nigeria resistance to colonial rule
From January 1914 onwards, the newly united colony and protectorate was presided over by a proconsul, who was entitled the Governor-General of Nigeria. The company negotiated treaties with Sokoto, Gwandu and Nupe that were interpreted as guaranteeing exclusive access to trade in return for the payment of annual tribute. Traditional authorities were co-opted in the north, where the spread of Western education by Christian missionaries was strongly resisted by Muslim leaders. Uneasy with the amount of latitude allowed traditional rulers under indirect rule, Clifford opposed further extension of the judicial authority held by the northern emirs. Their common denominators tended to be based on newly assertive ethnic consciousness, particularly that of the Yoruba and Igbo. 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. Antrobus, Fiddes and Strachey in the Colonial Office promoted amalgamation, along with Lugard. On 9 May 1913, Lugard submitted a formal proposal to the Colonial Office in which Northern and Southern provinces would have separate administrations, under the control of a "strongly authoritarian" Governor-General. The proliferation of labour organisations fragmented the movement, and potential leaders lacked the experience and skill to draw workers together. This led to protests known as Women's War. The best way to describe what has happened to Nigeria in the last 72 hours, beginning with the country's first set of general elections on Saturday, February 25, 2023, is to echo Charles Dickens . A.J. British expansion accelerated in the last decades of the nineteenth century. 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. 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. In 1920, portions of former German Cameroon were mandated to Britain by the League of Nations and were administered as part of Nigeria. [75] The colonial government was not equipped nor ready in general for such a situation. These policies met with ongoing resistance. The British captured Kano in 1903. The British, when faced with dissent, tended to grant political reforms in an effort to dispel the attractiveness of more-radical suggestions. By. The British took an interest in Nigeria because of its resources. To some extent, competition amongst these companies undermined their collective position vis--vis, local merchants. The legitimate trade in commodities attracted a number of British merchants to the Niger River, as well as some men who had been formerly engaged in the slave trade but who now changed their line of wares. Nigeria (/ n a d r i / ny-JEER-ee-), officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa.It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea to the south in the Atlantic Ocean.It covers an area of 923,769 square kilometres (356,669 sq mi), and with a population of over 225 million, it is the most populous country in Africa, and the world's . [52], The territory of the Royal Niger Company became the Northern Nigeria Protectorate, and the Company itself became a private corporation which continued to do business in Nigeria. 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. By a British Act of Parliament, Nigeria became independent on 1 October 1960. [67], This system, in which the structure of authority focused on the emir to whom obedience was a mark of religious devotion, did not welcome change. Political opposition to colonial rule often assumed religious dimensions. Hogendorn. Colonialism is defined as "control by one power over a dependent area or people.". The emirs gave support to limited modernization largely from fears of the unsettling presence of southerners in the north, and by observing the improvements in living conditions in the South. The small contingent of northerners who had been educated abroada group that included Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Aminu Kanowas allied with British-backed efforts to introduce gradual change to the emirates. The Nigeria Regiment of the RWAFF, integrating troops from the north and south, saw action against German colonial forces in Cameroon and in German East Africa. Afeadie, "The Hidden Hand of Overrule" (1996), p. 1315. The council was headed by a Governor. His objective was to conquer the entire region and to obtain recognition of the British protectorate by its indigenous rulers, especially the Fulani emirs of the Sokoto Caliphate. Nigerian recruits participated in the war effort as labourers and soldiers. The conditions that led African peoples to resist colonial rule often emerged from longstanding grievances against colonial labor exploitation taxation racist and paternalist practices arbitrary violence and political illegitimacy. 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". These schools would teach "the basic principles that would and should regulate character and conduct". Laird's efforts were stimulated by the detailed reports of a pioneer German explorer, Heinrich Barth, who travelled through much of Borno and the Sokoto Caliphate, where he recorded information about the region's geography, economy and inhabitants. In all three regions, minority parties represented the special interests of ethnic groups, especially as they were affected by the majority. It was suspended in 1950 against a call for greater autonomy, which resulted in an inter-parliamentary conference at Ibadan in 1950. How did British keep Nigerians from developing organized political resistance. [] These intermediaries assisted government diplomacy and helped to establish and maintain relations between the company and the traditional rulers. In the north, the emirs intended to maintain firm control on economic and political change. Three constitutions were enacted from 1946 to 1954. 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. Menelik II, emperor of Ethiopia, led his army to accomplish this unique feat in March 1896, defeating General Oreste Baratieri's Italian . In case of resistance by one of its friends the other would join hands to mount formidable resistance against colonial rule e.g. In elections that year, the NYM ended the domination of the NNDP in the Legislative Council and worked to establish a national network of affiliates. ", Helen Chapin Metz, ed. Lagos remained the capital of the south, with Zungeru the new capital of the north. Nigeria officially became a democracy on its independence from Britain in October 1960. This video gives a detailed explanation of Colonial rule in Africa, as it answers the questions: Why did Europeans colonize africa? The Anglicans and other religious groups had a conscious "native church" policy to develop indigenous ecclesiastical institutions to become independent of Europeans. The British, when faced with dissent, tended to grant political reforms in an effort to dispel the attractiveness of more-radical . Some indigenous peoples, such as those in the Americas, were forced to move to reservations or killed outright by invading European colonizers. The decrease in trade indirectly led to the collapse of states like the Edo Empire. Alienated by the anonymity of the urban environment and drawn together by ties to their ethnic homelandsas well as by the need for mutual aidthe new city dwellers formed local clubs that later expanded into federations covering whole regions. Lugard's governmental model for Nigeria was unique and there was apparently not much planning for its future development. The company's major imports to the area included gin and low-quality firearms. The search for oil, begun in 1908 and abandoned a few years later, was revived in 1937 by Shell and British Petroleum. Today, Lagos remains Nigeria's financial capital and, as home to an estimated eight million people, ranks . He definitely laid the basis for British claims. 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. Effects/Impact of Colonialism on Nigeria 1. Direct taxation on men was introduced in 1928 without major incidents. As a further step toward independence, the Governor's Executive Council was merged with the Council of Ministers in 1957 to form the all-Nigerian Federal Executive Council. Nigeria: A Country Study. The colonial period proper in Nigeria lasted from 1900 to 1960, after which Nigeria gained its independence. The delta masked the mouth of the great river, and for centuries Nigerians chose not to tell Europeans the secrets of the interior. An extensive immigrant population of southerners, especially Igbo, already were living in the north; they dominated clerical positions and were active in many trades. The discussion of pragmatic resistance in Africa comes full circle with the former Portuguese colonies, South Africa, and Kenya. Although this trade grew to significant proportionspalm oil exports alone were worth 1 billion a year by 1840it was concentrated near the coast, where palm trees grew in abundance. Play off ethnic and social divisions . [19] This scenario provided an opportunity for naval expeditions and reconnaissance throughout the region. In the 1870s, therefore, George Taubman Goldie began amalgamating companies into the United African Company, soon renamed the National African Company. After independence, tensions that had been building between two . [46] Lugard was slow to describe these excursions to the Colonial Office, which apparently learned of preparations to attack Kano from the newspapers in December 1902. Among his leading lieutenants were Samuel Akintola of Ogbomoso and the Oni of Ife, the most important of the Yoruba monarchs. Asante Resistance (Ghana) 6. September 24, 2021 at 9:40pm by jones.7592. . [42], The British had difficulty conquering Igboland, which lacked a central political organisation. They wanted self-government, charging that only colonial rule prevented the unshackling of progressive forces in Nigeria and other states. Nigeria did not come into being until 1914, when the consort of a colonial Governor-General, Flora Shaw and her man, the fascist Lord Lugard willed and named Nigeria into being, with the dubious . Other commercial crops, such as cocoa and rubber, were encouraged, and tin was mined on the Jos Plateau. 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. tax. Before 1898, the scramble for Africa by European countries led to the partition of Africa after the Berlin conference of 1884-85. Author. By the 1950s, there were organized nationalist parties that demanded political independence in almost every colony in Africa. Nigeria's first nationalist movements appeared in the 1920s, and resistance to colonial rule grew over the next three decades. Its activist membership was drawn from local government and emirate officials who had access to means of communication and to repressive traditional authority that could keep the opposition in line. British business interests wanted to use this to create a monopoly over the industry, but Prime Minister H. H. Asquith's Liberal government and subsequent war coalition favored allowing international free trade. With the exception of Brandenburg-Prussia's short-lived attempt to gain a foothold on the West African coast and to participate in the 17th-century transatlantic slave trade, German colonialism began only in the 1880s. resistance to British invasion and colonial rule so as to close that vacuum created by the 'majority syndrome' approach. They gathered information which was needed for policy-making in administration. The Colonial Office approved most of Lugard's plan, but balked at authorising him to pass laws without their approval. 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 . In 1922 Kamerun was divided under a League of Nations mandate between France and Britain, Britain administering its area within the government of Nigeria; after 1946 the mandated areas were redesignated as a United Nations (UN) trust territory. . [29] His servant, Richard Lander, and Lander's brother John were the ones to demonstrate that the Niger flowed into the sea. 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 . Read published a Memorandum on British possessions in West Africa, which remarked upon the "inconvenient and unscientific boundaries" between Lagos Colony, the Niger Coast Protectorate and the Royal Niger Company. 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. The similarity between the federal and regional constitutions was deceptive, however, and the conduct of public affairs reflected wide differences among the regions. Indigenous responses to imperialism during the period of 1750-1900 varied widely depending on the specific group of people and the imperial power they were interacting with. [31], Captain John Glover, the colony's administrator, created a militia of Hausa troops in 1861. Some of them also manned Company stations and served as District Agents.". Three of these posts were assigned to representatives from each region, and one was reserved for a delegate from the Northern Cameroons. The rapid growth of organised labour in the 1940s also brought new political forces into play. 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. At its own request the Northern region was not given internal self-government until 1959, because northerners feared that their region might lose its claim to an equal share in the operation and opportunities of the federal government if it was not given time to catch up with the educationally advanced south. Even before gaining its charter, the Company signed treaties with local leaders which granted it broad sovereign powers. 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. How did Africans resist c. It assumed that comparable alterations would be made elsewhere, an attitude that won the party minority voting support in the other regions. Early on in colonial rule, for example, Nigerians protested the manner in which water rates and head taxes were collected. Political leaders resorted to the use of political parties and the media to mobilize millions of Nigerians against the continuation of British rule. The traders suffered from the risks of their position and believed they were at the mercy of the coastal rulers, whom they considered unpredictable. . nigeria resistance to colonial rule. In the South, only English had official status. The Central African Federation, embracing Nyasaland, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, was created in 1953 . From 1886 to 1899, much of the country was ruled by the Royal Niger Company, authorised by charter, and governed by George Taubman Goldie. A "house" included the extended family of the trader, including retainers and slaves. Hausa was recognised as an official language in the north, and knowledge of it was expected of colonial officers serving there. Other firms applying for licenses were rejected. [13], The Colonial Office accepted Lugard's proposal that the Governor would not be required to stay in-country full-time; consequently, as Governor, Lugard spent four months out of the year in London. The nationalism that became a political factor in Nigeria during the interwar period derived both from an older political particularism and broad pan-Africanism, rather than from any sense among the people of a common Nigerian nationality. His political platform called for economic and educational development, Africanization of the civil service, and self-government for Lagos. [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. 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. Although Nigeria came under the British charter in 1885 and was . Broadening political participation and expanding educational opportunities and other social services also were viewed as threats to the status quo. According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Voyage Database, 308,800 were sold across the Atlantic from Lagos in 17761850. [17] In 1767, British traders facilitated a notorious massacre of hundreds of people at Calabar after inviting them onto their ships, ostensibly to settle a local dispute. resistance and successfully imposed colonial rule should attest to the point that African military resistance was ineffectual. Britain withdrew from the slave trade when it was the major transporter of slaves to the Americas. Nigeria: ColonizationKatie Graham. Each region had a governor, premier, cabinet, legislature, and civil service, with the significantly weaker federal government represented in Lagos by a governor-general, bureaucracy, House of Representatives, and Senate. [43][44] The British forces began annual pacification missions to convince the locals of British supremacy. The government was responsible to a Parliament composed of the popularly elected 312-member House of Representatives and the 44-member Senate, chosen by the regional legislatures. In the face of threats to the divided Yoruba states from Dahomey and the Sokoto Caliphate, as represented by the emirate of Ilorin, the British Governorassisted by the CMSsucceeded in imposing peace settlements on the interior. When direct Portuguese contacts in the region were withdrawn, however, the influence of the Catholic missionaries waned. It is not a federal state with federal Executive, Legislature and finances, like the Leewards. Britain outlawed slavery in 1807 and pushed for forms of "legitimate commerce" such as palm oil and cotton, and in so doing developed an internal infrastructure to facilitate these markets. This scheme proved unpopular and confusing to many involved parties and was phased out. 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. [17] Much of this oil was sold elsewhere in the British Empire. The . Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1991. 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]. Herbert Richmond Palmer developed details of this model from 1906 to 1911 as the Governor of Northern Nigeria after Lugard.[66].
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