road to amalgamation (3)

Portuguese adventurers who sailed southeast along the Gulf of Guinea in 1472 landed on the coast of what became Nigeria. Others followed. They found people of varying cultures. Some lived in towns ruled by kings with nobility and courtiers, very much like the medieval societies they left behind them.  More than a century earlier Benin exchanged ambassadors with Portugal. But not all African societies were as developed. Some enjoyed village existence in primeval forests remote from outside influences. The first African slaves landed in the Portugese port of Lagos in 1442. The old slave market now serves as an art gallery.

Economics was the driving force From the outset, relations between Europe and Africa were economic. Portuguese merchants traded with Nigerians from trading posts they set up along the coast. They exchanged items like brass and copper bracelets for such products as pepper, cloth, beads and slaves - all part of an existing internal Nigerian trade. Domestic slavery was common in Nigeria and well before European slave buyers arrived, there was trading in humans. Black slaves were captured or bought by Arabs and exported across the Saharan desert to the Mediterranean and Near East. In 1492, the Spaniard Christopher Columbus discovered for Europe a 'New World'. The find proved disastrous not only for the 'discovered' people but also for Africans. It marked the beginning of a triangular trade between Africa, Europe and the New World. European slave ships, mainly British and French, took people from Africa to the New World. They were initially taken to the West Indies to supplement local Indians decimated by the Spanish Conquistadors. The slave trade grew from a trickle to a flood, particularly from the seventeenth century onwards. Portugal's monopoly in the obnoxious trade was broken in the sixteenth century when England followed by France and other European nations entered the trade. The English led in the business of transporting young Africans from their homeland to work in mines and till lands in the Americas. Most slaves sold by Nigerians  At the initial stage of the trade parties of Europeans captured Nigerians in raids on communities in the coastal areas. But this soon gave way to buying slaves from Nigerian rulers and traders. The vast majority of slaves taken out of Nigeria were sold by Nigerian rulers, traders and a military aristocracy who all grew wealthy  from the business. Most slaves were acquired through wars or by kidnapping. " Olaudah Equiano, an ex-slave, described in his memoirs published in 1789 how African rulers carried out raids to capture slaves. "When a trader wants slaves, he applies to a chief for them, and tempts him with his wares. It is not extraordinary, if on this occasion he yields to the temptation with as little firmness, and accepts the price of his fellow creature's liberty with as little reluctance, as the enlightened merchants. Accordingly, he falls upon his neighbours, and a desperate battle ensues...if he prevails, and takes prisoners, he gratifies his avarice by selling them." A profitable trade European slave buyers made the greater profit from the despicable trade, but their Nigerian partners also prospered. Many grew strong and fat on profits made from selling their brethren. Tinubu square, commercial centre of today's Lagos and home to Nigeria's Central Bank, is named after a major nineteenth century slave trader. Madam Tinubu was born in Egbaland and rose from rags to riches by trading in slaves , salt and tobacco in Badagry. She later became one of Nigeria's pioneering nationalists. Nigeria's rulers, traders and military aristocracy protected their interest in the slave trade. They discouraged Europeans from leaving the coastal areas to venture into the interior of the continent. European trading companies realised the benefit of dealing with Nigerian suppliers and not unnecessarily antagonising them. The companies could not have mustered the resources it would have taken to directly capture the tens of millions of people shipped out of Africa. It was far more sensible and safer to give Africans guns to fight the many wars that yielded captives for the trade. The slave trading network stretched deep into the Africa's interior. Slave trading firms were aware of their dependency on African suppliers. The Royal African Company, for instance, instructed its agents on the West coast "if any differences happen, to endeavour an amicable accommodation rather than use force." They were "to endeavour to live in all friendship with them" and "to hold frequent palavers with the Kings and the Great Men of the Country, and keep up a good correspondent with them, ingratiating yourself by such prudent methods" Culled from logbaby.com