In March 1892, Captain Gallwey, the British vice-Consul of Oil Rivers Protectorate (later Niger Coast Protectorate), visited Benin City hoping to annex Benin kingdom and make it a British Protectorate. Although the king of Benin, Omo n’Oba Ovonramwen, was skeptical of the British motives he was willing to endorse what he believed was a friendship and trade agreement. The Benin king refrained from endorsing the Gallwey’s treaty when it became apparent that the document was a deceptive ploy intended to make Benin kingdom a British colony. Consequently the Benin king issued an edict barring all British officials and traders from entering Benin territories. Since Major (later Sir) Claude Maxwell Macdonald, the Consul General of the Oil River Protectorate authorities considered the ‘Treaty’ legal and binding, he deemed the Benin king’s reaction a violation of the accord and thus a hostile act. In 1894 after the invasion and destruction of Brohimie, the trading town of Nana, the leading Itsekiri trader in the Benin River District by a combined British Royal Navy and Niger Coast Protectorate forces, Benin kingdom increased her military presence on her southern borders. This vigilance, and the Colonial Office refusal to grant approval for an invasion of Benin City scuttled the expedition the Protectorate had planned for early 1895. Even so between September 1895 and mid 1896 three attempts were made by the Protectorate to enforce the Gallwey ‘Treaty’. Major P. Copland-Crawford, vice-Consul of the Benin district, made the first attempt, Mr. Locke, the vice-Consul assistant, made a second one and the third one was made by Captain Arthur Maling, the commandant of the Niger Coast Protectorate Force detachment based in Sapele. In March 1896 following price fixing and refusal by Itsekiri middle men to pay the required tributes the Benin king order a cessation of the supply of oil palm produce to them. The trade embargo brought trade in the Benin River region to a standstill, and the British traders and agents of the British trading firms quickly appealed to Protectorate’s Consul-General to ‘open up’ Benin territories, and send the Benin king (whom they claimed was an ‘obstruction’) into exile. In October 1896 Lieutenant James Robert Phillips (RN), the Acting Consul-General visited the Benin River District and had meetings with the agents and traders. In the end the agents and traders were able to convince him that ‘there is a future on the Benin River if Benin territories were opened’. In November Phillip made a formal request to his superiors in England for permission to invade Benin City, and in late December 1896 without waiting for a reply or approval from London Phillip embarked on a military expedition with a Niger Coast Protectorate Force consist of 250 African soldiers and five British officers, a trader and an interpreter. His mission was to depose the king of Benin City, replace him with a Native Council and pay for the invasion with the ‘ivory’ he hoped to find in the Benin king’s palace. Unfortunately for Philip some Itsekiri trading chiefs sent a message to the Benin king that ‘the white man is bringing war’. On receiving the news the Benin king quickly summoned the city’s high-ranking nobles for an emergency meeting, and during the discussions the Iyase, the commander in chief of the Benin Army, argued that the white men were on a hostile visit and hence they must be confronted and killed. The Benin king however argued that the white men should be allowed to enter the city so that it can be ascertained whether or not the visit was a friendly one. The Iyase ignored the king’s views, and ordered the formation of a strike force that was commanded by the Ologbose, a senior army commander, which was sent to Gwato and destroy the invaders.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 14:30:05 +0000
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