Roberts A.D. The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 7: from 1905 to 1940
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA AND LIBERIA
BRITISH WEST AFRICA, 1905-1914
By 1905 the era of colonial conquest was drawing to a close
and British West Africa was entering a period of administrative
consolidation. In the interests of economy, Lagos and Southern
Nigeria were united in May 1906, to form the Colony and
Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. Yet on such basic issues as land
policy, Nigeria remained a divided 'multiple dependency'. In
Lagos Colony a system of freehold land tenure based on Crown
grants issued to original African claimants operated. In Southern
Nigeria African ownership of the land was recognised, subject to
certain regulations designed to prevent alienation to non-Africans.
In Northern Nigeria, almost all the land was 'nationalised' and
all rights to land were vested in the government as trustee. This
eliminated what many colonial officials regarded as the vexatious
problems of land litigation and individual ownership, as distinct
from rights of occupancy, though it did not prevent a shift from
communal towards individual rights. British rule thus super-
imposed legal and bureaucratic diversity upon a heterogeneous
complex of indigenous cultures and polities.
' Punitive patrols' persisted but increasingly they took the form
of police operations against isolated communities in connection
with criminal cases, as defined by the colonial authorities, or in
reprisal for failure to pay taxes or supply labour. They were thus
part of the process of defining the relationship between the new
colonial government and African societies. At the local level,
administrators were preoccupied with identifying and reaching an
accord with traditional indigenous authorities through whom the
colonial oligarchy might rule the vast African population. With
only one British administrator for every 100,000 Africans in
Northern Nigeria, and five administrative officers for the entire
Sierra Leone Protectorate with a population of over one million,
2
day-to-day responsibilities for maintaining law and order, mobili-
sing labour and/or collecting taxes devolved upon the local
African authorities.
Known as ' indirect rule', the system reached its fullest elabor-
ation in Northern Nigeria. Here Sir Frederick Lugard (high
commissioner, 1901-6) had found the sophisticated Hausa-Fulani
government and Islamic judiciary well suited to his needs; it was
2
Figures based on censuses of Northern Nigeria in 1926 and Sierra Leone in 1921.
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA, I905-I914
strengthened by the system of' native treasuries' developed by
H. R. Palmer between
1906
and
1911.
However, the popularisation
of the emirate model as an administrative paradigm by Lugard
and his supporters not only influenced British perceptions and
colonial policies but also obscured both its limitations and earlier
analogous developments elsewhere in Southern Nigeria, the Gold
Coast, Sierra Leone and the Gambia. The result was a profusion
of arrangements whereby multifarious indigenous authorities —
Yoruba monarchs, subordinate chiefs of the once mighty Asante
confederation or parochial Limba leaders — were recognised as
'chiefs' by the relevant British governor and were allowed to
exercise often quite wide-ranging powers, particularly judicial
authority, subject to varying degrees of administrative
supervision.
Among the Ibo, Tiv and numerous other acephalous societies
where no such person of authority existed, ' chiefs' were created
in accordance both with the demands of administrative expediency
and with European theories of evolutionary political tutelage,
chieftaincy being regarded as a ' natural' form of African govern-
ment. Colonial officers wanted agents to whom they could issue
instructions and whom they could hold responsible for carrying
them out. In chiefless societies such as the Tiv, this frequently
resulted in the elevation of 'marginal men', those imperfectly
socialised into indigenous culture who thus had least to lose and
most to gain from siding with British authorities, or alien Africans
(e.g. Hausa) from stratified societies who were prepared to
cooperate with the British. Yet such individuals lacked close
familiarity with local customs or the dynamics of parochial power
and their new responsibilities, by definition, brought them into
conflict with indigenous political norms.
In the case of stratified, hierarchical societies such as the Hausa
or Yoruba, the impact of colonial rule was initially less dramatic.
Though incumbent rulers who resisted the loss of their sov-
ereignty were removed, the British lavished considerable attention
on the subtleties of succession and protocol. However, the
authority of traditional rulers no longer rested on the consent of
the people or of powerful factions within the community but were
derived from the governor. It was a power relationship which
astute chiefs, such as
alafin
Ladugbola of
Oyo,
were to manipulate
to negate indigenous constitutional constraints on autocracy,
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remove potential rivals and even expand their sphere of authority.
At their best, African authorities acted as mediators between the
colonial oligarchy and the people, channelling and interpreting
information, instructions
and
ideas.
On the
other hand,
the
dependence of the British on local rulers inclined them to turn
a blind eye to exactions and abuses of power by men such as Emir
Aliyu
of
Zaria. Only serious breaches
of
the law, such
as
embezzlement of government funds or murder, or the threat of
serious popular unrest, led to the removal of
a
colonial
chief,
and
then generally to exile rather than imprisonment. Nevertheless,
it was
to
such rulers, rather than the Western-educated African
elite,
that the colonial government increasingly turned for advice,
thereby reinforcing British conservative and autocratic biases.
By the turn
of
the century there was already an established
educated elite of African doctors, lawyers, clergy and businessmen
in the coastal areas, who were accustomed to playing an active
role in the political and social life of the community. Predomin-
antly, though not exclusively, Christian, they were imbued with
the sombre middle-class Victorian tones
of
their missionary
teachers and models, yet permeated with distinct and vibrant local
hues.
A
common educational experience, often physically and
emotionally demanding, and a common language, English, gave
the elite
a
sense of unity, reinforced by social, commercial and
marital links. They frequently travelled
to
other parts
of
West
Africa, as well as Britain, on business and family matters; and
collateral branches of prominent families were often to be found
in the trading emporia along the coast. Through such contacts,
through correspondence and the lively African press, the elite
were often better informed than were local colonial officials about
the course
of
events
or
legislation
in
other colonies deemed
detrimental
to
African and/or elite interests. The chain
of
authority within the colonial service led through the governor to
the colonial secretary
in
London; hence British officials rarely
made contact with their counterparts in other British colonies. As
a result, it was the elite, rather than British officials, who kept alive
a sense
of
the unity
of
British West Africa. However, for the
educated elite, the period was one of mounting frustration and
humiliation.
The achievements of their predecessors turned to bitter memor-
ies as hardening racist attitudes led to the exclusion of Africans
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA, 1905-1914
from senior posts in the colonial service and from official society.
Even the missionary societies, which had educated them in the
faith of oneness before God, now denied them equality within the
church. The colour bar sullied the missionary organisations and
the influence of African clergy waned, though as martyrs their
standing amongst African congregations and their retrospective
image as early 'nationalists' grew. Rejected by the leadership of
white colonial society, some of the African elite reasserted their
cultural roots by adopting African dress and names, along with
a renewed interest in indigenous customs and religion, albeit often
for the purpose of demonstrating the proximity of the latter to
Christian beliefs and practices. The Christian ' Reformed' Ogboni
Society, established among the Yoruba elite in 1914 in response
to the growing European dominance of the Lagos Masonic
Lodge, sought to reinterpret and 'purify' the traditional instit-
ution, a faint glimmer of the syncretism later to become such an
important element of African innovation. However, the psycho-
logical dependence of the westernised elite inhibited their
response. Thus those who broke away from the missionaries to
form their own churches carried with them a respect for
denominational practices and doctrinal orthodoxy. Other African
clergy, such as Bishop James Johnson, could never sever the ties
with the Church Missionary Society; God was still perceived as
dwelling somewhere behind Salisbury Square.
In the older' settled' colonies, African unofficial representatives
appointed by the governor still sat on the legislative council,
ostensibly to advise him. However, such representation provided
no real check on colonial autocracy. The official majority was
required to vote with the governor, who in any case was not
bound by the advice of the council. Thus, in spite of African
unofficial opposition, discriminatory and restrictive legislation
was passed, such as the 1903 Nigerian Newspaper Ordinance and
the 1909 Nigerian Seditious Offences Ordinance, both aimed at
stifling African criticism of the government. In any case, deliber-
ations of the legislative council were normally confined to matters
affecting the 'settled' colony, thus limiting their scope and
effectiveness as an arena for articulating African grievances.
Nevertheless, increased elective African representation on the
legislative councils, as well as African membership of the more
senior policy-formulating executive councils, became major
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objectives of the early African nationalists, absorbing much of the
political energies of the educated elite. As in the mission churches,
they clung to a vision of participation in decision-making, though
in
1920
Lugard expressed
the
prevailing British conceit
and
disdain
for
educated Africans when
he
remarked that
'the
interests
of a
large native population shall
not be
subject
to the
will...of a small minority
of
educated
and
Europeanised natives
who have nothing in common with them, and whose interests are
often opposed
to
theirs'.
3
Power remained firmly in European hands. Yet the British were
highly successful
at
incorporating potential African leaders,
giving them
a
stake
in
the colonial system,
a
factor
of
far greater
significance than
the
oft-extolled effects
of the
maxim-gun.
In
Northern Nigeria, the rebellion
at
Satiru
in
1906
by the
Hausa
peasantry posed
as
great
a
threat
to the
Fulani emirs
as to the
British and was duly crushed with combined severity. However,
such isolated incidents need
to be
viewed against
the
general
context
of the
relatively peaceful transition
to
colonial rule
following the initial conquest, coinciding
as it
did with
a
period
of economic boom
in
West Africa between 1906
and the
First
World War.
Both the volume and barter terms of trade improved, resulting
in
an
increase
in the
income terms
of
trade.
4
This
was
most
dramatically illustrated by the growth
of
cocoa exports from
the
Gold Coast. Cocoa
had
been introduced there towards
the end
of the nineteenth century, when
the
leading export was rubber.
In 1902 rubber was overtaken
by
gold, which was mined
in the
western province
by
foreign-owned companies and yielded over
a million pounds' worth
of
exports
in
1907. Gold exports first
exceeded £imin 1907 and
for
most
of
our period were worth
between one-third
and one
half
of
Southern Rhodesia's. From
1910,
however, cocoa took first place
and by 1914
exports
amounted to
5
3,000 tons, worth £2.2m. The Gold Coast was now
the world's largest producer of
cocoa,
and remained so to the end
of
our
period. Nigeria's exports throughout
our
period were
dominated
by
palm produce: between 1905
and
1913 exports
of
palm kernels doubled
in
bulk and their value rose to
£3.1
m,
nearly
3
Report
by Sir F. D.
Lugard
on
the
amalgamation
of
Northern and
Southern
Nigeria, and
administration,
ip/j-rpif (1920), Cmd. 468,
19.
4
See chapter 2,
p. 130.
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA, I905-I914
half the total. Meanwhile, tin was being mined on the Jos plateau.
Exports began in 1907 and were boosted by the advent of a
railway in 1911; by 1913 they were worth £568,000. In Sierra
Leone, the export value of palm kernels increased threefold
between 1905 and 1913, when it reached £921,000, over two-
thirds of total exports. The expansion of cash-crop production,
if not of mining, enabled growth in African consumer demand.
Nigeria's imports of cotton goods doubled between 1905 and
1913,
while its imports of cigars and cigarettes increased
15-fold. Though the large European import-export firms were
the principal beneficiaries, the African bourgeoisie, the
entrepreneurial and professional classes, as well as the African
primary producer, gained from the better prices for exports and
the increased availability of goods.
The increased revenue from import duties and the bullish
atmosphere of the boom facilitated capital investment and the
expansion of technical departments for forestry, veterinary work
and mineral survey. As a result of the discovery in 1909 of coal
at Udi in eastern Nigeria, the only deposit in West Africa, the
government began construction of
a
railway line to terminate at
a new city, Port Harcourt. Improved transport and communica-
tions,
government propaganda and more coercive pressures such
as forced labour, combined with direct taxation in Northern
Nigeria, further fuelled the expansion of the export sector, albeit
often not as anticipated. In 1911 the main Nigerian railway from
Lagos reached Kano; both government officials and British
commercial interests, particularly the British Cotton Growing
Association, expected it to tap the vast indigenous cotton-
producing areas of central Hausaland. The quest for imperial
sources of raw cotton, as an alternative to dependence upon
American cotton supplies, was a major theme in British colonial
policy. As it turned out, Hausa farmers found that they could reap
a greater return in terms of land and labour inputs by cultivating
groundnuts, a more reliable crop and one that could be eaten in
the event of low producer prices or the failure of subsistence
crops.
As a result, Nigerian groundnut exports jumped from
under 2,000 tons before 1911 to nearly 20,000 tons in 1913.
Moreover, railway routes, dictated by strategic considerations
and existing or perceived British marketing opportunities, fav-
oured selected areas while relegating others to the economic
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Nguru
Potiskum
CAMEROUN
(Fr. mandate)
I I Land over 1000
metres
O 3O0km
0 ' 200miles
1O°£
12 Nigeria and Cameroons, 1935
(see also maps 9, 10)
periphery. Marginal areas with few resources capable of sustaining
the high capital investment of railway construction, such as the
Nigerian Middle Belt, Sokoto and Bornu, the Northern Territories
of the Gold Coast and the Koinadogu district of Sierra Leone,
came to be regarded as labour reserves to be drawn upon if and
when needed. In addition to periodic demands for short-term
unpaid 'political labour' to serve as porters for officials and on
projects such as the construction of 'roads', government rest-
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA, 1905-1914
houses and even railways, new migratory labour patterns were
established, occasionally by direct government recruitment for the
commercial sector. In the Northern Territories, chiefs were paid
a head-tax of
5 s
for every man sent to labour underground in the
gold mines of the colony, where the mine companies were in direct
competition with indigenous cocoa cultivators. When such
incentives failed
to
produce 'recruits', district commissioners
resorted to coercion. There was even discussion of implementing
a system based, as in South Africa, on pass-laws, a labour bureau
and
a
revised Master and Servant Ordinance to ensure greater
stability and control over mine labour. Such pressures from
mining interests were ultimately rejected by the Colonial Office
on the pragmatic ground that the burgeoning cocoa industry
might be disrupted. 'The total failure
of
the mining industry
would cause no more, at most, than a temporary set-back to the
revenue of the [Gold Coast] Government. '
5
More often commer-
cial interests and colonial authorities were in direct competition
for African labour. Differential economic opportunities
and
indirect pressures, such
as
taxation, were the primary factors
sustaining
the
level
of
labour supply once
the
pattern
was
established. In general, the areas most distant from the colonial
capitals were also those most neglected by them. They received
little of the limited funds which colonial governments provided
for health or education, and they held little status in the hierarchy
of government postings, though
the
historical and religious
claims of Sokoto and Bornu as centres of Islamic culture and polity
led
to
their rulers exercising
a
measure
of
political influence
disproportionate to these regions' economic significance.
The growth of the colonial economy was accompanied by the
subordination and decline of many indigenous industries: African
salt-producers, for instance, could seldom compete with inexpens-
ive imported salt.
6
Moreover, government policies tended
to
discriminate against African enterprise. While colonial rule facili-
tated Hausa commercial penetration into many hitherto hostile
5
Colonial Office Minute of 24 July 1911, quoted in Roger G. Thomas, 'Forced labour
in British West Africa: the case
of
the Northern Territories
of
the Gold Coast,
1906-1927'', Journal of African History, 1973, 14, 1, 88-9. The same debate took place
in Nigeria in 1911 and had a similar outcome: cf. Bill Freund, Capital and labour in the
Nigerian tin mines (London, 1981).
6
For the persistence of the salt industry at Ada, in the Gold Coast, see Inez B. Sutton,
'The Volta River salt trade', Journal of African History, 1981, 22, 4}-6i.
409
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA AND LIBERIA
areas,
Lugard imposed
a
system
of
canoe and caravan tolls
in
Northern Nigeria to reduce the number of people engaged in what
he regarded as 'unproductive' labour, hoping thereby
to
force
them into cash-crop production.
In
1906
he
removed caravan
duties on British cottons and other imports, though not on the
preferred, more durable, indigenous cloth, in order that British
goods might compete more effectively. In 1907 Lugard was posted
to Hong Kong, and his successor, Girouard, rescinded these
measures, but the cloth industry was then hit by the decline
in
cotton production in the main Kano-Zaria region following the
growth of groundnut cultivation. Decreased cotton supplies led
to
a
reduction
in
output and labour requirements, both
in
the
weaving industry and, to a lesser extent, in the dyeing industry,
which survived by utilising imported cloth. On the Jos plateau,
the government upheld European mining leases against the claims
of the indigenous mining and smelting industry. The role
of
Africans
in
mining was reduced
to
that
of
mine labour and
'tributor' sub-contracting: they were compelled
to
purchase
mining 'rights' from European companies
to
work traditional
sites and sell tin to the same companies below market prices. The
inhabitants of mining areas, such as the Birom, lost most of their
land, while timber and water resources were increasingly brought
under the control of expatriate mining interests. It should also be
noted that there were still socio-economies, such as those of the
Fulani pastoralists
and
Kofyar hill-farmers, which were
so
marginal to the colonial system as to be largely unaffected by it.
Those Africans who were able
to
exploit new opportunities
jealously guarded their rights.
As
well
as
recruiting labour,
colonial chiefs often utilised control over the distribution of land
and rights
to
communal labour, recognised under colonial
ordinances, for the cultivation of cash-crops for personal gain. In
the forest regions, traditional rulers leased timber rights
to
contractors who ' mined' the forests, indiscriminately felling trees
to extract selected hardwoods. The colonial governments, despite
conservationist inclinations, had difficulty regulating the timber
industry. The 1902 Southern Nigerian Forestry Ordinance had to
be drastically amended
in
the face of opposition not only from
influential European timber and shipping interests but also from
the traditional leaders and African entrepreneurs, both of whom
viewed government control
as an
infringement
of
indigenous
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BRITISH WEST AFRICA, I905-1914
rights and as an attack on African economic endeavour. Between
1907 and 1911, similar legislation in the Gold Coast encountered
stiff resistance from the Aborigines' Rights Protection Society,
which was drawn from both chiefs and the educated elite. The
ARPS convened protest meetings, petitioned
the
legislative
council, and sent a delegation to London, including J. E. Casely
Hay ford and E.
J.
P. Brown, barristers who had been active
in
earlier land disputes. As a result, the Colonial Office instituted an
enquiry into land rights and alienation in the Gold Coast in 1912.
Meanwhile the Northern Nigerian Land Ordinance
of
1910,
which was based on Henry George's theories of economic rent,
had aroused considerable interest in Britain, leading to the setting
up by the Colonial Office
of
a West African Lands Committee.
The committee members, predisposed
to a
protectionist policy
based
on the
concept
of
state control
in the
interest
of the
community, were encouraged by the findings
of
the Gold Coast
enquiry. They criticised the exploitation
of
natural resources by
a small elite for personal gain, and the high cost and delays caused
by land litigation, and recommended that control over land
be
removed from the judiciary and be vested in the administration.
This,
however, ignored the political realities of West Africa. News
of the committee had been greeted by
a
storm of protests. Africans
were suspicious
of
British motives and were well aware
of
the
often arbitrary nature of administrative decisions. At
a
meeting
in Lagos, one speaker pointed
to a
recent Sierra Leone land
concession
to
Lever Brothers as
a
portent of the future. Samuel
Pearse,
a
prominent Lagos merchant,
led a
Nigerian protest
delegation
to
London
in
1913.
7
Land 'ownership' was an issue
which united chiefs, the educated urban elite and the emergent
rural capitalist classes. The Colonial Office cautiously shelved the
Lands Committee's recommendations
and the
Gold Coast
legislation was quietly abandoned.
The growing complexity of
the
colonial economy was reflected
in the relations between elites; traditional, educated bourgeoisie
7
Not untypical
of
the multi-faceted British West African elite
of
the period, Pearse
was a leader of the Lagos Aborigines' Protection Society; at various times member of
the legislative council, the Lagos town council, licensing commission and assessment
board; trustee of Lagos town hall and of the Lagos racecourse board of management;
member
of the
diocesan board
and the
parochial board
of
Christ Church,
and
representative of the Anglican church synod. In 1915 he became a Fellow of the Royal
Geographical Society and of the Royal Colonial Institute, London. A. MacMillan, The
red book
ofWtst Africa (London, 1920), 97-8.
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