The first contact between Igboland and Europe came in the mid-fifteenth century with the arrival of the Portuguese. From 1434-1807 the Niger coast acted as a contact point between African and European traders, beginning with the Portuguese, then the Dutch and finally the English. At this stage there was an emphasis on trade rather than empire building, in this case the trade consisting primarily of Igbo slaves. With the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 came a new trading era, concentrating on industry (palm products, timber, elephant tusks and spices). At this point the British began to combine aggressive trading with aggressive imperialism. They saw the hinterland as productive, and refused to be confined to the coast. In 1900 the area that had been administered by the British Niger Company became the Protectorate on Southern Nigeria, also incorporating what had been called the Niger Coast Protectorate. Control of this area then passed from the British Foreign Office to the Colonial Office. Long before it had officially been conquered, Igboland was being treated as a British colony. Between 1900 and 1914 (when Northern and Southern Nigeria were amalgamated) there had been twenty-one British military expeditions into Igboland. In 1928 for the first time in their history, Igbo men were made to pay tax – they were a subject people.

The Niger Coast Protectorate was a British Protectorate in the Oil Rivers areas of modern day Nigeria. It originally established as the Oil Rivers Protectorate in 1884 and this was confirmed at the Berlin Conference in the following year. It was renamed the Niger Coast Protectorate on 12 May 1893 and merged with the chartered territories of the Royal Niger Company on 01 January 1900 to form the protectorates of Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria.
David Prothero, 08 Dec 2002

In 1857 British palm oil traders established a permanent station in the city, Christian missionaries joining them headed by the liberated African bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther (a Yoruba recaptive) and Reverend John Taylor (an Igbo Recaptive).[11] In 1900 Onitsha became part of a British protectorate.[12]{ The British colonial government and Christian missionaries penetrated most of Igboland to set up their administration, schools and churches through the river port at Onitsha.

24 Feb 1905. Ikot-ekpende. [Aro-Igbo] bride and her mother. [In Ibibio territory where the Aro (originally from Arochukwu from what is now Abia State Nigeria, but settled all over eastern Nigeria) were known as Inokun, now Akwa-Ibom State, Nigeria]
— Charles Partridge
Location: Ikot Ekpende | Date: 24 February, 1905

biafranqueen:

chaberry:
please keep up with this ur marvelous work, it's being appreciated and one day u will be celebrated

Obi Okosi I on his instalation, 1913. The Roman Catholic caused drastic discontinuities in Onitsha Kingship tradition, and produced deep schisms in Onitsha community. Obi Okosi refused to perform most of the required Installation rituals (especially “Going to Udo” and receiving the “King’s Ofo), and his very crown for his initial Emergence was provided by the RCM, who moved physically into his new palace grounds. The crown he wore here does hold traditional bird feathers, but also features a prominent fleur-des-lis; he does appear to be holding the traditional horsetail switch of mourning, Otinri. At that time, a very large number of Ndi-Onicha refused to give the new Obi his customary tribute, ridiculing him as “the Book (educational) King” (Eze Akukwo) and “Foreigners’ King” (Eze Oyibo).

Nnewi 1963: Announcing the death of Igwe Orizu II

Transcript of Nigerian Outlook Newspaper:
Born in 1901 the Obi of Nnewi went on to the ancestors in 1963

ENUGU, Thursday, May 23, 1963

Obi Of Nnewi Is Dead

The death has occured at his palace,of chief Josiah A.N. Orizu, Obi of Nnewi and member of the Eastern House of Chiefs. Born in 1901, the late Chief Orizu was educated at the C.M.S. CENTRAL SCHOOL Nnewi and the Hope Waddell Training institute, Calabar. He became Obi of Nnewi in 1924 following the death of his father.

He has also served as president of the Nnewi District (Agbaja) Customary court for a number of years and was until his death a traditional member of the Onitsha Southern County Council. He was the first president General of the East (continued from page 8 ) ern Chiefs conference which was founded in his palace at Nnewi in 1952. In 1960 he became a foundation member of the Eastern house of chiefs.

Ikemba Nnewi Emeka Ojukwu's Super Bentley car with Nigerian Registration ON 1175 (Onitsha) seen in the 1940s, Oxford, United Kingdom

Chief Dennis Osadebay, Premier of the Midwest Region, campaign entourage, Asaba Ferry, December 1964. Note all the Mercedes's cars behind him.

Igwe Silas Ezenwa, Obi of Awka Etiti, 1962

Nigeria: We Must Discard Quota and Federal Character

This is page 6 of the Report Lord Lugard presented to the British Parliament in 1919 after the Amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria. According to him in the last paragraph, Ndigbo had not developed beyond the stage of primitive savages. The North had a wonderful literate class and administration while the West have natives practicing as doctors and lawyers.

Fast-forward to 1960 – How did we fare? Then 2000, how far did we go? When will the North catch up with educational disadvantage so we discard quota system and federal character? When will that gap close so that our kids from Anambra will be required to score same with kids from Adamawa for admission to federal schools.

“The south was, for the most part, held in thrall by fetish worship and the hideous ordeals of witchcraft, human sacrifice, and twin murder. The great Ibo race to the east of the Niger, numbering some three millions, and their cognate tribes had not developed beyond the stage of primitive savagery. In the west, the Kingdom of Benin - like its counterpart in Dahomey - had up to 1897 groaned under a despotism which revelled in holocausts of human victims for its fetish rites. Further west the Yorubas, Egbas, and Jebus had evolved a fairly advanced system of government under recognized rulers. The coast fringe was peopled by Negro traders and middlemen, who had acquired a smattering of education in mission schools, and who jealously guarded the approaches to the interior from the European merchant. In the principal towns (Lagos, Calabar, etc.) there were some few educated Native gentlemen who practised as doctors, barristers, etc.”

Officers of Aro Expedition, Southern Nigeria, West Africa, 1901-02. A group taken at Old Calabar before leaving for the front.

johnydon22:

Wow nice one, found it really educating and beautifully entertaining....
.I always have a sudden rush of deep adoration for my people when ever i am taken down historical line with works like this.

Thanks BiafranQueen, i am hoping you will be joining my team of volunteers who are to research deeply and together work out a well approved book on the actual

History
Culture
Tradition
Evolution

of the Igbo land and people. . . . Would you care to join us?

biafranqueen:
Yes I would can you PM me thanks

Radoillo:
Nice, Biafraqueen.

It was probably a mistake, but two of the pictures above are from Benin - the one after the roped bronze pot, and the one depicting a bunch of white men amidst elephant tusks and statuettes.

It is possible that the inhabitants of Igbo-Ukwu had a metalworking art that flourished as early as the ninth century (though this date remains controversial). Three sites have been excavated, revealing hundreds of ritual vessels and regalia castings of bronze or leaded bronze that are among the most inventive and technically accomplished bronzes ever made. The people of Igbo-Ukwu, ancestors of present-day Igbo, were the earliest smithers of copper and its alloys in West Africa, working the metal through hammering, bending, twisting, and incising. They are likely among the earliest groups of West Africans to employ the lost-wax casting techniques in the production of bronze sculptures. Oddly, evidence suggests that their metalworking repertory was limited and Igbo smiths were not familiar with techniques such as raising, soldering, riveting, and wire making, though these techniques were used elsewhere on the continent.

Ọdu-okike or okike (plates1-4), as it is usually called, is a long hollowed elephant tusk carried by the ọzọ titled men in Igbo communities mostly within the areas of Agu-Ukwu, Nawfia, Umoji, Abagana, Onitsha, Nkwelle-Ezunaka and so on. It is usually recognized as the highest symbol of social status. According to Onwuejeogwu (1981:84) “Ndi Nze members are given special seats during the ceremony of Igu-Arọ in Eze Nri’s palace. Some have their elephant tusk with them”.

In the work of Ekwensi (1963) on the Ezunaka and Iyi-Oji annual celebration, which comes up in November every year, he described the function of Okike thus

The ọkpalas from all quarters of Nkwelle-Ezunaka sit next to the Priest. The Ogbuefi, the Ndiọzọ, and all the rest of the titled men of Nkwelle-Ezunaka mark the occasion by blowing elephant tusk, trumpets. . . . dances are exhibited” (Cyprian Ekwensi 1963:183)

Again in Onitsha, according to Nzekwu (1983:169) an ọzọ title leads into the next rung of importance on the Igbo social ladder—chieftancy. In his words on women of status

The women social status is immensely raised by acquisition of ivory ornaments – anklets and bangles. This puts her on the same pedestal as ọzọ title holder even though it is much less expensive to acquire. Her official dress comprises her anklets and bangles, two white loin cloths tied over the other, a white head tie, an elephant-tusk trumpet, priceless coral-bead necklaces and a horse-tail. The bangles, anklets and tusk apart from being ornamental, serve as a distinguishing mark of the achievement of their possessor (Onura Nzekwu 1983:174).

When the Whiteman (Major Moorhouse) and his army marched into Nnewi in 1904, the young Igwe, whose father had just died, was spirited away for fear that the Whiteman would kill him. His uncle Nwosu Odumegwu, who was the richest man in Nnewi then, received the visitors. They thought he was the Igwe but he told them no that the Igwe was in mourning and should not see visitors while mourning the late Igwe. Given that Ezeodumegwu was wealthy and influential, the Whiteman sought to make him the Warrant Chief of Nnewi, but he vehemently refused. The Whiteman was said to have expressed his surprise that an African would refuse to be made the Warrant Chief of his people by the Whiteman. When Ezeodumegwu and other elders got a firm assurance that the young king would not be harmed, they arranged for a public meeting between the Igwe and the Whiteman at the Nkwo Nnewi Square. On the appointed day, Igwe accompanied by the other three Obi of the three quarters came out to meet with the Whiteman in the presence of the Nnewi People. Igwe was a young man of 23 years then.

That was why I said in my earlier post that, if you give an Nnewi man a trillion dollars to assume the Igwe throne, he would curse you and run away. If the Igwe or Obi throne of Nnewi was created by the Whiteman, it would be open for contest by the rich and influential, and Nnewi has the greatest cluster of rich men in Eastern Nigeria. Even though Dr Nwafor Orizu was the Senate President in the early 1960s when Orizu II died, he did not even dream of going near the throne as is done in other communities because he knew that he was not the heir.