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. 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. 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]. The principal figure in the political activity that ensued was Herbert Macauley, often referred to as the father of Nigerian nationalism. 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. practice of indirect rule, Brown contends that culture industries like Nollywood can sustain capitalism . Ethnic and kinship organisations that often took the form of a tribal union also emerged in the 1920s. The Women's War of 1929, known among Igbo women as Ogu Umunwanyi, occurred from November 23 to January 10, 1930. In the South, only English had official status. Although per capita income in the country as a whole remained low by international standards, rising incomes among salaried personnel and burgeoning urbanization expanded consumer demand for imported goods. It backed Yoruba irredentism in the Fulani-ruled emirate of Ilorin in the Northern Region, and separatist movements among non-Igbo in the Eastern Region. The most important innovations in the new charter reinforced the dual course of constitutional evolution, allowing for both regional autonomy and federal union. [77] Its revenue quickly increased, from 4,424 in 1901 to 274,989 in 1910. . They selected an increasingly high proportion of African clergy for the missions. The Colony was ultimately governed by the British Colonial Office in London. [21], Whether British conquest of Nigeria resulted from a benevolent motive to end slavery or more instrumental motives of wealth and power, remains a topic of dispute between African and European historians. European colonialists had managed to quell the efforts by Africans to resist the establishment of colonial rule with one exception. [17] Much of this oil was sold elsewhere in the British Empire. [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. In the twentieth century, Lagos became a center for resistance to colonial rule. Local administration, where the colonial citizens typically experienced colonial authority, was based on the policy of indirect rule first developed in the north. According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Voyage Database, 308,800 were sold across the Atlantic from Lagos in 17761850. 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. Du Bois. In practice, British administrative procedures under indirect rule entailed constant interaction between colonial authorities and local rulersthe system was modified to fit the needs of each region. [82], Oil exploration began in 1906 under John Simon Bergheim's Nigeria Bitumen Corporation, to which the Colonial Office granted exclusive rights. Armed resistance decreased in the 1920s but protest continued, "characterised by civil rights and civil . 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. Crowther, a liberated Yoruba slave, had been educated in Sierra Leone and in Britain, where he was ordained before returning to his homeland with the first group of CMS missionaries. From January 1914 onwards, the newly united colony and protectorate was presided over by a proconsul, who was entitled the Governor-General of Nigeria. At the same time, British scientists were interested in exploring the course and related settlements along the Niger River. Decolonization Resource Collection (National History Center) Less Scrambling, more Reflecting: Teaching about colonialism in Africa from the perspective of resistance by Bram Hubbel, February 9, 2019. [63], The Protectorate was centrally administered by the Colonial Civil Service, staffed by Britons and Africans called the British Native Staffmany of whom originated from outside the territory. 3 The Amakholwa's upsurge as a black, conservative, and educated class in the Cape Colony helped establish political resistance to colonial rule. The French had abolished slavery following the French Revolution, although it briefly re-established it in its Caribbean colonies under Napoleon. [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. The operations of this force are still not fully known due to a policy of strict secrecy mandated by the British Government. Christian missionaries were barred, and the limited government efforts in education were harmonized with Islamic institutions.[67]. Read suggested they be merged, and more use made of Nigeria's natural resources. Further dislocation accompanied the outbreak of World War I. The early history of Lagos Colony was one of repeated attempts to end the Yoruba wars. Every Sultan and Emir and the principal officers of state will be appointed by the high Commissioner throughout all this country. [61], The task of unification was achieved on the eve of World War I. . It was supported not only by the income from huge agricultural surpluses but also by a new range of direct and indirect taxes imposed during the 1950s. In: The Journal of African History: (1990 . [38][39], In 1892 the British Armed Forces set out to fight the Ijebu Kingdom, which had resisted missionaries and foreign traders. Some indigenous peoples, such as those in the Americas, were forced to move to reservations or killed outright by invading European colonizers. Combining the three jurisdictions would reduce administrative expenses and facilitate deployment of resources and money between the areas. Macaulay was despised by the British, but he came to be regarded as the father of modern Nigerian nationalism.. By. It continued to enjoy special privileges and maintained a de facto monopoly over commerce. [19][41], In 18961897 the forces of the Niger Coast Protectorate fought with the remnants of the Edo Empire. You are right my brother. Because of the spread of mission schools and wealth derived from export crops, the southern parties were committed to policies that would benefit the south of the country. Protestant sects had flourished in Christianity since the Protestant Reformation; the emergence of independent Christian churches in Nigeria (as of black denominations in the United States) was another phase of this history. [23] Regardless, slavery had decimated the population and fuelled militarisation and chaos, thereby paving the way for more aggressive colonisation.[21][24]. 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. The British took an interest in Nigeria because of its resources. It was guerrilla warfare in the case of the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya (1952-60) and Zimbabwe's war of independence (1965-79); it was all . An example was that at Onitsha, where they could bargain directly with local suppliers and purchase products likely to turn a profit. Their common denominators tended to be based on newly assertive ethnic consciousness, particularly that of the Yoruba and Igbo. In 1900, the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate passed from company hands to the Crown. How did Africans resist c. In 1794, the African Association in Great Britain commissioned Mungo Park, an intrepid Scottish physician and naturalist, to search for the headwaters of the Niger and follow the river downstream. Its architecture was in both Victorian and Brazilian style, as many of the black elite were English-speakers from Sierra Leone and freedmen repatriated from the Empire of Brazil and Spanish Cuba. Central Africa to 1964. British expansion accelerated in the last decades of the nineteenth century. opposed early self-rule for colonial Nigeria on the ground of perceived domination by the southerners. [73] An estimated 500,000 Nigerians would lose their lives due to the pandemic, severely decreasing production capabilities on Nigerian farms and plantations. Many changes accompanied British rule: Western education, the English language, and Christianity spread during the period; new forms of money, transportation, and communication were developed; and the Nigerian economy became based on the export of cash crops. The Northern People's Congress (NPC) was organised in the late 1940s by a small group of Western-educated Northern Nigerians. In 1894 the territory was redesignated the Niger Coast Protectorate and was expanded to include the region from Calabar to Lagos Colony and Protectorate, including the hinterland, and northward up the Niger River as far as Lokoja, the headquarters of the Royal Niger Company. The women's protest of 1929 marked an apex in women's resistance in eastern Nigeria to colonial rule. The discussion of pragmatic resistance in Africa comes full circle with the former Portuguese colonies, South Africa, and Kenya. Although realistic in its assessment of the situation in Nigeria, the Richards Constitution undoubtedly intensified regionalism as an alternative to political unification. In some cases, British assignment of people to ethnic groups, and treatment based along ethnic lines, led to identification with ethnicity where none had existed before.[84]. took careful account of Islam and avoided any appearance of a challenge to traditional values that might incite resistance to British rule. They gathered information which was needed for policy-making in administration. Similar status was acquired by the Northern Region two years later. [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. All were knighted. Oil income was still marginal, but the prospects for continued economic expansion appeared bright and accentuated political rivalries on the eve of independence. 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. The only significant interruption in economic development arose from natural disasterthe Great Drought of 191314. 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 aroused political awareness through his newspaper, the Lagos Daily News. This primary resistance was not unified and centered, yet it allowed understanding that the colonial rule and the presence of Europeans in Africa were negative (Chamberlain 89). Nigerian students abroad, particularly at British schools, joined those from other colonies in pan-African groups such as the West African Students Union, founded in London in 1925. [27] To produce all this oil, the economy of the southern region crossed over from mostly subsistence to the production of palm oil as a cash crop.[28]. The incidence of slavery in local societies increased. The seven men who governed Northern Nigeria, Southern Nigeria and Lagos through 1914 were Henry McCallum, William MacGregor, Walter Egerton, Ralph Moor, Percy Girouard, Hesketh Bell and Frederick Lugard. With this victory, the British went on to conquer the rest of Yorubaland, which had also been weakened by sixteen years of civil war. Bolivian indigenous activist Ivan Ignacio, one of many indigenous activists at the second People's Summit in Qubec . In the 1850s, quinine had been found to combat malaria, and aided by the medicine, a Liverpool merchant, Macgregor Laird, opened the river. 19, no. As its head, the master trader taxed other traders who were members of his "house"; he maintained a war vessel, a large dugout canoe that could hold several tons of cargo and dozens of crew, for the defense of the harbor. In the 1870s, therefore, George Taubman Goldie began amalgamating companies into the United African Company, soon renamed the National African Company. 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. But by providing for comparable regional governments exercising broad legislative powers, which could not be overridden by the newly established 185-seat federal House of Representatives, the Macpherson Constitution also gave a significant boost to regionalism. Resistance to colonial rule took a number of forms, incrementally moving Nigeria toward independence. We also understand that the said National African Company (limited) have full power to mine, farm, and build in any portion of our territory. In addition to their economic grievances, they also called for the end of the reform of the native courts. [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. Goods were made available on credit to African middlemen, who were expected to trade them at a pre-arranged price and deliver the proceeds to the company. In 1960, the country attained independence from British rule. 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. After 1940, political activities were broadened to include more people. [8] British influence in the region began with the prohibition of slave trade to British subjects in 1807. The economy suffered from the decline in the slave trade, although considerable smuggling of slaves to the Americas continued for years afterward. Author. To be sure, there were widespread resistances against colonial rule, which include the 'Abd al-Qadir led resistance against the French in Algeria, the Asante King (Prempeh I) led revolt against British colonialists in Ghana, the Maji Maji revolt in Tanganyika, the Ndebele rebellions in Rhodasia, the Ijebu Kingdom and the Opobo resistances in . His government guided the country for the next three years, operating with almost complete autonomy in internal affairs. Like in other countries under imperialist rule, colonialism in Nigeria resulted in numerous positive and negative impacts. 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. These changes included taking land from African people and giving it to the growing number of Europeans in the colonies. The council was headed by a Governor. The British entry into World War I saw the confiscation of Nigerian palm oil firms operated by expatriates from the Central Powers. Lagos remained the capital of the south, with Zungeru the new capital of the north. Main aim. It is not a unitary state with local government areas but with one Central Executive and one Legislature. At the urging of Governor Frederick Lugard, the two territories were amalgamated as the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, while maintaining considerable regional autonomy among the three major regions (Northern protectorate, Southern protectorate and the Colony of Lagos). The British High Commissioners could depose emirs and other officials if necessary. The war also made the British reappraise Nigeria's political future. 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. The Native Administration was headed by the traditional rulersmostly emirs in the north and often obas in the southand their District Heads, who oversaw a larger number of Village Heads. 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. In November 1908, Bergheim reported striking oil; in September 1909, he reported extracting 2,000 barrels per day. 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. "Separatist Agitations in Nigeria Since 1914." 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