nigeria resistance to colonial rule

In her . Most Europeans tended to overlook their own differences and were surprised and shocked that Nigerians wanted to develop new denominations independent of European control. How did Algerias resistance to French control differ rom East africas resistance to German rule. [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. In the 1870s, therefore, George Taubman Goldie began amalgamating companies into the United African Company, soon renamed the National African Company. Ethnic cleavages intensified in the 1950s. Anietie A. Inyang & Manasseh Edidem Bassey, "Imperial Treaties and the Origins of British Colonial Rule in Southern Nigeria, 18601890". In all three regions, minority parties represented the special interests of ethnic groups, especially as they were affected by the majority. . Lugard bequeathed to his successor a prosperous colony when his term as Governor-General expired. [25][n 1], The missionaries gained in power throughout the 1800s. Updated: 11/12/2021 Create an account Nigeria officially became a democracy on its independence from Britain in October 1960. 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. Adam Smith wrote in 1776 that the African societies were better established and more populous than those of the Americas, thus creating a more formidable barrier to European expansion. As a result, the trading post at the Niger River is created and the British economic rule is maintained over the colonies, exploiting Nigerians (Graham, 2009). 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. British and French traders did a large share of this business until 1807 when they were replaced by the Portuguese and the Spaniards. The most striking departure was in the Northern Region, where special provisions brought the regional constitution into consonance with Islamic law and custom. 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. 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. Nigerians also requested more political representation. Clifford also believed that indirect rule encouraged centripetal tendencies. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 8(04), 563. doi:10.1017/s0022278x00023909, This page was last edited on 30 January 2023, at 05:21. 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. It occurs when one nation subjugates another, conquering its population and exploiting it, often while . Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1991. 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 . As before, Aro merchants dominated trade in the hinterland, including palm products to the coast and the sale of slaves within Igboland. Vice consuls were assigned to ports that already had concluded treaties of cooperation with the Foreign Office. They were the most politically conscious segment of the population and created the vanguard of the nationalist movement. Most of the fighting was done by Hausa soldiers, recruited to fight against other groups. The pace of constitutional change accelerated after the promulgation of the Richards Constitution. In the ensuing decade, resistance to colonial rule continued, but Africans altered their tactics and women featured prominently in anticolonial resistance when cultural changes tended to disadvantage women. In 1946 a new constitution was approved by the British Parliament at Westminster and promulgated in Nigeria. 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. Read suggested they be merged, and more use made of Nigeria's natural resources. Revolutionary Mahdism and resistance to colonial rule in the Sokoto Caliphate, 1905-6 / by Paul E. Lovejoy and J.S. In the Eastern Region, appointed officials who were given "warrants" and hence called warrant chiefs, were strongly resisted by the people because they lacked traditional claims. In 1944 Macaulay and Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo who had been educated in the United States, united more than 40 different groups to establish the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC). How did British keep Nigerians from developing organized political resistance. The policy of indirect rule used in Northern Nigeria became a model for British colonies elsewhere in Africa. "Separatist Agitations in Nigeria Since 1914." 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. Lugard's success in northern Nigeria has been attributed to his policy of indirect rule; that is, he governed the protectorate through the rulers defeated by the British. British influence in the Niger area increased gradually over the 19th century, but Britain did not effectively occupy the area until 1885. 22. 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. Crowther was succeeded as bishop by a British cleric. Contemporary photograph of the same building, now housing the, Developments in colonial policy under Clifford, Emergence of Southern Nigerian nationalism, Constitutional conferences in the UK (195758), All of this section to this point is from. Recovery came quickly and improvements in port facilities and the transportation infrastructure during World War I furthered economic development. In the Northern Cameroons, however, the largely Muslim electorate chose to merge with Nigeria's Northern Region. Alan Lennox-Boyd, M.P., the British Secretary of State for the Colonies. European slave trading from West Africa began before 1650, with people taken at a rate of about 3,000 per year. [57], From 1895 to 1900, a railway was constructed running from Lagos to Ibadan; it opened in March 1901. Discover how the Mandinka Empire, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and Nigeria resisted European colonists and the impact each conflict had. By the 1950s, there were organized nationalist parties that demanded political independence in almost every colony in Africa. After the British government assumed direct control of the Royal Niger Companys territories, the northern areas were renamed the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, and the land in the Niger delta and along the lower reaches of the river was added to the Niger Coast Protectorate, which was renamed the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. Resistance movements began to rise in . Menelik II, emperor of Ethiopia, led his army to accomplish this unique feat in March 1896, defeating General Oreste Baratieri's Italian . In the 1700s, the British Empire and other European powers had settlements and forts in West Africa but had not yet established the full-scale plantation colonies which existed in the Americas. They gathered information which was needed for policy-making in administration. 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. [29] His servant, Richard Lander, and Lander's brother John were the ones to demonstrate that the Niger flowed into the sea. Davies and Nnamdi Azikiwe. These were the Agent-General, the Senior Judicial Officer, and the Commandant of the Constabulary. Independent Christian churches had emerged at the end of the nineteenth century. 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 . After 1940, political activities were broadened to include more people. Clifford emphasized economic development, encouraging enterprises by immigrant southerners in the north while restricting European participation to capital intensive activity. The British had participated in it until human trafficking was abolished in 1807. In: Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs: (1999), vol. Three of these posts were assigned to representatives from each region, and one was reserved for a delegate from the Northern Cameroons. Among the problems needing attention before the British would grant full independence was the minorities fear of discrimination by a future government based on majority ethnic groups. On January 1, 1914, following the recommendations of Sir Frederick Lugard, the two protectorates were amalgamated to form the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria under a single governor-general resident in Lagos. During World War II, three battalions of the Nigeria Regiment fought against Fascist Italy in the Ethiopian campaign. Afeadie, "The Hidden Hand of Overrule" (1996), p. 1012. Ajay. WORKING PAPER: Passive and Active Resistance to Openness - 4 can also resist fulfilling the spirit of FOIAs in a more passive or subtle manner. The Royal Niger Company had its own armed forces. By the end of World War I, most of Africa had been effectively colonized. 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. In: The Journal of African History: (1990 . In the meantime, public sector spending increased even more dramatically than export earnings. This was because; education in Southern Nigeria was already leading to a level of awareness and militancy or resistance to colonial rule. [42], The British had difficulty conquering Igboland, which lacked a central political organisation. European colonialists had managed to quell the efforts by Africans to resist the establishment of colonial rule with one exception. In the 1850s, quinine had been found to combat malaria, and aided by the medicine, a Liverpool merchant, Macgregor Laird, opened the river. 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. After the Berlin Conference of 1884, Britain announced the formation of the Oil Rivers Protectorate, which included the Niger Delta and extended eastward to Calabar, where the British Consulate General was relocated from Fernando Po. The NPC federal parliamentary leader, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, was appointed Prime Minister of Nigeria. In pursuance of the above general principles the chief civil officers of the provinces are to be called Residents which implies one who carries on diplomatic relations rather than Commissioners or Administrators. Decolonization - Jan C. Jansen 2019-06-11 The end of colonial rule in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean was one of the most Although churchmen in Britain had been influential in the drive to abolish the slave trade, significant missionary activity for Africa did not develop until the 1840s. The British, when faced with dissent, tended to grant political reforms in an effort to dispel the attractiveness of more-radical . Nigeria is a country in West Africa and was colonized by the British. 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. One 1885 treaty read: We, the undersigned King and Chiefs [] with the view to the bettering of the condition of our country and people, do this day cede to the National Africa Company (Limited), their heirs and assigns, forever, the whole of our territory [] We also give the said National African Company (Limited) full power to settle all native disputes arising from any cause whatever, and we pledge ourselves not to enter into any war with other tribes without the sanction of the said National Africa Company (Limited). During the war, the colonial government earmarked a large portion of the Nigerian budget as a contribution to imperial defence. Although Nigeria came under the British charter in 1885 and was . Some African Christian communities formed their own independent churches. It was a resistance movement whereby women in the Eastern Provinces of the British colony of Nigeria intended to reverse colonial policies that intruded on their political, economic, and social participation in local communities. I will be dealing almost exclusively with the areas of East and Central Africa - Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe - where a more or less coherent debate can be seen. 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]. In the immediate post-World War II period, Nigeria benefited from a favourable trade balance. A.J. Some of them also manned Company stations and served as District Agents.". Quiz. A new constitution was created in 1922 under British colonial rule, largely due to Nigerian calls for reform. After the defection of Kano, the only significant disagreement within the NPC was related to moderates. Battle of Adowa (Ethiopia) 5. In 1851 deposed king Akintoye of Lagos sought British help in restoring him to the throne. [82], Oil exploration began in 1906 under John Simon Bergheim's Nigeria Bitumen Corporation, to which the Colonial Office granted exclusive rights. 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. Lost land and independence died of diseases that euro bring Both Africans and Europeans found illegal supplies such as secret stills, obtaining colonial liquor permits, and smuggling. The war years brought a polarization between the older, more parochial leaders inclined toward gradualism and the younger intellectuals, who thought in more immediate terms. 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. But the history of Nigerian demands for greater representation go back to the 1920s. Nigeria Lugard and Indirect Rule. Other European powers acknowledged Britain's dominance over the area in the 1885 Berlin Conference. Inconsistencies in British policy reinforced existing cleavages based on regional animosities, as the British tried both to preserve the indigenous cultures of each area and to introduce modern technology, and Western political and social concepts. Elliot J. Berg, "The Development of a Labour Force in Sub-Saharan Africa"; France sold Louisiana to the United States, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Military history of Nigeria during World War II, National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, discovery and exploitation of petroleum deposits, "The Nigeria (Constitution) Order in Council, 1954", "Gombe-Abba: Historic emirs' town ruined by the British", A Very Bloody Transaction: Old Calabar and the Massacre of 1767, The Impact of the Slave Trade on African Economies, "Managing Epidemic: The British Approach to 19181919 Influenza in Lagos", "The Nigerian Victory Against The 1918 Influenza Pandemic and 1897 Smallpox Epidemic", "African Pentecostalism and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic: The Supernatural Amid the Fearful and Implications for the COVID-19 Pandemic", "The influenza pandemic of 191819 and the spread of cassava cultivation on the lower Niger: a study in historical linkages", Google Cultural Institute: Birth of the Nigerian Colony, 18511914, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Colonial_Nigeria&oldid=1136412842. 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. Although it reserved effective power in the hands of the Governor-General and his appointed Executive Council, the so-called Richards Constitution (after Governor-General Sir Arthur Richards, who was responsible for its formulation) provided for an expanded Legislative Council empowered to deliberate on matters affecting the whole country. Several churches were built to serve the Edo community and a small number of African converts. As the emirs settled more and more into their role as reliable agents of indirect rule, colonial authorities were content to maintain the status quo, particularly in religious matters. Nigerian students abroad, particularly at British schools, joined those from other colonies in pan-African groups such as the West African Students Union, founded in London in 1925. 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