nigeria resistance to colonial rule

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 Colonial Office approved most of Lugard's plan, but balked at authorising him to pass laws without their approval. The southern protectorate was divided into two provinces in 1939Western and Easternand in 1954 they, along with the northern protectorate, were renamed the Western, Eastern, and Northern regions as part of Nigerias reconstruction into a federal state. 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. refusing to pay. By a British Act of Parliament, Nigeria became independent on 1 October 1960. Beginning in the 1920s, a number of Nigerians joined other Blacks in various parts of the world to embark on the wider project of Pan-Africanism, which sought to liberate Black people from racism and European domination. After the defection of Kano, the only significant disagreement within the NPC was related to moderates. 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. For some time, missionaries operated in the area between Lagos and Ibadan. The incidence of slavery in local societies increased. Resistance to colonial rule took a number of forms, incrementally moving Nigeria toward independence. The protectorate was organised to control and develop trade coming down the Niger. (This was also reflective of growing pan-Africanism among American activists of the time.) How did Algerias resistance to French control differ rom East africas resistance to German rule. His political platform called for economic and educational development, Africanization of the civil service, and self-government for Lagos. Local administration, where the colonial citizens typically experienced colonial authority, was based on the policy of indirect rule first developed in the north. There were numerous differences of detail among the regional systems, but all adhered to parliamentary forms and were equally autonomous in relation to the Nigerian federal government at Lagos. 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. 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. 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 . THE COLONIAL ECONOMIC LEGACY. This system, in which the structure of authority focused on the emir to . 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. Direct taxation on men was introduced in 1928 without major incidents. 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 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. [17] Much of this oil was sold elsewhere in the British Empire. Revolts in against water rates and the alienation of indigenous land in 1908 and 1911 served to unite native African elites and working class residents. [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. The Nigerian Resistance. Nigeria: ColonizationKatie Graham. Independence was achieved on 1 October 1960. This led to protests known as Women's War. 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. Definition of Colonialism Colonialism means a system which the Europeans adopted in ruling the colonies of Africa to their own benefits. In all three regions, minority parties represented the special interests of ethnic groups, especially as they were affected by the majority. In the 1920s, Nigerians began to form a variety of associations, such as professional and business associations, like the Nigerian Union of Teachers; the Nigerian Law Association, which brought together lawyers, many of whom had been educated in Britain; and the Nigerian Produce Traders' Association, led by Obafemi Awolowo. By 1938 the NYM was agitating for dominion status within the British Commonwealth of Nations so that Nigeria would have the same status as Canada and Australia. The women's protest of 1929 marked an apex in women's resistance in eastern Nigeria to colonial rule. As a latecomer in the struggle for colonies, Germany had to settle for four territories, called "protectorates," in . David Richardson, "Background to annexation: Anglo-African credit relations in the Bight of Biafra, 17001891"; in Ptr-Grenouilleau. At that time many scholars believed that Nigeria was able to develop into a stable and fast-growing state due to its huge potential. 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. In time, they built depots onshore and eventually moved up the Niger River to establish stations in the interior. In 1886, Taubman secured a royal charter and his company became the Royal Niger Company. 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. ", Tamuno, T. N. (1970). Political opposition to colonial rule often assumed religious dimensions. They were the most politically conscious segment of the population and created the vanguard of the nationalist movement. Lagos was annexed as a Crown Colony in 1861 via the Lagos Treaty of Cession.[30]. The Northern People's Congress (NPC) was organised in the late 1940s by a small group of Western-educated Northern Nigerians. The only significant interruption in economic development arose from natural disasterthe Great Drought of 191314. 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. Falola, Toyin, Ann Genova, and Matthew M. Heaton. [79][80], Much of the colony's budget went to payments of its military, the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF). It was suspended in 1950 against a call for greater autonomy, which resulted in an inter-parliamentary conference at Ibadan in 1950. All these things which I have said the Fulani by conquest took the right to do now pass to the British. Portuguese Roman Catholic priests who accompanied traders and officials to the West African coast introduced Christianity to the Edo Empire in the fifteenth century. The French had abolished slavery following the French Revolution, although it briefly re-established it in its Caribbean colonies under Napoleon. While each generated considerable political controversy, they moved the country toward greater internal autonomy, with an increasing role for the political parties. The forces unleashed against the British were now diverse, including soldiers who had served in World War II, the media, restless youth, market women, educated people, and farmers, all of whom became committed to the anticolonial movement. 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. Native institutions were utilized and interference with local customs kept to a minimum, although the British did not always understand the local customs. He also led the Nigerian National Democratic Party, which dominated elections in Lagos from its founding in 1922 until the ascendancy of the National Youth Movement in 1938. The most important of these was a near fetish with indirect rule that was supposed to facilitate a cheap and effective ruling strategy. 1960-1966: Early diplomatic relations. 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 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. Village Heads were paid 10 shillings for conscripts, and fined 50 if they failed to supply. In the South, only English had official status. Background: Attitudes Towards Policing The period from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s marked the zenith of imperial rule in Africa. In 1900, the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate passed from company hands to the Crown. By the eighteenth century, evidence of Christianity had disappeared. He insisted on maintaining the territorial integrity of the Northern Region. 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. The greatest advantage of Nigeria were its huge natural . The first missions were opened by the Church of England's Church Missionary Society (CMS). Hausa was recognised as an official language in the north, and knowledge of it was expected of colonial officers serving there. Similar status was acquired by the Northern Region two years later. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1991. You are right my brother. It occurs when one nation subjugates another, conquering its population and exploiting it, often while . After 1940, political activities were broadened to include more people. The seven men who governed Northern Nigeria, Southern Nigeria and Lagos through 1914 were Henry McCallum, William MacGregor, Walter Egerton, Ralph Moor, Percy Girouard, Hesketh Bell and Frederick Lugard. . 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. Gradually, however, the trade forced major economic and social changes in the interior, although it hardly undermined slavery and the slave trade. After the Napoleon war, the British tried to expand their colonial rule in Africa and began to establish trade tides with Nigeria in 1898. The operations of this force are still not fully known due to a policy of strict secrecy mandated by the British Government. tax. Segments of the Yoruba community had their own animosities and new rivalries arose. The cleavage between the Yoruba and the Igbo was accentuated by their competition for control of the political machinery. [10], Following military conquest, the British imposed an economic system designed to profit from African labor. [31], Captain John Glover, the colony's administrator, created a militia of Hausa troops in 1861. The Treasury used a planned budget for payment of staff and development of public works projects, and therefore could not be spent at the discretion of the local traditional ruler. As a philosophical movement and critical . In 1851 deposed king Akintoye of Lagos sought British help in restoring him to the throne. 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. Early British Imperialism. British colonialism created Nigeria, joining diverse peoples and regions in an artificial political entity along the Niger River. 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. 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 NPC federal parliamentary leader, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, was appointed Prime Minister of Nigeria. [54] Olivier was a member of the Fabian Society and a friend of George Bernard Shaw. The Sokoto jihad and the Yoruba wars stimulated the slave trade at a time when the British were actively trying to stop it. 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 . 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. [31], In 1891, the consulate established the Niger Coast Protectorate Force or "Oil Rivers Irregulars".[32]. [19][41], In 18961897 the forces of the Niger Coast Protectorate fought with the remnants of the Edo Empire. The delta masked the mouth of the great river, and for centuries Nigerians chose not to tell Europeans the secrets of the interior. 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. In the 1850s, quinine had been found to combat malaria, and aided by the medicine, a Liverpool merchant, Macgregor Laird, opened the river. 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. 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 . Over the next decades as colonial rule became institutionalized, African resistance to colonialism became more focused and intense. 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. The decrease in trade indirectly led to the collapse of states like the Edo Empire. Further dislocation accompanied the outbreak of World War I. 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. Colonial Nigeria was the area of West Africa that became the modern day Nigeria, during the time of British rule in the 19th and 20th centuries. [38][39], In 1892 the British Armed Forces set out to fight the Ijebu Kingdom, which had resisted missionaries and foreign traders. Oil income was still marginal, but the prospects for continued economic expansion appeared bright and accentuated political rivalries on the eve of independence. A more representative system did not appear until 1946, when each geographic group of provinces had its own House of Assembly, with a majority of nonofficial (though not yet all elected) members; there were also a House of Chiefs and, in Lagos, a central Legislative Council. The Niger Delta and Calabar, which once had been known for the export of slaves, became notable for the export of palm oil. Several churches were built to serve the Edo community and a small number of African converts. A . [73], Africa as a whole was hit by three waves of H1N1 influenza A, the first and second would be the most deadly for the colony of Nigeria. Balewa formed a coalition government that included the Action Group as well as the NCNC to prepare the country for the final British withdrawal. They never were able to elect sizeable legislative delegations, but they served as a means of public expression for minority concerns. In Africa, Nigerians lived under British rule from 1900 to 1960. [29] His servant, Richard Lander, and Lander's brother John were the ones to demonstrate that the Niger flowed into the sea. Lost land and independence died of diseases that euro bring Native Administration was responsible for police, hospitals, public works and local courts. [] They needed special personnel: such officials who knew the local conditions and who could communicate between the Company and the indigenous people. 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. Broadening political participation and expanding educational opportunities and other social services also were viewed as threats to the status quo. Published August 7, 2020. 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In 1886, Taubman secured a royal charter and his company became the royal Niger company these.

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