Blood and Bronze

The British Empire and the Sack of Benin

Paddy Docherty

• Publisher: Hurst Publishers
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781787384569
• eBook ISBN: 9781787387553
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

The Benin Bronzes are among the British Museum’s most prized possessions. Celebrated for their great beauty, they embody the history, myth and artistry of the ancient Kingdom of Benin, once West Africa’s most powerful, and today part of Nigeria. But despite the Bronzes’ renown, little has been written about the brutal imperial violence with which they were plundered. Paddy Docherty’s searing new history tells that story: the 1897 British invasion of Benin.

Armed with shocking details discovered in the archives, Blood and Bronze sets this assault in its late Victorian context. As British power faced new commercial and strategic pressures elsewhere, it ruthlessly expanded in West Africa. Revealing both the extent of African resistance and previously concealed British outrages, this is a definitive account of the destruction of Benin. Laying bare the Empire’s true motives and violent means, including the official coverup of grotesque sexual crimes, Docherty demolishes any moral argument for Britain retaining the Bronzes, making a passionate case for their immediate repatriation to Nigeria.

1

THE KINGDOM OF BENIN

In the origin myth told by the Edo people of the Kingdom of Benin, the universe emerges spontaneously into being with a man floating on his back, mute and unmoving on calm water. There was no knowledge, no meaning and no history; all was yet to be created. Suddenly a voice from nowhere commanded, ‘Open your eyes,’ and his eyes snapped open. His body remained completely still.

This order was the only time the voice sounded outside the man. Having awoken him, it entered him and became his. ‘It is dawn,’ the man declared, rising to a seated position. Nothing yet existed; all was emptiness except for the water on which he sat. Then a long pale whip appeared beside him, and a snail shell on the other side. The man picked up both, and on turning over the snail shell saw a stream of fine brown silt fall onto the water. Each grain was both a complete universe and an individual man, and as they hit the surface of the water it disappeared, solid earth taking its place. With firm ground around him, the man stood for the first time.

Raising his whip, he cracked it into the haze that surrounded him, and on the horizon a point of light appeared, growing swiftly and becoming the bright, golden orb of the sun. In the new light and warmth that it gave, the man saw the earth beneath him and the sky above, and he was happy. He walked for the first time, moving forwards then backwards, to one side then the other, in doing so creating the act of counting. With counting now in existence, time began, and with the beginning of time, knowledge became necessary.

The man again raised his whip and this time struck the earth before him. Immediately, the world was filled with forest—trees, bushes, greenery of every kind surrounded him everywhere, save for the clearing where he stood. Surveying his creation, the man was pleased but not yet satisfied. As he struck his whip again, the jungle was suddenly filled with all manner of animals, springing into being in a cacophony of calls and cries. One by one, they approached him in their gratitude. The leopard hailed him, then the deer, the adder, the hawk. Each one greeted the man as creator-king, announcing its name before departing to take up its allotted place in this new realm. This went on until every last creature had paid homage.

The new creator-king cracked the whip, bringing a village into being in the clearing where he stood. From within the buildings, human voices could be heard. One figure stepped out, declaring, ‘I am Okpia, as a man I worship you, my lord,’ as he kneeled in obeisance. Then another emerged and fell to the ground before the king, announcing, ‘I am Okhuo, and as a woman my loyalty to your majesty is through my husband.’ Finally, a third figure, an infant, appeared and declared, ‘I am Omo, my friend, and as a child I worship you with my innocence.’ By this time the clearing had filled with people and the active life of the village, and the creator-king looked upon his new universe with joy. After a moment, he saw that at the opposite end of the clearing stood a grand building, greater than any other, a fine construction that stretched all along one side of the village, a palace fit only for a king. In front of this impressive dwelling thronged a great crowd, waiting patiently but with anticipation.

The creator-king set off on a slow, dignified walk across the clearing to the magnificent building, bearing his whip in one hand and the snail shell in the other. The respectful crowd parted to allow him through, as he continued his stately procession to his rightful home. The intended goal felt both incredibly near and impossibly far away, but always right and fitting. As he stepped into the great palace, the crowds cheered, crying, ‘Welcome home, Lord from the Sky!’ The creator-king nodded in recognition both of their applause and of his own deep feeling in having arrived.

Looking out at his people, he came to understand his power, and the extent of his dominion over man, woman, beast and plant. Deciding to introduce order to his realm, the king called forward some members of the crowd and gave them instructions: some would dress him, some would cook for him, others would do work of different kinds. All were happy with their allotted tasks.

Then the king ordered that a mound of earth be formed in the courtyard of his palace, and that it be painted white. When it was completed, he slowly approached the mound and with great dignity knelt beside it, placing the handle of his whip into the earth and laying the snail shell beside it. Turning to the gathered crowd, he announced that this would be the shrine of Osa, the Almighty King in the Sky, and that henceforth he would be known as Osanobua. He appointed an elderly man as priest of the shrine and commanded him always to wear white. With the permission of the king, the priest spoke to the crowd and told them of the duties of reverence and respect that they owed to the king. Everyone showed their satisfaction.

By this time, the sun was setting, and the moon was about to take its place in the sky. With all humans and animals assigned their place in the realm, the creation of the world was complete.

Thus goes the Edo origin story as told by Professor Iro Eweka in his volume of folk tales from the Kingdom of Benin.¹ Significantly, Eweka was a prince of the Benin royal family and grew up among members of the court who had come of age in the pre-1897 era and were familiar with the traditional culture: he thus provides a direct link to the chain of oral transmission reaching back centuries. This is of especial value because until the twentieth century, Benin was not a literate culture, all history, legend and practical knowledge being passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation.

This single fact provides the greatest challenge to any historical study of the Kingdom of Benin. History is typically reliant on written materials, documentary evidence being prized above other forms; historians value nothing more highly than a bulging government archive compiled over the years by diligent bureaucrats who wrote everything down. In the absence of such sources, other forms of knowledge (e.g. archaeology and linguistics) become all the more important, and this is one reason why the Benin Bronzes—especially the brass plaques—are of such exceptional value, being the repository of Edo history, myth and social customs. Crucially, however, where history is reconstructed from oral traditions and the analysis of cultural artefacts, precise dating is impossible, and there remains a lively debate about chronology within the study of Benin.

From archaeological and linguistic evidence, it seems clear that the Edo people separated from the related ethnic groups of the Yoruba and Igbo in the region of the Niger-Benue confluence approximately 3,000 to 6,000 years ago.² Gradual migration southwards from the savannah zone saw them penetrate the southern forests and forest swamplands west of the lower Niger River, meaning that the Edo appear to have occupied their present location for almost 4,000 years. It is intriguing to think that, in the creation myth summarised earlier, the stately walk across the clearing by the creator-king may well represent this slow and steady migration of the Edo into their present homeland, as transformed by a mythologising oral tradition operating over the centuries.

Little is known about the early period of Edo settlement, but the kingdom likely developed from multiple villages and microstates established around the beginning of the second millennium: archaeological remains show a network of several thousand miles of earth boundaries from the period, suggesting numerous minor centres of power.³ Benin City itself may have originated as a religious site, and by c. 1300 it was the centre of a modest kingdom based around a system of chiefly tribute. A new dynasty came to power under Oba Ewekpa from c. 1320, and over the following two centuries, the kingdom was transformed through conquest into a highly centralised imperial power.⁴

Evolution of the system had begun even before the dynastic change, with the introduction of the Onijie system of hereditary village chiefs, who were granted tributary rural fiefs in a manner roughly analogous to European feudalism. Oba Ewedo (ruled c. 1374–1401) worked to further separate himself as king from the powerful Uzama nobility, principally through means of a standing army. Development of this coercive authority allowed the king to exert direct control over tribute payments from the Onijie, and to increasingly centralise power in royal hands. Under Oba Oguola (ruled c. 1401–1428), redistributive demands increased, especially due to the king’s establishment of specialised communities of metalworkers and brass casters. This marked the beginning of the great tradition of Benin art, which was fundamentally courtly—and thus political—in origin. A crucial enabling factor for this expensive development was the dramatic expansion of trade over this period, along with direct royal control of trade routes.

It was, however, under Oba Ewuare (ruled c. 1455–1482) that the Kingdom of Benin was transformed into an empire, when he further expanded the military capacity of the state and launched a series of wars of conquest. Annexations were, in particular, aimed at the north–south trade routes that carried commerce between Benin and the regions beyond the Sahara.⁵ Alongside this military expansion, this period saw a significant development of state bureaucracy and witnessed numerous internal rebellions, not least because of the increasingly national character of the polity: by the end of his reign, Ewuare seems to have incorporated the majority of Edo-speaking peoples of the region into the Kingdom of Benin. His successors Oba Ozolua (ruled c. 1482–1509) and Oba Esigie (ruled c. 1509–1536) continued the expansionary efforts to control the north–south trade routes, including through the establishment of new military outposts. Additionally, Benin City was fortified with formidable ramparts sometime in the period between 1450 and 1550,⁶ further illustrating the capacities and military nature of the state.

This era therefore saw the extension of Edo rule over a vast network of trade routes and tribute-paying towns and villages, making the Kingdom of Benin dominant in the region and providing it with great wealth. This was the high point in Edo imperial expansion, and for their success in conquest, these kings—especially Oba Ewuare and Oba Esigie—are frequently depicted in Benin artwork. Their achievement in creating this powerful, centralised state also meant that the first European visitors to Benin, who arrived in this period, were highly impressed with the richness and sophistication of the kingdom.

The Portuguese, who had been edging their way along the coast of West Africa for much of the fifteenth century, were the first Europeans to venture to Benin City, under the navigator João Afonso de Aveiro in 1485. A measure of their regard for the kingdom is that they returned to Lisbon with an Edo visitor—a chief of Gwato—who thus became the first West African ambassador to Europe.⁷ The Portuguese were soon followed by the explorers and traders of other European nations, who were attracted by the commercial possibilities of the organised trade of the Kingdom of Benin. That the Europeans arrived to a highly developed economic and governmental system seems to be confirmed by the fact that the Oba of Benin (likely Oba Esigie, but this is not confirmed by the European records) sent a second embassy to Lisbon in 1514 to complain about the conduct of European traders on the Benin River.⁸ They also requested a consignment of firearms. This embassy was followed by another in 1516, and yet another in 1540,⁹ demonstrating a developed governmental capacity with international reach. Similarly, a Portuguese embassy was established in Benin City, certainly by 1516, as attested by letters written home to Manuel I.¹⁰

Although the primary aim of European traders in West Africa was at first to obtain a source of gold, the slave trade gradually increased in importance until, over the decades, it eventually became the principal activity of outsiders in the region. As a growing empire with captives aplenty, the Kingdom of Benin was a ready supplier of enslaved people in the early period of European contact. However, demonstrating the requirement for slave labour in the kingdom itself (not least for military purposes), Oba Ozolua introduced some restrictions on the export of male slaves, which soon became a total ban lasting until around 1725; female slaves, though, could be exported freely.¹¹ While the transatlantic slave trade was not therefore a critical factor in the economic rise of Benin, it did later have a negative impact on the kingdom through enabling the development of competing centres of power on the margins of its empire.

This development was to take place some time in the future; of more immediate concern were internal tensions and the disruptions they caused. As we have seen, throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Benin was an expansionary kingdom, tightly centralised around a monarch who was not only militarily powerful but regarded as a god. Divine kingship—as embodied in much Benin art—was an important factor in statecraft, and from the earliest period of contact, Portuguese visitors recorded the awe in which the Edo beheld their kings.¹² An important aspect of this concept of divine rule was the power that the Oba wielded over life and death itself, displayed most graphically through the practice of human sacrifice. A royal prerogative (and only occasionally granted to certain chiefs), the sacrifice of slaves, war captives or other people was held to be a duty of the king in his role as supreme mediator with the divine realm; as highly public evidence of his coercive power, it naturally also had a political value. Although some of the earlier European reports from Benin revelled in descriptions of this practice, it seems that the scale of human sacrifice increased in response to mounting outside pressures on the eve of European colonialism; it is clear that it was highly valued for propaganda purposes by the imperial powers, who also exaggerated its incidence.¹³ Nonetheless, human sacrifice was a significant cultural reality in the kingdom, and it is a regular feature of Benin artworks.

The development of ritual and of the religious importance of the king would in itself prove a danger: over time, and in the context of the growing power of rival chiefs, the Obas of Benin became increasingly the captives of ceremonial.¹⁴ This change in the nature of kingship was relatively swift: Oba Ewuare and Oba Esigie in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries had marched around the region conquering at will, but by the early seventeenth century the king was ritually restricted to the palace in Benin City, from which he emerged only once or twice a year for the most important public religious ceremonies.¹⁵ The king had largely fallen under the control of his own military, and of the great chiefs who commanded it.

This growing power of the chiefs—especially the Iyase, the most senior ‘town chief’—intersected with succession crises to make the seventeenth century and much of the eighteenth century a deeply troubled period for the Kingdom of Benin. The death of Oba Ohuan in c. 1630–41 prompted a succession crisis, which marks a significant turning point and the beginning of d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgement
• Prologue
• 1. The Kingdom of Benin
• 2. West Africa and the British Intrusion
• 3. ‘The Rush for Africa Has Broken Up the Little Family Party’: The Scramble of the 1880s
• 4. ‘Very Bad Indeed’: Consul Annesley in the Oil Rivers
• 5. ‘All Quiet in Rivers’: Major MacDonald in Old Calabar
• 6. ‘In the End You Will All Be Destroyed’: Enforcing British Rule in the Niger Delta
• 7. ‘There Wouldn’t Be a Single Shot Fired’: Consul Phillips Gets Himself Killed
• 8. ‘Overwhelming Force’: The Benin Punitive Expedition
• 9. The Aftermath
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Index
• Backcover