nigeria resistance to colonial rule

The council was headed by a Governor. Newspapers, some of which were published before World War I, provided coverage of nationalist views. It also means foreign rule on foreign lands. The Action Group, which staged a lively campaign, favoured stronger government and the establishment of three new states while advocating the creation of a West Africa Federation that would unite Nigeria with Ghana and Sierra Leone. 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. [9] Administration and military control of the territory was conducted primarily by white Britons, both in London and in Nigeria. Oil income was still marginal, but the prospects for continued economic expansion appeared bright and accentuated political rivalries on the eve of independence. Separate legislative bodies, the houses of assembly, were established in each of the three regions to consider local questions and to advise the Lieutenant Governors. Decolonization Resource Collection (National History Center) Less Scrambling, more Reflecting: Teaching about colonialism in Africa from the perspective of resistance by Bram Hubbel, February 9, 2019. Park reached the upper Niger the next year by travelling inland from the Gambia River. Locally this involved the immediate invasion of the German-held Kamerun (Cameroon) by Nigerian forces, followed by a costly campaign that lasted until 1916. The . If the emirs accepted British authority, abandoned the slave trade, and cooperated with British officials in modernizing their administrations, the colonial power was willing to confirm them in office. In the 1870s, therefore, George Taubman Goldie began amalgamating companies into the United African Company, soon renamed the National African Company. His government guided the country for the next three years, operating with almost complete autonomy in internal affairs. The emirs retained their caliphate titles but were responsible to British district officers, who had final authority. Some European traders switched to legitimate business only when the commerce in slaves became too hazardous. [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]. Portuguese Roman Catholic priests who accompanied traders and officials to the West African coast introduced Christianity to the Edo Empire in the fifteenth century. Effects/Impact of Colonialism on Nigeria 1. Protestant missionaries tended to divide the country into spheres of activity to avoid competition with each other, and Catholic missions similarly avoided duplication of effort among the several religious orders working there. [18], In 1807, the Parliament of the United Kingdom enacted the Slave Trade Act, prohibiting British subjects from participating in the Atlantic slave trade. [76], The British treasury initially supported the landlocked Northern Nigeria Protectorate with grants, totalling 250,000 or more each year. The conference drafted the terms of a new constitution. [72] In the south, he saw the possibility of building an elite educated in schools modelled on a European method (and numerous elite children attended high-ranking colleges in Britain during the colonial years). 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. Britain annexed Lagos in 1861 and established the Oil River Protectorate in 1884. As before, Aro merchants dominated trade in the hinterland, including palm products to the coast and the sale of slaves within Igboland. Significantly, Macauley's NNDP remained almost entirely a Lagos party, popular only in the area whose people already had experience in elective politics. The Eastern region was dominated by Azikiwe and the Western one by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a Yoruba lawyer who in 1950 founded the Action Group. After 1940, political activities were broadened to include more people. Despite conquering villages by burning houses and crops, continual political control over the Igbo remained elusive. 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. The Central African Federation, embracing Nyasaland, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, was created in 1953 . [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. A national party, the Nigerian Youth Movement, emerged in 1934, and its members won elections to the Legislative Council. These organisations were primarily urban phenomena that arose after numerous rural migrants moved to the cities. In May of this year, Herbert J. They selected an increasingly high proportion of African clergy for the missions. However, decolonization also brought regionalization and a hardening of ethnic identities. Every Sultan and Emir and the principal officers of state will be appointed by the high Commissioner throughout all this country. Until he stepped down as Governor-General in 1918, Lugard primarily was concerned with consolidating British sovereignty and with assuring local administration through traditional rulers. The southern nationalists were inspired by a variety of sources, including such prominent American-based activists as Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Others refused recruitment into colonial armies or labor forces.Jun 20 2017. . The Action Group was largely the creation of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, General Secretary of Egbe Omo Oduduwa and leader of the Nigerian Produce Traders' Association. Lost land and independence died of diseases that euro bring Ouidah (now part of Benin) and Lagos were the major ports on the coast. In 1946 a new constitution was approved by the British Parliament at Westminster and promulgated in Nigeria. Revolts took place across Nigeria, but were most frequent in the Niger Delta. European slave trading from West Africa began before 1650, with people taken at a rate of about 3,000 per year. It continued to enjoy special privileges and maintained a de facto monopoly over commerce. He aroused political awareness through his newspaper, the Lagos Daily News. The militias and RWAFF battalions were reorganized into the RWAFF Nigeria Regiment.[62]. Under the Political Department of the Civil Service were Residents and District Officers, responsible for overseeing operations in each region. For example, many people in Ibadan opposed Awolowo on personal grounds because of his identification with the Ijebu Yoruba. 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. The charter allowed the company to collect customs and make treaties with local leaders.[12]. Political activists in the southern areas spoke of self-government in terms of educational opportunities and economic development. Because of the hazards of climate and tropical diseases for Europeans and the absence of any centralized authorities on the mainland responsive to their interests, European merchants moored their ships outside harbours or in the delta, and used the ships as trading stations and warehouses. rebellion. [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. Critics, including representatives of the Middle Belt who resented Muslim domination, were relegated to small, peripheral parties or to inconsequential separatist movements.[85]. [19][41], In 18961897 the forces of the Niger Coast Protectorate fought with the remnants of the Edo Empire. 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. Before 1898, the scramble for Africa by European countries led to the partition of Africa after the Berlin conference of 1884-85. In 1950 Aminu Kano, who had been instrumental in founding the NPC, broke away to form the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), in protest against the NPC's limited objectives and what he regarded as a vain hope that traditional rulers would accept modernization. Throughout this period of reign, many changes were made to their . Clifford emphasized economic development, encouraging enterprises by immigrant southerners in the north while restricting European participation to capital intensive activity. The present attempt is to inquire into the educational policy of colonial Nigeria, the aim, the nature and process of educational development and how it affected women in Nigeria. Because of the spread of mission schools and wealth derived from export crops, the southern parties were committed to policies that would benefit the south of the country. The growth of Islam in pre-colonial Igbomina / Adesina Yusuf Raji. The early history of Lagos Colony was one of repeated attempts to end the Yoruba wars. Definition of Colonialism Colonialism means a system which the Europeans adopted in ruling the colonies of Africa to their own benefits. The political parties jockeyed for positions of power in anticipation of the independence of Nigeria. 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. Economic links among the regions increased, but indirect rule tended to discourage political interchange. . At the urging of Governor Frederick Lugard, the two territories were amalgamated as the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, while maintaining considerable regional autonomy among the three major regions (Northern protectorate, Southern protectorate and the Colony of Lagos). It was not a walk over for the British to conquer Nigeria, some individuals and groups resisted the imposition of colonial rule. Two tiers of government emerged, central and local. An extensive immigrant population of southerners, especially Igbo, already were living in the north; they dominated clerical positions and were active in many trades. [53] The first five heads of the Nigeria Department (18981914) were Reginald Antrobus, William Mercer, William Baillie Hamilton, Sydney Olivier, and Charles Strachey. The officers of the RWAFF were British. In 1929, this incident in Nigeria later became one of the reasons for the fight against colonial rule in Africa A) The Nigerian Oil crisis B) The Aba Women's Revolt C) . The most powerful figure in the party was Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto. [] They needed special personnel: such officials who knew the local conditions and who could communicate between the Company and the indigenous people. The French had abolished slavery following the French Revolution, although it briefly re-established it in its Caribbean colonies under Napoleon. 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. He insisted on maintaining the territorial integrity of the Northern Region. From 1790 to 1807, predominantly British slave traders purchased 1,0002,000 slaves each year in Lagos alone. African resistance to colonial rule began with A) The arrival of the Europeans on the continent in the late 19th century B) The end of World War II C) . Colonialism is defined as "control by one power over a dependent area or people.". Although the capital was not moved, Lugard's bias in favour of the Muslim north was clear at the time. In these territories, violent resistance brought colonial rule to a close. [25][n 1], The missionaries gained in power throughout the 1800s. nigeria resistance to colonial rule. This became the Lagos Constabulary, and subsequently the Nigerian Police Force. It is not a personal union of separate colonies under the same Governor like the Windwards, it is not a Confederation of States. From Lugard's point of view, clear-cut military victories were necessary because the surrenders of the defeated peoples weakened resistance elsewhere. However, it is thought that the Nigerians themselves were providing the . ", Helen Chapin Metz, ed. Nigeria is a country in West Africa and was colonized by the British in 1884 during a slave trade (Alme). 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. It is not a federal state with federal Executive, Legislature and finances, like the Leewards. 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. Progressive constitutions after World War II provided for increasing representation and electoral government by Nigerians. European interpretations of Christian orthodoxy in some cases refused to allow the incorporation of local customs and practices, although the various mission denominations interpreted Christianity in different ways. 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. At the turn of the century, top wages were four bags of salt (company retail price, 3s 9d) for a month of work. It was suspended in 1950 against a call for greater autonomy, which resulted in an inter-parliamentary conference at Ibadan in 1950. [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. 1. Main aim. Britain subsequently lobbied other European powers to stop the slave trade as well. He shows that, long before the growth of a mass independence movement in the wake of the second world war, there was considerable opposition to colonial rule. In the Bight of Biafra, the major ports were Old Calabar (Akwa Akpa), Bonny and New Calabar. Pre-colonial southern Nigeria was an _____ societey. Like in other countries under imperialist rule, colonialism in Nigeria resulted in numerous positive and negative impacts. 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. 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. Further dislocation accompanied the outbreak of World War I. I would encourage the society to resist by declaring a war against the Europeans. In November 1908, Bergheim reported striking oil; in September 1909, he reported extracting 2,000 barrels per day. of the Belgian colonial rule that eventually gave rise to a violent resistance against colonial rule, and the repression of this resistance resulted in the . Britain withdrew from the slave trade when it was the major transporter of slaves to the Americas. Nigeria: ColonizationKatie Graham. Du Bois. The British, like other newcomers to the slave trade, found . The Lander brothers were seized by slave traders in the interior and sold down the river to a waiting European ship. [12] Trade was also conducted through a mechanism of barter and credit. "Nigerian Forces Comforts Fund, 19401947: 'The Responsibility of the Nigerian Government to Provide Funds for the Welfare of Its Soldiers'. It represented a substantial element of reformism in the North. With this victory, the British went on to conquer the rest of Yorubaland, which had also been weakened by sixteen years of civil war. Nigeria's potential in the Post-Colonial Era. Nigeria is a good example. The NPC captured 142 seats in the new legislature. [19] This scenario provided an opportunity for naval expeditions and reconnaissance throughout the region. [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. The Niger Delta and Calabar, which once had been known for the export of slaves, became notable for the export of palm oil. After the Napoleon war, the British tried to expand their colonial rule in Africa and began to establish trade tides with Nigeria in 1898. Several churches were built to serve the Edo community and a small number of African converts. The search for oil, begun in 1908 and abandoned a few years later, was revived in 1937 by Shell and British Petroleum. Increasingly high proportion of African converts, the scramble for Africa by European countries led the! Facto monopoly over commerce of power in anticipation of the defeated peoples weakened resistance.... Although the capital was not moved, Lugard 's point of view, clear-cut military victories necessary! The Gambia River Marcus Garvey and W.E.B slave traders in the interior and sold the... The oil River Protectorate in 1884 during a slave trade as well Nigerians themselves were providing the a.! 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nigeria resistance to colonial rule