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Nigeria Commodity Trade
The development of "legitimate" trade was the final
phase of
private and official British efforts to find a positive
alternative to the traffic in slaves. Earlier aspects of
such
constructive interest had included the founding of the
colony at
Sierra Leone in 1787 as a refuge for liberated slaves, the
missionary movement designed to bring Christianity to the
region,
and programs of exploration sponsored by learned societies
and
scientific groups, such as the London-based African
Association.
The principal commodities of legitimate trade were palm
oil
and palm kernels, which were used in Europe to make soap
and as
lubricants for machinery before petroleum products were
developed
for that purpose. Although this trade grew to significant
proportions--palm oil exports alone were worth £1 million
a year
by 1840--it was concentrated near the coast, where palm
trees
grew in abundance. Gradually, however, the trade forced
major
economic and social changes in the interior, although it
hardly
undermined slavery and the slave trade. Quite the
contrary, the
incidence of slavery in local societies actually
increased.
Initially most palm oil (and later kernels) came from
Igboland, where palm trees formed a canopy over the
densely
inhabited areas of the Ngwa, Nri, Awka, and other Igbo
peoples.
Palm oil was used locally for cooking, the kernels were a
source
for food, trees were tapped for palm wine, and the fronds
were
used for building material. It was a relatively simple
adjustment
for many Igbo families to transport the oil to rivers and
streams
that led to the Niger Delta for sale to European
merchants. The
rapid expansion in exports, especially after 1830,
occurred
precisely at the time slave exports collapsed. Instead,
slaves
were redirected into the domestic economy, especially to
grow the
staple food crop, yams, in northern Igboland for marketing
throughout the palm-tree belt. As before, Aro merchants
dominated
trade, including the sale of slaves within Igboland as
well as
palm products to the coast. They maintained their central
role in
the confederation that governed the region.
The Niger Delta and Calabar, which once had been known
for
the export of slaves, now became famous for the export of
palm
oil, so much so that the delta streams were given the name
the
"oil rivers." The basic economic units in each town were
"houses," family-operated entities that were also the
focus of
loyalty for those employed in them. A "house" included the
extended family of the trader, both his retainers and
slaves. As
its head, the master trader taxed other traders who were
members
of his "house" and was obligated to maintain a war vessel,
which
was a large dugout canoe that could hold several tons of
cargo
and dozens of crew, for the defense of the harbor.
Whenever a
trader could afford to keep a war canoe, he was expected
to form
his own "house". Economic competition among these "houses"
was so
fierce that trade often erupted into armed battle between
the
large canoes.
Because of the hazards of climate and disease for
Europeans
and the absence of any authority responsive to their
interests on
the mainland, European merchants ordinarily moored their
ships
outside harbors or in the delta and used the ships as
trading
stations and warehouses. In time, however, they built
depots
onshore and eventually moved up the Niger River to
stations
established in the interior, like that at Onitsha, where
they
could bargain with local suppliers and purchase products
likely
to turn a profit. Some European traders switched to
legitimate
business only when the commerce in slaves became too
hazardous.
Disreputable as many of the traders had been, they often
suffered
from the precariousness of their position and were at the
mercy
of what they considered to be unpredictable coastal
rulers.
Accordingly, as the volume of trade increased, the British
government responded to repeated requests of merchants to
appoint
a consul to cover the region. Consequently in 1849, John
Beecroft
was accredited as consul for the bights of Benin and
Biafra, a
jurisdiction stretching from Dahomey to Cameroon. Beecroft
was
the British representative to Fernando Po, where the
British
navy's prevention squadron was stationed.
Exploration of the Niger Basin had a commercial as well
as
scientific motivation, but curiosity about the course and
destination of the river also played a part. The delta
masked the
mouth of the great river, and for centuries Nigerians
chose not
to tell Europeans the secrets of the interior, initially
probably
because no one thought to ask but by the nineteenth
century
because of the commercial implications. In 1794 the
African
Association commissioned Mungo Park, an intrepid Scottish
physician and naturalist, to search for the headwaters of
the
Niger and follow the river downstream. Park reached the
upper
Niger the next year by traveling inland from the Gambia
River.
Although he reported on the eastward flow of the Niger, he
was
forced to turn back when his equipment was lost to Muslim
slave
traders. In 1805 he set out on a second expedition,
sponsored by
the British government, to follow the Niger to the sea.
His
mission failed, but Park and his party covered more than
1,500
kilometers, passing through the western portions of the
Sokoto
Caliphate, before being drowned in rapids near Bussa.
On a subsequent expedition to the Sokoto Caliphate,
Hugh
Clapperton learned where the Niger River flowed to the
sea, but
Clapperton also died before he could substantiate his
information. It was his servant, Richard Lander, and
Lander's
brother, John, who actually demonstrated that the Niger
flowed
into the delta. The Lander brothers were seized by slave
traders
in the interior and sold down the river to a waiting
European
ship.
Initial attempts to open trade with the interior by way
of
the Niger could not overcome climate and disease, which
took the
lives of a third of a British riverine expedition in 1842.
Use of
quinine to combat malaria on similar expeditions in the
1850s
enabled a Liverpool merchant, Macgregor Laird, to open the
river.
Laird's efforts were stimulated by the detailed reports of
a
pioneer German explorer, Heinrich Barth, who traveled
through
much of Borno and the Sokoto Caliphate and recorded
information
about the region's geography, economy, and inhabitants.
Data as of June 1991
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