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[19], West Africa also bought British exports, supplying 3040% of the demand for British cotton during the Industrial Revolution of 17501790.[27]. Harding, director of Nigerian affairs at the Colonial Office, defined the official position of the British Government in support of indirect rule when he said that "direct government by impartial and honest men of alien race [] never yet satisfied a nation long and [] under such a form of government, as wealth and education increase, so do political discontent and sedition". Individuals could be fined or jailed for refusing to comply.[12]. [36], The company, as was common among European businesses in Africa, paid its native workers in barter. Other Protestant denominations from Great Britain, Canada, and the United States also opened missions and, in the 1860s, Roman Catholic religious orders established missions. Frederick Lugard, who was appointed as High Commissioner of the Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1900 and served until 1906 in his first term, often has been regarded by the British as their model colonial administrator. [32] This included a river fleet which it used for retaliatory attacks on uncooperative villages. [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. In the long term, the acceptance of Christianity by large numbers of Nigerians depended on the various denominations adapting to local conditions. The policy of indirect rule used in Northern Nigeria became a model for British colonies elsewhere in Africa. Portuguese Roman Catholic priests who accompanied traders and officials to the West African coast introduced Christianity to the Edo Empire in the fifteenth century. Its effects are still widely felt up till today. The British Conquest of Nigeria From about the mid nineteenth century, the British began to alter the nature of their relationship between themselves and Nigerians. Siollun concludes with what he calls "the mistake of 1914": his view that the British resolution to join their northern and southern protectorates into one poorly integrated colony constitutes the single most consequential decision of colonial rule in Nigeria. The pace of constitutional change accelerated after the promulgation of the Richards Constitution. 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. Three of these posts were assigned to representatives from each region, and one was reserved for a delegate from the Northern Cameroons. The cleavage between the Yoruba and the Igbo was accentuated by their competition for control of the political machinery. 979 Words. Colonial Nigeria was ruled by the British Empire from the mid-nineteenth century until 1960 when Nigeria achieved independence. A lack of interest in extending the NPC beyond the Northern Region corresponded to this strictly regional orientation. The racial discriminatory tendencies of the Europeans to Nigerians. 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. 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. Falola, Toyin, Ann Genova, and Matthew M. Heaton. [16] Starting in 1740, the British were the primary European slave trafficker from this area. L'indpendance du. A revelatory account of British imperialism's shameful impact on Africa's most populous state. Its residents were employed in official capacities and were active in business. The huge African continent (three times the size of the continental United States) was particularly vulnerable to European conquest. 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. http://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/the-factors-that-led-to-the-colonization-of-africa-by-the-europeans-PLa41Sz5 Be sure to capitalize proper nouns (e.g. Missionary forces demanded prohibition of liquor, which proved highly unpopular. The Reconquista, or reconquest, refers to the 800 years of violence and expulsion of Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula after the failed Crusades. Britain also encouraged the formation of the Muslim League of India in 1907. They noticed something odd about the local fishermen and asked to come ashore. Although churchmen in Britain had been influential in the drive to abolish the slave trade, significant missionary activity for Africa did not develop until the 1840s. 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. The British High Commissioners could depose emirs and other officials if necessary. [19] Although the Ijebu had some weapons they were wiped out by British Maxims, the earliest machine gun. The legal justification for this campaign was a treaty signed in 1886, when the British had interceded as peacemakers to end the Ekiti Parapo war, which imposed free trade requirements and mandated that all parties continue to use British channels for diplomacy. The British annexed Lagos in 1861 in order to protect Akitoyes son and successor, foil Kosokos bid to return, and secure a base for further activities. In contrast to Lugard, Clifford argued that colonial government had the responsibility to introduce as quickly as practical the benefits of Western experience. British exploitation of their fatherland. 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. 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. Significantly, the regional governments controlled public expenditures derived from revenues raised within each region. tamko building products ownership; 30 Junio, 2022; factors that led to the british conquest of nigeria . Both Africans and Europeans found illegal supplies such as secret stills, obtaining colonial liquor permits, and smuggling. Colonialism is both a practice and a word that means so much to Nigeria. Both claimed in 1908; territories formed in 1962 (British Antarctic Territory) and 1985 (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands). ", Helen Chapin Metz, ed. European Colonialism in Africa. Britain also annexed Freetown in Sierra Leone, declaring it a Crown Colony in 1808.[20]. In this way Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowtherborn in the Yoruba-inhabited area of Oshogbo and the first African ordained by the CMSwas able to establish mission stations at Onitsha, Lokoja, and Eggan and later at Brass and Bonny. The British entry into World War I saw the confiscation of Nigerian palm oil firms operated by expatriates from the Central Powers. The Northern People's Congress (NPC) was organised in the late 1940s by a small group of Western-educated Northern Nigerians. Under the Political Department of the Civil Service were Residents and District Officers, responsible for overseeing operations in each region. Ethnic cleavages intensified in the 1950s. Therefore, other factors exist to explain the institutional design. Gradually, however, the trade forced major economic and social changes in the interior, although it hardly undermined slavery and the slave trade. Lugard's success in northern Nigeria has been attributed to his policy of indirect rule; that is, he governed the protectorate through the rulers defeated by the British. Nigeria: A Country Study. The Treasury used a planned budget for payment of staff and development of public works projects, and therefore could not be spent at the discretion of the local traditional ruler. They received attention from major parties before elections, at which time either a dominant party from another region or the opposition party in their region sought their alliance. Each was under a Lieutenant Governor and provided independent government services. [8], Through a progressive sequence of regimes, the British imposed Crown Colony government on much of the area of West Africa which came to be known as Nigeria, a form of rule which was both autocratic and bureaucratic. [23] Regardless, slavery had decimated the population and fuelled militarisation and chaos, thereby paving the way for more aggressive colonisation.[21][24]. Borno capitulated without a fight, but in 1903 Lugard's RWAFF mounted assaults on Kano and Sokoto. As a practice, colonialism is traced to the1854 and 1855 conference at Berlin in Germany. [22] Many locals remained unconvinced of the Crown's authority to completely reverse the legal and moral attributes of a social institution through fiat. The country was divided politically, lacking European rivals, and no sense of national unity. David Ellis, "African and European relations in the last century of the transatlantic slave trade"; in Ptr-Grenouilleau. 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. The Colonial Civil Service used intermediaries, as the Royal Niger Company had, in an expanded role which included diplomacy, propaganda and espionage. They were the most politically conscious segment of the population and created the vanguard of the nationalist movement. These seven factors led to the development of the slave trade: The importance of the West Indian colonies The shortage of labour The. the British Government completed their assignment of conquest and came up with what they called the Amalgamation of Nigeria . 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. At the same time, British scientists were interested in exploring the course and related settlements along the Niger River. 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. A Hurst Publication. The company's major imports to the area included gin and low-quality firearms. 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. This rate rose to 20,000 per year in the last quarter of the century. The trend was toward the establishment of a parliamentary system of government, with regional assemblies and a federal House of Representatives. In 1841 the British tried to settle some Egba on a model farm in Lokoja, but the plan was aborted because the mortality rate among European officials was so high. The superior weapons, tactics and political unity of the British are commonly given as reasons for their decisive ultimate victory. 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. Frederick Lugard, shortly before becoming High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria.[68]. Du Bois. In-text citation: Awolowo had little difficulty in appealing to broad segments of the Yoruba population, but he worked to avoid the Action Group from being stigmatized as a "tribal" group. Alan Lennox-Boyd, M.P., the British Secretary of State for the Colonies. They had obtained the assent of the emirs to form a political party to counterbalance the activities of the southern-based parties. The early history of Lagos Colony was one of repeated attempts to end the Yoruba wars. They were helped by two major factors; the discovery of quinine as a preventive drug against malaria and the armory the British possess which was superior compared to those of the Nigerians. Colonial official A. J. Harding commented in 1913: Sir F. Lugard's proposal contemplates a state which it is impossible to classify. Some of them began to migrate back from Sierra Leone in search of home and trade. In the north, appeals to Islamic legitimacy upheld the rule of the emirs, so that nationalist sentiments were related to Islamic ideals. The search for oil, begun in 1908 and abandoned a few years later, was revived in 1937 by Shell and British Petroleum. Military Conquest. The company interfered in the territory along the Niger and the Benue, sometimes becoming embroiled in serious conflicts when its British-led native constabulary intercepted slave raids or attempted to protect trade routes. 1 Economic Motives. Consequently, in 1849, John Beecroft was accredited as consul for the bights of Benin and Biafra, a jurisdiction stretching from Dahomey to Cameroon. The slave trade was heaviest in the period 17001850, with an average of 76,000 people taken from Africa each year between 1783 and 1792. There were numerous differences of detail among the regional systems, but all adhered to parliamentary forms and were equally autonomous in relation to the Nigerian federal government at Lagos. They gathered information which was needed for policy-making in administration. The colonial period proper in Nigeria lasted from 1900 to 1960, after which Nigeria gained its independence. In the main the following factors contributed to the growth of colonies: Firstly, in the first place the discovery of new lands encouraged the various colonies to establish their colonies there. Crowther was succeeded as bishop by a British cleric. 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". [31], Captain John Glover, the colony's administrator, created a militia of Hausa troops in 1861. In the south, by contrast, traditional rulers were employed as vehicles of indirect rule in Edoland and Yorubaland, but Christianity and Western education undermined their sacerdotal functions. Great Britain was the leaders at this time in colonizing the land filled with rich natural recourses. During his six-year tenure as High Commissioner, Sir Frederick Lugard (as he became in 1901) was occupied with transforming the commercial sphere of influence inherited from the Royal Niger Company into a viable territorial unit under effective British political control. Afeadie, "The Hidden Hand of Overrule" (1996), p. 1719. Catholic missionaries were particularly active among the Igbo; the CMS worked among the Yoruba. The proliferation of labour organisations fragmented the movement, and potential leaders lacked the experience and skill to draw workers together. brighton grey motion loveseat; waterford, ct obituaries; jane wymark children. 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 history of Nigeria can be traced to the earliest inhabitants whose remains date from at least 13,000 BC through early civilizations such as the Nok culture which began around 1500 BC.Numerous ancient African civilizations settled in the region that is known today as Nigeria, such as the Kingdom of Nri, the Benin Empire, and the Oyo Empire. Free shipping for many products! Most Europeans tended to overlook their own differences and were surprised and shocked that Nigerians wanted to develop new denominations independent of European control. While initially organised for professional and fraternal reasons, these were centres of educated people who had chances to develop their leadership skills in the organisations, as well as form broad social networks. His political platform called for economic and educational development, Africanization of the civil service, and self-government for Lagos. Unification meant only the loose affiliation of three distinct regional administrations into which Nigeria was subdividedNorthern, Western and Eastern regions. [25][n 1], The missionaries gained in power throughout the 1800s. A third type of organisation that was more pointedly political was the youth or student group, which became the vehicle of intellectuals and professionals. 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. 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]. The approaches of the two men to colonial development were diametrically opposed. [19] This scenario provided an opportunity for naval expeditions and reconnaissance throughout the region. Three constitutions were enacted from 1946 to 1954. It was a relatively simple adjustment for many Igbo families to transport the oil to rivers and streams that led to the Niger Delta for sale to European merchants. The Sokoto jihad and the Yoruba wars stimulated the slave trade at a time when the British were actively trying to stop it. While each generated considerable political controversy, they moved the country toward greater internal autonomy, with an increasing role for the political parties. Quiz. Lagos became a major slave port in the late 1700s and into the 1850s. The receding British presence enabled local officials and politicians to gain access to patronage over government jobs, funds for local development, market permits, trade licenses, government contracts, and even scholarships for higher education. Among the other major parties, the NCNC took fifty-six seats, winning a majority in both the Eastern and the Western regions, while the Action Group captured only twenty-seven seats. Islam reached Nigeria through the Bornu Empire . Whenever a trader had become successful enough to keep a war canoe, he was expected to form his own "house". 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. The early Nigerian nationalist did not seek independence. These recourses were considered a necessity to the industrialization of the world . In the 1870s, therefore, George Taubman Goldie began amalgamating companies into the United African Company, soon renamed the National African Company. 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. Economic links among the regions increased, but indirect rule tended to discourage political interchange. During World War II, three battalions of the Nigeria Regiment fought against Fascist Italy in the Ethiopian campaign. In 1900, the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate passed from company hands to the Crown. 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. Ever since, the north-south divide has dominated the politics of independent Nigeria. In Europe, Britain sent troops to help its ally, Prussia, which was surrounded by its enemies. There were three main factors that contributed to the European colonization Africa which were, political, social, and economic. 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. 1833 - The abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. Consequently, he may well deserve the epithet of the "father of Nigeria", which historians accorded him. We bind ourselves not to have any intercourse with any strangers or foreigners except through the said national African Company (Limited), and we give the said National African Company (Limited) full power to exclude all other strangers and foreigners from their territory at their discretion. African nationalism attempted to transform the identity of Africans. by How Africa 6 years ago. The war was driven by the commercial and imperial rivalry between Britain and France, and by the antagonism between Prussia (allied to Britain) and Austria (allied to France). The NPC was called on to form a government, but the NCNC received six of the ten ministerial posts. Retrieved October 11, 2014 from. [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]. It made anti-slavery treaties with West African powers, which it enforced militarily with the blockade of Africa. Independence was achieved on 1 October 1960. Progressive constitutions after World War II provided for increasing representation and electoral government by Nigerians. Africans also were represented on the Lagos Legislative Council, a largely appointed assembly. From there, the strategy to conquer the additional portions of what would be Nigeria was planned and executed until nearly all of what is today Nigeria was under British control in 1905. Exploration was intensified in 1946, but the first commercial discovery did not occur until 1956, at Olobiri in the Niger Delta. 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. It assumed that comparable alterations would be made elsewhere, an attitude that won the party minority voting support in the other regions. The Action Group was thus the heir of a generation of flourishing cultural consciousness among the Yoruba and also had valuable connections with commercial interests that were representative of the comparative economic advancement of the Western Region. The rapid expansion in exports, especially after 1830, occurred precisely at the time slave exports collapsed. [67], The Colonial Office, where Lugard was still held in high regard, accepted that changes might be due in the south, but it forbade fundamental alteration of procedures in the north. Under Goldie's direction, the Royal Niger Company was instrumental in depriving France and Germany of access to the region. The goal of activists initially was not self-determination, but increased participation on a regional level in the governmental process. He definitely laid the basis for British claims. 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. The political parties jockeyed for positions of power in anticipation of the independence of Nigeria. 1819 - Singapore founded by Sir Stamford Raffles. Although realistic in its assessment of the situation in Nigeria, the Richards Constitution undoubtedly intensified regionalism as an alternative to political unification. 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.