Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0262/02621.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 33KB | 530 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02621}
$Pretitle{357}
$Title{Nigeria
Chapter 1B.   European Presence in West Africa}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert Rinehart}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{trade
british
slave
niger
slaves
century
african
states
fulani
region}
$Date{1981}
$Log{Figure 5.*0262101.scf
}
Country:     Nigeria
Book:        Nigeria, A Country Study
Author:      Robert Rinehart
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1981

Chapter 1B.   European Presence in West Africa

     A desire for glory and profit from trade, missionary zeal, and
considerations of global strategy brought Portuguese navigators to the West
African coast in the early fifteenth century. Locked in an interminable
crusading war with Muslim Morocco, the Portuguese conceived of a plan whereby
maritime expansion could be used as a weapon in their arsenal as well as a
means of commercial gain. By sea the Portuguese planned to cut off the flow
of gold over the caravan routes to North Africa by channeling the trade to the
Guinea coast, from which the gold could be conveyed to Europe. By opening a
sea route around Africa, they could also tap the wealth of the Indies and, it
was believed, link up with the fabled Christian kingdom of Prester
John-supposedly on the far side of the continent-to attack the Moors from the
rear.

     By 1471 Portuguese ships had reconnoitered the West African coast as far
as the Niger delta, and in 1481 emissaries from the king of Portugal visited
the court of the oba of Benin. Close relations were eventually established
between the European and African kingdoms. Portuguese soldiers aided Benin in
its wars, and the impact of the European presence at oba's court was reflected
in the use of the Portuguese language there and in a subtle influence on
Benin's art. A depot was set up at Gwatto, the port of Benin, to handle the
peppers, ivory, and increasing numbers of slaves offered by the oba in
exchange for coral beads, European-manufactured articles, including tools and
weapons, and for great quantities of processed metal in the form of mantillas
(brass and bronze bracelets that were used as currency and also were melted
down for reworking in objects d'art).

     Secure for a century, the Portuguese monopoly on West African trade was
broken by the end of the sixteenth century, and Portugal's influence was
supplanted by the rising naval power of the Netherlands. The Dutch took over
Portuguese trading stations on the coast that were the source of slaves for
the Spanish and subsequently the English plantations in the Americas. French
and English competition undermined the Dutch position after about 1650.
Although slave ports from Lagos to Old Calabar would see the flags of many
other European maritime countries (including Denmark, Sweden, and
Brandenburg), it was Britain that in the eighteenth century became the
dominant power engaged in the slave trade on the Guinea coast, its ships
handling fully two-thirds of the trans-Atlantic traffic. The first British
colony in West Africa, however, was established as a refuge for liberated
slaves at Sierra Leone in 1787.

The Slave Trade

     The slave trade was not a European innovation in West Africa. Domestic
slavery was prevalent throughout the region, and many indigenous economies
relied on some aspect of the slave trade, whether it was collecting,
marketing, or conveying the human cargo. From time immemorial the traffic in
slaves along the trans-Saharan trade routes had linked the Niger basin to
North Africa. In the sixteenth century, however, the demand for slaves for
the New World plantations had redirected this trade to the coastal ports.
Whereas domestic slavery had not always been an intolerable or even
necessarily a permanent condition, captives caught up in the export trade and
destined for the Americas were treated as commodities at all stages of the
transaction. African rulers and communities competed for shares in the
proceeds. Wars had always been fought with the object of taking enemy
prisoners and selling them as slaves, but the opening of new markets sharpened
the competition and contributed to the rise and to the downfall of warring
states in the forest region.

     The volume of the trans-Atlantic slave trade peaked in the eighteenth
century when, according to some estimates, more than 8 million slaves were
shipped from West Africa, about one-fourth of the total from Lagos and the
Niger delta ports. Depopulation of some regions was a major result of the
slave trade, but this does not appear to have occurred in the Niger region.
Among the Ibo and others on the east bank whose communities were regularly
"harvested" by Aro slave traders, slavery even recommended itself as a relief
from overpopulation and insufficient land.

     In 1807 the British Parliament enacted legislation prohibiting the slave
trade. Several decades of antislavery campaigning in Britain had culminated in
adoption of the measure that was spearheaded by the Evangelical movement and
financed by philanthropists like Granville Sharp. A suit brought before the
courts by Sharp had led to a judgment in 1772 that slavery could not exist in
England and that slaves disembarked there were automatically emancipated. The
decision added the weight of legal precedent to arguments made in Parliament
by political figures such as William Wilberforce for the abolition of the
trade in ships under the British flag. Opposition to the slave trade was based
not only on the moral objections raised by religious groups but also on the
sound economic arguments put forward by British manufacturers and financial
institutions. Britain's developing industrial complex demanded access to raw
materials and required new and expanding markets for its exports. The huge
investment in shipping and capital tied up in the African slave trade, it was
pointed out, could be diverted to legitimate commodity trade.

     The legislation forbade ships under British registry to engage in the
slave trade, but it was applied generally to all flags and was intended to
shut down all traffic in slaves coming out of West African ports. The British
act was followed the next year by legislation in the United States, and
similar prohibitions were enacted in Denmark (which i 1792 had become the
first European power to abolish the slave trade in its ships), Sweden, the
Netherlands, and France. Attitudes changed slowly, however, and not all
countries cooperated to the same degree in controlling the activity of their
merchant ships. American ships, for instance, were notorious for evading the
prohibition and going unpunished under United States law.

     To enforce a blockade the Royal Navy detailed the so-called Prevention
Squadron to a permanent station off the Niger delta with responsibility for
patrolling the West African coast. Despite the demands made by the Napoleonic
war, about one-sixth of all British warships were assigned to this mission,
and a squadron was maintained on station for more than half a century. Slaves
rescued at sea were usually taken to Sierra Leone and released there. British
naval crews were permitted to divide prize money from the sale of captured
slave ships. Apprehended slave runners were tried on the West African station
by naval courts and were liable to capital punishment when found guilty.

     Still, a lively slave trade continued until the 1860s, and the outflow of
slaves actually increased in volume in the years after its abolition. The
demands of the American market were met by the flood of captives taken in the
Yoruba wars and shipped from Lagos. The risk involved in running the British
blockade made profits all the greater on delivery.

     The British campaign to eradicate the slave trade involved African rulers
on whose support its success ultimately depended. British agents attempted
repeatedly by means of diplomacy, subsidies, and bribery to exert pressure on
the kings and chieftains to relinquish the slave trade in favor of legitimate
commodity transactions. These efforts, re