. Clash of ideas and personalities featured prominently in the events that led to the outbreak of the Ijaye War. This factor underlay the relations between Kurunmi and Atiba, between the former and Adelu, Atiba’s successor, and between the Ijaye ruler and the Ibadan warmongers, under Ogunmọla. Kurunmi was the most traditionalist of these personalities. In 1844 he had viewed with dismay the overweening ambition of Oluyọle of Ibadan to ascend the throne of the Alafin, a position for which he did not qualify. It was as a defender of the tradition of Ọyọ royalty that in the Batẹdo War that ensued he


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had fought against Oluyọle and had captured Ogunmọla, a humiliation the latter was not disposed to forget or forgive. It is not surprising that in 1859, at the death of Atiba, Kurunmi was confounded by the accession of Adelu, Atiba’s Arẹmọ (first son), to the throne. This was a grave outrage of the immemorial tradition which required every Arẹmọ to be buried with his father. This was gall and wormwood for Kurunmi, the FieldMarshal of Yorubaland. He insisted that tradition should be observed and a qualified candidate be looked for. To his consternation Ibadan, which had been experimenting in matters of chieftaincy, inheritance, and administration, supported Adelu’s candidature at the expense of tradition! The constitutional crisis over the Alafin stool served as the safety-valve for the expression of cumulative grievances and bitterness that had been building up between Ibadan and Ijaye. Many years before the outbreak of war both Atiba and the Ibadan had been violating the agreement reached in 1845, to the effect that Kurunmi, officially recognized as the Arẹọnakakanfo (Imperial Commander-in-Chief), should defend and exercise control over north-western Yorubaland. However both Ibadan and Ọyọ began to collect tributes and assert control over some villages and towns in this area. Ibadan and Ọyọ combined in hostility against Ijaye, the last minute effort of Ibikunle, the Balogun of Ibadan, to prevent conflict having failed. Inveterately opposed to peace with Ijaye was trigger-happy Ogunmọla, next in military rank to Ibikunle. It is said that in his anti-Ijaye hatred he went to the extent of seeking the aid of the Benin, Nupe, and Dahomey in order to destroy Ijaye, the Ijẹbu country, and then recapture Lagos. It is also said that it was part of his plan to expel all foreigners—European and African traders and missionaries opposed to the slave trade—from the Yoruba country.7 The unbounded militarism of Ibadan and the menacing tongue of Ogunmọla were enough to make the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu apprehensive that the ultimate objective of the Ibadan was not the destruction of Ijaye but the subjugation of the rest of the Yoruba country. Ogunmọla had said this much, and two Ẹgba towns—Ilugun and Ido—had been destroyed before the Ẹgba could mobilize. The Ẹgba believed strongly that Dahomey and Ibadan were plotting to attack them and that it was in their best interest to see that Ijaye was not destroyed. Moreover the bitter memories of their dislodgment from their ancestral home by Ibadan were awakened and they had the vision of recovering their pristine fatherland. As the Ẹgba Christians wrote to the Church Missionary Society: ‘Is it not good for any one to be anxious to recover his father’s land that he had been deprived of for so many years. Thinking there is no injustice in recovering our fathers’s land we therefore join with our king.’8 As for the Ijẹbu, dispute between them and Ibadan over routes had begun. In spite of the large scale military help given Ijaye by the Ẹgba the town was destroyed in 1862, internal division contributing to its destruction. The trial of strength between the Ibadan and the Ẹgba and between the Ibadan and the Ijẹbu shifted to the Ijẹbu territory. Here the Awujalẹ had begun to have trouble with the Rẹmọ, a branch of the Ijẹbu inhabiting the western portion of Ijẹbuland. The Rẹmọ had not only been recalcitrant to the Awujalẹ, but had become pro-Ibadan and would have liked to give the Ibadan unrestricted access to Lagos but for the veto of the Awujalẹ. Ibadan forces moved to Ipara to defend the Rẹmọ. In the meantime Lagos was being drawn into the war in the sense that the continued presence of Ẹgba forces in the Rẹmọ country was hindering British trade in Lagos. J.H. Glover, administrator of Lagos from


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1865 to 1872, ordered the Ẹgba out of Rẹmọ, and when they would not yield to words he used weapons of precision to drive the Ẹgba out of Makun. This was in 1865 and on this note the Ijaye War came to an end, the Ẹgba and Ibadan withdrawing to their frontiers. THE KIRIJI WAR, 1877–93 It is clear from the above that the Ijaye War was not formally terminated. No issue, except the destruction of Ijaye which ended its rivalry with Ibadan, was solved. Interstate bitterness continued to rankle and resumption of conflict was only a matter of time. What postponed conflict for twelve years were the ruinous effects of the Ijaye War. According to missionary observers, Yorubaland had not escaped from these effects when in the middle of 1877 an apparently small dispute between the Ẹgba and Ibadan occurred and set in motion the chain of events that culminated in the longest and biggest war of attrition in Yorubaland, the Kiriji War. The incident was this. Fearing that the Ibadan— who were denied unrestricted access to Lagos via Abẹokuta—were importing ammunition from Porto Novo, the Ẹgba began to interfere with Ibadan convoys. In 1877 the Ibadan exercised patience until a convoy carrying a large quantity of arms had arrived successfully in Ibadan. The latter then attacked Ẹgba settlements. Both States began to waylay each other in the farms and highways. However, by 1878 the Ibadan-Ẹgba affair had developed into a major war. Perhaps the greatest factor responsible for this development was the determination of the Ijẹsha and Ekiti to take advantage of Ibadan’s troubles to free themselves from the Ibadan yoke. Surrounded in the north, west, and south by the Fulani, Ibadan, and Edo imperialists respectively, the Ekiti had been compelled to seek the alliance of one of these against the others. Divided into little villages and ruled by sixteen ‘independent’ and mutually jealous crowned kings, the Ekiti had no access to the coast and their attackers, armed with European guns, had time and again succeeded in reducing them to subjection. Even the hills from which the tribal group derived its name were not a sufficient protection against invasions. Consequently Ekiti country became in the nineteenth century a nursery of slaves for the Yoruba and the Western Ijaw and a considerable number of their Ijẹsha neighbours were shipped to the New World. It was the Ijẹsha who found their way back to Lagos from Sierra Leone, Cuba, and Brazil, who were destined to influence the declaration of a war of liberation against Ibadan by the Ijẹsha and Ekiti in 1878. Passionately patriotic, their love for the fatherland, which at last fell into the hands of Ibadan, was not scotched by their enslavement, nor was their patriotism tempered by the Christian religion they had embraced. The succour, military and material, given to the Ẹgba by the British and their missionaries between 1846 and 1861, inflamed Ekiti and Ijẹsha irredentism, and they lost no time in urging the British Government to liberate their fatherland from Ibadan rule. As early as 1852 the Ijẹsha Association, nucleus of the Ekitiparapo which was to embrace the Ijẹsha, Ekiti, Akoko, and Yagba, had been founded. Early in the seventies these liberated Ijẹsha, whose capital of Ilesha was destroyed by Ibadan for the third time in 1868, had petitioned the Government of Lagos to give them military training for war against Ibadan. In 1873 Ado, the capital of the Ekiti, was taken by the Ibadan. In the following year the Ijẹsha in Lagos turned their Association into a politicoChristian group


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holding weekly prayer meetings and praying that, as the correspondent of the African Times put it, ‘God may bring about in due time events which may ameliorate the condition of their country, the leading one of which was the sending of Christian missionaries into the Ijẹsha country’.9 The Ijẹsha Association incited the Ijẹsha and Ekiti to rebel through the Ondo route first conceived by Glover in 1867, explored in 1871, and finally opened up by the activities of CMS agents from 1875 onwards. It was through this route that weapons of precision were transmitted to the Ekitiparapọ and several liberated Ijẹsha and Ekiti established themselves in Itebu and Ayesan, strategic points along the route, for this purpose. The Ekitiparapọ discovered an able leader in an Ijẹsha, Ogedemgbe. He was a lanky man with a tattooed face and quick piercing eyes. Incorrigible from youth, he had been sold as a slave to the Ibadan. Eventually he came back to be the hero of his fatherland that had put a price on his head. His inspiring leadership made it possible for the Ekitiparapọ to fight Ibadan to a standstill at Kiriji. But in 1879 the Fulani jihadists, who could hardly forgive the Ibadan for halting the Islamic frontier in 1840, joined the war on the side of the Ekitiparapọ. They kept part of the Ibadan forces busy at Ọffa, a large town mid-way between Oshogbo and Ilọrin. Thus Ibadan was compelled to fight on two fronts—Kiriji and Ọffa—and, according to a contemporary observer, not less than 25,000 Ibadan soldiers were engaged in the Kiriji camp alone. The Ijẹbu had not been idle since the outbreak of the war. However the Awujalẹ was more belligerent than the majority of his subjects and, against his wish, the Ijẹbu accepted overtures from the Ibadan in 1883. According to this bargain the Ijẹbu were to supply ammunition to the Ibadan in return for many economic advantages. At Kiriji the Ibadan and Ekitiparapọ, separated by a deep ditch, stared at each other. As will be analysed in the next section both sides began to ask the British to interpose and preside over their decampment, lest one side tricked the other. This was done by the British in Kiriji in 1886 and at Ọffa seven years later. An end was thereby put to Yoruba warfare in the nineteenth century. PEACE EFFORTS IN THE CENTURY Not all Yoruba rulers in the nineteenth century were pleased with the disunity and warfare that engulfed their country and several attempts were made on behalf of solidarity and peace. Peace efforts began from the last days of the Old Ọyọ Empire. According to the evidence gathered from Alafin Adeyẹmi I in 1883 by the priests of the Society of African Missions, a Catholic mission based in France, an attempt was made by the Yoruba to restore solidarity immediately after the collapse of the Old Ọyọ Empire. It was then decided to make Agọ Ọja (present day Ọyọ) the capital of a rejuvenated Yoruba State. In order to deal with external aggression it was decided to found outposts north, south, west, and east, equidistant from Ọyọ. To this end Ogbomọshọ was selected as the northern outpost and bastion to Fulani threat, Isẹyin in the west to ‘break the back’ of Dahomey, and Ibadan in the east. It was difficult to establish the southern town because the Ibarapa refused to co-operate and actually rebelled. Eventually Abẹokuta was decided upon to deal with any threat that might come from the coast.10


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Again, in August 1845, at the time when Alafin Atiba settled the quarrel between Kurunmi and Oluyọle, the Yoruba were said to have found a new solidarity. Oluyọle was made the Ba ọrun or Prime Minister and Kurunmi the Arọẹnakakanfo or Imperial Commander-in-Chief. In the circumstances of this settlement the Yoruba decided to abandon the slave trade and direct all their energy to agriculture and legitimate trade with the European traders on the coast. Messages were sent to the slave trading States, including Dahomey, to the effect that the new economic policy announced by the Yoruba must be accepted by all and that its rejection would mean war.11 But no sooner had this peace been announced than civil war broke out in Lagos. In 1855 a third attempt was made at a conference that was summoned in Ibadan to settle the dispute that had arisen between Kurunmi and Atiba. Although the differences between the Alafin and his Commander-in-Chief were beyond settlement, the delegates resolved that henceforth the Yoruba would not fight against one another, but regard themselves as ‘brothers’. In the spirit of this resolution Ijẹbu and Ẹgba slaves who were recently captured were returned. But this conference was ill-fated for several reasons. Representatives came only from the Ọyọ Yoruba areas—Shaki, Isẹyin, Ọyọ, Ogbomọshọ, Ẹdẹ, and Ibadan. The two important groups of Ijẹbu and Ẹgba were not represented. By the time of the Kiriji War no ruler in Yorubaland was in the position to command the combatants to the conference table, although Adeyẹmi I of Ọyọ and Derin, the Ọni-elect of Ile Ifẹ, made some effort. It is essential to note, too, that among the leading warriors there were few who, had they control over other individuals and forces, would have imposed peace upon the country. The cogitations of Kurunmi, Balogun Ibikunle of Ibadan, and Ogundipe of Abẹokuta may be briefly noted. Perhaps the greatest exponent of peace and solidarity for Yorubaland was Kurunmi, a man with a frightening countenance and a special dread to malefactors. He deplored the lack of unity among the Yoruba and urged the Ẹgba and Ibadan to put an end to internal bickerings and factiousness; he wished all the Yoruba to direct their attention and deploy their military resourcefulness against Dahomey, rather than against themselves. He regretted the enslavement of the Ifẹ by the Ẹgba and the Ibadan. Nevertheless he would not shrink from brandishing his sword against Ibadan and Ọyọ when they not only violated the immemorial customs on which traditional authority and solidarity largely depended, but also threatened his sovereignty in Ijaye and his territories in the north-west of Yorubaland. Also dedicated to amity and peace among the Yoruba was Balogun Ibikunle of Ibadan. It was during his time that a number of chiefs in Ibadan began to think of aiding the Ẹgba against Dahomey. He stood for a policy of good neighbourliness with the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu and he did his utmost to prevent the conflict between Ibadan and Ijaye. More sectional in outlook than Kurunmi and Ibikunle was Ogundipe, Balogun of Ikija, the uncrowned King of the Ẹgba from 1861 until his death in 1887. He was anxious that peace should return to Yorubaland, not because he had entirely lived down anti-Ibadan bitterness, but because he discerned that the British would use the civil wars as a pretext for interfering in Yoruba affairs and for imposing their suzerainty over the country.


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THE EFFECTS OF THE CIVIL WARS The wars had different effects upon the different groups in the country. Economically, according to contemporary accounts, the country suffered generally. Peaceful farming was disturbed in Ibadan and Ẹgba districts, particularly in the early years when warfare was confined largely to raiding farms. Roads were deliberately neglected in order that access to settlements might be hindered. The Ijaye and Kiriji Wars made cowries, the chief currency of the country, very scarce and salt very dear. By the time of the Kiriji War the Ibadan had begun to suffer from the high cost of their militarism. Households sold their members into slavery and freemen pawned themselves in order to meet the expenses of the war. By 1883 the people of Ibadan had begun to wail publicly and when in 1885 Are Latosa, the chief exponent of the war, died there was universal rejoicing in Ibadan. But some people, particularly the Ijẹbu, derived economic advantages from these wars. They managed to maintain their solidarity and fought mainly outside their country. In the first half of the century they sold thousands of war victims across the Atlantic. Then they became middlemen for the Europeans on the coast and the Ibadan in the interior. At first the Ibadan brought to the Ijẹbu traders at Oru, a frontier town between the Ibadan and Ijẹbu, slaves, cotton, cloths, palm oil and palm kernels. The Ijẹbu sold in turn powder, guns, salt, Manchester cloths, tobacco, and spirits. By 1888 the Ijẹbu had begun to exploit the extremities of Ibadan, still engaged with the jihadists in Ọffa, to demand nothing but slaves and by 1891 they had begun to collect tolls at the gate in Ibadan leading to the Ijẹbu country, an extraordinary phenomenon. Also deriving economic benefits from the civil wars—mainly the Kiriji War—were the Mahin of south-eastern Yorubaland, inhabiting the territory bordering the lagoon from the Ofara river on the west to the Oluwa river on the east. Numerous and scattered in many villages, they had hardly ever been touched by economic contact with Europeans which had benefited the Ijẹbu, their western neighbours, and the Ijaw, their eastern neighbours, for centuries. Cursed by lack of solid ground to cultivate, they lived mainly by trading with the Ijẹbu Makun at Lekkie and in the east with the Edo of the Benin Kingdom. The opening of the Ondo route gave the Mahin an opportunity for economic improvement for it became the major route connecting Lagos with the hinterland throughout the era of the Kiriji War. A new and most important town, economically, arose in the Mahin country. This was Itebu. The ruler, Manuwa, offered the CMS missionaries, educated Africans, and caravans the best facilities. He invited the CMS to establish a station at Itebu and asked educated Ijẹsha to settle themselves in this place as agriculturists. In order to satisfy the commercial needs of Lagos traders he built the port of Atijerẹ. Itebu became ‘the only way of access from Lagos to the Ikales, Ondo, Ife, Ijesha and even Ilorin countries’.12 By 1892 the Ekitiparapọ had founded the Atijere Trading Company which developed the port of Atijẹrẹ and made the Mahin country a highway for imports and exports from Lagos to the Ondo, Ijẹsha, and Ekiti countries. Socially the demographic pattern of Yorubaland was considerably affected by the wars. Large numbers of people moved from the Old Ọyọ Empire to swell villages into towns and cause the creation of new settlements. Many of the towns in the Oshun


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Divisions, such as Iwo, Ogbomọshọ, Ẹdẹ, and Oshogbo, swelled in numbers whilst Ibadan, Ijaye, and Abẹokuta became virtually new settlements. Perhaps never had the different sections of the Yoruba intermingled in the manner they were compelled to do by the civil wars of the nineteenth century. The Owu settled among the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu, the Ọyọ settled in Modakẹke, just outside the walls of Ile Ifẹ and some Ifẹ at Oke Igbo in the Ondo country. The Iberekodo and Itibọ settled among the Ẹgba. In places like Ibadan and Abẹokuta the different groups succeeded in living together and in evolving a corporate attitude that transcended sectional considerations. In other places, with Ogbomọshọ as perhaps the best example, sectional feelings have remained a strong hindrance to the evolution of a corporate attitude. Politically the civil wars of the nineteenth century exacerbated inter-state bitterness and left behind a legacy of sec-tional parochialism still underlying politics in Yorubaland today. For instance the Ọyọ of Modakẹkẹ and the Ifẹ are still unreconciled largely because of the events of the last century; nor have the Ondo looked on the Ifẹ inhabitants of Oke Igbo as part and parcel of themselves; they have not forgotten the circumstances that led to the Ifẹ intrusion into their territory. Still inflammatory today is Ibadan-Ijẹbu hostility, the Ibadan never forgetting what they regard as the ill-treatment meted out to their grand-fathers of the nineteenth century by Ijẹbu immigrants. DAHOMIAN-YORUBA CONFLICTS Whilst the Yoruba were fighting among themselves, their western frontier was perpetually menaced and attacked throughout the nineteenth century by the State of Dahomey. This State, which had been founded in the seventeenth century, became the bugbear of the inhabitants of western Yorubaland and, rather than its danger to the solidarity and interest of the Yoruba being recognized, many States such as Ibadan, Ijẹbu, and Ilọrin flirted with it in their hatred for the Ẹgba. The root of Yoruba-Dahomian conflict goes back to the eighteenth century when the powerful Ọyọ conquered Dahomey and in 1748 imposed upon the latter a humiliating treaty. The provisions of this treaty included annual payment to Ọyọ of forty-one men, forty-one young men and women, and 400 corals, apart from an amount estimated by Dr Akinjogbin at £3,200.13 Moreover no one in Dahomey from the King downwards could wear silk or damask; the King of Ọyọ became the heir of all the most important chiefs in Dahomey, including the King. In the thinking and experience of the Dahomians, the Ọyọ were very hard taskmasters, fleecing them to the bones, and anti-Yoruba feelings grew in intensity from the middle of the eighteenth century. But it was not until after the accession of Gezo to the Dahomian throne in 1818 that Dahomey achieved independence of Ọyọ. The manner in which this independence was achieved and the felicity with which independence was accepted in Dahomey may be recounted. When at Gezo’s accession the Alafin demanded from him the usual tribute he sent only a small piece of cloth and two bags of cowries and instructed that the heads of Ọyọ’s four ambassadors should be lopped off. Naturally the Alafin declared war and sent an army to Abomey, Dahomey’s capital, under the generalship of a corpulent man nicknamed Ajanaku. At Paouignan, where Gezo’s forces met the Ọyọ army, the Ọyọ were routed and their general was taken


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prisoner. Gezo then proceeded to take his pound of flesh. He mixed up the blood of Ọyọ captives with mud and with it he built the palace at Kanna, at the very spot where Ọyo messengers used to collect the tribute from Dahomian kings. He then inaugurated the Ọyọ custom which became an annual observance. Every June twelve Ọyọ males were slaughtered. But before they were killed they were compelled to carry silk damask to be worn by Dahomian soldiers in a way that it would sweep the ground. It was hoped that the twelve Ọyọ victims would relate this event to their ancestors in the other world so that the latter might know that after 1818 Dahomians could wear this cloth which in the heyday of Ọyọ power no Dahomian was allowed to use. Also during the ceremony the twelve Ọyọ victims were expected to carry in their hands, in a large brass plate, several of the skulls of their forefathers. Henceforward Dahomey began to attack the Ọyọ and several important battles were fought as late as the forties of the nineteenth century. In the plains of Pawea the Dahomians defeated an alliance of the Ọyọ and the Mahi. In 1841 a town called Inoubi, which had been founded by Ọyọ refugees, was taken by Gezo’s army and Refurefu, a town administered by an Ẹgba chief, was in 1843 attacked and a large number of the inhabitants taken as plantation slaves of the Dahomian king. One might have expected that, had the Dahomians been primarily motivated by the desire to avenge the wrongs they had suffered under the Ọyọ, the chastisement of the Ọyọ Yoruba would be enough. But the Dahomians did not think in this manner; they did not discriminate between one Yoruba group and the other; they held the entire Yoruba nation responsible for their previous colonial exploitation. Consequently they attacked in all directions. In fact Gezo was credited with dreaming a conquest of all Yorubaland. However Dahomey could not measure her strength with that of a combined Yoruba army. Therefore Gezo and his son and successor. Gelele, adopted the tactics of divide et impera, sending gifts to all the Yoruba enemies of the Ẹgba for a combined attack on Abẹokuta. The Ẹgba were singled out for attack because, as the Dahomians saw it, it was the Ẹgba who prevented them from chastising the Yoruba in the manner they felt the Yoruba deserved. For hardly had Dahomey become independent of Ọyọ than the Ẹgba became a formidable barrier to Dahomey’s imperial ambition. Checked from imperial extension in the west by the Ashanti Confederacy and in the north by the Kong mountains, Dahomey looked eastwards, in the direction of the Ẹgbado country inhabited by a congeries of small tribal groups, hopelessly divided among themselves, particularly after the withdrawal of the control of the Alafin at the disintegration of the Old Ọyọ Empire. This was the area in which the Ẹgba began to establish their political and economic interests. Ẹgba influence became strong in Ọtta, Ilaro, Oke Ọdan, and Badagry. In Ado and Ipokia there was a trial of strength between the Ẹgba and Porto Novo, Dahomey’s protégés. Dahomian influence became strong also in Lagos and Ijẹbu Ode whose rulers in the late forties adopted a pro-slave attitude and antiEuropean policy against European intrusion into the affairs of the Bight of Benin. Dahomey’s grievances against the Ẹgba mounted as the years went by. It was alleged that the Ẹgba harboured a number of political refugees from Dahomey. By 1844 the Ẹgba and Dahomian forces had begun to attack each other militarily. In that year, at Ado, the Ẹgba inflicted a resounding defeat on the Dahomians and captured Dahomey’s state umbrella, war drum, and a long chair. This was a humiliation Dahomey felt impelled to avenge. Moreover the Amazons, the women’s army noted for bravery and foolhardiness


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in battles, were defeated in some engagements with the Ẹgba. Before 1851 the Dahomians had come to regard the Ẹgba as their greatest enemy on the surface of the earth and all the songs with which European visitors to Abomey were welcomed, and in which the Amazons announced their fighting programme for the following dry season, breathed a decidedly anti-Ẹgba and anti-Yoruba bitterness. Forbes, a visitor in 1850, recorded the following and-Yoruba song by the Amazons:

Yoribah lied When Yoribah said she could conquer Dahomey: When we meet we’ll change their night into day Let the rain fall: The season past, the river dries. Yoribah and Dahomey! Can two rams drink from one calabash? The Yoribahs must have been drunk to say Dahomey feared them: They could conquer Dahomey.14 Relations were further strained by the major defeat which Dahomey suffered in March 1851 when they made their famous assault on Abẹokuta. The myth of the invincibility of the Amazons was shattered. The Dahomians were reported as losing not less than 2,000 slain and 1,000 captives, as opposed to 300 Ẹgba killed and captured. Every year after this calamity the desire to attack Abẹokuta dominated the thinking of the Dahomians and before he died in 1858 Gezo instructed his son that, as a primary duty, the honour of Dahomey that had been defiled by the Ẹgba should be avenged. The 1851 defeat of Dahomey by the Ẹgba, often credited largely to British help, was to a great extent owed to the treachery of the Ishagga. Indeed in any analysis of YorubaDahomian conflict the role of the Ẹgbado people should be taken into account. Wedged between the two powerful States of the Ẹgba and Dahomians they could hardly give unconditional and automatic support to either of these States. The circumstances in which they found themselves were such that they had to sit on the fence, although they were Yoruba and they had sentiment for the Ẹgba. They changed their loyalty according to circumstances. The best example was the Ishagga. Up to 1851 the Ishagga were loyal to the Ẹbga to whom they paid tribute. They had joined hands with the Ẹgba against the Ijẹbu in the Owiwi War, but it was in 1851 that they rendered the most valuable service to the Ẹgba. They played the role of spies and informed the Ẹgba of the approach of the Dahomians. When the Dahomian army passed through Ishagga the latter posed as their friend but deliberately misinformed them about the state of preparedness of the Ẹgba. Knowing full well the military tactics of the Dahomian to attack their enemy at night by surprise, the Ishagga asked them to attack the Ẹgba in broad daylight and thereby deceived the Dahomians that Abẹokuta would be empty as people would be on their farms. Ishagga also lured the Dahomians into fording the Ogun River at the deepest point which they impressed upon the Dahomians as the


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shallowest. The result was that most of the gun-powder of the Amazons became wet. The Ishagga also directed the Dahomians to attack the Ẹgba from the Aro gate, the best fortified part of the town. The Ishagga crowned their treachery by falling upon the Dahomians when the latter fled from Abẹokuta! However, it appeared to Bakoko, the king of Ishagga, that Dahomey might in the circumstances of 1860 be more powerful than the Ẹgba. For a group of Ibadan people known as Alaumajas infiltrated the Ishagga and persuaded the people to forsake the Ẹgba entirely. The king then sent to Gelele, urging an alliance, a situation welcome to Abomey. Gelele could not have been expected to forget the treachery of 1851, but behaved as if he had forgiven it. But in 1862 Ishagga was taken by surprise in the dark and the entire population captured as slaves. After 1851 the Ẹgba no longer regarded the Dahomian danger with dread and alarm. When the Dahomians appeared in Abẹokuta for the second and last time in March 1864, the Ẹgba met them with confidence and put the Dahomians to flight. The latter lost over 6,000 killed or captured. As a missionary observer recorded: ‘The king of Dahomey, the terror for so many thousands,…suffered such a defeat as has no parallel in the history of Western Africa. The king of Dahomey’s flight can only be compared with Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow in 1812’.15 Nevertheless the Dahomians succeeded in destroying a large number of Yoruba settlements in the nineteenth century and in capturing thousands as slaves. By 1867 several Ẹgbado towns had fallen, including Ishagga, Shala, Ibara, Ilawe, and Oke Odan. But the watermark of Dahomian destruction of parts of Yorubaland was in the decade 1880–90, the decade when the Yoruba were busiest fighting among themselves. In 1881 alone, Ejio, Obaninsunwa, Aiyetoro, Iwere, Oke Ile, Atasa, and Ilaji were destroyed. A capital achievement for Dahomey was the capture and sack of Ketu, a large town with a long history, which the Dahomians had been attacking since 1789. In the next four years not less than ten other Yoruba towns fell to Dahomey. In 1890 Itibo was destroyed and over eight thousand of its inhabitants had to seek refuge in Abẹokuta. Not long afterwards the Eruwa and the Ibẹrẹkodo fled in panic to Abẹokuta for refuge. The mass flight of the Yoruba inhabitants of the western periphery of the Yoruba country, occasioned by Dahomian wrath, was called to a halt only by the military action of the French which threatened and ultimately overwhelmed Dahomey. It is significant that in the invasion and sack of Abomey the Ẹgba were active participants, having been invited and trained in the firing of guns by the French. NOTES 1 Samuel Johnson, The History of the Yorubas, Lagos, 1921. 2 J.F.Ade Ajayi and R.S.Smith, Cambridge, 1964, p. 9. 3 A.L.Mabogunje and J.Omer-Cooper, Owu in Yoruba History, Ibadan, 1971, pp. 31–41. 4 I.A.Akinjogbin, ‘The prelude to the Yoruba Civil Wars of the nineteenth century’, Odu, 1, 2 (1965). 5 CMS Archives, London, CA2/096, ‘Historical Notices of Lagos’ by J. B.Wood. 6 SMA Archives, Rome, ‘Account of Journey through Yorubaland’ by Father P.Holley. 7 R.H.Stone, In Africa’s Forest and Jungle, Edinburgh & London, 1900, pp. 128–9. 8 CMS, CA2/017, Egba Christians to CMS, 1861. 9 African Times, 1/2/1877.


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10 SMA, ‘Vicariat Apostolique du Benin’ by J.B.Chausse, 30 March 1892. 11 CMS CA2/031, S.A.Crowther, Journal entry for 1 August 1845. 12 CMS G3/A2/02, Phillips to Venn, 15/3/1883. 13 I.A.Akinjogbin, Dahomey and Its Neighbours, Cambridge, 1967, pp. 123–7. 14 F.E.Forbes, Dahomey and the Dahomans, 2 vols., London, 1851, vol. 1, pp. 166–7. 15 CMS CA2/024, Bühler to Venn, 30/3/1864.

4 Observations on Some Social and Economic Aspects of Slavery in Pre-Colonial Northern Nigeria Although the historian cannot perceive a common and immutable formula that would explain the existence of slavery in human society in the past five millennia, it seems clear that the economic factor has been a primum mobile of this all-important institution in all the cases so far known to history. This economic and social institution, it can be fairly hazarded, has developed most prominently in settled communities possessing the following economic characteristics—an agrarian economy, a limited and unsophisticated material taste, a rudimentary—if any—mechanized transportation and communication system, a cumbersome currency, a sort of handicraft industry, and very little, if any, technological know-how. Nineteenth century Northern Nigerian society possessed all the economic features enumerated above. Slaves were an essential part of the social and economic life of the territory’s agriculture, commerce, and handicraft industry. Industries were centred in large towns and had an extensive market, stretching as far north as the Mediterranean coast and as far west as the Atlantic littoral.1 So much was the institution of slavery in evidence in Northern Nigeria that practically all nineteenth century explorers, Frederick Lugard, the pioneer British ruler of the territory and an implacable hater of slavery, and C.K.Meek, the official anthropologist of the Nigerian administration between the Wars, asserted that slavery was more wide-spread and more concentrated in Northern Nigeria than in other parts of the African conti-nent.2 In this essay attention will be given to the origins, sources, and economics of the slave trade and the social life of slaves in this part of Nigeria in the pre-colonial era. The precise date of the beginnings of slavery in Northern Nigeria is unknown, but it is clear that by the fifteenth century trafficking in slaves across the Sahara was already an organized enterprise in the territory. According to Leo Africanus, Kanuri were by this date being purchased with horses by Arabs from Mediterranean Africa.3 By the seventeenth century Bornu aristocrats numbered European infidels among their slaves.4 By the nineteenth century Northern Nigeria had become a notorious nursery of slaves. As late as the middle of the nineteenth century Arab slave traders bought slaves in Ilọrin, a Yoruba town in the south-western part of the Sokoto Caliphate, whilst about the same time the Fulani were pushing their slave-hunting frontier as far down as the Igbo country.5


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SLAVE EXPORT That thousands of slaves were exported to other parts of Nigeria, Africa, the Middle East, and the New World is well-documented. For the peoples who purchased them the exported slaves possessed attributes that qualified them for excellent service. In Yorubaland, for instance, the Hausa (contemptuously referred to as Sabaruma) was a docile ‘living tool’ who could be depended upon to discharge his master’s duties in a manner no other type of slave could.6 In the Mediterranean world beautiful Hausa young women were an asset to harems, children under the age of ten were excellent domestic servants, and eunuchs (mostly produced in southeast Bornu) were courtiers of exceptional value.7 As far afield as the New World, and as late as the middle of the nineteenth century, special kinds of Bornu slaves were in great demand. These were the morhag (male slaves whose beard was just beginning), the sabai (those without beard), and the sadasi (growing children). Nevertheless the notoriety of Northern Nigeria in slave export, which European travellers of the nineteenth century loved to emphasize time and again, should not mislead the economic historian about the position of this branch of the economy of the territory. First of all is the fact that, however important slave export was before the nineteenth century, and though in the latter century it continued to be a feature of the business enterprise of Northern Nigeria, it was no more than a small part of the economic life of the territory. Indeed by the third decade of the nineteenth century it had begun to dawn on several rulers and traders in the territory that exchange of handicraft wares for imported European and Middle East manufactured goods would be in the greater economic interest of Northern Nigeria than slave barter. Second, the categories of slaves bartered out of the country (particularly across the Sahara) were largely those that were not considered a loss to the economic life of the territory. Third, it was domestic slaves who were indispensable to the economic and social life of pre-colonial Northern Nigeria. To this end the best slaves were kept in the country. The picture of the economy of Northern Nigeria painted by explorers from Leo Africanus to Heinrich Barth is a clear testimony to the priority given to handicraft industries and trade in legitimate commodities in the Hausa States over trade in human traffic. In the sixteenth century the Kingdom of Gobir was ‘a great store of artificers and linnen weavers’, the Kanawa ‘are rich merchants’; the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Zaria ‘are rich and have great traffique unto other nations’ whilst Bornu had direct commercial links with the gold producing country of Wangara (near the source of Senegal River).9 Of the nineteenth century situation Hugh Clapperton, Heinrich Barth, and Dr A.Schultze have left behind accounts which put slave export in its appropriate place in the business activity of Northern Nigeria. These accounts show clearly that in Sokoto, Kano, and Bornu, the three States usually regarded as the most notorious slave exporters, the value of slaves exported was small, compared to that of textiles. In Sokoto the manufacture of clothes, particularly civet and blue check tobes called sharie, and leather-works of various designs were of greater value than the slave trade.10 In the middle of the nineteenth century the total value of the textile exports of Kano was estimated at not less than 300 million Kurdi (cowries), that is four times the value of sales

Observations on some social and economic

45

from slaves (some of whom were sold to Nupeland).11 In fact, according to Barth’s computation, the kolanut trade alone brought more revenue to Kano than slave export. Bornu, regarded by humanitarian explorers of Northern Africa as the most culpable slave exporter in Western and Central Sudan, gave priority to textile and leather industries.12 It has been estimated that throughout the nineteenth century not more than 9,500 slaves were purchased every year in the Maghreb from all over Western and Central Sudan.13 Of these, not more than 2,000 came from the Hausa States.14 Moreover, evidence suggests strongly that the slaves sold out of Northern Nigeria could not have been an economic asset to the territory, and that their physical loss to the territory did not undermine productivity. For one thing few adult able-bodied male and female slaves were ever put on sale. Usually it was old, decrepit people that were offered for marketing.15 The statistics that have survived show clearly that most of the slaves exported were women of from ten to twenty years—a class of people not required for farm labour. Next to them were children of less than eighteen. Youths of eighteen to thirty years were hardly ever sold.16 Judging, too, from the prices offered for slaves—for both internal and external markets—it would appear that the most expensive slaves were girls. In the last decade of the century females fetched between £7 and £10 each, boys £6 each, and men above the age of thirty £4 each.17 It is essential to note that the prices offered for slaves throughout the century were consistently low. The implication is that slaves, that is labour, were very cheap. Invariably a horse was more expensive than a slave. In the Nupe Kingdom in 1841 a child was worth £1 4s. and an adult £2 8s.18 Ten years later an adult fetched £2 in Kano and £6 in Bornu.19 During his visit to Sokoto about the same time, Heinrich Earth regarded the price of 33,000 cowries, that is less than £2, for a slave unusually high.20 In the sixteenth century a horse was worth fifteen slaves in Bornu: in the middle of the nineteenth century a horse cost about £11 5s. there, that is nearly double the price of a slave!21 The cheapness of slaves in Northern Nigeria is a strong indication that slave exports had by the third decade of the nineteenth century ceased to be of great economic benefit to native businessmen. This would seem to explain the desire of many rulers to persuade Arab traders to prefer native manufactured articles to slaves as media of exchange. Bornu, in particular, was very much concerned about this.22 Apart from cushions, travelling bags, slippers, cartridge belts, and other leather goods of various designs Bornu had textiles, considerable quantities of ivory, horns of buffalo, ostrich skin, and gum arabic that could be bartered for such imported articles as bleached and unbleached calicoes from England, silk used for embroidery, muslins and linen from France, Italian beads, German and Maltese swords, writing paper, and looking glasses of various designs—all of which Arab traders brought down to Hausaland. The desire of the businessmen of Hausaland for a change of medium of barter with the Arab traders should not be ascribed to humanitarian impulse but to the demand of the law of economics. Islam approved of slave-holding and slave selling. But slave hunting was a hazardous business. Moreover the best captives in wars were required for internal use— for farming and handicraft manufacturing. By the third decade of the nineteenth century it had already occurred to many rulers in Northern Nigeria that the economy of the territory should no longer rest entirely on the currency of slaves, and, to this end, they were anxious to introduce and encourage other


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forms of currency. Beginnings along this direction antedated the nineteenth century. In Bornu until the advent of the gabaga (a cotton strip), there had been in existence the rottl (a fixed weight of copper worth about thirty-two cowries). The gabaga itself was worth eight cowries. From the end of the eighteenth century the Spanish or Austrian dollar, bearing the date 1780, became an acceptable currency in all Hausa States and Bornu. A dollar was worth 2,000 cowries in 1825 and 4,000 in 1854. By the middle of the nineteenth century cowries, already popular in Kano, were replacing the gabaga in Bornu. ‘In Kano’, observed Heinrich Earth, ‘scarcely any tradesman will object to receive a dollar in payment’.23 In addition there was in Kano, the ‘London of the Soudan’, a gold coin known as the mithkal, worth 4,000 cowries. Attempts were made in the first half of the century to introduce other forms of currency and encourage external trade not based upon the slave trade. In 1823 the Shehu of Bornu gave Denham, a British explorer, three gold, silver, and iron coins which he wanted made in Britain for currency in the State24 and in 1854 one of the chief demands from Britain by another Shehu was a machine for making money. Sultan Bello of Sokoto was importunate with Clapperton in his demand for legitimate trade with the British and for trade routes to the Atlantic seaboard to facilitate such trade.25 DOMESTIC SLAVERY Pre-colonial Northern Nigeria was a thoroughly slave-ridden society. Without slaves the economy would have collapsed. For it was stratified, particularly after the famous jihad, in such a way that a leisurely aristocratic class who had lands to till and capital to invest in industries considered it beneath their dignity to do manual work of any kind. Many members of this privileged class, mostly of the Fulani stock, had as many as 4,000 slaves. There arose farm villages, occupied almost entirely by slaves belonging to the landed aristocracy. Moreover the textile and leather industries of Sokoto, Kano, and Bornu demanded not only cheap labour, in the form of slaves, but skills that could be offered by slaves brought to the Hausa States from other communities in Northern Nigeria. It is therefore pertinent to examine the whole question of sources of slaves in the territory. Except in Tiv society, slaves within Northern Nigeria derived from ethnic groups alien to the communities in which they gave their services. There was common sense in this. It made it difficult, if not impossible, for slaves to involve themselves in the factiousness of the society: in the circumstances of the differences that existed in law between the free and the unfree there could be no question of identity of political feelings existing between the two groups. Moreover the fact that slaves were ethnically aliens in their places of bondage meant that they could not run away easily with impunity. In Sokoto, Kano, and Bornu, for instance, Nupe slaves were to be found in large number, that is in places hundreds of miles away from their country. In the same manner the ‘pagan’ peoples of the Bauchi plateau became a fruitful source of supply for the rest of the country, whilst the Margi and the Musgu of the Adamawa hills were found at the other end of Northern Nigeria, in Sokoto. Separated by a long distance and by many alien ethnic groups from their home—as these slaves certainly were—slaves were fully aware that they could be easily apprehended and sold further away from their tribal group. The essential economic


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point that arises from the above situation is that slave labour was ensured and productivity stabilized. Slaves were derived from three main sources, namely war captives, those purchased from market, and the offspring of settled slaves. It would seem that the first source— people captured in war—provided a permanent means of replenishing the stock already settled. It became the habit of Muslim States to conduct razzias annually. These razzias and the inter-state and inter-tribal wars that engulfed Northern Nigeria, contemporary observers believed, were undertaken on behalf of Islam and for capturing slaves. Whilst it is difficult to isolate the economic motivation from the religious one and whilst Muslim scholars are prone to believe that the pre-colonial scene in Northern Nigeria was one of conflict between the Dar al-Islam and the Dar al-harb the point should not be overlooked that religious motives were not necessarily responsible for the wars that honeycombed Northern Nigeria in the nineteenth century. It would appear that slave-catching should be regarded more as an effect than a cause of warfare in Northern Nigeria. The wars fought by the stronger and bigger Emirates against the smaller and weaker ‘pagan’ peoples had the characteristic of many wars in contemporary indigenous Africa. They were primarily political wars undertaken by the stronger States to extend their boundaries and sovereignty. Also, in the view of the resisting ‘pagans’, they were political wars waged for the preservation of their independence. The Gurma and Mossi who lived far to the south-west of Gwandu, which had enormous problems of consolidation nearer home in Dendi, Zaberna, Arewa, and Kebbi, were and still are ‘pagans’ but they were not raided. This was because they were united and strong enough even to embark on offensive wars. In contrast were the ‘pagan’ Masa and Musgu. They were constantly raided by Bornu because they were hopelessly divided into many petty groups quarrelling among themselves. There is no record that captured slaves were being consciously converted to Islam. In Zaria and Kano emirates there were the Maguzawa, indigenous and pure Hausa people who up to now have refused to embrace Islam. They were left alone as freemen, both in Habe and Fulani Zazzau. It may be noted that in Zazzau the Fulani appointed the Sarkin Mai, an official to be in charge of their affairs administratively. Surely if the Fulani jihadists had wished, the Maguzawa could have been compelled to become, at least nominally, Muslims. That slave-catching was a feature of warfare in Northern Nigeria cannot be denied particularly after the jihad and the founding of the Sokoto Caliphate when slaves formed part of the annual tribute the vassals in the emirates were expected to send to the Sultan. But Islam was not necessarily responsible for slavecatching. Surely the hope of capturing slaves as booty was shared by all who took part in African wars in the nineteenth century. In point of fact, Islam afforded no protection against enslavement. Many of the Muslim emirates fought against each other and enslaved their co-religionists. Even within the same province slave-raids by Muslim officials into one another’s districts were not unheard of. European observers in Murzuk, Ghadames, and Tripoli—the route taken by most of the slaves exported from Northern Nigeria to North Africa—noticed that many of the slaves were Muslims who ‘could read and write Arabic well’.26 There is no means of knowing the number of slaves purchased in the open market. But of the greatest value to the economy of Sokoto, Kano, and Bornu were certain categories of slaves who had learned from their homes skills that otherwise could not be learned in


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these States. Perhaps of the greatest importance were Nupe male and female slaves who were very much in demand and were hardly ever sold outside the territory. They were the manufacturers of the sharie, the blue check tobes, the main export of Sokoto. As Clapperton wrote, Nupe male slaves ‘are considered the most expert weavers in Soudan, and the women the best spinners’.27 The Kanawa found the Tapa slaves ‘invariably excellent tradesmen’.28 In a similar way the Bornu aristocrats liked to employ Musgu women. Although they were ugly, yet they were industrious, trustworthy, and infinitely patient under suffering. They were used mainly as watchdogs of farms and as harvesters. Like the Tapa slaves they were never sold out of the territory.29 The third source of slaves was the offspring of slaves known as dijemai. Over a period of a century this class of slaves probably numbered more than the captured and purchased slaves. However, no statistics of this category of slaves exist. The economic importance of slaves in pre-colonial Northern Nigeria can hardly be over-stressed. In industries they provided the bulk of labour at weaving, house-building, shoemaking, and iron-work. The textile industries of Kano and Bornu, including the cultivation of cotton and dyeing of spun materials and cultivation of indigo ‘plantations’, were largely in the hands of slaves. But it was for farming that slaves were mostly employed. In the predominantly agrarian society, what the Fulani aristocracy did was to settle slaves on their landed property. Slave villages, known as rinji, were to be found in large numbers in the Nupe Kingdom, in Zaria, and in Sokoto. It was largely captured and purchased slaves who were employed in farming. They were the least privileged in Hausa society, although it should be stressed that not all farming was done by slave labour. Women slaves were employed in the rinji to farm and collect firewood. Slaves were also in charge of stockfarming. It may be noted that the grain and produce raised were not for export out of the territory but for internal circulation and consumption. SOCIAL ASPECTS The functions of slaves in Northern Nigerian society illustrate their position in society; their prospects for advancement varied from emirate to emirate, depending upon their political circumstances. For instance, except in the Nupe country and in Kano, where captured and purchased slaves could rise above the level of farming, such slaves were condemned perpetually to farming. In Zaria they could not take part in crafts, a branch of industry reserved for their offspring, the dijemai. In the Nupe Kingdom, however, captives of high birth and status, chiefs and distinguished warriors, were selected for service in the court of the Etsu.30 They were given ranks and titles, and could rise high in the service of the king; theirs was the specialized service of officials and trusted royal servants. In Habe Zazzau (Zaria), as is clearly illustrated by M.G. Smith, trustworthy and capable slaves were given high civil and military posts, arranged in such a manner as to render it impossible for officials who were freemen to overthrow the King.31 The slave officials in their turn could not overthrow the King as they were supervised by free officials and slave eunuchs. The central administration around the king was clearly designed to favour the slave officials. Of particular importance were the king’s intimate advisers, his chamber officials, who were eunuchs and were his official channels of


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communication to other officials of state, as well as to the vassal chiefs. It should be emphasized that in Zazzau, as in Bornu and the Nupe Kingdom, slave officials, particularly eunuchs, were peculiarly fitted for fulfilling the role of trustworthy and absolutely loyal servants of the rulers. In the Nupe Kingdom, the fact that they were aliens, recently and directly brought to the court, made them keep aloof from the bitter eternal rivalries of the numerous princes of the three ruling dynasties amongst themselves and against the ruling king, and against the rebelliousness of the Nupe chiefs and the masses who were never reconciled to Fulani rule. Also in Habe Zazzau and Bornu, the rulers were always afraid of the potential danger of powerful freemen vassals and fiefholders. Hence in Bornu only eunuchs could move near the ruler’s person and all the military posts were held by slaves. In the Nupe Kingdom slaves formed the king’s bodyguard and police force. In Zazzau the senior eunuch public official, the Galadima, directly supervised the police, who were also royal slaves. These slaves—dimajai—also formed an important part of the armed forces of Zaria, especially bowmen and infantry. Slave officials and dimajai had more privileges than captured slaves. Both in Habe Zazzau and the Nupe Kingdom slaves could themselves hold slaves, acquire property, and hold fiefs. They could marry free women. Women slaves held as concubines were automatically free and could not be sold. If a man-slave married a woman-slave the latter continued to work for her master and her children belonged to her master. In the Nupe country children born of a free father and a slave were free themselves, as were children born of a slave father who had married a free woman, and also of a free father who bought a girl slave for himself and married her. If, however, slave married slave, the marriage being arranged—that is the purchase price for the girl paid—by the slave’s master, the children remained slaves. But these slaves in the second generation were slaves of a different kind. They were no longer called wuzi, but mangi. Mangi were exempted from many of the disabilities of slavery. The children of a mangi who married another mangi were themselves mangi. This situation contrasted with that in Old Calabar where descendants of slaves became progressively free—in geometrical progression— from generation to generation. In Zazzau each slave (dimajai) had his own farming land which he cultivated in the afternoon, after working on the master’s farm in the morning until Azahar (2.30 p.m.). The slaves were fed from the gandu (family farm food) in the afternoon and evening. In Kotangora a slave who was not fed this way had the right to run away. Whatever the slaves grew on their own farm-plots was their own, in spite of the Islamic law forbidding slaves from owning property. They could sell what they grew in the market to make clothes for themselves and their wives. Also the mangi had family farms of their own and were generally treated as full members of the household in everything, except that they were not entitled to any share in the inheritance of their master’s property. But at the death of a mangi, only half of his property could be claimed by the master; the other half was inherited by his own family. In Sokoto it was the duty of masters to arrange marriages for their male slaves when the latter attained the age of eighteen or nineteen. They were sent to their masters’ farms where they were virtually free, only cultivating their masters’ farms from dawn to noon and working on their own plots for the rest of the day. They were fed by their masters until harvest time and even during this time they were entitled to a share of the harvest.32


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In effect, then, the rinji slaves in Sokoto held a position practically similar to that of share-croppers in medieval Europe. But in spite of the apparent absorption of the mangi and dijimai into the family household, in spite of their designation as ‘brothers’, the status of these offspring of slaves was different from that of free persons. Like slaves, the dijimai remained in the owner’s rinji and worked for him. They had to obtain his permission to marry, though unlike full slaves, as pointed out already, they could marry free Hausa women. They had no title to the land they farmed or the compound in which they lived, but they probably enjoyed greater rights over movable property such as small stock, grain, and cash. Cases of slaves lending their masters money were not unknown. But, perhaps, the great measure of freedom and privileges enjoyed by the mangi and dijimai was due to the fact that they were brought up as Muslims. Mangi shared the same education with the children of their masters. At seven dijimai were taught to say their prayers and were sent to the Koran school to learn and recite passages from the Koran. It is essential to note, too, that a slave could become free in the Muslim areas. It was a common practice among the Fulani masters to order that their slaves be set free at their death and to manumit meritorious slaves as an act of piety and during Ramadan. As in post-1861 Lagos, the letter of manumission was signed before the Qadi and attested by two witnesses. Deserving slaves were also encouraged by their masters to redeem themselves in stages by instalmental payments. On the whole slaves were well treated in pre-colonial Northern Nigeria. Except for a few, very rare, cases no Northern Nigerian was ever harsh to his slaves and in many places masters did not find it disgraceful to eat with their slaves.33 Only Arab residents were, according to contemporary observers, cruel masters.34 In 1823 Denham observed that in Bornu slaves were treated ‘always like the children of the house, and corporal punishment is a rare occurrence among them’.35 In Kano Clapperton noticed that slaves ‘always appeared much happier than their masters; the women, especially, singing with the greatest glee all the time they are at work’.36 Of slavery in the Hausa States, generally, Earth wrote: ‘The slave is generally well treated, is not overworked, and is very often considered as a member of the family’.37 Well could Canon Robinson, an inveterate enemy of the Fulani aristocracy and a fanatical hater of slavery, be stupefied by the fact that in spite of their numerical strength, slaves refused to overthrow their Fulani and Habe masters. At a time when the British were already thinking of subjugating Northern Nigeria he had to lament that ‘instances of such revolutions [of slaves] have been exceedingly rare in the past history of the Hausas’.38 NOTES 1 H.Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, London, 1857, vol. 2, p. 126. 2 E.W.Bovill, Caravans of the Old Sahara, 1933, pp. 245–6. (The author quotes Lugard.) C.K.Meek, The Northern Tribes of Nigeria, 2 vols, London, 1925, vol. 2, p. 10; H.Clapperton, ‘Journal of an Excursion’, Appendix in D.Denham et al. Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in the years 1822, 1823 and 1824, London, 1826. 3 Leo Africanus, The History and Description of Africa, London, 1896, p. 833. 4 Robin Hallett, The Penetration of Africa, London, 1965, pp. 101–2. This evidence should not be interpreted as implying that slaves were moving southwards across the Sahara, that is that


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the economic level was higher in Bornu than in North Africa. The importance to attach to it is of historical rather than economic value. Between 1300 and 1800 European infidels captured on the Mediterranean by Maghrebian rulers were converted to slaves. A few of these were sent to the rulers of Bornu as a gift by the rulers of Tunisia and Libya with whom there were diplomatic relations apart from economic ties. 5 CMS, Journals of the Reverend James Frederick Schon and Mr. Crowther, London, 1842, p. 320; Barth, vol. 2, p. 507. 6 CMS Archives, CA2/056, Annual Reports of James Johnson. 7 A.A.Boahen, ‘British Penetration of the Sahara and Western Sudan, 1788–1861’, London Ph.D. thesis, pp. 369–71 (published as Britain, the Sahara and the Western Sudan 1788– 1861, Oxford, 1964). 8 J.Richardson, Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa, 1853, vol. 2, p. 263. 9 Leo Africanus, pp. 828, 829, 831 and 832. 10 Clapperton, ‘Journal of an Excursion’ in Denham et al., pp. 112–13. Barth, vol. 4, p. 180. 11 Barth, vol. 2, pp. 124–9. 12 A.Schultze, The Sultanate of Bornu, translated by Benton, Oxford, 1913. 13 Boahen, p. 371. 14 The Hakluyt Society, Missions to the Niger, IV (The Bornu Mission, 1822–1825), edited by E.W.Bovill, Cambridge, 1966, p. 774. 15 H.Clapperton, Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa from the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo, London, 1829, p. 139; Earth, vol. 2, p. 108. 16 The Hakluyt Society, p. 774. 17 C.H.Robinson, Nigeria Our Latest Protectorate, London, 1900, pp. 131–2. 18 CMS, Journals of the Reverend James Frederick Schon, p. 176. 19 Boahen, p. 370. 20 Barth, vol. 4, p. 180. 21 The Hakluyt Society, p. 748. 22 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 532. 23 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 142. 24 Denham, et al., p. 333. 25 Ibid., Clapperton, Appendix, pp. 95, 105. 26 Boahen, p. 376, quoting Oudney and Clapperton. 27 Clapperton, ‘Journal of an Excursion’, in Denham et al., pp. 112–13. 28 Ibid., p. 54. 29 Denham et al., p. 187. 30 S.F.Nadel, A Black Byzantium, London, 1960, pp. 103–9. 31 M.G.Smith, Government in Zazzau, 1800–1950, London, 1960, pp. 36–42 in particular. 32 H.Clapperton, Journal of Second Expedition, pp. 213–14. 33 Ibid., p. 139. 34 Barth, vol. 2, p. 151. 35 Denham, et al., p. 334. 36 Ibid., Clapperton, ‘Journal of an Excursion’, p. 54. 37 Barth, vol. 2, p. 151. 38 C.H.Robinson, p. 133.

5 Background to the ‘Duel’ between Crowther and Goldie on the Lower Niger, 1857–85 Although both Bishop Ajayi Crowther and Sir George Taubman Goldie have obtained considerable attention from able scholars in the last decade,1 there is a crucial aspect of their activity in Nigeria that has so far eluded notice. This is the ‘duel’ which, with important consequences for the peoples of the Lower Niger, both men fought for their mutually conflicting interests. It is the purpose of this chapter to analyse the background of this ‘duel’ which occurred in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, leaving a detailed examination of the peculiar relations between the Church Missionary Society and the Royal Niger Company for the next chapter. Whilst it should be emphasized that the ‘duel’ between the two ‘makers’ of modern Nigeria was not one of personalities, perhaps they never met each other physically, yet it should be stressed that the difference in their characters determined to a great extent the clash of their different visions for the Lower Niger and its peoples. From all accounts Bishop Crowther was a pious, ‘guileless’, simple, committed Christian and missionary, an exponent of the verities of the Christian faith which, ideally, he would have wished to see observed alike by the inhabitants of the Lower Niger and by the missionaries and traders who intruded into the territory in the nineteenth century. Goldie, on the other hand, was a dissolute unbeliever, a Machiavellian who could not allow considerations of ethics or Christian morality to hinder the achievement of his material and imperial interests. Their character is clearly stamped on the elements of their ‘duel’. Crowther’s commitment to Christianity, for instance, explains his attitude of application of Christian equity to the form of commerce which he felt should prevail on the Niger, in which there would be both freedom of movement and of trade for all peoples; his faith in the Christian concept of brotherhood of all peoples impelled him to be an apostle of free trade on the Niger. For Goldie, however, free trade was opposed to his grasping material interest and imperial ambition. Both men were also representatives of two irreconcilable patriotisms. After a few years’ study of the development of trade on the Niger, the Bishop came to the conclusion that the best agency for the expansion of commerce, as of Christianity, in the territory was an African agency. But he was not opposed to participation in trade and evangelization by other nationals. Rather, he welcomed the latter’s participation in these enterprises so long as they kept as their primary aim what the Bishop considered as the intrinsic interests of the peoples of the Lower Niger territory. Clearly opposed to Crowther’s relatively mild patriotic tendencies was the extreme and exclusive patriotism of Goldie and his lieutenants on the Niger, which emphasized that only English nationals should undertake all the trade with the inhabitants of the

Background to the 'Duel' between crowther and goldie

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territory. In the earlier years his agents also held the view that English missionaries were the best instrument for the dissemination of Christian doctrine on the Niger. As time went on, however, when Goldie began to achieve his imperial aims in the Niger area, his company was no longer opposed to having Africans and other nationals spread Christianity in the Niger. But he never relaxed his rigid views on trade matters. Goldie sought for, and achieved, a complete dislodgment of both African and non-British European competitors in the Niger trade both before and after he obtained the Royal Charter in 1886. Worthy of note is the complexity of the ‘duel’ brought about by the way and manner in which the Church Missionary Society and the Royal Niger Company came to be involved in it. The ‘duel’ became a conflict of two races, African and European. The African Bishop, his lieutenants, the educated African traders, and the African producers were on one side, the CMS, its European agents on the Niger, and the Royal Niger Company on the other. Basic to this grouping was the difference of conviction about what was the most suitable agency for the propagation of the Gospel on the banks of the Niger. The Church Missionary Society and its European missionaries ranged themselves on the side of Goldie and his Company not simply because they were white men but because they believed that under Goldie the Royal Niger Company was a providential instrument for the true evangelization and ‘civilization’ of the Lower Niger peoples. On the other hand Bishop Crowther and his African supporters were convinced that the company was against the true interests of Christianity on the Niger and an unmitigated curse on the peoples of the Lower Niger. Crowther preceded Goldie by more than a score of years. When he was in 1857 appointed pioneer and later controller of the CMS Niger Mission, Crowther had become a romantic figure with a remarkable career behind him. But it was in the Lower Niger that he was to spend the longest period of his career and to invest most of his talent and resourcefulness as a missionary. From his journals and correspondence it is easy to discern Crowther’s vision of the social, intellectual, economic, political, and religious conditions that he would have liked to see flourishing in the Niger Basin.2 This vision was based on the troika of Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization, the first being for Crowther the most vital, the second being an indispensable helpmate, and the third automatically produced by the first two. This idea was neither unique nor original. Practically all philanthropists in Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century expressed similar views. Even on the Niger the idea of commerce and the Gospel being mutually interdependent was advocated from the beginning of British enterprise there in 1832. But it was Ajayi Crowther, more than any other individual, who worked out a comprehensive programme of the troika and campaigned energetically for its implementation. He envisaged for the Lower Niger a prosperous, peaceful and peace-loving, literate and Christian population, with modern roads and navigable waterways that would put the territory’s inhabitants in mutually beneficial contact with the industrial countries of the world. He also hoped to see the territory under the guidance and protection of the British Crown. Crowther was not a stranger to the Niger. He had been a member of the Niger expeditions of 1841, 1854, and 1857. When he founded the Niger Mission, he was in liaison with Macgregor Laird, father of British trade on the Niger. When the latter died in 1861 and it seemed that British commercial interest in this part of Africa would be buried


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with him, it was Crowther who influenced its resuscitation three years later.3 Henceforth trade expanded ‘tenfold’ between 1867 and 1875. By 1871 there were four trading steamers, a hulk and a schooner, with establishments at Onitsha, Lokoja, and Egga, making several trips up and down the river during the navigable season, April to October. During the remainder of the year African agents were busy collecting produce. By 1879 there were four British companies on the river: the West Africa Company, Holland Jaques & Co., Alexander Miller & Co., and James Pinnock & Co. So great was Bishop Crowther’s interest in the Niger trade that he invested the substantial sum of £3,000 from the Mission funds in the largest of the companies which was to form the nucleus of the 1879 amalgamation, the West Africa Company.4 Both this Company and the Niger Mission pledged themselves to a joint project of commercial development and the encouragement of the growth, cleaning, and ginning of cotton in Onitsha and Lokoja. It was hoped that the Niger peoples would emulate their joint efforts by growing cash crops. Crowther, it should be stressed again, looked upon commerce mainly as a purveyor of Christianity and civilization. Up to 1879 commerce and Christianity were inter-related, to their mutual advantage. First, mission agents and trading factors were largely of Saro stock and, as J.F.Ade Ajayi has clearly shown, were often related by blood and family ties.5 Their tastes and outlook were Western and ‘Christian’. Moreover outside the citystates of Brass, Bonny, Okrika, and New Calabar the majority of Christian adherents in the Niger Mission were Saro. Second, because they were more intimate with the peoples than the traders were, mission agents were in a position to render assistance to traders in various ways. They could persuade the African producers to abide by the terms of the traders and could explain to the latter the disposition and habit of the indigenous peoples. In return mission agents depended upon the trading companies for conveyance up and down the river. Some traders, both European and African, were ardent Christians and they contributed liberally to the funds of the Niger Mission. In fact in Bonny their zeal for Christianity was expressed in a special church, St. Clements, which they built for themselves. Lastly there was the fact that in one form or the other mission agents were involved in trade. Until 1882 their salary was paid in the form of manufactured goods such as tobacco, beads, and Manchester goods. These, in turn, were either bartered for provisions or sold for cowries. To the undisguised delight of the Bishop, a large number of Saro were active participants of the Niger trade in an individual capacity. These ‘British subjects’ from Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Lagos, had been originally natives of Yoruba, Hausa, Nupe, and Igbo origin. They took advantage of passages in the companies’ steamships and bartered Manchester goods for common articles of native make such as locally-made clothes, mats, beads, shoes, sandals, pipes, lamps, calabashes, and potash in which none of the larger companies were dealing. The Crowther family was intimately connected with the Niger trade. Joseph Crowther, one of the Bishop’s sons, was the general agent for the West African Company while another son, Samuel, was the trading master for the same Company;6 a daughter, Mrs Macaulay, was trading between Lagos and the Nupe Kingdom. By 1876 the Bishop had expressed the desire that a loan for a steamer might be granted by the CMS for the use of the Niger Mission under the control of one of his sons.7 In 1880 the Crowther brothers actually placed a steamer on the river.


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Apart from the Bishop several European observers believed that the commercial possibilities of the Niger would provide an excellent opportunity for the Niger Mission to be directly engaged in trade and industrial enterprise such as carpentry, brickmaking, coopering, cotton growing and ginning, the profits from which could be deployed in the spread of Christianity in the Niger territories. There would be nothing unusual about this. On the Gold Coast the Basle Mission was doing exactly this, to the commendation of all observers. In fact the products of the industrial institutions of this mission, carpenters and coopers, were being employed throughout the Niger Delta ports in the second half of the nineteenth century. Having assessed the commercial possibilities of the Niger, J.H.Ashcroft, the European lay agent of the CMS from 1878 to 1882, pressed the society to urge Britain to buy the island of Fernando Po from Spain and set up there plantations of coffee and cocoa. He urged, also, that ‘God-fearing-men’ should give an annual subsidy to the Henry Venn, the Mission steamer, for expansion of trade to the Benue because ‘trade and the Gospel are good for the prosperity of a country and should go hand in hand’.8 The weightiest consideration with Bishop Crowther in his relentless advocacy of sanctified commerce and industrial education for the Niger territory was his conviction that Christian teaching could not have any meaning for the peoples of the country unless, and until, their material needs were first looked after. In other words he shared the notion of such missionary colleagues, as the Reverend T.J.Bowen of the Southern American Baptist Mission and John Kilner of the Methodist Mission in Upper Niger, that Christianity could not be expected to flourish in Africa until a social and economic transformation similar to that of contemporary Europe and America had been achieved. To this end he wished to see the Niger peoples engaged in a cash crop economy, the growing of cotton, Liberian coffee, indigo, shea-butter and arrowroot to be exchanged for European-manufactured goods. Such a transformation, too, contended Crowther, was likely to deal a mortal blow to slavery. For the idea of the dignity of labour would be introduced and slaves would be able to obtain the wherewithal to redeem themselves and establish an independent life as was happening in contemporary Abẹokuta.9 Time and again the Bishop reiterated the conviction that his visualized social and economic transformation was the only hope of an eventual firmly-rooted Christianity in Nigeria. This is not to say that he had no faith in a pentecostal outpouring on the Niger. As a deeply religious man he did not doubt that the Word itself could make genuine converts under the guidance of the ‘God of Missions’. But inasmuch as the human agency was concerned he looked mainly to social and economic regeneration as the understructure of Christianity in Nigeria. He was often impatient with the delay and indifference of both the CMS and the British public to the destiny of the Lower Niger, reminding them from time to time that ‘If the original desire to civilize and evangelize Africa has not died away with the most generous philanthropists who first conceived it, this is the most favourable time to accomplish those most desirable objects’.10 In June 1877, in a public lecture in Britain, he appealed to British capitalists on behalf of the Niger territory which had long been waiting for ‘the hand of Civilization to lay out the land in regular towns and villages and Christianity to adorn them with Churches with towering spires as Crowns of Christian Civilization’,11


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Free trade was the cornerstone of the Crowther programme. For him, before 1879, every trader from Europe or from the coast was, however nominally Christian, a potential missionary whose influence on the inhabitants of the Lower Niger was likely to be good. Although, like all educated Africans in Nigeria in his time, he preferred British imperialism and even encouraged it, his missionary programme included educated Africans, the Brass traders, Frenchmen, the Germans (if they would trade), and the British. For instance in 1877 he called upon the British publicly to invest in the Niger trade. Barely a year later a Frenchman, the Comte de Semelle, appeared on the Niger with a view, according to him, of exploring the Benue up to Yola from where he would undertake a land journey to Zanzibar. Struck by the economic possibilities of the Niger he decided to turn trader. Principally through the Bishop’s influence, the Emir of Nupe sent a letter to the President of the Third Republic, inviting France to participate in the trade of his kingdom. The Bishop then led the Frenchman to Gbebe and asked the chief there to accept de Semelle who had come to ‘open up the river and the country at large to Civilization, Commerce and Religion’.12 This permission was granted and the French were thus the first to establish a factory at Gbebe since the destruction of the Laird factory many years before. It is essential to indicate at this point that the peoples of the Lower Niger did not believe that the Crowther programme was necessarily in their interest. Except in Brass after 1876, the traditional rulers throughout the territory were not interested in Christianity to which Bishop Crowther would wish to convert them. They wanted no religious interference and indicated no disposition to accept the Christian faith. In Warri, Olomu, the ‘paramount chief’ of the Itsekiri and immediate predecessor and father of the famous Nana, welcomed traders but swore that he would never allow a Christian establishment, for fear that it would spoil Itsekiri customs.13 In Akassa not a single convert was made among the I jaw and but for pressure from the Saro at Akassa the Bishop would have folded up the station in 1876; in Onitsha, Christian adherents were persecuted and fined because their dress appeared to imitate that of the Mmo, the masqueraders of the secret cult which was the executive of Onitsha government.14 In the Nupe Kingdom where the government was Muslim the people were not only apathetic to missionary presence but contemptuous of the infidels. Although throughout the Niger region the inhabitants were favourable to commercial dealings with the Europeans, they did not accept the commercial part of the Crowther programme as the Bishop conceived it. On the whole the people had no interest in such cash crops as cotton, beniseed, indigo, groundnuts, tobacco, cayenne pepper, arrowroot, and ginger, new crops which would require considerable investment which the Bishop would like to see cultivated in commercial quantities and in which he felt the ultimate interest of the Lower Niger peoples lay. Rather they shared the traders’ view and immediate interest that attention should be concentrated on collection of ivory, sheabutter, and palm oil, which products were there for the taking for immediate dividends but which the Bishop believed were not of permanent value for the peoples. The Ijaw inhabitants of the Delta found Crowther’s conception of the pattern of trading on the Niger objectionable. They opposed the principle of free trade; they wished to retain their middlemen’s position, selling produce to Europeans on the coast and buying manufactured goods from Europeans for sale to the producers in the interior. In other words they wished to remain monopolists and they resented bitterly the activities of


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the Saro and European traders which threatened their dominance which traditionally extended as far north as the Nupe Kingdom. The Ijaw translated their bitterness into physical attacks on the steamers of the European traders. In 1871 they fired upon the hulk of the firm of Holland Jaques moored at the Nun, to prevent this firm from establishing itself there.15 Not long afterwards they turned back the Lord Nelson, another steamer of the company. In 1876 the people of Brass fought desperately against the steamships. A hawser was stretched across and cannons were fixed along in the bushes, perhaps with the encouragement of the Liverpool merchants on the coast. As soon as the Sultan of Sokoto came upon the hawser, volleys of cannonades were poured into her. One member of the crew was killed and eleven others wounded.16 Until 1879, and in spite of frequent punishment by the gunboat and fines by consuls, the Ijaw continued to resist the intrusion of European traders into their traditional markets. Crowther called the Ijaw ‘a few low, degraded, selfish and barbarous inhabitants of the Delta’, who obstructed commerce, ‘to obtain a few more puncheons of palm oil, which they themselves do not manufacture’.17 So much did the educated Africans deplore the monopolist attempts of the Ijaw that others besides Bishop Crowther wished that the British Government would use physical force to compel them to become adherents of free trade. Condemning the efforts of the Ijaw to tie the European traders to the coast and make the latter ‘depend upon them for whatever they could bring down in their Rob Roylike canoes’, Henry Johnson, Archdeacon of the Upper Niger, commented: But of course not, the progress of commerce and civilisation cannot be stopped by such nonsense as that…I trust that through the vigilance of the proper Authorities the monopoly that is thought to be created will be forcibly prevented, and that the lower rivers with their innumerable creeks will be thrown open, equally with the Upper streams, to unimpeded navigation, at all seasons of the year.18 It is worth noting that there were not a few places between Akassa and Lokoja where the attitude to traders and missionaries was one of unconcealed hostility. Both were tolerated at best and on many occasions both groups of intruders were plundered. Indeed gifts had to be frequently offered to the traditional rulers to obtain their goodwill. Throughout the Lower Niger it was only Bida that shared an identity of views with Bishop Crowther and the Niger Mission, though for different reasons. For the Nupe Kingdom trade with the British and other European traders was highly desirable. Therefore the Emir of Nupe urged Crowther to persuade the British to enforce a new kind of law and order that would guarantee freedom of movement in the Lower Niger and to deal severely with the Ijaw obstructionists of the Niger Delta.19 Like Bishop Crowther the Emir of Nupe wanted the British to revive the consulate which had been abolished in 1869.20 For Crowther it was the law and order that prevailed in the Nupe Kingdom and which contrasted with the perennial conflict among the congeries of small ‘republics’ in the Lower Niger that mattered. Moreover, although Nupe was Muslim and, as mentioned earlier, indisposed to listen to the Gospel appeal, yet both Masaba and Umoru were men of progressive ideas. Masaba, for instance, was not only literate but a lover of scholarship.21 But more important for Crowther was the fact that there he was allowed to have a say in several matters of state, a privilege he did not enjoy in other places in the


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Lower Niger. Bishop Crowther was probably the greatest alien adviser of Masaba and Umoru. He drafted the constitution by which Lokoja, a place defended by Nupe’s army, was administered till the advent of the Royal Niger Company;21 the Bishop had the opportunity to lecture Nupe rulers on the technological improvements being sponsored by Muslim rulers in Egypt and Persia; he advised Masaba to prospect for minerals in his kingdom and persuaded the rulers to believe that it was in Nupe’s interests to welcome all European traders.23 So much did Bishop Crowther regard friendliness towards the Nupe Kingdom that not only were the rulers recipients of expensive gifts from the Church Missionary Society but the British Government sent him on many occasions to take annual gifts to the Nupe ruler. On the whole, in spite of the fact that the inhabitants of the Lower Niger did not respond to the religious side of missionary work, missionary establishments were tolerated. By 1879 there were stations in Akassa, Osomare, Onitsha, Alenso, Lokoja, Egga, and Kipo Hill, all of which were manned by twenty-seven clergymen and teachers. Tolera-tion of the Niger Mission in these stations was based on the same premises as that on which traders were tolerated. Essentially until 1879 both mission work and trade were based on a policy of negotiation, conciliation, and gifts. This was the chief characteristic of the white man’s intrusion, missionary or commercial, throughout Africa before the formal establishment of colonial rule. For chiefs were masters in their own houses and they exercised their sovereignty over the intruders in their domains. Exceptional liberality and submissiveness to chiefs were demanded by the difficult situation on the Niger. For in the absence of a permanent man-of-war in the river neither the missionary nor the trader was immune to physical punishment. A Saro was killed in Onitsha and Yimaha in 1876 and 1879 respectively because the local population had been offended.24 The slightest provocation would see the traditional inhabitants brandishing muskets, cutlasses, and knives until huge compensation had been paid by the intruders. Even the Bishop himself was not above punishment. One chief, Aboko, held him captive for a long time, hoping for a large amount for his ransom.25 It was the traders who were really badly hit in the circumstances. They became victims of exactions and pillage in the hands of warring and avaricious petty ‘pagan’ chiefs. Outside the Nupe Kingdom this was the universal experience of the traders in the seventies.26 The annual trip up the Niger by the gunboat was of little avail; it could not be available from November to March when the river was low and only a few of the cumulative outrages could be punished. The missionaries did not find the situation intolerable to the same extent as traders. In fact missionary enterprise flourished and applications from important places including Bida, Ilọrin, and Loko—all Muslim towns—could not be honoured. In their stations missionaries were submissive, sympathetic, and professed genuine interest in the economic and political welfare of the chiefs. In his diplomatic dealings with the Niger Chiefs Bishop Crowther was at his best. Patience, amiableness, and forbearance were his watchword. With these he softened the prejudices of the chiefs who in turn found it in their interest to trust his advice on State matters. All was well relatively for the Niger Mission until about 1875 when Crowther’s vision for the Lower Niger and its peoples began to recede. In this year relations between the Niger Mission and the European traders were ceasing to be cordial. Not that the Bishop had been unaware all along that commerce could be a danger and an obstacle to the


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missionary. The Bishop had contempt for many of the European traders. Some of them not only traded on Sundays but prevented their African wards from going to services on the holy day, threatening to dismiss any employee that disobeyed the order.27 In Onitsha some traders informed the people that the Bible was not against the doctrine of polygamy as was preached by Christian agents. Many kept mistresses all over the river and the Bishop could not understand their religious persuasion, ‘whether atheism, infidelity, freethinking or Mormonism’.28 From 1875 onwards the cut-throat competition among the four trading companies on the Niger was becoming acute. More manufactured goods than before had to be bartered for stable quantities of African produce. The result was that more frequent voyages and heavier loading were necessitated, with little or no room for passengers.29 The West Africa Trading Company, which until now was largely responsible for transportation of Niger Mission agents, their families and their effects, began to disregard the interests of the Mission. This company and the three other companies began to replace African agents with European managers, now that quinine had been discovered as a prophylactic against malaria. As early as 1876 the Bishop had had cause to write to the European manager of the West African Company: ‘The path has been well beaten by black agents, who had roughed it for years till good houses are being put up in the factories which prove healthy for European agents, now blackmen are not capable of managing the business but Europeans!’30 So seriously did Crowther view the strained relations between his mission and the traders on the Niger that more urgently than before he appealed to the CMS to secure its own steamer. In 1878 a steamer, the Henry Venn, was provided for the Niger Mission, though it was not under the Bishop’s control. But it was in the following year, when Taubman Goldie began to plan to amalgamate the trading firms on the Niger, that the Bishop saw the imminence of the danger of commerce to his programme. He pleaded with the CMS that the contemplated amalgamation would ruin the cause of Christianity on the Niger. As early as 1876, when the West African Company had opposed the Society’s desire to have its own steamer, the Bishop had feared that what the firm was aiming at was monopoly ‘at the expense of the improvement of the country by free access of civilized and Christian population’.31 Crowther’s opposition to the proposed amalgamation was based on economic, missionary, and moral factors. Crowther argued that the West African Company, which formed the nucleus of the United African Company, had never been an economic proposition. In its earlier years when it was being controlled by European agents the firm was nearly bankrupt, with shares falling from £10 to 8s. Josiah Crowther took charge of the Company in 1867 and by 1876 shares had risen to £532. In 1879 the £3,000 invested in the Company by the CMS was worth only £1,500.33 From the moral viewpoint, declared the Bishop, the white agents of the West African Company were not treating their African employees well; they were ‘cruel and overbearing to the native clerks whom they tied up for real or supposed offence, flogged and lacerated their backs and afterwards confiscated their salaries’.34 So serious were some of the atrocities committed by the white controllers of the company that the African employees took successful legal action against it in Lagos and Sierra Leone. His view on the danger of monopoly to his vision for the peoples of the Lower Niger had been clearly expressed in 1871 when he wrote: ‘I feel persuaded that the God of


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Missions will not permit base self-interest and covetous desire to monopolize the trade of a country and people to obstruct the way to their Christian evangelization and enlightenment.’35 It was rumoured that the company was planning to raise the prices of imported goods, reduce what they paid to African producers, and monopolize all trade. Lastly the company was thinking of obtaining a charter and of acquiring the Henry Venn.36 Rather than support its Bishop against the monopolist bid of Goldie, the CMS not only supported the United African Company but gave up the profitable trade in which the Henry Venn was employed at the time of amalgamation. In the circumstances of the financial crisis that faced the Society from 1879 onwards, it would seem that it was in the interest of the Society to continue to adhere to the principle of free trade and carry on its profitable trade on the Niger. It was because of its financial distress that the Society had ordered the Bishop not to open the new stations, about twelve of them, which since 1875 he had been pressing to open. In 1879, for instance, the Society’s deficit was £30,000. No time was more opportune for the adoption of the Basle system and further implementation of the Crowther programme. At the time of the amalgamation the Henry Venn was doing very well in trade. It bought potash at 4d. a pound or something less at Egga and sold it at wholesale price of 8d. or 9d. per pound in Lagos, after deducting the freight charge. From Lagos or Brass, it bought salt at £3 10s. a ton and sold it at Egga for £40. The capital involved in this was about £3,000.37 But in 1881 Hutchinson, the lay secretary of the Society who had succeeded Henry Venn in 1872, ordered J.H.Ashcroft, the lay agent in charge of the business, to wind it up, to avoid competition with the Niger Company.38 Against the declared wishes of the Bishop and in response to Goldie’s repeated pressure, the CMS gave up trading altogether, including that necessary for the maintenance and upkeep of the steamer.39 In 1881 the Society announced that in the Lower Niger all effort would be concentrated on evangelization alone and requested all its agents, from the Bishop downwards, to sign an agreement to the effect that neither they nor any member of their family would participate in the Niger trade—a rather extraordinary demand.40 It requires no imagination to perceive that Bishop Crowther’s vision for the Lower Niger and its peoples would suffer a decisive blow from the pro-Goldie attitude of the CMS. The troika of Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization, resting on the fulcrum of free trade, as conceived by the African Bishop, was virtually destroyed. The destruction was completed by the changing attitude of the CMS to the agency that was to be considered best for the dissemination of Christianity on the Niger. Up till 1876 Salisbury Square was proud of the fact that the Niger Mission was being worked by an entirely African staff. Nowhere in West Africa was African agency being developed to a degree peculiar to that part of Africa. In the same year the Bishop commended the CMS and declared: ‘On elevating the Natives, the progress of Christianity and the extension of missionary operations, especially in Africa, will in a great measure depend in future days’.41 Ironically it was about this time that Europeans began to flock to the Niger, thanks to quinine. This fact was perceived by Hutchinson, who publicly encouraged Europeans to go to the tropics, which had been dreaded hitherto. It was Hutchinson’s belief that the Niger Mission had to be a mixed one. Gone were the days when, as a trader of long experience


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in the Niger Delta, he wrote, ‘Educated blackmen will take the place of Europeans, for the ordinary run of whitemen cannot, for even half the alloted span of life announced by David, exist in tropical Africa’.42 The period when it became clear that Europeans could live in the Niger territories coincided with the belief which began to gain currency that European missionaries were by virtue of their society’s long experience of Christianity the best instrument for the propagation of the Gospel. Correspondingly the view began to gain currency that the evangelization of the Niger peoples was no longer safe in the hands of educated Africans. As a spokesman declared openly in Exeter Hall in 1881: ‘The romance of Missions must be given up for the facts of Mission’.43 The unique experiment, that of a completely African staff under an African Bishop, was henceforth supposed to have failed. The Saro agents, ‘foreign Africans’, were now considered a curse rather than a blessing; their removal would be a blessing and not a regret; genuine Christianity could be propagated only by Europeans. It is in the light of the above that the conflicting reactions of the Society and its Bishop to the advent of Goldie and his Niger Company should be understood. It was not long before the edifice Crowther and his African lieutenants had built began to collapse. First to go was the delicate system of evangelization which, as analysed earlier, was based on placating the traditional rulers. The National African Company was determined to end all lawlessness by meting out exemplary punishment to all obstructionists. The new Company would not placate the chiefs, nor would it advance credit to African producers;44 it was determined on forcing upon the States severe terms that would be very harmful to the interests of Africans. The means adopted to achieve this end was force. In 1879, for instance, a misunderstanding between the merchants and Onitsha people resulted in the usual acts of plundering of the former. The traders had to flee to Asaba. The agent-general of the Niger Company, David Mackintosh, summoned the acting consul, S.F. Easton, to deal with Onitsha. The latter was taught a lesson which embittered its relations with the Niger Company for the rest of the century. H.M.S.Pioneer ‘levelled all the walls left standing in the Lower town’, after burning it.45 In November 1880, for reasons that will be examined presently, the town was blockaded by Mackintosh and he began to destroy its fisheries. At the same time Atani and Asaba were subjected to similar treatment because they would not trade with the company on its terms. In the chieftaincy dispute that arose in Gbebe the company, like Robert Clive in India, backed a favourite to the disadvantage of the mission established there in 1878.46 In 1882 a place on the Warri branch of the Delta was bombarded. The following year Idah had its turn; in 1884 Jibu on the Benue suffered the same fate. Bishop Crowther and his lieutenants were very bitter at the era of bombardment brought into being by Goldie’s Company. It is worth emphasizing that, although submissive to Salisbury Square and courteous to a fault to Europeans, Bishop Crowther’s patience wore thin when the spread of Christianity was imperilled. He not only protested bitterly but often defied Salisbury Square. As will be analysed presently he defied the CMS in 1880 when the prospects of Christianization of Onitsha were affected adversely by the activities of the Niger Company. When in the years 1880 to 1884 the European missionaries who were being introduced into the Niger Mission began to challenge his authority, when the European General Secretary began to dismiss African agents and several stations were being closed down because, as the white missionaries argued, Africans were unfit to spread the Gospel, the


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Bishop was prepared to forgo his authority and ask that more and more white missionaries be sent so that the missionary frontier might be pushed ever further in the interior. My intention…is to urge the Parent Committee to supply the Niger Mission with as many European missionaries as they can, to be the chief workers under the superintendence of the European Secretary…The Europeans are better managers, their actions and reports will be better confided in both out here and in England. We shall be content to work under their direction as in former years. Thus impediment will be removed from the way of the extension of the Mission.47 In 1891 he was to ‘rebel’ against the CMS and launch an independent Niger Delta Pastorate on the grounds that evangelization of the Delta was being impeded by the racist policy of the Society. By 1879 the Bishop was persistent in his demands for funds to extend the missionary frontier to Ilọrin, Yimaha, Nassarawa, and Yola. He went to the extent of asking permission to make an independent appeal for financial support in Lagos if the CMS could not afford the expense of new stations. The bombardment policy of the Niger Company was likely to make the missionary field shrink rather than grow. There would be many chiefs who would not make any distinction between traders and missionaries. The African lieutenants of the Bishop protested in a chorus. It is significant that the first bitter words in Archdeacon Dandeson Crowther’s correspondence with the Society were on the bombardment policy of the Niger Company. Writing on behalf of his father in 1880, at a time when the Bishop’s wife was fatally ill in Lagos, Dandeson declared: When English merchants use gun and powder to further their commercial relations with the natives by firings, as in Onitsha after bombardment in the Lower Niger and now by firing on a brother chief in help against the other brother, about the vicinity of Gbebe in the Upper Niger, in what are we better? We may well deserve to be turned away from their countries and a reproach cast on our religion. And once we lose the confidence of these people, we will find it hard to regain.48 The various elements of conflict between Bishop Crowther and Goldie were most manifest in the Onitsha affair of 1880. The bombardment of the previous year was sufficiently harmful to the missionary cause. As the pro-missionary African Times had declared, Onitsha was the ‘cradle of Niger civilisation’, a nodal and strategic centre of considerable value, the key window to Igboland.49 Largely because it was the centre of Christian activity Consul Hopkins, the pious Christian offical who would not undertake any major engagement until prayers had been said, had refused to bombard the place in 1878 when Mackintosh had urged him to do so. Although the Niger Company had withdrawn to Asaba before the bombardment of 1879, Onitsha was so important commercially that the Company wished to return there. But it was here, also, that the greatest opposition was to be encountered by the Niger Company. For the first time since the establishment of a mission station in their midst the


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people of Onitsha found an identity of interest with the mission agents and Saro traders, against the monopolist bid of the Niger Company. The Onitsha people appealed for the return of the Christian converts who had been removed to Asaba by Mackintosh in 1879; they voluntarily offered to rebuild the mission houses which the Company’s agents had deliberately burned down and they promised to surrender twins to the mission rather than throw them away as was the traditional custom.50 What was particularly offensive to the Niger Company was that CMS agents began to advocate free trade in Onitsha and other places in Lower Niger in a way that suited both French and Saro competitors of the Company. De Semelle found in Bishop Crowther and his agents his best friends. The French trading agents, reported T.C.John of Lokoja, ‘subscribe very liberally towards the work of God, and some of their promises are too good to be true’.51 In the years 1880 to 1882 French steamers carried African mission agents freely. This policy of the French contrasted sharply with that of the National African Company who would carry European missionaries only and asked the CMS to replace African with European missionaries. Under the leadership of the Reverend S.Perry, the Onitsha people refused the demand of David Mackintosh, that they should stop all trading with the French and that they should sign a three-year monopoly treaty with the Niger Company.52 According to Mackintosh, Perry had taken an oath binding the people of Onitsha to follow his guidance in their relations with European traders. Moreover the leadership he gave to the people of Onitsha encouraged other towns in the Lower Niger to resist the monopolist bid of the Niger Company. The agent-general of the Niger Company was convinced that Perry had determined ‘to bring the white traders into difficulties with the natives’, that he was stirring up “strife and ill-feeling between the natives and traders’, he and his brother-inlaw, Spencer (a missionary recently turned trader) having become the ‘real dictators of terms to be demanded by natives of the whole river’.53 Worse still, from the Niger Company’s point of view, was the fact that Brassmen began to send rifles up the Niger. The Company’s officials felt threatened. Mackintosh then decided to blockade Onitsha, behaving as if he were the consul. He seized every canoe belonging to the people of Onitsha and destroyed all the fisheries along the Onitsha bank. The sufferings of the people can be gleaned from the report made by Perry to Consul Hewett: Pardon me Sir, if in the overflow of feeling I ask whether it can be right to fire at a people, to seize their property, to forbid them to seek their daily bread, in the lawful way, to hinder them to move about the river even at night, for no other cause, but only because they would not allow Mr. Mackintosh to monopolize trade in their country.54 The Onitsha affair, too, revealed a conflict of interest between the Niger Company and Saro traders. Apart from the fact that the Saro led illiterate producers to resist the severe terms of the Niger Company they were in addition serious competitors of the European traders. Although since 1875 the latter had refused the Saro passages in their steamers, the interest of the educated Africans in the Niger trade continued to grow. This was particularly so after 1877 when the Kiriji War broke out in Yorubaland and began to have paralyzing effects on Lagos trade. Many Saro put their own steamers on the river and


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continued to participate actively in the trade until 1885.55 The Niger inhabitants, too, profited from this trade with Lagos. A contemporary observer estimated that over 200 of them took wares to Lagos every month.56 Before 1886 the commercial effort of the educated Africans on the Niger brought to Lagos about £60,000 annually.57 In the light of this it cannot be surprising that the Saro regarded Goldie’s company as ‘an unmitigated curse’.58 The Saro’s influence over traditional rules was decisive in other places in the Lower Niger. For instance it was their influence that foiled the attempt by the Niger Company in 1879 to obtain a ten-year monopoly from the Emir of Bida.59 Goldie desired their complete removal from the Lower Niger. Responding to an appeal from the agentgeneral of the Niger Company, S.F.Easton (himself a trader and successor to the pro-missionary Hopkins) urged the Foreign Office to sanction the removal of all the educated Africans, ‘a gang of desperadoes’, from the Niger. For their removal ‘cannot fail to prove beneficial in the extreme to the interests of the European merchants and traders in the River’.60 He began a process of removal which was halted by the appointment of promissionary Hewett as Consul in March 1880. The reaction of the CMS and its European missionaries to the duel between Crowther and Goldie over the Onitsha affair brought about a conflict with the Bishop and marked the beginnings of the decline and fall of the latter. Neither Salisbury Square nor its European missionaries considered the missionary importance of Onitsha. Without having investigated the facts of the crisis they sided with the National African Company; they hailed the bombardment, welcomed the blockade, and concluded that ‘the wicked troublesome Onitsha people’ deserved the severe measures taken against them by the National African Company.61 Hutchinson, the lay Secretary of the CMS, was unyieldingly opposed to the Bishop over the differences that occurred between the Niger Company and the Niger Mission. In 1879 they disagreed over the treatment of African employees by the European agents. The Bishop had asked Hutchinson to use his influence with the Company to stop brutal physical injuries to Africans. Without making any investigation Hutchinson judged that the Bishop could not have reported correctly on the state of affairs and the Europeans were in the right.62 When after the bombardment of Onitsha the Bishop argued for reoccupation of the town, Hutchinson, like the National African Company, found the anxiety of the Bishop distasteful. Although he was ignorant of the geographical and strategic advantages of Onitsha to the Niger Mission, he contended that Asaba, opposite Onitsha on the other side of the Niger, was better than Onitsha, in spite of the data provided by the Bishop. Why, he asked, should the Bishop aspire to evangelize the people east of the Niger? Why should he not occupy Asaba, work westwards and join hands with the Yoruba Mission via Benin?63 The pro-French tendencies of the African agents were condemned by the Society. The Reverend J.B.Wood reported S.Perry to Consul Hewett and asked for his removal from the Lower Niger. Both J.H.Ashcroft and Mackintosh began to plead jointly for European missionaries to displace Africans. If this was done, said the agent-general of the National African Company, free passages would be offered to missionaries with their effects.63 But the Bishop defended his African lieutenants. He urged Consul Hewett to take no action against his agents unless a thorough investigation was carried out. When a special committee of the CMS which condemned the Reverend S.Perry recommended his immediate transfer the Bishop refused to carry out the recommendation. Then, against the


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specific wishes of the Society, Bishop Crowther himself undertook the reoccupation of Onitsha. The anti-French attitude of the CMS and its English agents was as much a matter of patriotism as it was a genuine desire to prevent Roman Catholicism from being introduced to the Lower Niger. From the missionary point of view they were more shrewd than Bishop Crowther in perceiving that French traders could endanger the primacy of the African agency doctrine on the banks of the Lower Niger. For the French traders in this territory stood for a determined French imperialism from 1880 to 1884. The French traders were only incidentally interested in trade. As the Directors of the French Company told Mattei, de Semelle’s successor, on the eve of his departure for the Niger in 1881: ‘This mission is principally more patriotic than commercial’.65 The French traders were expected to make the Niger and the Benue French. In the observation of the French agents the only effective way of doing this was to introduce French priests, who would destroy the British influence which the African and British missionaries were disseminating on the Niger.66 Rejoicing in the financial difficulties of the CMS and the fact that Bishop Crowther and his African agents were falling out of grace with the Society, the French trading agents believed that it would be possible for French Catholic priests to uproot British influence within a short time. Therefore in 1883 M. Viard, agent of the French Company at Ibi on the Benue who was to carry his French patriotism to Abẹokuta in 1888, declared that the French factories on the Niger were hence-forward to fulfil religious purposes. In that year he got in touch with Father Planque, the Superior-General of the Society of African Missions in Lyons, urging him to send missionaries to the Lower Niger. Father Planque shared the French patriotism of the famous Lavigerie and the French priests in Nigeria. He once declared that for him, Catholicism and French patriotism were synonymous.67 Hence, in his view, Governor Alfred Moloney of Lagos and Sir James Marshall, the first judge of the Royal Niger Company government, both of whom were passionate Catholics but British citizens as well, were counterfeit Catholics because they were opposed to French imperial interests in Abẹokuta in 1888.68 In 1883 two intensely patriotic French priests, Father Holley and Father J.B.Chausse, went up the Niger and reported that throughout the Niger the inhabitants did not love the British and were anxious to make treaties with the French. In 1884 two priests arrived in Lokoja with the idea of beginning their patriotic work but they were bitterly disappointed to learn soon afterwards that the directors of French enterprise in Paris had been bought out by Goldie.69 The anti-French attitude of the CMS in the Lower Niger was part of a phenomenon in the wider world of missionary enterprise. Its journals in the eighties breathed anti-French feelings. In Uganda a battle was going on between CMS missionaries and French Catholic priests. On the Niger the CMS did not want to have the French priests in a territory which the Society had always regarded as British. For Bishop Crowther and his African lieutenants to be indifferent to, or sympathetic with, French commercial enterprise was, in the Society’s view, inherently dangerous to the true interests of Protestant Christianity in that part of the world. It was logical that the anti-French attitude of the CMS and its European missionaries resulted in undisguised hostility to the presence of Saro traders in the Lower Niger. In 1881 both J.B.Wood and Hutchinson were irritated that the Crowther brothers put their own steamer on the river and urged the Society to make a regulation that nobody


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connected with the CMS should patronize them.70 In the following year the Reverend E.T.Phillips, the first European General Secretary of the CMS on the Niger, rejoiced at their distress. He told the Society, bluntly, that ‘it would be a dangerous thing to the Mission to lend itself to thwart the interests of the National African Company’.71 A few examples of pious Saro Christians who had a stake in the Niger trade before the Niger Company obtained its emasculating Charter may be noted. There was R.B.Blaize, who was to donate £2,000 to the CMS on the fiftieth anniversary of his birthday and who erected a church at Igbore in Abẹokuta. According to him the advent of Goldie with his company brought neither moral nor material progress to the people. Under educated Africans, said Blaize, the commercial prosperity of the Niger would have been multiplied tenfold.72 Then there was I.H.Willoughby, a faithful supporter of the Society, whose services were used in the eighties when the CMS were fighting against polygamy in Lagos and also when the Society was seeking African support for the appointment of a European Bishop for Yorubaland. There was J.P.Haastrup, the most energetic Wesleyan layman to whom the Wesleyan Society owed largely its evangelization of Ijẹbu Rẹmọ. Lastly there was the Honourable C.J. George, an Ẹgba Wesleyan and unofficial member of the Legislative Council who with James Johnson fought in that Council for Christian causes, such as the prohibition of Sunday marketing and against the secularization of education. Both in Nigeria and in Britain critics of the Niger Company believed that its monopoly was morally indefensible and that the interests of the educated Africans should not be abandoned by the CMS. In 1889 leaflets were circulated in Britain challenging the Society to speak out on behalf of the educated Africans ‘in the cause of righteousness’ and ‘common justice’.73 This challenge was never picked up. By 1885 the emigration of the educated Africans to the Niger had virtually come to an end. They could no longer trade in stone potash, palm oil, shea-butter, beniseed, and cotton but only in powdered potash, an article of inferior quality. One of them wrote in May, 1885: ‘A direct war has been opened against us by what we must designate an Elephantine Trading Company from Europe whose enmity has caused us many a pecuniary loss’.74 In 1886 the Niger Company received a Royal Charter which it used to exclude all others completely. The ejection of educated African traders from the Lower Niger had a parallel in the gradual ejection of African agents from the Niger Mission. As has been mentioned before this arose not only out of mere racial prejudice, although this was present, but out of the conviction held by the CMS from 1875 onwards that true Christianity could be disseminated by European missionaries only, rather than by hybridized Africans. The purge began in 1883; no more progress, territorial or statistical, was recorded. In fact by 1886 territorial shrinkage was being strongly urged. It was in the logic of things that the CMS no longer had faith in the Crowther programme, the death-knell of which was proclaimed by the ejection of the educated Africans from commerce on the Niger and their partial ejection and distrust by the Church Missionary Society. NOTES 1 J.E.Flint, Sir George Goldie and the making of Nigeria, London, 1960; J.F.A.Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria 1841–1891: The Making of a New Elite, London, 1965, contains considerable information on Bishop Crowther. 2 CMS CA3/04(a), CA3/04(b), and reports and letters in G3/A3/0 series.


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3 CMS CA3/04(a), Bishop Crowther to J.Edgar, 26/9/1875. 4 Ibid., Bishop Crowther to Hutchinson, 26/12/1876. 5 Ajayi, Christian Missions, p. 212. 6 CMS CA3/04(a), Bishop Crowther to Hutchinson. 7 Ibid. 8 CMS CA3/05, ‘Report of the Benue Exploration 1879’ by James Ashcroft. 9 CMS CA3/04(b), Annual Report for 1870 by Bishop Crowther. 10 Ibid. 11 Bishop Crowther, ‘The River Niger’, paper read before the Royal Geographical Society, 11 June 1879, in Reports, Charges, etc., vol. 1, CMS Library. 12 CMS G3/A3/01, Annual Report for 1880 by T.C.John. 13 CMS CA3/04(a), paper entitled ‘Attempt to occupy Benin River as a Missionary station, 1875’. 14 CMS CA3/04(b), Annual Report for 1868 by Bishop Crowther. 15 CMS CA3/04(a), Bishop Crowther to Venn, 17/6/1871. 16 Ibid., Bishop Crowther to Hutchinson, 26/6/1876. 17 Ibid. 18 CMS CA/3/023, H.Johnson to Hutchinson, 18/12/1877. 19 CMS CA3/04(a), Masaba to Earl of Grenville, 22/9/1871. 20 Ibid. 21 CMS CA3/04(b), Annual Report for 1873 by Bishop Crowther. 22 CMS CA3/04(a), Bishop Crowther to Hutchinson, 18/9/1870. 23 CMS CA3/04(b), Annual Report for 1877 by Bishop Crowther. 24 CMS CA3/04(a), Bishop Crowther to Hutchinson, 26/6/1876; FO 84/1541, David Hopkins to FO, 19/7/1879. 25 CMS CA3/04(b), Annual Report for 1868 by Bishop Crowther. 26 FO 84/1541, David Hopkins to FO 19/7/1879 describes the situation at Yimaha and contains 5 enclosures outlining the grievances of the four trading companies. See also Easton to FO, 3/11/1879. 27 CMS CA3/04(a), Bishop Crowther to Edgar, 3/9/1875. 28 CMS CA3/04(b), Annual Report for 1875 by Bishop Crowther. 29 CMS CA3/04(a), J.Edgar to Crowther, 5/5/1875. 30 Ibid., Bishop Crowther to Edgar, 3/9/1875. 31 Ibid., Bishop Crowther to Hutchinson, 10/5/1876. 32 Ibid., 18/6/1879. 33 Ibid., 16/10/1879. 34 Ibid., 18/6/1879. 35 Ibid., Bishop Crowther to Henry Venn, 17/6/1871. 36 Ibid., Bishop Crowther to Hutchinson, 16/10/1879. 37 CMS G3/A3/01, J.B.Wood to Secretaries, 12/8/1881. 38 Ibid. 39 CMS CA3/L1, Goldie to the Secretaries, 28/10/1881; Goldie to Major-General Hutchinson, 14/6/1883. 40 CMS G3/A3/01, Madeira Deputation to Bishop Crowther, February 1881. Agreements signed are to be found in this box. The Bishop did not sign the agreement. 41 CMS CA3/04(a), Bishop Crowther to Hutchinson, 28/2/1876. 42 John Whitford, Trading Life on the Niger, London, 1875, p. 374. 43 Quoted in Lagos Times, 22/6/1881. 44 CMS G3/A3/01, Mackintosh to Counsul Hewett, 6/12/1880. 45 FO 84/1541, S.F.Easton to FO, 3/1/1879. 46 CMS G3/A3/01, D.C.Crowther to Hutchinson, 5/7/1880. 47 CMS G3/A3/02, Bishop Crowther to Lang, 30/1/1884.


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48 CMS G3/A3/01, D.C.Crowther to Hutchinson, 5/7/1880. For other protests see G3/A3/01, Bishop Crowther to Hutchinson, 1/6/1880; G3/A3/02, Bishop Crowther to Lang, 12/1/1885, and Annual Report for 1881 by H.Johnson. 49 African Times, 2/2/1880. 50 CMS G3/A3/01, Annual Report for 1880 by Bishop Crowther. 51 CMS G3/A3/01, Annual Report for 1880 by T.C.John. 52 CMS G3/A3/01, D.Mackintosh to Hewett, 6/12/1880. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid., S.Perry to HBM Consul for the Niger, 30/11/1880. 55 Lagos Times, 17/12/1882. J.S.Leigh alone had two steamers and six stations. See also African Times. 1/9/1884, which gives other names. 56 The Brooke Papers (CMS Archives), Journal 13/4/1889, evidence given to Brooke by Captain Griffith. 57 CO 147/66, Moloney to Knutsford, 9/10/1888, lists 45 names of those still alive. 58 Lagos Observer, 26/5/1888. 59 CMS G3/A3/01, Bishop Crowther to Lang, 31/12/1881. 60 FO 84/1541, F.Easton to FO, 3/11/1879. 61 CMS CA3/O5, Ashcroft to Mackintosh, 5/1/1880. See also G3/A3/ 01, J.B.Wood to Hutchinson, 18/12/1880, 62 CMS CA3/L1, Hutchinson to Bishop Crowther, 5/9/1879. 63 Ibid. 64 CMS CA3/05, Ashcroft to Hutchinson, 5/1/1880. 65 M.le Commandant Mattei, ‘Cinquante Mois Au Bas Niger et dans la Benoue’ serialized in Les Mission Catholiques of 1890, p. 10. 66 SMA Archives, Rome, Planque’s Letter Books I.M., Viard to Superior SMA, Lyons, 18/12/1883. 67 SMA Archives, Planque to the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda, 27/6/1889. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid., file of Father J.Poirier, 1884–92, J.Poirier to Père Superior, 7/11/1884, and 4/1/1885. 70 CMS G3/A3/01, J.B.Wood to Hutchinson, 18/12/1880. 71 CMS G3/A3/02, E.T.Phillips to Lang, 11/1/1883, marked ‘Private’. 72 Liverpool Courier, 23/9/1897. 73 Methodist Missionary Society Archives, paper entitled ‘A West African Monopoly’. 74 The Lagos Observer, 21/5/1885.

6 The Relations between the Church Missionary Society and the Royal Niger Company, 1886– 1900 The identity of interest, though not necessarily of purpose, of the various European agencies—commercial, missionary, and political—which operated in pre-colonial Africa has received the attention of many historians of the continent in the last decade. There is a sense in which in African Studies this attention is justified though not in the way this is often presented, that is in the sense of the usefulness of this identity of interests to the metropolitan countries of the European emissaries.1 Thus we are told of the glowing tributes paid by Sir H.H.Johnston and Commandant Mattei, British and French imperial agents respectively, of the era of the Scramble, to missionaries whom they saw as coworkers in their task of empire-building; of the way in which Robert Moffat, a pioneer missionary of the London Missionary Society, prepared the way for Rhodes’ coup in the land of the Ndebele; of how the Church Missionary Society and their agents collaborated with Colonel Lugard in the British occupation of Uganda; of how Thomas Birch Freeman, a Wesleyan missionary, was hand in glove with the British administration on the Gold Coast in order to endear the Fanti to British suzerainty; of how the French priests of the Society of African Church Missions in Dahomey worked for the ultimate occupation of that West African country by France. This imperialistic value, or consequence, of the identity of interest of the European agencies in pre-colonial Africa has often ignored the African dimension which should be the concern of the historian of Africa. It is that the co-operation of any two, or all, of these agencies should be solidly based on the belief or conviction or hope of the parties that their co-operation should and would serve the paramount interest of the African peoples whom they were putting under their political umbrella. It is the neglected side, this neglected effect, of imperial activity in Africa, in respect of the relations that subsisted between the CMS and the Royal Niger Company, that this chapter is intended to reveal. Evidence will be led to show that the much vilified Goldie with his Chartered Company was not the outright villain he is usually represented to be—even in the hand of his able biographer;2 that the Royal Niger Company was not the complete embodiment of evil we are used to read about, that it was because the Church Missionary Society saw the Royal Niger Company in a humanitarian garb that the Society behaved as it did, seemingly giving the Company automatic support in spite of the attempts of the Company’s critics to paint its administration on the Niger as having anti-missionary, antiethical, and anti-African interests. When in 1886 George Taubman Goldie received the Royal Charter which he was eventually to use effectively as a valid weapon to crush all competition, African and European, in the Niger trade as well as French and German imperial attempts in the Niger


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Basin, he was fully aware that the Royal Niger Company would not be the only or sole authority in the areas to be administered by his Company. For although by this date he had bought over the two French companies that had appeared a few years before, had paralysed the enterprise of educated African traders from Lagos, had bombarded to submission recalcitrant towns that had hesitated to grant him trade monopoly, and had become a source of anxiety to the Brass traders, there was an agency over which he had, and could have, no control. This was missionary enterprise, as represented by the Church Missionary Society, an organization of indisputably gargantuan influence in Britain which he could not afford to alienate. The influence of the Church Missionary Society in moving either the British Government or the British public to accepting a line of action on events occurring in different parts of Africa in the latter half of the nineteenth century is not to be underestimated. Led in the last decades of the century by Sir John Kennaway, MP (later a Privy Councillor), the Society had among its strong supporters and patrons the two Archbishops and aristocratic, military, parliamentary, and academic support, apart from the ordinary people. In East Africa it had influenced the British Government to intensify efforts at suppressing the slave trade, as it was to prod Britain to acquire the same territory when Mackinnon’s Imperial British East African Company could no longer discharge its imperial task. In Nigeria the influence of the Church Missionary Society was dreaded by virtually every Governor up to the outbreak of the First World War. The Society’s imagined importance is illustrated by the attempts of all parties in Britain who had interests in the Niger territory between 1886 and 1900 to win its support. Sir Claude Macdonald, ConsulGeneral and High Commissioner for the Oil Rivers’ and Niger Coast Protectorates respectively, courted its help against the Niger Company.3 The African Association, a group of trading companies in the Delta coast based mainly in Liverpool and the greatest enemy of the Niger Company, promised to abandon entirely trade in liquor if the Society would support it against the Goldie regime.4 A.L.Jones of the West African Shipping Lines promised to give £1,000 to the Niger Mission if Bishops Hill and Tugwell would only say a word against the Niger Company.5 No one more than Goldie appreciated the weight of the CMS and its philanthropic backing in Britain. He was fully aware that the Society’s presence in the area which his Company was to administer on behalf of the British Government could not be opposed. A shrewd and down-to-earth pragmatist, he perceived the danger that the personnel of the CMS Niger Mission, under the directorship of the romanticized Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, could be to his regime. Predominantly African and relatives of the educated elite who had been eliminated from the Niger trade, these Niger Mission agents were in a position to retail the activities of the Chartered Company to the West African press and to Salisbury Square and thereby, at least to a certain extent neutralize the effect of the oath of secrecy which all employees of the Company were compelled to sign. Nor could the presence of European missionaries, who were being introduced into the Niger Mission by the time of the Charter, alleviate the anxiety of the Company. Prior to the Charter they had begun to judge the doings of the Niger Company on the platform of Christian ethics;6 they might claim liberty of religion and of movement and thereby endanger the Company’s relations with Muslim rulers. In other words they could become an

The relations between the church missionary society

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administrative problem. Would it be possible for the Company to gag these emissaries of Christianity on the Niger? It was this inherent danger of the CMS to the Royal Niger Company that impelled Goldie to hanker after its friendliness and co-operation even years before he obtained the Charter. As early as 1881, although he was a dissolute unbeliever, Goldie had presented himself to Salisbury Square as a disciplinarian in moral matters. In that year he informed the CMS authorities that he was deeply concerned about the moral welfare of the African employees of the Niger Company and that he was sure the Society was equally concerned about the morality of the Niger Mission agents. But the latter, he said, were spreading ‘d demoralization’ through the retention of the Henry Venn, the Society’s steamer on the Niger, in its agents’ hands.7 Therefore he offered to purchase the steamer. For the next three years the agents of the Company wooed the European members of the Niger Mission by impressing upon the latter that they were favourably disposed to the spread of Christianity in the Niger Territories; they were only too eager to carry freight and European personnel of the Mission free of charge. When, therefore, Goldie’s company finally obtained the Royal Charter, about which the British Government had hinted to Salisbury Square a year before it was issued, the European agents of the Niger Mission were already favourably disposed towards the Niger Company. Indeed as early as December 1885 Goldie had ingratiated himself with the CMS by unfolding to the latter the Niger Company’s exertions in the interest of the peoples of the Niger territories at the Berlin West African Conference. These exertions were in respect of making the Niger territories a liquor-free zone. In this international meeting the Niger Company had taken the initiative to induce the Conference to prohibit the transit of spirituous liquors over the waters of the Lower Niger to Northern Nigeria. But although—in consequence of its initiative—Great Britain strenuously urged this proposal and was supported by Italy and the United States, it failed through the opposition of other Powers. As Goldie glamourized the part played by the Company, allegedly in the interest of the African peoples around the Niger: The arguments which Sir Edward Malet put before the Conference were drawn at my persistent urging and from the data supplied by me. On this matter I expended much time and energy with the wishes of Lord Aberdare and the Board generally. I urged the importance of the subject upon the plenipotentiaries and especially and more frequently on the American representatives.8 Goldie sent in advance a copy of the Charter, emphasizing its humanitarian clauses which, he said, the Royal Niger Company intended to carry out. He wanted full cooperation not only of the parent Committee in Britain but of its agents, particularly the Africans, whom the Company wished to be instructed to give unto Caesar what belonged to Caesar. In Goldie’s judgment the aims of the Company and of the CMS were essentially identical; they both were working towards the goal of humanization of Niger Basin society. As he claimed: The Directors cannot doubt that the same feeling [of cooperation in civilizing Africans] will continue to exist, and that although the springs of


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action and ideals of the Company and of the Society undoubtedly differ widely in many respects, they are completely united in one point viz., the welfare of the natives of the Niger Territories, whose well-being should be, I believe is, the PARAMOUNT object of both yourselves and with us.9 Throughout the tenure of the Royal Niger Company in the Niger Territories the Church Missionary Society needed no more wooing. Salisbury Square became convinced that the Royal Niger Company was the best European administration in Africa in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. For the CMS there was ample evidence to sustain this judgment, by no means based on the fact that the Company was a successful commercial concern nor on its success in painting a part of Africa red although this latter element was not totally absent. The Royal Niger Company encouraged missionary enterprise morally and materially; the Company attempted to embark on, and implemented to a certain extent, the ‘Bible and the Plough’ programme of the abortive Niger Expedition of 1841; the Company traded in legitimate articles, frowning on the liquor traffic with its demoralizing effects on the African population. Hardly had the news of the Charter reached the agents of the Society on the Niger than the General Secretary declared that the advent of the Royal Niger Company would bring about emancipation of slaves.10 Bishop Crowther, who, as shown in the last chapter, had never approved of the appearance of Goldie on the Niger and had fought against his Company’s monopoly bid, received the instruction of obedience to the Company’s administration in silence. Henceforward he never said a word about the Company. Most of the agents of the Mission followed their Bishop’s example, maintaining an eloquent silence about a Company they had never liked. However, a chief lieutenant of the Bishop, Archdeacon Henry Johnson, who was in charge of the largely Muslim upper part of the Niger Mission, welcomed the quasi-government status conferred upon the Niger Company which he hoped would put an end to infanticide, acts of murder, lawlessness, and absence of freedom of worship. As the Archdeacon put it: When the power of the Royal Niger Government shall have been consolidated, and they shall have grown strong to exercise it with effect, there will be some rest in this distracted country: liberty of conscience as well as of the person shall be secured, and in the universal peace which shall ensue as the inevitable result, the word of God will have free course, and will be glorified.11 The belief of the CMS that the Royal Niger Company was the best colonial administration in Africa in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, observing the principle of paramountcy of African interest, was reiterated by Goldie from time to time to combat the vilification campaign of his Company’s enemies. The latter, he said, were ‘a small clique who certainly have not the true interests of the natives at heart’.12 Since 1886, when he obtained the Charter, he boasted on the eve of its cancellation, ‘commercial success has not been the main object of the Company’.13 In 1889 he had claimed that he was ‘sacrificing time, money and health in the arduous work of introducing civilization into one of the wildest and most barbarous regions on earth’.14


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Since European settlement was out of the question in the part of West Africa being administered by his Company, he said, his policy was that of ‘the Niger for the Nigritians’, under European rule and guidance which would last ‘many generations’.15 In other words Goldie claimed that he had the vision of the day when the ‘Nigritians’ would become independent. It is significant that the enemies of the Company grasped the fact that they came to be discredited in the eyes of the British public and humanitarian movements because Goldie always defended his Company’s activities on the platform of philanthropy and paramountcy of African interest. As John Holt, Chairman of the African Association from 1890 to 1897, regretted, Goldie was ‘an astute diplomatist and wire-puller, a subtle skilful man full of resource and able to mislead any but those who have actual knowledge of circumstances’.16 Goldie’s regime, he observed further, was ‘to draw a picture for the edification of the philanthropists and political noodles of this country who are led astray by his gas and fancy as to the real state of affairs’.17 Indeed the Liverpool Opposition noted with bitterness that they were defeated in Britain because Goldie’s policy was to hold out the Niger territory as a ‘veritable teetotal mission field; held, not for dividendpaying purposes, but for the propagation of humanitarian and Christian principles’.18 It is essential to examine in detail the validity or otherwise of the philanthropic professions and claims to statesmanship made by Goldie and the Royal Niger Company in relation to the Niger Territories. For him there were three criteria by which the merits of European contact with, and rule of, Africa commercially and administratively should be tested. These were the degree to which alcohol was prohibited, the measure of success achieved in the establishment of a new form of law and order in territories honeycombed by slaveraiding and internecine warfare, and the extent to which the peoples were encouraged to beat their swords into plough-shares and concentrate on a cash-crop economy. By these criteria Goldie asserted that his administration was contributing to the ‘sum-total of human happiness’ in the Niger territories.19 How far Goldie was genuine in his humanitarian professions is a point on which opinion may vary. On assessment of an overwhelming mass of fresh evidence, this writer’s judgment is that Goldie’s humanitarianism and policy were a combination of conviction and ruthless opportunism. Which of the two components predominated is a matter on which no precise opinion can be pronounced. Certainly it depended on occasions and issues. It is clear that he never allowed his idealism to run away with his practical sense. In Nigeria the situation was such that his practical sense made him always an idealist. Judged by his criteria and contemporary notions of humanitarianism, the policy of the Royal Niger Company in Nigeria was never completely devoid of humanitarian principles. In the sense that Goldie thought and spoke at all about the interests of the governed, he was a humanitarian and statesman far ahead of any of the administrators of the Lagos Colony and Protectorate and of the High Commissioners of the Niger Coast Protectorate before 1900. Little wonder that he loved to present his administration as an exemplar that both the Lagos and Niger Coast Protectorate administrations should be persuaded by the British Government to copy. Of the three criteria of humanitarianism and statesmanship defined by Goldie the first, the anti-liquor policy, was the most important for him. It became as well a most formidable weapon which he utilized to the complete discredit of his enemies, particularly the Liverpool Opposition and the Brassmen. It is important to understand


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with what purpose Goldie led his Company into an anti-liquor policy. In his detailed study Professor J.E.Flint shows that Goldie’s anti-liquor policy sprang from the desire to exclude all other traders, for without spirits trade was impossible on the Niger, indeed in Nigeria, in the nineteenth century.20 Professor Flint also stresses that Goldie’s anti-liquor policy was used to obtain the maximum of favourable publicity. That Goldie’s high tariff of 2s. a gallon—and he was prepared to have it raised to 4s. in 1895—effectually kept out all other traders from the Company’s territory cannot be doubted; that Goldie made a ruthless propaganda use of his antiliquor policy to enlist support for his administration is also beyond dispute. The point to emphasize here.is that more than commercial or propaganda intention was involved in Goldie’s anti-liquor policy: there was a moral aspect as well and it touched the Nigerian peoples and both the Lagos and Niger Coast Protectorate Governments. How far did Goldie put his professions into action? What was the place of the liquor issue in the opinion of Nigerians in the last quarter of the nineteenth century? What was the place of liquor in humanitarian thinking in Britain in the same period? How well did the other administrations in Nigeria compare with the Niger Company in this matter, and how far were they drawn into the controversy and assessed by the British public? It is in the answers to these questions that judgment on the anti-liquor policy of the Royal Niger Company must depend. But this is not the place for an analysis of the fascinating liquor controversy.21 Only facts relevant to judgment on the anti-liquor claims of Goldie may be noted. In this respect it is clear that Goldie was not hypocritical. He acknowledged publicly time and again that he was not a temperate drinker and that his anti-liquor policy was not motivated solely by philanthropic impulses but by economic reasons as well.22 As Lugard was to argue in the nineties, Goldie contended that liquor was a trade killer; that although the liquor traffic brought immediate gains, it was ultimately ruinous; that it limited the tastes of Nigerians, who ought to be encouraged to develop tastes for manufactured goods and thereby become more industrious. As he declared, all colonizing nations have a similar interest in permanently extending and developing their general trade with West Africa, and that no business mainly based on the liquor traffic can be either sound or permanent, or can lead to fresh requirements on the part of the natives, who are gradually becoming through the trade in useful articles more civilized, and living more complex existences.23 Finally, Goldie said, there was the moral aspect; it was better to give Nigerians manufactured goods instead of spirits, which few besides Mary Kingsley and the Liverpool traders, believed morally justifiable. The fact that, as already revealed, his anti-liquor activity had begun as early as 1884 would tend to indicate that Goldie was not motivated only or primarily by the desire to exclude other traders from the territories of the Company after he had obtained the Charter. In fact, in spite of the credibility gap between his declarations and what he did, it seems that there was a measure of sincerity in his professed wish to have the traffic abolished completely. During 1885, that is a year before he obtained the Charter, the


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importation of European liquors into the Niger Territories was reduced by twenty-five per cent, and in the following year to less than half of that in 1884.24 On the granting of the Charter heavy duties were at once imposed on spirits, while the duties on cottons, silks, velvets, hardware, earthenware and so on, were fixed at the extremely low rate of two per cent ad valorem. On 29 April 1887 the Governing Council of the Company prohibited by regulation the importation of spirituous liquors into all the areas around the Benue. A similar regulation might have been drawn for areas north and south of the Kwarra ‘but for the fact that owing to the very low duty on spirits levied in the British Colony of Lagos, such a measure on the part of The Company would be rendered nugatory by the smuggling of spirits from Lagos into the province of Nupe through Ilorin’.25 On 19 May the Council made a further Regulation imposing penalties on the payment of any wages whatsoever in spirits throughout the whole of its territories. Goldie desired that pressure should be brought upon the Lagos Government to raise duties on liquor and aim ultimately at prohibition. He also wanted the British Government to persuade France and Germany—the two other major powers in West Africa—to agree to a uniform duty on spirits being levied from Senegal to Cameroons, inclusive. Such uniform duty might be fixed at the highest rate which would not make the inducements for smuggling so great as to defy preventive precautions. Something like 10s. per gallon, he said, would achieve the desired end.26 This would be four times the levy on the Gold Coast in 1890 and twenty times the levy in Lagos. The sincerity of Goldie’s anti-liquor policy becomes more transparent as one reads through his unpublicized thinking and views on the matter. In his private correspondence with Lugard he indicated that his anti-liquor policy was a matter of conviction. He was ‘astounded’ at the pro-liquor views expressed in the Times some time in 1895 by G.T.Carter, Governor of Lagos.27 He was much worried over the likely increase in the liquor trade in the Niger Delta if the Kirk scheme, which sought to push the Royal Niger Company’s jurisdiction and tariff frontier north of the Delta, were adopted. As he observed, it ‘would have involved our either abandoning trade in the lower region, or shipping a million gallons of spirits a year to compete successfully with others’. In a document headed by Lugard ‘Goldie’s Memo: Reorganization R.N.C.’, tentatively drawn up by Goldie and intended to come into operation on 1 January 1896 if the Kirk plan were accepted by the British Government, Goldie emphasized: ‘The Company earnestly desires that as an essential condition of this arrangement, the existing absolute prohibition of spirituous liquors into any part of its territory except the maritime district may be maintained’29 and that the tariff in the maritime area be raised from 1s. to 4s. a gallon. On the question of how far Goldie’s Company put its anti-liquor policy into practice there is sufficient evidence to show that it was positively carried out above latitude 7 degrees north as the Company decreed. The Company traded in liquor below this latitude and supplied both the CMS and the Aborigines Protection Society with credible statistics.30 It claimed that it traded in spirits in the Delta area, one-twentieth of the total land mass claimed by the Company, but where the bulk of its trade was done. It had of necessity to do this because of the impossibility of keeping out the traders of both Lagos and the Niger Coast Protectorate from the area. The company’s duty of 2s. a gallon was the highest in West Africa in 1890. It was four times that of the Lagos Government until 1891 and double that of the Niger Coast Protectorate until 1895. This was also four times the minimum fixed by the Brussels Conference of 1890. Both Captain Lugard and


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missionaries on the spot bore testimony to the fact that north of Onitsha little trade was done in liquor. The view expressed by jaundiced contemporaries, that the relative absence of the liquor traffic in the Company’s territories (it is significant that the relative absence was acknowledged) was due to Muslim susceptibilities, bore no relation to facts. Maliki’s letter to Bishop Crowther, imploring the CMS to petition Queen Victoria to put a stop to liquor which ‘has ruined my people very much; it has made my people become mad’, is evidence that before 1886 there was a liquor trade in the Nupe Kingdom.31 Lugard reported in 1895 that not less than two million gallons of gin found its way to northwestern Yorubaland and the Company’s territories by land every year from Lagos.32 Surely the Company’s territories would have been flooded by liquor had the Niger River been thrown open to free trade. Archdeacon Dobinson, a rational critic of the Company, recorded: ‘One feels deeply thankful for the Company’s action in regard to gin prohibition above Onitsha, and one cannot without serious apprehension contemplate an opening of the gates of the River to general trade, knowing that that means unlimited gin’.33 Whether Goldie’s claim, that had his Company allowed the liquor traffic a free course in its domains the Company would have made ten times the profits it actually made, was the whole truth is not the important point. The relevant point is that there is ample testimony that the anti-liquor policy was adopted by the Royal Niger Company in areas which it could quite easily have drenched with spirituous liquor, at enormous profits to itself. In the light of the fact that humanitarianism, as far as European relations with ‘backward peoples’ were concerned, in Britain from 1885 to 1914 centred on liquor,34 Goldie could rightly claim that he was a humanitarian; in the light of the fact that a primary motive for restricting what was universally acknowledged to be harmful to Africans was the desire to give the ‘Nigritians’ benefits of a deeper and more valuable quality than mere material prosperity, Goldie could rightly claim that he was a statesman. It should be stressed again that both in Britain and in Nigeria the liquor question became the most prominent social evil to which people’s attention was drawn from time to time. It was the only social evil on which there was a Royal Commission of Inquiry, engineered mainly by the Church Missionary Society. Indeed the agitation against liquor was the thorn in the side of all administrators in Nigeria from 1890 to 1914. In the opinion of Salisbury Square and of the anti-liquor movement in Britain, including the Aborigines Protection Society, all other qualities of an administrator paled into insignificance by the side of his attitude to the liquor question; Goldie’s Company became in this respect the ideal of what a trading Company and an administration should be. But Goldie’s claim to statesmanship in his Company’s administration of the Niger territories was not owed solely to his enmity to the gin traffic. He was indeed prolific in idealisms. According to him, and it is remarkable that he never made this public, he had a long-term programme when he obtained the Charter in 1886 to liberate ‘the great mass of the populations whom the alien caste of Foulahs cruelly oppresses’.35 He was convinced that the advent of the Fulani in Northern Nigeria was an unmitigated curse for the Hausa, whose progress, he said, terminated with the assumption of authority over them by the Fulani. He had also perceived that the Fulani rulers would oppose the Company’s presence by a ruthless exploitation of Islam against his ‘Christian’ government. Therefore he hoped that when the Company had sufficient revenue to enable the enlistment of


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10,000 Sikh troops, Wurnu, the capital of the Sokoto Empire, would be occupied and the people rescued from the ‘superstitious dread of the magical powers of the Sultan of Sokoto’ by which, he believed, the Fulani held them in subjection. ‘This done’, he wrote, ‘the native populations would dispose of their Foulah tyrants and the Central Sudan would be freed, settled and opened up without expense either to the Company or GreatBritain’.36 This was probably why he announced publicly in 1887 that ‘before long the Company will be able by a system similar to that adopted by Brazil, to provide for the gradual extinction of servitude and the substitution of free labour.’37 In 1893 Goldie assured the CMS that he abhorred monopoly and that his primary motive for obtaining the Charter was not commercial. It was his object, he claimed, to abandon trading altogether and concentrate his efforts on administration like the East India Company after 1832. His vision, he said, was that the Niger should be thrown open to all traders and the territory developed by American negroes.38 Thus Goldie posed not only as a potential Warren Hastings but also as a Buxtonian who desired to see implemented the ‘Bible and the Plough’ scheme of the 1832 Niger Expedition. As he declared in 1895, he wanted to see throughout the territory claimed by the Company, systematic ‘plantations of tobacco, indigo and other products’, which would be cultivated and owned by the Nigerians. And to prove that he was not merely idealizing he had examples to show. A mile from Onitsha CMS Mission the Company had a coffee plantation of 20,000 trees.39 On his own evidence, ‘the trade in forest products is growing, and the plantations which have been started at Abutshi, Mkissi, and other places for the purpose of instructing the natives in the cultivation of coffee, cocoa, and the other products hitherto unknown in these regions are making satisfactory progress’.40 This was in 1892. The desire to suppress the slave trade was strong in Goldie from the time of the Charter. The Charter itself committed his Company to doing this. In order to deal a mortal blow at inter-ethnic slave raiding the Company imposed a new kind of law and order over 235 ‘pagan’ tribes. It was hoped that in order to render slave caravans ‘useless and unprofitable’ steamers and launches would be put on the Niger and Benue rivers for patrol services and ‘light tramways’ constructed from these waterways to the cities of Northern Nigeria.41 Within the first three months of the Charter three slave raiding associations were broken up. It is on record that a number of slaves rescued in the wars against Ilọrin and the Nupe were set free and handed to missionaries for training. But, like Maclean on the Gold Coast earlier in the century, Goldie perceived the position of domestic slavery in African society, and that ‘any hasty attempt to abolish this would result in universal rebellion and final anarchy’.42 Therefore he was committed only to its gradual abolition through the teaching of the dignity of labour and introduction of free labour. Of the salutary effects of the Company’s administration the evidence of African missionaries, by no means friends of the Company, must be regarded as conclusive. By the end of the century slave raiding was effectively checked from Lokoja downwards and the extension of the Fulani Islamic frontier into this area prevented. Immolation of slaves came to an end in Asaba, twin-murder was suppressed in Onitsha, and cannibalism checked in Obotshi.43 These humanitarian achievements by the Company should not be underestimated. In Abẹokuta, which fell within the influence of the Lagos Government, human sacrifice was openly practised with impunity as late as 1887;44 in Ondo, also


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claimed by the same Government, immolation of slaves and human sacrifice to the gods continued into the last decade of the nineteenth century, in spite of endless appeals to the Lagos Government by Charles Phillips, the head of the CMS Ondo mission, urging a suppression of these barbarous customs. Archdeacon Henry Johnson, a man on the spot, passed the following judgment on the Royal Niger Company: The influence, for example, of the Royal Niger Government must be admitted to be very potent and effective in certain directions. It has inspired a wholesome fear in the natives, and compelled them to set some value upon human life. The habit of offering human sacrifices at the death of a chief is fast becoming a thing of the past among the heathen tribes which are within the range of the influence of the Government. I for one cannot be sufficiently thankful for the advent of a power which has done so much already to put an end to the dreadful holocaust which has long been offered regularly upon the altar of a gross ancestral superstition.45 Enough evidence has been marshalled to show the humanitarianism and statesmanship of Goldie. It was as a humanitarian and a statesman that he was perceived by the Church Missionary Society, who in turn gave him a blank cheque and defended the Royal Niger Company against its opponents. But Goldie’s Company encouraged materially and morally missionary enterprise, particularly in the ‘pagan’ areas south of Lokoja. As he boasted in 1889, in no part of the British empire had an administration encouraged the work of Christian missions as the Royal Company had been doing in the Lower Niger ‘by rendering assistance in every possible way to the Church Missionary Society and all other Christian societies’.46 It is on record that, apart from offering assistance to missionaries in their movement from station to station and in making available to them goods and provisions, the Royal Niger Company handed over buildings and land at Onitsha, Asaba, Lokoja, Egga, and Wunangi to Protestant and Catholic missions. As David Mackintosh, an agent of Goldie’s Company before the Charter, had said, African agents of the Niger Mission were not hated because they were Africans or missionaries but because they ‘occupied themselves more with trade matters than the work of God’.47 The best testimony of the encouragement given to missionary propaganda in the Niger territories by the Company is that afforded by the pro-French priests of the Society of African Church Missions after 1884. As these priests admitted, there was no question of the Royal Niger Company discriminating against them in any way.48 Free passages were often given them, whilst their effects and articles were furnished them on generous terms. The mission owed its expansion into the present day Mid-West State to the physical support given it by the Royal Niger Company. In this respect the military expedition launched against the Ekumeku in the hinterland of Asaba may be recounted. Said to have been born in Ibusa, following the suppression of immolation of slaves by the Royal Niger Company in 1888, the Ekumeku, a secret society, became the symbol of the cultural and political nationalism of the Ika Igbo. They dreaded the political and religious intrusion into their territory by the Royal Niger Company and the Society of African Church Missions. In desperation they raised the standard of revolt against the intruders in 1898. The Royal Niger Company smashed the ‘rebellion’ in a pro-missionary


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manner. The pro-missionary ruler of Ibusa, who had previously been deposed by the Ekumeku, was restored; he was made the sole ruler in place of the innumerable independent petty chiefs; the Catholic mission was restored; missionaries were guaranteed freedom of worship and movement, and human sacrifice was outlawed. Thus the way was open for the Society of African Church Missions to expand westward towards Benin and north-westward towards the Kukuruku. Well did Father C.Zappa, one of the priests, jubilate: ‘Car s’il est vrai de dire que souvent le missionaire précède le commerçant et le soldat; il faut aussi reconnaître que bien souvent les efforts du premier resteraient stérile si Dieu dans ses aimes providentielles, n’avait pas armé la main de l’homme de guerre’.49 (For if it is true to say that the missionary often precedes the trader and the soldier, one must also admit that quite often the efforts of the former would be unproductive if God, in His Providence, had not placed the weapon in the soldier’s hand.) It cannot be surprising that the Church Missionary Society became endeared to a Company that professed, and to a certain extent practised, statesmanship and humanitarianism in the interest of the ‘Nigritians’. Although there were occasions and events that, judged by the principle of Christian ethics, might have strained their relations, the Society became completely enchanted by Goldie to the extent that, as it seemed to contemporary critics, the Society sacrificed its true interests on the altar of loyalty to the Royal Niger Company in several particulars. Among these interests were the cause of the educated African traders from Lagos, who were thrown out of the Niger trade by the Company’s monopoly; the cause of the Brass traders, a people who in the years 1874 to 1886 patronized Christianity with a zest unparalleled in the history of Negro Africa in the nineteenth century,50 and lastly expansion into the Muslim parts of the Company’s territories. However the Church Missionary Society did not perceive these interests in the way the critics did, nor did it regard these interests as weighty enough to outbalance the brilliant side of the Company about which the Society knew very well. For one thing, even before the Charter was obtained, the Society had become disenchanted about the quality of the Christianity of the educated elite in West Africa generally and of those on the Niger in particular. European missionaries had been introduced into the Niger Mission since 1883 in order to improve the moral tone of Christians in the mission, whilst African agents were being dismissed in favour of European agents who, it was believed, would be a better credit to Christianity in the Niger Territories. In the circumstances, as Bishop Crowther lamented, whilst twenty-six mission stations could have been effectively occupied in 1885, eight out of the fifteen that had been founded between 1857 and 1883 had become vacant as a result of the dismissal of African agents.51 And since the Royal Niger Company was not opposed to the progressive increase of European missionaries, the Church Missionary Society was convinced that the cause of genuine Christianity was being furthered, rather than retarded, by the exclusion of the educated elite from the Niger Territories. As for the Brass traders the judgment of the Society about these zealous votaries of Christianity had changed since 1885 when, to the horror of Salisbury Square, acceptance of Christianity by the Brass did not affect their attitude to cannibalism. For in this year Christian zealots participated in the eating of the human flesh of their enemies, which by custom was believed to demonstrate complete victory over the latter. Indeed the CMS had to lead a delegation to the British Government to urge the trail and execution of


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‘those cannibal murderers’.52 On the desire of the CMS for expansion into Muslim areas in Northern Nigeria the Society knew only too well that the prospect of Christianity in these areas was anything but bright. Goldie and the Royal Niger Company drew largely upon the unreserved support of the Church Missionary Society. There were moments when, as it seemed to Goldie and the Society, revelations of some happenings in the Niger Territories would not only have damaged the reputation of the Royal Niger Company in Britain and abroad but would have persuaded the British Government to withdraw its Charter. To some extent, then, the Company’s enjoyment of its span of fourteen years was owing to the automatic support it received from the Society. The Society’s European missionaries were resolved never to say a word, openly at least, against the Company, despite the seamy side of its administration because, as they put it, ‘a loyal obedience is due from all in the Mission to the Government, as the appointed administrative power of the Crown’.53 The first event over which the Royal Niger Company might have been exposed by the Church Missionary Society was the Zweiffel affair. Fortunately as the European and African missionaries took opposite views on the matter, the Society found it difficult to know whom to believe. In this case of cold-blooded butchery of some African labourers by Zweiffel, a German employee of the Company and Wallace, the Acting Agent of the Company since the Charter, Bishop Crowther forwarded eye-witness accounts. These accounts, freely written for the eyes of the Bishop only, differ from the official reports by the Company and must be briefly summarized.54 Zweiffel came to the Niger towards the end of 1887 with about 160 Temnes from Sierra Leone with the specific understanding that they would be collecting gum and rubber. But from their arrival on the Niger they were used for hazardous exploratory work. They travelled on land from Onitsha to Loko on the Benue and returned to Lokoja in the middle of March 1888. Here they were told that they would continue their exploration to Asaba. At this point the men refused to go on, on the grounds that they had not been used for the declared purpose for which they had been employed. Treating this refusal as ‘mutiny’ Zweiffel and Wallace disarmed the labourers and troops were ordered to open fire on them. From six to ten were killed, twenty-eight were wounded, twenty-six were missing, and all the others ran helter-skelter.55 This dastardly act aroused bitter feelings among both the African missionaries and African employees of the Company. Commenting on the incident Archdeacon Henry Johnson wrote: The moral turpitude of the action is more flagrant, whichever way considered; and I shall be more surprised if the Supreme Judicial Officer at Asaba, or the Council of the Royal Niger Company or the Government in London approve of an act, than which nothing could be imagined more infamous, even in a country where barbarities of every kind and degree are commonly perpetrated.56 In every sense Henry Johnson and the Africans were to be ‘surprised’, for the Judge at Asaba pronounced the verdict of ‘rebellion’ against the Temnes; the Council of the Company endorsed this verdict and the British Government made no attempt to investigate the affair.


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The Church Missionary Society had the reports sent by the African eye-witnesses. All it did was to express horror at Zweiffel’s action to its representative on the Niger, the Reverend J.A.Robinson, a fanatical supporter of the Company. There was no question of informing the public of the information at its disposal, or asking the British Government to investigate the affair, or even saying a word of condemnation to the Company. Robinson was in Asaba at the time of the event and yet he urged the Society to disbelieve the eye-witness accounts of the Africans and accept the official view that the behaviour of the Temnes at Lokoja was a clear case of ‘rebellion’ against the white men in the town. Put in the same position as Zweiffel, he said, he would do likewise.57 He was appalled that the African agents of the Society and of the Company ‘assert bitterly and with the most painful animus against the white element that it was cold-blooded and vindictive butchery’. The Zweiffel affair made the Aborigines Protection Society sceptical of the avowed humanitarianism of the Company and it began to criticize the Company on the grounds that it was the Society’s (APS) duty ‘to look zealously as it can after strictly native interests’.58 As he was to do skilfully at the time of the Brass rising in 1895, Goldie nipped the opposition of the Aborigines Protection Society in the bud by switching the argument from the Zweiffel affair to the liquor issue. With alacrity he sent to the organization a pamphlet containing the Company’s anti-liquor policy, declared that the Aborigines Protection Society was not more anxious than the Company in the promotion of the interests of the ‘Nigritians’ and attributed all criticism of the Company to ‘the unscrupulous calumnies of those interested in an untaxed liquor traffic’.59 He impressed the Aborigines Protection Society who played into his hands by suggesting that henceforward all information about the Company’s policy towards the natives would be obtained directly from the Company and not from other sources! Goldie accepted the suggestion, pledging that the Company would ‘always’ be desirous ‘to meet the wishes of Your Society by affording them…information on matters in which they, on behalf of the aboriginal races, may be interested’.60 No more criticism of the Company ever came from the Aborigines Protection Society. In the meantime the relations between the CMS and the Company were being put under strain by the appearance of an erratic, adventurous, and quixotic crusader against Islam, Graham Wilmot Brooke. A spoilt child of a high-ranking British military officer, he became committed to the Christianization of the Muslims of the Sudan in 1881 when he met with General Gordon, later of Khartoum disaster fame. Without any formal training for a missionary career he had between 1884 and 1887 attempted to reach, the Sudan through Algeria, Senegambia, and the Congo. He had unorthodox ideas about how Africa was to be evangelized, including self-support by the missionary through agriculture and handicraft industries. Before 1888, when he finally decided that the Niger was the only practical route by which he could reach the Sudan, he had been expressing ideas that would make his appearance in the Royal Niger Company’s territories a source of anxiety to Goldie. All traders, including those of the Niger Company, Brooke had declared, were ‘hardhanded godless traders, who nearly all call themselves Christians’.61 The Muslim in the Sudan, he had also said, ‘is a murderous bloodthirsty monster, forgetting all points of the Koran but such as enjoining the massacring and enslaving the Kafirs, the daily prayers, and teetotalism’.62


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Brooke was an extraordinary and complex character, with a mood quite unpredictable. Although by 1888 he had admitted that in Africa Islam was too formidable for Christianity,63 yet he spoke and behaved as if the Sudan could be converted in a matter of months. Although he could be extremely sympathetic toward favourite African agents he could as well be irrationally ruthless to others in a way that made him racist. At one breath he saw the culture of Northern Nigerian Muslims in romantic terms, as something superior to European culture;64 at another breath he was very patronizing and contemptuous of their customs and institutions. His first reaction on coming to Nigeria in 1888, on his way back from the Congo, was to desire to negotiate with the Royal Niger Company to establish himself at, or in the neighbourhood of, Yola, over 400 miles east of Lokoja on the Benue. In fact he got a letter of introduction to the Company from its agent in Lagos, John Fairley.65 However, rather than go to Goldie he put himself under the patronage of the CMS, thus persuading the latter to revive its interest in evangelization in areas that had been unresponsive and hostile to its efforts. A worse time could hardly have been chosen by the CMS and Brooke. The relations between the Company and the Emir of Nupe, the most important of the Muslim rulers in the areas claimed by the Company, had deteriorated. Harassed at home by a large number of princes, sons of his predecessors who wished to topple him from the throne, Maliki, who ascended the throne in 1882, added to his unpopularity when in 1885 he made a treaty with Goldie’s Niger Company, a treaty which was not counterbalanced with one with the French, who in the previous year had been urged to establish themselves in the Nupe Kingdom. There developed the rumour that the British had an eye on the territory and sovereignty of the Nupe. So serious was the suspicion that in November 1887 a conference took place in Bida at which the suggestion was made that all anasaras (Christians) should be massacred.66 Indeed although the extreme step was not taken, an order was issued prohibiting the sale of food to the employees of the Royal Niger Company in the Kingdom. So apprehensive did the Company become that it considered closing down factories at Egga, Wunangi, Egbaji, Shonga, Soku, and Zukokuso. The Company was also considering declaring Lokoja a British territory and a request to the CMS to withdraw north of Lokoja. Indeed the Company’s position north of Lokoja was such that, as far as the Northern Emirates were concerned, the Company was no more than a tenant paying every year £2,000 each to the Sokoto and Nupe rulers, £1,000 to the Emir of Gwandu, and from £100 to the Emir of Nupe at every visit to Bida.67 In the circumstances, in the interest of healthier relations with the Emirates, it was certainly impolitic for the Royal Niger Company to countenance missionary propaganda north of Lokoja. Naturally Goldie was alarmed when he heard of Brooke’s intended mission.68 Fearful that Brooke and his followers might endanger their lives in the Muslim areas, the Church Missionary Society got in touch with the Company’s authorities in London, asking for protection for the European missionaries. Salisbury Square saw nothing unusual in this demand. In their experience in West Africa since the beginning of the nineteenth century the Cross and the Flag had marched together, the British Government being made to guarantee protection of mission agents in the interior. The Brooke adventure was an embarrassment to Goldie. He could not afford to offend the Church Missionary Society, nor did he have the power to restrict the movement of


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missionaries in Muslim areas that they had occupied before the Royal Niger Company came into existence. He had no doubt that, even if Brooke were a man that would not employ provocative methods in his zeal for the Christianization of the Muslims in the Nupe Kingdom, the time was inauspicious, and missionaries were most likely to be a diplomatic liability. As Flint, the Agent-General of the Company observed on the eve of the advent of Brooke to the Nupe Kingdom in 1889, the missionaries were most likely to make things worse for the administration.69 Had the CMS been prepared to satisfy Goldie’s wishes, that missionary activity should not go beyond Lokoja, there is no evidence that the incorrigible Brooke could have been brought under control. To Goldie’s stupefaction Brooke’s intrepidity and quixotism went so far that he said he was prepared to forgo his British nationality and that no protection should be offered him by the British. As Brooke informed Salisbury Square ‘in case of my being assassinated, imprisoned or sold into slavery, my friends will vigorously support and defend the Royal Niger Company in not attempting any political interference’.70 In the circumstances all that Goldie could do was to say that the Niger Company would withdraw assistance in any form to missionaries above Lokoja and that the Emirs would be informed that the Royal Niger Company administration had no hand in missionary work in Muslim areas. In the meantime Brooke’s methods and activities were provoking the people and the Emir of the Nupe. His attempt and that of his colleagues to wear native clothes confirmed the suspicion of the people that they were spies; their attempt to convey to the people in the open air at Lokoja ‘that we believe they are going to Hell’ whipped up the anger of a people who regarded these missionaries as infidels;71 people became amused as Brooke and his colleagues began to announce publicly that the African agents who had been working in the Nupe Kingdom were kafiris (infidels) who had never taught them true Christianity. So much was Brooke carried away in his quixotic zeal that he wrote a number of insolent letters to the Emir of Bida. In one of them, in which he described Bishop Crowther and Charles Paul (close friends of the Emir), as Anasaras, Brooke declared: We white missionaries are poor men, and live as poor men. We do so because Christ when he lived in a town lived the life of a poor man. Christ came to save all poor men. At Bida we want all to sit down in one place. You must allow us to go into every place and let us tell every man and woman in each house the word of God. By God’s grace you will see us in Bida.72 The fact that the missionaries and the officials of the Company began to move together in Lokoja did not improve the image of the former in the eyes of the people. In 1890 the Preperandi Institution, which the CMS had erected at a cost of £15,000 for the training of African personnel for the Niger Mission, was sold by Brooke and Robinson at £5,000 to the Company without any prior notification or authorization of the Parent Committee. It became the military headquarters of the Company. It is in the light of this mounting suspicion and charged atmosphere that the events of 1891 and 1892 in which both the Niger Company and the CMS were threatened in Lokoja should be understood. Anti-Fulani feelings, which had flared up in the Kedes Revolt as late as 1882, had by no means abated in the Nupe Kingdom. Added to the


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confusion was the irresponsibility and rapacity of twenty-five sons of Masaba and a dozen sons of Umoru, former rulers of Nupe Kingdom, who were at loggerheads with one another and had great talents for intrigue; they became a terror to society with their large bands of armed retainers. The apportionment among them of the great feudal offices seemed, instead of pacifying them, to provide excuses for hostile actions against the common people. They ravaged the country, exceeding each other in their outrages upon the hapless peasantry. On the instruction of the Sultan of Sokoto, the Emir of Yola sent spies to survey the military strength of the Company. Towards the end of 1891 it seemed that the Fulani powers were concerting to fall upon the Company and the missionaries. The situation was accentuated by a plague which destroyed the Fulani cattle south of Zegzeg (Zaria).73 It was estimated that the Fulani could mobilize over 4,000 swords while the total force of the Company in Lokoja was only 150. What appeared to be the beginning of the expected attack was made by Prince Benu, the most notorious of the Nupe princes. He and his brigands came to Lokoja and burnt down the summer house of the AgentGeneral. The Company was forced to evacuate its stations from Lokoja and beyond and the missionaries were sent packing to Gbebe. Absolutely powerless, the Company’s officials witnessed the marauders looting as much as they liked of the Company’s stores at Lokoja, while many of the inhabitants were killed in cold blood and many others carried off into slavery. So bad was the situation that more than half of the population of Lokoja fled the town.74 This was the situation that took Goldie and Lord Scarborough, a director of the Company, to the Niger. They went to Bida and bribed the Emir with gifts! Goldie did not expect that the situation would be known in England. At his return he reported to the press that he had been away on ‘holidays’75 and that all was well and calm in the Niger Territories. When the Church Missionary Society received Brooke’s despatches, which gave the accounts of the real state of affairs, they showed them to Goldie who became so alarmed that he begged ‘earnestly’ that these accounts should never be published.76 The importance of the CMS suppressing its knowledge of the precariousness of the Company’s rule above Lokoja does not lie in the fact itself as in its timing. As the historian of the Company has shown, this was a most crucial period in the imperialist effort of Goldie against the designs of the French on the Benue.77 Had France been in possession of the above facts, through Mizon, the French explorer who attempted later to establish a French enclave at Muri, it is doubtful whether the French would not have stood by Mizon, who in the final analysis was disowned by France because of his discreditable participation in slave-raiding on the Benue. For the French would have been able to point out that Mizon was far less criminal than the officials of the Company who had allowed cold-blooded murder in an area over which it claimed jurisdiction. As a matter of fact possession by France of knowledge of the true state of affairs before Mizon undertook the disastrous second expedition towards the end of 1892, would have presented the French with a trump card against Britain’s claims in the Kwarra part of the Niger; the ineffectiveness of the Company’s jurisdiction north of Idah, and therefore the invalidity of the Company’s claims to most of Northern Nigeria according to the principles prescribed by the Berlin Conference in 1884–5, would have been revealed. A French enclave might have been carved out successfully on the Benue.


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Rather than expose the Company’s position the Church Missionary Intelligencer embarked on an anti-Mizon campaign attributing Mizon’s success with the Emir of Muri to supposed liquor and arms contracts which the Society alleged the Company had refused to the Emir but which Mizon honoured.79 The Church Missionary Society could hardly have entertained the presence of France in any part of the Niger territories. As early as 1884 a deputation of the Society had told the British Government that in their judgment the ‘vast Protectorate of Nigeria is the unique honour and privilege of Great Britain to enjoy’.80 As the Society’s journal said, the Frenchman would never be a credit to Christianity in Africa. For ‘the average Frenchman can hardly be said to be a religious man: in too many instances he has no religion at all’.81 Rather than have the French on the Benue the Society was prepared to sacrifice its expansionist programme on the Benue river. The Niger Crisis of 1890 to 1892, which hastened Bishop Crowther’s death and led to the formation of the independent Niger Delta Pastorate, reduced the membership and extent of the territory of the CMS Niger Mission considerably. The Bishop Designate, J.S.Hill, was an expansionist whose watchword was ‘aggressive evangelisation’ and the Archbishop of Canterbury encouraged him to go to the Niger with at least twelve new European missionaries.82 The news of the proposed expansion to the Benue unnerved Goldie. This was because the Mizon expedition was planned to be undertaken jointly with the French priests of the Society of the Holy Ghost Fathers who had established themselves in Onitsha since 1885. According to the historian of this Mission, it was very poor in this period and had never expanded beyond the Onitsha district.83 But about the time that Mizon set out, Father Lutz, the leader of the Mission, sought to establish the mission on the Benue with funds provided by the French Government. The object of the French priests, Goldie judged, was political.84 They were going there to stir up political troubles for the Company with the aid of brigands who were always ready for employment in the Benue Emirates. It was Goldie’s objective to thwart the political ambition of the French priests. This he could only do, he said, if the CMS would forgo its plan on the Benue; the CMS could not be on the Benue and the French priests kept out. Therefore Goldie appealed to the Society’s patriotism to abandon its plan on the Benue for at least two years, when he was sure he would have dealt with the situation. He feared that a situation similar to that in Uganda, in which CMS and Roman Catholic missions were engaged in pitched battles in order to bring the territory under Britain and France respectively, would occur if the CMS and the Society of the Holy Ghost Fathers were to be allowed to expand their work to the Benue at the same time. ‘The position of affairs in Uganda make us look anxiously to the Company’s future’, declared Goldie. ‘We do not want if we can help it to be put in an awkward position by conflicts out there,’ he went on, ‘the French converts would be friendly, would have French sympathies with Father Lutz. They follow their pastors’.85 He therefore needed the support of ‘public opinion…represented by the Church Missionary Society’. Salisbury Square abandoned its Benue scheme! Thus where imperial interests were concerned vis-à-vis the French menace, the Church Missionary Society gave unqualified support to the Royal Niger Company. The interests of both could hardly be more identical on any issue than with respect to a French presence that threatened to extinguish British influence in Northern Nigeria and Protestantism from the Niger Basin.


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Throughout the last decade of the Company’s existence the Church Missionary Society continued to be the most effusive friend and arch-defender of the Goldie administra-tion. Absolutely blind to the grievances of the Brassmen against the Company, the Society defended the latter against the former, condemning the raid on Akassa by the Brassmen in 1895. In the judgment of Salisbury Square the main cause of the Akassa Raid was ‘the repressive measures initiated by the Company against contraband spirits’.86 All the enemies of the Company, who had thought that the Akassa Raid would persuade the British Government to terminate Goldie’s administration, were mauled by the Society’s news media as pro-liquor enemies of African interests. So much did the Royal Niger Company, abetted by the CMS and the Aborigines Protection Society, reduce the grievances of the Brass people to the denominator of liquor that the Colonial Office found it difficult to resist the humanitarian interpretation of the event by these bodies. The report of the Commission of Inquiry into the grievances of the Brassmen and the Akassa Raid, which had been submitted by Sir John Kirk, was brushed aside. He was asked to make recommendations on the best means to reduce the liquor flood into the Niger Delta.87 He recommended that duties should be raised to 4s. a gallon at once.88 Much against the wish of G.T.Carter and Sir Claude Macdonald, Governor of Lagos Colony and Protectorate and High Commissioner of the Niger Coast Protectorate respectively, the Colonial Office asked them to raise duties on liquor. The Liverpool Chamber of Commerce received their own share of condemnation. As the largest suppliers of liquor in the Niger Delta, they were asked to send a deputation to the Colonial Office to give information on the traffic and to suggest ways and means of its reduction.89 The Church Missionary Society seized the opportunity to put both the Lagos and Niger Coast Protectorate administrations to shame vis-à-vis the administration of the Royal Niger Company. Both were condemned as being responsible ‘in some degree for the attack of the lawless Brassmen’. The condemnation of Carter was much less severe than that of Macdonald. Ignoring the grievances of the Brassmen as reported by Sir John Kirk, the CMS passed the astonishing comment that the Kirk Report ‘Constitutes a very strong indictment against the administration of the Niger Coast Protectorate, besides throwing light on a condition of affairs prolific of disorder and discreditable to British prestige’ .90 It is essential to stress that the selection of Macdonald as a special target for attack by the Society was not an accident, nor was it owed solely to the fact that the territory he was administering was considered to be the storehouse of liquor in Nigeria. The Brass rising merely provided a long awaited occasion for chastisement of a persona non grata who had never seen eye to eye with the Society on matters of policy concerning the Lower Niger. For Macdonald was an ardent supporter of the programme enunciated by Bishop Crowther for the development of the Niger Territories. He wanted free trade on the Niger; he preferred African to European agency for the spread of Christianity in his territory; he was pro-Brass (for the CMS the most counterfeit Christians in Nigeria in 1886); he was anti-Goldie (for Salisbury Square the ideal administrator and lover of Africans). But not only was Macdonald ideologically irreconcilable with the CMS; he carried out his ideas in a way most stinging to the Society. For between 1891 and 1894 the Society


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experienced in the Niger Mission a revolt against the ideas the Society had stood for, in sympathy with Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther. It seemed to the Society that the revolt could be suppressed immediately if Macdonald, who was asked to inaugurate formal British rule in the Oil Rivers in August 1891, would co-operate. But rather than being sympathetic to the Society, the new Commissioner declared that for him the revolt was a godsend. European missionaries, he said, were absolutely useless; the revolt would put at his disposal the services of the educated Africans, who would be intermediaries between his administration and the people among whom they were influential.91 He followed his words with action by employing agents who had been condemned by the Society as ‘tares’. In fact the first educational grant his administration made to any agency was a sum of £200 annual grant for industrial education by the breakaway Niger Delta Pastorate. Macdonald also adopted the policy of taking the agents of the Pastorate with him during official tours and contributed liberally to its funds. The CMS could not have forgiven Macdonald for publicizing the achievements of the breakaway organization as a contrast to the failure of the Society’s stations of Brass and Abonnema. As he observed, the Society should settle its ‘dissensions’ with the breakaway Africans who were doing ‘most excellent work in these Rivers’.92 It was in the logic of things, then, that Macdonald should suffer at the hands of the Church Missionary Society with other enemies of the policy of the Society and of GoldieBishop Crowther, the educated Africans, and the Brassmen. For the rest of the century and up to the outbreak of the First World War the liquor traffic continued to be the yardstick by which Salisbury Square measured the worthiness of Nigerian administrators. No praise was reserved for any administrator, except Lugard who was another anti-liquor administrator. Hence in spite of the fact that it was in Yorubaland and the Niger Delta that statistical success was being recorded by Christian missions, and in spite of the fact that it was in these two areas only that in the last decade of the nineteenth century grantsin-aid were being made to missions for education, approbation was reserved for the Royal Niger Company alone. When in 1899 the Charter of the Company was revoked it was lauded for having accomplished ‘a great civilizing work’.93 NOTES 1 Prominent among such works are: Ronald Oliver, Sir Harry Johnston and the Scramble for Africa, London, 1957, pp. 127–9, 209–13, 316–17; Robert Cornevin, Le Dahomey, Paris, 1965, pp. 46–54;G. E.Metcalfe, Maclean of the Gold Coast, London, 1962, pp. 240–4, 269– 71; Philip Mason, The Birth of a Dilemma, London, 1958, pp. 112–20, 171–6; Margery Perham, Lugard: The Years of Adventure, London, 1956, pp. 225–311. 2 J.E.Flint, Sir George Goldie and the Making of Nigeria, London, 1960. 3 CMS G3/A3/06, Memo, of interview with Baylis, 2/3/1893; and 10/3/1894. 4 CMS G3/A2/07, Tugwell to Baylis, 2/5/1894. 5 CMS G3/A3/06, Alfred Jones to Bishop Hill, 16/11/1893. 6 CMS G3/A3/02, J.Hamilton to Lang, 12/1/1885. 7 CMS G3/A3/L1, Goldie to Secretaries, 28/10/1881. 8 CMS H/A3, Taubman Goldie to General Hutchinson, Dec. 1885. 9 CMS G3/A3/03, Goldie to Lang, 13/8/1886 (capitals not mine). 10 CMS G3/A3/03, Hamilton to Lang, 8/9/1886. 11 CMS G3/A3/03, A General Survey of the work in the Upper Niger Archdeaconry for the year 1887 by H.Johnson.


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12 Aborigines Protection Society (henceforth APS) Rhodes House, Oxford, Goldie to Fox Bourne, 7/11/1889. 13 Lugard Papers (henceforth LP), Rhodes House, Oxford, minutes of interview with Sir G.T.Goldie, L.Darwin, 15/3/1889. 14 APS, Goldie to Fox Bourne, 7/11/1889. 15 Ibid. 16 APS, John Holt to Fox Bourne, 7/3/1895. 17 Ibid., 20/2/1895. 18 Liverpool Journal of Commerce, 7/3/1895. 19 Taubman Goldie, Alcohol and Civilization in Central Africa, London, 1887 (copy in CO 147/62). 20 Flint, pp. 79–80; p. 302. 21 E.A.Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria 1842–1914: A Political and Social Analysis, London, 1966, pp. 306–27 deals with the controversy. 22 T.Goldie. See also Goldie to Salisbury Square in African Times, 1/9/1887. LP, Statement to Native Races and Liquor Traffic Committee by Goldie, 27/2/1895. 23 T.Goldie. 24 Ibid., page 2, ‘Extract from the Annual Report to the shareholders’. 25 Ibid., page 3, Goldie to Marquess of Salisbury, 3/5/1887. 26 Ibid. 27 LP, Goldie to F.D.Lugard, 12/6/1895. 28 Ibid., same to same, undated. 29 Ibid., in S 58. 30 APS Goldie to Fox Bourne, 11/11/1889; Church Missionary Intelligencer, 1887, p. 75; 1890, p. 711. 31 APS, No. 8 of ‘Poison of Africa Papers’. 32 F.D.Lugard, ‘British West Africa’, Blackwood’s Magazine, June 1895. 33 CMS G3/A3/07, Dobinson to Baylis, 7/8/1896. 34 Ayandele, The Missionary Impact. 35 LP, ‘To Council Royal Niger Company’, marked Private and Confidential, Memorandum by Goldie, 24/11/1896. 36 Ibid. 37 T.Goldie. 38 CMS G3/A3/06, Memo, of interview, 11/12/1893. 39 Letters from Henry Hugh Dobinson, London, 1899, p. 66. 40 African Times, 2/5/1892, reproducing interview with Goldie by Pall Mall Gazette. 41 T.Goldie. 42 Ibid. 43 CMS G3/A3/04, Henry Johnson to Lang, 16/11/1889. 44 CO 147/62, R.N.Cust to FO, 18/4/1887. 45 CMS G3/A3/04, Henry Johnson to Lang, 7/5/1889. 46 Ibid., G.T.Goldie to Lang, 31/7/1889. 47 Methodist Missionary Archives, London (MMA hereafter), Mackintosh to Sharpe, 20/8/1880. 48 SMA Archives, Rome, Zappa to Superior, 4/10/1888; and 8/6/1898. 49 Ibid., Zappa to Superior, 26/1/1889. 50 See Chapter 9. 51 CMS G3/A3/02, A Brief Review of the Niger Mission since 1857, Bishop Crowther, 8/10/1885. 52 CO 147/62, R.N.Cust to FO, May 1887. 53 CMS G3/A3/05, C.F.Harford Battersby to Lang, 20/4/1892. 54 CMS G3/A3/06, Minutes of the Niger Council, Onitsha, 25/9/1894.


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55 For the official account see Flint, pp. 147–9. 56 CMS G3/A3/03, H.Johnson to Bishop Crowther, 22/3/1888. 57 CMS G3/A3/03, J.A.Robinson to Lang, 26/7/1888. 58 APS, quoted in Goldie to Fox Bourne, 11/11/1889. 59 Ibid., Goldie to Fox Bourne, 7/11/1889. 60 Ibid. 61 CMS, Brooke Papers, Brooke to Ryder, 14/9/1886. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid., Brooke to father, 3/3/1888. 64 CMS G3/A3/04, Memorandum by Brooke, 23/12/1890. 65 CMS, Brooke Papers, Brooke to father, 17/10/1888. 66 CMS G3/A3/03, Henry Johnson to Bishop Crowther, 22/3/1888. For an account of the hostile atmosphere prevalent in Bida at the time of the conference, see R.A.Adeleye, ‘The Overthrow of the Sokoto Caliphate’, Ph.D. thesis, Ibadan University, 1967, pp. 195–6. 67 CMS, Brooke Papers, Journal entry for 16/4/1889. 68 CMS G3/A3/04, G.T.Goldie to Lang, 31/7/1889. 69 Brooke Papers, Journal entry for 16/4/1889. 70 CMS G3/A3/04, Brooke to Lang, 12/8/1889. 71 Ibid., 30/8/1889. 72 Brooke Papers, Journals 1890; see several letters in F4/7 Part III. 73 Ibid., Margaret Brooke Journals, entry for 30/8/1891. 74 CMS, Brooke Papers, F5 Private and Confidential, Brooke to Calender, October 1891. 75 African Times, 2/5/1892. 76 CMS G3/A3/05, Goldie to Lang, 2/4/1892, and 12/4/1892. 77 Flint, pp. 168–79. 79 1891 volume, p. 357; 1893 volume, pp. 608–9. 80 Church Missionary Intelligencer, 1885, p. 52. 81 Ibid., p. 80. 82 CMS G3/A3/05, J.S.Hill to Lang, 25/6/1892. 83 P.J.Jordan, Bishop Shanahan of Southern Nigeria, Dublin, 1949, p. 17. 84 CMS G3/A3/05, Memo, of interview, 25/10/1892. 85 Ibid. 86 Church Missionary Intelligencer, 1895, pp. 287–8. 87 FO 403/217, Sir John Kirk to FO, 25/8/1895. 88 The result was the publication of Trade in Spirits with West Africa by the Committee of African section of the Liverpool Chambers of Commerce, Liverpool 1895. 89 Church Missionary Intelligencer, 1895, pp. 287–8. 90 Church Missionary Intelligencer, 1896, pp. 433–4. 91 CMS G3/A3/04, Bishop Ingham to Wigram, 7/8/1891. 92 CMS G3/A3/06, Macdonald to CMS, 10/3/1894; FO 2/63, ‘Report of the Niger Coast Protectorate’, 19/8/1894. 93 Church Missionary Intelligencer, 1899, pp. 691–2.

7 The Missionary Factor in Northern Nigeria, 1870–1918 Missionary interest and propaganda in Northern Nigeria may have begun before the eighteenth century. By 1708, it is recorded, there were not less than 100,000 Christian adherents in the kingdom of Kororofa and a sixty-bed hospital had been built by the Roman Catholic priests. About this time, too, Rome attempted to introduce Christianity into Bornu and Father Carlo de Genova was appointed Prefect of the projected Mission.1 But although these early efforts to Christianize Northern Nigeria were feeble and in the long run unrewarding, Christian missions did not withdraw attention from this vast territory, one third the size of India, when they revived their propaganda on the Atlantic seaboard about the middle of the nineteenth century. Even among the explorers who had an interest in Northern Nigeria there were a few who wished to see the Cross planted in the territory and thereby displace the ‘false doctrines of the imposter of Mecca’.2 Indeed, in the second half of the nineteenth century, no part of the Biled es Sudan received as much attention from the Christian missionary world as Northern Nigeria. In this period not less than seven Christian bodies in Britain, the United States, Canada, and Italy expressed a desire to begin work in the territory, and a few examples may be noted at this point. In 1880 the Wesleyans began propaganda in the Nupe country under the superintendence of W.A.Allakura Sharpe, an ex-slave of Kanuri origin, whose burning desire was to establish a mission in Bornu. In the previous year he had pleaded that his Mission regard as a matter of urgency the training of Hausa, Tapa, Kanuri, and Fulani Christian evangelists.3 In 1899 the Foreign Board in London seriously considered sending two missionaries with medical and industrial skill to Kano or Katsina or Sokoto. In 1881 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions expressed the wish to introduce Christianity to Yola district.4 Notable, too, are the imperialistic motivations of the two Roman Catholic missions who attempted to enter Northern Nigeria in this period. In 1884 two French priests of the Society of African Missions arrived in Lokoja, in the hope that Nupe Kingdom would be assimilated to the French Empire.5 Eight years later the Onitsha-based Society of the Holy Ghost Fathers, also composed of French nationals, attempted to extend its activity to Ibi on the Benue, allegedly with the financial backing of the French Government, to advance French imperial interests on the Benue.6 Why, it might be asked, did so many missionary bodies regard Northern Nigeria as the most potentially promising area in the Sudan for the spread of Christianity? One reason was that missionaries accepted too readily and with eagerness the idyllic picture of the racial characteristics of the Hausa people and the Hausa country painted by many explorers, the Hausa Association, and Sir George Goldie.7 It came to be believed by Europeans that in intelligence, physiognomy, material culture, and literary achievement,

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the Hausa were not only superior to the Southern Nigeria peoples but surpassed the Chinese, and that Hausa civilization could stand comparison with European civilization. This racial and cultural superiority, it was contended, would make the Hausa perceive the metaphysical truths of such a higher religion as Christianity, which many missionaries had begun to feel were beyond the understanding of the supposedly inferior coastal peoples. So far was the Wesleyan Missionary Society prepared to carry its imagination that by 1899 it had come to believe that the Hausa would be providential instruments for the Christianization of even ‘the less healthy and less enlightened parts of the [African] continent’.8 Perhaps more attractive was the belief held by many observers, apart from credulous missionaries, that the Hausa were the least bigoted of the Muslim inhabitants of the Sudan, that Islam sat lightly on them, and that its tenets had been forced upon them by the Fulani jihadists.9 Common to all the missionary bodies was the desire of the white missionaries for healthy highlands beyond the reach of ‘fever’ and the pestilential climate of the coastal areas. Hence in 1879 John Milum, Chairman of the Wesleyan Mission in Nigeria, recommended to the Foreign Mission Board that all white missionaries should withdraw into the highlands between Ilọrin and Shonga on the Niger.10 Twelve years later a missionary of the Southern American Baptist Mission made a similar recommendation to the Foreign Board in Richmond, Virginia.11 Missionary enterprise passed through three distinct phases in Northern Nigeria in the period covered by this paper. The first phase, 1870–88, was one of relative success for missions. Their achievement, limited as it was, was owed to their tactics in winning the affection of the traditional rulers and in convincing them that the missions were not the torchbearers of imperialism. Then came the next phase, 1888–1900, when missionary enterprise and British imperialism seemed to the Northern Nigerian rulers as one and the same thing. In those years, for the potentates, missionaries were discredited. In the last phase, 1900–18, the British administration dissociated itself from missionaries and, as time went on, declared opposition to missionary enterprise, not only in the predominantly Muslim areas but in the ‘pagan’ districts as well. THE FIRST PHASE, 1870–88 The central figure in this era was Samuel Ajayi Crowther, head of the Niger Mission, which had been founded in 1857 and which as time went on embraced, in his view, all of Northern Nigeria as well. As early as 1856 he and Dr S.F. Schon had conceived the idea of reaching Hausaland and a few years later compiled a useful tentative Hausa dictionary, the first of its kind.12 Crowther’s path in the Middle Niger was not a smooth one. From 1857 to 1859, when he attempted to found a mission station at Raba, then the capital of Nupe, Masaba, the Etsu, had become suspicious of missionaries and their propaganda. Some Yoruba elements, including Madam Tinubu and some Epes, who had witnessed the close connection between the Bible and the sword in the British occupation of Lagos, warned Masaba that missionaries were pathfinders of British imperialism. Moreover, the Etsu did not find palatable the egalitarian teaching of the missionaries and their opposition to slavery and the slave trade. However, since he needed white people for mutually beneficial commerce


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and ammunition with which he hoped to consolidate his position in his kingdom, he asked Baikie and the missionaries to withdraw further down the river. This was the origin of the British Consulate ultimately established at Lokoja. But by 1870 Bishop Crowther and his African lieutenants had succeeded in overcoming the suspicions of the traditional rulers that they were heralds of alien rule. These missionaries carried out their activity within customary laws and traditional politics; they recognized and respected the authority of the chiefs and courted their favour and influence for the progress of their enterprise; there was no question of bluffing or hectoring. Patience, amiableness, sympathy, and forbearance were their watchword. Moreover they had to profess interest in the political and economic welfare of their protectors. Crowther excelled all others in the display of these qualities and he made friendliness with the Etsu of Nupe an essential strand of his policy.13 Consequently he became, perhaps, the most powerful external influence on the Muslim rulers of the Nupe country between 1869 and 1888. For instance, in the former year, when the British Consulate at Lokoja was abandoned and Masaba asked all the trading companies and missionaries to remove to Egga, ostensibly so that he might be able to give them adequate protection, Bishop Crowther alone was able to persuade him to change his mind. In fact the Emir allowed him to draw up the constitution by which Jacob Meheux Musa, a liberated Muslim African, administered Lokoja until the days of Goldie’s Royal Niger Company.14 Every year the Bishop visited Bida, telling the Emir about the adoption of European technology and ideas in Egypt and the Middle East and the advisability of prospecting for minerals in his territory; he made presents frequently and offered political advice.15 Having gained the confidence of the Emir of Bida, the latter became disposed to consider Crowther’s missionary programme for the Nupe kingdom. The Bishop selected focal caravan points for mission stations. Kipo Hill, where a station was opened in 1875, was on the direct route of the Hausa ivory traders from the north and north-east, with connections with Keffi, Zaria, and Yakoba. Shonga, another station which the Emir asked Crowther to occupy in the following year, was on the caravan route to Sokoto and Salaga. In 1878 the Emir wrote letters to the Emirs of Nassarawa and Yola, advising them to allow the Bishop to begin missionary work in their territories.16 In the same year Umoru, Emir from 1873 to 1883, gave a boy to Crowther for education and three years later assented to the establishment of a mission station in Bida, an offer Bishop Crowther advised the Church Missionary Society to accept without ostentation.17 Also before 1880 the Sultan of Sokoto and the Emirs of Ilọrin, Gwandu, and Bida accepted, gratefully, leatherbound Arabic Bibles from Salisbury Square, and invitations to set up mission stations reached the Bishop from Ilọrin, Egga, Loko, and Yimaha.18 Nor were these all the chances offered to the Niger Mission to extend its operation in Northern Nigeria. In 1881 the Bishop was invited to open a station in Kotangora by one Mizinyamba, who described himself as a son of the Emir of that town.19 In 1883 Maliki, the new Emir of Bida, renewed his predecessor’s appeal to the CMS to start Christian work in his capital and the Emir of Nassarawa sent a personal letter to the Bishop to open a station at Loko and bring other missionaries to his province.20 In the following year a Malam Sauda, son of the Sultan of Sokoto, offered assistance to Charles Paul, the CMS agent at Kipo Hill, if he would undertake a missionary tour of Sokoto, Zaria, and Adamawa provinces.21


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It has been necessary to draw our attention to the opportunities put. at the disposal of missionaries by the Northern Nigerian rulers in the pre-colonial period in order to show that the latter were not inherently intolerant of Christianity, and were in fact prepared to lend a helping hand to missionaries so long as the latter were friendly, co-operative, and tactful. The point to emphasize here is that, as many Emirs were to show even after 1900, the Muslim rulers of Northern Nigeria entertained no religious fear of the missionaries. What they dreaded like the plague were the imperialistic accompaniments of missionary enterprise. From the strictly religious viewpoint none of the three Christian missions who attempted to spread Christianity in Northern Nigeria during this first phase of missionary enterprise won a single convert to Christianity. The Muslims in the Nupe country had no intention of embracing a faith for which they had contempt. Indeed the futility and foolhardiness of attempting to win them to Christianity soon became clear to many missionaries. Hardly had the SMA priests been in Lokoja for a year than they began to regret their presence among intractable Muslims22 and in 1888 they withdrew voluntarily to the ‘pagan’ south. After the death of Allakura Sharpe the Wesleyans folded up their activity. Even the Church Missionary Society had no reason to be sanguine about turning Muslims into Christians for as early as 1881 Archdeacon Henry Johnson, the educated African of Ilọrin ancestry who was in charge of the Society’s stations in Northern Nigeria, had reported that the rulers of his archdeaconry were already uncompromising adherents of the tenets of Islam.23 THE SECOND PHASE, 1888–1900 The prospects of Christian missions in Northern Nigeria became dark from 1888 onwards. In that year a German explorer, Staudinger, went to Sokoto and reported to the Sultan that the chief objective of the Royal Niger Company was not trade but the Christianization of Northern Nigeria.24 In the view of the Emirs events seemed to justify this allegation. In 1890 the Company moved its military headquarters to Lokoja and in that year there arrived at this confluence of the Niger and Benue, in a single group, twelve missionaries of the CMS known as the Sudan Party, under the leadership of Graham Wilmot Brooke, a young visionary for whom the evangelization of the Sudan had been an obsession since 1881. These missionaries were dreamers who believed that in a short time their medical skill and Arabic inscriptions, distributed among caravans, would turn Muslims to Christians. They believed also that their method of evangelization, one of cultural surrender, would appeal to Muslims. Their experience soon shocked them out of these delusions. When they began to don Muslim clothes, including the turban, the Emirs began to fear that they were political spies.25 Muslims in the Nupe Kingdom became confounded when these European missionaries announced publicly that the African missionaries who had been working in the territory for three decades, Bishop Crowther and his lieutenants, were Anasaras who had not been teaching genuine Christianity and that Muslims should believe in the existence of witches.26 This new situation in Lokoja increased the unpopularity of Maliki who was blamed by his chiefs for having signed a treaty with the Niger Company in 1885;27 Maliki asked the missionaries to withdraw from his country.28 On the instruction of the Sultan of Sokoto the Emir of Yola sent spies to survey the military capacity of the Company.29 Towards


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the end of 1891 it seemed that the Fulani powers were concerting to fall upon the Company and the missionaries. Over half the population of Lokoja left the town and early in 1892 the leader of the Sudan Party wrote: ‘the long gathering political troubles seem coming to a head, and I greatly fear that we may be on the verge of a general Muhammedan rising’.30 It is instructive to note that the apprehensions of the Fulani Emirs about the political and religious danger of the Royal Niger Company were not entirely unfounded. Contrary to general belief Goldie was not anti-missionary, nor was he in principle opposed to the spread of Christianity in Northern Nigeria. He wished the Bible translated into Hausa and distributed throughout Hausaland and he shared the anti-Fulani feelings of the CMS missionaries in the Nupe country.31 He was convinced that the Fulani Emirs were likely to regard the Company as Christian proselytizers and that the Mahdism of the eastern Sudan might spread to Northern Nigeria. For reasons not clear from the records, the signal failure of the Sudan Party was not fully appreciated by the Church Missionary Society. The Society persisted in the illusion that the Hausa were only ‘nominally Mohammedan’ and that the Fulani rulers were ‘the one serious obstacle’ to the acceptance of Christianity by Northern Nigerians.32 From 1891 to 1895 Herman Harris, head of the Central Sudan Mission Training Home in Tripoli, trained fifteen people for the evangelization of Hausaland. In 1895 Canon Robinson, ‘Professor’ of Hausa in Cambridge University, who went to Kano for three months on a language study, gave the Church Missionary Society a distorted picture of the extent and intensity of Islam in Northern Nigeria, declaring that many malams had volunteered to translate the Scriptures, that only a third of the population were Muslim, and that Islamic literacy was very low.33 After 1895 many missionaries of the Society did not disguise their desire to see the British remove the Fulani obstacle by force and thereby pave the way for the massive conversion of the Hausa. This was why the Society hailed with unconcealed delight the 1897 expeditions against Ilọrin and Bida, which they interpreted in purely missionary terms. These expeditions, the Society claimed, were aimed at removing the Fulani rulers for direct British rule and for the termination of the slave trade.34 A campaign for funds was launched immediately and an appeal for thirty missionaries made. The CMS desire for military subjugation of the Fulani as a precursor of the Christianization of Northern Nigeria should not surprise us. Generally speaking, up to the end of the nineteenth century in Southern Nigeria the Bible and the Sword worked together, administrators appealing to missionaries to Christianize subjugated peoples.35 The belief among the administrative officers was that Christians were more loyal to the British administration than non-Christians, apart from the fact that missionaries produced clerks for government and commercial concerns. It is against this background that the trip made to Kano in the first half of 1900 by five CMS missionaries should be understood.36 In their progress towards Kano they paraded themselves as knights-errant of British imperialism, believing that by winning the North for the British the Christianization of the territory would be hastened. As Herbert Tugwell, Bishop of Western Equatorial Africa and leader of the missionary expedition said, ‘England is the only hope of this country: and the Gospel the only power that can effectually set them free. How one longs for the day of their complete emancipation. Imagine this a Christian country! What might it not become?’37 In fact on the eve of their


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departure from Britain another member of the missionary band declared solemnly before the CMS executive: ‘As I look at the map of Africa now so rapidly being parcelled out among the nations, it seems to me to be marked with the cross of Christ in the red colour of British possessions’.38 It is not surprising, then, that in their journey they constantly prayed for the success of Britain in the South African and Ashanti wars.39 Not only did the Hausa Party, as they were known, anticipate an enthusiastic reception from the masses but they expected the Fulani to acquiesce in British occupation in the vein of the prophecy which Usuman dan Fodio was alleged to have made, since corroborated by Sir Ahmadu Bello, that the Fulani regime would not last more than a century.40 In Tripoli, where four of the Hausa Party had learned Hausa and had met a number of pilgrims from Northern Nigeria, they had been assured that the Hausa masses were eagerly expecting the British to come and assume control of their country.41 It was in the light of this expectancy that the Church Missionary Society in December 1899 declared in one of its organs: The end is drawing near. The kings of Hausa cities are renouncing their religious allegiance to the Sultan of Sokoto. The people prophesy the advent of the whiteman with the Christian religion, which all the world will accept for a short space of forty months… The sacred writings of the Hausa predict the second coming of Christ as the victorious leader of a great army. Next year (1900) is marked out as the time. So it comes to pass that the whole Hausa world is waiting for Christ. Now, we believe that Christ will appear in Hausaland next year, not as the people expect Him however. He will appear, not as a true Moslem, the son of a false faith, but as the crucified one, the Son of God.42 The Hausa Party embarked on anti-Fulani propaganda. In the Nupe country, where the Nupe had little love for their Fulani masters, the missionaries were welcomed as deliverers from the Fulani yoke.43 The Kamoku, the ‘pagan’ people between Wushishi and Tegina, who had been driven to the hills by the slave-raiding activities of the Nagwamantse, welcomed the missionaries as ‘the harbinger of Liberty and greater joys’.44 Throughout their journey the missionaries assured the masses that the British were coming to deliver them from the oppression and tyranny of their rulers and bring to them the millennium. In their judgment it was partly because they had explained the purpose of the British advent in Northern Nigeria that the masses welcomed the British soldiers in the areas traversed by the missionaries.45 In Zaria the Emir, Kwassau, received the missionaries warmly in spite of the warning that had been sent to Sokoto, Kano, Katsina, and Zaria by the Sultan of Turkey that the missionaries must be resisted. According to the missionaries the Emir of Zaria, With the support of his people, was fully aware of the military strength of the advancing British forces, which it would be unwise to resist. There is evidence to show that at the time the missionaries arrived in Zaria the town had little love for Kano and was already in the bad books of Sokoto. Kwassau intrigued with the missionaries whom he persuaded to stay on permanently in Zaria, in the hope that British military help would be forthcoming to ward off the hostility of Sokoto and Kotangora.46 The enthusiastic reception given to the missionaries by Zaria illustrated the disunity of the Fulani rulers in face of palpable


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danger. In fact the Nagwamatse himself gave an order throughout the areas where he held sway, that the missionaries must not be resisted and that they must be well received.47 The triumphal reception of the Hausa Party ended in Zaria. Having found out, through Zaria, that the missionaries were neither explorers nor traders but people who wished to ‘sit down’, Kano became hostile and messages were sent to the effect that their advance toward Kano should be halted. The missionaries were fortunate to have taken the Dan Shoshia rather than the Faki route, the one anticipated by the Kanawa. Nonetheless their reception from Zaria to Kano was glacial. Chiefs along their route refused to see them, pretending illness. The missionaries, then, succeeded in getting to Kano and indiscreetly began to sing Christian hymns. They were guided in a two-mile procession to a small incommodious room in a hot climate. They were put under the special care of the Ma’aji, the third man in the State and his steward, the Kurege. For carrying their liberality too far the former was later fined 400,000 cowries, or £10, and the latter was executed publicly.48 The missionaries saw themselves humiliated in every way. The day after their arrival they were led to the Emir, Aliyu ‘the Great’, at Fanisau, six miles outside the walls of the city. The view entertained of them is clear from the instructions the missionaries were given by their guides on how to behave before the Emir. They must remove their shoes and stockings; they must not dare stand in his presence; they must not dare look the Emir in the face but hold their heads on the floor. In the ‘Judgment Hall’ they were arraigned before the Emir, Bishop Tugwell and his lieutenants looking like rats before a ferocious mastiff. The Bishop was hushed up in his attempt to plead for Christianity and the missionaries were told that the Koran had everything the Emir and his people desired in life and were ordered to leave the city within three days.49 Although the missionaries did not appreciate the liberality of the Kano authorities and wasted no time in requesting the British Government to avenge the ‘insult’ which they felt the British Empire had suffered at the hands of the Kanawa by the reception given them in Kano, the Kanawa were not deliberately hostile and the missionaries were very fortunate to have escaped being killed. The point has to be emphasized that, as far as the Kanawa were concerned, the missionaries were intruders who had broken the well-known conventions hitherto observed by white visitors to Northern Nigeria.50 They had not given formal notification to the Emir of Kano, and had not received his consent before intruding into his territory. Moreover these missionaries stood for a faith about which the Muslims north of the Middle Belt had a fixed opinion and towards which they had adopted an uncompromising attitude. For instance in 1824 a plebean Muslim of Kano had opined that an infidel’s intelligence could not be rated higher than that of an ass;51 in Bornu in the middle of the nineteenth century Henry Earth was warned that European intruders should not bring two things to the territory—the Bible and liquor.52 By 1850 Islam had become for its votaries in Northern Nigeria a heritage in which they had a great deal of pride. It had become for them the source of life, of inspiration, and of creativeness, to the extent that they exalted it before non-Muslims, African and European. Islam, too, had become for them a bond of unity, producing cultural unity to a high degree and a sense of distinctiveness vis-à-vis the non-Muslim peoples. Then there was also the point that the Hausa masses whom the missionaries liked to commiserate had little regard for infidels. Miller was appalled to discover that the Hausa among whom he mixed and to whom he was patronizing equated white men with


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mermaids.53 Rather than change their religion the Muslims north of the Middle Belt persuaded the Europeans whom they loved to abandon Christianity in favour of Islam.54 The pioneer missionaries to Hausaland left behind them records of the ideas and vision which they very much would have liked to see materialize in Northern Nigeria at the beginning of this century. In this connection attention will be given to Dr Walter Miller, the most fanatical and perhaps the most dedicated missionary in Northern Nigeria in the first half of this century. An uncompromising, highly opinionated believer in the virtues of British civilization, including equality of men and women, and compulsory universal education for Northern Nigerians in the first decade of the British occupation of Northern Nigeria, Miller became so identified with the Hausa that by 1910 he had decided that whenever he died it must be in Hausaland. He had great love and sympathy for the Hausa, but without sentimentality; and although he had the worst epithets for them, when they would not accept or even appreciate his programme for their improvement, Miller should be remembered as the first man, European or Nigerian, to conceive the idea of independence for the Hausa, and his health scheme and educational programme for Northern Nigeria were certainly commendable.55 He has the credit for the training of the first Northern Nigerian medical officer, Dr. Dikko, founder of the Northern Peoples’ Congress, at first a cultural organization and later the ruling party in Northern Nigeria.56 Miller looked upon the past of the Hausa before the Fulani jihad with romantic eyes. For him, in this period, the Hausa were a virtuous race, industrious, able builders, weavers and blacksmiths; they ruled themselves with justice;57 the Maguzawa were ‘infinitely purer in their customs, more honest and more truthful than their Moslem fellow countrymen’.58 He believed in the early years that they were receptive of new ideas and were naturally disposed to embrace Christianity if left to themselves. But as years went by and they did not live up to his expectations he began to see them as ‘efficient’ liars, ‘callous and terribly unimaginative’.59 Most deplorable was the fact that, according to him, they did not love themselves and could not be persuaded to think in terms of the community as a whole. It was because they lacked imagination and patriotism that they became indifferent to the monopoly of trade and administration of their fatherland by the Yoruba and Saros.60 Miller saw nothing good in the Fulani and Islam. In his judgment it was the Fulani who brought evil days upon the Hausa. They were ‘robbers and oppressors’ and it was a great pity that ‘the great Hausa race is in the hands of a small powerful clique’ who had established the most ‘iniquitous’ government in human history.61 In his reminiscences (not all of which were published) Miller likened the Fulani to Gengis Khan, Hitler, and Mussolini.62 For him they were ineducable obscurantists. So oppressive was their rule that, he claimed, the Hausa masses would have overthrown them in 1910 at the latest had the British not stepped in.64 It was his conviction that the Habe should be reinstated in the early years of British rule, that it was the Direct forms of government that ought to have been established, that the Fulani should have been removed by force in the interest of ‘the salvation of these (Northern Nigerian) people, their ultimate good and happiness.’65 Up to the eve of his death he saw no reason to modify these views, which he had expressed in unmistakable terms in the early years of this century. In 1949 he wrote: I am also incurably a believer in the ultimate use of force, occasionally with some who would withstand the coming of a reign of righteousness,


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and by their fatal obstinacy bring on themselves and the country they rule nothing but ignorance, and sin and feudalism… I have become firmly convinced that the backward, ignorant, feudalistic state of the Moslem Province of Northern Nigeria is due to the refusal to use this weapon early in the history of our occupation. Although I admire the splendid courage of those who preferred to rely on training with patience, yet I feel that their patience was wasted on minds incapable either of understanding or appreciating it and millions had to suffer in order to perpetuate the rule of a few who could never really purge their minds of obscurantism and whose motto was ‘Talakawa! abinchinmu ne!’ (The People! what are they but our food!)66 Miller believed that Islam was not a blessing but a curse for Northern Nigerians, ‘for this religion, wherever one has seen it, seems to blight a people and throw over them a mantle of darkness and moral crookedness which they can never throw off’.67 Islam was ‘that soul-destroying, manhood-sapping religion,’ a breeder of liars.68 So prejudiced against Islam did Miller become that he contended that Muslims were not as prolific as ‘pagans’ and that their offspring were less healthy than those of other religious communities.69 Miller wanted Christianity to be patronized by the British administration in Northern Nigeria, in the best interest of the inhabitants. ‘It is my solid conviction that any attempt to improve these people by any other method than those of first giving them the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will be an utter failure’, he declared.70 THE THIRD PHASE, 1900–18 It requires no imagination to perceive that missionaries of the Miller type could not be happy bedfellows with the architects of British administration in Northern Nigeria to whom such ideas and the programme mentioned above were very wild and quixotic. A man like Lugard could not have been expected to believe that it would be a practical proposition to remove from office the Fulani, or put an end to slavery with the stroke of the pen, or discourage polygamy by taxing polygamists only, or embark on mass education at once. There were simply neither the men nor the financial resources to carry out these and other items of the programme being pressed by the pioneer missionaries. But it should be noted that Lugard subscribed, theoretically, to some of the Miller programme. In fact, said Lugard, ideally he appreciated the fact that the Direct form of government would be in the best interest of the inhabitants of Northern Nigeria if it were possible.71 This leads us to a consideration of Lugard and his attitude to missionary enterprise which has often been misunder-stood. Although he was not a good Churchman, Lugard believed that Christianity produced higher material civilization than Islam, and that from the point of view of an empire-builder a Christian was likely to be more loyal to the British Raj than a Muslim, who could not be weaned from his contempt for the infidel.72 Hence in August 1899, at the official meeting which Bishop Tugwell had with him in London, Lugard approved of the projected missionary trip to Kano, only warning that the missionaries should not go beyond districts where the British administration would be


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able to afford them protection.73 For Lugard attached importance to the prestige of the white man in Africa, which he regarded as the only guarantee of his security in Africa.74 It was because of this that he denounced missionaries who undermined this prestige by doing menial jobs. If Lugard were anti-missionary, he would not have approved of the trip of the Hausa Party to Kano. He could not have been unaware that in 1899 Lord Kitchener had bluntly refused permission to the Church Missionary Society to introduce Christianity into Khartoum; he could not have been unaware of Goldie’s published statement in the previous year that both the Mahdi and the Khalifa of the Sudan had sent emissaries to Northern Nigeria urging the faithful to resist Europeans and that a good administration in Northern Nigeria should proscribe missionary enterprise in the territory.75 Indeed Lugard was fully aware of the intense anti-white feelings of Sokoto, Gwandu, and Kontagora in the first half of 1898 during his struggle with the French on the Western frontier.76 Lugard’s anti-missionary feelings were temporary and confined to the last half of 1900 when he came to know from the British press about the humiliation that had been inflicted on the white man’s prestige in Kano in May. By 1901 he had befriended Walter Miller and he promised in the same year to tell the Emirs that the missionaries were his ‘brothers’, respected and valued by him, and that they should consent to their coming into their country after the territory had been ‘pacified’.77 In the same year Lugard suggested to the Church Missionary Society that they should build homes for freed slaves whom they would be free to turn into Christians.78 In the same year the High Com-missioner gave permission to Miller to open a mission station in Katsina if its ruler would not object to a mission79 and it was on his way there in 1902 that Miller and Bargery stopped in Zaria to discharge imperial functions. Both of them had won Zaria for the British in the early months of 1902, before Captain Abadie captured the Namagwatse.80 In fact during Lugard’s first administration Christian missions established stations in Wase, Bida, and Zaria—all Muslim towns—and invitations reached them in 1905 from Kotangora, Kano, and Katsina. What store, then, is to be set by the so-called pledge which Lugard is generally believed to have given to the Northern Nigerian Emirs? What value is to be placed on his formula about Christian activity in predominantly Muslim areas? Lugard’s so-called pledge must not be understood in the contractual sense, as if it was a contract signed between the Government on the one hand and the Emirs on the other, as the condition of acceptance of Britain’s sovereignty by the Emirs. All that Lugard said in Sokoto in 1903 was that the British administration would not interfere with Islam. This meant that Muslims would not be forced to accept Christianity; it did not imply that missionaries, in their capacity as Christian teachers and British subjects, would not be allowed liberty to operate in Muslim districts. All that Lugard attempted to do in his formula was to advise missionaries about the foolhardiness of hoping to convert Muslims to the Christian faith. He would have wished that they diverted their resources in men and money to the ‘pagan’ areas where they were much more likely to have greater success. In order to assure the Emirs that the administration would not interfere with Islam, and to convince the missionaries themselves that they should not make an undue claim to the backing of the administration, Lugard chose to be neutral by insisting that Emirs were free to invite


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missionaries if they wished. And the evidence shows that during his first tenure of office many Emirs desired to have missionaries to give them Western education. It is essential to note that in the period 1900 to 1906 there were no complaints by the missionary world about the Northern Nigerian administration restricting Christian enterprise in the territory. This was why many of the Christ-ian missions expressed appreciation to Lugard for his policy and why the largest of them, the Church Missionary Society, regretted the termination of his authority in 1906.81 It was not until after Lugard that the British administration began to adopt a new policy, before the public began to be told that missions were being restricted by anti-Christian administrative officers in Northern Nigeria. Evidence is plentiful to show that after 1906 the administration of Northern Nigeria became decidedly antimissionary. Under Percy Girouard, Lugard’s successor, Indirect Rule became a divine revelation, a sort of Natural Law, against which it would be dangerous to behave. The customs and institutions of the people began to receive at first sympathy, then sentimentality and ultimately veneration, and their exposure to and contact with the outside world began to be regretted. Education along Western lines was frowned upon as a disintegrating and demoralizing agency; the presence of all foreigners—Europeans, Southern Nigerians and Saros—was regarded as a necessary evil and it was in order to minimize their danger to what was considered as the true interests of the Northerners that the Sabongari system was designed by C.L.Temple.82 But the sentimental attachment which many of the Residents claimed they had for the traditional culture of Northern Nigeria would not explain fully their hatred for missionaries and their propaganda. The records show that from 1906 onwards the Residents would have liked to keep missionaries out of their districts for other reasons. One reason is that by 1906 many of them, such as Burdon, Palmer, Festing, and Dr Cargill, had become autocrats dictating to the Emirs and in several cases taking decisions without the formality of consulting the rulers. As one of these Senior Residents observed, it had become ‘an undoubted fact that the wishes of the Government, expressed through the Residents, are carried out to the letter without any question by the various Emirs’.83 A missionary was likely to be a rival to the Resident’s influence and, as a man close to the poorer classes, was likely to be the tribune of the oppressed. The British missionaries in these years were more than religious teachers; they saw themselves as watchdogs of Britain’s interest and they never hesitated to bring to the notice of either the Colonial Office, or the public, acts of oppression and injustice committed by administrative officers in Nigeria. For instance when on one occasion Bishop Tugwell discovered in the course of his episcopal tour of the Bauchi area that Jakadas, Muslim tax collectors, were operating in ‘pagan’ districts he sent a strong reprimand to Lugard, and authoritarian as the latter was, he had no alternative to removing them.84 Miller, who had contempt for the younger recruits into the administration after 1906, became a thorn in the side of many officials, forcing the removal of an Emir in Zaria in 1918. By 1908 he had become ‘a dangerous man’ for a Colonial Office tired of his exposure and denunciation of the atrocities being committed by the British administration in Northern Nigeria.85 Then by 1905 some of the Residents had begun to deplore the doctrine of equality of all peoples, white and black, before God, which they alleged the missionaries were teaching.86 Burdon had the fear that missionary teaching would eventuate in a ‘fanatical’ rising of the ‘poorer classes’ of the territory against their rulers.87


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It became the practice of the Residents to explain their anti-missionary attitude on the platform of fear of a Mahdist uprising. There is no evidence to show that there was any connection between Mahdism and missionary enterprise. In fact it has been shown by Dr Last and Mr M.Al Hajj that Mahdism was nothing new in Northern Nigeria in this century, that it had existed in the nineteenth century, and had threatened the Sokoto Caliphate itself.88 Whilst it is true that the Fulani and ardent Muslims did not accept British sovereignty as tamely and as passively as the official records would make us believe, and indeed hoped for an early withdrawal of the British, there is no evidence to show that this anti-European feeling was the creation of missionaries. It is high time the reaction of the Muslim people and the Emirs of Northern Nigeria be looked at with their own eyes rather than with those of the administrators who would like us to believe that their advent was hailed as an unmixed blessing. Although the administrators did not parade themselves as religious teachers, it would seem that the Emirs regarded all white men as Anasaras and secular education as Western and ‘Christian’. Nor were the Muslims unsuspicious of the technological marvels of the British at first. For instance, it is recorded that many Muslims regarded bicycles and typewriters as European idols revealed to Europeans by the Devil to confound the true believers!89 In any case the two centres of Mahdism in the years under review, Sokoto and Burmi, were completely outside the influence of missionary propaganda. In the areas where Christian missions operated there was not a single instance of Muslims rising against Christian adherents, in a period when in Southern Nigeria ‘religious wars’ raged fiercely in the Ekiti and Ijẹbu territories. There can be no doubt that the Indirect Rulers, Residents of the Temple type, interpreted Islam far more rigidly than many of the Emirs would have approved of. Many of the Emirs believed in adaptation and appreciated the technological skill of infidels; they did not think of proscribing European contact and culture entirely. After all in the nineteenth century they had appreciated their contact with Europeans, as long as this did not infringe their sovereignty and territorial integrity. In 1903 the Emir of Bida welcomed the CMS and the Toronto Industrial Mission, encouraging both to cultivate sugar and providing cheap labour for the erection of the CMS mission houses.90 By 1906 there were thirty-one pupils, most of whom were children of the chiefs, in the CMS schools in Bida. Katsina was very responsive to the education programme suggested by Dr Walter Miller for the training of Emirs’ children and malams.91 From 1906 onwards the policy of the British administration in Northern Nigeria became more reactionary than that of the Eastern Sudan. In the latter, apart from the Gordon College in Khartoum, missions were allowed to do institutional work in Omdurman. In 1905 the Church Missionary Society opened up schools for girls at Omdurman, in Atbara in 1908, and Ulad Medani in 1912, and in the latter year the Society opened a hospital. On the other hand in Northern Nigeria the missions were not encouraged to do institutional work. The school for Emirs’ children and malams proposed by the CMS in 1906 foundered on the opposition of the Residents.92 Not a penny was given to Christian missions for the very little educational work they embarked upon. Even the traditional Koranic Schools received no encouragement. The contrast between Northern Nigeria and the Eastern Sudan may be pressed in terms of their results. In the Sudan by 1915 junior offices in the administration were being filled already by products of mission schools and by the end of the First World War the ex-students of the


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Gordon College had begun to articulate nationalism. In Northern Nigeria, however, not a single Northerner was in 1920 sufficiently educated to fill the most minor clerical post in the office of any government department and nationalist awakening had not begun to manifest itself. We have no time to discuss in detail the restrictive and hostile policy of the British administration on missionary enterprise after 1906, but a few examples will be noted. Almost every year after 1906 the administration rejected the CMS application to establish themselves in Kano, and it was not until 1924 that this application was granted to the effect that they should content themselves with having their station in the Sabongari districts only. In Zaria where the response to Christianity among Muslims was the most encouraging, many malams, members of the sect known as the Ansa, invited missionaries to work among them in the Zaria Province.93 At the beginning of the mission in Zaria city weekly and evangelistic meetings were held in the houses of friendly malams and there was a time when the number of churchgoers rose to 130. Persecution by Emir and Resident began after 1906. Christian adherents were removed to distant places to work for the Public Works Department and the Emir declared that Christians would be denied inheritance and possession of land.94 When the number of Christian adherents among the Ansa became large and they demanded sites for separate settlements, they were refused any site until Lugard intervened during the second tenure of his office. And when a site was offered, a place notorious for tragedy was given. This became the Christian village of Gimi the population of which rose to 161 and which was wiped out by sleeping sickness.95 In Zaria the Mission compound was boycotted; boys and girls were forbidden to go there even for medical aid and the number of church-goers was reduced to six!96 Apart from the fact that missionaries were prevented from working among the Maguzawa, who were placed under Muslim rulers, many administrative officers became hostile to missionary work in ‘pagan’ areas. Among the Sura a promissionary chief of Panyam, Dekina, was removed from the throne and Logwar, a reactionary, was put in his place. Those who professed the Christian faith were ordered to go to farms on Sundays.97 In Kabwir, the capital settlement of the Angass, Beweran, an able successor to the throne, became a Christian and was deposed by the British Resident for failing to perform the ‘pagan’ rituals that pertained to his office.98 In 1913 the administration refused the requests for teachers by the Angass towns of Garam and Ampier and the Sura towns of Mopun, Kereng, and Kombun. At Kataeregi in the Nupe country a British officer, B.K.Line, ordered a CMS school to be pulled down without any complaints against the mission by the inhabitants.99 In 1918 a Resident in the Igara Province, Captain Rowe, ordered the rulers that they should never grant land for schools or churches, except with his approval.100 Even in the Kabba Province a Resident became so hostile that in 1912 he flogged an African pastor in public on the alleged grounds that his activity tended to ‘denationalise’ the people among whom he was working.101 But the hostility of the administration to missionary enterprise should not prejudice us against one fact: that there were little prospects for Christianity in Northern Nigeria in the period covered by this paper. In the Nupe country no converts had been made in 1911. Among the Sura and Angass the number of enquirers after the Christian faith was very small. Hardly had he arrived in Northern Nigeria for two years than Miller became aware that he had been a dreamer in his hopes of converting the Hausa into Christians and he


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wrote: ‘I think this country forms one of the darkest problems for missionary work and I see no light’.102 On the eve of his death he admitted that Christianity would never convert Islam in Northern Nigeria and colsoled himself with the hope that the destiny of Northern Nigeria would in future be in the hands of Christianized well-educated ‘pagans’ of the Middle Belt.103 Compared with Southern Nigeria, missionary activity in the North was very feeble and was on a very small scale. In the years under review, at a time a mass movement to Christianity was taking place in the south, Christian missions made no sustained or overwhelming thrust in Northern Nigeria. The human and financial resources available to the missionary bodies in the territory were diffused over wide areas and sites were not chosen with an eye to maximum statistical results. For instance the Church Missionary Society went on making a fuss about Muslim areas when it was already clear that better results would be achieved in ‘pagan’ areas, when in fact the Society had the report of a missionary expedition to the effect that the most promising fields for the spread of Christianity were Borgu and the Bauchi Plateau.104 Apart from the fact that Northern Nigeria was so vast that many ethnic groups were not touched at all by missionaries until during the First World War, there were also absent many of the factors that facilitated the mass movement of the peoples of the south to Christianity. In Ijẹbuland and Igboland, for instance, Christianity was understood by the people as a handmaid of the social and economic changes brought into being by the Pax Britannica. Desire for a new form of wealth and status, stimulated by the demands of government and business houses for clerks, made the Ijẹbu and Igbo patronize mission schools with extraordinary zest. So great was the demand for schools that the initiative for their establishment slipped from the hands of missionary societies. Many converts turned themselves into teachers and evangelists before the missions could send trained teachers, whose salary Ijẹbu and Igbo communities paid in advance. In Northern Nigeria on the other hand not only was the economic development relatively slower than in the south but the social changes that occurred in traditional society were negligible. E.D.Morel, the famous journalist-critic of missionary enterprise who travelled through Nigeria in 1911, commented on Northern Nigeria: ‘“Happy is the country whose annals are dull”, and that, apparently, is the case of Northern Nigeria at present’.105 Those who introduced innovations in the territory were the Christianized Southerners who were employed by the British administration and commercial houses and the retail traders who followed the railway lines. In 1914 there were only forty-five churches among fourteen tribes, and in all only about 650 pupils in Mission schools in Northern Nigeria.106 But in the same year there were 116 churches in Ijẹbu Ode district alone, that is among a section of the Yoruba people, and over 4,000 children in mission schools in the Abẹokuta district. When it is remembered that in these years a church usually led to the foundation of a school, and that the latter was an incubator for nationalist thinking and an instrument for social and material advancement, the advantages which the south had over the north can be easily imagined. Whilst the south was being Christianized and Islam was proving a formidable obstacle to Christianity in Northern Nigeria, missionaries were making important contributions to the study of many Northern Nigerian languages. Two, Hausa and Nupe, will claim our attention. Although the study of Hausa by Europeans goes back to 1812, it was Dr S.


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F.Schon, one-time companion of Samuel Ajayi Crowther, who blazed the trail in respectable academic approach to the study of this most important language and in some respects his contribution still receives recognition from linguists. But in the period under survey substantial progress was made by missionaries and a respectable position is today being given in the linguistic world to the Reverend G.P.Bargery, a CMS missionary who arrived in Nigeria in 1902.107 The notes which he used to teach Hausa (a copy of which is in Ibadan University Library) are better than anything that existed before Bargery because he was the first scholar to recognize tone as an essential feature of Hausa. Before him linguists used to believe that Hausa was not a tonal language since it was so rich that there was word for almost everything and in the context of a speech one could sense what was said, unlike in the case of Yoruba and Nupe. This recognition of tone has clarified a number of things which used to confuse students of Hausa. In this sense Bargery superseded all older literature and although Abraham has improved the tonal side of the language by simplifying the tonal system adopted by Bargery, the credit still belongs to the latter. Then there is the two-volume dictionary by the same missionary which is more highly rated by linguists than Abraham’s.108 Not only is Bargery’s dictionary richer in vocabulary but it has a better neatness of arrangement, and makes clearer than Abraham’s the development of one word out of another. Bargery’s dictionary also contains dialectical vocabularies, thus making it possible for a greater number of people in Hausaland to understand the dictionary. This feature Abraham’s dictionary also lacks. The recognition given to Bargery may surprise those who may have been disposed to accept Miller’s boast that he was the architect of the Hausa language, that his Hausa Bible was ‘a gift second to none’ for the Hausa.109 True, Miller loved the Hausa language and collected his vocabulary from the Maguzawa, the people who he claimed were speakers of the purest Hausa. It is also true that for several years he was the examiner of administrative officers in Hausa and his Hausa Notes became a text-book. Yet from the point of view of grammar, idiom, and literary quality, Miller’s achievements have had little impact on linguists and Hausaspeaking peoples. It is not surprising, then, that his Hausa Bible has not produced the effects which Crowther’s Yoruba Bible and Dennis’ Igbo Bible have produced among the Yoruba- and Igbo-speaking peoples respectively. Miller’s Hausa Bible is a literary rather than an idiomatic translation from the Hebrew. The Hausa of his Bible is not classical and is far away from the Hausa spoken by the majority of Hausa today. It is said that parts of his Bible are absolutely unintelligible to the Hausa today. Nevertheless his Bible has become a legacy for the few Hausa-born Christians and the Christian adherents of Adamawa, Benue, and Middle Belt provinces, whose second language is Hausa and whose text-book in Hausa is no more than Miller’s Bible.109 For despite the discovery of the grammatical and literary shortcoming of the Miller Bible, the Christian Churches have not succeeded in having another translation. The Christians have refused to co-operate, saying that the Miller Bible is the only version they would have and that to attempt to alter it was tantamount to undermining its sacredness. The study of Nupe in this period was really a one-man show, the preoccupation of the Reverend A.W.Banfield of the Mennonite Mission who came to be popularly known as Zabokun Nupe, ‘the white Nupe’. It was largely this man who gave form and shape to the Nupe language. For although Nupe had been written in Ajami characters, a kind of


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Arabic script peculiar to the Western Sudan, only a few Nupe could read or understand the Ajami script. Moreover the adoption of Roman characters consigned this Arabic script to oblivion. In 1904 many missions in the north set up the Nupe Language Conference to work out an orthography. The Conference ultimately decided against the vocabulary and orthography adopted by Bishop Crowther in his 1864 Nupe dictionary. It was the Reverend A.W.Banfield who discovered and published the many peculiarities of the Nupe language, the fact that Nupe nouns and adjectives have no genders, the fact that the language has few adjectives and a profusion of adverbs, the tonal nature of the language, the emphatical nature of its vowels comparable to that of Yoruba and Italian, its euphonic changes and its structural relations with Yoruba and Gbari, a hint for historians. Apart from publishing works on Nupe proverbs, grammar, and customs during the First World War, Banfield produced a two-volume dictionary which runs into over 800 pages, still the standard work until this day. In 1927 he completed the translation of the Bible into Nupe, although this was not published until 1947. It is of significance that after Banfield not much work had been done on the Nupe language. The absence of any extensive, intensive, and potent missionary propaganda in Northern Nigeria in the years covered by this chapter widened the cultural, political, and social gap between this territory and Southern Nigeria. The cleavage was already glaring by 1920. In 1908 there were 2,187 largely mission-trained Nigerians in the Government service in Southern Nigeria and 621 in the employ of commercial firms.110 There were also lawyers, medical practitioners, surveyors, auctioneers, educationists, and journalists. Ten years later there were not less than eighteen secondary schools and Teachers’ Training Colleges, mostly owned by Christian missions, in which most of the present-day political leaders received part of their education. In contrast was Northern Nigeria where in 1920 not a single post-primary institution, owned by Christian missions or Government, existed. And, as mentioned earlier, not a single Northerner was yet qualified to fill the most junior clerical post in the administration. The political result of all this was that in Southern Nigeria there existed already the second generation of the new elite, the educated Africans, who had launched a vigorous nationalist movement, the aim of which was independence for all Nigeria under their control. In Northern Nigeria, on the other hand, nationalist articulations in favour of British withdrawal from Northern Nigeria were still to be born; there were no newspapers as yet; the idea of a North as part of Nigeria which would include the South had yet to come into the thinking of any Emir. NOTES 1 Vatican Archives, Rome, Acta 77 cont. f. 1707 f. 296. n. 26. Also f. 52 n. 21 22/11/1707 Acta 78 f. 5 n. 79/1/1708 Acta 83. f. 113. n. 17 13/111/1713. I am grateful to Dr Richard Gray of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, for the references and content of these sources. 2 Quoted in A.A.Boahen, ‘British Penetration of the Sahara and Western Sudan 1788–1861’, London, Ph.D. thesis, 1959, p. 504 (published as Britain, the Sahara and the Western Sudan 1788–1861, Oxford, 1964). 3 Methodist Mission Archives (henceforth MMA), Sharpe to John Kilner, 26/7/1880. 4 MMA, Minutes Yoruba Mission, 1881.


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5 Les Missions Catholiques, 1884, p. 440. 6 CMS G3/A3/05, Memo of Goldie’s interview with the CMS Executive, 25/10/1892. 7 The Hausa Association was founded in Britain in 1892 for the study of Hausa; it came under the control of CMS and Methodist leaders. G.T.Goldie, ‘The Future of Nigeria’, The Independent, 5/5/1899. 8 MMA, ‘Report of committee for consideration of establishing Missions in Housaland’, 15/2/1899. 9 A.F.Mockler-Ferryman, British West Africa, London, 1898, p. 399. 10 MMA, Milum to John Kilner, 11/10/1879. 11 The Foreign Mission Journal, July 1893, p. 335. 12 Church Missionary Gleaner, 1900, p. 7. 13 CMS CA3/04(b), Annual Report for 1873. 14 CMS CA3/04(a), Bishop Crowther to Hutchinson, 18/9/1870. 15 CMS CA3/04(b), cf. Annual Reports 1869 to 1880. 16 Ibid., Arabic letter in 1879 Annual Report. 17 CMS G3/A3/01, Paper entitled ‘Presenting a Sewing Machine Permission to build a lodging at our visit to Bida…’ 18 CMS CA3/04(b), Annual Report for 1873; G3/A3/02, ‘A Brief Review of the Niger Mission since 1857’ by Bishop Crowther, dated 8/10/1885. 19 CMS G3/A3/01, Bishop Crowther to Hutchinson, 6/6/1881. 20 CMS G3/A3/02, Bishop Crowther to Lang, ‘A visit to the Binue in the P.S.Henry Venn from Sept. 19th–24th 1883’. 21 CMS G3/A3/04, C.Paul to Bishop Crowther, 24/3/1891. 22 SMA, Rome, J.Poirier to Père Superieur, 4/11/1885. 23 CMS G3/A3/01, ‘Report on the Upper Niger Mission for 1881’. 24 NA, Ibadan, miscellaneous document by Wallace, High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria. His name was given me by Mr R.A. Adeleye of History Department, University of Ibadan. 25 CMS, Sudan Leaflet, No. 9. 26 CMS, Brooke’s Papers, F4/7, Brooke to Emir of Bida, 24/6/1890. 27 CMS G3/A3/03, H.Johnson to Bishop Crowther, 22/3/1888. 28 CMS, Sudan Leaflet, entry for 19/7/1890. 29 CMS, Brooke’s Papers, Margaret Brooke Journals, 30/8/1891. 30 CMS G3/A3/05, Brooke to Hamilton, 5/1/1892. 31 Lugard Papers (Rhodes House, Oxford), Memorandum by Goldie, 24/11/1896, marked Private and Confidential and presented ‘To the Council Royal Niger Company’. 32 Ibid. 33 CMS G3/A3/05, cf. Memo, of interview with Group III, 15/11/1895. 34 Church Missionary Intelligencer, 1897, p. 335. 35 For a full treatment of this topic cf. E.A.Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria 1842–1914: A Political and Social Analysis, London, 1966, chapters 1, 2, and 3. 36 They were Bishop H.Tugwell, W.Miller, J.Richardson, Burgin, and Ryder. 37 CMS G3/A9/01, Tugwell to Baylis, 6/10/1900. 38 Church Missionary Gleaner, 1900, p. 6. 39 W.Miller, ‘Diary of the Hausa Party from Lagos’ in Ibadan University Library, entry for 10 and 11 February 1900. 40 Sir Ahmadu Bello, My Life, Cambridge, 1962, p. 19. 41 CMS G3/A3/08, Miller to Baylis, 11/6/1899. 42 Yoruba and Niger Notes (published in London). 43 CMS G3/A9/01, Richardson to Baylis, 10/3/1900. 44 Ibid. Extracts from Tugwell’s letters, 14/3/1900. 45 Ibid. Miller, Tugwell and Burgin to Lugard, 14/2/1901. 46 CMS G3/A9/01, Richardson to Baylis, 26/7/1900.


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47 Ibid., (undated). 48 Ibid., 26/7/1900. 49 CMS G3/A9/01, Richardson to Baylis, 26/7/1900. 50 For fuller information of E.A.Ayandele, ‘Dr Heinrich Barth as a Diplomatist and Philanthropist’, Ibadan, 25 (February, 1968). 51 H.Clapperton: ‘Journal of Excursion’, Appendix in D.Denham, H. Clapperton and Oudney, Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in the years 1822, 1823 and 1824, London, 1826, p. 75. 52 H.Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, London, 1965 (Centenary Edition), vol. 2, p. 44. 53 W.Miller, Manuscript (of his autobiography) in Ibadan University Library, p. 89. Parts of this manuscript were published in 1953 by the Gaskiya Press, Zaria. 54 For example Clapperton and Henry Earth were persuaded to become Muslims. 55 CMS G3/A9/01, Miller to Lugard, 29/7/1903. 56 W.Miller, Manuscript, p. 119. 57 W.Miller, Success in Nigeria, London, 1948, p. 74. 58 CMS G3/A9/02, ‘Memorandum to the CMS on Govt. Restrictions to work in Northern Nigeria’ by Dr Miller. 59 W.Miller, Yesterday and Tomorrow in Northern Nigeria, London, 1938, p. 59. 60 Ibid., p. 84. 61 CMS G3/A9/01, Miller, Tugwell and Burgin to Lugard, 14/2/1901. 62 W.Miller, Manuscript, p. 46. 63 Church Missionary Review, July 1909, p. 394. 64 CMS G3/A9/01, Miller to Lugard, 29/7/1903. 65 W.Miller, Manuscript, p. 49. 66 CMS G3/A9/01, Miller to Baylis, 18/2/1902. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid., Miller to Lugard, 29/7/1903. 69 Ibid., Miller to Baylis, 18/2/1902. 70 Ibid., Lugard’s Memorandum on Dr Miller’s Paper, 9/8/1903. 71 NA, Kaduna, Lugard to John Bailey, 15/6/1906. 72 CMS G3/A3/08, Copy of Lugard to CO, 17/8/1899. 73 F.D.Lugard, The Rise of our East African Empire, London, 1893, pp. 73–74. 74 Cf. G.T.Goldie’s Introduction to V.Seymour, Campaigning on the Upper Nile and Niger, London, 1898. 75 CO 446/1, Lugard to CO, 9/5/1898. 76 CMS G3/A9/01, Miller to Baylis, 1/4/901. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid., Lugard to Miller, 12/4/1901. 79 Ibid., Miller to Baylis, 18/2/1902. 80 Lugard Papers, Baylis to Lugard, 11/10/1906. 81 CMS G3/A2/013, Alvarez to Baylis, 20/5/1911. Temple’s views are clearly stated in his book, Native Races and their Rulers, Cape Town, 1918, cf. chapter XII in particular for his views on Christian missions. 82 NA, Ibadan, CSO 1/27, vol. 7, Burdon to Lugard, 11/1/1907. 83 CMS G3/A9/02, Tugwell to Lugard, 3/1 & 4/2/1913; Lugard to Tugwell, 15/1 & 6/2/1913. 84 Lugard Papers, C.Stratchey to Lugard, 20/4/1904. 85 NA, Ibadan, Ilorin Province Report for 1905 by M.M.Dwyer. 86 NA, Ibadan, CSO 1/27 vol. 7, Burdon to High Commission, 11/1/1907. 87 D.M.Last, ‘Sokoto in the 19th Century with special reference to the Vizierate’, Ibadan, Ph.D. thesis, 1964, p. 230. S.O.Biobaku and M. Al Hajj, ‘The Sudanese Mahdiyya and the Niger-


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Chad Region’, given to the writer by Mr El Masri of the Department of Islamic and Arabic Studies, Ibadan University. 88 NA, Ibadan, CSO 1/27 vol. 7, Miller to High Commissioner, 6/1/1907. 89 NA, Ibadan, CSO 1/27 vol. 7, Miller to High Commissioner, 6/1/1907. 90 CMS G3/A3/09, Alvarez to Baylis, 10/8/1904. 91 NA, Ibadan, CSO 1/27 vol. 7, cf. Enclosures in Girouard to CO, 31/10/1907. 92 Founded after one Ibrahim who was executed in Kano at the beginning of the nineteenth century for preaching Christianity and for predicting conquest of Northern Nigeria by a Christian power. His followers were scattered in Kano and Zaria districts. It was one of them who founded Ningi. 93 CMS G3/A3/015, Dr Miller and E.P.Miller to Friends, 13/2/1914. 94 For the sad end of this Christian village cf. W.Miller. Reflections of a Pioneer, London, 1936, chapter 10. 95 CMS G3/A3/015, Dr Miller and E.P.Miller to Friends, 13/2/1914. 96 Cambridge University Mission Party, Report for 1913 in CMS Papers, NA, Ibadan. 97 CMS G3/A9/03, J.W.Lloyd’s Annual Letter, 30/11/1900. 98 NA, CMS Hausaland Mission Minutes, 1913. 99 NA, Ibadan, CMS E.C. Report Hausa Mission, 1918. 100 The African Times and Orient Review, Nov.–Dec. 1913, pp. 204–5. 101 CMS G3/A9/01, Miller to Baylis, 22/1/1902. 102 W.Miller, An Autobiography, Zaria, 1953, p. 24. 103 CMS G3/A3/010, ‘Report of a Journey in Northern Nigeria (Nov. 3 1905–May 16, 1906)’ by T.E.Alvarez, June 15 1906. 104 Morel Papers (London School of Economics), F.9., Morel to Bell, 30/10/1911. 105 Blue Book of Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria 1914. 106 I record my gratitude to Dr Hoffman of the Department of Linguistics, University of Ibadan, for this linguistic assessment of the works of the Reverend G.P.Bargery. 107 G.P.Bargery, A Hausa-English Dictionary and English-Hausa Vocabulary, OUP, 1934, R.C.Abraham, Dictionary of the Hausa Language, London. 108 Miller. Reflections of a Pioneer, p. 212. 109 I thank Dr W.A.Bijlefeld of Religious Studies Department, University of Ibadah, for this information. 110 CO 520/65, Enclosure 2 in Egerton to Earl of Crewe, 14/9/1908.

8 The Collapse of ‘Pagandom’ in Igboland With an impact already being felt at the national level by the middle of this century— witness their bid by then for ascendancy in the country—the Christianization of the Igbospeaking peoples is clearly a decisive socio-religious factor in twentieth century Nigerian history. Whilst at the turn of the last century their demographic rivals, the Hausa and the Yoruba, had for centuries been exposed and pervious to external influences, the Igbo remained in 1899 a self-reliant, self-contained, incorrigibly insular, independent and blissfully tradition-encrusted people. Not that the wider world did not attempt to penetrate Igboland: but such attempts, from the coast and the Lower Niger, were effectively neutralized, partly by geography and partly by the imperviousness of the Igbo’s cultural milieu to untried aberrating alien influences. Consequently in their blissful insularity the Igbo were saved the paroxysmal shocks that were administered on the Ijaw and Efik by Christian missions in the second half of the nineteenth century and the unprecedented mass movement of the Ọyọ Yoruba earlier in the century, provoked by the Fulani-Hausa jihadists who put a finishing stroke to the Old Ọyọ Empire.1 Within a few years of this century, however, the situation had begun to be altered: the table was turned. In the wake of the fire and sword with which the British imperialist invaders smashed their way throughout the length and breadth of Igboland, the revolutionary missionary with his revolutionloaded Bible and doctrine found Igboland laid at his feet. Bewildered and overwhelmed by the white man’s physical power which had destroyed overnight his sovereignty and the only world he had known, the Igboman’s spirit lay prostrate before the missionary invader. Although he did not know the spiritual or doctrinal quintessence of the missionary’s new-fangled religion, the Igboman in the first decade was in no way disposed to invoke the already discredited traditional religiọn to halt the white man’s religious intrusion into his world and invasion of his being. Rather, he anxiously sought the aid of the missionary whom he looked to for enactment of expected miracles—the establishment of the school and transformation of his children away from the indigenous world into ‘book’ people, the emerging new elite leaders who in the colonial setting were to share authority in Church and State. In the circumstances the missionary did not have to importune to be allowed to establish his enterprise in the villages; rather he was importuned by rival villages and communities for schools which came to be seen as the Open Sesame to the new world the Igbo were being led to envision—that in which the Igboman would begin to correspond to the white man in lifestyle, in material achievement, in culture and in leadership in Church and State. So overwhelming was the enthusiasm of the Igbo for Christianity that the Church Missionary Society and the Society of the Holy Ghost Fathers, the two most important Christian missions to date in Igboland, found their human and material resources grossly inadequate for the unprecedented challenge. Hence the unending Macedonian call upon call on Salisbury Square and the Propaganda Fide respectively.


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This is the substance of the appetizing account retailed with candour and scholarship, particularly on the period 1902 to 1914, by Dr F.K.Ekechi in his book Missionary Enterprise and Rivalry in Igboland 1857–1914 (London, 1977), around which this chapter is built. With it he fills a most important geographic gap in studies on Christian missions in Nigeria.2 Indeed related to other parts of Nigeria, a fact that seems to have eluded Ekechi, the Christianization of the Igbo was nothing short of an epic. Not even in Ijẹbuland, similarly physically conquered by the British invaders and where the gospel achieved an amazing success, were the walls of ‘pagandom’ to collapse Jerichowise as in Igboland. The Igbo advantages were only too clear. Unlike in Ijẹbuland where Islam was already available for simultaneous invasion of the area and where the Crescent was to outbid the Cross, statistically at least, Islam was never to have the ghost of a chance in disputing the Igbo heart with Christianity. Moreover, unlike in Ijẹbuland where national groves and cults like the Oshis, Agemos, and Osugbos were to retain their resilience to this day, there were no national groves or cults of comparable status or stature or resilience in Igboland to check the freewheeling movement and momentum of Christianity. Thus as early as 1896, that is, six years before the British invasion began in full force, a missionary recorded in Onitsha-Olona, eighteen miles west of Asaba: ‘People are burning with the desire to learn; they give us little or no rest. We are obliged to be keeping school three times a day: the big men show interest and are trying to learn with all their might’.3 Not surprisingly, nine years later, the Secretary of the CMS mission wrote east of the Niger: ‘My work is pathetic in the extreme now in one aspect: almost every week I have to turn away deputations from towns both near and distant begging us to come and teach them’.4 The tale was the same all over Igboland by the missionaries, both Protestant and Catholic. With the systematic destruction of the Long Juju by the British invaders between 1900 and 1902, the Bible rolled through Igboland like a Juggernaut, crushing the gods to atoms. In visible terms so complete has been the victory of the Bible that today cultural nationalism among the Igbo has not been in the direction of reinstating the shrines and groves, or the spiritual properties of the ọfọ (staff of office of head of family) and ikenga (little statue, cult symbol for progress and good luck). Thus in contrast to Yorubaland where, right in Lagos, Ọrunmilaism had been revived with fanfare and Ogbonism seems to have conquered the Christianity of the Bible in the Church, it has been easy for the Church in Igboland to officially deal the mortal blow to the much less ‘pagan’ custom of ozo title-taking.5 This picture of the defeat of the gods in Igboland6 remains substantially authentic, notwithstanding the nostalgic desire of the Mbonu Ojikes for the traditional religion in the forties and the continued prevalence of jujuism or instincts for the supernatural or belief in ancestral spirits portrayed in the works of such Igbo novelists as Chinua Achebe and John Munonye.7 The Christianization of the Igbo did not lose its momen-turn long after 1914, the terminal date of Ekechi’s survey. By 1960 the social and cultural miracle which the Igbo expected from Christianity had been definitely achieved. They could console themselves with the belief that in their game of educational catch-up they had achieved quantitative parity with the Yoruba, their chief rival who had had two generations of opportunity before the Igbo. Although demographically two million less than the Yoruba, they boast of as many primary and secondary grammar schools, as many undergraduates, as many

The collapse of 'Pagandom' in Igboland

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pen-pushers and technocrats, as many professionals in law, engineering, and the world of business. By 1960 the Igbo had contributed many leaders to the Nigerian political scene, including the most popular national political figure, Nnamdi Azikiwe; they had become Europeanized, manifesting attributes which were to persuade social scientists to judge their relative lack of institutional inhibitions as predisposing them to be the most goahead people in Nigeria, adaptable, dynamic, nationalistic, and uniquely responsive to the forces of modernization.8 Ekechi’s scholarship rests not only on the fact that he is disposing of a hiatus in Igbo historiography but also on the context in which he has attempted to understand his survey. In this respect the title he has bestowed on his work may mislead readers to the effect that his focus is the rivalry of the two Christian missions per se, divorced from the Igbospeaking peoples and their milieu. The truth is that, as is expected of a work in African history, the author ignores the metropolitan dimension of the missions to the point that he does not say as much as a paragraph on their origins, organization, and so on. Their rivalry and various strategies to outbid each other are primarily related to the milieu in which they were operating, to the factors of response and change in Igbo society. No less important is his interpretation and understanding of the documents in relation to Igbo culture, as a researcher with inner knowledge of his society, rather than within the context of the authors of the documents whose knowledge of Igbo society was, however well intentioned, obviously perfunctory. Missionary Enterprise and Rivalry in Igboland 1857–1914 would have been more illuminating, better-researched, and more brilliantly conceived had the author not examined the evangelization of the Igbo in isolationist terms. Neither the Church Missionary Society nor the Society of African Missions, the Catholic mission that first arrived in Igboland and worked among the Igbo west of the Niger, thought of the Igbo in exclusive terms. Rather they applied to the Igbo policies which they were currently applying to other ethnic groups such as the Ijaw, the Yoruba, the Edo, and the ‘pagans’ in the Middle Belt of Northern Nigeria. Moreover personnel were interchangeable, and interchanged, for execution of policies in different areas in Nigeria. Thus Bishop Herbert Tugwell regarded the Igbo Mission as nothing more than a part of the diocese of Western Equatorial Africa to which uniform policies of the Church Missionary Society should be introduced; Thomas Alvarez, Secretary of the CMS Executive Committee in Onitsha, was to play a similar role in the Sudan Mission in Northern Nigeria; Alfred Jones of the Yoruba Mission has the honour of being the first to itinerate to Awka as early as 1894, just as T.J. Dennis considered it absolutely essential to tour parts of Yorubaland extensively to gain necessary experience for application to his missionary work in Igboland. The SMA prospectors of missionary enterprise in Igboland, Fathers Holley and Chausse, saw their endeavour in 1884 as an extension of their work in Yorubaland;9 Father Zappa who was to leave behind in Western Igboland the imprint of his educational policy saw himself doing for the Igbo what he was later to do among the Ankwe north of the Benue in the first decade of the twentieth century. By and large the pattern of response of the Igbo to the intrusion of Christian missions was basically similar to that of other peoples in Southern Nigeria before and after the British invasion and conquest. In the pre-conquest period pagandom was as intact, inviolable, and as invulnerable as ever. Before the British brought fire and sword on the Emekuku in the Asaba hinterland in 1898 and on the Aro from 1901–2, the statistical


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achievement of the missions was very small indeed. In the pre-colonial circumstances in which the Igbo were masters of their own country and in which they witnessed the brazen hypocrisy of so-called Christians (the Saro and white traders) in Osomare, Alenso, Asaba, and Onitsha, respectable Igbo people could hardly welcome the intruding Christian religion. True one or two rulers, by no means interested in becoming Christians themselves, were willing to patronize missionaries, in the hope that thereby they would achieve political or material objectives. But such patronage never lasted long, having perceived as they did, the high cost that society would have to pay for it. Thus promissionary chiefs in Osomare and Onitsha discovered to their utter consternation that it was impossible to patronize missionaries without allowing the latter to disseminate ideas destructive of immemorial customs and institutions like slavery and polygamy and provocative to the keepers of the goddess of Dianah. Naturally the religious traditionalists found no difficulty in persuading the masses that the epidemics of smallpox, which coincided with periods of chiefs’ favourable disposition to missionaries, were unmistakable anger from the gods. In such circumstances, as in other parts of Southern Nigeria into which missionaries intruded, it was only the underprivileged and outcast of society, slaves and social lepers, those who had nothing to lose but their chains, who overtly embraced the new-fangled religion. So exasperated did society become that at one stage the indigenes of Onitsha cursed the day missionaries set their foot on Onitsha soil. Similar curses were being pronounced in contemporary Lagos, Abẹokuta, Old Calabar, Bonny, Brass, and New Calabar. Among the indigenous Igbo only one chief, Chief Samuel Idigo of Aguleri, embraced Christianity and he was penalized for it. In contemporary Yorubaland in the second half of the nineteenth century only one chief, John Owolatan Okenla, Balogun of Ẹgba Christians, was converted to Christianity. Pagandom, then, did not begin to come to grief in Igboland until the colonial era, which changed the status of the Christian and the attitude of respectable men towards what was hitherto regarded as a contemptible religion fit only for the dregs and scum of society. As in other parts of Southern Nigeria, it became socially advantageous to be labelled a Christian. Communities threw away idols and professed Christianity in the hope that by so doing the British invaders would not inflict physical punishment upon them. Others began to be favourably disposed towards Christianity because it was believed that this was the best way to court and enjoy the favour of the new British rulers, who were known to favour this religion. Yet others became Christians because it was believed that they would thereby be rescued from the tyranny of the notorious Warrant Chiefs. Nevertheless there were peculiar factors that facilitated accelerated acceptance of the Christian message by the Igbo, among which are the nature of the conquest—a systematic and shattering one—and the inter-village, inter-clan rivalry which was transmuted into salutary rivalry for missionaries and schools. The most important point to emphasize about the collapse of pagandom in Igboland— a point that eludes Ekechi completely—is that it was not so much the handiwork of missionaries as it was of the masses themselves and the barrel of the gun. Surely, judged by the number of missionaries and African agents available in Igboland in the early years of this century, the wildfire rate of evangelization cannot be ascribed to the Church Missionary Society or the Society of Holy Ghost Fathers, the Roman Catholic mission which assumed evangelization east of the Niger. The pace was dictated from the


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beginning by the people themselves, who were convinced by the barrel of the gun that the white man was the dispenser of such power, such hypnotizing culture, such progress, and such civilization the like of which had never been known before and which they were anxious to appropriate. The only way to achieve this end, they were convinced, was to have missionaries, schools, and teachers. Hence the fact, clearly demonstrated by Ekechi and amply substantiated by the records, that the requests of the people for teachers were never met. Hence the painful experience of the Protestant and Catholic missionaries, that their headquarters were never able to appreciate the infinite plenteousness of the harvest and the agonizing paucity of the labourers. From the viewpoint of mission resources in men and materials, the disadvantages under which the evangelization of Igboland suffered vis-à-vis contemporary Yorubaland, for instance, should be strongly underlined. In spite of the persistent call of Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries for reinforcement, it was to Yorubaland that the greater number of missionaries was sent, a fact that angered the CMS missionaries in particular who were stung by the fact that their headquarters insisted on sending more missionaries to patently unrewarding and infertile Northern Nigeria—a dozen in 1890 alone and five in 1900. The disadvantage being suffered by Igboland is clearer from the fact that Igboland did not have the assets of Yorubaland, namely existence of a battalion of indigenous agents, who divided into two classes, in the evangelization of Yorubaland. First there were the well-educated agents who passed out of the Training Institution in Lagos and a number of whom were trained to degree level in Fourah Bay after 1876. It was such preeminently suitable people who directed the systematic evangelization of Ijẹbuland the decade after the Ijẹbu expedition. And it should be stressed that ethnically they were not Ijẹbus but mainly Ẹgbas, traditional enemies of the Ijẹbus. Far into the Second World War it was Ẹgbas like the Gonsallos, the Charles Samuel Phillipses, the Ogunmefuns, and the Ransome Kutis who gave selfless service that bore priceless fruits for the Ijẹbus before the Ijẹbu began to produce their own sons. Second there were other agents, mainly captives from the nineteenth century internecine Yoruba civil wars, who had been redeemed and informally educated in Ibadan and Abẹokuta, who did the most useful spadework of Christianization in the greater part of eastern Yorubaland. These were the Babamubọnis, the Atundaolus, and the Lasẹindes. It was upon their labour that the better educated agents and missionaries, Catholic and Protestant, built in the postFirst World War period. In 1900, the time when Igboland began to be forcibly opened up for the missionary, there were no Saro, no indigenous agency worth speaking of, and no large number of missionaries to be deployed over the ever-widening beckoning harvest. By 1892 the Saro founders and builders of the Niger Mission, of which Igboland was a part, had been removed in the purge which terminated Crowther’s episcopate ingloriously. From that time onwards the Church Missionary Society had no intention of hiring the ‘black Englishmen’ ostensibly on the sound grounds that Bishop Crowther had failed in a whole generation to raise up Igbo catechists and teachers. But it seems clear that the removal of Saro hirelings was no more than a convenient excuse for adoption of the white agency policy. Otherwise what was the excuse for the removal of all Saro of Igbo origin— Taylor, Perry, Spencer, and Strong? What was the excuse for the annoying away of Isaac Mba? What excuse was there for the pangs of racism that in 1889 drove the two Igbo agents trained at the Preparandi Institution in Lokoja to resign from the Mission? Why


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did the CMS prefer to import West Indians as missionaries to the Saro many of whom continued to give excellent service in the Niger Delta? Or Yoruba agents from the Yoruba Mission, most of whom could have been useful as teachers, pending the emergence of indigenous Igbo leaders? The truth of the matter is that between 1890 and 1904 the white missionaries in Igboland did not advocate a policy of raising up well-trained indigenous people as was happening in Yorubaland. Rather they found it easy to annoy away the first set of wards such as Joshua Kodilinye and Obed N. Azikiwe, who were readily absorbed into the more lucrative government establishments. Indeed the view strongly advocated by such missionaries as P.A.Bennet, G.T.Basden, and S.R.Smith, before the founding of Awka Training Institution in 1904, was that the class of indigenous agency required in Igboland was that of elderly illiterate converts who could be trained within a year and be trusted to stay on in evangelical work, as they would not have the qualifications that could tempt them to opt for the better paid jobs in Government and commercial firms.10 The banning of indigenous agency in the control of the evangelization of Igboland resulted in the establishment of white control to an extent that had no parallel in Yorubaland. But such control was not necessarily unbeneficial. There were good and dedicated missionaries like T.J. Dennis, racist ones like Bennet, and so on. But the racism and arrogance of the white missionaries were not peculiar to those in Igboland. It was part of the phenomenon of colonialism found everywhere in contemporary Nigeria. The only difference with, say Yorubaland, was that the racialist attitude of the missionaries there had no relevance to the progress of the Church or education. The churches in Yorubaland had become, for more than a generation, self-supporting, self-extending, and self-governing and a considerable number of Nigerians had been sent by the Yoruba to obtain degrees from Fourah Bay College. In contrast to the CMS who discussed what sort of indigenous agency should be used in Igboland from the outset, the Society of Holy Ghost Fathers and the Society of African Missions, which had never bothered as such about racial contributions Africans could make to the Church, persisted in calling for the strengthening of white agency alone. But in this respect their demand was not greater than that of the CMS. The objections of both groups of white missionaries were not confined to the spread of the gospel alone, or even primarily. Given the doctrinal differences between the two Churches, Anglican and Catholic, their inherited splenetic bitterness, bitter relations, the conviction of the one that the other was an agent of the devil, one can easily appreciate the concern sincerely expressed by both to headquarters about the extreme danger that beclouded Igboland if the one was made to capture this territory. In the nineteenth century Crowther never concealed his hostility to the attempt of Roman Catholics to intrude into Igboland, which territory he regarded as his exclusive preserve.11 In the eighties the SMA priests who reconnoitred the Lower Niger for missionary purposes believed that they were speaking for the entire Igbo population when they declared that the people hated Protestants like the plague and were sighing for the day of deliverance from the Roman Catholic Church.12 It is in the light of such views about each other that the scramble for areas of influence, unhealthy rivalry, and adoption of stratagems aimed at dislodging each other in places by the CMS and the Society of the Holy Ghost Fathers should be understood. However, thin in ranks as the white missionaries were and little as their effort was to promote the growth of well-trained African agency, both missions had no alternative than


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ride on the backs of African Igbo assistants. Think and say what they may, the fact remained that evangelization remained the prerogative of Africans. It was essentially the black man’s burden and only Africans had the most essential attributes—knowledge of the language, the habits and customs of the people, and the capacity to get the message across to their countrymen. With the momentum inherent in the situation, teachers and evangelists with very short training did not find it difficult to spread Christianity. In this respect there is no better illustration than the ease with which the CMS began to found an indigenous Church. The spread of Christianity in Igboland in the first half of this century must be the least expensive and most rewarding to Christian missions, occurring at a time when Christian missions could not send out a large number of emissaries and when mass movement towards Christianity took place in the annals of missionary enterprise in Africa. The situation faced by the missionaries was described aptly by CMS missionaries in the words ‘Start self-supporting churches; don’t aim at them’.13 This means that there should not be any time-lag, much less a long one, between the point when the CMS should give financial support to indigenous Churches and the point when they should become financially autonomous. The Henry Venn syndrome which allowed a gradual withdrawal of financial support was simply out of the question. It was on 1 December 1895 that payment of class fees was introduced into Onitsha and other churches in Igboland, a most desirable step which Bishop Crowther had never taken in his thirty-three years’ directorship of the CMS Niger Mission.14 On 1 January 1904 the Igbo Pastorate came into being, consisting of churches in Onitsha and Asaba districts. In financial matters the Igbo had learned to bear their own burden, with its consolations of self-pride, self-dignity, and sense of gratification that it was their church, not that of the white man, that was being established. But it was not in financial matters alone that the Igbo Protestant Christians were expressing sturdy independence. With the encouragement and co-operation of the white missionaries, particularly of T.J.Dennis, no time was lost in working on the translation of the Bible to the vernacular, the one language through which the Christian religion and doctrine could be intelligibly and successfully imparted to the masses. Although Crowther had encouraged translation of parts of the New Testament, it was after him that a sustained and successful effort was made, with D.Anyaegbunan playing the major role. By 2 December 1901, that is before the mass movement towards Christianity began, the Old Testa-ment was ready. Six years later the New Testament had been completed as well.15 By far the real coup de grâce to pagandom in Igboland was the Western-style education which the population patronized beyond the limits the CMS missionaries, usually more radical than Roman Catholics, considered safe for the propagation of Christianity. Nothing illustrates better the new mind the Igboman was prepared to acquire and the contempt he had begun to develop toward the traditional world than his avidity for Western-style education. In this regard they were a great contrast to several Yoruba peoples who for more than two generations did not perceive the modernizing ingredients of Western-style education, nor the fact that, for good or ill, this brand of education had come to stay as the most important dynamic of social change in Nigeria.16 What was most amazing to the Christian missions, hitherto used to begging people to send children to school, was that the elderly people who would be expected to be preservers of the status quo were eager patrons of schools which they eagerly built, merely requesting


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missionaries to send teachers. Painful to the CMS missionaries was the fact that these parents were primarily after ‘English education’, that is high-quality literacy, that would enable their children to seek more lucrative careers outside the Church, as clerks in the civil service or as Warrant Chiefs or as Native Court clerks. This was completely at variance with the primary aim being sought by the CMS, which was to confine teaching to the vernacular, thus limiting literacy to ability to read the Scriptures alone. As an irate official of the Mission put it: ‘The African desire for education, Europeanization, though good in itself—is so strong commercially, that in the majority of cases it completely obliterates the desire for Christianity.’ However, thanks to the rivalry of the Roman Catholics who had faith in the capacity of the Igbo to remain good Christians in spite of good ‘English education’, and thanks to the spontaneous readiness of the people to pay for this brand of education, the CMS could not ignore the emphatic wishes of the people. The statistics of the CMS, definitely lower than that of the more responsive Roman Catholics, are a good testimony to the enormous patronage and sponsorship of primary education by the Igbo. The number of scholars rose from 226 in 1893 to 403 in 1900, to 1,478 in 1909 and 4,066 in 1912. By the latter date the enthusiasm of the people was such that, as in the case of the self-supporting churches, it was clear that the schools could be selfsupporting. People were paying lump sums for their teachers in addition to fees. This end had been attained the previous year when the missionaries resolved: ‘That the school fees, amount raised for the support of teachers by the people and other monies given for Educational purposes, be used for the payment of teachers of all classes and purchase of necessary materials, the training of agents and schoolmasters not being included’.17 Indeed, largely because of the challenge posed by the Roman Catholic mission, particularly the Society of the Holy Ghost Fathers, the CMS were made aware at their headquarters that the mission should consider seriously the establishment of secondary grammar schools. This was too much for the majority of the missionaries who drowned the voices of T.J.Dennis and Bishop Herbert Tugwell and adopted a very hard attitude against post-primary education. As these hardliners declared in 1910: We do recognise that it is the duty of the Government to educate the people and we are quite ready to leave to them the work of establishing English schools but rather than become so to speak a department of this Government in Education matters and have the evangelistic character of our schools destroyed and an English atmosphere introduced we would prefer to devote ourselves entirely to vernacular education.18 Nevertheless the refusal of the CMS to further accelerate the collapse of ‘pagandom’ in Igboland before the First World War by founding secondary grammar schools does not detract from the fact that their primary schools and those of the Roman Catholics constituted the biggest achievement of missions to the social history of the Igbo-speaking peoples. It is astonishing that Ekechi did not fully appreciate this point and misnames the chapter on education as if there were a secondary grammar school in Igboland before 1914. The truth is that there was none, not even by the enthusiastic priests of the Society of Holy Ghost Fathers. In practical terms attention was exclusively on primary schools and it was a good start. In this respect the story should go as far back as 1857 and much


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greater credit than Ekechi has given should be accorded the Church Missionary Society. For their refusal to obtain grants from Government and thereby put their schools under Government control did not imply that their institutions were inferior to those of the Roman Catholics or the few Government schools. The syllabuses and the textbooks they adopted were basically the same as in the Government and Catholic institutions. Moreover in 1911 they set up an Education Department in Onitsha to oversee, inspect, and co-ordinate the activities of all schools.19 And, as will be shown presently, the CMS have the sole credit of establishing the only post-primary institution in Igboland in the period surveyed (1857 to 1914). This was the Awka Training Institution which was founded in 1904, surprisingly not even mentioned by the author and which, like St Andrew’s College, Ọyọ, in Yorubaland, supplied the earliest high-quality leaders in Church and education among the Igbo. The Roman Catholics did not have a similar institution until 1928 (St Charles Training College). But first of all another educational achievement of the Church Missionary Society, which Dr Ekechi did not know about, was the education of girls and women to which the mission attached as much importance as the training of schoolmasters and catechists. The new concept of womanhood this implied can best be imagined. The idea of a Women’s Training Institution had been strongly suggested as early as 1890 when Miss Edith Warner worked out estimates of £400, the object being to produce suitable future wives of agents. As conceived, apart from the three Rs, they were to be trained in housework and needlework. It was in 1905 that this plan eventuated in the establishment of the CMS Girls’ Training Institution, Iyi Enu, teaching pupils laundry, cooking, baking, the use of the sewing machine, and the care and training of infants. By 1906 there were 47 girls, 18 of whom had been betrothed to CMS agents. In 1907 similar institutions were located at Idumuje Ugboku and Obotshi. Of no less significance was the Onitsha Girls School which had been founded in 1895 with nine girls. By 1907 a total of 150 girls had passed through the school, of whom 40 had married or been betrothed to CMS agents. Nevertheless, if only to put into proper perspective the non-establishment of secondary schools in Igboland by the CMS in the first two decades of this century, a time when Anglican secondary schools began to increase in contemporary Yorubaland, the consistency of the CMS in founding the Awka Training Institution should be explained. The rather unprogressive attitude of the CMS in the field of education was by no means peculiar to Igboland. Right into the third decade of this century, the Society did not cease to cling exclusively to the view that education beyond ordinary literacy required for reading the Bible was none of its business, that schools were relevant primarily for evangelical purposes, and to this extent should be vernacular institutions. How, then, is one to explain this bigoted and reactionary attitude of a Society that in 1845 had inspired and financed the founding of the CMS Grammar School, Freetown, the first secondary grammar school in West Africa, the CMS Grammar School in 1859, the first secondary grammar school in Nigeria, and Fourah Bay College in 1876, the first and only University institution in West Africa until 1948? Why the right about turn in the early years of the twentieth century? Had the grammar schools failed? Was Fourah Bay not turning out the right type of graduate? There is no evidence that the grammar schools were not fulfilling the purpose of their existence, that is turning out clerks and people who then trained abroad as lawyers, educationists, surveyors, and medical doctors. There is also no evidence that such people


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did not remain good churchmen. Nevertheless by the last decade of the nineteenth century the Society had become convinced that secondary education was fulfilling primarily secular objectives. The products never opted for a career in the Church. Moreover the secondary schools began to fall increasingly under Government control through the Education Ordinances of 1882, 1887, and 1898, according to which Government began to give grants for secular subjects alone. Government grants meant that emphasis would be given to secular subjects at the expense of religious subjects, thereby leaving much less Christian teaching for the students. To the astonishment of the Missions—the CMS, the Wesleyans, and the Baptists—the secondary schools began to acquire such increasing popularity among the laity, who were far more concerned that their children become lawyers, high-calibre civil servants, medical doctors, and so on than drift into less lucrative, more self-sacrificing posts of teachers and catechists in the Church. In other words, to the missions the laity had become victims of the Europeantype materialism that had begun to engulf Lagos. Also inherent in Government’s secular intervention was a big threat to the evangelical survival of Christian missions, for as time went on the teachers in secondary schools would begin to seek to become professionals, an encouragement being given by Government with promise of salaries much higher than the missions could afford the best qualified ordained men. In the view of missions teachers were already and only halfcatechists; they were never expected to become professionals but amateurs gravitating towards priesthood as their only and ultimate profession. In order to flee from what was genuinely feared as dangerous secularism, to produce clergymen only and to divert the attention of the laity to the things of the spirit alone, the missions decided to quit Lagos. Their contempt for the secondary schools was clear from the handing over of these institutions to Nigerians in the eighties by the CMS and Wesleyans. The result was the founding of the Ọyọ Training Institution in 1896, of Baptist College in the same year, and of Wesley College in 1901. For these missions these were to be no-nonsense producers of pastors and no more, and they were determined to prevent Government, which had not yet fully established claim or assigned authority over the hinterland, intruding into these institutions. In the circumstances the Igbo, rather than the Yoruba, were victims of the late nineteenth century bigoted and obscurantist educational policy of the Christian missions. For by 1900 the laity in Lagos and in the Yoruba hinterland had come to appreciate the advantages of secondary education, to the point that they were fully prepared to found secondary schools independent of the missions. Also without technical assistance in the form of qualified teachers they were in a position to staff such schools. The secondary schools in Lagos waxed from strength to strength, thanks to grants from Government. In 1908 the Ẹgba (including Muslims and ‘pagans’) founded the first community secondary grammar school in Nigeria, followed five years later by the Ijẹbu Ode Anglicans and Ibadan Anglicans. Immediately after the First World War the Ondo and Ijẹsha Anglicans followed suit. And it should be added that the Yoruba Anglicans did not stop sending people to Fourah Bay to become graduates! As they were unlucky in the matter of a ready-made native agency to spread the gospel in the early years, so the Igbo were unlucky about the timing of the opening up of their country, when the CMS had such a low opinion about secondary grammar school education. Obviously, with a people just learning to lay the infrastructure of primary


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education, it was absolutely impossible for the Igbo to organize with any chance of success a secondary school. It was difficult enough looking for suitable teachers for the primary schools; secondary school teachers were simply not there. It was not until the forties and fifties, that is after a generation of the massive introduction of primary education among the Igbo, that the Igbo were in a position to found community secondary schools, in very many cases with individuals founding more than one secondary school. Consistent with the policy of the CMS throughout Nigeria was the founding of the Awka Training Institution in 1904. The purpose was clearly defined: to do for Igbo-land what the Ọyọ Training Institution had begun to do for the Yoruba Church. Although part of the training in Awka involved the trainees as teachers, they were taught to regard themselves as schoolmasters, ‘spiritual agents’, rather than as teachers who one day would work for the Government certificate examination. Between 1904 and 1909, 69 students passed through the Institution, nearly all of them working with the CMS.20 The significance of the Awka Training Institution, which after 1914 became a Teachers’ Training Institution in line with sister institutions in Southern Nigeria, lies in the fact that with it the CMS, rather than the Roman Catholics, began to give betterquality training to the Igbo. In this respect this Protestant Mission had clearly an edge over both the SMA and the Holy Ghost Fathers, with the ultimate result that both at regional and national levels it was Igbo Protestants who rose to positions of leadership. It was not until 1924 that the Holy Ghost Fathers began to train African clergy, with the founding of a seminary in Onitsha. West of the Niger the SMA, whose view on primary education was much less healthy than that of the Holy Ghost Fathers, did not found a teacher training institution until 1922. No account of the stupendous evangelization of the Igbo can be complete without special attention to the salutary aggressiveness and ascendancy of the Holy Ghost Fathers vis-à-vis the Church Missionary Society. For in no other part of Nigeria did the Roman Catholic Church show its capacity to capture the masses and surpass Protestant missions. In Yorubaland where the Society of African Missions had established themselves in 1863, the Roman Catholic Church was everywhere of tertiary significance in evangelism, education, and health matters. True, between 1880 and 1891 Fathers J.B.Chausse and P.R.Holley desired that Protestantism be uprooted entirely from Yorubaland, this was no more than a pious wish and a huge joke: the Protestants were so strongly entrenched everywhere that it was impossible to measure strength with them. Only in Abẹokuta did the Roman Catholic Church try between 1880 to 1891 to achieve some strength by playing upon the hostility that the Ẹgba had begun to manifest to the pro-British Saro Protestants, but even here they discovered painfully that the Protestants were in absolute control of affairs, riding over the wishes and authority of the sulking chiefs with impunity. Nor was the effeteness of the SMA confined to Yorubaland where, it might be argued, the Catholics had been preempted by the Protestant missions and the odds against them many and overwhelming. Among the western Igbo, the socalled Ika Igbo west of Asaba, where the SMA started earlier and with greater advantage than the CMS, the latter found little difficulty in competing with them even in Issele Ukwu, their most important station in the earlier days. Even the mission founded by an Ika Igbo, the Reverend W.S. Martin, after the First World War, the Pilgrim Baptist Mission, had excelled and superseded them in that area west of the Niger.21


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The Holy Ghost Mission presents a totally contrasting picture, one of dynamic and astutely imaginative strategists who shocked the CMS out of its complacency and gave that Protestant mission the challenge of its life in Nigeria. It is a pity that Dr Ekechi did not see the Catholic-Protestant rivalry in comparative terms with the similar rivalry in Buganda in the eighties and nineties of the nineteenth century. Unlike in Buganda where the CMS and Catholic Mission of the White Fathers were compelled to be imperiallypolitically-minded first, the situation in Igboland was such that their primary aim was the sowing of the gospel seed. There was no division of the Igbo into two politically warring factions such as were built up around Nwanga and Mutesa in Buganda. Rather the Igbo were united in their immediate demands, needs, and requests for education. It is remarkable, a piece of wonderment, that no sectarian wars, however little, were fought in so compact a territory where the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church jostled each other.22 The truth of the matter is that the Igbo were not a bit interested as such in doctrinal differences, certainly of little relevance in the early days to a people captivated by the magic of the written word and ‘English education’. Co-existence was willy-nilly the watchword of the two missions, both of whom had members of the same families and villages patronizing different missions without severing family or village links. Second, there was the fact that the rivalry of both missions occurred within the colonial context, rather than in the pre-colonial scramble context, in which the CMS and Catholic mission in Buganda had engaged in their trial of strength. The result was that, even when in the earlier days the Holy Ghost Fathers were French nationals, they were not in a position to wish for, how much work for, the French flag over Igboland. In fact the Propaganda Fide realized and recognized the authority of the British colonial power and, if only to make the work of the missionaries easier, adopted the policy of sending Irish nationals whose other tongue is English, the official language in Nigeria. Last but not least is the fact that by the first decade of this century the official policy of the British administration in Southern Nigeria was one of impartiality to the Western established missions. In this respect the Society of Holy Ghost Fathers were assured that they would not be inhibited in their activities by the British administration, or that the Church Missionary Society would be given special favour. Thus, for instance, the Holy Ghost Fathers were able to receive heavier grants and greater gratitude from the British administration because the mission readily endorsed the education policy of the Government. It was a totally healthy rivalry that resulted from the simultaneous presence of the CMS and the Society of the Holy Ghost Fathers in several villages and urban centres in Igboland. The records are full of how the one mission intensified efforts in a direction because the other had begun to compete in that direction. Thus the fact that the only shoemaker in Onitsha was a Roman Catholic drew forth the following reaction from the CMS missionary: ‘We must develop industrial work here or meet them on their own ground or retire and leave them in possession’.13 In fact the CMS a few years later, established the Onitsha Industrial Centre! Invariably gifted with political instincts, the Society became so envious that many of the Warrant Chiefs and Native Court clerks were Roman Catholic adherents that on 3 September 1906 the Executive Committee of the Mission decided ‘to write to the Government and ask that in the old established mission stations the Christian community should be allowed a fair representation upon the Native Council’.24


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From the evangelistic viewpoint the success story was the extraordinary achievement of Bishop Shanahan about whom, unfortunately, Dr Ekechi says little or nothing. It was this Irishman, whose name became a legend in Catholic households, who worked out the strategy with which the Holy Ghost mission was able to achieve a breakthrough in the evangelization of the Igbo. Arriving in Igboland in 1905 his uncommon and timely understanding of the religious nature of the people persuaded free men in society to rush into the Catholic Church. For Shanahan preached to the people in a language they could understand, leading them to believe that there were properties in Igbo religion similar to those of Christianity, which properties the Roman Catholic Church was anxious to sublimate rather than destroy. Hence the Igbo were made to feel, and see, that they were not a condemned people; that there was no time when they never had a perception of Jehovah. And of no less importance was his sense of identification with their genuine aspirations for modernization, in particular their unquenchable thirst for Western-style education. More than any other single individual he encouraged them to pay for their schools and teachers. From a social viewpoint the Igbo were veritable gainers from the rivalry of the two missions in the founding of the Iyi Enu hospital, near Onitsha, in 1905, the first mission hospital in Nigeria. From the earliest days of their rivalry both missions saw a bait in medical science. Again, to see this phenomenon in the Nigerian context, it should be remarked that it was only among the Igbo that such a bait worked as an evangelistic strategy. In Yorubaland and among Muslims north of the Niger-Benue, the medical mission failed completely to win converts. Contempt for the white man’s medical science, by no means at an end yet, was so strong that for a generation before the end of the nineteenth century no missionary spoke sanguinely about it. Even among the Ẹgba where Father J.M.Coquard of the SMA was to win the affection of the Ẹgba for his medical skill and the founding of the famous Sacred Heart Hospital in 1915, medical science as a bait was not offered in the earlier years. It was not until after the First World War that medical science began to win respect among the Yoruba. Although the CMS were strongest among the Yoruba, in the first quarter of this century there was no question of the Society thinking of a hospital among the Yoruba unto this day, unlike the Methodists who established the Wesley Guild Hospital in Ilesha in 1915 and the Southern American Baptist Mission which founded in Ogbomọshọ the Baptist Hospital in 1923. In the context of rivalry in Igboland the CMS were awake to the role of the medical mission. It is another surprise of Dr Ekechi’s book that Iyi Enu is not mentioned, how much less its achievements up to 1914. In fact, Iyi Enu’s history goes back to 1898 when Dr Clayton and Miss Maxwell, a qualified nurse, started medical work in Onitsha. It was in that year that, impressed by the fact that no less than 70 to 100 patients were coming to them daily, it was decided to convert a school in Onitsha to a temporary hospital. The proposal was made for a 32-bed hospital estimated to cost £433.25 The response of the Igbo to the white man’s medical science was very encouraging, again a contrast to the experience of medical missions in other parts of Nigeria. By October 1898 Dr Clayton had begun to train three Igbo men for the medical mission, ‘a necessary and useful agency in the definite evangelization especially of the Igbo people’.26 On 22nd November 1901 the sum of £280 was made available from the Dobinson Memorial Fund for construction of a dispensary at Iyi Enu.


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By 1904 the number of patients had so increased that only half of the clients could be attended to, that is, 10,617 out-patients, 165 in-patients, and 34 operations. Until July 1905 no fees were charged but as pressure on resources was becoming too much of a strain, fees of from 1d. to 3d. per patient began to be charged, but children were still being treated free of charge. Fee-charging did not deter clients whose figure for 1906 rose clearly above 15,000. Well could a nurse, Miss Elms, jubilate in 1907 that ‘the manifest results of the work as a medium of evangelization have over and over again asserted themselves and been the means of opening up hitherto unoccupied towns and villages to the messengers of the Gospel’.27 Or, as the Reverend S.R.Smith, Secretary of the misson, reported: ‘The value of the medical mission to our general work is incalculable’. By 1909 as in respect of the church and the school the amount of fees being ‘cheaply paid’ by the patients ‘more than covered the actual working expenses of the mission apart from the cost of European supervision’.28 It has been necessary for me to fill up some of the important gaps revealed by Dr. Ekechi’s book partly because of his sincere admission that he did not see all the records he could have used for his otherwise well-researched book. In this respect he can be forgiven for what he says about the archives of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Paris. I myself was put off by the mission headquarters twelve years ago. One can only hope that, now that thirty-year materials are being made available to researchers by archives in place of fifty years, the Society would reconsider its one hundred years’ ban which, as it stands, means that historians cannot be allowed to have a good insight into the activities of its missionaries in Igboland until the twenty-first century. However Dr Ekechi cannot be forgiven for not making enough effort to see all the available materials of the Society of African Missions in Rome, for they are exceptionally liberal and their ample sources would have enabled the author to give due attention to missionary enterprise west of Asaba between 1884 and 1898. For the fact is that in these years the drive by the Society of African Missions to the Asaba hinterland, which is scarcely mentioned in chapter 5 (pp. 88–114), was no less intensive than that on the other side of the Niger to which he has given exclusive attention. Surely in these years it was no mean achievement for the SMA to have established themselves at Issele-Uku, Alla, Ebu, Ezi, Okpanam, and Ibusa.29 As readers may have been able to judge themselves, the most indefensible defect of Dr Ekechi’s research is his failure to comb thoroughly enough the materials available in the CMS Archives. How could he defend the gaps about the educational and medical health achievements of the Church Missionary Society? In view of the skilful way he has handled the archival materials on the Roman Catholic Missions, I would not go as far as suspecting that his scholarship is tinctured with sectarian or sectional partisanship, but such omissions as not mentioning at all the Awka Training Institution and Iyi Enu hospital, are bound to strike the casual reader as savouring of partisanship in favour of the Holy Ghost Fathers. I do hope that this review does not detract from the enormous value and merits of Dr Ekechi’s highly appetizing book. It is to be taken for granted that Missionary Enterprise and Rivalry in Igboland 1857–1918 is a hope of a greater work to come on the post-1914 period. In this respect oral evidence would be amply available to him but time is not necessarily on his side. For although fortunately the civil war of 1967–70 did not eliminate as such the first-generation converts and many of the Fathers and Catechists are


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back at their stations, first-rate eye-witness retailers are now nearer the 80 than the 70year mark and are, therefore, bound to dwindle in number very rapidly. Dr Ekechi should not be sanguine about documentary evidence for the post-1914 period. The far richer records of the CMS which are by no means duplicated in CMS headquarters, perished in a mysterious cremation on their journey from the National Archives Headquarters Ibadan to Enugu in 1961. As for the records of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Igboland, according to an interview which I had with the late Bishop Okoye, the Catholic Bishop of Enugu, in Bonn on 24 August 1972, the civil war turned most of them into ashes or they fell into destructive hands that could not appreciate such a monument. NOTES 1 For information on the effects of Western impact on the Ijaw and Efik see K.O.Dike, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830–1885, Oxford, 1956; G.I.Jones, The Trading States of the Oil Rivers, Oxford, 1963; E.A.Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria 1842–1914, London, 1966, chapter Three; K.K.Nair, Politics and Society in Old Calabar 1814–1906, London, 1971. For information on the paroxysmal effects of the Fulani jihad on the Yoruba see Samuel Johnson The History of the Yorubas, Lagos, 1921. 2 As in very many areas the Yoruba are the most researched in the field of the Christian Church. Historians, sociologists, and theologians have examined in relatively considerable detail various aspects of the impact of Christianity on them. Even the myriads of ethnic groups in the Middle Belt received an earlier attention than the Igbo. See J.B. Grimley and Gordon E.Robinson, Church Growth in Central and Southern Nigeria, Michigan, 1966. 3 CMS G3/A3/07, H.B.Merriman quoted in Dobinson to Baylis, 3/9/1896. 4 CMS G3/A3/011, Alvarez to Baylis, 22/3/1905. 5 As lately as 1971 the Anglican Church in Igboland was able to proscribe to members the taking of ozo title, thereby reaffirming the decision reached as early as 1914 by the white and Igbo clergymen at a conference on 12 May 1914 at Onitsha that ‘Ozo is wrong and opposed to Christianity, that no Christian man should have anything to do with it…that if ozo is to be reformed or improved, it is for the heathen people to do it and not us’. 6 One is not saying that fear of the unknown and superstition no longer exist among the Igbo, nor that the traditional religion has totally disappeared in Igboland. Beneath the surface fear of the unknown and instincts connected with the traditional religion thrive and do come to the surface, explaining in part the growth of the Aladura pentecostal churches and the custom of Igbandu to which prominent Igbo political leaders professed adherence in the fifties. 7 See in particular: Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, London, 1958. Man of the People, London, 1966 and John Munonye, Obi, London, 1969. 8 For an insight into the exhibition of these traits see A.C.Smock Ibo Politics (The Role of Ethnic Unions in Eastern Nigeria), Harvard, 1971. 9 SMA (Rome) Les Missions Catholiques 1884, pp. 425–40, article ‘A travers les pays du Niger’. 10 CMS G3/A3/08, Minutes of Executive Committee Onitsha, October 1898. 11 CMS G3/A3/02, Bishop Crowther to Lang, 31/8/1883, and 10/11/ 1884. 12 SMA Planque’s Letter Books, vol. 1 1867–Jan. 1895, Planque to Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda, 27/12/1883. 13 CMS G3/A3/08, Minutes of Conference of Representative missionaries at Onitsha, 8, 9, and 10 May 1899. 14 CMS G3/A3/09, Minutes of Executive Committee, September 1903. 15 CMS G3/A3/011, Minutes of Ibo Translation Conference Ebu, Owerri, 14 November 1907.


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16 The Ọyọ Yoruba are the veritable culprits in this respect. 17 CMS G3/A3/012, Minutes of Executive Committee, August 1911. 18 Ibid., Smith to Baylis, 3/6/1910. 19 Ibid., Minutes of Executive Committee, August 1911. See also CMS G3/A3/010 for the comprehensive ‘Educational Code for CMS Schools, Niger Mission’. 20 CMS G3/A3/012, Oka Training Report February 1910 by G.T.Basden. 21 See Autobiography of the Rev. Samuel Wadiei Martin Aba (n.d.) 22 The rivalry between Roman Catholics and Protestants fictionalized in Munonye’s novel, Obi, was hardly ever reported by the colonial masters. The situation contrasted with that in Western Yorubaland, particularly among the Ekiti, where ‘religious wars’ between ‘pagans’ and Christians were frequent and serious enough to require special attention by the Governors of Lagos between 1903 and 1916. 23 CMS G3/A3/07, Bennet to Baylis, 22/6/1897. 24 CMS G3/A3/012, quoted in Minutes of Executive Committee, 17 and 18 February 1910. 25 CMS G3/A3/08, ‘Skeleton Specification for Proposed Permanent Hospital at Onitsha’ by Dr Clayton. 26 Ibid., Dr Clayton to Baylis, 21/10/1898. 27 CMS G3/A3/010, ‘Medical Mission Report’ by Miss Elms presented to Executive Committee, Onitsha, 4 March 1907. 28 Ibid., S.R.Smith to Baylis, 5/6/1907. 29 SMA File 14/80302, Quest Gen. C.Zappa, 1893–1910; C.Zappa to Père Superior, 20/2/1898.

9 The Missionary Factor in Brass, 1875–1900: A Study in Advance and Recession The fortunes of missionary enterprise among the Brass people, a branch of the Ijaw of the Niger Delta, provide some guide to an understanding of the tragi-comedy of their history in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In the first half of this period, when the Brass attained their peak—their golden age—in material prosperity, they seemed to contemporary observers the most transparently genuine, and certainly the most zealous, Christians in precolonial Nigeria. In the second half when they were forcibly pushed out of the Niger trade upon which their livelihood and prosperity depended by the Niger Company of Taubman Goldie, they advertised themselves to the world as a people upon whom Christianity had sat only lightly. They renounced what they stigmatized as the white man’s religion, went back to the tribal gods, sacked Akassa, the headquarters of the Niger Company, in 1895, drank from the enormous rum and gin stores there and ate the agents of the company they were able to capture. Their misfortune, they said, was owed to Christianity. The dramatic change in the prospects for Christianity among this small people in their pestilential mangroveridden territory of interlacing creeks, is of considerable interest for students of church history in Africa. First, it demonstrates in a peculiar way a utilitarian conception of the Gospel, common in the first generation of Christian converts and missionary-disposed chiefs in pre-colonial Africa. Second, it reveals in bold relief how an apparent association of the missionary with the trader could produce untoward effects for the endeavour of the former. For the Church Missionary Society, whose agents worked in the Brass country, and the Royal Niger Company came to be regarded by Brassmen as collaborators in a deal to bring their world into ruins. Missionary work was introduced into the Brass country in 1868 through an invitation by its leading chiefs to Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, founder and controller of the allAfrican Niger Mission. Although an outbreak of smallpox in 1871 provided the religious traditionalists with a pretext to advocate a ban on this new religion—which in the earlier years found votaries only among the slaves—yet, compared with other parts of the Niger Delta, persecution of Christians was minimal; for the Brass were the most humane group among the Ijaw and they possessed an innate .goodness conspicuously absent in their neighbours. So keen an observer as Sir H.H.Johnston, who knew the Delta well, recorded that the Brass were a ‘good natured people’.1 When Richard Lander, the famous explorer, was in 1830 about to be sold into slavery by the Abo Igbo, it was Brassmen who redeemed him, led him into their town, took good care of him, and led him to a boat at Akassa—all of which they did gratuitously.2 In the Niger Delta they were the only people who, having signed a treaty with Her Majesty’s Government to put an end to the slave


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trade, honestly stuck to the terms of the treaty, though they were the only ones who did not receive any indemnity.3 Indeed by 1874 the Brass people had begun to recognize in Christianity a useful agency for the material development of their country for the converts became the most industrious and best behaved of their slaves.4 ‘Religion and capitalism’ became so closely connected that by 1879 the wealthiest chiefs—Sambo, Spiff, and Cameron—were Christians, though of slave origins. A mass movement toward Christianity began and the paramount ruler, King Ockiya, threw off the mask and surrendered his gods. He too became a Christian. In 1879 a coup, organized by the Christian party, put an end to ‘paganism’ in Nembe and Tuwon, the two premier settlements, and Christianity was declared the official religion.5 The stupendous prosperity experienced in these years, it must be repeated, was associated with Christianity.6 In spite of competition from the white traders and educated elite in the Lower Niger trade, the Brass not only held their own but dominated the markets from Onitsha down to the coast. Evidence shows that their traditional customers preferred them to the Niger Company7 before the latter received in 1886 the Royal Charter that was to ruin the Brass people. Their experience and skill (particularly with the gin barter trade) made them more successful than all other traders. Moreover, the intense rivalry between the French and British traders was to the advantage of the Brass traders. So prosperous were the Brassmen that in place of the famished, boil-covered, and haggard-looking men and deplorable so-called houses noted by the Lander brothers and Consul Hutchinson, the Brassmen in these years were well-fed; they built European-style houses and displayed their wealth in ornaments, prodigious graves, expensive and elaborate obsequies, and European articles. Indeed it seemed the prosperity of Brass would last for ever. Henry Johnson, later Archdeacon of the upper part of the Niger Mission, observed: ‘The prosperity of this station is not of a superficial or ephemeral character; there is substance in it, and as such, with God’s blessing, will continually expand and become widespread’.8 The prosperity of the Brassmen was duly reflected in their zest for Christianity. By 1877 its success had become spectacular. ‘In no other place did I observe such a striking exhibition of the mighty power of the Gospel’, commented an experienced observer.9 In 1873, out of the 1,093 Christians in the whole of the Niger Mission, Brass claimed 300; in 1875 the figure increased by forty-one. In 1876 the most important chiefs, Sambo, Spiff, and Cameron, joined the Church and King Ockiya threw his idols into the river. Three years later the king laid off all his wives but one, in a society where polygamy was a mark of prestige and political stature. In 1877 Brass converts numbered 400 out of a total of 1,257 for the Niger Mission. In 1879 the figure soared to 900 out of 1,860. In 1880 there were over 1,000 Christians in Brass and in 1883 the figures stood at 1,199 for Brass, out of 2,261 for the Mission. And it should be noted that a large propor-tion of Christians in the rest of the Niger Mission were educated Africans employed as agents by trading companies or trading on their own account. With numerical growth went liberality in giving and enthusiasm for the spread of the Gospel to the interior. Their liberality had no parallel in Nigeria between 1876 and 1886. A chief had by 1877 donated an oak pulpit valued at £38, another a reading desk worth £6 15s. On one occasion chiefs were reported as donating £480, £120, and £80

The missionary factor in Brass, 1875-1900

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individually and ‘unostentatiously’.10 In 1885 and 1886 two iron churches valued at nearly £2,500 were imported from England for Tuwon and Nembe. Nor did their Christianity seem nominal. In his most unfavourable report on the remaining stations of the Niger Mission in 1880, J.B.Wood had good things to say of the Brass converts: ‘All the chiefs—the masters of nearly all people—have in the good providence of God, come under Christian influences; and the Word would seem to have come to them and been heard by them as the Word of God, and not of man’.11 He also noticed that they were missionaries in the interior markets, ‘not hiding their light under the bushel’. Cardi, for a long time a trader in the Delta and one whose knowledge of Brass was unrivalled, commented that Brass women converts ‘were thoroughly imbued with the Christian religion and acted up to its teaching as conscientiously as their white sisters’.12 Then, lastly, Bishop Crowther described Chief Samuel Sambo, who died in 1890, as ‘a very pious, consistent, influential, and exemplary member of that church (Tuwon)’.13 Of no other Christian groups in Nigeria could and were such glowing reports given in the years under review. Stupefied by ‘the marvellous movement in Brass and Bonny’, the success of these stations was publicized by the Church Missionary Society to its subscribers. Because of ‘these remarkable movements towards Christianity which we witness in the Delta especially and on the Niger’, it was contended, the Niger Mission constituted ‘a most important sphere’ which must be controlled ultimately by European missionaries.14 Not only were Brassmen exemplary Christians, when compared with other Christian Nigerian groups but, in the observation of several people, they were also better Christians than the European and African employees of the Royal Niger Company. Wood and Ashcroft, European agents of the CMS, had very unfavourable views of the European staff of the Niger Company, whom they contrasted with the Brass.15 In 1885 Archdeacon Hamilton, Secretary of the Niger Mission, was displeased with the white officials ‘whose whole life, manner and conversation is totally opposed to the principles of the CMS’, while Bishop Crowther found it difficult to understand their religious persuasion, ‘whether Atheism, Infidelity, Freethinking, or Mormonism’.16 In juxtaposition to this irreligious exhibition of the European employees of the Niger Company was the religious energy of Brassmen, whose improvised chapels dotted the Niger from the coast to Onitsha. An educated African who deplored the Brassmen’s ‘ruinous competition’ in the Niger trade had the following testimony to give of their Christianity: one thing, however, may be justly said to their credit. They never traded on the Lord’s day, and wherever there was a church, both masters and dependents would attend it on Sunday and worship God like good Christians. They were never ashamed to avow their religious convictions, as alas! many, far more civilized and enlightened too often are.17 In the meantime the ambition of the Niger Company to monopolize all trade in the traditional markets of the Brass had begun to threaten the latter’s security. Gradually they were being deprived of their markets. As early as 1884 they had expressed their apprehensions about the Niger Company and had refused to sign a treaty of ‘protection’ with the British unless Consul Hewett would promise to restore their markets. All Hewett could wrench from them was a treaty for six months only. It was not until 1886 that they


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finally ‘signed’ a permanent treaty, and that after vague promises had been given to calm their fears.18 Since they were ‘good natured’, they did not insist, as other Delta States did, that trade should not be free for all, Europeans and Africans. They made it clear that all they desired was unrestricted access to their former markets, on equal terms with the Company. Trouble began when the Niger Company began to issue discriminatory regulations in the name of the Royal Charter. Their position began to deteriorate. Naturally this began to affect the Church. For a year or so no great difference was observed, until 1888 when territorial incursion by the Company upon the immediate hinterland of the Brassmen actually began. Gradually, and at last decisively, the power of the Charter was felt in the Brass country. Their markets were curtailed until in 1895, as an educated Brassman put it, the Company also ‘asserted that all creeks four miles off are within its territorial boundary.’19 The effect of this frontier was to divide the Brass people into two. In order to make the split effective the Company forbade the Brassmen within its territory from exporting any provisions to their fellow tribesmen on the coast and hounded those who violated this regulation into its prison in Asaba! It appeared to the Brass people that the Company was determined ‘to extirpate a whole tribe by torture—slow death—or starvation’.20 From 1888 onwards the Church declined. Discontent and open grumbling took the place of former enthusiasm. The statistics of the Christians speak for themselves. From over 1,000 the number fell sharply to 305 in 1888, 268 in 1889, 192 in the following year, and 128 in 1891.21 As far as Brassmen were concerned, their débâcle was the creation of Crowther as well as of Goldie. They began to complain that Bishop Crowther was responsible for the spoiling of their trade and that therefore they would have nothing to do with the Church any longer. They believed that missionaries could, and should, restore their markets to them. They could not make any distinction between the missionaries and the Company. As they expressed it: ‘You be all white people, you missionary preach one thing and the Company do the other’.22 The Brassmen began to assess the Niger Company in terms of Christian ethics and expected their erstwhile Christian teachers to do the same. In their view it was inconceivable that Christian Britain should ever tolerate such an embodiment of ‘iniquity, oppression, and injustice’ as the Niger Company. They asked the following questions. How could the Company justify its administration when it had no provision for the education of the people over whom it claimed it was ruling? Why was it that the Company made no provision for the edification of the souls of its servants, which provision, they contended, would have prevented ‘the prevalence of the most terrible and flagitious crimes almost daily perpetrated by them?’ Furthermore: ‘Politically, it (the Company) is no government. Can that be a true and real government which has no court of justice with adequate working staff? Can a judge and his clerk practically two persons who are more or less at the mercy of the R.N. Company form a court of justice?’23 It was logical that the Brassmen should expect the CMS to help them against the Company perpetrating acts they had been taught to regard as unchristian. They appealed to missionaries from time to time. By 1889 their suffering was becoming really serious. The (African) missionary in Brass observed that the people were crying omong, that is ‘hunger’. ‘We dare not go to markets nowadays’, they grumbled. ‘We have no food to eat


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and how shall we go to church? Go and bring us bags of rice to eat, and we shall come to church. We are perishing with hunger, do try and help us’.24 Their plight and importunity produced no modicum of support from the CMS and its missionaries. Salisbury Square had the opportunity of presenting the case of these hitherto zealous Christians to Macdonald, when in 1889 the latter went out to sound the people of the Niger Delta on what form of government they would like to have, whether to be under the Niger Company or under a separate administration. Whilst Bishop Crowther argued the cause of the educated Africans, he lifted no finger to present the case of the Brass Christians. Robinson, a European missionary, and ‘a great advocate of the Co.’,25 spent many hours with Macdonald marshalling ‘very strong’ arguments in defence of the Company against its enemies, including the Brassmen. It was about this time that the ‘pagan’ party in Brass which was reviving, asked their new king, Frederick Koko, to stop going to church and assume the headship of the national ‘juju’. At first Chief Koko, a Sunday school teacher, refused to do so, hoping that the missionaries would help Brass out of its economic crisis.26 A few months afterwards, the Bishop, the new Secretary of the Niger Mission (F.N. Eden), and Archdeacon D.C.Crowther went to Brass to remonstrate with them to return to the worship of the Christian God. As usual they put their economic grievances before missionaries. Their answer was both tactless and unsympathetic. As the Bishop reported, ‘to this (economic difficulty) we gave a very suitable answer, to pray to God who could remove the difficulties in His own good time and way, which no false gods can do’.27 A week after this visit, that is on 28 April 1890, Koko went back to ‘juju’, chalked over himself, and took a second wife. In 1891, when the Niger Delta churches became independent of CMS in protest against the treatment meted to Bishop Crowther by the Society, the Brassmen listened to the appeals of the European missionaries, that if they stood by the Society the latter would win for them their pristine prosperity.28 It was an appeal they would not resist. But notwithstanding this demonstration of loyalty to the Society in what was regarded by the latter as a big crisis in its history, the Society did not follow up the promise by its missionaries. By 1893 the Brassmen were sour and disillusioned. As a missionary said: On every side you see the large and important ‘European looking’ houses of the chiefs, now very much dilapidated and seedy in appearance. The streets of the town are filthy and the people are apparently as careless and indifferent to better influences as they are slovenly and dirty in habits. A foreigner, black or white, has no kind of reception here, but is treated with marked coldness and disrespect.29 It is in one sense in the neglect of the Brassmen’s cause by the CMS that the Akassa Raid of January 1895 had its origins, and Major Claude Macdonald, the first High Commissioner of the Oil Rivers (later the Niger Coast Protectorate), was right in ascribing responsibility to the Society.30 Like all the enemies of the Company, Macdonald believed that the CMS was in a position to help the Brass people. Even after the Raid he appealed to the Society, through Bishop Herbert Tugwell, Bishop of Western Equatorial Africa, saying ‘I am sure a word from the Church Missionary Society, who are powerful at home, will materially assist their [the Brassmen’s] cause’.31 To win over the


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Society, the Liverpool merchants, allies of Brassmen against the Company, gave annually from 1888 £200 to maintain evangelists in the Niger Delta and in 1893 gave £500 to the CMS for an industrial school where the natives would learn carpentry, medicine, and other technical subjects. They even promised that if allowed to trade freely on the Niger they would abandon trade in liquor, the chief point the CMS had against the Liverpool merchants.32 But these sops could not move the Church Missionary Society to oppose the Niger Company, which was ruining missionary enterprise in the Brass country. To have helped the Liverpool traders would have meant injuring the Niger Company. To make the situation worse the Society neglected the Brass loyalists. This neglect was a godsend to the ‘pagan’ party. In Abonnema, in the same Ijaw district of Brass, the people asked the Commissioner to remove the church from their town.33 Macdonald threatened to blow up their town if the Christians were attacked but cabled to Salisbury Square urging that agents be sent at once and used the occasion to draw attention to the economic grievances of the Brassmen. He advised the Society to send a ‘head’ and provide financial help in order to prevent the self-extinction of the Mission, for ‘the Brassmen are a stiff-necked generation and inclined to be turbulent: their trade has been taken away from them and consequently there are many idle hands on the look-out for mischief’.34 The Brassmen indicated their aversion to the CMS by withdrawing their children to the French Roman Catholic schools in Onitsha and Asaba.35 It was in the absence of the CMS agent that the Brassmen planned and effected an attack on Akassa. As Macdonald truly observed, had the CMS not neglected the Brass, and their agent remained at his post, it is unlikely that the Akassa Raid would have taken place. The ‘revenge of the Brassmen’, as the historian of the Royal Niger Company has described the raid,36 produced a belated heart-searching in Bishop Tugwell, who hastened to the spot. He urged ‘most emphatically’ that the CMS should support Macdonald in demanding that the whole territory from Onitsha downwards should be made one administrative and fiscal unit.37 This would allow the Brassmen to have access to their old markets on an equal basis with all the other traders. To this appeal the Society sent a severe admonition to the sympathizers of the Brassmen, and sent a letter of congratulations to the Company on the successful bombardment of Brass towns!38 Why did Salisbury Square take this extraordinary step? Why did it appear that the Society was sacrificing its missionary interests in order to protect a company that seemed, to contemporary observers, ruthless? Why did the CMS ignore the Brassmen? These questions cannot be fully answered here. It suffices to say that, unknown to many of the Society’s critics, Goldie succeeded in bamboozling the CMS into believing that the Royal Niger Company was a humanitarian organization working in the best interest of the inhabitants of the Niger Territories. For Goldie had convinced the Society that his company was the greatest foe of the liquor trade, regarded by the CMS in the last years of the nineteenth and in the first decade of this century as the greatest evil neutralizing the work of Christian missions in Africa.39 In contrast the Brassmen and the Liverpool traders were alike traffickers in this baneful commodity and therefore, contended the Society, the enemies of the true interest of the Delta peoples! Macdonald, too, was regarded as an enemy of the people over whom he was ruling because he derived his revenue largely from tax on liquor.


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It is in this context that the CMS support for Goldie against the Brass traders should be understood. Since the Christianity of the latter rested on the liquor traffic, the CMS could no longer regard them as true Christians. The Lagos Government and the Niger Coast Protectorate, both of whom were contending that trade in liquor was inevitable, were condemned by the Society as being responsible ‘in some degree for the attack of the lawless Brassmen’.40 One of the causes of the Akassa Raid, said Salisbury Square, was ‘the repressive measures initiated by the Company against contraband spirits’.41 Ignoring the grievances of Brassmen as reported by Sir John Kirk, who had been appointed to examine the causes of the raid, the Society fixed the blame on Macdonald, commenting that the Kirk Report ‘constitutes a very strong indictment against the administration of the Niger Coast Protectorate, besides throwing light on a condition of affairs prolific of disorder and discreditable to British prestige’.42 Meanwhile, the erstwhile Christian Brassmen remained unreconciled. While in 1901 the African Assistant Bishop, James Johnson, in charge of the Delta churches, went to Brass to revive the people’s interest in the Christian Church, he discovered that the soil was ‘very hard’. The people’s grievances against the white man’s faith remained. In the Bishop’s experience ‘To make new converts from Heathenism to Christianity has been no light a task and more so the work of winning back any of these who have backslidden from the faith’.43 NOTES 1 H.H.Johnston, The Story of My Life, London, 1923, p. 200. 2 A.Tepowa, ‘The History of Brass and its people’, West African Mail, 8/4/1904. 3 Comte de Cardi, Appendix I in M.Kingsley, West African Studies, London, 1899, p. 470. 4 CMS Archives, London, CA3/022, W.F.John, Journals, 21/9/1874. 5 CMS CA3/04(b), Garrick to Bishop Crowther, 29/12/1879. 6 Ibid. 7 CMS G3/A3/03, Bishop Crowther to R.Lang, 30/11/1885. 8 CMS CA3/023, H.Johnson to Hutchinson, 14/12/1877. 9 Ibid. 10 CMS G3/A3/08, The Brass Church, a short history by H.Proctor. 11 CMS G3/A3/01, Report of a visit to the Niger Mission by J.B.Wood. 12 Comte de Cardi, p. 478. 13 CMS G3/A3/04, Bishop Crowther to R.Lang, 16/5/1890. 14 CMS G3/A3/L2, R.Lang to E.T.Phillips, 12/4/1883. 15 Ibid., E.Stock to E.T.Phillips, 3/5/1883, and R.Lang to E.T. Phillips, 12/1/1885. 16 CMS G3/A3/02, John Burness to R.Lang, 12/1/1885, quotes Hamilton; and CA3/04(b), Annual Report for 1875. 17 Lagos Times, 22/3/1882. 18 C. 7977, Report by Sir John Kirk on the Disturbances at Brass, p. 7. 19 ‘Zala Native’, ‘The Brass grievances against the R.N.C.’, Lagos Weekly Record, 30/3/1895. 20 Ibid. 21 CMS G3/A3/04, Bennet to Lang, 3/11/1891. 22 CMS G3/A3/06, Henry Proctor to Baylis, 19/8/1895. 23 Lagos Weekly Record 30/3/1895. 24 CMS G3/A3/04, Samuel Peters to R.Lang, 11/5/1889. 25 CMS, The Brooke Papers Journals, 1/5/1889. 26 CMS G3/A3/04, F.W.Koko to Archdeacon Crowther, 25/4/1889.


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27 Ibid., Bishop Crowther to R.Lang, 16/5/1890. 28 Ibid., Bennet to R.Lang, 23/10/1891. 29 CMS G3/A3/05, H.H.Dobinson to Baylis, 18/8/1893. 30 FO 2/83, Macdonald to Foreign Office, 4/2/1895. 31 CMS G3/A2/06, Macdonald to Tugwell, 14/6/1895. 32 CMS, The Brooke Papers, Journals, 7/2/1890. 33 FO 2/64, Macdonald to FO, forwarding his letter dated 10/3/1894 to CMS. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 J.E.Flint, Sir George Goldie and the Making of Nigeria, London, 1960. 37 CMS G3/A3/07, Bishop Tugwell to F.Baylis, 17/6/1895. 38 Yoruba and Niger Notes, London, March 1895. 39 See chapter 6. 40 Church Missionary Intelligencer, April 1895, pp. 287 ff. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid., June 1896, pp. 433–434. 43 CMS G3/A3/09, James Johnson to Baylis, February 1902.

10 The Phenomenon of Visionary Nationalists in Pre-Colonial Nigeria1 For a long time, until the different parts of the British Empire began to assert independence, the focus and context of imperial studies were basically metropolisoriented. This orientation was in perfect consonance and harmony with the concept of the empire which saw Britain as the parent and the other parts as offspring, and which saw British laws, norms, cultural heritage, and thought patterns as the models which her offspring should seek to copy. In such an empire it would be heretical to contemplate a different or separatist identity, much less preach a new-fangled credo of nationalism. This concept of the British Empire which unified under one crown diverse peoples and cultures scattered all over the terrestrial globe, disregarded race and colour. Hence in nineteenth century West Africa the subjects of the crown were encouraged by their British political and social mentors to know and imitate the British model in matters of religion, laws, constitution, government, and ways of life. This is the explanation for the picture of the educated elite of the prescramble era which has emerged from the studies done so far2—a picture that reveals the hybridized elite as protégés of the British, as veritable agents and instruments of British cultural, religious, intellectual, political, and economic manifestations. Quite rightly, too, this picture also exposes the political, cultural, social, and religious differences between the educated elite and the unlettered indigenous Africans. And yet, as scholars who have examined the reaction of subject peoples to the imperial metropolis have discovered, there never was a time when subject peoples did not manifest the spirit of self-identity. Paradoxical though it may seem, this spirit of self-identity was not in fact incompatible with loyalty to the British Empire. To return to the tiny pre-scramble educated elite in Nigeria, much as the picture of them wearing the toga of British imperialism is substantially authentic, it ignores the fact that they were also purveyors of the concept of Nigeria for the Nigerians. This peculiar set of semi-Nigerians would have been less than human if they had completely transformed themselves into Britishers or become totally unconscious of, or unaffected by, their Nigerian origins. They were not unaware that in the Nigerian territory they were a separate and new class with a distinct identity and with stakes, hopes, and visions different from those being nurtured by their British mentors. The truth of the matter is that from the early days, though they were not organized into a collective movement, they were individually conscious that they were a group different from their British mentors, no less than they were aware of their differences with their unlettered countrymen who would not follow these Saro (as the emigrants from Sierra Leone and their descendants were called) to spiritual or mental or cultural exile. Thus while they had received Christianity from the white man, they saw no reason why he


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should not begin to relinquish to them leadership of the Church within a generation. The elite began to clamour that it was their duty to propagate Christianity in their own country. Thus while they expected the British to launch the Westminster-style of parliamentary government, they did not wish that Nigerian participation should be of a nominal or advisory capacity, or that the legislative chamber should be numerically or effectively dominated by representatives of British interests in Nigeria.3 While they were delighted at the establishment of a British form of civil service in Nigeria, the educated elite believed that this institution should be more Nigerian than British.4 While they approved of increased trade between Nigeria and the wider world, particularly Europe, the elite leadership hoped that Nigerian participation would be primary and greater than that of the Europeans.5 The instincts of independence and self-preservation exhi-bited by the educated elite before the British imposed colonial rule on Nigeria were real and constituted an embarrassment to their mentors. In Church and State British representatives were literally stupefied by the extraordinary phenomenon of a first generation elite, barely ‘civilized’, assuming that they were already ‘civilized’ and irritatingly impatient to run before they could walk. As early as 1863 Governor Freeman had quoted for the British government the ‘Africa for the Africans’ motto of the elite leaders in Nigeria, leaders ‘who would rejoice to see their benefactors and supporters, the English, either swept from the coast or subjected to the dominion of the blacks’.6 By 1885 the white man’s informal but imperial presence in Church and State was to the educated elite a ‘yoke’ of which many wished Nigeria to be relieved.7 In the language of an anguished CMS white missionary: There is amongst some of the most prominent and influential natives of this Coast a strong and frequently expressed feeling that Africa should be for the Africans. They desire that Africa should rise: in which desire they will have the sympathy and best wishes of every right thinking person. They would go farther and say, Give us the means of raising her and leave the rest with us. With such persons the presence of the white man in the country is only partially welcome. They think there is little, if any need of his assistance in Christianizing and Civilizing Africa.8 How did these double-faced semi-Nigerians, in a sense a part and agents of European imperialism in Nigeria, come to have a vision of, and demand, independence for Nigeria? It was natural that such a distinct class should desire a distinct identity. In a way that the creoles of Sierra Leone Colony were never to claim, the Nigerian elite were imbued with the conviction that Nigeria was their country, the fatherland of their Saro parents or of themselves, where they were among, or in close proximity to, their kith and kin. With this conviction they were not absolutely alienated from their unlettered countrymen. But they assumed that the latter, the vast majority, required their leadership on issues concerning the transformation which the future Nigeria needed; they felt also that their unlettered countrymen should be guided by them, the educated elite, against the imperial ambitions of the British. Their envisioned Nigeria was one in which Christianity would flourish to the point of displacing African Traditional Religion and Islam, in which literary education would leaven society, and government be administered in the light of ideas and concepts borrowed from the white man’s world. In its economic aspect their ideal State

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would emphasize intensified international trade and encourage cash crops, adopt European technology, and make the English language the lingua franca. How did the educated elite acquire the conviction and confidence that they were qualified to be leaders in precolonial Nigeria? By far the biggest fountain of their ideas, aspirations, and vision was Christianity. The ideological potential and appeal of Christianity were to the educated elite beyond dispute. As conceived by the semiNigerians, this religion was to bring salvation, greatness, prosperity, stability, and happiness to Nigerians; it was the prime mover of the economic, technological, and scientific revolution that should occur in Nigeria. Christianity was the ultimate and final religion of humanity, the lever which lifted mankind to the peak of material, social, moral, and political achievement.9 The nationalist message in, and ethical laws prescribed by, the Bible could not but shape the pattern of thinking and attitude of the elite to their white mentors. For taking their weapons from the arsenal of utopianism, proclaiming the racial and cultural neutralism of Christianity, the equality of peoples and Providence’s countenance of the observance of moral and social virtues, the educated elite demanded the application of these prescriptions to the relations between themselves and the British. In this respect the tension unleashed by the contradiction between the behaviour of missionaries and scriptural instructions is to be understood. But Christianity inculcates other notions as well—concepts of the nation-state, of the status of the individual in society, of government, and of the source and use of power and authority, of obedience, citizenship, and the rights of the individual. Little wonder that a Nigerian disseminator of Christianity declared on 20 September 1891, ‘Christianity in itself was in its origin and entirety the grandest and greatest revolution that has ever affected humanity’.10 Another source of inspiration to the elite, particularly in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, was the Englishman Henry Venn, Secretary of the Church Missionary Society from 1842 to 1872, who, far away in Britain, perceived the nationalist message of Christianity and the sense of national or racial identity which the planting of the Church in Africa was bound to have. His scheme for the ‘euthanasia’ of missions certainly went a long way to instil in the elite leadership in Nigeria the hope that religious and ecclesiastical independence for Africans was only a matter of time, a time that was expected to be short and which many interpreted in the apostolic Pauline sense, according to which Paul merely sowed the seeds and left their germination and nurture to the ‘God of missions’, refusing to be director and controller of the churches he founded. Moreover Henry Venn went a long way to give many of the Nigerian elite the sense that the destiny of Nigeria would be in their hands once they surrendered themselves to be groomed as church leaders, teachers, clerks, cotton-ginners, traders, and artisans. Hence the reverence with which such men as Bishop Ajayi Crowther, James Johnson, Henry Robbin, J.A.Otunba Payne, Captain J.P.L.Davies, and Dr J.B.Horton regarded this uncommonly clairvoyant and unstintedly benevolent patron of Africans. One other source of nationalist inspiration was the political message conveyed by western literature. No one familiar with the liberal education which the leaders of thought in nineteenth century Nigeria acquired, largely through avid reading, can fail to perceive the impact on them of examples of other patriotic and nationalist movements in history. The Protestant Reformation, the War of American Independence, the French Revolution, and the forcible unification of Italy and Germany in the nineteenth century were events which influenced many before the end of the century to expect pentecostally a


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‘revolution’ that would usher in the Nigeria of their dreams. A streak of millenarism was to be found among a few ardent Christians who gave a totally subjective interpretation to ‘Ethiopia stretching forth her hands unto God’.11 The elite who dreamed of a Utopian Nigeria under their control were for a while oblivious of the major and funda-mental differences between themselves and their white mentors on the one hand, and between themselves and their unlettered countrymen on the other. In their view, by the eve of British colonial rule they had much to be proud of in empirical data which seemed to confirm their illusions and buoy up their hopes about the realism of their vision. Although numbering no more than a few thousands in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, they had produced leaders in various walks of life who would do credit to Africa. In medical science Dr Nathaniel King, an Ẹgba, was to serve the Lagos community until his death in 1885. By 1900 Drs Obadiah Johnson, J.Lumpkins, Oguntọla Sapara, J.K.Randle, and Ọbasa had been for years practising in Lagos or serving in government hospitals. Many of their clients were non-Africans and three of them served as consultants to European firms. There were no less than a dozen university graduates at the end of the century. As early as 1878 Isaac Oluwọle, later assistant bishop, had graduated from Fourah Bay College, and in 1885 Henry Rawlinson Carr, also a Fourah Bay graduate and a distinguished educationalist, began to tutor in the CMS Grammar School, Lagos. For the greater part of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the CMS Grammar School and Methodist Boys’ High School were headed by Nigerians. In the legal and engineering professions such men as Sapara Williams and Herbert Macaulay (respectively) were professionally qualified, while in the civil service J.A.Otunba Payne, Nash H.Williams, and the Willoughbies were respectable highcalibre people. Even in commerce a number of educated Africans held their own. Henry Robbin of Abẹokuta was nicknamed ‘Olowo Ake’ (the rich man of Ake), while Richard Beales Blaize was one of the wealthiest men in West Africa. Not that the educated elite believed that they were already ripe for political independence in the 1880s. They knew quite well that the number of Nigerian experts in the various walks of life was still very small and that the Nigeria of their dream was a remote possibility. As one newspaper put it: We are not clamouring for immediate independence, for the sufficient reason that we are not prepared for it; but it should always be borne in mind that the present order of things will not last for ever. A time will come when the British colonies on the West Coast of Africa, Lagos included, will be left to regulate their own internal and external affairs.12 However, the essential point is that they had a vision of political independence for West Africa in general; Thomas Paine’s principles of ‘the Rights of Man’ had been appreciated as early as 1882, and the American Revolution had acquired special meaning for them. As a newspaper editorialized: ‘The principles which led, for example, to the declaration of American independence are eternal. They lie at the very root of human nature, and are as powerful in the Negro as in any of the other great families of man’.13 Indeed by the early eighties demand was made for ‘Native Houses of Assembly’, with members elected by universal suffrage.14


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In the Church the elite had the greatest talent, and recorded achievements which made them ask for religious independence in the eighties. For nearly a quarter of a century Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther was the overseer of a mission which had the greatest thrust of any into the interior of West Africa, and numbered among its adherents martyrs for the Christian cause. In the Anglican Church no white bishop with his seat in Nigeria was to be appointed before 1894. And though Henry Johnson and Dandeson Coates Crowther were made archdeacons in 1878, there was no white archdeacon appointed for Nigeria until 1885. Indeed for the rest of the century other Nigerians in the Anglican Church—‘half’ (assistant) bishops Isaac Oluwọle, Charles Phillips, and James Johnson— were to hold positions which made them ecclesiastical superiors of whites. In a less spectacular way, educated Africans in other missions throughout Southern Nigeria were gaining leadership in the Church. In Lagos and the interior, Africans were appointed district superintendents by the Methodists, and the rules of the congregation alist Baptists made participation in government by the members obligatory. The belief that independence in Church affairs must prepare the way for secular independence was held by several educated Africans in nineteenth century West Africa. Independence in religious affairs, it was felt, must be around the corner. In the belief that by 1900 enough personnel had been produced, British tutelage in Church affairs came to be regarded more as a liability than as an asset. The elite eagerly looked forward to the period when the Church ‘would become thoroughly African—purely Native without foreign admixture or control—supporting itself and with a purely Native ministry, directing its own affairs’.15 They believed that demonstration of ability to rule themselves in the Church was a sine qua non to the path to political independence: ‘The people who are incompetent to sit as rulers in their own spiritual affairs can scarcely be said to be qualified to sit as Civil Legislators’.16 The vision of complete independence in the Church and a great measure of independence in the State entertained by the leaders of the educated elite in Nigeria before the partition was wild, fantastic, and blatantly quixotic. There was nothing in the Nigerian milieu to encourage their vision. They were a myopic people who, though they had eyes, could not perceive. For had they descended to the earth from their dreamland they would have seen that their demand for independence in the Church never received the blessing of their white mentors, and that their hopes for unimpeded advancement in the civil service and for leadership of the unlettered majority were entirely lacking in validity or legitimacy. Certainly the patterns of thinking of white missionaries and those of the unlettered masses were totally different from the pattern of thinking of the presumptuous elite. The white missionaries in nineteenth century Nigeria were much less imaginative than their Nigerian wards, who judged their masters by what the Bible said and by what Christianity was believed to prescribe. Whereas people like Henry Venn and Afrophile philanthropists in Britain laid much store by the educated elite and the crucial significance they should have for Africa in general, the missionaries in West Africa conceived of no day when the educated elite would be absolutely on their own without the guidance of the white man. These missionaries could not see how ‘Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization’ could be firmly or widely established in West Africa except in the remote future. And with the qualities being evinced by Africans they were not convinced that the educated elite would be the people to establish this trinity of the C’s.


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For they failed to see in their wards genuine Christians who could safely be left alone, and much less be the exclusive agency for the spread of Christianity. Hence the low view in which the Saro were held by white traders, secular officers, and missionaries; hence the amazement, if not shock, of the local missionaries when the educated elite began to take initiatives in educational and evangelistic affairs without first obtaining clearance and guidance from their white mentors;17 hence also the opposition of the missionaries to the policies initiated by headquarters to devolve power and authority on the Nigerian converts.18 The views of white missionaries concerning the educated elite were closer to those of such pseudo-anthropologists as R.F.Burton, T.J.Hutchinson, and Winwood Reade than to those of the mission headquarters and Exeter Hall. As the head of the CMS in Lagos felt compelled to protest to headquarters in 1885: The African has been petted and spoiled and told that he is so good, that he greatly believes it even when he is living in gross immorality. There are many sad cases here in Lagos, such as would startle the friends of Missions. Don’t increase our difficulties by proclaiming the goodness of this wicked place.19 Thus, forty-six years after the Wesleyan Mission had been established in Yorubaland and an impressive number of native clergy had been raised up, the Reverend T.J.Halligey, Superintendent of the Mission, could write of the clergy in 1888: To them [Africans] the ministry is a respectable profession—not a Divine call. This new Yoruba Mission will not be worth much until Europeans can labour there. After all my experience on this coast my deliberate conviction is that if Africa’s evangelization is to wait for Africa’s sons—I refer only to the West Coast—the millennium will have to be indefinitely postponed. Alas! that it should be so, but so it is. West Africa has not yet produced her Apostle.20 Or, as another missionary wrote of the African agents of the Church Missionary Society on the Niger: One cannot help feeling…whether, with the majority of the agents, conversion of heart has ever taken place; and whether they are not actuated by the lowest motives…a Christianity which lives only on the lips, and has no place in the life is only a mockery, and not that which can be propagated for the good of men.21 The missionaries did not look on themselves as did the Apostle Paul. By 1902 only one of them—the Reverend S. G.Pinnock of the Southern American Baptist Mission, rejoiced ‘at the independence manifested by the Churches, when Episcopal authority, Methodist Prerogative, or Baptist lordship seeks to deprive them [Nigerians] of their right to independence’.22 Rather, by far the majority of missionaries believed in lording it over God’s heritage. The visionary nationalists seemed to the missionaries as nothing more


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than adult children, who could not be expected to mature for a long time to come. A woman missionary writing of the Christian leaders in Lagos commented: The present generation will remain so, like some children who are pampered and spoilt and put forward before they have begun to learn control or self-discipline or self-denial or so remaining weak creatures all their lives. I get almost angry with the men here sometimes they are so babyish, there is nothing about them. Missionaries who regarded the Nigerian Christian leaders as ‘babyish’ could not be persuaded that they had any valid claim to lead the unlettered masses, nor did they recognize the nationalist message of the Christian religion. They consciously transplanted metropolitan versions of Christianity to Nigeria and were disinclined to recognize that there could be a Nigerian brand of Christianity or Church as valid as that of Europe or America. And whilst the missionaries knew that nation-states were being created in Europe and regarded forces such as liberalism and democracy as essentials in the march of contemporary European countries to ‘progress’, they saw no reason why, or how, these forces should apply in the milieu of contemporary Nigeria. The vision of most missionaries was inhibited by localism; they could not have nursed, nor have been expected to nurse, pan-Nigerian ideas. Many were prejudiced in favour of the sub-ethnic groups among whom they worked in the latter’s claims against rival neighbours. On the Niger the CMS con-sciously, though rightly, emphasized the conflict of interest of the Saro leaders and the unlettered masses. Just as the whites rejected their claims, so too did the unlettered mass of Nigerians refuse to recognize the vision and pretensions of the educated elite. Though the masses recognized that the colour of the skin tied them and the educated elite together, the illiterate developed different and uncomplimentary views of the semi-Nigerians. The unlettered masses regarded the educated elite as black people with white minds, displayed in their devotion to the white man’s religion, the white man’s clothes, the white man’s language, the white man’s mentality, and the white man’s marriage and burial customs. It was for this reason that in the interior the educated elite dared not assert leadership in the pre-colonial era; in Lagos and other coastal areas the educated elite would have been thrown out by the indigenous leaders as a danger to society and national interest but for the naval presence of Britain. In some parts of Southern Nigeria the educated elite were regarded as being as bad as the white man hence the refusal of the Ijẹbu and the Edo, for instance, to receive liberated Ijẹbu and Edo from Sierra Leone and the New World. The Ẹgba, the only people in the interior of Nigeria who were generous in welcoming returned ex-slaves or their offspring, had by 1891 regretted their acceptance of Saro leadership, seeing them as tools of British imperial intrusion into their fatherland. The leaders of the educated elite were not only visionary patriots but also bundles of contradiction. Thus while they professed adherence to the Christian religion and were ready to exert themselves on its behalf, many of them could not conquer the sentiments of sub-ethnocentrism. For example, although Mọjọla Agbebi recognized that Christianity ignores political frontiers and the ethnic label, and actually spread the gospel among several non-Yoruba peoples, yet he was a member of the Ekitiparapọ, one of the clannish


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Yoruba groups which intensified and prolonged the Kiriji War of 1877 to 1893. Many of the ‘nationalists’ were anything but pan-Nigerian or even pan-Yoruba in their activities. In Lagos, which was the chief base of their operation, the educated elite were divided into sub-tribal groups which stood for sectional, rather than pan-Yoruba, identity, and they never hesitated to work against one another. The Ẹgba and Ijẹbu ‘National Associations’ were dismayed by the activities of the ‘Yoruba National Association’, an organization of the Ọyọ Yoruba which consciously encouraged Governor J.H.Glover to seek a new route via Ondo into the interior at the expense of the economic and political interests of the Ẹgba and Ijẹbu. J.A.Otunba Payne was a disciple of James Johnson in the latter’s crusade for panAfrican independence in religious affairs and was keenly interested in chronicling the chief events of Yorubaland, but he had greater veneration for Queen Victoria than for any ruler in Nigeria. Richard Beale Blaize was the ownerfounder of Lagos Times in 1880, which in its early issues spoke of the virtues of self-government, and he refused to be a nominated member of the Legislative Council on the ground that he would prefer to be elected by the masses, but he had little in common with the unlettered people in Lagos and in the interior whose support he would have needed for election. Moreover, though a few of the educated elite appreciated the mystic significance and purposefulness of the traditional Ogboni freemasonry, most of them—J.A. Otunba Payne, C.A.Sapara Williams, J.B.Benjamin, Kitoyi Ajasa, C.J.George, Herbert Macaulay, to name a few examples—were British freemasons. Perhaps the best illustration of the dilemma in which the visionary patriots found themselves may be seen in the way in which George William Johnson attempted intermittently between 1866 and 1893 to give the Ẹgba a constitution that would create a centralized monarchical government. Like many of his co-visionaries he envisaged his kind leading Africans with alien ideas, and G.W.Johnson was a bumptious and presumptuous Saro. Born in 1828 in Sierra Leone he was a tailor, a profession he later abandoned for fluteplaying with the West African Squadron. In 1865 he settled himself in Abẹokuta, where he began to dream of a centralized Ẹgba State, with the Alake as the monarch to whom all other chiefs should be subordinate, and with the educated elite setting up a civil service. His grand vision was to create an ‘enlightened and Christian’ government which would receive the recognition of European powers, an administration in a sense similar to J.B.Horton’s for the Fanti, in which harmonious and effective partnership would be achieved by the ‘natural’ rulers and the educated elite. With greater foolhardiness than discretion the incorrigible ‘Reversible Johnson’—who had to reverse ineffective proclamations almost as soon as he made them—consistently put before apathetic, irritated, and unconcerned Ẹgba rulers and their people his model constitution prescribing an Alake holding a position similar to that of Queen Victoria. To this end in 1880, 1881, 1883, 1886 and 1892, he made proposals which altered the details but never the principles of his 1866 proposals. In 1881, for instance, he proposed a revised Board of Management on which the three religious groups—Christians, Muslims and ‘pagans’— would be represented. In 1883 he discarded this idea in favour of one in which revenue would be guaranteed to the Alake through the taxing of wealth—export duties on cotton and palm products. In 1892, when it was rather too late, he attempted to plead for greater recognition of the Oshiele, the Agura, and the Olowu—the three other Ọbas in Abẹokuta. However, in all his proposals the Alake remained the centre and the focus of power and authority at the expense of the other Ọbas and chiefs.


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Reversible Johnson’s vision and pretension were entirely lacking in reality and clearly unrelated to the facts of the situation in Ẹgbaland. The Alake in the circumstances of nineteenth-century Abẹokuta was a nonentity whose authority hardly went beyond the Ake quarters. Apart from the hundreds of chiefs who were masters in their own quarters and townships, there were the Olorogun (the warriors) and the Ogboni (civilian rulers) who arrogated importance to themselves and rivalled one another in the bid for supremacy. Largely because of this rivalry there was no Alake from 1869 to 1877 nor from 1881 to 1885. None of the Alakes from Okukenu to Oluwaji was respected by these powerful rivals. In 1863 Ogundipẹ, the uncrowned ruler of Abẹokuta until his death in 1887, scolded Alake Okukenu in the presence of British visitors. Ademọla, who reigned from 1877 to 1879, was no more than a protégé of Henry Robbin, a Saro. Oyekan, who succeeded Ademọla in 1879, was a penurious man with very little influence even in Ake quarters. Oluwaji, who ascended the throne in 1885, was never visited by the chiefs throughout his reign. The non-recognition, or relegation to a subordinate position, of the Ọbas—the Oshiele, the Agura and the Olowu—by Reversible Johnson was a great blunder for which this visionary paid dearly. In 1881 his fellow Owu stripped him, flogged him, and put him in chains.25 The Ọbas and chiefs did not fail to see that Johnson would run the government with Saro ex-slaves and outcasts, among whom he actually distributed the posts of secretary, chairman, treasurer, master of trade, inspector of nuisances, and court physician, retaining for himself the title Amọna Ọba, ‘king’s guide’, a position that would make him, son of a slave, head of government. But there were other reasons why Johnson’s vision and pan-Ẹgba patriotism could scarcely have been put into practical effect. There was the hostility of white missionaries which he had incurred since 1867 when the missionaries believed that he was the brain behind the Ifọle of that year, in which the white missionaries were expelled from Abẹokuta and their property was destroyed. By 1884 he had in the Reverend J.B.Wood, a ‘political’ missionary, more than a rival for the attention and hearing of Ẹgba rulers. Little wonder that Reversible Johnson was for Wood no more than ‘an upstart and a meddler’.26 Moreover Johnson did not obtain the support of the majority of the educated elite in Abẹokuta in his constitution-making effort. In fact the Christians regarded him as an enemy because it was they (as traders in cotton and palm products) whom he sought to tax with his revenue measures. To the chiefs Johnson was not a full-blooded Ẹgba but a jester and semi-crazy meddler with extravagant pretensions. From 1880 onwards, when he sought to introduce an Ẹgba national flag with the portrait of Queen Victoria on it, the chiefs saw Johnson as a tool of British imperialism in Ẹgbaland.27 Realizing that he had been quixotically charging at windmills, Johnson exiled himself to Lagos, where he died a disillusioned man. But by 1899 when Johnson had witnessed a reversal of his hopes, all the educated leaders of thought and dreamers like him had been shocked out of their illusions. People such as J.A.O.Otunba Payne, James Johnson, R.B. Blaize, J.B.Benjamin, G.A.Williams, J.H.Samuel, and Herbert Macaulay, all of whom at one time or the other had expected that independence in Church and State would be progressively and consciously given by their white mentors, and that the civil service would be Africanized, had begun to be disappointed as the ‘scramble’ acquired accelerated momentum. In commercial life the white man’s competition was so ruinous that such men as R.B.Blaize, J.J.Thomas, J. S.Leigh, J.P.Haastrup, and the Crowther


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brothers cried out against what they considered the unfair measures of white traders and companies, particularly the strangling monopoly of the Royal Niger Company.28 From 1887 onwards the big firms such as John Holt, G.L.Gaiser, Lagos Stores, McIvers, Witt and Busch began to assume a gargantuan prominence in Southern Nigeria at the expense of African entrepreneurs. In the Church practically all the missions reversed the policy of Nigerianization of the leadership that had existed for about a decade. Thus from 1877 onwards Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther was virtually superseded by white people until 1891, when he was hastened to the grave, partly by the cumulative hostility that had been built up against the colour of his skin. After his death no Nigerian was appointed Anglican Bishop until 1953. The Wesleyans were even less ceremonious in brushing aside their few African leaders, such men as J.H.Samuel and J.J.Thomas. The Baptists, who had never pretended that there should be Nigerian leaders of the Church, began to dismiss most of their African agents. As the American who conducted the purge recorded, without regret, in 1894: Any inquiry in regard to native workers in Africa is most uninteresting to me for I don’t take much stock in them… You know it has been my lot to dismiss more of them than all of the other missionaries on the field during the last five years and to appoint fewer of them to work for I have never appointed but one. I have very little hope of saving Africa with employed natives… You know that Europeans do not understand the Negro as we do.29 In the civil service not only were the hopes that educated Nigerians would be made heads of departments dashed to the ground in the eighties but the few such appointments that had been held earlier by Africans were filled by white successors with increased salaries. Although Dr Nathaniel King had once acted as colonial surgeon, Africans who qualified in medicine before 1888 were not even employed by the government. Gone were the days when Nash H.Williams acted as the crown prosecutor, when I.H.Willoughby was superintendent of police, when William Emmanuel Cole (one of the founders of the UNA Church) was the postmaster, and Henry Carr was an independent inspector of schools. By 1893 educated Africans who held positions of responsibility were either humiliated by having white masters put above them while they, the Africans, went on doing the job, or they were relieved of their posts entirely. Thus Henry Carr who was chief clerk, the last African to hold the post, was in 1893 relieved of this post and given another assignment. E.H.Oke, head of the Prison Department, a man of considerable experience who had been sent abroad for training, continued to be paid a salary of £72 per year, while a white man described as ‘Gaoler’ was appointed at a salary of £250 per year. Herbert Macaulay, sent abroad to qualify as a civil engineer, was given the grand title of surveyor of crown lands in the public works department on a salary of £90 a year, raised with difficulty to £120 per annum, whilst unqualified European ‘foremen’ were being paid much higher salaries.30 Seen in the context of these experiences, it is clear that by the 1890s it was foolhardy for educated leaders to contine to entertain any vision of self-government. In both Church and State the imperialist forces of European powers had been unleashed by the partition; and they were forces against which it was absolutely useless to contend. The writing on


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the wall was clear: the independence of the myriads of states and kingdoms, which were to be welded into Nigeria, were to be crushed by the British imperial Juggernaut. Indeed by 1890 the ‘scramble’ had more or less been accepted by the visionaries as an inevitable event. In relation to this their double loyalties were clearly exposed. Wedded to British thought patterns, literary educational system, styles of dress, language, marriage customs and so on, they believed that should the choice of a colonial master be necessary the British were infinitely preferable to any other. To this end the elite consciously worked for the establish-ment of British imperial interests rather than those of any other European power. Thus when in 1888 the danger of a French protectorate treaty was held out to the Ẹgba elite in Lagos, they forgot their grievances against the British and sent deputations to Abẹokuta to persuade the rulers to reject France in favour of Britain,31 in a way reminiscent of the reaction of the Efiks of Calabar to the French a few years before. Not that the elite thought that the ideal situation was that the British should establish a colonial administration in Nigeria. What very many of them wanted was a British presence which would give strength and support to the ambitions of the elite. Thus very few educated Africans were happy at the way in which the British ‘pacified’ Nigeria with military expeditions brushing aside the traditional rulers. But there were great inconsistencies in their attitudes. Ideally they hoped that the British would effect the creation of the national State yet the educated elements had no precise criteria for defining the revolution. How many African officials, how many technicians, how many African traders, industrialists, teachers, or doctors could be deemed sufficient to create a self-sustaining, independent movement of modernization was a question which none seriously discussed. Few addressed themselves to the moral dilemma that the vision of the united Nigeria taking its place as a recognized entity in the ‘modern’ world could only be carried out at the expense of the unlettered majority, nor faced up to the fact that the traditional religion, the hundreds of political units, the ‘natural’ rulers such as Jaja, Ovarami, and the Emirs, must needs be crushed. Only the British and a colonial situation could have begun the partial implementation of the social and economic revolution the visionary nationalists envisaged for Nigeria. In this respect the observation made by a Nigerian lady debater on the ‘scramble’, in Lagos in 1885, was apposite: I maintain that the present efforts of European countries to acquire and increase their possessions and protectorates in Africa, and to develop their commercial interests therein, are calculated to be an advantage to Africa and the Negro Race generally. Firstly, because it is a civilizing agent; secondly, because it enriches the country; and lastly, but not the least, because it aids the propagation of Christianity…until such time [when Africans would be able to govern themselves], it is best to have foreign government and strangers to bring order and their improvements.32 The visionary nationalists were so undiscerning that they were taken by surprise that the leadership of an emerging Nigeria was assumed by the British missionaries, merchants, and secular officers at the expense of themselves. By the last decade of the nineteenth century the whites were convinced that the educated elite were unqualified and unworthy to be leaders of the emerging Nigeria. Contempt for this set of semi-Nigerians was very great indeed. The idea that gained ground, and which was translated into policy, was that


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the elite were useful only as a low calibre cadre in the literary and technical fields. Hence the horror of Governor Henry McCallum, that Nigerians were ever allowed to believe that they could become medical doctors. Africans in his view were gifted with ‘insufficient mental development’ for medicine and should never be expected to be trained beyond the status of apothecaries.33 The visionary nationalists were nothing more than ‘the trousered Africans with European veneer’, ‘half-educated mischief mongers and wretched clerks’.34 Even in the Ẹgba capital where the educated elite rallied round the chiefs and believed that they were offering leadership, the whites were unimpressed by their activities and pretensions. As McCallum described them, they were ‘a set of partially educated English-speaking native loafers who pose as advisors to the chiefs and fatten on the misrule of their employers’.35 White controllers in Church and State were convinced that the visionary nationalists had no sparks of patriotism and could not really be described as ‘nationalists’. This often repeated view stemmed from the sociological differences between the educated elite and the illiterate masses. The only way to begin to remove these differences, so it seemed to the British, was for the elite to be prepared to strain themselves financially by sponsoring projects and measures that would confer benefits on all sections of society. Thus in 1889 the white rulers in Lagos Colony were prepared to introduce a Municipal Council in Lagos, a measure which would have given the visionary nationalists an opportunity to begin to have some say in the administration of the island. But to the surprise of the British the scheme was opposed by nearly all the elite because it would involve payment of tax.36 In the same manner the educated elite in Lagos opposed measures suggested in 1895 to install street lights, and in 1897 to effect sanitation. As an irate Governor Carter observed with some justification: There is almost a total absence of public spirit amongst the wealthier natives of Lagos. Selfishness reigns supreme and nobody cares to benefit his neighbour… I have never disguised my opinion that it would be futile to grant a municipality to Lagos. I do not know a single native who would be likely to give his time or energy to the necessary work of such a scheme—as they knew it meant taxing themselves.37 The visionaries knew only too well that there would be a high financial cost for Nigeria to undergo the social, political, and economic revolution they envisaged. But not only would they not initiate the measures that would make a start for the revolution they advocated but they would support nothing that would make them, beneficiaries of ‘western civilization’, bear the burden of taxation. In this respect there was an element of truth in Bishop Tugwell’s denunciation of the educated elite as unpatriotic, in a confrontation with them in 1901: It is the spirit of the Patriot that we need. That is the spirit, the one great quality, which is wanted in Lagos… If it be asked where are we to look for the manifestation of this spirit? My answer is, to the Educated classes… Let it be clearly stated that it is the duty of the People and not of the Government to effect those Reforms… Direct Taxation is a product of civilisation based upon a spirit of Christian Patriotism.38


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Nevertheless despite their serious shortcomings the visionary nationalists achieved some measure of success. They continued to see themselves as Nigerian patriots and worthy leaders of the unlettered masses. They did not approve of the leadership of the country being seized by their white mentors. They believed that they should exert themselves financially and otherwise only in respect of institutions which they could own, control, and direct. In the circumstances they found the Church the only institution in which they could assert their claims to leadership. Consequently between 1888 and 1902 no less than eight independent African churches were founded in Southern Nigeria.39 Though, as has been pointed out by scholars, these African churches were not Africanized wholesale in matters of theology, liturgy, and the ‘non-essentials’ of Christianity, their nationalist significance in the early days should be appropriately recognized. The educated elite used these churches for psychological, political, cultural, and ideological purposes. Politically the independent Church became the only institution in which the elite leadership felt they could demonstrate their capacity for selfgovernment. Practically all leaders of thought subscribed to the ideology of independent African churches or a single African Church. Thus James Johnson was the ideological father of the African Church movement, just as J.A.Otunba Payne, Dr Obadiah Johnson, and others like them who stayed on in Western established churches, subscribed financially towards the establishment of some of the eight ‘African’ churches listed above. Dr Mọjọla Agbebi was a leader of the African Church movement, G.A.Williams, editor of the Lagos Standard for a number of years, was an ardent lay leader of the UNA. Indeed, ideologically, Mọjọla Agbebi came to the conclusion that true political independence must be preceded by true religious independence. ‘The start is rightly made when it commences with matters relating to the soul’, he proclaimed in 1892: When the soul is free, the intellect will be untrammelled…and the body fully emancipated…when no bench of foreign Bishops, no conclave of cardinals, lord over Christian Africa, when the Captain of Salvation, Jesus Christ himself leads the Ethiopian host, and our Christianity ceases to be London-ward and New York-ward, but Heavenward, then will there be an end to Privy Councils, Governors, Colonels, Annexations, Displacements, Partitions, Cessions and Coercions. Telegraph wires will be put to better uses and even Downing Street be absent in the political vocabulary of the West African native.40 The psychological value of the Church to the elite at the time their ambitions were being thwarted in colonial administration was aptly put by one of them in 1902. ‘In everything save religion, the black man is entirely in the hands and under the control of the white man as completely as the clay in the hands of the potter. In politics, business and in social intercourse, this statement has been verified and confirmed’.41 But it was not only within the Church that the elite visionaries were finding mental emancipation and recording substantial success. Culturally, in a manner and to an extent never since repeated by the Nigerian press, the newspapers—especially the Lagos Weekly Record and Lagos Standard—gave prominence to discussion of the values of Nigeria’s cultural heritage, its importance, and the denationalizing effects of European civilization upon Nigerian society. By 1902 the educated elite had discussed two major institutions


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thoroughly, and had come to the conclusion that Nigerians should prefer these institutions to alien ones. These were polygamy and indigenous secret societies, both of which they had become convinced were not incompatible with the practice of the Christianity of the Bible. Hints were also being made that other cultural values should be subjects for research. Apart from the attempts to chronicle local histories, the educated elite drew attention to the advisability, and urgency, of the study of the healing properties in local herbs. In 1896 the Reverend E.M.Lijadu of the CMS mission was bold enough to write a pamphlet entitled Yoruba Mythology (Ifa), drawing attention to the legitimacy and advantages of studies of African traditional religion. By 1900 a ‘Professor’, Abayọmi Cole, who established the Psychical Research Institute of West Africa in Lagos, could go to the extent of rating Yoruba religion as superior to Christianity, a rating that would have scandalized the Holy See and Lambeth Palace. ‘It appeals to the highest faculty of Man. Its standard of morality is the highest and purest, and it is the most suitable and natural for us as a Race, if we only understand it, and do not confuse it with the inventions of man!’42 Thus by 1900 European civilization had ceased to be exclusively worshipped by thoughtful educated people, who correspondingly began to appreciate the values of indigenous culture. In this sense, in practical terms, the visionary nationalists were the earliest exponents of the doctrine of African personality. NOTES 1 The term ‘Nigeria’ is used rather loosely to refer to the area that became a single political unit under the British. 2 See in particular J.Herskovits Kopytoff, A Preface to Modern Nigeria: the ‘Sierra Leonians’ in Yoruba 1830–1890, Madison, Wisconsin, 1965; Robert W.July, The Origins of Modern African Thought, London, 1968. 3 Lagos Times, 9/3/1881; Lagos Observer, 3/7/1886. 4 Lagos Times, 23/5/1883: Lagos Standard, 26/11/1902. 5 APS, Rhodes House, Oxford, James Johnson to Fox Bourne, 17/6/1893, Liverpool Courier, 23/9/1897. 6 CO 147/4, H.S.Freeman to Duke of Newcastle, 31/12/1863. 7 Church Missionary Society Archives, London (hereafter cited as CMS), CA2/01, A.Mann to Secretaries, 16/6/1882. 8 CMS G3/CA2/01, J.B.Wood to Secretaries, 27/9/1881. 9 Lagos Times, 9/11/1881, 28/12/1881. 10 Sierra Leone Weekly News, 5/3/1892. 11 For a full discussion of Ethiopianism see E.A.Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria 1842–1914: a political and social analysis, London, 1966, ch. 6. 12 Lagos Times, 9/3/1881. 13 Ibid., 10/5/1882. 14 Ibid., 14/6/1882. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 See E.A.Ayandele, Holy Johnson: Pioneer of African Nationalism, 1836–1917, London, 1970, pp. 88–91. 18 E.A.Ayandele, The Missionary Impact, pp. 189–91. 19 CMS G3/A2/03, J.H.Hamilton to R.Lang, 4/6/1885. 20 Methodist Mission Archives, London, T.J.Halligey to Osborne, 26/2/1888.


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21 CMS, G3/A3/02, T.Phillips to Lang, 11/1/1883. 22 S.G.Pinnock to Editor, Lagos Standard, 9 January in the issue of 22/1/1902. 23 CMS G3/A3/02, Miss Goodall to Lang, 6/8/1890. 24 See ‘Ẹgba Documents 1865–1934’ (University of Ibadan Library photostat), document dated 12/10/1881. 25 Lagos Times, 24/8/1881. 26 CMS CA2/04, J.B.Wood to Lang, 12/11/1885. 27 M.Holley, Voyage à Abeokuta, Lyons, 1881, pp. 23–31. 28 For a detailed discussion of the relations of the elite with the Royal Niger Company, see chapter 5. 29 Robertson Collections, C.C.Newton to Tupper, 15/6/1894. 30 Lagos Weekly Record, 21/10/1893. 31 CMS CA2/05, Wood to Lang, 15/5/1888. 32 African Times, 1/8/1885. 33 CO 147/113, Henry McCallum to Chamberlain, 12/5/1897. 34 Lagos Standard, 16/2/1898. 35 CO 147/132, McCallum to Chamberlain, 5/5/1898. 36 See Ayandele, Holy Johnson, pp. 183–6. 37 CO 147/100, Minute by G.T.Carter on Denton to Chamberlain, 10/8/1895. 38 CO 147/157, Address to the Lagos Institute by Herbert Tugwell, enclosed in Macgregor to Chamberlain, 21/9/1901. 39 The Native Baptist Church, April 1888; the Providence Christian Church (Baptist) formed Jan. 1891; the United Native African Church, Sept. 1891; the Delta Pastorate, April 1892; the Reverend Ladejo Stone Church (Baptist) assumed self-support 1899; the Bethel African Church, Oct. 1901; the African Shalom Church, 1901; the Yorubaland Episcopal Church of Christ the Saviour. 40 Sierra Leone Weekly News, 12/11/1892. 41 Lagos Standard, 5/3/1902. 42 Lagos Weekly Record, 15/12/1900.

11 The Colonial Church Question in Lagos Politics, 1905–1911 From its beginnings, British expansion overseas had its religious side: it was a spread of the Christian creed as well. Of greater interest, perhaps, is the fact that the organic link between Church and State, only partially demolished in the latter half of the Victorian era, was provided in some measure in those parts of the terrestrial globe such as Canada, Australasia, or South Africa to which British citizens transferred themselves permanently. But even in areas where the British established themselves merely as rulers—such as the West Indies and India—the Established Church was associated with the Colonial administration, usually in the form of a Colonial Church with a Bishop and a Colonial Chaplain as Government employees. In several ways, though in a peculiar fashion, British presence in West Africa presented the dualistic appearance of the secular and the spiritual. As early as the 1820s, there had been a Colonial Chaplain in Sierra Leone. In 1852, the first Bishop was appointed by the Colonial Office. In status, he was in some ways the compeer of the Governor. He was present on all important government occasions, just as the Governor was usually requested to participate in the opening, dedication, or laying of the foundation stones of churches and schools. His functions included ecclesiastical supervision of the Sierra Leone Diocese which until 1894 embraced all British West Africa. Both officially and in their personal capacities, administrative officers gave the Church a privileged position. As a rule, until the turn of the century, they were good churchmen, members of the same social class as the ecclesiastical leaders with whom they had not infrequently been colleagues in public schools of the Arnold type in which respect for, and allegiance to, the Established Church had been rammed into their heads. By the time they met overseas, as a one time CMS Secretary, Dr Max Warren, has testified, there was already in existence ‘an “old school tie” nexus between Missionary and District Officer, between Bishop and Governor, which undoubtedly served in many cases to create for the Church of England in the area concerned a privileged position.”1 In the thinking of administrators, religion was one of the pillars of Government supplying the highest motives to duty, and contributing materially towards making subjects virtuous, obedient, loyal, and easily governed. It is no surprise that Colonial Chaplaincies were established in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and the Gambia, apart from Colonial Gaols, Colonial Hospitals, and Military Chaplaincies. What may be a surprise is that none of these institutional links between Church and State existed in Lagos. That relations between Church and State were not formalized in nineteenth century Lagos was not a matter of lack of Christian religiosity there vis-à-vis Cape Coast, Freetown, and Bathurst. The uniqueness of Lagos was

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determined by a number of factors. First, there was the factor that it would be patently illadvised for the Lagos administration to present itself as a proselytizing agency. There existed from the advent of the British a social, religious, and political tension between British intruders and their African counterparts and collaborators (as it seemed to the indigenes) on the one hand, and the traditional inhabitants on the other. For the indigenes did not reconcile themselves to the forcible occupation of their fatherland by the British, at least in the first quarter of a century after the 1851 bombardment.2 Clinging to their traditional faith, the indigenes rejected the white man’s religion, as Christianity seemed to them, thereby isolating the African intruders from Sierra Leone, Cuba, and Brazil who constituted the community. Thus, the ‘pagan’ population of Lagos was consistently seven times bigger than that of the Christians. Second, there was the phenomenal growth of Islam, which consistently made the number of Muslims double that of Christians. Thus, in 1868, there were 3,970 Christians and 8,422 Muslims and in 1881, 6,000 Christians with fifteen churches as opposed to 14,000 Muslims with twenty-one mosques.3 By 1891, Muslims had numbered 21,000, that is, a little more than a third of the total population of Lagos, and they constituted a political force and source of apprehension to Christians.4 Third, the Anglican community, as represented by the Church Missionary Society, which claimed to be part of the Established Church, was not the strongest in number and in affluence in Lagos at the beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century.5 The Wesleyans were larger in number and counted among themselves the majority of the wealthy educated elite. Far more than in Sierra Leone, the Wesleyans could be trusted to block any attempt to convert the Anglican Church into a State Church. So patent was this fact that when he arrived in Lagos in June 1874, James Johnson, the greatest advocate of organic union of Church and State in British West Africa, who had only recently fought in Sierra Leone for a further strengthening of the Church and State nexus, perceived the peculiar situation of Lagos at once. He discerned the futility of any effort to bring about links between Church and State formally and institutionally.6 Fourth, Lagos society had no problem of racial segregation which might have persuaded the European community to request for itself a separate place of worship. Small in number until the end of the century, Europeans were divided denominationally into Wesleyans, Anglicans, Catholics, and Baptists, sharing with Africans a total of twenty-three churches. Nevertheless, absence of a Colonial Church did not mean a total absence of a Church and State nexus in a very tenuous form. From 1886 to 1896, the Legislative Council voted £100 every year towards the travelling expenses of the Bishop of Sierra Leone, of which Lagos Colony was a part.7 As late as 1899, Bishop Tugwell was paid from public funds an allowance of 15s. for every night he spent in Lagos, subject to a maximum of £40 per annum.8 Chaplains were attached to the troops that fought all the major expeditions in Southern Nigeria. In 1898, a sum of £100 was voted from public funds for the building of St Peter’s Church, Ake, Abẹokuta.9 In matters of education, the CMS and the Colonial Office corresponded directly and not a few Consuls and Governors, including Lugard, visited Salisbury Square for interviews with the CMS Executive. Indeed, the CMS and its missionaries were never reluctant to parade themselves as the spiritual arm of the British administration, to the extent that the Anglican Church in Yorubaland came to be known as ‘Sọsi Ijọba’, that is, State Church. In 1877, the CMS had reminded the British Government of its spiritual obligations in Lagos by asking for either £150 per annum grant to the Native Pastorate that had been founded in 1875 or a


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Chaplaincy to be attached to Christ Church, paid for by the Government.10 The patronage accorded to the Christian Church by government officers indicates the justification of the popular belief in the existence of a definite relationship between Church and State. Practically all the late Victorian administrators of Lagos Colony were ardent Sabbatarians. Captain A.C.Moloney was a devout Catholic; Captain C.G.Denton was a dutiful son of an Anglican minister; G.T.Carter was a regular Church attender, while William MacGregor had, in 1899, to pay tribute to the imperial achievements of Christian missions in Yorubaland.11 Indeed, in practice, one church—Christ Church—became the official church of the Lagos Colony. It was there that State services, such as the Jubilee ones of 1887 and 1897 for Queen Victoria and the Coronation one of 1902 for Edward VII, were held; there the first court assize service was held. The favourable disposition of British officials and Europeans generally towards the Christian religion in Victorian Lagos was emphatically paralleled in the educated elite. Ever desirous to become carbon-copy Englishmen in their aspirations, in no sphere were they as eager to imitate the English as in the patronage of Christianity. Hardly was there a department of life not given a religious emphasis or veneer, from naming ceremonies to nuptials and funerals. Until the eighties, when the elite professionals in medicine and in law began to be produced, the Church minister was the intellectual vanguard of society. Practically all leaders in public life and society were either ecclesiastics or people intimately and passionately connected with the Church, and invariably children of liberated Africans. In political thought and nationalist exposition there were James Johnson of the Anglican persuasion and Mọjọla Agbebi of the Native Baptist Church; in journalism, R.B.Blaize, founder of the Lagos Times and a prominent lay reader of the Breadfruit Church, J.B.Benjamin, a Welseyan and founder-editor of the Lagos Observer, and G.A.Williams, one of the founders of the United Native African Church and editor of the Lagos Standard; in trade, J.J.Thomas (Wesleyan), J.S.Leigh (Anglican), ‘Pacific George’ (Wesleyan), and Kitoyi Ajasa (Anglican); in civil engineering, Herbert Macaulay, son of an Anglican minister and grandson of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther; in the civil service, J.A.Payne, an Ijẹbu prince and Church-warden of Christ Church, and Henry Carr, a graduate of Fourah Bay and for several years tutor at the CMS Grammar School and first Chancellor of the Diocese of Western Equatorial Africa. Not only were these leaders of elite opinion in pre-1914 Lagos connected with the Church: their political thinking was inextricably interwoven with Christianity as well. As far as they were expressed, nationalist articulations were in one way or the other associated with the Church. No one conceived of a State in which Christianity would not flourish as the State religion. For Christianity was conceived as a bestower of greatness and material prosperity and as a promoter of human excellence and true progress. Not a few of the educated elite wished traditional religion and Islam to disappear entirely.12 Eulogization of Christianity as the only source of blessing for mankind in general, and for the aspirations of Africans in particular, was commonplace in Victorian Lagos. In the words of a newspaper editorial: This world owes this religion (Christianity) an incalculable debt. Its enlightenment has banished idolatry and its evils from many places; its soul-subduing and spirit-chastening influences have humanized many debased tribes and nations, and refined others. Literature and schools of


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learning, commerce in all its branches, and the various professions have all participated in the temporal blessings it brings along with it.13 In the absence of distinctly political organizations, no association or event of importance in Victorian Lagos divorced itself from Christian or philanthropic motivation. When on 22 September 1885, a patriotic event was to occur in the commemoration of the death of Dr T.N.King, the first Nigerian medical doctor, it was exemplified in the erection of a stained glass window in Christ Church.14 When, in 1887, the African members of the civil service of Lagos colony organized themselves into a union, it was specifically attached to Christianity. Its name was Civil Service Prayer Union, and its President, J.A.Payne, Registrar of the Supreme Court, asked Salisbury Square to be the watchdog of the interests of its members.15 It was the practice to send copies of memoranda and petitions intended for the Colonial Office on educational matters and military expeditions to Salisbury Square in the hope that the CMS would be able to bring necessary pressure to bear on the British Government and thereby help to secure a redress of African grievances.16 However, by the turn of the century, Church and State, religion and secular matters, could no longer be regarded as being linked with an umbilical cord. In Britain, even more than before, religion was becoming remote from the lives of the people; the average Englishman began to prefer having his treasures here on earth, rather than having them locked up in the invisible other world. The existence of Colonial Churches became an anachronism, a situation the Colonial Office was not long in perceiving. Consequently it became the general policy to abolish Colonial Churches wherever they had been established, and disestablish, bishoprics. In this spirit, by the last decade of the nineteenth century, the Colonial Chaplaincies of the Gambia and Sierra Leone were abolished; so, later, was that of the Gold Coast. In 1896, when Bishop Ingham retired as Bishop of Sierra Leone, an end was put to the financial and institutional link between Church and State.17 In the light of the disestablishment axe that had descended on the Gambia, Sierra Leone, and the Gold Coast, it would be expected that Church and State in Lagos, where institutional links had never existed, would be driven further apart, the Church being pushed to fulfilling purely social and humanitarian functions. But this was not to be: the unexpected and unimaginable happened. The official policy was violated. By the standards of the age, and to the consternation of the elite, the ‘pagans’, and Muslims of Lagos, a retrograde step was taken. Under the misguided zeal of Sir Walter Egerton, Governor of Lagos from 1904 to 1912, and of Herbert Tugwell, Bishop of Western Equatorial Africa from 1894 to 1920, the British administration forged institutional links between Church and ‘State in a manner significant in several ways in Lagos politics. On the surface, the story of the Colonial Church Question, which aroused stormy sessions in the Legislative Council, the British Parliament, and Enu Owa rallies, is very simple. In 1904, Egerton, for whom it would appear religion was still a strong factor in life, suddenly made himself overseer of the religious life of the white community in Lagos Colony, the majority of whom were exhibiting a growing indifference to the religion of Edwardian Britain. According to the Governor, they were ‘careless in religious matters as they are of their personal comfort and health preserving precautions’.18 Of the 400 European inhabitants of Lagos and suburbs in 1909, scarcely


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thirty ever stepped into the Church at all—and these only in deference to the Governor whenever he was in Lagos—while only one, the Attorney-General, was a regular worshipper. In order to persuade Europeans to give their attention to religion, Egerton proposed between 1905 and 1909 that Christ Church, the only Church that the CMS had refused to hand over to the Native Pastorate, be converted to a Colonial Church, ‘provided the Church Missionary Society is willing to surrender its ownership of that building’.19 When, for reasons that will be analysed presently, Africans blocked his move in this direction, the Governor decided to have the Government erect a Church worth £10,000, half of which was to be borne by Government, and half by public subscription. In October 1909, L.S.Noble, an English clergyman, was appointed Colonial Chaplain and a large hall of King’s School, which had just been erected, was used as a church temporarily. By 1911, the church was already under construction, materials being provided by Government, and labour by the Public Works Department.20 Beneath the surface, however, were the following facts and factors. First, the Colonial Church issue was conceived in racial terms in a racialist atmosphere and was intended to bring about racial segregation. It was made plain from the beginning that the Colonial Chaplain must be a European and that he should minister to white men only.21 The white community in Lagos stressed this point in the two petitions which they sent to the Colonial Office in 1907 and 1908; and they threatened that unless they were granted, they would refuse to become Sabbatarians.22 Consequently, the proposal had to be made by both Egerton and Tugwell to the effect that an additional wing should be added to Christ Church exclusively for Europeans. There could be no question of the races being mixed in the Church any longer. Even before the congregation of Christ Church were informed of the segregationist proposal, Egerton had informed the Colonial Office that only a separate Church for Europeans would be satisfactory. Europeans, he declared, deserved special attention ‘and there is no room in Christ Church for the Europeans if they wish to attend’.23 European population was increasing at a rapid rate. In this unhealthy climate it is especially desirable that the ministration of the clergyman of European race should be available for the European population, and as Government is the great employer of Europeans, it seems that it is reasonable it should provide a Colonial Chaplain as one of the many things provided in West Africa which elsewhere are left to private effort.24 Second, the Colonial Church issue was pushed through by Egerton in a manner that undermined the position of the Legislative Council, indicating him as the most authoritarian and the most untruthful Governor of the Colony of Lagos before the First World War. The Colonial Office was manoeuvred into approving the scheme in a way that reveals clearly the unlimited power of the Colonial Governor. In June 1905, Lord Elgin, Secretary of State for the Colonies, sanctioned the proposal to appoint a Colonial Chaplain, who was to be paid from ‘Lagos funds’ only on the condition that the Legislative Council approved of it, the official members voting freely. In the voting that took place on 2 December 1905, the proposal was thrown out, with three official and two


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unofficial members voting against it, and two official and one unofficial members voting in its favour.25 The two unofficial African members who voted against the measure were C.J.George and Sapara Williams. Both were ardent Wesleyans and their denominational allegiance was a sufficient factor to determine their unbending opposition. The African unofficial member who voted in its favour, Dr Obadiah Johnson, did so not simply because he was an Anglican who believed that Christ Church, his church, would thereby benefit, but because he entertained the fear that should the proposal be rejected, Government might decide to erect a Colonial Church, a project that he feared would cost the Colony a large capital expenditure and a recurrent expenditure of not less than £1,000 every year. Therefore, it was his belief that he was playing the patriotic role of watchdog for the finances of the Colony by accepting a proposal which in 1905 was limited to £300 salary for the Colonial fabric of Christ Church.26 The defeat of the measure by the Legislative Council notwithstanding, Egerton and Tugwell left no stone unturned to get the Colonial Office to approve it. The succession to the Government of Britain by the Liberals in 1906 gave Egerton an opportunity to present again the case to the Colonial Office, buttressed by a petition drawn up and signed by all classes of Europeans, which the Governor had inspired.27 Lord Crewe, the new Secretary of State for the Colonies, was as cautious as his predecessor, asking for the approval of the Legislative Council allegedly on the same conditions as in 1905. The Governor did not allow the freedom of December 1905, in spite of rumour that he was expected and instructed to do so.28 The proposal was put to Council in form of a Resolution, and care was taken that this Resolution did not reach members until less than an hour before the meeting was due. The officials were expected to observe the rule that they should vote on all questions with the Governor. Their majority vote alone was sufficient to win victory for the proposal, which increased the Colonial Chaplain’s salary to £500 per annum, apart from £80 allowances, with a hint that a separate church might be erected. Dr Obadiah Johnson, who still believed that it would be in the financial interest of the people of Lagos, did not vote against it. Only Sapara Williams remained in oppostion, since C.J.George had died. Sapara Williams asked for an adjournment, but had no seconder. However, he registered his opposition by abstaining from voting.29 By the time the matter reached the Estimates Committee, Dr O.Johnson had perceived the racialist intentions of the Governor. Therefore, at the final stage, he voted against it. Thus, the two African unoffical members voted against the proposal. And yet, in reporting the decision of the Council to the Colonial Office, Egerton lied that the Council adopted ‘unanimously’ the resolution ‘that funds should be provided for the maintenance of a Colonial Chaplain on the distinct understanding that the Church in which he officiates shall be a Colonial Church under the direct control of the Government’.30 These two important factors—racialist motivation and the authoritarian tendencies of Egerton—were clearly perceived by the educated elite and were serious enough to turn the Colonial Church Question into a matter of universal concern and interest. Far more than any other issue, the Colonial Church Question unleashed racial bitterness, although it is essential to note that it did not create it. Racial tension had existed between the educated elite and Europeans in all spheres of life since the ‘Scramble’ era. In the Church, the racial tension that developed had created independent Churches; the way and


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manner in which fire and sword descended on unlettered but perspicacious chiefs and peoples who resented British intrusion and would not passively have British suzerainty, had further alienated some of the educated elite against Europeans. There had also been the elimination of African participation in the trade of the Niger and of the Lagos Colony. There was also the discrimination against educated Africans in appointments to, and promotions in, the civil service. By 1904 when Egerton became Governor, racial tension had begun to develop into racial segregation in several respects. In 1896 when the Colonial Hospital was rebuilt, the wards were not only divided according to the races, but a completely white staff was recruited for white patients. African medical officers were barred from the new wards, in spite of the fact that 98 per cent of the patients in them were Africans.31 The doctrine that became popular among the Europeans was that Africans were unfit to examine Europeans medically, particularly women. When Governor MacCallum arrived in Lagos in 1897, he was horrified that Africans—who had been trained by their families—had attained the status of medical officers. This, he said, was unnatural; it had never happened in the Far East and in other British possessions inhabited by the non-white; it should not happen in Lagos.32 Africans, he declared, should never be trained beyond the level of dressers and dispensers. It was to be a doctrine fully accepted by the British administration in subsequent years, ‘thereby pronouncing that the Negro is only useful when he had the inferior knowledge’.33 It was a doctrine based on the belief in the inherent biological inferiority of the Negro race which racist writers in Europe and the United States had promulgated in the middle of the nineteenth century.34 The revivification of this doctrine derived from the atmosphere of the conqueror and the conquered imposed on Lagos by the ‘Scramble’ and consolidation of British rule in Yorubaland. The races, it was being contended, must be separated.35 The doctrine became something of a maxim, possessing the naturalness and rationality of a law of nature. However, it should be stressed that in Lagos the doctrine of racial segregation was quite new. What became heresy in the first decade of this century—racial integration— had been orthodoxy in Victorian times. Dr T.N.King was the official medical doctor for all the CMS missionaries, including the female, until his death in 1884, a duty that he performed to the satisfaction of men of all races.36 Dr Jenkins Lumpkin, a Saro who settled down in Lagos in 1884, was patronized by Europeans, including the famous French trader, Reges. Even in the nineties, European merchants preferred the services of Dr J.K.Randle, an Assistant Colonial Surgeon, to that of his European boss, on account of which the latter transferred the African to Ijebu-Ode. Incensed at this happening, Randle was persuaded by his European clients to resign his civil service appointment, and they made a ten-year contract with him as their full-time employee.37 The segregationist tendency was not confined to medicine and hospitals. In the years of Egerton’s governorship, the Masonic Lodges were invaded by racial considerations. Until 1904, not only were Europeans and Africans members of the same lodges, but for a quarter of a century, Africans, among whom were J.A.Payne, J.S.Bucknor, and Sapara Williams, held the top position of Worshipful Master. But at the turn of the century, the Europeans founded an exclusive lodge. In 1904, a piece of land along Broad Street which belonged to an African, Nathaniel Coker, was expropriated by ordinance allegedly for public purposes and was handed over to the European Freemasons who erected St. George’s Hall on it.38


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Not only were the races separated when they were alive, it was decreed that even when they were dead their remains, which used to occupy common grounds, must be separated. Consequently, the Europeans were allotted a separate cemetery.39 The new law of racial segregation touched a wider section of the Lagos community in 1908 when Egerton ordered that an end should be put to residential integration of the races. In order to put this into effect, the Race Course, which belonged to the people and which was one of the densely populated districts of Lagos, was expropriated for European residents. The law dislodged 2,000 people at once. What stung the African owners and occupiers of the land further was the fact that the Egerton administration offered them very ridiculous prices—one-and-a-half pence per yard! And yet, some of the houses which Africans had put up at costs ranging from £500 to £1,000 were so good that, with only slight internal improvements, the Government began to use them as official quarters for the Europeans.40 And it should be remarked that just as Egerton had lied with regard to the Colonial Church issue in the Legislative Council, so did he lie that the area expropriated was ‘barren, destitute and unfenced’. Furthermore, he lied to the Colonial Office that his administration had ‘erred on the side of generosity’. For when the owners took the Government to Court, the latter awarded them the compensation of £13,347.41 In all the cases of segregation already mentioned, Africans had no opportunity to protest in a chorus; their protest was ineffective, producing no impact on British public opinion. They were not in a position to stand up to the challenge of the white man. But with regard to the Colonial Church Question, an appropriate and effective atmosphere was provided. It had been believed that the Church was the last place where the white man would advocate racial segrega-tion. But to their stupefaction, Bishop Tugwell, their spiritual overlord, became the undisguised exponent of racial segregation in the Church. The educated elite discovered, painfully, that in Nigeria, Christianity with its doctrine of the brotherhood of man had been perverted by the white man; that an imperial race was incapable of maintaining the simplicity of the Nazarene. On 2 April 1909, Bishop Tugwell held a meeting with the leading parishioners of Christ Church to the effect that they should consent to have a wing added to the Church exclusively for Europeans. ‘There are 400 Europeans resident in Lagos to whom a clergyman connected with Christ Church can directly minister’, declared the Bishop at the meeting. ‘Everyone would prefer to have his own colour minister unto him. And it will not be good to lose sight of the fact that a native cannot minister to a European.’42 The parishioners were shocked beyond words. They would not tolerate the idea of racial segregation in a church that had been built with public funds. One by one, the leading parishioners lectured their Bishop on Christian teaching on the common humanity of all races and what his duty should be in an atmosphere of racial antagonism. In the words of one of the spokesmen, M.W.Davies, ‘Europeans and Natives have been worshipping in that edifice amicably for years. Your Lordship’s express commission is to minister to the native population. I affirm that it is your Lordship’s duty to cement the two races together by preaching down segregation’.43 Of significance, too, was the effect produced by the Colonial Church Question on Herbert Macaulay, a member of Christ Church. Born into a family prominent in the Anglican Church, the Church was for him an important theatre for his activity. He had used his talent as a musician and his civil engineering profession for the benefit of the Church. Although, since his return from England in 1893, he had his grievances against


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the British administration and had been compelled to resign from the civil service in 1898, he had never fought a war against racism until the invasion of the Church by racial segregation. Already angered by the Egerton administration over alleged scandals in the railway construction contract, his pamphlet on the matter had been the occasion for the enactment of a Seditious Ordinance that was intended to muzzle the press. Before the meeting of 2 April 1909, he had nursed intense hatred for Bishop Tugwell over the latter’s excessive zeal in the anti-liquor movement, and his indictment of the Lagos educated elite for their opposition to direct taxation. At the meeting, in which he was the chief spokesman, Macaulay jeered at the Bishop that the erection of an additional wing to Christ Church and employment of a Colonial Chaplain would involve obtaining money from a Government based on ‘Gin’. For, in 1908, declared Macaulay, the Bishop had, in an interview with the Colonial Office, said that the whole revenue of the Colony was practically derived from the duty on intoxicants, and the administration, therefore, was based upon a financial system which was commercially unsound and morally wrong’.44 He now understood why he, Macaulay, had not been asked to survey Christ Church, whereas he had been asked to survey all the churches of the Native Pastorate. Herbert Macaulay opposed the segregationist policy of Egerton and Tugwell to the very end. On 8 October 1909 Macaulay and fourteen other Africans who had not been invited attended a meeting of Europeans which had been summoned by Egerton for the appointment of a Church Committee of the Colonial Church. The Africans were treated as mere observers. Egerton emphasized the racial basis of the new Church: ‘It was proposed to build a separate Church…because it was the general wish of the Europeans to have a clergyman of their own colour to preach to them’. It was announced, after Macaulay had pressed the point, that no seat would be allocated to Africans in the Colonial Church.45 Through the medium of the press, Herbert Macaulay launched a virulent attack on the Egerton administration over the Colonial Church: ‘this official temple of white Christians’.46 Had the Europeans contributed the funds for the building and employed the clergyman, the bitterness engendered in Africans would have been much less than it was. Financed by the African tax-payers it was a clear case of the misuse of public funds. As Macaulay put it, the Church was being erected on ‘The black man’s sweat’. As he protested: Now, Sir, in the name of all that is most honourable, honest and fair, why should these 400 persons have a clergyman of their own race paid out of the Revenue of this Colony raised as the revenue is, entirely from 1,388,847 natives who are Mohammedans and Heathens, Churchmen and Wesleyans, Baptists and Roman Catholics, Fetish and Long Juju worshippers? Imagine the Long Juju worshippers of Aro Chuku paying for the spiritual needs of their European Detractors.47 For one year after the Egerton administration had taken the decision to establish the ‘for whites only’ Church, Herbert Macaulay went on revealing the inhuman treatment which educated Africans in particular began to suffer at the hands of ‘Our Tin Gods in British Nigeria’.48 Nor was Macaulay alone in the observation of the pro-European racist attitude adopted by the Egerton government. As Sapara Williams put it, Egerton ‘has invested all


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European officials under him with such unlimited powers that he is unable to control or curb them in their actions’.49 Incensed over the Colonial Church palaver, the press observed: ‘We regret to be compẹlled to the observation that a moral darkness, hitherto unknown, overshadows Southern Nigeria at the present time, consequent on the degenerate morality of the policy inaugurated since the present Administration came into existence in this country’.50 But apart from the racial factor in Lagos history, exemplified by the Colonial Church Question, there was the fact that the controversy indicated the increasing secularism of the attitude of the educated elite. Gone were the days when Christianity was regarded in other than religious terms, when the political salvation of Nigeria was thought to be dependent on the fortunes of the Christian Church. Citizenship was no longer defined, as it had been in Victorian Lagos, to embrace Christians only.51 The existence of Muslims and ‘pagans’, and their rights to equal citizenship in emergent Nigeria began to be emphasized. Christianity came to be seen as no more than one out of many legitimate religions. For the first time in Lagos the slogan ‘equality of religion’52 was heard, and the claims of Muslims and ‘pagans’ to parity of treatment with Christians were advanced by Christian leaders of public opinion. There is some truth in the observation made by Dr O.Johnson in 1905, that the contemplated appointment of a Colonial Chaplain at a salary of £300 was due to the nature of appointment, a religious one. For, ‘had his duties been of another character—say even military or tax-collecting—not a word would have been said except that the pay was inadequate’.53 It is significant that the claims of the Muslims and ‘pagans’ to parity with Christians in relations with Government were championed by Christians and not by the votaries of these religions, at least directly. A special case was made out of the fact that in 1908, the Muslim community in Lagos who had collected £4,000 out of the estimated £5,500 for a Mosque, had asked Egerton for a loan of £1,500 on terms similar to those on which Bishop Tugwell had been granted a loan in the same year for the erection of a Sailors’ Institute. This Institute, it should be noted, was intended by the Bishop to fulfil a religious purpose by reclamation of the Christian character of sailors. But Egerton had dismissed the application of the Muslims on the ground that they were a religious body, and Government could not grant loans for religious purposes!54 The educated Africans, who several decades before had desired links between Church and State, spared no language in denouncing the religious discrimination as patently displayed by the British administration in favour of Christianity in a society in which Christians were infinitesimally small’55 and Muslims numbered over seventy per cent. On the slogan of ‘equality of religion’, the Egerton administration was dragged into the tribunal of British public opinion. It was a suitable soil into which the Colonial Church seed fell in England. The Free Churches welcomed an opportunity to renew their attack on the incubus of the Established Church. In Parliament, the Colonial Office was put on trial as the data supplied by the educated elite Christians of Lagos were produced to show the injustice being perpetrated on the non-Christian community in a British Colony. Dr John Clifford, a veteran Free Church Leader, made a crusade of the matter. At a meeting on 6 December 1910, the Metropolitan Free Church Federation passed the following resolution which condemned the British Government’s handling of the whole affair:


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We observe with profound humiliation and shame that the public moneys above referred to were voted by the Colonial Legislature in the teeth of the vigorous protest and of influential public meetings in the Colony, and that these moneys are taken from the taxes of a population the vast majority of whom are Mohammedans and non-Christians. The Federation earnestly deprecate this policy as being a rank injustice, discreditable to British rule, as involving a flagrant violation of the principle of religious equality and as inflicting a deadly blow to the influence of Christianity among non-Christian peoples.56 One result of the preferential treatment accorded to the Christian Church over the Colonial Church issue was the emergence of the first distinctly political organization in Lagos. This was the People’s Union (sometimes called People’s Committee). Two medical practitioners—Dr O. Obasa and Dr J.K.Randle—found the whole affair very provocative. They therefore founded the organization that would embrace people of all religious persuasions and concern itself with the welfare of the Lagos community. It was organized at a mass meeting at Enu Owa, with Randle as President and Obasa as Secretary. It was this organization that got in touch with the Federation of Free Churches in England and the Aborigines Protection Society. It was the first time that people not connected with the Christian Church took the initiative in directing and leading public opinion and divorcing themselves completely from religion and religious motivation. By the end of 1910, the purpose of the organization had widened to the promotion of ‘the interest of the country in every legitimate way, by upholding what is right, and protesting against what is inimical to the interest of the country’.57 Significant, too, is the fact that the People’s Union refused pleas of a merger with the Aborigines Protection Society, an organization imbued with Christian humanitarianism and to which the Christianity-oriented Edwardian elite of Lagos tended to look. Dr Randle perceived that the interest of the Lagos people might not necessarily be identical with that of the Christian humanitarian organization.58 Though created by the Colonial Church Question, the People’s Union took part as well in agitation against the water-rate and Seditious Ordinance. Modest in achievement, ephemeral in existence, and eclipsed by the Lagos Auxiliary of the Aborigines Protection Society, the People’s Union was inspired by an objective that was to be achieved in post-World War I Nigeria—secularization of politics. In this respect, its formation was a landmark in the ideological maturity of the politicallyminded educated elite in Nigeria. In a way no other issue in the first decade of this country brought together a number of the educated elite in Lagos as the Colonial Church Question did. By their personal sufferings in the civil service the educated elite saw in the affair an opportunity to vent their spleen on the British administration. Macaulay, Obadiah Johnson, Ọbasa, and Randle had been annoyed out of the civil service. Their grievances can be reduced to a common denominator: the denial to them, on account of their colour, of the extravagant privileges being enjoyed by their European counterparts. The fact that the chief exponents of African interest in the Colonial Church Question had been victims of racial discrimination may raise a point of general interest about the role of the educated elite in African nationalism. Doubts are sometimes raised about the


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genuineness and overall African-ness of their professions. To what extent, for instance, were these hybridized Africans disinterested exponents of the true interests of the African masses? How far were they fighting for the interests of their class alone? How far was their nationalism a reaction to their rejection by Europeans as equals both in natural endowments and in the sharing of the material benefits of the mental and cultural world, in which the educated Africans used to revel, at least initially, in preference to the indigenous atmosphere? Pertinent as these questions might be in other circumstances and with other issues, in Lagos disinterestedness was a strong determinant of the attitude and the course of action adopted by the politically-minded educated elite with regard to the Colonial Church Question. There could be no doubt that in the matter they were speaking on behalf of the inarticulate masses and peoples of different creeds. There is evidence that both Herbert Macaulay and Obadiah Johnson had before the Colonial Church affair concerned themselves with matters in which neither they as individuals, nor the social class they represented, had a stake. Take for instance, Dr Obadiah Johnson, who by profession was a medical practitioner in Lagos; yet his nationalist energies were primarily devoted to a criticism of British economic presence in Nigeria, including the economic exploitation of unlettered peoples who were outside his class. For example, he was embittered by the dislodgment of people in Abẹokuta, Ibadan, and Ijẹbu from their lands by British commercial interests prospecting for rubber, or desiring to plant cotton. In Ibadan, for instance, a large number of people were thrown out of their land and employment on a 5,000 acre piece of land which the Egerton administration forced them to vacate (at a compensation rate of 3d. per acre) for the British Cotton Growing Association. As Johnson protested: We can only thank God that gold in paying quantity has not been discovered in this country, which would tempt undesirable visitors to our shores. Many thanks for ‘Red Rubber’: the gruesome tales are literally sickening! What can we do? All the world over,—less perhaps among the Latin Races, it is the same tale in various degrees of cruelty, oppression and wrong towards the Negro, who after all is not responsible for his colour.59

NOTES 1 The English Church, a New Look, Harmondsworth, 1966, p. 137. See in particular Dr Max Warren, ‘The Church of England as by Law Established—Unfit for Export’, pp. 129–43. 2 S.H.Brown, ‘A History of the Peoples of Lagos, 1852–1886’, Ph.D. thesis, Evanston, Illinois, pp. 41ff. and p. 173. 3 CMS G3/A2/03, J.Johnson to R.Lang, 2/12/1885. 4 S.H.Brown, pp. 121–3. 5 CMS CA2/056, James Johnson to Hutchinson, 8/7/1875. 6 Ibid. 7 CO 149 series (Legislative Council Minutes). 8 CO 147/143, MacGregor to Chamberlain, 28/6/1899. 9 Lagos Weekly Record, 10/2/1900. 10 CMS CA1/20, E.Hutchinson to Earl of Carnavon, 28/6/1877.


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11 CMS G3/A2/09, Quoted in Tugwell to Baylis, 29/8/1899. 12 The greatest apostle of Christian theocracy for Nigeria was James Johnson. See E.A.Ayandele, Holy Johnson: Pioneer of African Nationalism, 1836–1917, London, 1970. 13 Lagos Times, 28/12/1881. 14 The Eagle and Lagos Critic, 12 and 26/9/1885. 15 Church Missionary Intelligencer, 1887, p. 511. 16 See copies of petitions to CO and enclosures in CMS G3/A2/01 and G3/A2/04. 17 C.Fyfe, A History of Sierra Leone, London, 1962, p. 547. 18 CO 592/1, ‘Memorandum on Subject of the Appointment of a Colonial Chaplain’ by W.E.Egerton, 9/7/1908. 19 Ibid., Egerton to A.Lyttelton, 4/3/1905. 20 Aborigines Protection Society Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford, henceforth APS, G.212. See Harcourt’s reply to question raised in Parliament by Mr King on Monday, 13 February, 1911. 21 CO 592/1, A.Lyttelton to Egerton, 30/6/1905. 22 CO 520/50, Enclosures in Egerton to Earl of Elgin, 30/11/1907. CO 520/68, Egerton to Earl of Crewe, 16/12/1908, contains another petition. 23 CO 592/1, Memo by Egerton, cited. 24 Ibid. 25 CO 592/1, J.J.Thorburn to A.Lyttelton, 2/12/1905. 26 Ibid., for Minutes of debate in the Legislative Council on 29/11/1905. 27 APSG 128, Sapara Williams to Harris, 4/4/1910. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 CO 592/6, ‘Continuation of Memorandum regarding Colonial Chaplain of Lagos’ by W.E.Egerton, 10/8/1909. 31 CO 147/144, Blue Book Report, enclosed in MacCallum to Chamberlain, 22/9/1897. 32 CO 147/113, Henry MacCallum to Chamberlain, 28/4/1897. 33 See Egerton’s views in CO 520/83, Egerton to CO, 6/12/1909; APS G.247, ‘Colonial Medical Appointments in West African Colonies’ by O.Sapara. 34 P.Curtin, The Image of Africa, London, 1965, pp. 363ff. 35 ‘Great Thoughts’ (undated), reproduced in Lagos Weekly Record, 13/10/1900, in which it was declared, ‘for the sake of true imperialism, the black and the white should never mix’. 36 The Eagle and Lagos Critic, 12/9/1885 and 26/9/1885. 37 Lagos Standard, 18/8/1897. 38 APSG 230, Speech by Herbert Macaulay at Government House, 28/2/1913. 39 Nigerian Chronicle, 24/9/1909. 40 APSG 218, Sapara Williams to Rev. J.H.Harris, 2/5/1910. 41 Ibid. 42 Nigerian Chronicle, 9/4/1909. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid., 8/10/1909. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Subject of an article by him in Nigerian Chronicle, 18/3/1910. 49 APSG 218, Sapara Williams to John Harris, 2/3/1910. 50 Nigerian Times, 19/6/1910. 51 So zealous were some of the Christians in Victorian Lagos that Gov-ernment was, in 1876, called upon to destroy ‘paganism’ and all emblems, proscribe Islam, and deport ex-King Dosunmu. The latter became frightened and turned ‘Christian’. See African Times, 1/9/1876 and 1/6/1878.


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52 Nigerian Chronicle, 18/3/1910. 53 CO 592/1 Dr O.Johnson’s speech in the Legislative Council, 29/11/1905. 54 Lagos Weekly Record, 23/4/1910. 55 CO 592/1, Sapara Williams’s speech in the Legislative Council, 29/ 11/1905. 56 Nigerian Times, 17/1/1911, see letter to Editor by E.Edward Flower, Secretary of the Congregational Church and Church Missionary Society of Britain. 57 APSG 212, Dr J.K.Randle to Rev. J.H.Harris, 21/12/1910. 58 Ibid. 59 Morel Papers (London School of Economics), F9, Dr O.Johnson to Morel, 22/4/1905.

12 Lugard and Education in Nigeria, 1900–18 An anatomy of Lugard as an educationist in the context of 1900–18 Nigeria should start with the portrait of him by his biographer.1 According to Margery Perham, this British empire builder was a strong believer in Western-style education for Nigeria, whose ideas and vision would have done the country incalculable good, had he a free hand, a buoyant treasury, and a clean slate before him. But alas his effort was thwarted by hardliner Indirect Rulers in the North and by what he regarded as the miseducating system of Christian missions in the South. In the North, by their iron-cast inflexibility, the Burdons, the Girouards, and the Temples made a mockery of Western-style education by holding it out to the Emirs as a dormant volcano which only the Colonial Government could prevent exploding by controlling and making it available exclusively to the sons of patricians. In the South the schools, mostly owned by Christian missions, were nurseries of a discontented and disloyal elite, rather than of responsible and grateful citizens of the British Empire. Nevertheless Lugard did the best possible in the circumstances and in 1916 promulgated an Education Ordinance of considerable significance.2 This characterization of Lugard as an educationist in Nigeria is very inflated and clearly unrelated to the state of Western-style education in the territory in 1900 when he became the conqueror and ruler over Northern Nigeria. By the turn of the century not only had schools been flourishing in Southern Nigeria for more than half a century, but the school as the vehicle for modernization had been clearly appreciated by a substantial number of Nigerians some of whom in 1896 had wished a University to be sited at Ebute Mẹtta.3 By 1900 also there had appeared Nigerian educationists who had propounded philosophies of education far grander than were to emanate from Lugard, for instance, the concept of massive education for Nigerians, the role of the vernacular, the urgency of indigenization of curriculum, the need for professional teachers, and the concept of technical education. Even in that aspect of education in which Lugard has been presented as excelling—his philosophy that education should mould the morals of individuals for responsible citizenship—he had been pre-empted by a much greater educationist than himself, Henry Rawlinson Carr, a Nigerian.4 Furthermore in order to put Lugard’s achievement as an educationist in the appropriate context, it needs be stressed that his opportunity was limited to the North between 1900 and 1906, extending to the entire country only from 1912 to 1918 when he became Governor-General. During his tenure in the North and before his return to Nigeria in 1912, other British administrators were accomplishing more than Lugard’s encouragement of Western-style education—such people as Sir Ralph Moore and Sir Walter Egerton—not only by enacting progressive Ordinances but also by founding Government schools and making fatter grants to mission schools. Moreover it is nothing short of exaggeration to say that education was a priority for Lugard in his years of administration in Nigeria. The facts of his rule tell the tale, nor did

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he himself, boastful as he was, make such a claim. Hence his admission to his wife in 1909, in the euphoria of his largescale incursion into tertiary education in Hong Kong, ‘I have never in my life had anything to do with education and as a new subject it interests me immensely’.5 Thus during his first service, 1900–06, his preoccupation was the establishment of the British Raj in Northern Nigeria, an event involving physical subjugation and a compromise with the cultural heritage of the Islamic parts of the territory. This, in turn, meant and imposed caution on the British Administration in the matter of cultural and religious innovations certainly incompatible with a policy of unregulated introduction of Western-style education in the North. Then, it should be remarked, in the years of his tenure as Governor-General, 1912–18, Lugard’s preoccupations were the matter of Amalgamation and the First World War. Peace and stability as well as economic development in the greater interest of the Imperial Government mattered more to him than the welfare of Nigerians through the instrumentality of Western-style education. Surely the historian cannot mistake mere avowal of intention by Lugard for achievement, mere pious declarations for practical effort. That Lugard was prolific in declaration of desire for the right type of Western-style education for Nigerians is amply justified by the records.6 Whether in his Annual Reports or his correspondence with missionaries he never tired of asserting this desire. But he never translated desire into action; hardly did he go much beyond repeatedly asserting Government appreciation of the work of this Christian mission in opening this school, or asking that Christian mission to accept freed slaves for induction in Western-style education with the Government bearing a part of the cost of such training, or asking that Christian organization to ponder converting their clergy-training institutions to a teachers’ training college. As far as the records go the only positive effort by Lugard in the establishment of schools was the experiment of an institution for the children of chiefs. But even with this, both in origin and implementation, the brain behind the scheme was Dr Walter Miller, the veteran CMS missionary and the earliest and greatest advocate of an allout education for Northerners in the early decades of this century.7 There is no justification whatsoever for dubbing Lugard as an educationist in Northern Nigeria during his first tenure of office.8 For him to be one, he would have had to compromise his policy of Indirect Rule, the main emphasis of which was maintenance of the status quo. Although Lugard was fond of encouraging Christian missions to operate in ‘pagan’ areas and gave them a free hand in establishment of schools, he was inveterately opposed to establishment of mission schools in Muslim areas, by far the larger part of Northern Nigeria. In the context of the monumental aversion of Muslims to the Roman script, which rightly or wrongly they saw as an agency for conversion to Christianity, the administration of Lugard had to strictly regulate the amount and form of Western education being served to a selected few. The essence of the matter is that Lugard’s Administration in Northern Nigeria never hesitated to present Western-style education to the Emirs as the greatest enemy of their culture and way of life, and only sought to persuade them to accept a well-controlled trickle as a necessary evil. Thus brushing aside Walter Miller’s comprehensive proposals for mass education of the Hausa-Fulani, acceptance of which would have meant the use of Yorubas and West Indians as teachers, Lugard favoured only a six-month training in reading and writing in the Roman script and


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some general instruction of an elementary nature in simple scientific facts to only selected children of the aristocracy. He was indeed the father of a form of training based on the class system, a phenomenon carried to its logical conclusion in subsequent years in the Provincial Schools at Kano, Katsina, Zaria, and Bauchi. In these Muslim areas the selected few were teleguided and encapsulated in a traditionalist cocoon. The essence of the matter is that, as the father and architect of the policy of quieta non movere in respect of the culture and religion of the Muslim population in Northern Nigeria, Lugard was at best only a theoretical educationist. Even had he been willing to launch a bold Western-style educational programme, there is no evidence that the inhabitants of the Islamic zone were disposed to accept such a measure. In the view of the Muslim people of the North the British infidels were morally and religiously notoriously unqualified to rule over them. As they saw them, the British were despicable invaders and moral polluters, who had brought fire and sword over the heads of the faithful, invaders whose culture and religion were taboo to the Muslims. To the Muslims the British infidels were totally rejectable and although maxims and seven pounders had enabled these infidels to impose the British Raj on the North, the faithful would not allow their religion or culture to be tampered with by the British. And Muslims were clever and perceptive enough to know that education in the Roman script was the megaton bomb with a capacity to blow up their social order and cultural pride. It is important to stress that aversion to the British among the Hausa-Fulani, indeed as among most Nigerian peoples, was much deeper and more widespread than British officials cared to reveal. And that in spite of the eagerly fulfilled pledge by the British conquerors to respect Islam and Fulani-Hausa cultural heritage. For one thing the masses doubted the humanity of the white man in no less a degree than the most notorious negrophobists of nineteenth century Europe doubted the humanity of the Negro, knowledge of which shocked Hausaphile Walter Miller. He discovered that for the ordinary people the white man belonged to the same class as mermaids.9 British conquest was for the Muslims an abnormality which the latter had wished removed as early as 1904, the year they affected to believe would see an end to British rule. Hence the nightmare of Mahdism with which Lugard and his successors had to contend until after the First World War. In 1908 the Kanawa attacked the residence of the Resident, in reaction to the liquor-drinking habits of British infidels.10 Two years later a missionary observed: ‘Muhammedans even in Cairo are watching the progress of events here, and lately seditious letters from Cairo to the Emirs etc. have been intercepted by the Government inciting the people to resist Government schools, work and rule, and to wait for the great day coming’.11 In such anti-infidel circumstances there is nothing to wonder at that all efforts by missionaries to provide Muslims with education in the Roman script failed, no less than the effort of the secular British administration. The response of the Emirs in the early years to Lugard’s appeal to send children to secular schools was to send to these institutions invalids and the scum and dregs.12 In the supposed school for sons of chiefs in 1907 in Zaria District, by far the most promising, the report said ‘with the exception of two lads, they were dull, uninterested and too old’.13 The fate of mission schools was hardly better. ‘Our school is almost a failure’, declared Walter Miller in his annual report for 1913.14 ‘The Hausas of the present time appear to be quite satisfied with things as they are, and to see no necessity for improvement in any direction’, Bishop Herbert


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Tugwell had lamented a few years earlier.15 They left observers and missionaries in no doubt that the Islamic system of education was all that they wanted; that in it they were living, moving, and having their being, that it was their source of pride vis-à-vis the white people and non-Muslims. ‘Unlike in the Yoruba country’, mourned Hausaphile Miller, ‘I can trace no desire whatever to learn anything else [outside the koranic school], I can trace nowhere the least ambition or aspiration for anything better or outside the scheme’.16 Well had Walter Miller vituperated in 1904: We have exhausted every means and persuasion in our powers but have never yet succeeded in keeping any regular attendance of boys and men at school. After my acquaintance with this people and careful study of their character I would sum them up as supremely conceited, appallingly and grossly ignorant, shallow and superficial to a degree unrealisable to a European… lazy, conservative, and unenterprising. Unless some marvellous change from inside (very unlikely) or some indirect method of compulsion forces on them a change of attitude towards the most ordinary progress of education, agriculture, handicrafts, trade, etc. I foresee that the Yoruba and Nupe previously far his inferior will leave the Hausa long behind in the race of progress.17 It seems to me a hair-splitting exercise to make a distinction between the Indirect Rule cast of Lugard and that of his successors, at least as far as its implications for Westernstyle education among the Muslims in the North was concerned. Certainly Lugard laid the egg which Percy Girouard and C. L.Temple later hatched. Neither of them, nor Sir Hesketh Bell, Lugard’s immediate predecessor for his second term of service in Nigeria, deviated from the Lugardian niggardliness on the percentage of the revenue being expended on education or his view that, in the interest of practical administration, Western innovations should be rejected for the Hausa-Fulani. The fact that Lugard did not resolve his views into neo-sublime and sacrosanct principles as his successors later did was completely irrelevant to the state of affairs. After all in the early days of the Pax Britannica he had observed, ‘It is to the second and third generations [of the Fulani race] that we must look for real progress and enlightenment’.18 Consequently Percy Girouard and Hesketh Bell consolidated what Lugard had laid out, to the point that in 1912 when he returned to Nigeria he still had to deal with his first generation of Fulani rulers! Related to Western education Lugard discovered in 1912 that he was no longer able to pronounce pious declarations. Hans Vischer had been able to establish ‘Emirs Schools’ in Kano, Zaria, Katsina, and Bauchi which insulated the sons of chiefs and malams against Western civilization—schools ‘based upon teaching through the medium of the Hausa language in the Roman character’.19 Indirect Rule had become a rigid philosophy, a veneration of the Fulani-Hausa cultural heritage and Islam, a philosophy basically racist, contending that the culture of the people itself was absolutely all right, though it was lower in scale than the white man’s culture! Nothing illustrates better the hoisting of Lugard with his own petard than his relations with Walter Miller and other Christian missions. During his first tenure in Northern Nigeria Lugard was the darling of missions—the Sudan United Mission and Sudan Interior Mission in the ‘pagan’ areas and in particular of the Church Missionary Society,


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whom he not only encouraged to establish themselves in ‘pagan’ areas but whom he teased to establish stations in Bida, Zaria, Yola, Maiduguri, Bauchi, Keffi, Katsina, and Kano. He was also prepared to buy ideas about education from Walter Miller whom he encouraged to work out a system to be purged of Christian doctrine.20 On one occasion he went as far as telling Miller that he was in favour of the CMS taking up education of Northern Nigeria. Consequently both the CMS and Miller had the impression that, in principle, Lugard was not averse to both Christianization and education of Fulani-Hausa Muslims and that it was such obstreperous Residents as Burdon and Temple who were working against his wish. Hence the encomium poured on Lugard by the CMS at the end of his rule in 1906.21 For Miller this empire builder became the paragon of British administrators. His policy, observes this fiery missionary, was ‘sound, statesman-like and solid’.22 The point should be stressed that in these early years Lugard gave a strong impression that, ideally, himself and Miller were one. Like Lugard, Miller believed that ‘our country’s Government makes almost entirely for the salvation of these people, their ultimate good and happiness’.23 Like Miller, Lugard believed that Christianity was superior to Islam and that the latter had done a lot of havoc to the peoples of Northern Nigeria in the way it had manifested itself in the hands of Fulani rulers. Like Miller, Lugard believed that the Emirs were ‘useless’ and that ‘The Fulani race are aliens to the country whose population they have oppressed’.24 Like the CMS missionaries, Lugard was convinced that ‘The bulk of the population are on our side, those who oppose us are their oppressors’.25 However by the time Lugard had returned in 1912 he could no longer see eye to eye with Miller; if his views on the Fulani-Hausa rulers remained unchanged, he did not record them. In no year was the conflict between Christian missions and the British Administration as tense as in the period 1912 to 1918 during Lugard’s GovernorGeneralship. No longer were missionaries encouraged by Indirect Rulers even in ‘pagan’ areas where some administrators regarded them as at best a nuisance. These were the years when even in Southern Nigeria British officials began to think much less favourably of missions and their Nigerian wards. It was this sort of unconcealed hostility that Lugard shared as evidenced by his execration of the mission-educated elite.26 In Northern Nigeria Walter Miller chafed with uncomplimentary remarks for Lugard’s Administration. ‘The Government is protecting itself against Christian propaganda’, he declared, ‘against Christ and our faith’.27 ‘Here the British Government is despotic, antiChristian, cruel and wicked’ and he advocated defiance of the Government by whipping up in Britain ‘enough mass of feeling in the Christian Church’.28 Under the GovernorGeneralship of Lugard missions were completely excluded from Muslim communities and were regarded as a liability to the administration in ‘pagan’ areas. Indirect Rule was in many ways an enemy of Westernstyle education, a phenomenon worsened by the fear of Muslims that the Roman script was an Open Sesame to Christianity. Indeed, quite unknown to Miller, Lugard had softened his attitude towards the Fulani rulers from the very early days and had resolved to use them as the cornerstone of his Indirect Rule policy. And so far did he go, in accordance with his racialist doctrine, that he believed that Islam was wholly beneficial to Africans and that the system of administration of the Fulani had merits he fully endorsed, including the Islamic system of education.29 There was no question of his endorsing Miller’s views that the Fulani should


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be removed and that Indirect Rule be built on the pre-Jihad Habe system of rule, that Islam could purvey education, or that ‘Mohammedans if left to themselves will never educate’.30 On the contrary Lugard and his lieutenants regarded education of the people along Western lines with some uneasiness and suspicion, as a process likely to exert a disintegrating and demoralizing effect upon the characters of the people. Therefore they began to emphasize education in the vernacular and Arabic, and this was confined to children of the local ruling classes. The results: by the end of the First World War there was not a single Northern Nigerian who was sufficiently educated to fill the most minor clerical post in the office of any Government Department. Thus judged by the results Lugard was not a success in his educational policy in Northern Nigeria. Quite deliberately he did very little, never spending any amount of money worth mentioning on the education of the peoples. It cannot be contended that the Indirect system of administration he set up was per se responsible for the do-nothing policy in respect of Western-style education, for Lugard initiated the policy of letting in Western ideas and innovations in other directions, a policy which exposed Northerners to the baneful influences of scallywags and modern economy. At any time, including the time of his hardliner successors, the Indirect Rule policy was a specious one. In the purist sense it was possible only if the British Raj were withdrawn completely, together with the bureaucratic system of administration. For every white man, from Lugard downwards, was more than a potential invader of the culture and privacy of Northerners, not to mention the Saro and Southerners whose educational skills were hired and valued in the running of the Britishflavoured administrative machine with which the Northerners were being ruled. Thus was permitted a spectacle in which on the one hand Northerners were being told that Western-style education was not in their best interest, whilst on the other hand this brand of education was being used, through British and Southern Nigerian infidels, to introduce Northerners into the Western form of administration. The principles on which the extremely limited and ineffec-tual system of Westernstyle education introduced north of the Niger-Benue rested were in three ways basically prejudicial to the interests of the peoples. First, the Emirs Schools and Provincial Schools were designed to produce sycophants who accepted subordinate roles vis-à-vis the British rulers and the traditional aristocracy. Though high in the new bureaucratic form of administration, the selected few were trained to accept the indigenous social order and perceive the British as natural directors of affairs and the Emirs as natural rulers. The measure of literary skill they had just acquired reinforced their birth privilege and increased their superiority over the talakawa (the common people). In a sense they could not but thank the British for their increased stature, looking upon them as benefactors. Surely these were not materials to criticise the British, how much more organize and lead opinion against the infidel rulers. Hence the fact that criticism of, and reaction to, the British came from the ordinary people, the tariquas (Muslim religious brotherhoods) and mahdis, people brought up and literate in the Arabic character unaided by the British rulers. Second, the racialist denominator of Lugard’s educational policy should be clearly grasped. There is no doubt whatsoever that in his heart of hearts Lugard understood the elevating and transforming values of Western-style education as the elemental dynamic for change in society and the leaven for modernization. Never was he in doubt of its absolute need by the white but he was of the view that only the lower form or a small


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dosage of it was good for Africans! And it was his low opinion of the ability of Africans that made him assert that Africans could never be fully qualified as engineers or medical doctors.31 If Lugard had thought of the applicability or suitability of Western education for Nigerians north of the Niger-Benue, he would have accorded it some priority by setting aside some funds, however small. The contention that there were no funds, a point reiterated by his apologists, is quite untenable and specious. Western-style education was devalued and held out as a dangerous thing which should not be made available to the masses, and which only British officials could dispense to the children of the aristocracy in a guarded manner. Last, it needs be emphasized that during his first tenure in Nigeria Lugard had no thought whatsoever for the education of women, outside the girls in Freed Slave Homes whom eventually he ordered to be given out in marriage at a fairly tender age. True he had more than a frustrating challenge in the seclusive role carved for women by the brand of Islam in the North. But never once did the omnivorous mind of this keen observer and critic of indigenous society ever perceive the ideological significance or idealism of Western-style education for womenfolk. Southern Nigeria which Lugard had to administer with the old North as GovernorGeneral from 1912 to 1918 was a sharp contrast to the latter in the matter of education. Here its intensity, pattern, and orientation had been clearly defined and determined in some areas for more than half a century. Unlike in the North where Lugard had made history, howbeit an uninspiring one, pronouncing oracularly on Western education and controlling its presence and form, he had to be made by history in the South. His hands were very much tied. Here increasingly from 1842, when Christian missions began to establish themselves in the territory, Western-style education had become popular and its strategic value for modernization clearly appreciated by 1900.32 It had flourished in Yorubaland for more than a generation before the establishment of British colonial rule, and high-quality Nigerians had been produced: bishops, graduates, lawyers, civil engineers, medical doctors, journalists, businessmen, and educationists. The political and social results already produced by the form of Western-style education in Southern Nigeria were the opposite of what could have been endorsed by a European empire-maker. Fully convinced that the educated elite, rather than the British, should found modern Nigeria, many of the educated elite had been preaching the gospel of Nigeria for the Nigerians before 1900, vituperating against what they considered the yoke of British political and economic imperialism.33 The British empire they envisioned was one in which they and the white were biologically equal, in which they believed that they had no less a stake than the British. Unlike Lugard, the arch-preserver of the status quo with emphasis on the illiterate rulers, the educated elite believed that they, mostly of slave or plebeian origins, should be the cornerstone and instrument for British presence and colonial rule.34 And so incisive had Western-style education become that even the traditional aristocracy, including some Ọbas, had become infected with it. In the eyes of a. substantial portion of the educated section of the Southern Nigerian community in 1912, neither the traditional rulers nor the British imperialists deserved respect or qualified to rule. Therefore there could be no question of their holding the British colonial rulers in such neo-mystical reverence as their counterparts north of the NigerBenue did. Hence the invectives incessantly poured on both classes of rulers, the British and so-called natural rulers, by the vigorous press that had come into being in Lagos


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since 1880. Certainly the Indirect Rule of the North that had turned Lugard and his white lieutenants into demi-gods, and had sanctified the oppressive authoritarianism of the Emirs, was completely out of the question in the South. No situation could have proved a worse anathema for Lugard. In the Southern Nigerian milieu Lugard’s efforts as an educationist had to be fashioned along lines completely different from those he had mapped in the North in his first tenure. In my opinion, Lugard’s greatness as an educationist is in the fact that he allowed himself to be guided by the prevailing circumstances rather than adopt the negative attitude of do-nothing. Not only did he try to make the best of what he deemed a bad situation but he rose above it and in the process propounded principles of education new in emphasis, if not ideologically, and loaded with idealism and considerable vision. He seems to have known his limitations in a way a less shrewd administrator could not have known. Therefore he never attempted to discourage Christian missions but rather fostered effective, creative, and meaningful co-operation with them, notwithstanding his fundamental ideological differences with them. So ideally did he behave in relation to the South that he never provoked antagonism or criticism about his education policy from a press that was pungently critical of him in other respects. Lugard’s adaptability and flexibility within the milieu of Southern Nigeria constituted the hallmark of his statesmanship. A careful study of the body of materials on Western education he penned—and it is a great credit to him that he found ample time for what was basically a big social question—reveals in bold relief that he was well-intentioned. Having perceived and accepted that Western-style education had come to stay in Southern Nigeria, he was fully prepared to advance the social and modernizing courses of this formal form of education. To this end his blueprint is not the only comprehensive but the boldest and most idealistic document of its kind before the adoption of Universal Primary Education policy by the Western Regional Government in the fifties of this century.35 Adoption of his blueprint would have heralded the millennium in the march of Nigeria to nationhood. Frederick Lugard was the first educationist in Nigeria to contemplate and consider rural education as something necessarily distinct from urban education. In the social development of Nigeria the villager, he contended, deserved from Government no less attention than the man in the town. To this end, he asserted, his standard and style of life should be raised not only by literary education but by technical training, the result of which would be better forms of housing and greater observance of health science. Before Lugard other developers of Nigeria, including Christian missions and traders, had wittingly and unwittingly concentrated on the urban areas. With his concept of rural development Lugard hit the sounding board of social justice. Indeed throughout colonial rule concentration on the urban areas at the expense of the countryside was the basic policy of Government. Not until the devolution of self-government on Nigerians in the fifties was a conscious effort made to pay long overdue attention to the rural parts of the country in the provision of primary and secondary grammar schools. This is not to say that Lugard drew exactly the same form of education for rural and urban areas. The former, he emphasized, should learn enough literacy to be able to understand Government policies and the procedure of Native Courts. The emphasis was to be on industrial crafts—carpentry, blacksmithing, ‘practical agriculture’ and so on. Indeed it was his view that native handicraft should become a monopoly of villages.


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Lugard cannot be faulted because he did not conceive of sophisticated education for the rural areas—the different pattern of life dictated by the rural milieu from that of the urban centre necessitated a different pattern of development from that of town environment. Seen against the scientific cultivation he had in mind Lugard was intent on improving the lot of villagers by making farming respectable. And to his credit he was not rigid, confining all villagers to the countryside. Recognizing that in the rural areas there were talented pupils who should be encouraged to pursue the higher form of education, his scheme involved transfer of such pupils by scholarship to ‘the higher standard schools’ in selected centres. Frederick Lugard also scored a first in his advocacy of Adult Education, thereby being clearly a generation ahead of his time. Not until after the Second World War was the idea to be resuscitated by the Colonial Government in Nigeria. But Lugard’s significance, ideologically, is more pronounced by the fact that he thought beyond general training of illiterate people in the art of reading and writing. He advocated continuing education for the literate as well. For him the programme was also to include graduates of primary schools already employed in the civil service. They were to be afforded ‘opportunities of obtaining higher qualification or of taking up special subjects, in Evening and Continuation classes. These latter will be formed to afford instruction in any subject for which there is a sufficiency of applicants to form a class’. Those with technical biases would be apprenticed in Railway, Marine, or Public Works Department shops. They were also to have ‘the advantage of Evening or Extra Tuition classes’. Perhaps the most prominent feature of Lugard’s educational policy was its unabashed secularism. Though himself a son of a clergyman, and although he was convinced of the moral properties of Christianity in Western culture, Lugard was unyieldingly anti-clerical and almost paranoid in his aversion to education in the hand of Christian missions. Nothing illustrates this streak in him as his refusal in the early years of the century to hand over freed slaves for proper training to the Christian missions. He preferred that these freed slaves be trained and educated less adequately in schools founded by charity organizations than in mission schools. Lugard would not allow these freed slaves to be tainted with what seemed to him the leprous doctrine of Christians! This is not to say that Lugard was anti-Christianity per se. What he was inveterately opposed to was the elitist products of mission schools who he believed had been perverted, rather than improved, by their schools. As he opined ‘we must admit that education has not brought happiness or contentment to the educated community in Nigeria’.36 In point of fact he was in favour of dissemination of Christianity among the ‘pagans’ in the belief that this religion would elevate them to a higher plane of civilization. Knowing when and where to stop, Lugard conceded that, as far as Southern Nigeria was concerned, mission schools had come to stay and that all the Government could do was to cooperate and use the big stick of grants to ‘Assisted Schools’ to control them. Lugard was convinced that Christian missions were not the best educators and that only the Government could conceive the best form of education for the people. Therefore his ideal was a Government-sponsored education system that would combine utility with improvement of quality of the mind. As he wrote: The primary function of education should in my judgment be to fit the ordinary individual to fill a useful part in his environment with happiness


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to himself and to ensure that the exceptional individual shall use his abilities for the advancement of the community and not to its detriment or to the subversion of constituted authority.37 The touchstone of sound education to achieve this ideal, Lugard was convinced, was a morality-loaded secular system of education. This morality, he stressed again and again, did not have to be determined by religion and was better when it was not. He was a Humanist without the revolutionary zeal of a Robespierre or the intellectual armoury of a Julian Huxley. It was only grudgingly that he recognized the value of inculcation of Christian moral principles in ‘pagan’ pupils. His secular system would make obligatory ‘Moral Instruction’, ‘to inculcate by the lives of great men of all nations and so on, the value of truth, honesty, deference to superiors, the dignity and pleasure of work, the reward of Unselfishness and so on’.38 As he was to embody it in his Education Ordinance of 16 December 1916, grants to schools would have to take into account the moral tone. Lugard was the first outright secularist educationist in Nigeria. Whilst his predecessors, dating back to 1882, had in the Education Ordinances sought to avoid religious partisanship by making Religious Studies optional and by refusing to provide grants for it, none ever attempted a frontal attack on this most important feature of the Mission schools for which the Ordinances were primarily intended. It was taken for granted by Lugard’s predecessors that no matter what they did, a religious overtone would necessarily dominate the schools, nor would they risk the anger and influence of mission headquarters in Britain by suggesting that there was any alternative to Christian moral instruction. Even when in the eighties of the nineteenth century the educated elite were advocating massive sponsoring of education as an obligation by Government, they took it for granted that Christian religious teaching was the basis on which the Nigeria of their vision was to be built. What was novel in Lugard’s philosophy was not the emphasis on morality per se but the emphasis on secular morality. He was the secular missionary. Practically all Christian missions saw the school as a tool for fashioning pupils into Christian moral animals. But the emphasis was on sectarian and Christian morality. It seems strange that Lugard was not aware that his secular morality was impossible outside the framework of religion, except in a State with a secular religion of its own in the form of a national ideology such as Communism. But the Nigeria of today, not to talk of the Nigeria of 1914, is essentially religious. Therefore his gospel was a non-starter. In the main Lugard was speaking in the abstract; he had no formulated tenet, spelt out into components for curriculum. He was, to say the least, a mere theorist, speaking with passion and conviction in a context of mere make-believe. Ironically although Lugard believed that he was omniscient vis-à-vis the Nigerian community, he was abysmally ignorant and oblivious of the prominent features of moral education in the indigenous milieu. Hence the totally false belief he recorded that Africans ‘have not the traditions and the ethical standards which centuries of Christian teaching and environment have produced in Europe’ and that the African milieu produces a class of young men and women who lack reverence alike for their parents, their social superiors, their employers, or the Government.


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…they lack self-restraint and control and they lack the foundation on which all the highest and best work in the world is based whether of public and civic usefulness, or of private incentive and effort.39 Had he sought to inform himself of the effective ethical values that marked the indigenous Nigerian communities—clearly identified by European observers in the nineteenth century and later confirmed by social anthropologists—Lugard would have discovered that in this realm of Moral Instruction contemporary English society had much to learn from Nigerian society. Racially arrogant, Lugard assumed that moral principles were a monopoly of the white, in particular of the British, even when the Indirect Rule he initiated in Northern Nigeria should have made him perceive the moral laws of Islam-Hausa society. Therefore he believed that, ideally, British personnel, ‘adequate British staff’, would facilitate the implementation of his objective about moral character. Ideally, too, these schools were to be residential and monitors were to help in discipline. Another strand in the philosophy of education of Lugard that should be emphasized is his advocacy of large scale scholarship awards to secondary schools which he wished established in every provincial capital. True, as early as 1890 Governor Moloney had dished out awards for training abroad to a very few civil servants, but Lugard became the first educationist to speak of the Government identifying talented but poor boys and girls and encouraging them with scholarships. Lugard also had a progressive and healthy view of secondary education. He wished that the Government schools at Warri and Bonny—hitherto producing technical apprentices—be raised to the status of King’s College, Lagos, the first Government Secondary School in Nigeria, which had been founded in 1909. He wanted more secondary schools for the country, including Northern Nigeria, a proposal that was not to be carried out for another generation. One other virtue of Lugard’s philosophy of education was its functionalism. He was not an advocate of education for its own sake. Rather he drew up a map of the different milieux of the country—the villages, the towns, and the Islamic areas—and offered prescriptions that, he felt, would cater for the peculiar needs of each milieu. His one objective was to produce morally sound beings who would preserve orderliness but at the same time use for the service of the community the resourcefulness elicited by formal education. Thus the rural man, who was to be literate to Standard III level, would utilize his resourcefulness in the promotion of the quality of handicrafts, farming, and building construction. He was to be happy with his lot and not aspire to move into the town. The urban man was to acquire a higher literary skill for service in Government and mercantile houses, whilst the technically-oriented man was to learn his job in Government Departments. All in all the literate must be of good and sound manners, behaving himself in relation to his unlettered elders, and displaying loyalty to the British administration. Thus the man in the North, particularly in the Islamic areas, should not aspire to acquire literacy in the Roman script, unless he was a child of a patrician and specially selected to be moulded in Government schools for service in the Native Administration. From all that has been said it is clear that Lugard was nothing more than an idealist. Education, Western-style, meant introduction of new ideas and acquisition of a new appetite for new tastes and new visions. Such an appetite was bound necessarily to


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become insatiable. Only in the North was it possible to control what was deliberately offered as a mere trickle. In the South where Western-style education was bound to assume flood proportions, the flood could not be dyked in the least. His proposals were far too moderate for the appetite of the peoples, who were in no way disposed to wait for Government’s pleasure. Villages went on founding primary schools and towns founding secondary grammar schools, paying not only the fees but the salaries of the teachers, in full co-operation with the missions who went on bluffing Government by not bothering to apply for assistance in the form of grants. In 1913 Christian communities in Ijẹbu Ode and Ibadan decided to imitate their Ẹgba counterparts by founding their own secondary grammar schools, an effort imitated by the Ondos in 1919 and by other towns before the outbreak of the Second World War. Lugard’s idealism went beyond his writings. He went ahead with codification and an Ordinance promulgated on 16 December 1916.40 Largely a synthesis of other ordinances on education since 1882, the Ordinance was meticulous in detail and rather oversanguine in expectation. It deals in detail with classification, inspection, condition for grants and so on, but its three fundamentally significant novelties should be mentioned. For the first time the principle of the legal supremacy of Government in the matter of education was clearly established. Not that mission schools were threatened, but the statement was emphatic that where new schools were to be established Government permission was obligatory. The subtle control over mission schools was receiving a new and greater tone of formality and legalization. This part of the Ordinance was quite in line with Lugard’s directives that Government should demarcate the spheres of influence of Christian missions. The firmer control of Government in the matter of education is also palpable in the more stringent conditions set, in an age when the resources of missions were getting slenderer and slenderer, and when they would ever more than before be pushed into requesting Government to bear more and more the financial burden of schools. In this respect the best illustration of the new financial stringency was the ease with which Lugard persuaded the Church Missionary Society to accept professionalization of teaching, and therefore the principle of grant-in-aid for the Ọyọ Training Institution. The original purpose of founding this as well as similar institutions, was to train clergymen only, rather than career teachers. Teachers were no more than catechists gathering preliminary experience in the inculcation of Christian life into pupils in the classroom. Automatically they moved into the Church as pastors. Second, without knowing it, Lugard initiated the principle of amalgamation in education and thereby ideologically contributed to the evolution of the structural unification of the education system in the country. The Ordinance proclaimed for one Nigeria apart, the similarities in the membership of the Boards for the North and South, of their functions, and of the two Boards being under the same person, the GovernorGeneral of the Federation. It should be remarked that, on paper, Lugard’s educational proposals for the area north of the Niger-Benue bore some close resemblance to some of his proposals for the South for rural and urban areas, and even in establishment of secondary grammar schools. Finally the principle of establishment of School Committees on a provincial basis was an innovation of considerable significance. Its application would necessarily spread the gospel of Western education and enlist local interest and participation in the well-being of schools in a way it never had been before under Government. In Southern Nigeria its


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implementation after the First World War considerably aided the growth of interest in Western-style education. So much attention has been given to the philosophy of education propounded by Lugard as well as the progressive elements of his Education Ordinance of 1916 primarily to show the excellence and quality of his intentions. For it is the duty of historians to assess a person not only by the results but by his intentions. In the case of Lugard his proposals, idealism, and enthusiasm did not yield visible results. This was partly because the First World War, in which Nigerians were forced to participate, claimed primary attention, at the expense of the social and economic development of the country. Not until years after the war was it possible to implement some of the elements of his philosophy, vision, and policy. One misconception of Lugard should not pass without a few remarks. He was entirely wrong to think that the educated elite in Southern Nigeria were vituperating against, and ‘disloyal’ to, the British Empire because of the type of education they had received. The fault was not in the mission school, but in any school, including Government School, where Western ideas and concepts had to be disseminated. Western-style education naturally inoculated its recipients with ideas and values of the type being imbibed in contemporary Europe—ideas of justice, equality, democracy—as well as styles of life and patterns of thinking. It was nothing more than wishful thinking to believe, as Lugard affected to believe, that recipients of his dosage of education would be the docile moral beings of his imagination, who would not only accept but endorse the status quo, including second class citizenship within Nigeria, their own country, and within the British Empire which even the most anti-Lugard critics venerated and were intensely proud to belong to. NOTES 1 Margery Perham, Lugard: The Years of Authority, 1899–1945, London, 1960. 2 Ibid., chapter 21. 3 Egba Archives, Ake, Abeokuta, paper dated 28/5/1896. 4 C.O.Taiwo, ed., Henry Carr (Lectures and Speeches), London, 1969. About other important Nigerian educationists in the nineteenth century see E.A.Ayandele, ‘James Johnson: pioneer educationist in West Africa’, West African Journal of Education 12, 2(June 1968), 92–9; 12, 3(October 1968), 174–80. Also E.A.Ayandele, ‘The coming of Western education to Africa,’ West African Journal of Education, 15, 1(February 1971), 21–33. 5 Quoted in E.Oyelami Adetunji, ‘Lord Lugard’s educational policies in Nigeria, 1900–1918’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Ibadan University, 1963, p. 246. 6 See chapter 7 also. 7 Sonia F.Graham, ‘History of education in relation to development of the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, 1900–1919’, Ph.D. thesis, London University, 1955. 8 A very exaggerated notion of Lugard as an educationist is put forward by E.Oyelami Adetunji who says on page 37 that Lugard was ‘a man whose educational work was important in Nigeria, a country which was at that time in need of an organised system of educational policy and practice’. And yet on page 139 the same author notes that as late as 1905 Lugard would not even think of ‘general primary education’ for the North. 9 W.Miller, Manuscript (of his autobiography) in Ibadan University Library, p. 89. Parts of this manuscript were published in 1953 by the Gaskiya Press, Zaria. 10 National Archives, Ibadan, CSO 1/27 vol. 7, Miller to High Commissioner, 6/1/1907. 11 CMS G3/A9/02, Miller to Baylis, 8/6/1908.


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12 Ibid., 21/8/1910. 13 Ibid., ‘Northern Nigeria E.C.Minutes 1908 November’. 14 CMS CA2/015, ‘Report July–December 1913’. 15 CMS G3/A9/02, Tugwell to Baylis, 18/12/1907. 16 CMS G3/A9/01, Miller to Lugard, 29/7/1903. 17 National Archives, Kaduna, SNP 7/6 283/1955, CMS, Annual Report for 1904, by W.R.Miller. 18 Rhodes Library, Oxford, Lugard Papers, S.62, Lugard to Chamberlain, 16/1/1903. 19 Ibid., S.63, Girouard to Lugard, 28/4/1909. 20 CMS G3/A9/01, Miller to Baylis, 29/6/1906 and 2/12/1906. 21 CMS CA3/L5, Baylis to Lugard, 11/10/1906. 22 Lugard Papers, S.62, Miller to Lugard, 24/12/1907. 23 CMS G3/A9/01, Miller to Lugard, 22/7/1905. 24 Lugard Papers, S.62, Lugard to Chamberlain, 16/1/1903. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid., S.76, Lugard to Cowan, 13/10/1915. 27 CMS CA2/015, Dr Miller to Manley, 5/5/1913. 28 Ibid. 29 E.A.Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria, 1842–1914: A Political and Social Analysis, London, 1966, pp. 136–7; 140–1. 30 CMS G3/A9/01, Miller to Lugard, 29/7/1903. 31 CO 583/32, F.D.Lugard to Harcourt, 15/4/1915. E.Oyelami Adetunji, pp. 320–1. 32 E.A.Ayandele, The Educated Elite in the Nigerian Society, Ibadan, 1974, part 1. 33 See chapter 9 of this book. 34 Ayandele, The Educated Elite, part 2. 35 Lugard Papers, S.76, Education in Colony and Southern Provinces of Nigeria. 36 Ibid., Lugard to Hanamby, 1/11/1914. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., Education in Colony and Southern Provinces of Nigeria. 39 Ibid., Lugard to Hans Vischer, 11/1/1914. 40 Ibid., Details of Ordinance, pp. 344–60.

13 The Ideological Ferment in Ijẹbuland, 1892– 1943 Any study of political change in modern Yorubaland must start with the recognition that pre-colonial ideas of government and politics were not radically different, either in kind or in complexity, from the Western political ideas to which the Yoruba were exposed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is as true for the Ijẹbu as it is for any other branch of the Yoruba stock. To take one instance, the Ijẹbu were such firm believers in the divinity of their kings that they maintained death would overcome any person rash enough to mention the name of a reigning Awujalẹ.1 Yet they eagerly toppled Ademiyẹwo Afidipotẹ from the Awujalẹship in 1883 on the grounds that he had broken his contract with the people by failing to fulfil the purpose for which he had been placed on the throne. Such grounds are very similar to those given by John Locke with respect to the ‘Glorious Revolution’. Again, the constitutional distinction between the Ilamuren (executive), the Oshugbo (judiciary), and the Pampa (legislature) recalls at once Montesquieu’s theory of the separation of powers. Yet again, in the representation of both nobility and common people in the Ilamuren, of the various territorial groups in the Pampa, of priests and laymen in the Oshugbo, and of old and young in the Rẹgbẹrẹgbẹ (age-grades), we can see a concern with providing adequate representation for all the various interest groups in the State. And this too is a concern which has many parallels in modern Western political thinking. One of the aims of creating Life Peerages in the British House of Lords, for example, seems to be that of adapting the House to secure adequate representation of all the vari-ous occupational categories that are to be found in the modern state. Impressed by such affinities, the first American sojourner in Yorubaland was constrained to observe: The highest excellence of the best governments among white people consists in constitutional checks or limits to prevent abuses of power. Strange as it may seem the Central Africans [Yorubas] had studied out this balance of power and reduced it to practice, long before our fathers settled in America—before the barons of England had extorted the great charter from King John.2 It is probably true that in the modern West, political ideas have advanced in spectacular leaps through the innovations of a small number of intellectuals and rulers whilst in the Yoruba States, such ideas have grown gradually and steadily through small amendments made down the ages by large numbers of ordinary people.3 At the same time, it is probably just as true that in the West, the more elaborate concepts of government and

The ideological ferment in Ijebuland, 1892-1943

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politics have tended to remain the monopoly of the intellectual minority, whilst in Yorubaland, through the system of traditional education, such concepts have been universally known, universally intelligible, and universally accepted.4 Despite these contrasts, however, the fact remains that when the Ijẹbu were confronted with Western political ideas, they were confronted with ideas that differed from their own in degree and in emphasis, rather than in kind. They were confronted with novelty but not with total discontinuity. This we must remember if we are to understand their response to Western influence in the years under consideration. The political climate in Ijẹbu country from 1892 to 1943 changed and diverged progressively from what it had been before the British occupation. The British expedition heralded a new situation and introduced a new atmosphere. In its wake came revolutionary ideologies, represented by Christianity and Islam, a new approach to and thinking about politics, represented by the British political masters, and new social groups, consisting of Christians, Muslims, and the educated elite. These last groups not only ascribed to themselves a separate identity but became initiators of ideas and, in several ways, dictators of the pattern assumed by politics in the years under consideration. The Awujalẹ, the chiefs, the office-holders, the custodians of ideas and institutional purity that had been so dear in the pre-colonial era, were driven to the defensive. No new ideas that were to have political meaning for the people were to enamate from them any more; their days of law-giving and directorship of public opinion had come to an end. Nevertheless old beliefs and thinking about politics did not crumble suddenly or completely. Indeed some old ideas about law and authority not only persisted but were considered pertinent and indispensable to the well-being of their country by emergent pressure-groups, by the educated elite, and by radically-minded Christians and Muslims. In this respect the focal institution, with the ideas and concepts that sustained it, was the Awujalẹship. As the peak position in the hierarchy of authority the Awujalẹship inspired awe and reverence. The institution rested on the theory that the Awujalẹ, like any Ọba in Yoruba society, was the vicegerent of the gods on earth and the microcosm of the Ijẹbu nation. He was the incumbent of an office which constituted the institutional link between the living and the dead. Like other African peoples in the pre-colonial era, the Ijẹbu believed that though invisible, the departed were still abiding in Ijẹbuland and that, if correctly invoked and propitiated, their spirits would perform the role of guarantors of peace, prosperity, and harmony in society. In order to ensure tranquillity and orderliness the Awujalẹ had to patronize or perform or supervise specific rituals; he had also to be the watchdog of society in ascertaining that other rituals, in which priests of divinities were involved, were duly performed.5 Succession to the Awujalẹship rested on the principle of divine legitimate inheritance, through specific Houses, which had been reduced to three in the nineteenth century by the severity of .the conditions that had to be fulfilled. Among these conditions were that a prospective candidate must be an Abidagba, that is someone born when his father was already on the throne; that his royal blood must have been inherited by patrilineal descent; that his mother must not have been a slave; that his integrity be unimpeachable, and that he be devoid of physical defects. Then, before he could legitimately inherit the throne, his predecessor must have died and the funeral ceremonies lasted three months. During this period the latter’s body should have been dissected and buried in scattered,


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localities; and his heart and possibly other portions of his body (speculations say the tongue) should have been preserved for eating by the Awujalẹ-elect. The candidate was also expected to have in his possession the skull of his predecessor for drinking purposes. Through these regulations and functions the theory that a community has a corporate personality crystallized in the Awujalẹship. Like other concepts and institutions of the Ijẹbu, the Awujalẹship had grown out of the remote past and had become an object of religious reverence. More than any other institution, it had come to symbolize the collective intelligence and civilization of the Ijẹbu people. Faith in the concept of divine inheritance of Awujalẹship, with the regulations that went along with it, persisted throughout the period examined in this chapter. As the British rulers were to learn,6 any infringement of this principle of legitimacy never failed to stir up the hornet’s nest and call forth the spontaneous and universal hostility of the masses who were convinced that only a strict observance of this principle could stave off disaster, disorder, and chaos for their country. To the stupefaction of British administrators, even as late as 1933 the educated elite, Christians, and Muslims, continued to repose unshakable faith in the dogmas of Awujalẹship as the fons et origo of peace and tranquillity in Ijẹbu country.7 But if the principle of legitimacy and the institution of Awujalẹship seemed sacrosanct and remained unbattered and unbadgered by the Westernism that hit Ijẹbu society and institutions, the Awujalẹs, in their capacities as mortals and individuals, lost respect and ceased to be hedged with divinity. With the possible exception of Adenuga (1925–1929), who was deposed by the British administration, none of the Awujalẹs between 1892 and 1943 inspired confidence and respect in their subjects. Aboki Tunwashe (1886–1895) was discredited in Ijẹbu eyes because, as they led themselves to believe, he betrayed his country to the British and brought upon his people the humiliation and incubus of alien British rule. So embittered were the people that, it is said, the idea was being mooted that the Tunwashe House he represented should be disqualified from access to the Awujalẹ stool. Adeleke (1895–1905) and Fusigboye (1906–1915) were uninspiring and spineless characters, rough-handled and bullied with impunity by British administrators in whose fingers they were mere wax. Ademolu (1916–1925) was ‘so decrepit and feeble a personality’ that, in the judgment of an Odi (a palace official) he was ‘incapable of settling a dispute between two fowls in the backyard’,8 whilst Ogunnaike (1929–1933) was ‘an aged man, senile and easily fatigued, with pleasant manners but no personality, inert physically and mentally’.9 Daniel Adesanya (1933–1960) who was a reforming, able, and educated man, was the most hated of them all because he was seen as a usurper, a violator of the legitimist principle, and a lackey of the British who had forced him on unwilling subjects. But even if the Awujalẹs of this period had been dignified, respectable, able, and attractive personalities their weight in the scale of public opinion would hardly have improved unless they had allowed themselves to be completely swept up in the tide of Westernism that hit the Ijẹbu with an impact and suddenness unique in Yorubaland in the first half of this century. In other parts of Yorubaland, notably in the Ọyọ Province, it was possible for traditional rulers to parade their office as a source of law and authority within the so-called Indirect Rule system with the support of sympathetic British officials.10 However the circumstances in Ijẹbuland did not favour any attempt by the so-called natural rulers to assert such a claim. Even in the pre-colonial period, it should be stressed,


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the Awujalẹ was very far from being an autocratic ruler, and the events of the colonial era did much to weaken still further an authority which was already shared with several other office-holders and associations. Ijẹbu rulers underwent this traumatic experience partly because, at least in the first twenty-three years, the British administration consciously dealt their authority severe blows and partly because within a few years there arose new groups of aspirants to power, influence, and leadership. These new pressure groups may be labelled as Christians, Muslims, and the educated elite. Again, by contrast with the domain of the Alafin in the same period,11 these groups of ‘progressives’ were encouraged by the British Administration. At first, the most dangerous intrusions into Ijẹbu society were the alien religions of Christianity and Islam which found adherence among the turbulent younger generation whose Rẹgbẹrẹgbẹs had begun to give them a voice alarming to the authorities at the time of the British invasion of 1892. In Christianity and Islam a large number of Ijẹbu acolytes found new ideas and beliefs which conflicted with precolonial ideas about law, authority, and obedience. Christianity inculcated in its adherents a sense of superiority not only to fellow citizens who remained ‘pagans’ but also to the so-called natural rulers, who were never to become fully converted to a religion so patently menacing to their authority. Logically the sense of superiority which Ijẹbu converts began to acquire led them to the thought that it would be legitimate to withdraw loyalty to ‘pagan’ rulers not only in religious affairs but in other matters as well. The Bible became for Christians the source of law and authority. The teacher, who in the early years was the interpreter of the Bible, came to occupy in the thinking and imagination of Christian acolytes a pedestal higher than had ever been occupied by any ruler in the pre-colonial period. Not only did this new spiritual guide, new moral counsellor, and purveyor of new ideas have the magic wand of literacy. His ‘big grammar’ made him in popular imagination the compeer and companion of the white man with whom he was only too eager to boast he was an associate. Indeed not a few of the Christian agents in Ijẹbuland, particularly those located in the numerous villages, paraded themselves as agents of the British Government in Lagos.12 In the circumstances Christian acolytes looked upon their teachers as the only legitimate authority to whom obedience should be given. To the chagrin of the so-called natural rulers juridical power, hitherto their prerogative, was assumed by the teachers. The Christians began to take disputes and cases involving issues like taxation, land, and differences between themselves and the chiefs to their teachers.13 Though numerically small vis-à-vis the ‘pagans’ and Muslims in Ijẹbuland in the years under consideration, the Christians were best placed to win the initiative in the nurturing of new ideas. Until 1930, when the Muslims founded their first stable school, practically all the schools in Ijẹbuland were owned and controlled by the Christian missions. These schools became incubators of revolutionary ideas. Within a generation of the British conquest the Christians who had passed through these schools had become the most ‘progressive’. For the zealots among the Christians, the Ijẹbu State as it was before the British conquest was not the right type of State, nor its citizenry either. The State into which they wished to see Ijẹbuland transformed was the Christian one in which only Christian ideas and Christian citizenry would be allowed existence. These zealots believed that good citizenship was inseparable from religious piety. Themselves members of a society in which religion and politics in the pre-colonial period were hardly separable, it was logical


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that they singled out their religion for a nexus with the State of their imagination. In their thinking indigenous religion and the rival monotheistic faith of Islam were not to be permitted co-existence with Christianity. Their thinking in this respect was translated into a display of physical force against Muslims and ‘pagans’ whose ferocity and frequency confounded British administrators.14 These iconoclasts expected that the British political masters would not only condone but approve of their excessive intolerance as they thought that the new rulers were members of a Christian government committed to the creation of the Christian State of their dream.15 Christians, however, did not monopolize initiative in the generation of ideas. In a relatively small and indecisive way the Muslim community acquired a separate identity and, like the teachers of the Christians, the Imams and Na’ibis (deputy leaders of a town’s Muslim community) became potential rivals of the so-called natural rulers. In the earlier years the Muslims were a pressure group that could not be ignored and in the Kuku family they had a constant supply of politically ambitious leaders. However they were far behind the Christians in thought, opinion, and leadership for two principal reasons. First, as mentioned already, they were lacking in the Western form of education until 1930, and second, the Muslim community was hardly ever free from factiousness and struggles for leadership. As time went on, the early intolerance of these new groups began to abate. The Christians came to realize that their more extreme attitudes could never receive the support of the British rulers. And the Muslims were tamed by the advent of the Ahmadiyya sect which, after its 1930 establishment in Ijẹbu country, renounced radicalism and ideas that would undermine the authority of the so-called natural rulers, pledging itself to observance of the virtues of meekness and courtesy, renunciation of ‘pride and haughtiness’, and obedience and respect to ‘all those who are in authorities’.16 In 1937, mere tolerance gave way to active co-operation. In that year, Muslim and Christian communities began to work together in a patriotic organization, the Ijẹbu Mure Welfare Society, one of whose declared aims was: To enhance co-operation among the people of Ijebu as a whole and to unify the thoughts of the people by adopting and encouraging means which would foster better understanding so that the Ijebus may come to have a common ideal towards the good of their country, that national consciousness may be developed, and the achievement of the people’s common ideal be made possible.17 In the long run, the most revolutionary political ideas were those of the educated elite. Though mostly Christian they are better described as the educated elite, for their activities and attitudes were hardly ever prompted by consideration of Christian principles or the furtherance of Christian or Church interests. They were the veritable radicals, products of schools which within a generation of the British occupation had become nurseries of agitators. Arrogant, presumptuous, and self-confident, their pretensions were irritating to the chiefs because they constituted a class of very mixed origins, many of whose members would have counted for nothing in pre-colonial days. Their claims were based entirely on their ability to read and write rather than on hereditary rank.


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The educated elite believed that the new environment being brought into existence belonged more to them than to the so-called rulers. As their most vociferous representative, T.A.Odutọla, pooh-poohed hereditary rank, ‘the Old Order’ was dead, yielding place to ‘a New Africa’. It was the educated elite alone that could handle the challenge and problems of the new order; ‘Whether such persons are of humble or high birth does not matter. What matters is that they should be men of action, men with broad minds, men able to call a spade a spade. Such people and such people only are worthy to be leaders of the New Africa’.18 In this ‘New Africa’ the chiefs seemed to the educated elite more ornamental than useful. Those of the elite who succeeded in making money, the class of nouveaux riches, frankly despised the chiefs; those who could speak and write English objected to the rule of chiefs who could do neither and who, for the most part, had never travelled any distance from their homes. The educated elite loathed the fact of stipends for men (the chiefs) for whom they had very little use and whom they regarded as incapable of understanding the ideas and aspirations of the ‘New Africa’ or of representing these to the British Government. The pretensions and manners of the educated elite were irritating and offensive to British officers. Since the latter were few and far between, the capacity of the elite for mischief in the remote villages was considerable. As an officer lamented, they were always makers of ‘endless trouble’.19 Though they were kept out of power until after the First World War, educated Ijẹbu sent numerous petitions to Government, above the heads of the District Officer and Resident; and headquarters in Lagos or Enugu might instruct these officers to grant serious attention to such petitions. As they were often leaders of Christian laity, they might order armed attack on the Muslim community, seize the sacred grove of the Sango cult as a site for Church-building, or order women to flout the authority of Oro and Agemo.20 Nor did all this exhaust the danger of the educated Ijẹbu elite to the weary and embarrassed administrative officer. Once they left school and found the doors of employment in the Native Authority or civil service or commercial firms or outside the territory closed to them, they had no alternative to fanning the flame of discontent and bitterness of the unlettered masses against the colonial administration by becoming letterwriters. Indeed, letter-writing became for the educated Ijẹbu elite a flourishing business, with a considerable portion of the population as willing clients. For the latter the letterwriter was their tribune. He was the bugbear of the court clerk who was hardly ever a faithful recorder of cases at court; he was the bugbear of the presidents of courts, chiefs, who were often hand-in-glove with court clerks in the taking of bribes. The letter-writer became the effective transmitter of the grievances of the unlettered masses to the District Officer and the Resident; and should these officers, who regretted that the majority of cases had to be reviewed as a result of endless petitions, pigeon-hole the letter-writer’s petition, they might risk their image at headquarters.21 Since the letter-writer’s fees were very moderate compared with those of the barrister, the masses patronized him with an enthusiasm and willingness scandalous to administrative officers.22 But it was the so-called natural rulers who suffered most from the existence of the letter-writers. Their activities further eroded chiefly authority, helping to sow in the masses new notions of rights and liberty unimaginable in other parts of Yorubaland. For in matters concerning divorce, land, mortgage, the tricks of the middlemen producebuyers, and stool contests, the masses took the liberty to bypass the so-called natural


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rulers and dealt directly with the British administration through the letter-writers. By 1900 the mission school had achieved the notoriety of turning out ‘a class of young men which for ignorance, general uselessness (ludicrous were it not possibly dangerous) it would be hard to match anywhere’.23 Nor was it easy to apprehend and bring the educated elite to book. For they established a liaison with the Lagos press and had connections with, in the language of an officer, ‘certain mischievous evil doers and agitators in Lagos’.24 By 1916 the British administration had cause to regret the liberty and licence with which the educated elite were expressing their ideas about the so-called natural rulers. For they had begun to form associations which ignored the chiefs completely and which began to put across to the British administration their ideas about reforms and progress that they wished to see in Ijẹbuland. The most important of these associations was the Ijẹbu Aborigines Protection Society, founded before 1911. By 1921 one association, the Ijẹbu National Brotherhood Society, had begun to publish a ‘Journal’. The educated elite had become so powerful, and the gap between them and the so-called natural rulers so wide, that the administration had to come to terms with them by introducing constitutional changes that would make them participants in the government of their country. In 1921 an Advisory Board was set up, consisting of six members as representatives of the people. As Resident Brian Smith, the architect of this constitutional change, put it, ‘It seems to me that some such body is required in order to combat the growing tendency towards schism between the chiefs and the other classes of the community’.25 The duties of the Advisory Board were, as the name makes clear, advisory. Through it the educated elite had an opportunity ‘to work with the Awujalẹ, and to bring to his notice any matter which they considered was for the good of their town or of the Ijẹbus generally, and particularly to advise in matters of finance’. The political ideas for which the educated elite fought in the years 1915 to 1943 were the concepts of democracy and representation, the principle of derivation of authority, and the dogma of legitimacy. In this they showed an interesting mixture of radicalism and conservatism. Democratic ideas of some sort certainly existed and prevailed in the pre-colonial era. Democracy was that of the entire community as represented by the Rẹgbẹrẹgbẹs into which all the citizens of Ijẹbu Ode divided themselves. Between 1801 and 1903 not less than thirty-three new Rẹgbẹrẹgbẹs were created. The result was that by 1886 they had come to be dominated by the young people whose casting vote determined the uncompromising attitude of the Ijẹbu authorities to the British between 1886 and 1892. The acceptance of Christianity, a potential breeder of revolutionaries, by the young served as a fillip to the rebelliousness of the Rẹgbẹrẹgbẹs of the young people. Their dominance, which was much resented by the Awujalẹ and his lieutenants and deplored by many British administrators, was the dominance of the democratic idea. As one of the latter who knew the Ijẹbu so well in the twenties, H.L. Ward-Price, commented: The leading society called Regberegbe is composed of all natives of Ijebu Ode. The Oba and his chiefs derive their title from it. It supervises the work of the remaining four societies (Ilamuren, Odi, Oshugbo and Pampa) and the power to alter their decisions. All important matters come before the Regberegbe, and the opinion of its members, women and young


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people, are consulted. The decision of the majority of this society is final.26 But it was a new kind, a new pattern of democracy that the educated elite began to advocate. It had its origins in the Western world and was essentially that which had been evolved in English society and emphasized in its parliamentary institutions. The democratic idea of the British parliamentary type was first imbibed in the Church, through election of representatives by the laity to Church and School committees and the District Council. By 1914 the laity had come to value democracy as expressed through these bodies, and in subsequent years they did not hesitate to criticize or cast away any leader in the Church, lay or clerical, by majority vote. As time went on, the educated elite began to appeal to this kind of democratic principle, already operational in the Church, in the life of the State at large. In the twenties, the exclusion of the educated elite from the more important positions of formal authority in the Native Administration did not in fact prevent them from wielding influence. True, the paraphernalia of the Ijẹbu Native Authority conformed to the pattern that was typical of the Yoruba Provinces generally, with the Awujalẹ, under the supervision of the Resident, sitting at the apex of the system. True also, the Advisory Board, created in 1921 to give educated people the impression of participation in government, was formally without powers. Nonetheless, with the existence of such educated elite as Onafowokan at the head of the Treasury, of Odufunnade, the ‘Kingmaker’ or ‘Regent’ on whom All Ogunnaike depended for advice to an incredible degree, of Dr T.N.Olu ọga, the first Ijẹbu medical doctor, for many years representative of the Ijẹbu Province in the Legislative Council and from 1929 to 1932 Secretary of the Advisory Board, of E.S.Ajayi, a teacher at the CMS Grammar School and member of the Advisory Board from 1924 to 1930, and of T.A.Odutọla, already in the thirties an overmighty subject who could not be ignored either by the British or by the Awujalẹ, it was difficult for the British Administration to restrict de facto power to the Awujalẹ and the traditional aristocracy. In this respect, the British were unable to apply the policy of Indirect Rule to the degree that was possible in other parts of Yorubaland, Ẹgbaland not excepted. But the educated elite were not satisfied with an arrangement that gave them a large measure of de facto power. They desired that the formal constitution of the Ijẹbu Native Administration be altered and transformed in a way that would make possible the existence of the British parliamentary kind of democracy. In particular, they resented the existence of the Judicial Council, consisting of the Awujalẹ, some Ijẹbu Ode chiefs, and six chiefs from the districts, which the British Administration set up in 1928; for although its functions were predominantly judicial, it was also the executive of the Native Administration set up by the British in 1918. As such, its existence was irritating to the educated elite who lost no time in coming out openly against it. Under the leadership of an Anglican Minister, the Reverend Ransome Kuti, the British type of democratic concept was put forward to the British administration as the principle that should guide political development in Ijẹbuland. The so-called natural rulers, the British were urged, should be deprived of all power, political and judicial.27 For, declared the two-hundred strong Kuti delegation, the chiefs were not only ignorant but possessed no sense of responsibility. The pre-colonial government, which the British claimed they were


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rehabilitating as the Native Administration, was not only condemnable but should be scrapped. In its place should be instituted a sort of elective County Council invested with powers to ‘discuss and deal with all matters of importance’. Taken aback by these proposals the Secretary of the Southern Provinces exclaimed: they seem to me to suggest a complete reversal of our native policy; …The Awujalẹ would be deprived of power and would remain as the official figurehead, devoting his time to checking the monthly returns and meditating on questions of high policy …while the Resident and the Advisory Board (or Provincial Council) would administer the Province.28 The reaction of the British authorities to this growth of the democratic spirit in Ijẹbuland was to adopt ambivalent attitudes both towards the Awujalẹ and his lieutenants and towards the educated elite. By 1932 the democratic idea had been further encouraged in the enlargement from six to twelve of the representation accorded the people. These representatives were chosen in a manner in line with the thinking and aspirations of the educated elite. They were chosen by the three quarters of Ijẹbu Ode through their Olorituns (ward heads) who in turn had been selected by popular vote. Naturally each quarter took care that only the educated elite and the nouveaux riches who had ability to voice modern educated or commercial opinion on subjects of public interest were elected. However in the same breath the British administration strengthened the hands of the Awujalẹ by constituting him the ‘Sole Authority’ in conformity with the practice in other parts of Yorubaland. By 1943 the inevitable conflict between the democratic idea of the British system and the idea of Absolutism vested in the Awujalẹ as the ‘Sole Authority’ had begun to occur. The theories of Democracy and Absolutism found exponents in two personalities, Timothy Adeọla Odutọla and Daniel Adesanya Gbelegbuwa II respectively. Timothy Adeọla Odutọla and Daniel Robertson Otubusin, who ascended the throne in September 1933, had been close friends and might never have come into conflict had the latter not become Awujalẹ. Prior to 1933 they shared the views of the educated elite about the material and constitutional development of Ijẹbuland. They were both Christians, pillars of St. Savior’s Church on whose committees Otubusin wielded influence in the atmosphere of the British parliamentary kind of democracy adopted in the Church. Indeed so firm was their friendship that in 1933, when the legality of Otubusin’s appointment to the Awujalẹ Stool was questioned and his accession was demonstrably unpopular, T.A.Odutọla raised no voice against the appointment. However, when Otubusin’s accession to the throne altered his ideology on the crucial issue of source of power and authority, they reached the parting of the ways. For he became the symbol and executor of views and authority that were obscurantist and completely oblivious of the mental and ideological development that had occurred in Ijẹbuland since the British invasion. Never had an Awujalẹ expressed and defended the doctrine of Absolutism, which he described as ‘prerogatives’, as this educated ruler was to do. Hardly had he ascended the throne than he began to harp on the ‘Sole Authority’ terminology which had been used by Indirect Rulers to describe the power with which they invested Yoruba Ọbas but which had never been understood or invoked by his predecessors. Adesanya, as the Awujalẹ asked to be called at his accession to the throne,


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thought in terms of the theory of prerogatives for many reasons. First, unlike his predecessors, he was literate and quite familiar with the ideas, ideals, and aspirations of the educated elite. He felt that he had no need for the advice and services of this pressure group that had never respected his predecessors. Not only was he voluble in English but he had organizational ability that had done him credit as a tailor and businessman before he became Awujalẹ. In terms of ideas about material development for his country he had nothing to learn from the educated elite and, in spite of denigration by his opponents, his name must go down in Ijẹbu history as a reformer and modernizer. Indeed under him the Ijẹbu Native Authority achieved unique distinction in Western forms of education, health, and public works. But he was determined that all reforms must issue from him. To the regret and intense bitterness of Dr T.N.Olu ọga, who more than any person had persuaded the British to place him on the throne, he would neither consult with, nor inform, the educated elite whom he distrusted as selfish deceivers of the masses.29 Second, Adesanya expected that the British administration would support his autocratic claims at all costs, as the British Indirect Rulers were never reluctant to do in other parts of Yorubaland.30 But when he perceived that the British administration would not reduce the ‘Sole Authority’ doctrine to the level of practical politics he fell back on his own very idiosyncratic view of pre-colonial kingship. The doctrine of Absolutism inherent in the ‘Sole Authority’ ordinance of the Indirect Rulers, he contended, was nothing new. It had been ‘the prerogative of all my predecessors’. ‘The prerogative to which I have referred’, he emphasized, ‘is behind the traditional peculiar saying of the Ijebu tribe “Oba o! Oba alase” meaning Awujalẹ is the oba vested with all power and authority’.31 Not only did the Awujalẹ believe in the sanctity of this doctrine of Absolutism, but he contended that the majority of his subjects accepted it as an article of faith, as a doctrine in their interest, and that should this principle ever be tampered with he would never be forgiven by his subjects for whittling down ‘the hoary-headed dignity of the Ijẹbu throne’. It was a principle over which, in spite of appeals by British administrators during the Second World War, Daniel Adesanya would not budge on the grounds that, as he said, ‘I hold it in trust for my successors of the other ruling houses in general and of my own house in particular’.32 Not only did this doctrine bear very little relation to the realities of pre-colonial kingship; it was obviously inappropriate in the Ijẹbu society of the thirties and forties. It was gall and wormwood for the educated elite who expected that by 1939 the British brand of parliamentary democracy would have become a reality in Ijẹbuland. The man who incarnated their desire in this respect and to whom the Absolutist doctrine of Daniel Adesanya was anathema was T.A.Odutọla who became the relentless exponent and defender of the kind of Democracy hankered after by the educated elite. Young, intelligent, resourceful, shrewd, patriotic, a prepossessing personality, Timothy Adeọla Odutọla was the only man who had the audacity to stand up to the challenge of the Autocracy doctrine so fervently expounded by the Awujalẹ. By 1937 he was already an accomplished man, the only African who had a produce-store in Ijẹbu Ode. Conscious of his plebeian birth but extremely ambitious to achieve political influence and power, he had begun to make himself the spokesman for the principle of democracy of the British parliamentary type. Champion of progressive ideas, he realised that tradition would in the end have to fall in line with modern requirements. He found excellent materials in the ‘farmers and workmen’, the youth, the women of Ijẹbu Ode, ‘the younger Moslems and


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hot-heads’, whose ‘inalienable right’, he began to declare on the platform, was to have the decisive voice in the affairs of their country, whose opinion and interests, he said, constituted the ‘general will’.33 He had no respect for the person of the Awujalẹ. On one occasion, to cite just an instance, he scolded the Awujalẹ in public and lectured him on the modernity of keeping time. As recorded officially, Odutọla said inter alia: In the olden days, it is said, any one who comes to see the Awujalẹ must not be too much in a hurry. That time, the people had less business to attend to; but we people of the present day go by time in doing our business/Four days ago we came here, and the Awujalẹ asked that we come back today at 10 a.m. precisely. Immediately we left here some youngmen went round their fathers to persuade them to be here promptly at the fixed time. Notwithstanding the fact that we have been here at 10 a.m. the appointed time it is now 12 o’clock noon.34 The chief instrument which Odutọla used with effect against the Awujalẹ and the Native Authority was the Nigerian Youth Movement, a branch of which was formed in 1936, though not inaugurated until 1938, of which he was President. Under Odutọla’s directorship this nationalist organization used its propaganda machinery to win the support of the masses for the British-type democracy in a manner disconcerting to the Awujalẹ and embarrassing to the British administration. Its chief demand was ‘a more representative and effective Town Council’, and no opportunity was lost to ‘educate’ and ‘arouse’ the consciousness of the ‘local taxpayers’ on the subject.35 In a public address, delivered on 22 July 1938, T.A.Odutọla warned the ‘Chiefs and Elders’ against seeing young men’s aspirations ‘as an invasion of their rights and privileges and a challenge to old age, and authority’ and declared: ‘Give youths the chance and we shall join forces with you to evolve a progressive Administration of a high standard. This is the age when Youths, educated and well informed Youths, will come forward and assume the duty which is theirs by right’.36 The Town Council that was established in 1938, largely as a result of Odutọla’s agitation, was not a complete victory for the brand of democracy desired by the educated elite for the Awujalẹ still remained ‘Sole Authority’ and had the power of veto on all matters. But by 1942 the agitation for the British kind of parliamentary democracy had become irresistible. As was admitted by the Resident, by far the majority of the people of Ijẹbu Ode wanted nothing short of this.37 Only a complete transformation of the Ijẹbu constitution into the British type, according to which the Council of Olorituns would become the ‘Lower House’ and the Ilamuren, the Oshugbo and the Pampa together the ‘Upper House’, the latter deriving power and authority from the former, would satisfy them.38 Indeed the Olorituns, primed by the educated elite, warned the British administration against the use of obscurantists—‘the prototypes of Quisling of Norway, Marshal Petain, Admiral Darlan and Mr Laval of fallen France’ and boasted, ‘The Olorituns still have some de Gaulles who will defend democracy to the last’.39 Just as Daniel Adesanya attempted to justify the doctrine of Absolutism by interpreting the pre-colonial constitution in his own way, the exponents of the new brand of democracy attempted to impress upon the British administration that in principle the


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kind of government they, the educated elite, were asking the British to establish was nothing new. Before the British Government took over the Administration of the country the Government which the people had evolved for themselves since their primitive days was complete democracy—a government of the people by the people for the people. Admittedly it lacked centralization on modern and progressive lines; each town and village was more or less responsible for its own government. But whatever defects there were the principle was full of democracy.40 The brand of democracy being advocated by the educated elite raises the issue of representation. After all ‘The Agitators’, as they were often referred to by the British administration and Daniel Adesanya, were small in number and their claim to represent ‘public opinion’ or ‘the masses’ was not based on the process of popular election or of any election at all before 1921. Take for instance the claims of Joseph Odumosu, the first educated Ijẹbu of the colonial era to make a distinct mark in politics. The first Christian convert of Ijẹbu Ode and a member of the Odubẹla family that later produced Dr N.T.Olu ọga, Joseph Odumosu was an epitome of the principle of representation, by tacit consent, of the masses of Ijẹbu population. He was the grand pacesetter of Westernism in many ways—the first printer, the first publisher, the first cocoa planter, the first author of a two-volume work on Yoruba medicine, the first shop-owner in Ijẹbu Ode, the first builder of a house roofed with galvanized iron, the first to own a bicycle, the first to own a rickshaw, the first to own and publish a newspaper, and founder and first President of Ijẹbu Aborigines Protection Society.41 He achieved a popularity that transcended that of the Awujalẹs of his days (Adeleke and Fusigboye), to the extent that ‘The villages and his townmates always resorted to him for relief and advice when in grave political and court troubles’.42 He became the darling of the people when in 1907 he challenged successfully the stand of the Awujalẹ over the Brown Forest concession affair in which the Awujalẹ’s illiteracy was exploited by a British concession-seeker, Brown, to obtain ‘rights’ to exploit a part of Ijẹbu Forest. And yet popular though he was, Odumosu, who died in 1911, was never elected by the people. Nor were his successors, including Dr Olu ọga, T.A.Odutọla, and the whole class of educated elite sent to the Advisory Board and, after 1938, to the Town Council. For the educated elite constituted a very small elite at the leadership level. Their claims to leadership and to representing the people did not rest on the one man one vote rule. They did not think or speak in terms of numerical majorities as being of any real significance in forming the mature opinion of Ijẹbuland. The parliamentary government they were advocating was one which they wanted conducted under the leadership of a compact but public-spirited minority, which in general the country was willing to follow. There was no question of each man being equal to the other in the unit for unit sense. Rather equality was one of ratio for ratio, with one educated man being several times more equal than several unlettered people. Thus S.A.Adebambọ, the only educated member of the first Advisory Board, considered himself, and was considered by his five illiterate colleagues, as more equal several times than all other members put together. Consequently the deliberations of the


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Board were throughout the year a one-man show, that of S.A.Adebambọ, ‘a verbose individual’ as the Resident dismissed him. According to the official Report, ‘the other members appeared to be overcome by the stream of Adebambọ’s loquacity and showed little incli-nation to offer suggestions or give their opinion on any matter under discussion’.43 A similar kind of judgment may be passed on the influence and claims of Dr N.T.Olu ọga and, to a much lesser extent, on the influence and claims of T.A. Odutọla. In a sense the view of the educated elite, that they were more equal than the illiterate, may be compared to that of J.S.Mill on plurality of votes for certain categories of the British educated elite in the second half of the nineteenth century. Spectacular as the ideological ferment in Ijẹbuland in the years under survey was, by the standard prevailing in Yorubaland outside Lagos, it should not be imagined that the ‘progressives’ desired a complete effacement of the preexpedition beliefs about law and authority. In this respect the principle of legitimacy as defined by immemorial custom, mentioned earlier, continued to have undiminished universal appeal to the Ijẹbu as a people, lettered and unlettered. Quite logically, and in the belief that a society like that of the Ijẹbu which was undergoing marked changes under the impact of Westernism should jettison a principle that was outmoded, unprogressive, and inimical to the true interests of the land, British administrators attempted to tamper with the principle in 1916 and in 1933. But the consequences were not what the British had bargained for. They were surprised that the educated elite did not want to be completely anglicized in their thoughts and beliefs. The attachment of the educated elite to the legitimist principle where Awujalẹship was concerned exemplified an attitude toward the institution of Ọbaship that is probably still held throughout Yorubaland even today. Its strength was dramatically shown by the reaction of the Ijẹbu to the events of 1916 and 1933. In November 1915, Awujalẹ Fusigboye expired and was succeeded, in the manner demanded by the legitimist principle, by Ademolu, a seventy-six year old man universally acknowledged as a physical wreck. The observance of the principle by the kingmakers in the Ijẹbu society of 1915 was a big joke to the Resident, P.V.Young. He had no respect for the rules of succession which had put a misfit like Ademolu on the Awujalẹ stool, and so he decided to make the legitimist principle subordinate to the overall interest of an Ijẹbu society that had begun to change in religious and economic matters, and even in political thinking— as the search for initiative and leadership by the educated elite had begun to demonstrate clearly. Therefore on 27 August 1916 he ‘deposed’ Ademolu in favour of Adekọya, a younger member of the same family. To his consternation the educated elite, led by no less a personality than Bishop James Johnson, not only joined but led the illiterate masses against the violation of the legitimist principle. So universal was the discontent of the Ijẹbu with Young’s doings that the agitation produced the return to the legitimist principle by the British administration in less than five months. A.G.Boyle, the Lieutenant Governor, himself went to Ijẹbu Ode to order the removal of the ‘usurper’ Adekọya.44 P.V.Young could hardly have made a more unfortunate choice, for Adekọya was not an Abidagba, he was an ex-convict, his mother was a slave, and one of his toes was missing. But if, in deference to the wishes of the people, the British authorities in Lagos pledged their allegiance to the legitimist principle in 1917, they were not prepared to do so in 1933 when Daniel Robertson Otubusin was put on the throne. From the Ijẹbu


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viewpoint the sanctity of the legitimist principle had been justified, rather than diminished, by their experience from 1917 to 1929, when the British authorities began to tread the path that led to Otubusin’s accession to the throne. For in popular belief and experience Ijẹbuland prospered and knew peace throughout the reign of Ademolu, who lived till 1925, and the short reign of Adenuga, who was deposed in 1929. As far as the Ijẹbu were concerned the ‘deposition’ and deportation of Adenuga for a number of established crimes, marked the beginnings of evil days for their country. For in the strict sense there could be no successor as long as Adenuga was alive and was therefore in possession of his heart—and he lived to 1950. Ali Ogunnaike, who was placed on the throne by the British, had all qualifications except that he was not an Abidagba and had no predecessor’s heart to eat. All other members of his ruling House could not compete with him because they were ex-convicts. Therefore, as the people stressed time and again, Ali Ogunnaike was only an Acting Awujalẹ.45 The depression that hit the Ijẹbu between 1929 and 1933, obviously a part of the great depression in the world, the women began to stress and the educated elite began to opine, was a visitation from the gods because they, the Ijẹbu, had abandoned the legitimist principle as prescribed from time immemorial.46 It is against this belief in the legitimist principle that the popular movement for Adenuga’s reinstatement should be understood, a point not unperceived by the stupefied British officals in Ijẹbuland. The agitation was the biggest popular movement in Ijẹbu history in modern times, cutting across classes and creeds and backed with astonishing fervour by nationalists of the stature of Samuel Akisanya (now Ọdẹmọ of Ishara), Adeyẹmọ Alakija (later knighted), Herbert Macaulay, and Ernest Ikoli. Unknown to the public the axe had been applied to the very root of the legitimist principle in 1929 when members of the Payne family, a part of the Gbelegbuwa House which had been disqualified by the Abidagba rule in 1790, used their enormous influence with the British administration to have the House rejuvenated. So precisely defined was this singularly crucial event in Ijẹbu history that it was actually stated that at Ogunnaike’s death this restored House should provide the candidate. The people could hardly believe their eyes when in 1933, instead of Adenuga, a forty-five year old tailor and descendant by the female line from the defunct Gbelegbuwa House was declared elected by the Odis. Rather than repeat what A.G.Boyle had done, Donald Cameron, the Governor, endorsed the verdict given by his lieutenant, that there is no political reason, whether arising out of native law and custom or not, why the selection [of Otubusin] should not be accepted by me, remarking only in this connexion that native law and custom cannot be regarded as immutable but as subject to modification, if necessary, to meet the circumstances of a more advanced and enlightened age.47 The reaction of the Ijẹbu was swift and unmistakably hostile. Every effort was made to prevent the ‘coronation’ taking place, and subsequently when the assassination plot that had been in the air before he was ‘crowned’ was revealed to the world on 20 October 1934, resulting in the amputation of the Awujalẹ’s right arm, the reaction of the people and chiefs (excepting the Akarigbo) was more one of regret that he had escaped death rather than of sympathy. And, as his twenty-seven years of reign were to prove, he did not win the affection of his people. Never had the Awujalẹ throne been so hot for an


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incumbent as it was for Daniel Adesanya. And whilst his unpopularity was certainly increased by the growth of British-type parliamentary democracy, it cannot be doubted that to a very great extent it was the ghost of the legitimist principle, violated by his appointment but not exorcised from the mind of the Ijẹbu masses, that made his head lie uneasy as long as he wore the Awujalẹ crown. A striking feature of these years of ideological ferment is the contrast between, on the one hand, the receptivity to ‘democratic’ ideas and constitutional arrangements which would give a powerful voice to new interest groups such as the educated elite, and, on the other hand, the nonreceptivity to any watering-down of the legitimist principle governing succession to the Awujalẹship. I believe that this contrast becomes understandable when we remind ourselves of the nature of the pre-colonial Ijẹbu constitution, for one of the principles of this constitution was the adequate representation of all the various interest groups in the State: thus there was provision for representation of the various territorial divisions, of aristocrats and commoners, of priests and laymen, of old and young. With such ideas already well entrenched, the notion of giving institutionalized representation to the new interest group constituted by the literate elite would not have seemed an alarming departure from tradition. The abolition of the legitimist principle, by contrast, was bound to appear as something totally lacking in precedent. Eventually, it is true, the need to adapt the Awujalẹship to the conditions of modern life did bring about a certain softening of the harsh criteria of legitimacy; but this took place well after the period dealt with here. NOTES 1 CMS CA2/056, James Johnson to Wright, 21/7/1878. 2 T.J.Bowen, Adventures and Missionary Labors in Several Countries in the Interior of Africa from 1849 to 1856, Charleston, 1857, p. 281. A great many political ideas certainly lay behind the constitutional experimentation that marked Edo history hundreds of years before the British occupation. See its analysis in Professor Ryder, ‘The Edo Kingdom: An Historical Perspective’, in his Benin and the Europeans, London, 1969. 3 This would apply to other African societies in the pre-colonial period. See D.Westermann, The African Today, London, 1934, pp. 148–58. 4 J.A.Majasan, ‘Yoruba education: its principles, practice and relevance to current educational development’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Ibadan University, 1967, pp. 269–304. 5 Thus although Daniel Adesanya Gbelegbuwa II (1933–60) was a professed Christian he had to observe and perform all the rituals attached to the throne. 6 In 1915 and 1929 to 1934. 7 NA Ibadan, Ije Prof. I., C.17/4, Resident to Secretary, Southern Provinces, 28/2/1933. 8 Ibid., Ije Prof. 3, J.6/1922 ‘Memorandum on Ijẹbu Native Administration’ by W.B.Smith, 10/5/1922. 9 Ibid., Ije Prof. 2, C.53, vol. 1, Resident to Secretary, Southern Provinces, 6/1/1930. 10 J.A.Atanda, ‘The New Oyo “Empire”: A study of British Indirect Rule in Oyo Province, 1894–1934’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Ibadan University, 1967, pp. 152–215. 11 Ibid., pp. 252–3. 12 The Annual Reports of the Lagos Church Missions 1879–1917, see in particular the Reports for 1895, 1896, and 1899. 13 CMS G./A2/09 Tugwell to Denton, 2/3/1899; CO 147/160, Macgregor to Chamberlain, 6/1/1902.


191

14 CO 149/6, Annual Reports for the Years 1899–1902, pp. 60–1, 119–20, 227, 230–1. 15 Ibid. 16 NA Ibadan Ije Prof. 4, File J. 1058, Y.L.Ayeni to DO, 4/8/1930. 17 Ibid., File J. 1446. 18 Bishop Odutola’s Papers, ‘An Address to Revd. S.O.Odutola, M.A., by Nigerian Youth Movement (Ijebu Branch) on the Occasion of His Departure to Europe, July 27, 1938’. 19 CO 149/6, Annual Reports for the Years 1899–1902, pp. 230–1. 20 Ibid., pp. 119–20. NA Ibadan, Ije Prof. 1, File 779, Ransome Kuti to Resident, 17/6/1931. 21 NA Ibadan, Ije Prof. 4, J. 160, vol. 2, ‘Ijebu Province Annual Report’, 1932. 22 Ibid., Ije Prof. I, File 1290. 23 CO 149/6, Annual Reports for the Years 1899–1902, pp. 230–1. 24 Ibid. 25 NA Ibadan, Ije Prof. 3/7, Resident to Secretary, Southern Provinces, 22/5/1921. 26 NA Ibadan, Ije. Prof. 2, C.53, ‘Extracts from Land Tenure in the Yoruba Provinces by H.L.Ward-Price, Resident Oyo Province’. 27 NA Ibadan, Ije. Prof. 2, C.17/15, Resident to Secretary, Southern Provinces, 7/11/1928. 28 NA Ibadan, Ije. Prof. 2, C.17/15, ‘S.S.P. Minutes on Resident’s Reports of 5/11/1928 and 7/11/1928’. 29 NA Ibadan, Ije. Prof. C.17/3, Awujale to Chief Commissioner, Western Province, 12/3/1913. 30 Ibid. Also C.17/7, vol. 2, Awujale to Lt. Governor, 30/3/1935. 31 Ibid., C.17/3, Awujale to Chief Commissioner, Western Province, 12/3/1913. 32 Ibid. 33 NA Ibadan, Ije. Prof. 4, J.1723 for copy of speech made on 22/7/ 1938; and 2, C.5, The Superintendent’s Report, 1/5/1941. 34 Ibid., Ije. Prof. 1, File 1758, vol. 1, Minutes of Meeting with Olorituns and Visitors, 9/8/1938. 35 The Daily Service, 5/8/1938. 36 NA Ibadan, Ije. Prof. 4, J.1723 for copy of speech. 37 Ibid., Resident to Secretary, Western Province, 20/5/1943. 38 Ibid., C.53, vol. 2, Ijebu Ode Town Council to Chief Commissioner, 17/4/1943. 39 Ibid., C.1710, Olorituns to Resident, 8/2/1944. 40 Ibid., C.53, vol. 2, Ijebu Ode Town Council to Chief Commissioner, 17/4/1943. 41 Bishop Odutola’s Papers, ‘Notes on the Yoruba Sermon delivered on Sept. 13, 1941, on Late Joseph Odumosu’. 42 Ibid., Eto Sisi Okuta Iranti Ti Awon Omo Ologbe Joseph Odumosu Fi Si St. Saviour’s Church Ijebu Ode Ni Iranti Baba won Ni Saturday, September 13, 1941, Lagos, 1941, p. 12. 43 NA Ibadan, Ije Prof. 3/7, Resident to Secretary, Southern Provinces, 3/1/1923. 44 NA Ibadan, Ije. Prof. 3/2, Confidential File 134/6 ‘Minutes of the Meeting of His Honour with Ijebu Ode Chiefs re the Awujale’, 5/1/ 1917. 45 Ibid., Ije. Prof. 2, C.17/4, ‘Notes to Resident, 25/2/1933’. 46 Ibid., Resident to Secretary, Southern Provinces, 28/2/1933; The Nigerian Daily Telegraph, 24/1/1933. 47 NA Ibadan, Ije. Prof. 2, C.17/4, Acting Chief Secretary, Southern Provinces, 15/8/1933.

Index Abadie, Captain M., 153 Abẹokuta (town), 5, 22–5 passim, 27–9 passim, 47, 49, 52, 55, 58, 84, 119; Dahomian attack on, 61–3; Ifole of, 27; missionaries in, 33, 35–6, 172, 184; schools in, 160, 174; as trade centre, 44, 48 Abiodun, Alafin, 47 Aboko, Chief, 89 Abonnema (town), 133, 200 Abomey (town), 64 Aborigines Protection Society, 115, 117, 124, 132, 243–4 Abraham, R.C., 160–1 Achebe, Chinua, 169 Adamawa province, 142 Adebambo, S.A., 288 Adekoya, Awujale, 274 Adeleke, Awujale, 274 Adelu, Alafin, 50–1 Ademọla, Alake, 216 Ademolu, Awujale, 274, 289–90 Adenuga, Awujale, 273, 290–1 Adesanya, Awujale Daniel, 274–7, 283, 291–2 Adeyemi I, Alafin, 33, 40, 49, 55, 56 Ado (people and town), 25, 48, 53, 61 Afidipote, Awujale Ademiyewo, 7, 10, 270 Afigbo, A.E., 12 Afọn (town), 48 African Association, 107, 111 African Church movement, 210–11, 222–3, 281 African Times, 24, 54, 96 Agbebi, Mọjọla, 214, 223, 231 Ago Oja, see Ọyọ (town) Ahmadiyya Sect, 277 Aibo (town), 48 Aiyetoro (town), 63 Ajanaku, Ọyọ general, 60 Ajasa, Kitoyi, 215, 231 Ajayi, E.S., 281 Ajayi, J.F.Ade, 82 Ajilete (town), 36 Akassa (town, 86–8 passim; raid on, 132, 192, 199–201 passim

Index

193

Akiga, chronicler, 9 Akisanya, Samuel, 291 Akitoye, Egba chief, 25 Akoko (people), 53 Akunakuna (people), 3 Alafin, Ọyọ title, see Ọyọ Alake, Egba title, 216 Alakiya, Adeyẹmọ, 291 Alaumaja (people), 63 Alenso (town), 88, 171 Alexander Miller and Company, 82 Aliyu, Emir of Kano, 148 Alvarez, Thomas, 171 Amazons, 61–2, 63 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 139 Angass (people), 4, 158 Anglo-French Agreement 1889, 38 Anglo-Nigerian Relations, see Britain, relations with Nigeria Anyaegbunan, D., 177 Apomu (town), 46–7 aristocracy, 7–15 Aro (people), 9, 171 Asaba (town), 94, 96, 99, 120, 171, 177, 200 Ashanti (people), 10, 31, 61 Ashcroft, J.H., 84, 92, 99, 196 Atanda, J.A., 11 Atani (town), 94 Atasa (town), 63 Atiba, Alafin, 50–1, 55 Atijẹrẹ (town), 35, 58 Atijẹrẹ Trading Company, 58 Atundaolu, 174 Awka Training Institution, 180, 183, 189 Awole, Alafin, 47 Awori (people), 48 Awujale (Ijebu title), 27–8, 34, 40–1, 52, 54; functions and qualifications of, 270, 272–4, 281–4, 289–90 Ayantuga, O.O., 2 Ayesan (town), 54 Azikiwe, Nnamdi, 170 Azikiwe, Obed N., 175 Babamugoni, 174 Bachama (people), 6 Badagry (town), 19, 21, 25, 33, 35, 61 Baikie, W.B., 141 Bakoko, King of Ishagga, 63 Balẹ of Ogbomọsho, 41 Banfield, Rev A.W., 161–2 Baptist College, 182 Baptist Hospital, Ogbomọsho, 187

Index

194

Bargery, Rev G.P., 153, 160–1 Barth, Heinrich, 67–8, 69, 76, 148 Basden, G.T., 175 Basle Mission, 83 Batẹdo War, 50 Bauchi, 70, 159, 251, 254 Bedingfield, Commander, 25 Beecroft, John, 25 Bell, Sir Hesketh, 253 Bello, Ali, Sultan of Sokoto, 70 Bello, Sir Ahmadu, 146 Benin Kingdom, 58 Benjamin, J.B., 215, 217, 231 Bennet, P.A., 175 Benu, Prince of Nupe, 129 Benue R., 129–31 Berlin West African Conference, 108, 130 Beweran, Chief, 158 Bida (town), 88, 89, 98, 128–9, 141–2, 145, 153 Biobaku, S.O., 2 Blaize, R.B., 101, 209, 215, 217–18, 231 Bonny (town), 82–3, 172, 195, 264 Bonny Ijaw, see Ijaw Borgawa (people), 5 Bornu, 66, 67–70, 71–4 passim, 138 Bowen, Rev T.J., 84 Bower, Captain, 38, 40–1 Boyle, A.G., 290 Brass (people and town), 82, 85, 87, 121–2, 134; missionaries in, 172, Ch. 9; and Niger Company, 192, 196–8; rising of, 132–3, 199, 200 Britain, Colonial Office, see British Colonial Office; relations with Nigeria, 1–3, 10–13; and Yorubaland, Ch. 2, 43, 54 British Administration, and African nationalism, 218–21; anti-missionary policy of, 157–8; and Catholics, 185–6; and Church, 227–8, 230; and education, 249–52; and Ijebu, 278–9, 282–3, 290; Indirect Rule policies, 253–4, 255–6, 259, 274, 282, 284; Residents, 154–6, 157, 158, 281 British Colonial Office, 27, 29, 31, 132; and Church, 227–9, 232, 234–5, 242; and Lagos administration, 238 British Cotton Growing Association, 245 British Empire, British imperialism, 140, 145, 167, 171–3, 204–5, 268 Brooke, Graham W., 125–9, 143 Brown forest concession, 288 Buganda, 185 Burdon, J.A., 154–5, 248, 254

Index

195

Burton, Richard, 25, 212 Cairo, 252 Cameron, Chief, 193, 194 Cameron, Donald, 11, 291 Cardi, Comte de, 195 Carr, Henry Rawlinson, 209, 219, 231, 249 Carter, Governor G.T., 39–40, 115, 132, 230 Central Sudan Mission Training Home, Tripoli, 145 Chausse, Father J.B., 100, 171, 184 Christ Church, Lagos, 230, 233–5, 239 Christianity, 8; and commerce, 80–91; and educated elite, 207, 230–1; in education, 261–3; in Igboland, Ch. 8; among Ijebu, 271, 273, 274–6; versus Islam, 142–3, 158, 160, 168–9, 207, 264 Church Missionary Intelligencer, 130 Church Missionary Society (CMS), 24, 33, 51, 58; anti-French attitude of, 99, 100–1; and Benue scheme, 130–1; and Bishop Crowther, 79–81, 83–5, 88, 90–5, 98, 142; and Brassmen, 122, 132–4, 193, 195–201; and education, 178–83, 254, 266; and Graham Brooke, 125–6, 144; in Igboland, 168–9, 171, 173–81, 185–6; in Lagos, 229–30; and liquor trade, 116–17, 132, 134; and Nigerian nationalism, 212; in Northern Nigeria, 143–6, 152, 156, 159; and Royal Niger Company, Ch. 6, 200; Saro supporters of, 101–2 CMS Grammar School, Freetown, 181 CMS Grammar School, Nigeria, 181, 209 Clapperton, Hugh, 19, 23, 67, 70, 72, 76 Clayton, Dr, 187–8 Clifford, John, 242 Cole, William E., 219 Colonial Office, see British Colonial Office Coquard, Father J.M., 187 Crewe, Lord, 235 Crocker, W.R., 11 Crowther, Archdeacon Dandeson C., 95, 198, 210 Crowther, Bishop Samuel Ajayi, 7, 128, 176–7, 208, 210; and Brassmen, 193, 195, 197–9; and CMS policies, 121, 133–4, 174; death of, 130, 218; and Egba 24; and Sir George Taubman Goldie, Ch. 5; and Royal Niger Company, 107, 110

Index Crowther, Joseph, 83 Crowther, Josiah, 91 currency, 69 Dahomey, 43, 51, 55; attacks by, 33, 40, 59–64; wars with Egba, 25, 26, 46, 48, 56, 61–3 Dalzel, Archibald, 19 Davies, Captain J.P.L., 208 Davies, M.W., 239 de Genova, Father Carlo, 138 Dekina, Chief, 158 democratic ideas, 280–3, 285–7, 292 Denham, D., 69, 76 Dennis, T.J., 171, 175, 177, 179 Denton, C.G., 230 Derin, Chief, 32, 56 de Semelle, Comte, 85, 96 Dikko, Dr, 149 dijemai, 73, 76 dimajai, 74–5 Dobinson, Archdeacon Henry H., 116 Dosunmu, Alake of Egba, 10, 24, 26, 28 Duncan, John, 25 Eastern Sudan, 156–7 Easton, S.F., 94, 98 Ebute Mẹtta (town), 27, 249 Ede (town), 56, 58 Edo (people), 2, 4–5, 53, 171; and Saro, 214; trade of, 4, 58 education, 178–81, Ch. 12; adult, 261; Government control of, 266; in Northern Nigeria, 248–58, 265; rural, 260–1, 265; scho-larships, 264; secular, 262–4; in Southern Nigeria, 258–65 Education Ordinances, 181, 248, 262–3, 266 Efik (people), 2–6 passim, 9, 16, 220 Ẹgba (people), 58–9, 174, 184, 187; and French, 36; relations with Britain, 2–3, 21–38; and Saro, 22, 25, 27, 36, 184, 214, 215–17; schools of, 182–3; wars of, 43, 45–6, 48–51; wars with Dahomey, 25, 26, 46, 48, 56, 61–3 Ẹgba National Association, 215 Ẹgba United Government, 38

196

Index

197

Ẹgbado (district and people), 2, 19, 23, 44, 48, 61–3 Egerton, Sir Walter, 233–8, 239–42, 245, 249 Egga (town), 88, 92, 120, 126, 141, 142 Ejinrin (town), 27 Ejio (town), 63 Ekechi, F.K., 168, 170, 173, 179–80, 185, 188–9 Ekiti (people), 21, 28–9, 32, 34, 37–8, 43–4, 46, 49, 53–4 Ekitiparapo, 41, 43, 53–4, 58, 214 Ekoi (people), 6 Ekpe cult, 9 Ekumeku society, 120 Elgin, Lord, 234 elite, educated Nigerian, 121; and nationalism, 204–24, 245, 258–9; and Church, 230–1, 236, 239–42, 244; and education, 262–3, 267; among Ijebu, 271, 273, 274, 277–89, 291–2; see also Saro Emekuku (people), 171 Enyong (people), 3 Ẹpẹ (Ijebu district), 10 ‘equality of religion’, 241–2 Eruwa (people), 64 Fairley, John, 125 Fanti (people), 31, 105, 215 Flint, J.E., 112, 127 Foote, Henry Grant, 25 Forbes, F.E., 61 Foreign Mission Board, 140 Fourah Bay College, 174, 176, 181 France and the French, 85, 96, 99–100, 129–31, 139, 220 Freeman, Governor H.S., 29–30, 206 Freeman, Thomas Birch, 22, 35, 105 freemasonry, 9, 215, 237–8 Fulani, 9, 53; and British administration, 154–5, 251–2, 253–6; and Hausa, 117, 139, 144–7, 150; jihad of, 4, 43, 49, 54, 167; and Royal Niger Company, 128–9, 144; slave trade and slavery among, 66, 70–3, 76–7 Fuller, Captain, 41 Fusigboye, Awujale, 274, 289 Gaiser, G.L., 218 Gambia, the, 232 Gbebe (town), 85, 94, 129 Gbelegbuwa II, see Adesanya, Awujale Daniel Gelele, King of Dahomey, 61–3 passim George, Hon C.J., 101, 215, 234–5 Gezo, King of Dahomey, 59–60, 62

Index

198

Ghadames (town), 72 Girouard, Percy, 154, 248, 253 Glover, J.H., 26–7, 29–30, 31–2, 52, 54, 215 Gobir Kingdom, 67 Gold Coast, 31, 105, 232 Goldie, Sir George Taubman, 79–80, 91–4, 100, 110–12, 139, 197; anti-liquor policy of, 112–17; and Brooke, 125–7, 129; and CMS, 106–9, 121, 122, 144, 201; and Niger Crisis, 130–1; and slave trade, 118; and Zweiffel affair, 124 Gordon College, Khartoum, 156–7 Gurma (people), 71 Gwandu, 71, 142, 152 Haastrup, J.P., 101, 218 Habe (people), 150, 256 Habe (town), 72, 74, 77 al-Hajj, M., 155 Halligey, Rev T.J., 212 Hamilton, Archdeacon, J.H., 196 Harris, Herman, 145 Hausa, and Fulani, 117, 139, 144–7, 150; and Islam, 148–9, 158; as slaves, 4, 66; see also Maguzawa Hausa-Fulani, 5, 251–2, 253 Hausaland, 68–70, 76; and Christianity, 146 Hausa language, 160 Hausa Party, 145–8, 152 Hennessy, John Pope, 30 Henry Venn, 84, 90–2, 108 Hewett, Consul, 97–9 passim, 196 Hill, J.S., 130 History of the Yorubas, the (S.Johnson), 43 Holland Jaques and Company, 82, 87 Holley, Father P.R., 100, 171, 184 Holt, John, 111, 218 Hopkins, Consul, 96 Horton, J.B., 208, 215 Hutchinson, Consul, 92–3, 98, 101, 194 Hutchinson, T.J., 212 Ibadan (people and state), 28–9, 32–3, 34–5, 39–40, 56; wars of, 43–4, 46, 51–4, 57–9 Ibadan Anglican secondary school, 183 Ibadan (town), 23, 26, 29, 49–50, 56, 58, 174, 245 Ibani (people), 4 Ibara (town), 63

Index Ibarapa (people), 55 Ibariba (people), 44 Ibẹrẹkodo (people), 58, 64 Ibi (town), 139 Ibibio (people), 5, 6 Ibikunle, Balogun of Ibadan, 51, 56 Ibuno (people), 10 Idah (town), 94, 130 Idigo of Aguleri, Chief Samuel, 172 Ido (town), 51 Idumuje Ugboku (town), 180 Ife (people), 32, 56, 58–9; wars of, 4, 22, 47–9 Igbafe, Philip, 12 Igbo (people), 5, 6, 66, 96; and Christianity, 159, Ch. 8; education for, 182–3; Ika Igbo, 120, 184; medical service for, 187–8; trade of, 4 Igbo Bible, 161 Igede (people), 6 Ihumbo (people), 48 Ijanna (town), 48 Ijaw (people), 2, 5, 6, 58, 86–7, 171; Bonny Ijaw, 10; trade of, 4, 53; see also Brass Ijaye (people), 23, 33, 44, 49–50 Ijaye (town), 48, 58 Ijaye war 1861–5, 26, 28, 30, 44, 45, 50–2, 57 Ijẹ (people), 35 Ijẹbu (people), 2–3, 7, 26, 56, 58–9; and Christianity, 159, 168–9, 174; governmental structure of, 270–1; letter-writers among, 12–15, 16; manufacture and trade of, 4, 57–8; and Native Administration, 12–14; political change among, Ch. 13; pressure groups among, 271, 273, 274–6; relations with Britain, 21, 22–4, 27–39; and Saro, 214; wars of, 43, 46, 47–8, 52, 54, 57 Ijẹbu Aborigines Protection Society, 279, 288 Ijẹbu Advisory Board, 280, 281, 288 Ijẹbu Expedition, 21 Ijẹbu Judicial Council, 282 Ijẹbu Mure Welfare Society, 277 Ijẹbu National Association, 215 Ijẹbu National Brotherhood Society, 280 Ijẹbu Native Authority, 281–2, 284 Ijẹbu Ode (town), 61, 159, 266, 280, 283, 285

199

Index

200

Ijẹbu Ode Anglican secondary school, 183 Ijẹbu Rẹmọ, 26, 48, 52, 101 Ijẹbu Saro, 3, 22 Ijesha (people), 21, 29, 32, 38, 43–4, 46, 49, 53, 58 Ijesha Anglican secondary school, 183 Ijesha Association, 53–4 Ikija (town), 48 Ikime, Obaro, 11 Ikoli, Ernest, 291 Ikorodu (town), 26, 27 Ikosi (town), 27 Ilaji (town), 27 Ilaro (town), 48, 61 Ilawẹ (town), 63 Ile Ife (town), 23, 32, 58 Ilesha (town), 53 Ilobi (people), 48 Ilogun (people), 48 Ilọrin (people), 19, 32–3, 43, 59 Ilọrin (town), 23, 29, 66, 89, 95, 140, 142, 145 Ilugun (town), 51 Imala (people), 48 Imperial British East African Company, 107 Inoubi (town), 60 Ipara (town), 48 Ipaya (people), 48 Ipẹru (town), 2, 44 Ipokia (town), 48, 61 Irving, E.G., 46 Isẹyin (town), 23, 40, 55–6 Ishagga (people), 62–3 Islam, 11, 148–9; and British administration, 156, 250–2, 254; versus Christianity, 125, 142–3, 153, 158, 160, 168–9, 207, 264; growth of, 228–9; and Hausa, 139, 149–51; in Ijẹbuland, 271, 273, 274–6; in Lagos, 241–2; and slavery, 69, 71–2, 75 Issele Ukwu (town), 184 Itebu (town), 54, 58 Itibọ (people), 58 Itibo (town), 64 Itsekiri (people), 86 Iwere (town), 63 Iwo (town), 29, 41, 58 Iyi Enu CMS Girls’ Training Institution, 180 Iyi Enu hospital, 187–8, 189 Jaja, King of Opobo, 7, 9, 10 James Pinnock and Company, 82

Index

201

Jibu (town), 94 John, T.C., 96 Johnson, Archdeacon Henry, 87, 110, 119, 123, 143, 194, 210 Johnson, George William, 215–17, 231 Johnson, James, 7, 101, 202, 208, 210, 215, 217, 223, 229, 230, 290 Johnson, Obadiah, 209, 223, 235–6, 244–5 Johnson, Samuel, 33, 34–5, 36, 39, 43 Johnston, Sir H.H., 105, 193 Jones, A.L., 107 Jones, Alfred, 171 Jones, A.T., 25, 26 Jones, G.I., 9 Kalabari (people), 4, 6, 10 Kamoku (people), 146 Kanawa (people), 67, 72, 147–8, 252 Kano, 67–8, 70, 73, 145, 147–8, 153, 157; schools in, 251, 254 Kanuri (people), 4 Katsina, 153, 156, 251, 254 Kedes Revolt 1882, 128 Kennaway, Sir John, 107 Kesan (town), 48 Ketu (town), 2, 23, 44, 48, 64 Ketu Kingdom, 48 Kilner, John, 84 King, Nathaniel, 209, 219, 232, 237 King’s College, Lagos, 264 Kingsley, Mary, 114 Kipo Hill (town), 88, 142 Kiriji War 1877–93, 19–20, 23, 30, 32, 36–7, 44, 46, 52–4, 56–7, 97, 214 Kirk, Sir John, 132, 201 Kirk plan, 115 Kirk-Greene, A.H.M., 12 Kitchener, Lord, 152 Kodilinye, Joshua, 175 Koko, King Frederick, of Brass, 198–9 Kororofa Empire, 4, 138 Kosoko, King, 9–10, 25, 27, 34 Kotangora (town), 142, 152–3 Kulfu (town), 4 Kurunmi, Field-Marshal, 23, 49, 50–1, 55, 56 Kuti, Rev Ransome, 174, 282 Kwassau, Emir of Zaria, 147 Labọsinde, Ijebu leader, 48 Lagos, bombardment of, 25; British occupation of, 24, 26–7, 30; British trade in, 19, 92; Church and State in, Ch. 11; Legislative Council, 234–5;

Index

202

and missionaries, 172; Native administration in, 20; routes to and from, 28–9, 32, 35, 36, 58; Saro in, 214, 221–2; schools in, 182; slave trade through, 47 Lagos Stores, 218 Lagos newspapers, 215, 224 Laird, Macgregor, 82 Lander, Richard and J., 19, 23, 193 languages, 160–2, 177 Lasẹinde, 174 Last, D.Murray, 155 Latosa, Arẹ, 33, 49, 57 leadership, 15 Leigh, J.S., 218, 231 Lekkie (town), 30, 58 Leo Africanus, 66, 67 letter-writing, 12–15, 16, 278–9 Line, B.K., 158 liquor trade, 110, 112–17, 132, 134, 200–1, 240 Liverpool merchants, 107, 112, 114, 132, 200–1 Lloyd, Peter, 12 Logwar, Chief, 158 Loko (town), 89, 142 Lokoja (town), 82, 87, 119, 126–9 passim; British Consulate at, 141; missionaries in, 88, 100, 120; Sudan Party in, 143–4 Long Juju, 169 Lugard, F.D., 12, 38, 65, 105, 115, 134, 157, 230; Education Ordinance 1916 by, 266–7; and missionary enterprise, 151–4; and Nigerian education, Ch. 12; and Northern Nigeria, 152–3, 248–58; and Southern Nigeria, 258–65 Lumpkin, J., 209, 237 Lutz, Father, 131 Mabogunjẹ, Akin, 46 Macaulay, Herbert, 209, 215, 218, 219, 231, 239–41, 244, 291 McCallum, Governor Henry, 221, 236–7 McCoskry, 26 Macdonald, Sir Claude, 107, 132–4, 198–201 passim MacGregor, William, 230 Mackintosh, David, 94, 96–7, 120 McIvers, 218 Maguzawa Hausa, 5, 72, 149, 157, 161 Mahdi, the, 152 Mahdism, 155–6, 252 Mahin (people), 44, 57–8

Index

203

Majotu, Alafin, 19 Makun (town), 52 Maliki, King of Nupe, 116, 126, 142, 144 mangi slaves, 75–6 Manuwa, ruler of Itebu, 58 Margi (people), 70 Marshall, Sir James, 100 Martin, Rev W.S., 184 Martins, P., 31 Masa (people), 71 Masaba, Etsu of Nupe, 88, 128, 140–1 Mattei, Commandant, 99, 105 Mayẹ, Ijẹbu leader, 48 Mba, Isaac, 175 Mbonu Ojike (people), 169 medical missions, 187–8 Meek, C.K., 9, 65 Meko (people), 48 Methodist Boys’ High School, 209 Methodist Mission, 84 Metropolitan Free Church Federation, 242 Mill, J.S., 289 Miller, Walter, 149–51, 152–3, 155, 156, 158, 161, 250–1, 252–3; and Lugard, 254–6 Milum, John, 140 missionaries, 13, 20–4 passim, 26–9 passim; African, 93, 94–6, 118, 121, 133, 141, 174–7, 218; in Igboland, 167–8, 171–5; and Nigerian nationalism, 211–13; in Northern Nigeria, 88–9, Ch. 7; racialism of, 95, 175–6, 218; and Royal Niger Company, 80–1, 108, 119–20; and slave trade, 141; in Yorubaland, 33–6, 39–40, 45–6; see also Crowther, Bishop; Church Missionary Society; Niger Mission missionary enterprise in Northern Nigeria, Ch. 7 Missionary Enterprise and Rivalry in Igboland 1857–1914 (Ekechi), 168, 170, 189 Mizon, 129–31 Modakẹkẹ (town), 32, 41, 58–9 Moffat, Robert, 104 Mohammed Ali, 7 Moloney, Governor Alfred, 100, 230, 264 Moore, Sir Ralph, 249 Morel, E.D., 159 Mossi (people), 71 Moulay Abdel Rahman, 7 Munonye, John, 169 Muri, Emirate of, 129–30 Murzuk (town), 72 Musa, Jacob Meheux, 141

Index

204

Musgu (people), 70–1, 72 Mzilikazi, King, 7 Nagwamanchi (people), 146 Nassarawa (town), 95, 142 National African Company, 94, 96, 98–9, 101; see also Royal Niger Company nationalism, Ch. 10; sources of, 207–9 Native Administration, 11–14, 281 Ndebele (people), 7 Nerube (town), 193, 195 New Calabar, 172 Niger Company, see Royal Niger Company Nigeria, factors for unity and cooperation in, 4–5 Nigerian Church, Africans in, 210; see also African Church movement Nigerian cultural heritage, 224 Nigerian historical studies, and aristocracy, 7–15; ethnic groups in, 5–6; imbalance in, Ch. 1 Nigerian Youth Movement, 286 Niger Crisis 1890–2, 128–33 Niger Delta Pastorate, 130, 133 Niger Mission, 94, 140, 142; African agents of, 93, 99, 102, 121; and Brass people, 193–5 passim; and commerce, 82–3, 88–90; and Niger Company, 98–9, 108 Noble, L.S., 233 Norris, Robert, 19 Northern Nigeria, under British administration, 151–4, 248–9, 250–8, 265; and Church Missionary Society, 143–6, 152, 156, 159; see also Islam Nupe Kingdom, and Christianity, 86, 139, 143–4, 158; Etsu of, 5, 73; liquor trade in, 116; manufacture and trade of, 4, 88; and Royal Niger Company, 126–9; slaves from 68, 70, 72–4; wars of, 4 Nupe language, 160, 161–2 Ọba (Egba title), 26, 48, 216, 281 Obaninsunwa (town), 63 Obasa, O., 243–4 Obotshi (town), 180 Ockiya, King of Brass, 193, 194 Odo-Ọttin (people), 38 Odufumade (Ijẹbu Regent), 281 Odumosu, Joseph, 287–8

Index

205

Odutọla, T.A., 277, 281, 283–6, 288–9 Offa (town), 33, 54, 57 officials, 20–1 Ogbomọshọ (town), 23, 29, 41, 55–6, 58; Balẹ of, 41 Ogboni (Egba title), 216 Ogboni cult, 9, 169, 215 Ogedemgbe, Generalissimo, 33, 41, 54 Ogundipe, Balogun, 5, 56, 216 Ogunmefun, 174 Ogunmọla, Ibadan general, 50–1 Ogunmọnmi, 50 Ogunnaike, Awujale Ali, 281, 290–1 Oke, E.H., 219 Oke Igbo (Ondo district), 32, 58–9 Oke Ile (town), 63 Oke Ọdan (town), 48, 61, 63 Oke Ogun (people), 19, 23, 40, 44 Okeula, Balogun John Owolatan, 172 Okrika (people), 10 Old Calabar, 75, 172 Old Ọyọ Empire, 4–5, 19, 35, 55; disintegration of, 22, 32–3, 44, 45, 47–8, 58, 61, 167 Olomu, Paramount Chief, 86 Olowu (Owu title), 47, 216 Olubi, Daniel, 32 Olumu, Nana, 7 Olusọga, T.N., 281, 283–4, 288–9 Oluwaji, Alake, 216–17 Oluwọle, Isaac, 209, 210 Oluyọlẹ, Ọyọ leader, 49, 50, 55 Omer-Cooper, J.D., 46 Ọnafọwọkan, Ijebu Treasurer, 281 Ondo (people), 21, 35, 38, 44, 59, 119, 266; route, 32–3; schools of, 183, 266; wars of, 4 Ọni (Ifẹ title), 23, 32, 41 Onitsha (town), 88; bombardment of, 94, 95–7, 98–9; Christians and missionaries in, 86, 90, 120, 131, 171–2; churches and schools in, 177, 180, 200; trade in, 82, 90 Onitsha Industrial Centre, 186 Opobo (people), 7, 10 Oru (town), 57 Ọrunmilaism, 169 Oshogbo (town), 58 Osomare (town), 88, 171–2 Ọtta (town), 9, 23, 61 Otubusin, Daniel Robertson, see Adesanya, Awujale Owiwi War, 62

Index

206

Owu (people), 46, 48, 58 Owu Ipole (town), 46 Owu War 1820–7, 22, 44, 45, 46–50 Owu-Ogbere (town), 46 Oyekan, Alake, 216 Ọyọ (town), 23, 55, 56; bombardment of, 41 Ọyọ, Alafin of, 32–3, 39–41, 50, 59–60 Ọyọ custom, 60 Ọyọ Province, 14, 274 Ọyọ Yoruba, 19, 22, 35, 56, 167, 215; and British administration, 27, 29, 39, 40–1; wars of, 44, 47, 49, 58–60 Ọyọ Training Institution, 182, 183, 266 Palma island, 30 Paouignan, battle of, 60 Paul, Charles, 128, 142 Payne, J.A.Otunba, 31, 208, 209, 215, 217, 223, 231, 232, 237 People’s Union, 243–4 Perham, Margery, 12, 248 Perry, Rev S., 96–7, 99 Phillips, Charles, 33–5 passim, 36–7, 119, 174, 210 Phillips, Rev E.T., 101 Pilgrim Baptist Mission, 184 Pinnock, Rev S.G., 213 Planque, Father, 100 Porto Novo, 36, 52, 61 quinine, 90, 93 racialism, 95, 175–6, 218, 233–4, 236–40, 244, 257 Randle, J.K., 209, 237, 243–4 Reade, Winwood, 212 Refurefu (town), 60 Regberegbe, 270, 275, 280–1 rinji, 73, 75–6 Robbin, Henry, 208, 209, 216 Robinson, Canon C.H., 76–7, 145 Robinson, Rev J.A., 124, 128, 198 Roman Catholics, 36, 99–100, 120–1, 131, 138–9, 176, 178–80, 183–6, 200 Rowe, Captain, 158 Royal Niger Company, 79–81, 88, 93–4, 98, 141, 196, 218; and Brass people, 192, 196–7, 200; and Church Missionary Society, Ch. 6, 200–1; and Graham Brooke, 125, 143–4; and missionaries, 95–7, 110, 119–20, 122; policies of, 111–19, 124, 143; Royal Charter of, 101–2, 106, 108, 110, 197; and Zweiffel affair, 122–4

Index

207

Sabongari system, 154 St Andrew’s College, Ọyọ, 180 Sambo, Chief Samuel, 193–5 passim Samuel, J.H., 217, 218 Sapara, Oguntola, 209 Saro, 3; and Christianity, 82–3, 93; and Egba, 22, 25, 27, 36, 184, 214, 215–17; as elite, 8, 205, 206, 214–18, 256; in Igboland, 171, 174–5; in Niger trade, 82–3, 86, 89, 96, 97–8, 101–2, 212 Scarborough, Lord, 129 Schon, S.F., 160 schools, 25, 178–80, 200, 248–9, 250–2, 254, 257, 260–3; Government control of, 180, 263, 266; grants for, 262–3; mission schools, 160, 261–2, 265–6, 276; secondary, 174, 179–81, 183, 209, 260, 264–6; see also education; women’s education Schultze, A., 67 ‘scramble, the’, 105, 219–20, 236–7 Shaki (town), 56 Shala (town), 63 Shanahan, Bishop, 186–7 Sharpe, W.A.Allakura, 138, 143 Shehu dan Fodio, 7, 11, 146 Shonga (town), 140, 142 Sierra Leone, 22, 47, 83, 205, 206, 227, 229, 232 slavery, domestic, 70–3; social aspects of, 73–7 slave trade, 24, 27, 31, 45, 53, 55, 57, Ch. 4; export, 47–8, 53, 66–70; missionary attitude to 141; suppression of, 35, 118–19 Smith, Brian, 280 Smith, M.G., 9, 74 Smith, S.R., 175, 188 Society of African Missions, Lyons (SMA), 33, 55, 171, 176, 187, 188–9; and education, 183–4; and French patriotism, 100, 105, 139; and Royal Niger Company, 120 Society of the Holy Ghost Fathers, 131, 139, 168, 176, 179, 183–6, 188 Sodẹkẹ, Egba ruler, 5, 22 Sokoto, Sultan of, 33, 128, 142–4 passim Sokoto Caliphate, 5, 11, 66, 67, 70, 72, 73, 75, 117, 145, 152 Southern American Baptist Mission, 24, 33, 84, 187, 218 Southern Nigeria, 158–60, 162–3, 258; see also Igboland Spiff, Chief, 193, 194

Index

208

Staudinger, P., 143 Sudan Party, 143–4 Sura (people), 4, 158 Tapa slaves, 72–3 taxation, 222, 240 Temnes (people), 123–4 Temple, C.L., 12, 154, 248, 253, 254 Thomas, J.J., 218, 231 Tiv society, 70 Toronto Industrial Mission, 156 trade and commerce, Ch. 5; interstate routes, 3–4, 28–30, 32, 39, 52, 54, 58; on the Niger, 80–4, 86–92, 236; see also Royal Niger Company traders, 20–1, 89–90, 94, 171, 194 Tripoli, 72 Tugwell, Bishop Herbert, 171, 199, 200, 222, 242; and education, 179; on Kano mission, 145–8, 152; and Lagos church, 229, 233–5, 239–40; and Muslims, 155, 252 Tunwashe, Awujale Aboki, 273–4 Tuwon (town), 193, 195 Umon (people), 3 Umoru, King of Nupe, 88, 128, 142 United African Company, 91 unity, factors for, 3–5 Universal Primary Education, 260 Usuman dan Fodio, see Shehu dan Fodio Venn, Henry, 208 Viard, M., 100 Viard Treaty 1888, 36 Vischer, Hans, 254 Wangara, 67 Ward-Price, H.L., 280–1 Warner, Edith, 180 Warren, Max, 228 Warri (town), 86, 264 Wase (town), 153 Wesleyan Missionary Society, 24, 33, 101, 212, 218, 229; and education, 181–2; in Northern Nigeria, 138–40, 143 Wesley College, 182 Wesley Guild Hospital, Ilesha, 187 West African Shipping Lines, 107 West Africa Trading Company, 82, 90–1

Index

209

Williams, G.A., 217, 223, 231 Williams, Nash H., 209, 219 Williams, Sapara, 209, 215, 234–5, 237–8, 241 Willoughby, I.H., 101, 209, 219 women’s education, 180, 258 Wood, Rev J.B., 33, 99, 101, 195–6, 217 Wunangi (town), 120, 126 Yagba (people), 53 Yimaha (town), 95, 142 Yola (town), 95, 125, 139, 142; Emir of, 128, 144 Yoruba, 2, 5, 9; and Christianity, 169–70, 171, 173–6; civil wars of, Ch. 3; conflicts with Dahomey, 59–64; and education, 182–3, 258; and missionaries, 23–5, 28, 33–6; Protestantism among, 184; relations with Britain, Ch. 2; trade of, 4, 44 Yoruba Bible, 161 Yoruba National Association, 27, 215 Yoruba Warfare in the Nineteenth Century (Ajayi and Smith), 43–4 Young, P.V., 289–90 Zappa, Father C., 120–1, 171 Zaria emirate, 71, 73–4, 142, 147, 153, 157; schools in, 251, 252, 254 Zazzau (town), 72, 74–5 Zweiffel affair, 123–4

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African Historical Studies

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