nigeria resistance to colonial rule

This system, in which the structure of authority focused on the emir to . Economic competition among these "houses" was so fierce that trade often erupted into an armed battle between the crews of the large canoes. 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. Adam Smith wrote in 1776 that the African societies were better established and more populous than those of the Americas, thus creating a more formidable barrier to European expansion. The British took an interest in Nigeria because of its resources. 3 The Amakholwa's upsurge as a black, conservative, and educated class in the Cape Colony helped establish political resistance to colonial rule. Local rulers continued to administer their territories, but consular authorities assumed jurisdiction for the equity courts established earlier by the foreign mercantile communities. The Kikuyu people of Kenya, like most Africans, were laborers with the women doing most work at home while the men found work across the country. For this objective, the Company chose to administer the African inhabitants of the Niger Sudan through their traditional rulers and their political institutions. Resistance movements began to rise in . The Colonial Civil Service used intermediaries, as the Royal Niger Company had, in an expanded role which included diplomacy, propaganda and espionage. Gandhi. It, therefore, hired native intermediaries who could conduct diplomacy, trade and intelligence work in the local area. Native Administration was responsible for police, hospitals, public works and local courts. Bright Alozie. The High Commissioner will be guided by all the usual laws of succession and the wishes of the people and chief but will set them aside if he desires for good cause to do so. [32], In 1880, the British Government and traders demonetised the Maria Theresa dollar, to the considerable dismay of its local holders, in favour of the pound sterling. 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. [25][n 1], The missionaries gained in power throughout the 1800s. Men such as Balewa believed that only by overcoming political and economic backwardness could the NPC protect the foundations of traditional northern authority against the influence of the more advanced south. tax. [17] Much of this oil was sold elsewhere in the British Empire. If adopted, his proposals can hardly be a permanent solution and I gather that Sir F. Lugard only regards them as temporaryat any rate in part. The charter allowed the company to collect customs and make treaties with local leaders.[12]. As the emirs settled more and more into their role as reliable agents of indirect rule, colonial authorities were content to maintain the status quo, particularly in religious matters. Total revenues of central and regional governments nearly doubled in relation to the gross domestic product during the decade. Critics, including representatives of the Middle Belt who resented Muslim domination, were relegated to small, peripheral parties or to inconsequential separatist movements.[85]. The Southern Protectorate financed itself from the outset, with revenue increasing from 361,815 to 1,933,235 over the same period. Nigerian recruits participated in the war effort as labourers and soldiers. The large companies that subsequently opened depots in the delta cities and in Lagos were as ruthlessly competitive as the delta towns themselves and frequently used force to compel potential suppliers to agree to contracts and to meet their demands. At the same time, British scientists were interested in exploring the course and related settlements along the Niger River. Menelik II, emperor of Ethiopia, led his army to accomplish this unique feat in March 1896, defeating General Oreste Baratieri's Italian . After the Berlin Conference of 1884, Britain announced the formation of the Oil Rivers Protectorate, which included the Niger Delta and extended eastward to Calabar, where the British Consulate General was relocated from Fernando Po. In the immediate post-World War II period, Nigeria benefited from a favourable trade balance. Some of them also manned Company stations and served as District Agents.". [51], Guidelines for running the Nigerian colony were established in 1898 by the Niger Committee, chaired by the Earl of Selborne, in 1898. [31], In 1891, the consulate established the Niger Coast Protectorate Force or "Oil Rivers Irregulars".[32]. Ajay. The rapid growth of organised labour in the 1940s also brought new political forces into play. The transfer of responsibility for budgetary management from the central to the regional governments in 1954 accelerated the pace of public spending on services and on development projects. The staff of this office came primarily from the British upper-middle classi.e., university-educated men, primarily not nobility, with fathers in well-respected professions. Nigeria Table of Contents. Internal self-government was granted to the Western and Eastern regions in 1957. The essential basis of this system was a money economyspecifically the British pound sterlingwhich could be demanded through taxation, paid to cooperative natives, and levied as a fine. [61] John Anderson diplomatically suggested: If it is the necessity for formally submitting the drafts that hurts Sir F. Lugard, I should be quite prepared to omit that provision provided that the period of publication of the draft prior to enactment is extended from one month to two. Battle of Adowa (Ethiopia) 5. Armed resistance decreased in the 1920s but protest continued, "characterised by civil rights and civil . He also led the Nigerian National Democratic Party, which dominated elections in Lagos from its founding in 1922 until the ascendancy of the National Youth Movement in 1938. The council was headed by a Governor. The decrease in trade indirectly led to the collapse of states like the Edo Empire. The Lander brothers were seized by slave traders in the interior and sold down the river to a waiting European ship. The discussion of pragmatic resistance in Africa comes full circle with the former Portuguese colonies, South Africa, and Kenya. By the eighteenth century, evidence of Christianity had disappeared. Not wishing to appear out of control or weak, they approved the expedition (two days after it began) on 19 January 1903.,[47] In general, the Colonial Office allowed Lugard's expeditions to continue because they were framed as retaliatory and, as Olivier commented in 1906, "If the millions of people [in Nigeria] who do not want us there once get the notion that our people can be killed with impunity they will not be slow to attempt it."[48]. He was contemptuous of the educated and Westernised African elite found more in the South, and he recommended transferring the capital from Lagos, the cosmopolitan city where the influence of these people was most pronounced, to Kaduna in the north. At the same time it is feasible by degrees to bring them gradually into approximation with our ideas of justice and humanity. To some extent, competition amongst these companies undermined their collective position vis--vis, local merchants. British merchants led the trade in palm oil, while the Portuguese and others continued the slave trade. Following the defeat of an unsuccessful foray by Consul General James R. Phillips, a larger retaliatory force captured Benin City and drove Ovonramwen, the Oba of Benin, into exile. The yoruba-Igbo rivalry became increasingly important in Nigerian politics. Each was under a Lieutenant Governor and provided independent government services. Examples of passive resistance include complex and/or costly application processes, a failure to provide guidance on how to request information, or enforcement mechanisms that are difficult to use. [50] In the same year, the British created the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF or WAFF), under the leadership of Colonel Frederick Lugard. 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. The principal commodities of legitimate trade were palm oil and palm kernels, which were used in Europe to make soap and as lubricants for machinery before petroleum products were developed for that purpose. Even before gaining its charter, the Company signed treaties with local leaders which granted it broad sovereign powers. Another court was established in 1856 at Calabar, based on an agreement with local Efik traders which prohibited them from interfering with British merchants. The French had abolished slavery following the French Revolution, although it briefly re-established it in its Caribbean colonies under Napoleon. . Economic hardship caused by the war certainly underlay and even provoked resistance against the colonial authorities. Although he reported on the eastward flow of the Niger, he was forced to turn back when his equipment was lost to Muslim Arab slave traders. The first missions were opened by the Church of England's Church Missionary Society (CMS). In these territories, violent resistance brought colonial rule to a close. Joining the Royal Niger Company in 1894, Lugard was sent to Borgu to counter inroads made by the French, and in 1897 he was made responsible for raising the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF) from local levies to serve under British officers. [72] In line with this attitude, he rejected Lugard's proposal for moving the capital from Lagos, the stronghold of the elite in whom he placed so much confidence for the future. [59], Following the order recommended by the Niger Committee, the Colonial Office merged Lagos Colony and the Southern Nigeria Protectorate on 1 May 1906, forming a larger protectorate (still called the Southern Nigeria Protectorate) which spanned the coastline between Dahomey and Cameroon. He said that he did "not consider that their past traditions and their present backward cultural conditions afford to any such experiment a reasonable chance of success". Two tiers of government emerged, central and local. Several churches were built to serve the Edo community and a small number of African converts. With one man in practical control of the Executive and Legislative organs of all the parts, the machine may work passably for sufficient time to enable the transition period to be left behind, by which time the answer to the problemUnitary v. Federal Statewill probably have become clear. The risings in the midwest of Nigeria and the Niger delta during the early stages of the war cannot be understood except in the context of falling prices for palm products, and the drop in trade due to the exclusion of the . Play off ethnic and social divisions . Their common denominators tended to be based on newly assertive ethnic consciousness, particularly that of the Yoruba and Igbo. [11][12], The amalgamation of different ethnic and religious groups into one federation created internal tension which persists in Nigeria to the present day.[13]. Colonial Lagos was a busy, cosmopolitan port. Traditional authorities were co-opted in the north, where the spread of Western education by Christian missionaries was strongly resisted by Muslim leaders. The similarity between the federal and regional constitutions was deceptive, however, and the conduct of public affairs reflected wide differences among the regions. [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. Nigeria is a country in West Africa and was colonized by the British. Its residents were employed in official capacities and were active in business. They had obtained the assent of the emirs to form a political party to counterbalance the activities of the southern-based parties. At the turn of the century, top wages were four bags of salt (company retail price, 3s 9d) for a month of work. He used for the first time in Nigeria modern, sometimes flamboyant, electioneering techniques. 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. Some indigenous peoples, such as those in the Americas, were forced to move to reservations or killed outright by invading European colonizers. A lack of interest in extending the NPC beyond the Northern Region corresponded to this strictly regional orientation. In her . In this final section of this module, we will look at four phases of African reaction to . The protectorate was organised to control and develop trade coming down the Niger. resistance and successfully imposed colonial rule should attest to the point that African military resistance was ineffectual. Despite these difficulties, the Action Group rapidly built an effective organisation. After initially adopting an indirect rule approach, in 1906 the British merged the small Lagos Colony and the Southern Nigeria Protectorate into a new Colony of Southern Nigeria, and in 1914 that was combined with the Northern Nigeria Protectorate to form the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. A "house" included the extended family of the trader, including retainers and slaves. A constabulary force was raised and used to pacify the coastal area. In 1958 exportation of Nigerian oil was initiated at facilities constructed at Port Harcourt. Early on in colonial rule, for example, Nigerians protested the manner in which water rates and head taxes were collected. September 1996. The Colonial Office approved most of Lugard's plan, but balked at authorising him to pass laws without their approval. ", Simon Heap, "'We think prohibition is a farce': drinking in the alcohol-prohibited zone of colonial northern Nigeria. In the 1920s, Nigerians began to form a variety of associations, such as professional and business associations, like the Nigerian Union of Teachers; the Nigerian Law Association, which brought together lawyers, many of whom had been educated in Britain; and the Nigerian Produce Traders' Association, led by Obafemi Awolowo. Author. [19] Although the Ijebu had some weapons they were wiped out by British Maxims, the earliest machine gun. Initial British attempts to open trade with the interior by way of the Niger could not overcome climate and diseases such as malaria. The political parties jockeyed for positions of power in anticipation of the independence of Nigeria. This led to protests known as Women's War. Then they resisted the policy as much as possible. 1. Subsequent revisions contained in the Lyttleton Constitution, enacted in 1954, firmly established the federal principle and paved the way for independence. In the Bight of Biafra, the major ports were Old Calabar (Akwa Akpa), Bonny and New Calabar. [73] In direct reaction to the epidemic, colonial authorities allowed African doctors and medical personnel to work with influenza patients due to the severity of the situation. Bolivian indigenous activist Ivan Ignacio, one of many indigenous activists at the second People's Summit in Qubec . Britain annexed Lagos in 1861 and established the Oil River Protectorate in 1884. The women's protest of 1929 marked an apex in women's resistance in eastern Nigeria to colonial rule. Exploration was intensified in 1946, but the first commercial discovery did not occur until 1956, at Olobiri in the Niger Delta. resistance to British invasion and colonial rule so as to close that vacuum created by the 'majority syndrome' approach. Colonization of Nigeria. Although colonial rule appeared secure in the first two decades of the 20th century, the British struggled to keep control of their Nigerian colony and continued to do so until Nigeria became independent in 1960. [74] But with the advancement and efficiency of colonial transportation networks, it was only a matter of time before the disease began to spread into the interior. Non-violent Resistance - In the Year of African Independence, 1961, 17 countries declared themselves independent of colonial powers, most of them non-violently, through protest and/or negotiation . In 1851 deposed king Akintoye of Lagos sought British help in restoring him to the throne. The Royal Navy bombarded Lagos in November 1851, ousted the pro-slavery Oba Kosoko and established a treaty with the newly installed Oba Akintoye, who was expectedly more amenable to British interests. In the 1850s, quinine had been found to combat malaria, and aided by the medicine, a Liverpool merchant, Macgregor Laird, opened the river. It continued to enjoy special privileges and maintained a de facto monopoly over commerce. [70], Lugard's immediate successor (19191925), Sir Hugh Clifford, was an aristocratic professional administrator with liberal instincts who had won recognition for his enlightened governorship of the Gold Coast in 19121919. Direct taxation on men was introduced in 1928 without major incidents. "John Beecroft, 17901854: Her Brittanic Majesty's Consul to the Bights of Benin and Biafra 18491854". of British Colonial Nigeria. The company's major imports to the area included gin and low-quality firearms. Introduction. American president Dwight D. Eisenhower was represented at the independence ceremonies by Nelson Rockefeller, the . The federal government retained specified powers, including responsibility for banking, currency, external affairs, defence, shipping and navigation and communications, but real political power was centred in the regions. In an era of globalization, leaders of "recognized" nations often discuss the development of indigenous resources without inviting aboriginal leaders to the table. British and French traders did a large share of this business until 1807 when they were replaced by the Portuguese and the Spaniards. In the north, for instance, legislation took the form of a decree cosigned by the Governor and the emir, while in the south, the Governor sought the approval of the Legislative Council. The rapid expansion in exports, especially after 1830, occurred precisely at the time slave exports collapsed. Anticolonialism in the twentieth and twenty-first century refers to two interconnected concepts: a historical event and a critical analytic. Olatunji Ojo, "The Organization of the Atlantic Slave Trade in Yorubaland, ca.1777 to ca.1856", Bouda Etemad, "Economic relations between Europe and Black Africa, Giles D. Short, "Blood and Treasure: The reduction of Lagos, 1851", "Northern Nigeria: The Illo Canceller and Borgu Mail" by Ray Harris in. In 1916 Lugard formed the Nigerian Council, a consultative body that brought together six traditional rulersincluding the Sultan of Sokoto, the Emir of Kano and the Oba of Beninto represent all parts of the colony. (During World War II they again served in East Africa, as well as in Burma [now Myanmar].) [11][12], In 1900, the British Government assumed control of the Southern and Northern Protectorates, both of which were ultimately governed by the Colonial Office at Whitehall. As a latecomer in the struggle for colonies, Germany had to settle for four territories, called "protectorates," in . 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