road to amalgation (4)

In May 1891 Acting Governor Denton of Lagos visited Ijebu Ode to discuss trade, but they would not agree with what the English called “open roads.” Justifying it by a trade treaty, British went to war, and in the battle of the River Yemoji on May 19, 1892 they defeated Ijebu, killing seventeen chiefs and about a thousand warriors.

That year the kingdom of Benin signed a treaty of protection with the British. Also in 1892 Governor Carter of Lagos sent a thousand men with repeater rifles and cannons to destroy the Ijebu army of nearly ten thousand men, and the next year Yorubaland finally accepted a British protectorate.

The British accused Nana of breaking his treaty and dealing in slaves. In August 1894 the acting Consul-General Ralph Moor attacked Nana and the Itsekiri trading empire, but the British did not conquer them until September. Nana escaped to Lagos, surrendered, and was deported to Calabar and then Accra for twelve years. He had used many slaves as porters and canoe men, and the British who bought palm oil from him were nearly ruined; but six years later the House Rule Ordinance went back to accepting the servile transport system. On November 12 the British bombarded New Oyo to bring it under their colonial rule.

In 1894 Lugard of the British Royal Niger Company won a race to Nikki against France’s Decoeur and signed a treaty with the Imam Abdullah. The French arrived five days later and rejected that treaty. On December 29, 1894 King Koto of Brass with a thousand soldiers destroyed the Royal Niger Company’s headquarters and port at Akassa. The Royal navy retaliated by destroying Brass’s capital at Nembe and port at Twon, driving people into swamps where they died of starvation and smallpox.



Egba remained independent until 1897.
The French and British avoided conflict over Borgu by signing a treaty on June 14, 1898, giving Buss to Britain and Nikki to France.

The British tried to establish their government between 1893 and 1899 with the Niger Coast Protectorate and between 1900 and 1905 with the Southern Nigeria Protectorate. In 1897 workers in Lagos went on strike for higher pay.

 Frederick Lugard organized the West Africa Frontier Force. The English army invaded Benin with 1,500 men, and most of the chiefs fought back; but the British defeated them and then burned and pillaged the capital.
The British supported Goldie’s Royal Niger Company with military forces that captured Ilorin and Bida.

 Samuel Johnson was an Anglican priest of Oyo origin, and he completed the lengthy History of the Yorubas in 1897, but it was lost and published after his death by his brother Obadiah Johnson in 1921.

 Also in 1897 Governor MacCallum tried to reorganize the conciliar government of the Yoruba aristocrats in the Lagos Colony and Protectorate. When William MacGregor succeeded him in 1899 he extended the experiment to Yorubaland.

Western Igbo communities joined to defend themselves as Ekumeku, which attacked the Royal Niger Company in 1898 and won concessions. They rose again in 1900 and were defeated in 1902. Ekumeku revolted again in 1904, but in 1909 the British destroyed them.

To be contd.....


Courtesy sanderson beck