factors that led to the british conquest of nigeria factors that led to the british conquest of nigeria

Read published a Memorandum on British possessions in West Africa, which remarked upon the "inconvenient and unscientific boundaries" between Lagos Colony, the Niger Coast Protectorate and the Royal Niger Company. To some extent, competition amongst these companies undermined their collective position vis--vis, local merchants. 3. [74] The disease first found its home among the many trading ports along the West African coast. Palm oil was used locally for cooking, the kernels were a source for food, trees were tapped for palm wine, and the fronds were used for building material. emblemhealth medicare customer service; did cody webster play college baseball 0 Home. factors that led to the british conquest of nigeria. Protestant missionaries tended to divide the country into spheres of activity to avoid competition with each other, and Catholic missions similarly avoided duplication of effort among the several religious orders working there. In consideration of the foregoing, the said National African Company (Limited) bind themselves not to interfere with any of the native laws or customs of the country, consistently with the maintenance of order and good government [and] agree to pay native owners of land a reasonable amount for any portion they may require. 4. The delta masked the mouth of the great river, and for centuries Nigerians chose not to tell Europeans the secrets of the interior. Another court was established in 1856 at Calabar, based on an agreement with local Efik traders which prohibited them from interfering with British merchants. They never were able to elect sizeable legislative delegations, but they served as a means of public expression for minority concerns. The rapid growth of organised labour in the 1940s also brought new political forces into play. It assumed that comparable alterations would be made elsewhere, an attitude that won the party minority voting support in the other regions. 24. Colonialism is both a practice and a word that means so much to Nigeria. In an economy with many qualified applicants for every post, great resentment was generated by any favouritism that authorities showed to members of their own ethnic group. The nationalism that became a political factor in Nigeria during the interwar period derived both from an older political particularism and broad pan-Africanism, rather than from any sense among the people of a common Nigerian nationality. The company received 865,000 compensation for the loss of its Charter. The conference drafted the terms of a new constitution. Local leaders, cognizant of the situation in the West Indies, India, and elsewhere, recognised the risks of British expansion. [45], A campaign against the Sokoto Caliphate began in 1900 with the creation of the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, under the direction of Governor Lugard. The CMS pioneered trade on the Niger by encouraging Scottish explorer and merchant Macgregor Laird to run a monthly steamboat, which provided transportation for missionary agents and Sierra Leonean traders going up the Niger. The Colonial Office could veto or revise his policies. By 1938 the NYM was agitating for dominion status within the British Commonwealth of Nations so that Nigeria would have the same status as Canada and Australia. [12] Trade was also conducted through a mechanism of barter and credit. European slave trading from West Africa began before 1650, with people taken at a rate of about 3,000 per year. By extending the elective principle and by providing for a central government with a Council of Ministers, the Macpherson Constitution gave renewed impetus to party activity and to political participation at the national level. In 1886, Taubman secured a royal charter and his company became the Royal Niger Company. In Europe, Britain sent troops to help its ally, Prussia, which was surrounded by its enemies. In 1851 deposed king Akintoye of Lagos sought British help in restoring him to the throne. Several churches were built to serve the Edo community and a small number of African converts. Kingdoms and empires of precolonial Nigeria, Controversies surrounding the 2007 presidential election, Nigeria under Umaru Musa YarAdua and Goodluck Jonathan, The 2015 elections and electorate concerns, Recession, fight against corruption, and insecurity, Which Country Is Larger By Population? In 1900, the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate passed from company hands to the Crown. In the name of liberating the Igbos from the Aro Confederacy, the British launched the Anglo-Aro War of 19011902. The country was divided politically, lacking European rivals, and no sense of national unity. 1819 - Singapore founded by Sir Stamford Raffles. factors that led to the british conquest of nigeria. [58], Some of these public work projects were accomplished with the help of forced labour from native black Africans, referred to as "Political Labour". This led to protests known as Women's War. The Ekumeku, however, became a great source of Igbo nationalism. Most accounts of Nigeria's colonisation were written by British officials, presenting it as a noble civilising mission to rid Africans of barbaric superstition and corrupt tribal leadership. All these things which I have said the Fulani by conquest took the right to do now pass to the British. June 30, 2022 . 1. Bello wanted to protect northern social and political institutions from southern influence. He argued that the division into two separate colonies was advisable unless a stronger central government could bind Nigeria into more than just an administrative convenience for the three regions. Earlier elements related to this were its founding of the Sierra Leone Colony in 1787 as a refuge for freed slaves, the independent missionary movement intended to bring Christianity to the Edo Kingdom, and programs of exploration sponsored by learned societies and scientific groups, such as the London-based African Association. Men British Colonizing in Nigeria. [31], In 1891, the consulate established the Niger Coast Protectorate Force or "Oil Rivers Irregulars".[32]. They later discovered that the demand for palm oil was in fact stimulating an internal slave trade, because slaves were largely responsible for collecting palm fruits, manufacturing palm oil, and transporting it to the coast, whether by canoe or by human porterage. Lord Lugard recorded a huge success mainly because he used the highly developed traditional system of administration that was already in existence in the Northern Nigeria. In the early stages of British rule, it is desirable to retain the native authority and to work through and by the native emirs. 1839 - The Opium Wars between China and Britain, resulting from the trade of opium leading to widespread addictions. On 9 May 1913, Lugard submitted a formal proposal to the Colonial Office in which Northern and Southern provinces would have separate administrations, under the control of a "strongly authoritarian" Governor-General. Nigerian recruits participated in the war effort as labourers and soldiers. The preparation of a new federal constitution for an independent Nigeria was carried out at conferences held at Lancaster House in London in 1957 and 1958, which were presided over by The Rt. The Sokoto jihad and the Yoruba wars stimulated the slave trade at a time when the British were actively trying to stop it. Clifford emphasized economic development, encouraging enterprises by immigrant southerners in the north while restricting European participation to capital intensive activity. [72], The Influenza pandemic made its way to the port of Lagos by September 1918 by way of a number of ships including the SS Panayiotis, the SS Ahanti, and the SS Bida. By the eighteenth century, evidence of Christianity had disappeared. The similarity between the federal and regional constitutions was deceptive, however, and the conduct of public affairs reflected wide differences among the regions. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 8(04), 563. doi:10.1017/s0022278x00023909. [17] In 1767, British traders facilitated a notorious massacre of hundreds of people at Calabar after inviting them onto their ships, ostensibly to settle a local dispute. Officials of the Sokoto Caliphate considered these treaties quite differently; from their perspective, the British were granted only extraterritorial rights that did not prevent similar arrangements with the Germans and the French and certainly did not surrender sovereignty. Some of them also manned Company stations and served as District Agents.". factors that led to the british conquest of nigeria. Though the Europeans possess many considerable settlements both upon the coast of Africa and in the East Indies, they have not yet established in either of those countries such numerous and thriving colonies as those in the islands and continent of America. Modern nationalists in the south, whose thinking was shaped by European ideas, opposed indirect rule, as they believed that it had strengthened what they considered an anachronistic ruling class and shut out the emerging Westernised elite. What Britain Did to Nigeria A Short History of Conquest and Rule Max Siollun. "The Hidden Hand of Overrule: Political Agents and the Establishment of British Colonial Rule in Northern Nigeria, 18861914". By the mid-1940s, the major ethnic groups had formed such associations as the Igbo Federal Union and the Egbe Omo Oduduwa (Society of the Descendants of Oduduwa), a Yoruba cultural movement, in which Awolowo played a leading role. He used for the first time in Nigeria modern, sometimes flamboyant, electioneering techniques. In 1916, Sir Edward Carson led the majority of the Conservative and Unionist Party to vote against Party Leader Bonar Law on the issue, forcing it to withdraw from the Asquith coalition and for the government to begin to break apart. The conquest was personal to William. June 30, 2022 . Some of the treaties contained prohibitions on diplomacy conducted without British permission, or other promises to abide by British rule. Similar status was acquired by the Northern Region two years later. The colonial economic policies in Nigeria, for instance, discouraged indigenous industrialization, but promoted export crop and mineral production to feed the British factories. As before, Aro merchants dominated trade in the hinterland, including palm products to the coast and the sale of slaves within Igboland. Although this trade grew to significant proportionspalm oil exports alone were worth 1 billion a year by 1840it was concentrated near the coast, where palm trees grew in abundance. Hence, precolonial level of development is positively asso-ciated with level of Spanish colonialism, but negatively associated with level of British colonialism. [25][n 1], The missionaries gained in power throughout the 1800s. His mission failed, but Park and his party covered more than 1,500 kilometres (930mi), passing through the western portions of the Sokoto Caliphate, before drowning when their boats overturned in rapids near Bussa. However, development of the Nigerian oilfields slowed when Bergheim died in a car crash in September 1912. Three of these posts were assigned to representatives from each region, and one was reserved for a delegate from the Northern Cameroons. British exploitation of their fatherland. factors that led to the british conquest of nigeria. It was colonized by the British in 1884 and the colony is established at the Berlin conference which divides Africa by European powers. It was suspended in 1950 against a call for greater autonomy, which resulted in an inter-parliamentary conference at Ibadan in 1950. The officers of the RWAFF were British. It is not a personal union of separate colonies under the same Governor like the Windwards, it is not a Confederation of States. The war also made the British reappraise Nigeria's political future. If an eye is kept on the Gazettes as they come in this will enable us to warn him of any objections we may entertain to legislative proposals, and also give Liverpool and Manchester an opportunity of voicing their objections. The primary motives of European explorers were economic. Accordingly, as the volume of trade increased, merchants requested that the Government of the United Kingdom appoint a consul to cover the region. September 1996. Mordi, Emmanuel Nwafor. Robin Hermann, "Empire Builders and Mushroom Gentlemen: The Meaning of Money in Colonial Nigeria". But the war had more concrete consequences. . In the 1700s, the British Empire and other European powers had settlements and forts in West Africa but had not yet established the full-scale plantation colonies which existed in the Americas. For political the British were fixed on expanding their empire and gaining control of every major city, state, or country in the world so they could govern every man or woman as they Show More The British turned to Persia for oil.[83]. A.J. Inconsistencies in British policy reinforced existing cleavages based on regional animosities, as the British tried both to preserve the indigenous cultures of each area and to introduce modern technology, and Western political and social concepts. From 1815 to 1840, palm oil exports increased by a factor of 25, from 800 to 20,000 tons per year. British merchants led the trade in palm oil, while the Portuguese and others continued the slave trade. Dike, K. O. To . [29] His servant, Richard Lander, and Lander's brother John were the ones to demonstrate that the Niger flowed into the sea. Some of them began to migrate back from Sierra Leone in search of home and trade. Facebook Instagram Email. The National Youth Movement used nationalist rhetoric to agitate for improvements in education. Great Britain was the leaders at this time in colonizing the land filled with rich natural recourses. [73] An estimated 500,000 Nigerians would lose their lives due to the pandemic, severely decreasing production capabilities on Nigerian farms and plantations. In all three regions, minority parties represented the special interests of ethnic groups, especially as they were affected by the majority. The search for oil, begun in 1908 and abandoned a few years later, was revived in 1937 by Shell and British Petroleum. Sir Richmond Palmer, acting as Lieutenant Governor in the North, disagreed with Clifford and advocated the principles of Lugard and further decentralisation. It continued to enjoy special privileges and maintained a de facto monopoly over commerce. They caused major transformations in traditional society as they eroded the religious institutions such as human sacrifice, infanticide and secret societies, which had formerly played a role in political authority and community life.[26]. Azikiwe had less interest in purely Nigerian goals than did Davies, a student of Harold Laski at the London School of Economics, whose political orientation was considered left-wing. The Action Group, which staged a lively campaign, favoured stronger government and the establishment of three new states while advocating the creation of a West Africa Federation that would unite Nigeria with Ghana and Sierra Leone. Progressive constitutions after World War II provided for increasing representation and electoral government by Nigerians. The decrease in trade indirectly led to the collapse of states like the Edo Empire. (Specifically it would enable direct subsidy of the less profitable Northern jurisdiction.) The Colonial Office approved most of Lugard's plan, but balked at authorising him to pass laws without their approval. The British led a series of military campaigns to enlarge its sphere of influence and expand its commercial opportunities. By demonstrating the heavy reliance on West African soldiers for the 'European' conduct of the Great War campaign in the region, it shows how West Africans helped determine the outcome of war in the region. Britain also annexed Freetown in Sierra Leone, declaring it a Crown Colony in 1808.[20]. British and French traders did a large share of this business until 1807 when they were replaced by the Portuguese and the Spaniards. [23] Regardless, slavery had decimated the population and fuelled militarisation and chaos, thereby paving the way for more aggressive colonisation.[21][24]. Both Africans and Europeans found illegal supplies such as secret stills, obtaining colonial liquor permits, and smuggling. . It is not a federal state with federal Executive, Legislature and finances, like the Leewards.