#explore1918:benin kigdom

in #explore19186 years ago

i am a student of university of benin situated in nigeria, benin still remain one of the the known kigdom in africa not just because of its artistic cultures but because of the achievement of the ruling kigdom before the invasion of the europians benin till today their culture is still one thing they hold secred till today i am goin to talk about some few things that happened before1918.
The Benin Expedition of 1897 was a punitive expedition by a United Kingdom force of 1,200 under Admiral Sir Harry Rawson in response to the ambush of a previous British-led party under Acting Consul General James Philips (which had left all but two men dead).[1] Rawson's troops captured, burned, and looted Benin City, bringing to an end the west African Kingdom of Benin. As a result, much of the country's art, including the Benin Bronzes, were relocated to Britain.

Background
Ovonramwen, Oba of Benin

At the end of the 19th century, the Kingdom of Benin had managed to retain its independence and the Oba exercised a monopoly over trade which the British found irksome. The territory was coveted by an influential group of investors for its rich natural resources such as palm-oil, rubber and ivory.[2] After British consul Richard Burton visited Benin in 1862 he wrote of Benin's as a place of "gratuitous barbarity which stinks of death", a narrative which was widely publicized in Britain and increased pressure for the territory's subjugation.[2]

In spite of this pressure, the kingdom maintained independence and was not visited by another representative of Britain until 1892 when Henry Gallwey, the British Vice-Consul of Oil Rivers Protectorate (later Niger Coast Protectorate), visited Benin City hoping to open up trade and ultimately annexe Benin Kingdom and make it a British protectorate.[3] Gallwey was able to get Omo n’Oba (Ovonramwen) and his chiefs to sign a treaty which gave Britain legal justification for exerting greater influence over the Empire. While the treaty itself contains text suggesting Ovonramwen actively sought Britain's protection, this appears to be a fiction. Gallway's own account suggests the Oba was hesitant to sign the treaty.[3] Although some suggest that humanitarian motivations were driving Britain's actions,[4] letters written between administrators suggest that economic motivations were predominant.[5] The treaty itself does not explicitly mention anything aobut Benin's "bloody customs" that Burton had written about, and instead only includes a vague clause about ensuring "the general progress of civilization".[5]

It's clear that the Oba did not intend to follow the treaty. While the treaty granted freedom of trade within the Benin Empire, the Oba persisted in requiring customs duties.[6] Since Major (later Sir) Claude Maxwell Macdonald, the Consul General of the Oil River Protectorate authorities considered the 'Treaty' legal and binding, he deemed the King's reaction a violation of the accord and thus a hostile act.

In 1894 after the invasion and destruction of Brohomi, the trading town of the chief Nana Olomu, the leading Itsekiri trader in the Benin River District by a combined British Royal Navy and Niger Coast Protectorate forces, Benin Kingdom increased her military presence on her southern borders. This vigilance and the Colonial Office's refusal to grant approval for an invasion of Benin City scuttled the expedition the Protectorate had planned for early 1895. Even so, between September 1895 and mid-1896 three attempts were made by the Protectorate to enforce the Gallwey 'Treaty'. Major P. Copland-Crawford, Vice-Consul of the Benin District, made the first attempt, Mr. Locke, the Vice-Consul Assistant, made a second one and the third one was made by Captain Arthur Maling, the Commandant of the Niger Coast Protectorate Force detachment based in Sapele.

In March 1896, following price fixing and refusal by Itsekiri middle men to pay the required tributes, the King of Benin ordered a cessation of the supply of oil palm produce to them. The trade embargo brought trade in the Benin River region to a standstill, and the British traders and agents of the British trading firms quickly appealed to the Protectorate's Consul-General to 'open up' Benin territories, and send the King (whom they claimed was an ‘obstruction’) into exile. In October 1896 the Acting Consul-General, James Robert Phillips, visited the Benin River District and had meetings with the agents and traders. In the end the agents and traders were able to convince him that 'there is a future on the Benin River if Benin territories were opened'.

Benin had developed a reputation for sending strong messages of resistance. But the way Benin treated its slaves and the public display of large quantities of human remains hardened British attitudes towards Benin's rulers. Since 1863, the British had been trying to force the King to stop selling slaves to the Arab traders who had replaced the Portuguese after 1836 and to stop the practice of human sacrificial crucifixion.This had increased after the Atlantic trade ended as the leaders "supernatural rituals and large-scale human sacrifices to protect the state from further territorial encroachment." The trader James Pinnock wrote that he saw 'a large number of men all handcuffed and chained' there, with 'their ears cut off with a razor'. T.B Auchterlonie described the approach to the capital through an avenue of trees hung with decomposing human remains. After the 'lane of horrors' came a grass common 'thickly stewn with the skulls and bones of sacrificed human beings.'source

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