How did Africans resist c. [40] By 1893, most of the other political entities in Yorubaland recognised the practical necessity of signing another treaty with the British, this one explicitly joining them with the protectorate of Lagos. In 1957, the Western and the Eastern regions became formally self-governing under the parliamentary system. An example was that at Onitsha, where they could bargain directly with local suppliers and purchase products likely to turn a profit. The council was promoted as a device for allowing the expression of opinions that could instruct the Governor-General. 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. His mission failed, but Park and his party covered more than 1,500 kilometres (930mi), passing through the western portions of the Sokoto Caliphate, before drowning when their boats overturned in rapids near Bussa. 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. By the end of World War I, most of Africa had been effectively colonized. [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. British influence in the Niger area increased gradually over the . [45], A campaign against the Sokoto Caliphate began in 1900 with the creation of the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, under the direction of Governor Lugard. 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. In Nigeria, the British colonial administration found perhaps the longest-lasting resistance movement. [11] In 1891, the African Banking Corporation founded the Bank of British West Africa in Lagos.[33]. Although there was strong resistance from natives against the British, it was all crushed by the British. The British finalized the border between Nigeria and French West Africa with the Anglo-French Convention of 1898. Afeadie, Philip Atsu. The Sokoto jihad and the Yoruba wars stimulated the slave trade at a time when the British were actively trying to stop it. In the year 1901, Nigeria officially became a part of the huge British Empire. The British, when faced with dissent, tended to grant political reforms in an effort to dispel the attractiveness of more-radical . The British entry into World War I saw the confiscation of Nigerian palm oil firms operated by expatriates from the Central Powers. 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. However, development of the Nigerian oilfields slowed when Bergheim died in a car crash in September 1912. In the Northern Cameroons, however, the largely Muslim electorate chose to merge with Nigeria's Northern Region. Nigeria Table of Contents. In one year, Lugard recruited 2600 troops, evenly split between Hausa and Yoruba. Like in other countries under imperialist rule, colonialism in Nigeria resulted in numerous positive and negative impacts. The appointment of Joseph Chamberlain as colonial secretary in 1895 especially marked a shift towards new territorial ambitions of the British Empire. The search for oil, begun in 1908 and abandoned a few years later, was revived in 1937 by Shell and British Petroleum. [56], Walter Egerton's sixfold agenda for 1908, as detailed on 29 November 1907, in a telegram to the Colonial Office, is representative of British priorities. It is not a personal union of separate colonies under the same Governor like the Windwards, it is not a Confederation of States. However, it is thought that the Nigerians themselves were providing the . Deadly battles broke out sporadically through 1906. 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. Lagos remained the capital of the south, with Zungeru the new capital of the north. 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. Azikiwe had less interest in purely Nigerian goals than did Davies, a student of Harold Laski at the London School of Economics, whose political orientation was considered left-wing. Although lacking Azikiwe's compelling personality, Awolowo was a formidable debater as well as a vigorous and tenacious political campaigner. Under Lugard from 1900 to 1906, the Protectorate consolidated political control over the area through military conquest and initiated the use of British currency in substitute for barter. [49], Concrete plans for transition to Crown ruledirect control by the British Governmentapparently began in 1897. [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. France sold Louisiana to the United States in 1803, the same year that it gave up on trying to regain Saint-Domingue from the Haitian Revolution. British and French traders did a large share of this business until 1807 when they were replaced by the Portuguese and the Spaniards. Jaja of Opobo allied with hrs old friends namely Alobo and Onaba to resist the British colonialists in the Niger Delta states. Village Heads were paid 10 shillings for conscripts, and fined 50 if they failed to supply. A national party, the Nigerian Youth Movement, emerged in 1934, and its members won elections to the Legislative Council. Anticolonialism in the twentieth and twenty-first century refers to two interconnected concepts: a historical event and a critical analytic. He was prepared to introduce educational and economic changes to strengthen the north. The economy suffered from the decline in the slave trade, although considerable smuggling of slaves to the Americas continued for years afterward. Kingdoms and empires of precolonial Nigeria, Controversies surrounding the 2007 presidential election, Nigeria under Umaru Musa YarAdua and Goodluck Jonathan, The 2015 elections and electorate concerns, Recession, fight against corruption, and insecurity, Which Country Is Larger By Population? The trend was toward the establishment of a parliamentary system of government, with regional assemblies and a federal House of Representatives. . The cleavage between the Yoruba and the Igbo was accentuated by their competition for control of the political machinery. The Headquarters of Gombe emirate was Gombe-Abba[15] until when the then Emir of Gombe, Umaru Kwairanga (18981922), was forced to move from Gombe-Abba, a town founded by his grandfather and the founder of Gombe Emirate, Modibbo Bubayero, to Nafada town in 1913, and then to the current Gombe in 1919, that was after Gombe Emirate was conquered by British colonialists in 1903. The operations of this force are still not fully known due to a policy of strict secrecy mandated by the British Government. Read suggested they be merged, and more use made of Nigeria's natural resources. 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. The Royal Niger Company established its headquarters far inland at Lokoja, which was the main trading port of the company,[34] from where it began to assume responsibility for the administration of areas along the Niger and Benue rivers where it maintained depots. The militias and RWAFF battalions were reorganized into the RWAFF Nigeria Regiment.[62]. Hogendorn. He definitely laid the basis for British claims. The election of the House of Representatives after the adoption of the 1954 constitution gave the NPC a total of seventy-nine seats, all from the Northern Region. WORKING PAPER: Passive and Active Resistance to Openness - 4 can also resist fulfilling the spirit of FOIAs in a more passive or subtle manner. 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. They had obtained the assent of the emirs to form a political party to counterbalance the activities of the southern-based parties. 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". ", Simon Heap, "'We think prohibition is a farce': drinking in the alcohol-prohibited zone of colonial northern Nigeria. In addition to their economic grievances, they also called for the end of the reform of the native courts. 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]. If adopted, his proposals can hardly be a permanent solution and I gather that Sir F. Lugard only regards them as temporaryat any rate in part. In 1923 Herbert Macaulay, the grandson of Samuel Ajayi Crowther, established the first Nigerian political party, the Nigerian National Democratic Party, which successfully contested three Lagos seats in the Legislative Council. [61] John Anderson diplomatically suggested: If it is the necessity for formally submitting the drafts that hurts Sir F. Lugard, I should be quite prepared to omit that provision provided that the period of publication of the draft prior to enactment is extended from one month to two. Most internal problems were concealed, and open opposition to the domination of the Muslim aristocracy was not tolerated. It is not a federal state with federal Executive, Legislature and finances, like the Leewards. It also means foreign rule on foreign lands. 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. [38][39], In 1892 the British Armed Forces set out to fight the Ijebu Kingdom, which had resisted missionaries and foreign traders. 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. Another court was established in 1856 at Calabar, based on an agreement with local Efik traders which prohibited them from interfering with British merchants. Taxes became a source of discontent in the south, however, and contributed to disturbances protesting British policy. [57], From 1895 to 1900, a railway was constructed running from Lagos to Ibadan; it opened in March 1901. The similarity between the federal and regional constitutions was deceptive, however, and the conduct of public affairs reflected wide differences among the regions. This became the Lagos Constabulary, and subsequently the Nigerian Police Force. The principal figure in the political activity that ensued was Herbert Macauley, often referred to as the father of Nigerian nationalism. It continued to enjoy special privileges and maintained a de facto monopoly over commerce. As a historical event, anticolonialism means the struggle against imperial rule in colonized countries, mostly during the first half of the twentieth century. Nigerian recruits participated in the war effort as labourers and soldiers. By the 1820s, the British had made connections . PhD dissertation accepted at the Graduate Programme in History, York University, Ontario. 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. Local leaders, cognizant of the situation in the West Indies, India, and elsewhere, recognised the risks of British expansion. 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. With one man in practical control of the Executive and Legislative organs of all the parts, the machine may work passably for sufficient time to enable the transition period to be left behind, by which time the answer to the problemUnitary v. Federal Statewill probably have become clear. Nigeria is a good example. After 1900, Europe began to introduce changes to colonial rule in an effort to increase revenues from the colonies. Early British Imperialism. Some European traders switched to legitimate business only when the commerce in slaves became too hazardous. In fact, while the southern delegates pressed for Nigeria Lugard and Indirect Rule. 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. The preparation of a new federal constitution for an independent Nigeria was carried out at conferences held at Lancaster House in London in 1957 and 1958, which were presided over by The Rt. 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 . 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. [19], The company considered itself the sole legitimate government of the area, with executive, legislative and judicial powers all subordinate to the rule of a council created by the company board of directors in London. The Deputy Governor served as political administrator for company territory and appointed three officials in Nigeria to carry out the work of administration. The most powerful figure in the party was Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto. 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 . In 1960, the country attained independence from British rule. Lagos became a major slave port in the late 1700s and into the 1850s. 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. Maji-Maji Uprising (Tanganyika) 4. resistance to British invasion and colonial rule so as to close that vacuum created by the 'majority syndrome' approach. Combining the three jurisdictions would reduce administrative expenses and facilitate deployment of resources and money between the areas. The Niger Delta and Calabar, which once had been known for the export of slaves, became notable for the export of palm oil. Herbert Richmond Palmer developed details of this model from 1906 to 1911 as the Governor of Northern Nigeria after Lugard.[66]. (During World War II they again served in East Africa, as well as in Burma [now Myanmar].) [70], Lugard's immediate successor (19191925), Sir Hugh Clifford, was an aristocratic professional administrator with liberal instincts who had won recognition for his enlightened governorship of the Gold Coast in 19121919. [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. [11][12], The amalgamation of different ethnic and religious groups into one federation created internal tension which persists in Nigeria to the present day.[13]. Definition of Colonialism Colonialism means a system which the Europeans adopted in ruling the colonies of Africa to their own benefits. [79][80], Much of the colony's budget went to payments of its military, the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF). ", Helen Chapin Metz, ed. Samori Ture 7. 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. Despite his somewhat successful efforts to enlist non-Yoruba support, the regionalist sentiment that had stimulated the party initially continued. Other commercial crops, such as cocoa and rubber, were encouraged, and tin was mined on the Jos Plateau. Elections were held for a new and greatly enlarged House of Representatives in December 1959; 174 of the 312 seats were allocated to the Northern Region on the basis of its larger population. . The Colonial Era (1882-1960) British colonialism began under the pretense of policing the slave trade. Two tiers of government emerged, central and local. [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. Although realistic in its assessment of the situation in Nigeria, the Richards Constitution undoubtedly intensified regionalism as an alternative to political unification. Three of these posts were assigned to representatives from each region, and one was reserved for a delegate from the Northern Cameroons. Native Administration was responsible for police, hospitals, public works and local courts. [57], Egerton also supervised improvements to the Lagos harbour and extension of the local telegraph network. In the north, appeals to Islamic legitimacy upheld the rule of the emirs, so that nationalist sentiments were related to Islamic ideals. 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. This scheme proved unpopular and confusing to many involved parties and was phased out. In these territories, violent resistance brought colonial rule to a close. [18], In 1807, the Parliament of the United Kingdom enacted the Slave Trade Act, prohibiting British subjects from participating in the Atlantic slave trade. During the war, the colonial government earmarked a large portion of the Nigerian budget as a contribution to imperial defence. They wanted self-government, charging that only colonial rule prevented the unshackling of progressive forces in Nigeria and other states. 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. Portuguese Roman Catholic priests who accompanied traders and officials to the West African coast introduced Christianity to the Edo Empire in the fifteenth century. [19][41], In 18961897 the forces of the Niger Coast Protectorate fought with the remnants of the Edo Empire. The exploitation of the women's work led to resistance movements and led the women to develop more political awareness and engage in and aid existing decolonization movements. The charter allowed the company to collect customs and make treaties with local leaders.[12]. In all three regions, minority parties represented the special interests of ethnic groups, especially as they were affected by the majority. After the Willink Commission examined and reported on this issue in 1958, independence was granted. Despite the acceptance of European and North American influences, the nationalists were critical of colonialism for its failure to appreciate the antiquity, richness and complexity of indigenous cultures. 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. The book traces communications in Nigeria back to pre-colonial indigenous communications, through the development of telecommunication, broadcasting networks, the press, the Nigerian lm industry ('Nollywood') and on to the digital . . A . As a philosophical movement and critical . Falola, Toyin, Ann Genova, and Matthew M. Heaton. Instead, acts of resistance were usually prompted by some new colonial policy - like taking away land, or forcing people to pay a tax, or forcing them to work for free on roads or railways. Whenever a trader had become successful enough to keep a war canoe, he was expected to form his own "house". It also makes imporatant new developments in the study of interwar history. Nigeria officially became a democracy on its independence from Britain in October 1960. Of interwar History a vigorous and tenacious political campaigner made connections,,. Igbo was accentuated by their competition for control of the south,,... 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