Visit https://ebookfinal.

com to download the full version and

explore more ebooks

The Aftermath of Slavery Transitions and

Transformations in Southeastern Nigeria 1st
Edition Chima J. Korieh

_____ Click the link below to download _____

https://ebookfinal.com/download/the-aftermath-of-
slavery-transitions-and-transformations-in-
southeastern-nigeria-1st-edition-chima-j-korieh/

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookfinal.com

Here are some suggested products you might be interested in.
Click the link to download

Socioemotional Development in the Toddler Years

Transitions and Transformations 1st Edition Celia A.
Brownell Phd
https://ebookfinal.com/download/socioemotional-development-in-the-
toddler-years-transitions-and-transformations-1st-edition-celia-a-
brownell-phd/

German Literature in a New Century Trends Traditions

Transitions Transformations 1st Edition Katharina
Gerstenberger
https://ebookfinal.com/download/german-literature-in-a-new-century-
trends-traditions-transitions-transformations-1st-edition-katharina-
gerstenberger/

Transformations in Self Psychology 1st Edition William J.

Coburn

https://ebookfinal.com/download/transformations-in-self-
psychology-1st-edition-william-j-coburn/

Luz Arce and Pinochet s Chile Testimony in the Aftermath

of State Violence 1st Edition Michael J. Lazzara (Eds.)

https://ebookfinal.com/download/luz-arce-and-pinochet-s-chile-
testimony-in-the-aftermath-of-state-violence-1st-edition-michael-j-
lazzara-eds/
Mushrooms of the Southeastern United States Alan E.
Bessette

https://ebookfinal.com/download/mushrooms-of-the-southeastern-united-
states-alan-e-bessette/

The Aftermath of Feminism Angela Mcrobbie

https://ebookfinal.com/download/the-aftermath-of-feminism-angela-
mcrobbie/

Righteous Violence Revolution Slavery and the American

Renaissance 1st Edition Larry J. Reynolds

https://ebookfinal.com/download/righteous-violence-revolution-slavery-
and-the-american-renaissance-1st-edition-larry-j-reynolds/

The Story of Aftermath Entertainment 1st Edition Robert

Grayson

https://ebookfinal.com/download/the-story-of-aftermath-
entertainment-1st-edition-robert-grayson/

Slavery in the Development of the Americas David Eltis

https://ebookfinal.com/download/slavery-in-the-development-of-the-
americas-david-eltis/
The Aftermath of Slavery Transitions and
Transformations in Southeastern Nigeria 1st Edition
Chima J. Korieh Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Chima J. Korieh, Femi J. Kolapo
ISBN(s): 9781592215157, 1592215157
Edition: 1st
File Details: PDF, 17.76 MB
Year: 2007
Language: english
--
ro ""''""'
hl!'"lPfl Nl~-
0
Afriu World Press, Inc.
1.,, "'"•"
"-"m.a.o. t-RtTRt"-

Copyright:~-., 2007 Chima 1\.orieh and Fcmi J. Kolapo

First Printing 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced. ston.-d in a

retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic,
mechanical. photocopying. n.'Cording or otherwise without the prior wrillen
permission of the publisher.

This book was set in Garamond by Goldline Publishing Services, Owcrri,

Nigeria
Cover Design: Sam Saverance
Cover photograph: "Removing Palm Nuts from Clusters" by Jeanne Tabachnick

Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication Data

The aftermath of slavery : transitions and transformations in southeastern

Nigeria I edited by Chima J. Korieh And Femi J. Kolapo.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-59221-514-9 (hardcover) --ISBN 1-59221-515-7 (pbk.)
1. Slavery--Nigeria--History. 2. Slave trade--Nigeria--History. I. Korich, Chima
J. (Chima Jacob), 1962- II. Kolapo, Fcmi James.

HT1394.N6A48 2006
306.3 '6209669--<lc22
2006032265

\ l_Lniv. F~aywuth I
LU11iv. 81b\iothekj
 Contents

Ackn<lwlcdgerncnts II

lntroducti<>n
I •emi.J. Kolapo and Chima .f. Korieh

1. New Calabar Middlemen, Her Majesty's Consuls, and

British Traders in late Nineteenth Century
Niger Delta
Waibinte Wan'boko 11

2. Gender and the Political Economy of the Post-Abolition

Era: The Bight of Biafra (Nigeria) and its Hinterland
Chima]. Kon'eh 41

3. The Aftermath of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Two

Settlement Patterns in Southeastern Nigeria
U. D. Atryanwu 59

4. The Canoe in Nineteenth Century Lower Niger

and the Delta
Femi]. Kolapo 75

5. lgbo Slaves and the Transformation of the Niger-Delta

Raphael Ch!Jioke Njoku 115

6. Oral Tradition and the Material Culture of the Atlantic

Slave Trade as Historical Evidence: The Aro and the
Bight of Biafra Hinterland
]. Akuma-Kalu Njoku 136
-/, •biafran' Historidty: 1ft-. ( )krika, and :\n.·hit«·tural
Representation
JJuwr J1a11~· Ok~ 158

8. The Vocllbulary of Ni~r Dclr-A Hi~tnrio~Aphy

] 11~1 1-: A. l :~· 197

9. Theses. Antithesis, and S~'Tltht>~i~: Ni~r Ddt'.l

Historio~-rraphy in Time Pe~pC'l·rive

N~-c '~""'· 209

t 0. ;'\ro and Nri: Tht' l.e-ssons of NinC"tt·enth Century

l~o History
.\li~/_1. c: Jf.&hmto 228

Sd~ted Bihlio~>t"aphy 248

Notes on Contributors 256

Index 259
 Acknowledgements

Most of the chapters in the book arc updated versions of papers

prcscntlxl at the J>osi-Aholition Commrm conference, hdd at lmo State
University, Owcrri, Nigeria on 11 and 12June 2004. The project has
accumulated many debts too numerous to mention individually
here. As editors, we would like to express our thanks to those whose
essays make up this volume. The support of some individuals and
organizations has been crucial to the production of this book. They
deserve our th;mks and we duly give it. We thank students of the
History Department of lmo State University, ()werri, Nigeria, espe-
cially, Anthony Ohams, Rachel Omenoba, among others, who as-
sisted the local o'b>anizing committee with administrative and
secretarial duties during the conference. We also wish to acknowl-
edge the support of Students Against Poverty (SAP) including,
among them, University of Guelph's International Development
Studies students led by Manon Germain, who though on a separate
summer mission to assist in community development in Nigeria,
found time to give an interesting presentation of their activities
among the Osoro commtmity of Ondo State of Nigeria at the con-
ference.
Lastly, but most importantly, the conference could not have
been successful \vithout substantial funding support. We therefore
pay our debt of thanks to the following organizations whose funding
made possible the conference: the Department of History, Central
l\lichigan University, Office of Institutional Diversity and Interna-
tional Education, Central Michigan University, History Department,
University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada; and University of Guelph
Centre for International Development Studies. \'\'e are particularly
grateful to the Social Sciences and Hun1anities Research Council of
Canada (SSHRC), which offered a grant to Femi Kolapo for his re-
search on "Patterns of \'\'est Africa's Integration into a 'New Inter-
national Economic Order': The Lower Niger River Basin
E'\.perience, 1807-1884." This grant made the conference possible.
 Introduction

FEMIJ. KOl..APOANDCHIMAJ. KORJEH

Considerable amount of research has been conducted into the im-

pact of the Atlantic slave trade as much as into the effects of its abo-
lition for African societies. The interest in this central theme gener-
ally increased after the publication of Anthony Hopkins' article
entitled "Economic Imperialism in West Africa," and his influential
book, An Economic History of West Africa. 1 For Hopkins, the commer-
cial transition ushered in a period of "crisis" for some West African
societies that had been involved in the slave trade as they grappled
with the economic changes brought by the abolition of that trade
and the new demand for agricultural commodity. Hopkins linked
the crisis resulting from the end of the slave trade and the adverse
economic and political climate it created to the imposition of colo-
nial rule in West Africa. 2 While the direct relationship between the
abolition of the slave trade and imposition of colonialism may not
have been as critical as Hopkins stipulated, his powerful and evoca-
tive thesis, which locates market and external trade as the engine of
growth and a major catalyst for change in West Africa tended to ig-
nore internal dynamics that also shaped economic and political out-
comes.
A conference organized at Imo State University, Nigeria in June
2004 provided an opportunity to take a fresh look at the history of
the Lower Niger Basin (Nigeria) in the context of the post abolition
period. This volume is largely the outcome of that conference. West
African societies, as elsewhere in Africa, responded to the changing
economic milieu of the nineteenth century. As this book makes
clear, the changing economic landscape was followed by extraordi-
nary political and social changes. In the economic sphere in particu-
lar, African producer adopted new production relations in response
to increased demands for labor required for the production of agri-
cultural goods. Some advances were made in production techniques
and technology, especially for the export production of palm pro-
duce. Transportation and haulage responded to increased quantities
 anc.l built (~in' rdariuns ufrn-tut·rion saw important mnsti.lnna-
ri.'!N primaril\· in ~n~ tu labor ilnc.f t·ontn~ uf llt"\'t"S:oJ. to pnltiuc-
. I
tnT ~ 'IUI\"'C'S.

lndc-ni. the- . .nuu~ of the tnln:o~ition fn11n ltlll\'t"l"\' to !~rima~

triklt" in the- 'l'C"St Ah-k:an ~on, llrl\l of the Ni~"t"r llt-1111 in piirtku-
lar. is~ the- rn.1."t tnlp~S.'l.i\'e ~,f llllY ~on in t\tiin1. Yet Ot'W
~ of llf),"UUll(1lt an..i art"llS ~ ,f ~sl"lln:h t·ontinuc to cnsu~ tht' \'itai-
m· and rdr-\'lUll't" of the thmlt' and thc justitkation for schollll"$ tn
~lsit il. • l'ht- t'lU'fy llfl(f ch"t" l'!lfl~"t"nl)' of thc t.'o~tst\llmiddk men
and rhc- imrnntillte hmterlantl societies with Eumpean trndcrs, trav-
drn;.. u~t'n'CTS.. lllltl otndals durifv.! the shm: tnufe era and in the af-
rmnath uf sla'Tt:\' in the nint"tcTnth ct"ntury h01.s pn xluccd 11 happy
situation of rdari\T~· amplt' avllilabili~· of wri!tt"n ~mrd. As such. a
~ h*. ar matters is not only ~1ssiblt' but \vdwmc. \Xll11tt new
in~t can we dntw frum this n:Won in the broader debate on the
impact of the abolition of the slave trade? This introduction will
¥J.ight the irn~lrtant themes anlund which this b(xlk is organized.

Crisis of Adaptation

The first theme is framed amund the now popular l)Ucstion of

whether there was a "crisis of adaptation" attendant on the introduc-
tion of produce commerce after the abolition of the Atlantic slave
trade. Researches on the crisis of adaptation has focused mainly on
issues of structures, processes, and exercise of political power and
has sought to clarify several related themes: Did the locus of political
and economic power change at the locallevd, between the ~:renders,
between the subordinate classes and the elite, and between African
societies and European ones? If they did, by what means and to
what extent did this change occur? Did the structures of political de-
cision-making or, at leaJ!t, the structures that defined the political sys-
tem become more accountable and or accessible to more than the
traditional elite~ Did all thc:11e changes result in political leverage to
wtnnen, children, clicnt11, •lave11, and ex-slaves?
The i1111ue of f'olitical power structures and pmcesses are inter-
lac.td with Wlfllnnk uru:11. A basic premise in the literature is that
~ tu the ltructure!l of production and comrnerce--
tlf'~:t.a.Wm, tr:&nat'onation, labor unit, and marketinh"--Wen: con-
~ to the pro~Mses that gmdually saw an end to the overseas
 J

~lllVC' C'llf1C1M
Mild ll~ tillip to intt'nUd produrtinn of expoM produrc- in
thC' nint"tC'C'nth l·rntury. Tht" natun.- of the- intt'nwtion of thc:oRc:o latter
pn ll'CSSC'S with thosC" of tht" politiral i'lt."ctor ha~ come to mark the
moM visibiC" lint"~ of both the e-arlier n.'~C'arch and tht." rcvi!lioni11m
that t( ,tlowc-d. 'l11is i~ e-spe-cially i'lo in n.-g.tn\!1 to the extt'nt the wider
SC'ctor of thC' sodC'ty or servile catq~orie!l !luc-h a!l Mlave!l, t"ffecrivdy
partidpatt"ll in or hc-ndiml from innea.'IC'llarc-e!l!l to the nt"W world
upitalist market. The extent to which indusivenC'!I!I wa!l achieved or
exdusivC'f\C'ss mR.intained within a nam1w ~roup of dite have been
descriht"ll respectively in tenns of "revolution" or "chan~" in con-
tnlst to "continuity" or "status quo" in the literature.
WhiiC' clear-cut cases of the two extremes obtain, detR.ilcd re-
search on discrete scwnents of affected societies and the varied in-
terest ~roups that were impacted by the tramition calls 11uch stark
binary contrast into l)Ucstion. ~ Obviously, the new fonns of political
and economic negotiations, contests, and the chan~s that occurred
affected the nature of the relationship between the Niger Ddta rul-
ership, peoples, and merchants on the one hand, and their European
counterpart on the other. This was the context in which twentieth-
century imperialism and colonization, a global movement, played
out locally.
The character of imperialism as it played out between and
among Europeans and Africans remains a dominant theme in post-
abolition discourses. The complexities that marked the relationship
between British economic and political interests on the one hand
and their African counterparts on the other during the period of
produce trade and the beginnings of colonial incursion in the Niger
Ddta is illuminated by W. Wariboko. He explicates the often con-
flicting, contradictory themes and trends and the clashes of interest
and ideology within the imperializing European trading and political
interest group on the coast of Africa. While conceding the link that
the post abolition literature places between the post abolition com-
merce and nineteenth century imperialism, Wariboko unscrambles
the hidden layers to the simplistic dichotomy between imperializing
European economic and political interests versus African victims. In
the Niger Delta, middlemen states also struggled against one another
and against foreign trading contenders to maintain a dominant or a
viable place in the post abolition commerce.
 ( )n the other ~kk: of the dl\iJe, f·:uropcan comular offtcials,
nlC.Tl·hanr mtcn:'l~. and rharterl"{l companic<r-all with different
r ..nrtnj,>cnt kk.'f >lo- ,._..;c~. mtere~r~. and goal~ompcr<:d again~t one
;mother unol Hnn .. h colonia.Ji.,m wa~ finally accomplished. 'lncy
,fuftcd aJitanc~ "1th various African trading and political interests to
further thctr o;cp'Arate and individual interests in Africa and to ensure
tavonhk heari~ in the Foreign Office in I J>ndon to the hurt of
their Luropcan rivals. Such problematics highlight the ambivalent
nature 1,f early Briti'lh imperial policy and the swings in the balance
of compctmg African interests aO<I Africa-based l·:uropean interests
v.nhin rhc exigencies of Company Rule. Consuls Hewert and .Johns-
ron, for example, were fervently opposed to the Royal Niger Com-
pany and cknounct"(l the usc of chartered companies to effect Btit-
j,h cokJOiaJ interests. 'Jncy put their support behind the Niger Delta
mickllc nx:n of Kalabar. Ultimately though, all of the Niger Delta
came ufklcr cokmial domination, however, the pacification of the
1\iigcr Delta was much more complex than hitherto conceived.
Warihoko'~ examination of New Calahar's divergent and varied his-
torical taJ1i.,rcnt relative to other Niger Delta societies of the late nine-
tt-cnth century helps bring this home clearly.
Yct the pcrit Kl witnessed a fervent contestation for political and
economic control hctween Africans and Europeans. A significant
impact of the emerging relationship was the continuous loss of Afri-
can control of the palm oil trade on the coast and other trading
posts ak>ng the Niger Delta to European merchant and politicalln-
ftTests. The gradual establishment of British control and the increas-
ingly intrusive and domineering nature of European trading interests
in the rqQon resulted in major political and economic changes. Ex-
amples of the deteriorating economic fortunes and reversing military
and political position in favor of Europeans Anglo-African trade re-
lations in the Niger Delta include the Consul .Johnson-Jaja sa1-,ra of
1RH7 that ended with the "kidnapping" and deportation of .Jaja to
the Caribbean Island of St. Vincent and the Nemhe-Brass-Royal Ni-
ger Company trade dispute that culminated in the Akassa War of
1WJ5.
'The Niger Delta was an important producer of palm oil from
the ninetemth c~ntury. British import from the region increased
from the 1H50s, with a sij.,rnificant percentage coming from the Niger
Dclta. 1' 'Ilu: spin-off effect of the palm oil trade in the Niger Delta
 I ntmduction 5

wa<. significant and could be conceive to have fueled development in

r Jthcr scctr 'rs r ,f
the <;ocicty.
Changes in transpona.tion and transportation technology were
significant in enabling African traders to adapt to the new trade in
palm produce. While slaves were self-transporting until they reached
the coast, palm oil was not. P. Kolapo shows the centrality of canoe
and river transrxm in facilitating trade in the post abolition period.
'The absence of modem transportation, he argues was the main
force that drove the canoe as a means used to anchor the boom in
Niger Delta's oil palm produce. Significant amount of investment in
canoe and labor were reguired to haul palm oil and kernel from the
interior to the coast. The success of the both African and European
traders in expanding trade from the mid-nineteenth century was
made possible in large by the ability of African entrepreneurs to
adapt the canoe and maximize its use in the hauling of oil along the
creeks and waterways.
Yet the critical element in the canoe transport and its ability to
sustain oil export production boom of the legitimate commerce era
remained coerced labor rather than technical innovation. Also, the
very nature of the slave trade and its attendant structural constraints,
which outlasted the trade into the legitimate commerce era, as well
as the expanding imperialism of the late nineteenth century, all seem
to have foreclosed the possibilities that the African slave and oil
palm traders and the rulership, to whose benefit these trading/war
canoes were put would improve on the structure, design, motor, and
size of the canoe. Still, control over or access to fleets of trading/war
canoes became a major determinant and measure of wealth for the
ruling elite and their control over both women and the lower classes
in the lower Niger societies. Access to and control over large
trade/war canoes was important in the construction and mainte-
nance of the power structure both vertically and horizontally. While
many women served in these large canoes and used small commuter
canoes for small economic transactions, the large canoes seem to
have been out of their reach. Women continued to serve as depend-
ent clients rather than direct beneficiaries of the economic benefit
that accrued from bulking and marketing, as well as the political
power that derived from the military use of these canoes. Kolapo
argues that canoe technology was not transformed by the well-
known impetus of increased export production and the new wealth
 Tior·. lt!rnwatl> o/.1'/.nnr

t!ur ;ll"l.'<'tll{'.micd it in the nineteenth century because of a number

,,( ,-ririe.<! t:Kror.;, including the environment and demography.
111\.'~t· t.lcwr.; d:UllfX'ncd the possibilities of technology transforma-
ri- '!1 in tht· ClnlX' StYtor lTCn though t:n·orable conditions were pre-
St'nt.

Sodal and Cultural Transformation

.-\ much ne0ected theme in the post abolition literature is the in-
rerrd.ued ropics of social and cultural transformation. The economic
and p..1litical changes attendant on the abolition of the slave trade
imp.tcred these issues and increased regional interaction. The treat-
ment of these marginalized topics in this volwne, though not ex-
h.mstin~. sen·es as a call for more effort to be directed at them. C.
.Korieh rerisirs the effects of the booming new oil trade following
the end of "\tlantic slave trade on gender relations. He sees the post
abolition gender restructuring as one in which, though gender ideol-
OR'' gm·emed control and access to factors of production, it did not
stricti~· delineate economic roles by sex. The close interdependence
of female and male labor in the region challenge any notion of a
clear-cut gender division of labor and a correspondent switch in
women's fortune that is considered to have followed oil palm pro-
duction in the Biafra area. Rather, he suggests that gender ideology
and the cultural construction that framed it were flux and constantly
negotiated and reconfigured. The huge variation to the structure of
gender relations and the innovative use of cultural ethos ·by both
genders to further their interests, though within some set limits that
might be more advantageous to men, challenges any notion of fixed
boundaries.
The multiple dimensions of the influence of enslaved groups,
especially the Igbo, on the coastal societies of the Niger Delta have
not received adequate attention. Like their New World counterparts,
the enslaved did not come into their new communities as tabular
rasa. Although the role of slaves in shaping the history and culture of
the societies that held them in bondage has been an issue of histori-
cal debate, their imprint remain evident For the Americas, there has
~~~been a question in the literature as to whether slavery robbed its
vtcums _of their.culture and the ability to transfer and transplant this
culture mto thetr new Related to this question is whether the agency
 1nlroduction 7

of the slaves is being denied by claims that slave cultures were not
transplants but dynamics of remix, re-creation, and reinvention.
Such re-creations and reinventions, it has been suggested, combined
original African imports, generic African cultural imprints which
were African, but were not innovative borrowings or amalgamation
of themes from any one specific place(s), as well as materials from
the world of their owners. 7
Cultural exchanges and patterns of power relationship provided
the context for understanding the multicultural society and trans-
local identities attendant on population movements due to slavety,
slave trade, and post abolition commerce. For example, the over-
whelming number of lgbo slaves in the Delta communities made
Igbo influence inevitable and permanent. The impact of lgbo slaves
retained in the Niger Delta was not limited to economic and political
roles in the success of the commerce that came to define Delta's oil
export boom. They also spread their language among their host
communities. In reverse, Niger Delta slave traders also took along
with them, aspects of Ijo and lbibio coastal cultures into the hinter-
land lgbo societies. R. Njoku provides an interesting variation on the
theme of the dynamics of creolization, or slave cultural retention
and community /identity formation. Njoku locates the victims rather
on the African side of the Atlantic, within the Niger Delta slave
owning and exporting societies, where a preponderance of Igbo
slaves came to dominate the Ijo, lbibio, and Calabari Trading (Ca-
noe) Houses that served to support commerce in the nineteenth
century. He defines a clear agency role for the Igbo slaves, not only
in the economic vibrancy of the ljo society, a role for which some of
them were rewarded by their ability to climb the social ladder, but
also in the cultural restructuring of their host community.
The enslaving communities had come to adopt the lgbo lan-
guage of their slaves and the Igbo naming pattern became popular,
especially as many native children were offspring of Igbo slave
women. Still, the slave dealers, in the constant peregrinations be-
tween their coastal societies and upland Igbo communities, were
also influential agents that carried coastal cultures up north into the
lgbo society. Some might question Njoku's loyalty to the position of
Dike respecting the nature of Igbo slaves' social ascendancy in the
Niger Delta. However, piquant are the evidence and intriguing the
analysis he deployed to demonstrate the ascendancy of Igbo culture
 in the ~i~>t't Delt.1-an ascendancy deriving trum the preponder-
.mct: of rhc l~x) ~hwc~ there. Equally interesting is Njoku's sugges-
tive ex;mlinarion of the issue of diasporic inculturation process
.unong these lgbo s)a,-e deportees--deportees who, though they
renu.itK>t.i w.itllin :\fuca, nonetheless were away from their natal
homes. He demonstrates that these deportees retained a connection
to d1e home d1e~· lett behind b~· effectively transplanting and spread-
ing a~pects of their natal culture into their host society.
The lgbo language was ob,iously facilitative of effective slave
integration into the socio-economic structures that produced wealth
and power. After the abolition, however, the presence of freed
sla,·es and me language of their service, Njoku argues, were repre-
sented by me local elite as "an Igbo peril," in an attempt to "safe-
guard meir strategic interests and positions." The contestation in-
Yoh·ed in me negotiations surrounding status changes are reflected,
it seems, in the ljo stereotypical references to purported Igbo prom-
iscuity against which the erstwhile Ijo slave owners had to guard
their society. There was obviously attempts to define boundaries be-
tween ex-slaves and ex-masters in the area of marriage, access to
land and labor, etc., in which the newly freed slaves asserted their
rights but in which the erstwhile slave masters and mistresses sought
to exclude them.
Despite the insider and outsider continuum, lasting legacies and
cooperation occurred in unusual forms. I. Okoye traces the social,
cultural, economic, and artistic result of connections struck in the
economic and political processes of the nineteenth century trading
boom in palm oil produce in the interior of the Bight of Biafra. Al-
though the economic motor seems to be the major driving force of
society during this period, social and cultural outcomes followed in
the heels of trade and commerce. In the biography of a certain Chief
Adinembo, Ijo son of an Igbo mother, and the history of a unique
architectural piece that Adinembo patronized, Okoye illuminates
patterns of commercial and cultural exchanges between the trading
polities of lfe waterside near Ezinihitte in the Bight of Biafra hinter-
land and the coastal town of Okr.ika in the Izhon or ljo-speaking
worlds. Okoye uses an architectural piece and its owner and patron
whose antecedents lay in the era of post abolition commerce, to ex-
amine the place of material culture and its capacity as a historical
tool to capture processes of social, cultural, and economic exchanges
 Introduction 9

that brought it into being. Embedded in this single house and its ar-
chitecture is a high level of economic and cultural exchange that de-
veloped in the course of the commerce.
It is noteworthy that Chief Adinembo belonged to a successful
Ijo trading House in late nineteenth century. His father who had
been a successful palm oil trader, no doubt, benefited from post
abolition slave labor and his antecedent falls within the auspicious
period in the history of the lower Niger and Niger Delta basins fol-
lowing abolition, when new wealth was being made. Against the
background of intensifying commerce and trans-communal contact
fostered by the Atlantic trade, Okoye highlights exchange and inter-
action of people from different parts of the Bight of Biafra. Profit
from the palm oil trade led to the emergence of a new economic
class--as rich or richer, in some cases, than the commercial elite of
the Atlantic slave trade era-but willing to invest in high culture
such as the elaborate building discussed in this chapter.
A significant methodological position to the chapter is the con-
sideration of the Bight of Biafra and its hinterland as a historical and
cultural entity dating back to the pre-European era. Contemporary
parochial ethnic identification, Okoye argues, arose only in recent
times in response to contemporaneous political developments. Yet,
the impact of the interaction between the Niger Delta and its hinter-
land went far beyond the economic outcomes of the era. ''Biafra,"
Okoye argues "speaks of the possibility of culture in whose sphere
objects, visualizations, and aesthetics retake priority over language"
and in which ethnic boundaries were crossed and re-crossed and
material and cultural inputs flowed along those fluid boundaries.
A feature of the debate on the impact of the abolition of the
slave trade is the overwhelming emphasis on its economic and po-
litical aftermath. Yet, the imprints of the slave trade are no less clear
in the memory, social, and cultural spheres. Uke the African dias-
pora, the experience of the Atlantic slave trade is deeply seated in the
memories of both the victims and the beneficiaries of the trade.
This is evident in the new settlements patterns and population
movements that arose from the slave trade in the region. Yet the
long term social and spatial power structures deriving from slave set-
tlement patterns have carried over into the post-emancipation pe-
riod. U. D. Anyanwu's chapter explores the effectiveness or other-
wise of slave integration into slave owners' communities among the
 10

l~ho. An~-anwu identific~ the po~t emancipation settlement patterns

in contemporary l~!bolanJ to oc a consequence of the methods
rhrnu¢1 \\-hich l~bo sla\'C holders integrate ~laves into their com-
muniw. lr i~ a measure of :\nyan\\u's attachment to Igor Kopitoff
and Susan .\licr·~ absorptionist paradigm of African sla\'ery and the
~be p<Htem of lgbo slan~ry and culture. He asserts that lgOO
slan·ry is different from W'estem sla,·ery, arguing that "slavery in-
digenou~ to the Igbo does not conform to the elements stressed in
the \'\·e~tem concept and practice of sJa,·ery·." The author describes
the settlemem patterns as a dear dichotomy of experience between
ex-slan~s and ex-sla,·e traders whose communities were clearly seg-
f'C6>-ated tTom those of the community to which they were either
marginal (for the sJa,·es) or sojourning traders (for the slave traders),
and those societies \\·here integration was effected smoothly that
ne'.liy recruited slaves did not have a distinct identity from their host
soaet\',
I~ the segregated settlement pattern, which occurred in Igbo-
land, Bonm·, Kalahari, Okrika, and Brass, etc., the relationship be-
tween ex-siaves and the surroundjng host communities has been
marked by "awe and mistrust" borne out of a perceived "stigma"
deriving from their previous status as enslaved peoples. The covert
settlement patterns in which ex-slaves seem to have been quietly in-
tegrated remain the most widespread and the most conflictual. Even
\\ithin the obvert settlement configuration that he identifies, con-
flicts, discriminations, and disabilities deriving from the stigma at-
tached to slave background have surfaced in the present. By linking
some perceived social malaise of the twenty-first century to the late
eighteenth and nineteenth century slave trade and post abolition de-
rived settlement patterns, Anyanwu explores an important issue :e-
lated to this volume--the transition and its contemporary socio-
political relevance to affected societies in the modem context.

Historiographical and Methodological Themes

A third theme deals with issues of the historiography of the lit-

erature on the Niger Delta and the lgbo societies. Their combined
temporal scope spans the period before, during, and after abolition.
N. C. Ejituwu traces the development in the way scholars have
looked at the Niger Delta, starting from the pioneering work of
 II

Kenneth Dike up to the m1 1st recent work urxlating issues all the
way into the twenty-first century by T. N. Tamuno. He bases his ex-
amination of the evolution of this historio~tTaphy on what he calls
the "dialectics of thout,>ht: the art of discovering and testing truths
by discussion and logical argument." He situates Dike prominently
amongst a set of pioneering works that served to present the thesis; a
subsequent follow up that was revisionist that served to present the
anti-thesis; and more recently, a synthesis that has built on the strength
of the earlier historiography and learnt from its errors. He focuses
on three themes in the historiography: peopling of the Niger Delta,
development of political institutions, and social transformation in
the nineteenth century. Ths study of the evolution of the Niger
Delta historiography reveals the challenged faced by every person in-
terested in research on the Bight of Biafra and its hinterland.
In his chapter, J. Akurna-Kalu Njoku delves into the historical
memory of the slave trade and its lasting impact in the Bight of Bia-
fra hinterland Akurna-Kalu Njoku considers the slave trade and its
history to be alive in modem day history, the arts, and the culture of
the Igbo. To engage this history requires an analysis of and reflection
on the material culture on which these histories have been engraved
or preserved as much as the living memories preserved in relevant
oral traditions. Tapping into the memory of those that survived on
the African side can enrich our understanding of the Atlantic slave
trade and its lasting impact. The artifacts and material culture of the
slave trade are able to provide us a road map to understanding the
economics of the trade and values attached to European wares on
the African side. The artifacts, material culture, and folklore of the
Atlantic trade can tell us much about the organization of the trade,
control, exporting communities, and the role of the Aro--the major
players in the internal market of the Biafra hinterland.
Ths chapter thus affords an excellent narrative of the possibili-
ties that lores, traditions, songs, enacted rituals, proverbs, personal
names and material evidence provide the scholar who is interested in
a reflection on the history of slavery, the slave trades and post aboli-
tion in Igbo land. In the names of slave market places, routes on
which slaves were marched, proverbs, and material objects, like forts
or, in this case, the stone o/ disorientation, that slave exporting societies
employed in the social and cultural processes to ritually dis-associate
the deportees from the communities they were being deported
 12
JJ~·. t/it•fmatl' o/Simv·fJ·

from. :\kuma-~alu Njoku brings to life in a dramatic way a mental

n"-enacnnent ot the process. He thcrebv resurrects a series of valu-
able Jiying infnnnation from the coll~ctive memory of the lgbo
pt'ople regarding the passages of the slave coftle through their
comnllmities into the Atlantic market. \'\fhile this memory can be
tapped into f(x a yield on past history, it also serves in some situa-
tion as a charter tl1at charts the present, for better or for worse.
Tile author grapples \\ith me apparent tension in the nature of
l'\idence prt)\ided by folk knowledge as compared with more tradi-
tional historical evidence whose essence includes specific dateable
historical moments and movements. As well, he confronts the con-
,-ergence in the historical interest of ilie folklorist/ material artists or
art historian, on me one hand, and ilie historian, on the other, in this
case me slave trade, and ilie tension in meir different treatments of
meir C\idence.
I. Uzoechi's foray into ilie field of linguistics has produced in-
sights iliat are interesting in two respects: first, me identification of a
\'OCabulary specific to ilie slave trading coastal Niger Delta society,
especially with words shared by similar coastal West African socie-
ties as far east as St. Loius in me Gambia, serves to remind us of the
same historical current that during ilie era of slavery and following
its aftermath, swept over these coastal West African societies.
Uzoechi has compiled and commented on a long list of words that
unified the slave trade and post slave trade world of the Niger Delta
(and coastal West African) societies. In deed, the word list generated,
by itself, challenges the aumor to a comparative consideration of
some other similar societies undergoing the same type of changes, as
the author, by his vocabularies attempts to apprehend. Second, is
that Uzoechi is able to conceive of the word lists as a tool of analysis
mat both speaks to the history of Niger delta's participation in and
relationship with Atlantic commerce in the centuries leading up to
the nineteenth as well as provide a tool with which to contextualize
current understandings of this history. A study of the list provic:es
interesting insights into the fonnation of a trading and cultural zone,
the contour of which confirms Okoye's "biafran" concept.
M.J .C. Echeruo focuses on two inlportant lgbo groups-the
Nri and Aro--and their experiences in state fonnation. In the as-
sessment of the imperial heritage of these two groups, the Aro,
whose rise to historical signjficance occurred within the context of
 1ntroduclion 13

the slave trade, came for an interesting scrutiny. The author identi-
fies Aro's successful built up of economic and political power-
when compared with what he considers to be Nri's ritually based
prestige-good consuming imperial model-as a commendable and
superior model. He avers that it could teach the Igbo people some-
thing about a centralizing principle deployable in the service of forg-
ing an effective united Igbo group within the competitive geopoliti-
cal context of twenty-first-century Nigeria. However, the author
deprecates what he considers the negative self-serving individualism
of the Aro, and this negativity, he attributes to carryovers from their
relationship to the Atlantic slave trade.
Using the Nri and Aro imperiums and their respective abeyance
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a way to explicate what
he considers the lack of an effective nationalist rallying model for
the Igbo in contemporary Nigeria, Echeruo interrogates and com-
pares the nature of wealth generation and its mode of conversion
into political power by the Nri and Aro oligarchies. He asked, ''Why
were the Aro more successful than the Nri in the management of
power and influence in the changing circumstance of external con-
tact, and internal Igbo social change." His suggestion is worth quot-
ing:

In the Am scheme, religion served the other two [political and

economic] elements, as distinct from the Nri pattern which made
cult and taboo a source of enrichment rather than of service, and
which did not see political control as a servant of mercantilist
prosperity. This is also evident in the forms of colonization, which
both empires adopted. \Vhereas Nri claims settlements all over
lgboland, communities, that is, in which agents of Nri power and
other followers, settled, these colonies neither maintained dose
ties with the Nri, nor did they foster a kinship relationship with
Nri proper. \Vhereas Aro settlements were concrete and real,
those of the Nri are mythical, even fanciful.

Echeruo reserves some caustic comments for the Aro, nonethe-

less. While the Aro imperium was built on diligence and perspicacity,
he locates the rise of the "dare-devil entrepreneur who knew how to
accumulate capital" in Aro's expert organization and control of At-
lantic export slave trade of their society. These were also the group
that converted their incomes into merchant capital and who seemed
 l-l

!t' be •'11 thl· \1'.11" l<l Hl'.ltin~ ;111 economic ;llld political empire that
\\\ 'nl,l hwc cncPmp.l~~c:d 1he whok of 1he lgbo speaking people.
\\ hik th1~ pn~itin· dn-dopmcnt was t( lrccloscd when Nigeria was
''' lTt:lkcn br FurPIX'.ln impcri;dism, Fchcruo tl-ds that a negative
rt·sidu.d intlucncc ',f the ,\ro that sun·in·d their slave trading and
1"-)St Jl'><.llitiPn successes were carried into the prt.>scnt in the fom1 of
;I "mcrn·rury ;md l'Pnscicncdcss clicntism. •· ll1at docs not foster a

unitl\.l purpnsc ;lmund which all the lgho could rally round for cf-
ti.Ytin· usc in tht• power bargain that goes on among the different
0'ttps th.u nuke up contemporary Nigeria.
111c t~thcr question r.tised by Fchcruo 's analysis regarding
whether or not the sbYe trade and the abolition fostered or dis-
mptcd the processes that could han? led to the rise of authentic capi-
t.llistic economic system in \Vest Africa is whether Aro success, or
indeed, the successes of European merchant capitalists during the
perir11.i when they began to create their successful imperiums could
han~ been reasonably divorced from "mercenary" and "conscience-
less'' acts. Echeruo argues that the processes set in motion by the
sla,-e trade continue to shape contemporary society. ln historical
perspecti,·e, the political and economic influence of the Aro, the ma-
jor brokers in lgboland, was felt throughout the region and beyond;
and among Igbo neighbors such as the Efik, Ekoi, 16>ala, ljo, the Jo-
kun, the Idoma, and the Tivi. The resulting historical formations
that emerged from what Echeruo describes as "the historical forces
of migration, mingling of people, trade, conflict and politics" were
permanently marked by a distinctive "Aro legacy in the nature of an
Aro Diaspora." The imperialist principle that marked the Nri and
Aro, in particular, Echeruo argues account for "many of the cultural
features which we now assume to be authentically or originally
lgbo" ln fact, he argues, they are "consolidations of practices intro-
duced through the many years of Nri and Aro hegemony." Aro as-
cendancy derived from their domination of the slave trade and the
distribution of European imports in the Bight of Biafra hinterland.
In the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Aro hegem-
ony, built around the control on the slave trade in the interior and as
intermediaries between the coastal traders and hinterland traders,
made important contributions to significant inequities, but it also
constituted an important dynamic in the development of new social
and cultural patterns.
 I nlmdurtinn 15

lndt-cd, the.: aftennath of slavery for West African societies re-

main relevant in historical and contemporary perspective. Yet these
themes, although not exhaustive, should he examined in their inter-
relatedness and contemporary relevance.

Notes

1. Sec A G. Hopkins, "Economic Imperialism in West Africa: Lagos,

1880-92," Lcrmmic llirtory RnJTf.u, 21 (1 %8): 580-606 and An J!ronomic 1-fi.rlory
of W e.rl A.frica (London, 1973).
2. I lupkins, An L!ronomic Hi.rlory, especially chapter 4.
3. See for example, Susan Martin Palm Oil and Prole.rl: An l'.conomic f-lir-
tory f!f the Ngwa Region, South Eastern Nigeria, 1800-1980 (Cambridge and
New York, Cambridge University Press, 1988.
4. For an exhaustive list of the bibliography of the transition from
slave trade to produce commerce in West Africa, the materials to look at
are the combined works of Robin Law; his 'The historiography of the
commercial trnnsition in nineteenth-century West Africa" in Toyin Faiola,
ed., African Hi.rtoriograp~: Essqys in Honour 1 Jacob Ade Ajqyi (London:
Longman, 1993), 9-115; Robin Law, ed., rrom Slave Trade to I _egilimate Com-
merce, The Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-century We.rl A.frica (London:
Cambridge University Press 1995), especially the "Appendix"; and the bib-
liographical list at the end of his 'The Transition From the Slave Trade to
"Legitimate Commerce" in Studies in the World Hirtory 1 Slavery, Abolition,
and Emancipation l, 1 (1996). Specifically, for the Niger Delta, the major
works in the bibliography is fairly represented in Ejituwu's chapter in this
volume. Other earlier studies on the Niger Delta not mentioned by Ejitiwu
include Walter I. Ofonagoro, Trade and Imperialism in Southern Nigeria 1881-
1889 (New York: Nok Publishers Limited, 1979); Ohare Ikirne, The ra/11
Nigeria: The British Conque.rt (lbadan: Heinemann, 1982); H. Galway, 'The
Rising of the Brassmen," Joumal1African Society XXXN (1935): 144-62; C.
Gertzel, "Relations Between Africans and European Traders in the Niger
Delta, 1880-1896," Joumal1African Hirtory 3 (1962): 361-66;J.U.J. Asiegbu,
"Some Notes on Afro-European Relations and British Consular Roles in
the Niger Delta in the Nineteenth Century," Joumai1Niger Delta Studies 1,
2 (1971): 101-16.
5. See F. J. Kolapo, "Nineteenth Century Niger River Trade and the
1844-1862 Aboh Interregnum," African Eronomic Hirtory 30, (2001): 1-29
and 'The Lower Niger River Commerce and the Nineteenth Century !gala
Political Crisis," African Eronomic 1-lirtory 27, (1999): 45-67. In 1986, P. Man-
ning listed different categories of interests beyond the ruling versus slave
class dichotomy whose interests were impacted in fundamental ways that
16 :1 'lx .· !firrmatb q/Jiam_1·

n-sean·h must look into. See P. Manning. "SiaYc Trade, Legitimate Trade,
and Imperiali~m Rc,isited: The Control of Wealth in the Bights of Benin
and Biafra .. in P. E. Lm-ejoy. /lfticans in Bonda,e,e: Shuiies in Slat'CTJ and the
Skm Tmdl: Er.rt[)'S in Honor q/ Philip Curlin (African Studies Program, Uni-
yen;ity of\\'isconsin-Madi~on, 1986), 203-33.
6. SeeM. L)nn, "Fmm Sail to Steam: The Impact of the Steamship
Senices on the British Palm Oil Trade "ith \\lest Africa, 1850-1890," The
fot~mal ofA:friam Hi•for)· 30, 2 (1989), 227.
· 7. For a representation of some of these argument see P. Lovejoy,
'The African Diaspora: Re,isionist Interpretations of Ethnicity, Culture
and Religion under Slavery," Studies in the IVorki History rf Slavery, Abolition
and Emancipation. II, 1 (1997) and Paul Lovejoy, "Identifying Enslaved Afri-
cans: Methodological and Conceptual Considerations in Studying the Afri-
can Diaspora," Identifying Enslaved Africans: The Nigerian Hinterland
and the African Diaspora, Proceedings of the UNESCO/SSHRCC Sum-
mer Institute (York UniYersity Toronto, Canada, 14 July-1 Aug. 1997), 17-
19; D. Northrup, "lgbo and Myth Igbo: Culture and Ethnicity in the Atlan-
tic World, 1600--1850," SlatlfT)' and Abolition 23, 3 (2000); D. B. Chambers,
"Ethnicity in the Diaspora: The Slave-trade and the Creation of African
'Nations' in the Americas," SlatlfTJ' and Abolition 22 (Dec. 2001 ): 25-39 and
'The Significance of lgbo in the Bight of Biafra Slave-Trade: A Rejoinder
to Northrup's "Myth Igbo," SlallfTJ' and Abolition 23 (April2002): 101-20; F.
J. Kolapo, 'The lgbo and their Neighbours During the Era of the Atlantic
Slave Trade," Slawry and Abolition 25, 1, (2004): 1-20.
 1

New Calabar Middlemen, Her Majesty's

Consuls, and British Traders in the Niger
Delta During the Era of New Imperialism
W AIBINTE WARIBOKO

Several decades ago, with the publication of Trade and Politics in the
Niger Delta, Kennett 0. Dike laid out the theoretical framework for
organizing and interpreting data pertaining to the interconnected-
ness between trade and politics in the Niger Delta. 1 Without sub-
tracting from the soundness of the theoretical assumptions of this
pioneering study, which has influenced many generations of histori-
ans, some observations could be made about the narrative and its
evidential base. In terms of evidential base, it overwhelmingly fo-
cused on Bonny-the leading trading state during the transition from
slave to produce trading in the Niger Delta. Because the narrative
chronologically ended around 1885--a period roughly marking the
end of Bonny's economic dominance in the Niger Delta-it could
not fully account for other issues capable of strongly highlighting the
interconnectedness between trade and politics beyond the economic
collapse of Bonny. For example, although the activities of the Royal
Niger Company came under the spotlight, there was no substantial
discussion of the Company's conflict with Nembe-Brass over the
primary palm oil producing markets in the Lower Niger. Similarly,
although Jaja's conflict with Bonny and the founding of Opobo was
given considerable attention, there was also no substantial account
of his conflicts with Vice-Consul Harry Johnston and the African
Association of British merchants.
For these reasons, except for G. I. Jones 2 who looked at New
Calabar's sociopolitical and economic organization considerably,
later scholars seeking to study the implications of the British in-
 Ill

\'1lk"tmtnt in the N~ l>dta have h!CU~t'C.J on <>poho and Nembe-

1\ra.~ in t'lf'dcor tu ntm<J ~ ~Tail hlu.af by Dike. As a re~ult of this
mTI'\\~ latt'r in~t in ( >pobo and Ncmbe-Bra~s. two issues
nf cpc ~fiolntt cal1lC' to dominate the hi~torical narrative con-
~ \\ith .~>-African trade relations in tht> N~r Delta during
me lantt put of ~ ninett'Ctlth century: tht" Johnson-Jaja saga of
188i that mdni with the "kidnap~" and deportation of the latter
rt, the C.Mibhetm Island of St. Vincent, and the Nembe-Brass-Royal
N~ Company rndc dispute that culminated in the Akassa War of
1895. ' 'These two epochal events, notwithstanding the various
standpoints of scholars interested in studying and analyzing them,
ha\~ ~ hem taken to iUustrnte the political change from Afri-
can independence to Eun>pean colonial domination during the latter
part of the ninetttnth century. In addition, these two events, when
rakm tngrther, have also been seen as marking the beginning of the
inexorable economic demise of the Eastern Delta trading states as
rniddlerncn in the trans-Adantic commerce between African pro-
ducers of primary commodities and Europeans.
1bc aim of this chapter is to show that the responses and adap-
wions to the British involvement in the Niger Delta, including the
socioeconomic and political consequences of that involvement for
the indigenous potentates and merchant princes of the Niger Delta,
were much more complex and varied than the images conveyed by
the Akassa War of 1895. This is because, unlike previous readings, I
have argued extensively that New Calabar did not always follow
similar or identical historical rrnjectories with the other Eastern Delta
states during the period of transition from slave to produce trading. 4
To substantiate this point, I am going to discuss New Calabar's so-
cioeconomic relationship with two British commercial outfits in the
Niger Delta-the African Association and the Royal Niger Com-
pany-and the impact of Consular authority on that relationship after
the formal annexation of the Niger Delta by the British.
While analyzing that socioeconomic relationship, however, the
similarities and differences between New Calabar's experiences and
those of Nembe-Brass would be highlighted. This is done to under-
score the point that the different historical trajectories followed by
New Calabar can only be fully appreciated in relation to the other
trading states in the Eastern Niger Delta. Let me briefly illustrate
what I am trying to say with some examples before closing these in-
 19

1roductorv comments. In an unprecedented show of support for the

(')Osting middleman system of commerce between Africans and
Europeans, which the British ~>vemment was otherwise ea..,rcr to
abolish in the latter half of the nineteenth century, both the Consular
administration and the African Association in the Niger Delta allied
with the mlcrs of New Calabar to thwart the efforts of the Royal
Niger Company aimeJ at curbing New Calabar's trade monopoly in
the Lower Niger. 'l11e Forei._,>n Office, persuaded by New Calabar
rulers, the Consuls, and the African Association, was able to prevent
the Royal Niger Company from eliminating New Calabar middle-
men in the palm oil producing markets of the Lower Niger.
The position of the Consuls on this matter between New Cala-
bar and the Royal Niger Company, including that of the African As-
sociation and the Foreign Office, seemed aiJ the more paradoxical
for the following reasons. The Consuls of the Oil Rivers Protector-
ate-Hewett and Johnston-had once collaborated with the African
Association to destroy one of the most effective and prosperous
middlemen in the Niger Delta-King Jaja of Opobo. Secondly,
Nembe-Brass, as a middleman trading state, had lost its primary
producing markets to the Royal Niger Company in spite of protesta-
tions by the same agencies to the Foreign Office. The position of
the Foreign Office in both cases, it should be noted, was informed
by its commitment to dismantle all forms of barrier to free commer-
cial enterprise in Southern Nigeria. As a direct result of the failure to
regain its markets, Nembe-Brass was liquidated around the end of
the nineteenth century as a middleman in the Eastern Niger Delta.
The liquidation of Nembe-Brass, coupled with the downfall of the
Royal Niger Company in 1900, paved the way for New Calabar's
Indian summer in the Lower Niger.
This point, as this chapter intends to show, has not been ana-
lyzed sufficiently by writers interested in the general history of
Southeastern Nigeria, including those dealing specifically with the
decline of the middleman in Eastern Nigeria such as Walter I.
Ofonagoro and A. I. Nwabughuogu. 5 In order to effectively address
these issues, the discussion will be divided into the following intern:-
lated parts: New Calabar before 1888; the genesis of the conflict be-
tween New Calabar and the Royal Niger Company; New Calabar,
the African Association, and the Royal Niger Company; and, finally,
New Calabar and its Indian summer after the downfall of Nembe-
 lk.1ss ;mJ tilt- R(lLU Ni~'t'r Companr. 1l1i~ arran.L,tt.·mcm, hopefully,
,n,ul..l illustr.ltt' S(lmc of the ~imilariries and diftC:renccs in the histo-
ric:: pf :\ew Calalxu ~md Nembe-Brass as they responded to some
,,f rlw tl.m:~ of chan~'l' in the tmfolding New Imperialism.

New Calabar before 1884/5

:\cw Cabbar, also known as Owame or Kalahari, occupied an

esnL1rine location along a river of the same name in the Eastern Ni-
gt."f Ddt.l until 1883. After that date, the people removed closer to
;he northt"!n mar.~.,>ins of the Eastern Delta where they established
three senlements: Abonnema, Buguma and Bakana. Each of these
senlements enjoyed a measure of internal autonomy over domestic
administrative matters. In matters relating to foreign policy with the
nascent colonial administration, including commercial matters with
European merchants, these settlements tried to maintain a united
front under their King, Princewill Amachree. The geographical loca-
tions of these settlements, as compared with the age-old site closer
to Bonny, enhanced New Calabar's overall capacity to coordinate its
nst commercial enterprise in the Eastern Delta hinterland along the
following na\igable river routes: the New Calabar River, which
stretches into the lkwerre speaking communities; the Sombreiro
RiYer that terminates at the Ogba-Egbemma community of Ikiri;
and, finally, the Egenne-Orashi River that flows through to the
Oguta Lake in the Igbo-speaking part of Southeastern Nigeria. The
aforementioned hinterland communities, and in particular those on
the Engenne-Orashi River and the Oguta Lake, lay within the oil
palm belt in Southern Nigeria. They became the primary producers
of the palm oil and kernels that constituted the export staples to
Europe after the abolition of the slave trade.
To facilitate commercial transactions with the hinterland pri-
mary producers, New Calabar established ports of trade called jesiri
along the aforementioned trading routes. Idu-Kalabari and Kalahari
beach, among these ports of trade, were the most lucrative during
the period under review. The former was located directly opposite
the community of Idu, while the latter was closely located to the
Ogura Lake. On 28 October 1889, Major Claude MacDonald, who
was later to become the first Consul-General of the Niger Coast
Protectorate, had seen "upwards of 100 New Calabar large canoes
 Nru• ( .·alabar Aliddlrmm 21

anchored opposite the town lof ldul." 6 This was the port of trade
known as ldu- Kalahari. In 18R8, according to Consul Hewett, " ...
over two thousand tons of palm oil of New Calabar's total export ..
." were derived from these ports between and including from ldu
and Oguta. 7
According to Ofonagoro, the output of palm oil from all the
Niger markets between 1886 and 1888 was about 6,000 tons.H Given
this figure, it may be safe to say that New Calabar was a dominant
middleman in the export-import trade in the Lower Niger. Within
the Eastern Delta as a whole, however, Opobo and New Calabar
were indeed the most prosperous trading centers in the latter half of
the nineteenth century. Bonny, for a number of reasons, was rapidly
declining; the same applied to Nembe-Brass. The table below, which
indicates the output from the competing Southern Nigerian trading
states in 1888, supports this opinion. The data supplied under "Fu-
ture Kernel Trade," which is also indicative of the competitive ability
of the various trading states to expand their outputs in the nascent
palm kernel trade before the end of the nineteenth century, could
also be taken as evidence to support the above opinion.

Table 1. 1. Palm Oil and Kernel Exports from the Principal Oil
Rivers Ports in 1888 compared with Lagos [in tons]

Ports Palm Kernels Future Kernel

Oil Trade
Lagos 11,470 31,259 -
Benin 7,000 10,000 21,000
Brass 2,000 2,000 6,000
New 5,000 1,000 15,000
Calabar
Bonny 4,000 1,500 12,000
Opobo 8,000 6,000 24,000
Old 7,000 10,000 21,000
Calabar

Source: Public Record Office, FO 84/1882 'Johnson to the Marquis of

Salisbury," 1 December 1888.
 ''
ll,lWCH'r, h\· the !-'<.1-->lnnin~ \lf our period tlf IKK4/.S. protimnd
!" 11itic.ll ~m..J
t.Yt lllPmic dun_I.!'-'S h:ld startt.•d to rt·shapc the pn-exist-
it~ st;H\Js (jliO. ll1is was tP impact hc;n·il~· on the economic ti.lrtuncs
t1t"!'o.lth ~cw CtLtb.tr :md i~ British tr.1ding partner.-. Following the
S\k\.'essti.11 conclusion of the Hedin Conti.·n·nl-c on \\'est Africa,
Rrir.un issut.."'..i tht.· "Ni~'"t.'r District Notiticlf:ion" on June 5, 1885, to
h.mn.uh· :mnc"\ all llf the Eastem Ddtt tr.tding state~ and their ad-
~>ining hinterbnds. For six ~·e:tr.>, after that ti.mnal proclamation, the
British p;trli.unenr debatt."'..i tht.· typt.~ of administration that might be
best suitl'\i ti.1r running the Fastem Niger Delta. During thi~ inter\'al,
Apt I~· dt.>Scribt."ti bY .J. C. .-\nene as the era of the "paper protectorate,"
the existing consuhr smJCture continued to administer British poli-
cies tn the Eastem Delta states. ttl During the same period the Royal
::-.;iger Company, which received a Royal Charter in 1886, began to
administer all territories on both banks of the Nit,>er. 11 Some of the
a~as that came under the administrative pun1ew of the Royal Niger
Comp-.my included the primary producing markets of New Calabar
and Nembe-BrJss on the upper reaches of the Engenni-Orashi river
s~-stem and the Lower Niger.
As a result of the ideological commitment of the Royal Niger
Company to monopoly capitalism, it energetically sought to elimi-
nate all forms of competition, including the competition posed by
the African middlemen in the Lower Niger. This development
meant that those British merchants in the Niger Delta, who relied
on African middlemen for produce derived from the Lower Niger
markets, were also going to be strangulated by the Royal Niger
Company. For this reason, the merchants in question allied with
New Calabar to fight the Royal Niger Company. The Consular ad-
ministration in the Eastern Niger Delta also allied with New Calabar
against the Royal Niger Company; but it did so for different reasons
to be e~--plained later. A marriage of convenience was thus forged be-
tween New Calabar, the Consular administration, and the African
Association against the Royal Niger Company. Before discussing
this marriage of convenience, it would be pertinent to throw some
more light on the genesis and nature of the controversy between
New Calabar and the Royal Niger Company.
 Nt·u• ( ~dabar Middlrmm 23

New Calabar Middlemen

and the Royal Niger Company

The RoyaJ Ni~rt·r Company, hy virtue of its Royal Charter, he~an

to exercise administrative authority over the I .ower Ni~er and its ad-
joinin~ territories from 1HH(,. New Calabar hinterland primary mar-
kets on the river ( )rashi such as ldu, Krc~eni and ( )moku, including
()~'Uta on the ( )gttta l-ake, came within the administrative jurisdic-
tion of the company. Following this development, the New Ca.labar
traders in these markets were ordered by the company to leave. The
clear aim was to eliminate New Calabar as a competitor for palm oil
and kernels in the Lower Niger markets. The protracted controversy
that evolved out of this situation, which Claude MacDonald, the of-
ficer mandated by the Foreign Office to investigate the affair, cap-
tioned the "ldu Question," is an interesting reading on the complex
and interwoven connection between trade and politics in the Lower
Niger during the latter patt of the nineteenth century.
Prior to the charter, the Royal Niger Company had concluded a
treaty with Oguta on 23 March 1885. In October of the same year,
Idu and Omoku also concluded treaties with the Company. These
treaties had one notable objective: to undermine the sovereignty of
the African communities whose rulers were being invited to assent
to some form of "protection" offered by the Company. A reading
of the Idu Treaty, 12 for example, would reveal how and in what ways
the African communities had compromised their sovereignty. Two
articles in that treaty appear most relevant for our purpose. Article
one ceded the whole territory of ldu to the Royal Niger Company;
while in the last article, Idu had promised: "not to have any inter-
course with any strangers or foreigners except through the said
Royal Niger Company .... " Since the New Calabar traders at Idu
were "strangers," the Company now had the authorized right to en-
force their expulsion.
At least until such time as the Royal Niger Company began to
enforce its own customs regulations and started to levy its own du-
ties on commerce, New Calabar failed to perceive that its relations
with Idu were now under threat. The Company's regulations, di-
vided into a series of schedules and subsections, have been well
docwnented in earlier writings. 13 Suffice it to say that they appear to
have been designed specifically to frustrate the African middlemen
 comrcmnn-. The New Calabar tradcn- correctly identified these
n.1-,'11Luiom a~ being dramatic departures from all earlier commercial
pr.~etices that lud piTY<tilcd in the Ni,!.,"Cr Delta. It was their decision,
thcn.·foiT, to e\·ade these regulations in as much as this was in their
power. l11is attempt to c\·ade the regulations led the Royal Niger
Company to take the m;tjor step of expelling New Calabar traders
from Oguta, Omoku, and Idu in 1887. A notice on 24 September
1887, which was signed by Mr. J. Flint, the Agent-General of the
Company, ath-ised New Calabar traders to quit Oguta. In part, it
read as foUows:

That the Company will no longer tolerate the infringement of cus-

toms, that no canoes will be allowed to cross the customs' fron-
tiers [mounted at Kregenil without having previously cleared at
Akassa, nor outwards without having cleared at some port of ex-
port in the territories and obtained the necessary certificate of ex-
port, that any canoes infringing the regulations will be seized and
confiscated together ,,;th all they contained. 14

The notice concluded by warning all New Calabar chiefs that all of
their canoes must quit Oguta within six days from the date of its is-
sue. By the contents of a similar notice, issued on 27 September
1887, the New Calabar traders were also instructed to quit Idu, fail-
ing which their canoes would be seized and impounded.
The mercantile implications of all this were that all goods meant
for Idu, Kregeni and Omoku-all export ports on the Orashi river-
would henceforth be taken first to Akassa, which lay at the mouth of
the river Niger, for customs clearance. This appears to have been a
calculated attempt to attack New Calabar's trade, for the Royal Ni-
ger Company's customs port at Kregeni might easily have been au-
thorized to collect duties from such traders en route to Oguta. In
adclition to the very considerable distance involved, the journey to
Akassa was fraught with navigational and other difficulties. The wa-
ter level in the creeks linking the Orashi with the Niger was usually
low between January and July of every year. This low water level im-
peded any speedy transit by the capacious trade canoes used by New
Calabar traders for transporting casks of palm oil. The other prob-
lem was that New Calabar traders had no formally agreed relations
with the communities situated along the new route to Akassa. Sea
 Neu' CJ/abar Middlemen 25

piracy, we ~hould recall, was still very common, and blockades were
always erected against commercial traffic using novel or unfamiliar
routes. Finally, and most importantly, Akassa lay within the area un-
der the commercial sway of Nembe-Brass-a rival competitor to
New Calabar in the trans-Atlantic trade. All of these factors com-
pounded the problems of the New Calabar traders. Hence they de-
cided to resist the Royal Niger Company. However, in doing so,
they enjoyed the cooperation of the Consular administration of the
Oil Rivers Protectorate.

New Calabar and the Consular Campaign Against

the Royal Niger Company

New Calabar's campaign began with an attempt to demonstrate

to the Foreign Office that the Idu Treaty, which had empowered the
Royal Niger Company to expel its traders, did not represent the
genuine desire of the Idu community. In pursuit of that aim Consul
Hewett, accompanied by an agent of the African Association, R. D.
Boler, and the representatives of New Calabar, Princewill Amachree,
George Amachree, John Bull, Horsefall Manuel, and Bob Manuel,
visited Idu on 22 November 1888. Their mission was to investigate
how genuinely and in what ways the treaty represented the true
wishes of the Idu people. At an interview with the head chief of Idu,
the mission uncovered some parts of the discussion that had taken
place with the representative of the Royal Niger Company prior to
the signing of the treaty in October 1886. The head chief of Idu be-
gan with a question.

But if the King of New Calabar comes what shall I say? The Royal
Niger Company agent then allegedly replied: Tell him we (the
Royal Niger Company] are white men-all the same white men
who trade with New Calabar. The head chief of Idu then con-
cluded: We have heard that you trade in the Niger at Egie [Aboh]
and other places, and so we fear. 15

Hewett and his party made a number of deductions from this piece
of reported conversion. These now formed the contents of a general
protest that New Calabar addressed to the Foreign Office in 1888.
The people of New Calabar argued in their protest that the Idu
 cPmmunltY lud bt't.'n CPt'rccd into ~igning the Treaty. 'They also ar-
~wd th.u the pt•ople t)f ldu had objected strongly when the Com-
p.lm-·s ~'l'nt h.1d said that: "The Niger Company would drive away
the Cabbar pt.'oplc and place a chain across the river so that no ca-
nc'Cs could p<lSs.'' 1" Hewett. for his part, came back from the trip to
ldu "ith the understanding that the illiterate head chief there did not
comprehend the contents or implications of the treaty. This moved
the Consul tn support the protest of the New Calabar chiefs. In his
own memorandum to the Foreign Office, he remarked: "I would
ask your Lordship not to sanction the Company availing itself of
that Treaty on the ground that its doing so interferes with the trade
of New Calabar men who have a prescriptive right, as it were, to the
free use of the markets of the country on the Orashi and Engenni
RiYer." 1-
To proceed with the discussion and analysis, let me pose the fol-
lowing question. \X'hy had Hewett gone out of his way to solicit as-
sistance for the middleman trading system in 1888, when he had
preYiously tried to dismantle it in 1884? 18 Put more clearly: why was
he defending New Calabar's "prescriptive rights" at this point in
time against the Royal Niger Company-a partner in the imperial
mission to subjugate and exploit Africans in the interest of Britain?
Hewett's stance in this matter was influenced by localized differ-
ences in ideological emphasis between the Royal Niger Company
and the administration of the Oil Rivers Protectorate. Both Hewett
and Johnson, as administrators of the Oil Rivers Protectorate, were
dissatisfied with Company Rule as an effective method of governing
British colonial possessions. Johnson's relevant criticisms were
summarized in a part of his letter to the Foreign Office dated 20 July
1888. According to Johnson, "As a general rule-to which there have
been few exceptions-the interests of justice, commercial morality,
and of our moral obligations towards uncivilized or backward peo-
ple have never been served by a corporation of traders, which has
been allowed to govem." 19 Johnston concluded his critique by
pointing out that "the trader civilizes, but he does not go to Africa
for that purpose, he goes to trade."
It is very tempting to conclude from the pronouncements of
Hewett and Johnston that they were both genuinely and philan-
thropically committed to the socioeconomic development of Africa
at the expense of the mother country, Britain. Ths was not exactly
 Nru' Calabar· Middlrmm 27

their motivation. They were combining forces with New Calabar

against the Royal Niger Company for one principal reason: both
men were alarmed by the prospect that the Oil Rivers Protectorate
might be handed over by the Foreign Office to the control of the
Royal Niger Company. Hence Hewett advised the Foreign Office
not to hand over territories to the Company on the basis of treaties,
which were clearly incomprehensible to or rejected by the African
chiefs. As he put the matter, "If, however, it should be contemplated
to make any of the countries [Idu, Omoku and Oguta] ... a part of
the territories of the Royal Niger Company, I would ask that before
a decision is arrived at on the subject, an opportunity be given to the
kings and chiefs to state to your Lordship any objections they may
have to advance." 20 All of these pleas and protests, however, were
not given serious consideration because the Foreign Office now be-
lieved that "the new commercial system inaugurated in West Africa
must inevitably cause local changes and the abolition of the monop-
oly of the middlemen. It is now impracticable even if it were desir-
able to take any steps in the direction of reverting to the old sys-
tem."21 Undeterred by the tacit support of the Foreign Office for
the Royal Niger Company, the African Association of British traders
in the Niger Delta joined forces with the New Calabar middlemen
to press for changes in the aforementioned new commercial system.

New Calabar Middlemen, the African Association,

and the Royal Niger Company

When the Royal Niger Company had received its Royal Charter
in July 1886, the African Association asked the Foreign Office to
furnish it ''with a definition of the lines of the territories placed un-
der the jurisdiction of the Royal Niger Company by the recent char-
ter."22 This was because the Mrican Association had rightly consid-
ered the Charter's definition as being very vague. They were equally
suspicious that the Royal Niger Company-the beneficiary of the
Charter-might soon seek to exploit the imprecise definition to ac-
quire more or even all of the palm oil markets in the Lower Niger.
In spite of these apprehensions, however, the African Association
was too slow in its attempt to press the Foreign Office for the nec-
essary clarification regarding the specific territories placed under the
jurisdiction of the Royal Niger Company. For example, the African
 .\ssrl\.-ittinn was UIUwarc that the Ro~·al Ni~>tT Companv had already
cPnrr.Ktt'ti tn.'atics with the New Calabar primary market communi-
tie~ of Ogutl. Omoku. and ldu prior to the submission of their pct:i-
ti~m to the Fon-ign Onicc. John Holt. a member of the African As-
SlXiatitm, dul~- blamed it t(lr losing t,>round to its rival, the Royal
Niger Company. As he put it: "TI1e Royal Niger Company has not
only St'Cun>d a tirm hold of the upper N(~.,l"Cr but through the unfor-
nm<ltc supineness of the Ri\·ers merchants [members of the African
Association! it has obtained a hold on some portions of the trading
area of the River interest to our disadvantage."z.1
The African Association, however, woke up from its slumber on
26 September 1887, when the Royal Niger Company began to expel
traders from Oguta and ldu. Immediately, the Association now c~e­
cided " ... to protest against the aggression upon the New Calabar
territory beyond the powers which were granted by the charter;" and
they further observed that " ... in case treaties have been forcibly
obtained from the chiefs by the Royal Niger Company the same
may not be confirmed." 24 However, because the Foreign Office had
preYiously confirmed these treaties, the protest was ignored much to
the chagrin of the Association. Undeterred by this setback a lobby
group, known as the ''New Calabar Committee of Liverpool Mer-
chants," was created to speak on behalf of the New Calabar traders
in London, with Mr. Cotterell of John Holt and Company of Uver-
pool as secretary. Following this development, King Princewill
Amachree of New Calabar appealed directly to the Committee for
assistance. In a cabled message to the Committee the King lamented
as follows: "Niger driving Calabar from ldu.
Intend building customs house. Take immediate measures to
stop this." 25 Propelled by such solicitations, as well as its own per-
ceived self-interests, the African Association launched a determined,
but belated, campaign against the Royal Niger Company. The Asso-
ciation began by investigating the treaties contracted between Afri-
can potentates and the Royal Niger Company. It then reported to
the Foreign Office that no less than eighty-three such treaties were
either forgeries or else the African chiefs concerned had disassoci-
ated themselves from these agreements. 26 On December 1887, the
Association addressed a further petition to the Earl of lddesleigh
protesting against the excessive customs duties imposed on New
Calabar middlemen. In response, the Foreign Office merely noted
 29

thai " ... the levying of duties is unavoid:~hlc as there: is no other

manner tn . wI11c
. h 1I1c expenses o f a( ImllllstratJon
. . . cou I<I Il<: met. ,r.,·
'I11c apparent strong support enjoyed by the Royal Niger Company
was due to the fact that, in the era of the "paper protectorate," it was
entrusted with the expenses of an administrative responsibility that
would otherwise have fallen on the Foreign Office.
It now became apparent to the African Association, and in par-
ticular to the "New Calahar Committee of I jverpool Merchants,"
that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to bring any decisive
pressure to bear on the Royal Niger Company through the medium
of the Foreihm Office. However, there was one aspect of the Com-
pany's understanding with the Foreign Office that offered a loop-
hole for the use of less direct tactics. The aspect in question was the
Foreign Office's advice to Goldie that, as a precondition for the ex-
tension of his Charter, he should secure the support and coopera-
tion of the African Association and the shipping interests led by Sir
Alfred Lewis Jones of Elder, Demspter and C..ompany. Once ap-
prised of this advice, Rogerson, who was the chairman of the Afri-
can Association, began to insist on getting some concession from
the Royal Niger Company before both sides could proceed to dis-
cuss any extension of the latter's Charter over the Oil Rivers Protec-
torate. So far as the African Association could see, this tactics gained
them an initial success. For, at a subsequent meeting between the
'New Calabar Committee of IJverpool Merchants' and the Royal
Niger Company, the latter offered the following concession. They
promised to " ... issue a notice stating that they would not exercise
sovereign rights nor enter into commerce with markets over which
they held powers five miles below Ndoni Creek in the Engenni
River." The Company then qualified this concession by stating that,
in making thjs promise, they" ... reserved to themselves the right to
withdraw from the arrangement at any time and would do so if the
Company were attacked in any way or their Charter opposed by the
members of the African Association." 28 This guaJjfication notwith-
standing, the African Association congratulated itself on having se-
cured an agreement that would reopen the markets of Omoku, Kre-
geni, and Idu to New Calabar.
After that meeting, Rogerson, who was largely satisfied with
having retrieved the three vital markets from Golrue for his New
Calabar middlemen, sent this cable to Kjng Amachree: "Niger
~"llO...iArY 1~ fin- mik~ bdow l'JPni Cn.·ck. C:tlabar retammg
l 'lnK'J...-u."·"' l 'nt\lrtun~uely. howeTer. the negotiator:- had made an er-
fl.lt. Thi~ wa~ hft.-:m~e the 0;ew Ca.Ltbar middk·men. operating from
rlx·ir ~luthem C\)<~St:U positions. could not reach ( )moku \\ithour
pASsi~ thn."l~>h K~>eni. which was still finnly in the hands of the
RlwJ.I :\~"'t'r Compa.n~·. :\machn..-e, who pwbabl~· thought that the
Un·rpool mt-n.::hams acmall~- knew the ex<lCt locations of these mar-
kers. suspected th~n his allies h;ld sold him our in the owrall interest
1Jf British imperialism. In apparent desperation he mmed to Consul
Hewett and attempted to disassociate New Calabar from the Uver-
(XlOilobb~isrs. He said: " ... they [New Calabar] had given no au-
thl.lrirr ro the .\frican .\ssociation of I...iYetpool to treat for them
"ith the Ro~-al ~iger Company \\ith fe6l'al'd to the markets of which
they haw been deprh·ed by the Company."JI.' The European coastal
~-.e_nts representing the trading firms based in u,·erpool were
equally disturbed by Rogerson's message, which was founded in
geographical error. But the coastal agents reacted in their own way.
~lr. \\·. Cia.'I.'Ton, an agent of the African Association and the incum-
bent \-ICe-President of the New Calabar GO\·eming Council [a
Council instituted under Vice-Consul Harry Johnston to administer
Ne\\' Calabar as a district within the Oil Rivers Protectorate duri~g
the era of the "paper protectorate'1 wrote at once to Consul Hewett
threatening to go to war, unless immediate action was taken to re-
strain the Royal Niger Company. 31
This inspired or compelled Hewett to pen another damaging
criticism of the Royal Niger Company, and the general evils of Com-
pany Rule. These local agitations, coupled with the German protest
against the Royal Niger Company over its handling of the
"Hoenig.;berg affairs," now persuaded the reluctant Foreign Office
to restrain the Royal Niger Company. 32 The Company was now ad-
,;sed not to establish a customs post at ldu. They were further ad-
vised not to compel the New Calabar middlemen to leave that place,
until a final detennination was made about the permanent form that
administration might take in the Oil Rivers Protectorate. Further-
more, less certain of its commitment to the Royal Niger Company,
the Foreign Office commissioned Major C. M. MacDonald in 1889
to investigate comprehensively the activities of the Company and its
designs over the Protectorate.
 31

In the coun;e of his investig-ations, MacDonald took an early

opportunity to ascertain the choice of the peoples of the Protector-
ate between the systems of Crown colony administration and com-
pany mle as epitomized by the Royal Niger Company. New Calabar
and others, who were already victims of the Company's monopoly
capitalism, opted for the former. As a result of MacDonald's report,
the Foreign Office decided that the Protectorate area should not be
given into the hands of the Company, but should be brought under
strong consular rule with full-fledged bureaucracy. This new form of
administration was inaugurated in 1891 under MacDonald himself
as Consul-General. These developments must have contributed
considerably to the African Association's decision to continue back-
ing New Calabar, whilst jettisoning Nembe-Brass. In 1893, for ex-
ample, the African Association sold its fixed capital assets at
Nembe-Brass to its inveterate competitor, the Royal Niger Com-
pany.331b.is precipitous move in Nembe-Brass-African Association
relations was prompted, among other factors, by this consideration:
it was no longer a judicious economic choice, although it might still
have been politically expedient [that is in the overall context of the
campaign against the Royal Niger Company], to invest scarce re-
sources in Nembe-Brass. 'Ibis was because the export trade of
Nembe-Brass since 1855 has been either static or depreciating. In
1855, for example, Nembe-Brass exported 2,800 tons of palm oil;
however, after about thirty years (1888), the output fell to 2,000
tons. 34 In the event, much to the chagrin of the Nembe-Brass mid-
dlemen, the African Association terminated its political alliance and
commercial relationship with them.
However, despite the optimism of the African Association, the
inauguration of a strong Protectorate adrn.inistration did not by itself
immediately solve New Calabar's major problem; for the problem of
Protectorate traders' access to markets still claimed by the Royal Ni-
ger Company remained. Except at Idu, New Calabar traders still re-
mained excluded from Kregeni, Omoku, and Oguta after 1891. This
situation facing New Calabar in the Lower Niger provoked two al-
ternating reactions: one of resignation and one of rebelliousness.
Vice-Consul Johnston had commented on New Calabar's helpless-
ness in the following way: " ... the Royal Niger Company have per-
secuted the New Calabar men so much that a good many of the
head trading boys have positively refused to go up to those markets
 Tix. ·l/ifmllllb oj.\'lat·c~!'

ag:Un. :md ~ome of the large chiefs have laid up their canoes and
ca~•o, waiting to sec what happcns." 1 ' It was soon discovered d1at
''waiting to ~ee what happens" meant accepting economic ruin and
cwn starYation. Initially, thi~ reality led the traders to smuggle goods
acro:o;s the boundarie~ bel:\vecn the Oil Rivers Protectorate and ilie
Niger Territories. Later, as the dispute between New Calabar and
the Royal Niger Company degenerated, the frontier communities ly-
ing bel:\\·ecn the 1:\\"0 colonial possessions in question were instigated
b~· the fom1er to rebel against the Company's administration. This
created a Yery turbulent frontier zone, which served to destabilize
the Company's administration.
In fact, much like Nembe-Brass, New Calabar began plans for a
full-scale attack on the Royal Niger Company. By 1895, plans for
such attack had reached maturity, but the administration of the Oil
RiYers Protectorate sent in an armed detachment of the Protector-
ate's troops to monitor events at New Calabar. As a direct result,
NC\V Calabar's option to go to war in 1895 was averted. We should
recall that this was also the year the Nembe-Brass middlemen took
reprisals against the Company. There is, however, no shred of evi-
dence to suggest any collaboration between the two trading states.
King Princewill Amachree of New Calabar, according to the re-
cords, did send 200 cases of gin to the King of Nembe-Brass after
their eventual defeat by the Royal Niger Company in 1895. 36 Not-
withstanding the devastating defeat and humiliation suffered by
Nembe-Brass, New Calabar's attempts to plot to undermine ilie
Company continued. On 13 July 1896, the successor of MacDonald,
Ralph Moor, was once again compelled to place New Calabar under
the protective surveillance of the Protectorate's troops. This was be-
cause the District Commissioner at Brass had forwarded an urgent
message to the effect that New Calabar was planning to attack ilie
Royal Niger Company's customs hulk at Kregeni at the first oppor-
tunity.37 All of these events demonstrated one fundamental similarity
in me manner New Calabar and Nembe-Brass, as victims of the
harsh monopoly mounted by the Royal Niger Company in the
Lower Niger, related to the British during the transition to colonial
rule. At the height of their respective periods of frustration, boili
politics decided on violent military confrontation. However, because
New Calabar was restrained from actually embarking on such con-
frontation, it was spared desl1-uctivc retribution. Unlike Ncmbe-
 Neu' Calabar Middlemen 33

Brass, therefore, New Calabar survived into the twentieth century as

a middleman after the political collapse of the Royal Niger Company
in 1900.

New Calabar and its 'Indian Summer' after the Collapse

ofNembe-Brass and the Royal Niger Company

As indicated above, New Calabar's longevity as a middleman

trading state has to be examined against the following backgrounds:
the demise of Nembe-Brass after the Akassa War of 1895 and the
political collapse of the Royal Niger Company following the revoca-
tion of its Royal Charter at the beginning of the twentieth century.
These events, more than anything else, paved the way for New
Calabar's Indian summer-a new era of prosperity during which
New Calabar middlemen enjoyed more or less uninterrupted mo-
nopoly of the trans- Atlantic trade in the Lower Niger.
Until about 1888, Nembe-Brass was a viable competitor with
New Calabar in the middleman trade in the Lower Niger. After that
date, however, the competitiveness of the former, as compared with
the latter, began to decline. In 1888, for example, the European
agents in Brass observed that the Brass chiefs could no longer com-
pete against their New Calabar rivals because "they have become so
impoverished by the loss of their Niger trade ... " 38 To fully under-
stand the competitive edge of New Calabar over Nembe-Brass, it is
very pertinent to state one point here. New Calabar from the outset
was less affected by the economic strangulation of the Royal Niger
Company because it had other markets for its traders to exploit
along the New Calabar and Sombreiro rivers. On the other hand,
without other markets save those in the Lower Niger, Nembe-Brass
was totally and completely ruined by the strangulating customs pol-
icy of the Royal Niger Company. Be that as it may, the Akassa War
of 1895 accelerated the political and economic demise of Nembe-
Brass. According to Alagoa, one of the best authorities on the his-
tory of Nembe-Brass, ''The middleman ... also became a thing of
the past" after 1895. 39 However, the climax in the economic margin-
alization and demise of Nembe-Brass came in 1921 when it was shut
down as an export-import center by the colonial administration of
Nigeria. 40
 1!~t'. !timnath o/SimYT)'

Priorto 1921, howe\Tr, Nembe- Brass had virtually passed under

the wmmercial hegemony of New Calabar in certain aspects. In the
p.Um kernel trade, t()r example, the traders ofNembe-Brass were be-
in~ compelled to trade on the tem1s and conclitions imposed or set
our by the New Calabar middlemen. On 5 November 1902, the
High Commissioner of the Niger Coast Protectorate reported thus:
"I was informed by the Brass chiefs, that their boys going to trade in
markets in the New Calabar district are prevented by the Abonne:-na
[?\ew Calabar] chiefs from proceecling beyond Abonnema town to
the actual producing markets so that in effect Abonnema was cre-
ated a middleman market and the Brass men are compelled to pur-
chase there."~' The High Commissioner further noted that: ''The
Brass men ha,·e also ... been buying up a lot of bad kernels from
the New Calabar men, which the latter could not clispose off lo-
callY."42
The unequal trade relations between New Calabar and Brass,
and the twentieth century preeminence of the former as a middle-
man, were also noticeable along the commercial highways linking
Idu, Kregeni, Omuku, and Oguta-areas that were previously under
the monopoly control of the defunct Royal Niger Company. After
the re,-ocation of the Royal Charter in 1900, New Calabar middle-
men removed en masse into the Lower Niger to resume commerce.
By 1907 the number of New Calabar traders at Omoku was already
'ery impressive, and they occupied a separate ward in that commu-
nity.43 In 1913 a similar success story about New Calabar traders at
Oguta was reported by Mr. J. M. Pollen, the Acting District Officer
of Owerri Province: ''There is a large New Calabar trading colony at
Oguta with various New Calabar chiefs often resident. They are
competitors in trade with the Ogutans." 44 New Calabar middlemen
along the Idu-Kregeni-Omoku-Oguta trading route appeared to
have worked very hard to regain their pre-twentieth century com-
mand of the middleman trade. Colin Newbury has written the fol-
lowing about these middlemen struggling against the agents of the
Niger Company-the survivor of the defunct Royal Niger Com-
pany-to impose their hegemony on the Oguta trade:

ln 1905 Kalahari [New Calabar] canoe men and Aboh traders

combined to regulate the prices for palm oil. Their alliance was
backed by Calabar ].LJws. One result of this action was that the Ni-
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 A TRESTLE BRIDGE, NO. 2.

When a line of works was laid out through woods, much slashing,
or felling of trees, was necessary in its front. This was especially
necessary in front of forts and batteries. Much of this labor was done
by the engineers. The trees were felled with their tops toward the
enemy, leaving stumps about three feet high. The territory covered
by these fallen trees was called the Slashes, hence Slashing. No
large body of the enemy could safely attempt a passage through
such an obstacle. It was a strong defence for a weak line of works.
The Gabions, being hollow cylinders of wicker-work without
bottom, filled with earth, and placed on the earthworks; the Fascines,
being bundles of small sticks bound at both ends and intermediate
points, to aid in raising batteries, filling ditches, etc.; Chevaux-de-
frise, a piece of timber traversed with wooden spikes, used
especially as a defence against cavalry; the Abatis, a row of the
large branches of trees, sharpened and laid close together, points
outward, with the butts pinned to the ground; the Fraise, a defence of
pointed sticks, fastened into the ground at such an incline as to bring
the points breast-high;—all these were fashioned by the engineer
corps, in vast numbers, when the army was besieging Petersburg in
1864.
 A LARGE GABION.

But
the
crownin
g work
of this
corps,
as it
always CHEVAUX-DE-FRISE.
seeme
d to
me, the department of their labor for which, I
believe, they will be the longest remembered, was
that of ponton-bridge laying. The word ponton, or
pontoon, is borrowed from both the Spanish and
French languages, which, in turn, derive it from the
parent Latin, pons, meaning a bridge, but it has now
come to mean a boat, and the men who build such
bridges are called by the French pontoniers. In fact,
the system of ponton bridges in use during the
FASCINES. Rebellion was copied, I believe, almost exactly from
the French model.
 The first ponton bridge which I recall in history was built by Xerxes,
nearly twenty-four hundred years ago, across the Hellespont. It was
over four thousand feet long. A violent storm broke it up, whereupon
the Persian “got square” by throwing two pairs of shackles into the
sea and ordering his men to give it three hundred strokes of a whip,
while he addressed it in imperious language. Then he ordered all
those persons who had been charged with the construction of the
bridge to be beheaded. Immediately afterwards he had two other
bridges built, “one for the army to pass over, and the other for the
baggage and beasts of burden. He appointed workmen more able
and expert than the former, who went about it in this manner. They
placed three hundred and sixty vessels across, some of them having
three banks of oars and others fifty oars apiece, with their sides
turned towards the Euxine (Black) Sea; and on the side that faced
the Ægean Sea they put three hundred and fourteen. They then cast
large anchors into the water on both sides, in order to fix and secure
all these vessels against the violence of the winds and the current of
the water. On the east side they left three passages or vacant
spaces, between the vessels, that there might be room for small
boats to go and come easily, when there was occasion, to and from
the Euxine Sea. After this, upon the land on both sides, they drove
large piles into the earth, with huge rings fastened to them, to which
were tied six vast cables, which went over each of the two bridges:
two of which cables were made of hemp, and four of a sort of reeds
called βιβλος, which were made use of in those times for the making
of cordage. Those that were made of hemp must have been of an
extraordinary strength and thickness since every cubit in length
weighed a talent (42 pounds). The cables, laid over the whole extent
of the vessels lengthwise, reached from one side to the other of the
sea. When this part of the work was finished, quite over the vessels
from side to side, and over the cables just described, they laid the
trunks of trees cut for that purpose, and planks again over them,
fastened and joined together to serve as a kind of floor or solid
bottom; all which they covered over with earth, and added rails or
battlements on each side that the horses and cattle might not be
frightened at seeing the sea in their passage.”
 Compare this bridge
of Xerxes with that
hereinafter described,
and note the points of
similarity.
One of the earliest
pontons used in the
ABATIS.
Rebellion was made of
India-rubber. It was a
sort of sack, shaped not
unlike a torpedo, which had to be inflated before use. When thus
inflated, two of these sacks were placed side by side, and on this
buoyant foundation the bridge was laid. Their extreme lightness was
a great advantage in transportation, but for some reason they were
not used by the engineers of the Army of the Potomac. They were
used in the western army, however, somewhat. General F. P. Blair’s
division used them in the Vicksburg campaign of 1863.
Another ponton which
was adopted for bridge
service may be
described as a skeleton
boat-frame, over which
was stretched a cotton-
canvas cover. This was
a great improvement THE FRAISE.
over the tin or copper-
covered boat-frames,
which had been thoroughly tested and condemned. It was the variety
used by Sherman’s army almost exclusively. In starting for
Savannah, he distributed his ponton trains among his four corps,
giving to each about nine hundred feet of bridge material. These
pontons were suitably hinged to form a wagon body, in which was
carried the canvas cover, anchor, chains, and a due proportion of
other bridge materials. This kind of bridge was used by the volunteer
engineers of the Army of the Potomac. I recall two such bridges.
 One spanned the Rapidan at Ely’s Ford, and was crossed by the
Second Corps the night of May 3, 1864, when it entered upon the
Wilderness campaign. The other was laid across the Po River, by the
Fiftieth New York Engineers, seven days afterwards, and over this
Hancock’s Veterans crossed—those, at least, who survived the
battle of that eventful Tuesday—before nightfall.
But all of the long bridges, notably those crossing the
Chickahominy, the James, the Appomattox, which now come to my
mind, were supported by wooden boats of the French pattern. These
were thirty-one feet long, two feet six inches deep, five feet four
inches wide at the top, and four feet at the bottom. They tapered so
little at the bows and sterns as to be nearly rectangular, and when
afloat the gunwales were about horizontal, having little of the curve
of the skiff.

A CANVAS PONTOON BOAT. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.

The floor timbers of the bridge, known as Balks, were twenty-five

and one-half feet long, and four and one-half inches square on the
end. Five continuous lines of these were laid on the boats two feet
ten inches apart.
The flooring of the bridge, called chesses, consisted of boards
having a uniform length of fourteen feet, a width of twelve inches,
and a thickness of one and a half inches.
To secure the chesses in place, side-rails of about the same
dimensions as the balks were laid upon them over the outer balks, to
which the rails were fastened by cords known as rack-lashings.
The distance between the centres of two boats in position is called
a bay. The distance between the boats is thirteen feet ten inches.
The distance between the side-rails is eleven feet, this being the
width of the roadway.

AN ANGLE OF FORT HELL (SEDGWICK) SHOWING GABIONS, CHEVAUX-DE-

FRISE, ABATIS AND FRAISE. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.

An abutment had to be constructed at either end of a bridge, which

was generally done by settling a heavy timber horizontally in the
ground, level with the top of the bridge, confining it there by stakes.
A proper approach was then made to this, sometimes by grading,
sometimes by corduroying, sometimes by cutting away the bank.
The boats, with all other bridge equipage, were carried upon
wagons, which together were known as the Ponton Train. Each
wagon was drawn by six mules. A single boat with its anchor and
cable formed the entire load for one team. The balks were loaded on
wagons by themselves, as were also the chesses, and the side-rails
on others. This system facilitated the work of the pontoniers. In
camp, the Ponton Train was located near army headquarters. On the
march it would naturally be in rear of the army, unless its services
were soon to be made use of. If, when the column had halted, we
saw this train and its body-guard, the engineers, passing to the front,
we at once concluded that there was “one wide river to cross,” and
we might as well settle down for a while, cook some coffee, and take
a nap.
In order to get a better idea of ponton-bridge laying, let us follow
such a train to the river and note the various steps in the operation. If
the enemy is not holding the opposite bank, the wagons are driven
as near as practicable to the brink of the water, unloaded, and driven
off out of the way. To avoid confusion and expedite the work, the
corps is divided up into the abutment, boat, balk, lashing, chess, and
side-rail parties. Each man, therefore, knows just what he has to do.
The abutment party takes the initiative, by laying the abutment, and
preparing the approaches as already described. Sometimes, when
the shore was quite marshy, trestle work or a crib of logs was
necessary in completing this duty, but, as the army rarely
approached a river except over a recognized thoroughfare, such
work was the exception.
While this party has been vigorously prosecuting its special labors,
the boat party, six in number, have got a ponton afloat, manned it,
and ridden to a point a proper distance above the line of the
proposed bridge, dropped anchor, and, paying out cable, drop down
alongside the abutment, and go ashore. The balk party are on hand
with five balks, two men to each, and having placed these so that
one end projects six inches beyond the outer gunwale of the boat,
they make way for the lashing party, who lash them in place at
proper intervals as indicated on the gunwales. The boat is then
pushed into the stream the length of the balks, the hither ends of
which are at once made fast to the abutment.
 A WOODEN PONTOON BOAT. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.

The chess party now step to the front and cover the balks with
flooring to within one foot of the ponton. Meanwhile the boat-party
has launched another ponton, dropped anchor in the proper place,
and brought it alongside the first: the balk party, also ready with
another bay of balks, lay them for the lashing party to make fast; the
boat being then pushed off broadside-to as before, and the free end
of the balks lashed so as to project six inches over the shore
gunwale of the first boat. By this plan it may be seen that each balk
and bay of balks completely spans two pontons. This gives the
bridge a firm foundation. The chess party continue their operations,
as before, to within a foot of the second boat. And now, when the
third bay of the bridge is begun, the side-rail party appears, placing
their rails on the chesses over the outside balks, to which they firmly
lash them, the chesses being so constructed that the lashings pass
between them for this purpose.
The foregoing operations are repeated bay after bay till the bridge
reaches the farther shore, when the building of another abutment
and its approaches completes the main part of the work. It then
remains to scatter the roadway of the bridge with a light covering of
hay, or straw, or sand, to protect it from wear, and, perhaps, some
straightening here and tightening there may be necessary, but the
work is now done, and all of the personnel and matériel may cross
with perfect safety. No rapid movements are allowed, however, and
man and beast must pass over at a walk. A guard of the engineers is
posted at the abutment, ordering “Route step!” “Route step!” as the
troops strike the bridge, and sentries, at intervals, repeat the caution
further along. By keeping the cadence in crossing, the troops would
subject the bridge to a much greater strain, and settle it deeper in the
water. It was shown over and over again that nothing so tried the
bridge as a column of infantry. The current idea is that the artillery
and the trains must have given it the severest test, which was not the
case.
In taking up a bridge, the order adopted was the reverse of that
followed in laying it, beginning with the end next the enemy, and
carrying the chess and balks back to the other shore by hand. The
work was sometimes accelerated by weighing all anchors, and
detaching the bridge from the further abutment, allow it to swing
bodily around to the hither shore to be dismantled. One instance is
remembered when this manœuvre was executed with exceeding
despatch. It was after the army had recrossed the Rappahannock,
following the battle of Chancellorsville. So nervous were the
engineers lest the enemy should come upon them at their labors
they did not even wait to pull up anchors, but cut every cable and
cast loose, glad enough to see their flotilla on the retreat after the
army, and more delighted still not to be attacked by the enemy
during the operation,—so says one of their number.
One writer on the war speaks of the engineers as grasping “not
the musket but the hammer,” a misleading remark, for not a nail is
driven into the bridge at any point.

A PONTOON BRIDGE AT BELLE PLAIN, VA. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.

 When the Army of the Potomac retreated from before Richmond in
1862 it crossed the lower Chickahominy on a bridge of boats and
rafts 1980 feet long. This was constructed by three separate working
parties, employed at the same time, one engaged at each end and
one in the centre. It was the longest bridge built in the war, of which I
have any knowledge, save one, and that the bridge built across the
James, below Wilcox’s Landing, in 1864. This latter was a
remarkable achievement in ponton engineering. It was over two
thousand feet long, and the channel boats were firmly anchored in
thirteen fathoms of water. The engineers began it during the
forenoon of June 14, and completed the task at midnight. It was built
under the direction of General Benham for the passage of the
wagon-trains and a part of the troops, while the rest crossed in
steamers and ferry-boats.
But ponton bridges were not always laid without opposition or
interference from the enemy. Perhaps they made the most stubborn
contest to prevent the laying of the bridges across the
Rappahannock before Fredericksburg in December, 1862.
The pontoniers had partially laid one bridge before daylight; but
when dawn appeared the enemy’s sharpshooters, who had been
posted in buildings on the opposite bank, opened so destructive a
fire upon them that they were compelled to desist, and two
subsequent attempts to continue the work, though desperately
made, were likewise brought to naught by the deadly fire of
Mississippi rifles. At last three regiments, the Seventh Michigan, and
the Nineteenth and Twentieth Massachusetts, volunteered to cross
the river, and drive the enemy out of cover, which they did most
gallantly, though not without considerable loss. They crossed the
river in ponton boats, charged up the steep bank opposite, drove out,
or captured the Rebels holding the buildings, and in a short time the
first ponton bridge was completed. Others were laid near by soon
after. I think the engineers lost more men here—I mean now in
actual combat—than in all their previous and subsequent service
combined.
 POPLAR GROVE CHURCH.

Ponton bridges were a source of great satisfaction to the soldiers.

They were perfect marvels of stability and steadiness. No swaying
motion was visible. To one passing across with a column of troops or
wagons no motion was discernible. It seemed as safe and secure as
mother earth, and the army walked them with the same serene
confidence as if they were. I remember one night while my company
was crossing the Appomattox on the bridge laid at Point of Rocks
that D. Webster Atkinson, a cannoneer, who stood about six feet and
a quarter in boots—dear fellow, he was afterwards mortally wounded
at Hatcher’s Run,—being well-nigh asleep from the fatigue of the all-
night march we were undergoing, walked off the bridge. Fortunately
for him, he stepped—not into four or five fathoms of water, but—a
ponton. As can readily be imagined, an unexpected step down of two
feet and a half was quite an “eye-opener” to him, but, barring a little
lameness, he suffered no harm.
The engineers, as a whole, led an enjoyable life of it in the service.
Their labors were quite fatiguing while they lasted, it is true, but they
were a privileged class when compared with the infantry. But they
did well all that was required of them, and there was no finer body of
men in the service.
The winter-quarters of the engineers were, perhaps, the most
unique of any in the army. In erecting them they gave their
mechanical skill full play. Some of their officers’ quarters were
marvels of rustic design. The houses of one regiment in the winter of
’63-4 were fashioned out of the straight cedar, which, being
undressed, gave the settlement a quaint but attractive and
comfortable appearance.
Their streets were corduroyed, and they even boasted sidewalks
of similar construction. Poplar Grove Church, erected by the Fiftieth
New York Engineers, a few miles below Petersburg, in 1864, still
stands, a monument to their skill in rustic design.
 CHAPTER XXI.
TALKING FLAGS AND TORCHES.

“Ho! my comrades, see the signal

Waving through the sky;
Re-enforcements now appearing,
Victory is nigh.”

Yes, there were flags in the army which talked for the soldiers, and
I cannot furnish a more entertaining chapter than one which will
describe how they did it, when they did it, and what they did it for.
True, all of the flags used in the service told stories of their own.
What more eloquent than “Old Glory,” with its thirteen stripes,
reminding us of our small beginning as a nation, its blue field,
originally occupied by the cross of the English flag when Washington
first gave it to the breeze in Cambridge, but replaced later by a
cluster of stars, which keep a tally of the number of States in the
Union! What wealth of history its subsequent career as the national
emblem suggests, making it almost vocal with speech! The corps,
division, and brigade flags, too, told a little story of their own, in a
manner already described. But there were other flags, whose sole
business it was to talk to one another, and the stories they told were
immediately written down for the benefit of the soldiers or sailors.
These flags were Signal flags, and the men who used them and
made them talk were known in the service as the Signal Corps.
What was this corps for? Well, to answer that question at length
would make quite a story, but, in brief, I may say that it was for the
purpose of rapid and frequent communication between different
portions of the land or naval forces. The army might be engaged with
the enemy, on the march, or in camp, yet these signal men, with their
flags, were serviceable in either situation, and in the former often
especially so; but I will begin at the beginning, and present a brief
sketch of the origin of the Signal Corps.
The system of signals used in both armies during the Rebellion
originated with one man—Albert J. Myer, who was born in Newburg,
N. Y. He entered the army as assistant surgeon in 1854, and, while
on duty in New Mexico and vicinity, the desirability of some better
method of rapid communication than that of a messenger impressed
itself upon him. This conviction, strengthened by his previous lines of
thought in the same direction, he finally wrought out in a system of
motion telegraphy.[2]

[2] These facts are taken from a small pamphlet written by

Lieutenant J. Willard Brown of West Medford, Mass., and issued
by the Signal Corps Association. Other facts pertaining to
signalling have been derived from “A Manual of Signals,” written
by General Myer (Old Probabilities) himself, since the war.

Recognizing to some extent the value of his system, Congress

created the position of Chief Signal Officer of the army, and Surgeon
Myer was appointed by President Buchanan to fill it. Up to some time
in 1863 Myer was not the Chief Signal Officer alone, but the only
signal officer commissioned as such, all others then in the corps—
and there were quite a number—being simply acting signal officers
on detached service from various regiments.
 One of the officers in the regular army, whom Surgeon Myer had
instructed in signalling while in New Mexico, went over to the enemy
when the war broke out and organized a corps for them.
From this small beginning of one man grew up the Signal Corps.
As soon as the value of the idea had fairly penetrated the brains of
those whose appreciation was needed to make it of practical value,
details of men were made from the various regiments around
Washington, and placed in camps of instruction to learn the use of
the “Signal Kit,” so called. The chief article in this kit was a series of
seven flags, varying from two feet to six feet square. Three of these
flags, one six feet, one four feet, and one two feet square, were
white, and had each a block of red in the centre one-third the
dimensions of the flag; that is, a flag six feet square had a centre two
feet square; two flags were black with white centres, and two were
red with white centres. When the flags were in use, they were tied to
a staff, whose length varied with the size of the flag to be used. If the
distance to signal was great, or obstructions intervened, a long staff
and a large flag were necessary; but the four-foot flag was the one in
most common use.
It will be readily inferred that the language of these flags was to be
addressed to the eye and not the ear. To make that language plain,
then, they must be distinctly seen by the persons whom they
addressed. This will explain why they were of different colors. In
making signals, the color of flag to be used depended upon the color
of background against which it was to appear. For example, a white
flag, even with its red centre, could not be easily seen against the
sky as a background. In such a situation a black flag was necessary.
With green or dark-colored backgrounds the white flag was used,
and in fact this was the flag of the signal service, having been used,
in all probability, nine times out of every ten that signals were made.
Before the deaf and dumb could be taught to talk, certain motions
were agreed upon to represent particular ideas, letters, and figures.
In like manner, a key, or code, was constructed which interpreted the
motions of the signal flag,—for it talked by motions,—and in accord
with which the motions were made. Let me illustrate these motions
by the accompanying cuts.
 Plate 1 represents a member of the Signal Corps in position,
holding the flag directly above his head, the staff vertical, and
grasped by both hands. This is the position from which all the
motions were made.

PLATE 1.

Plate 2 represents the flagman making the numeral “2” or the letter
“i.” This was done by waving the flag to the right and instantly
returning it to a vertical position. To make “1” the flag was waved to
the left, and instantly returned as before. See plate 3. This the code
translated as the letter “t” and the word “the.” “5” was made by
waving the flag directly to the front, and returning at once to the
vertical.
PLATE 2.
 PLATE 3.

The signal code most commonly used included but two symbols,
which made it simple to use. With these, not only could all the letters
of the alphabet and the numerals be communicated, but an endless
variety of syllables, words, phrases, and statements besides. As a
matter of fact, however, it contained several thousand combinations
of numerals with the significance of each combination attached to it.
Let me illustrate still further by using the symbols “2” and “1.”
Let us suppose the flagman to make the signal for “1,” and follow it
immediately with the motion for “2.” This would naturally be read as
12, which the code showed to mean O. Similarly, two consecutive
waves to the right, or 22, represented the letter N. Three waves to
the right and one to the left, or 2221, stood for the syllable tion. So
by repeating the symbols and changing the combinations we might
have, for example, 2122, meaning the enemy are advancing; or
1122, the cavalry have halted; or 12211, three guns in position; or
1112, two miles to the left,—all of which would appear in the code.
Let us join a signal party for the sake of observing the method of
communicating a message. Such a party, if complete, was
composed of three persons, viz., the signal officer (commissioned) in
charge, with a telescope and field-glass; the flagman, with his kit,
and an orderly to take charge of the horses, if the station was only
temporary. The point selected from which to signal must be a
commanding position, whether a mountain, a hill, a tree-top, or a
house-top. The station having been attained, the flagman takes
position, and the officer sweeps the horizon and intermediate
territory with his telescope to discover another signal station, where
a second officer and flagman are posted.
Having discovered such a station, the officer directs his man to
“call” that station. This he does by signalling the number of the
station (for each station had a number), repeating the same until his
signal is seen and answered. It was the custom at stations to keep a
man on the lookout, with the telescope, for signals, constantly.
Having got the attention of the opposite station, the officer sends his
message. The flagman was not supposed to know the import of the
message which he waved out with his flag. The officer called the
numerals, and the flagman responded with the required motions
almost automatically, when well practised.
At the end of each word motion “5” was made once; at the end of
a sentence “55”; and of a message “555.” There were a few words
and syllables which were conveyed by a single motion of the flag;
but, as a rule, the words had to be spelled out letter by letter, at least
by beginners. Skilled signalists, however, used many abbreviations,
and rarely found it necessary to spell out a word in full.
So much for the manner of sending a message. Now let us join the
party at the station where the message is being received. There we
simply find the officer sitting at his telescope reading the message
being sent to him. Should he fail to understand any word, his own
flagman signals an interruption, and asks a repetition of the message
from the last word understood. Such occurrences were not frequent,
however.
The services of the Signal Corps were just as needful and
valuable by night as in daylight; but, as the flags could not then talk
understandingly, Talking Torches were substituted for them. As a
“point of reference” was needful, by which to interpret the torch
signals made, the flagman lighted a “foot torch,” at which he stood
firmly while he signalled with the “flying torch.” This latter was
attached to a staff of the same length as the flagstaff, in fact, usually
the flagstaff itself. These torches were of copper, and filled with
turpentine. At the end of a message the flying torch was
extinguished.
The rapidity with which messages were sent by experienced
operators was something wonderful to the uneducated looker-on. An
ordinary message of a few lines can be sent in ten minutes, and the
rate of speed is much increased where officers have worked long
together, and understand each other’s methods and abbreviations.
Signal messages have been sent twenty-eight miles: but that is
exceptional. The conditions of the atmosphere and the location of
stations were seldom favorable to such long-distance signalling.
Ordinarily, messages were not sent more than six or seven miles,
but there were exceptions. Here is a familiar but noted one:—
In the latter part of September, 1864, the Rebel army under Hood
set out to destroy the railroad communications of Sherman, who was
then at Atlanta. The latter soon learned that Allatoona was the
objective point of the enemy. As it was only held by a small brigade,
whereas the enemy was seen advancing upon it in much superior
numbers, Sherman signalled a despatch from Vining’s Station to
Kenesaw, and from Kenesaw to Allatoona, whence it was again
signalled to Rome. It requested General Corse, who was at the latter
place, to hurry back to the assistance of Allatoona. Meanwhile,
Sherman was propelling the main body of his army in the same
direction. On reaching Kenesaw, “the signal officer reported,” says
Sherman, in his Memoirs, “that since daylight he had failed to obtain
any answer to his call for Allatoona; but while I was with him he
caught a faint glimpse of the tell-tale flag through an embrasure, and
after much time he made out these letters
‘C’ ‘R’ ‘S’ ‘E’ ‘H’ ‘E’ ‘R’
and translated the message ‘Corse is here.’ It was a source of great
relief, for it gave me the first assurance that General Corse had
received his orders, and that the place was adequately garrisoned.”
General Corse has informed me that the distance between the two
signal stations was about sixteen miles in an air line. Several other
messages passed later between these stations, among them this
one, which has been often referred to:—

Allatoona, Georgia, Oct. 6, 1864—2 p.m.

Captain L. M. Dayton, Aide-de-Camp:—
I am short a cheek-bone and an ear, but am able to whip all
h—l yet. My losses are heavy. A force moving from Stilesboro
to Kingston gives me some anxiety. Tell me where Sherman
is.
John M. Corse, Brigadier-General.
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebookfinal.com