Why And How History Defines Who We Are (Part 6) By Mike Ozekhome, SAN,

THE KINGDOM OF BENIN:

A QUINTESSENTIAL REMINDER OF THE IMPORTANCE OF HISTORY

INTRODUCTION

History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion. Last week, I started my discourse on the Kingdom of Benin. I have so far shown comprehensively, on the origin of the Benin Kingdom, demonstrating how the kingdom started in 900s, when the Edo people settled in the rain forests of West Africa and how it was later annexed by rampaging merchantilsitic British Colonialists in 1897. Today, I shall continue and beam our search light on what made this Kingdom stand out from other contemporary Kingdoms and Empires.

THE GOLDEN AGE

In 1440, Oba Ewuare, also known as Ewuare the Great, came to power and expanded the borders of the former city-state. It was only at this time that the administrative centre of the kingdom began to be referred to as Ubinu after the Yoruba word and corrupted to Bini by the Itsekhiris, Urhobos and Edo people who all lived together in the royal administrative centre of the kingdom. The Portuguese who arrived in an expedition led by Joao Afonso de Aveiro in 1485 would refer to it as Benin and the centre would become known as Benin City.

The Kingdom of Benin eventually gained political strength and ascendancy over much of what later became Mid-western Nigeria; then Bendel State; and now Edo State.

The Oba had become the mount of power within the region. Oba Ewuare, the first Golden Age Oba, is credited with turning Benin City into a city-state, from a military fortress built by the Ogisos, protected by 50ft deep moats and walls. It was from this bastion that he launched his military campaigns, furthered his conquests and began the expansion of the kingdom from the Edo-speaking heartlands.

A series of walls marked the incremental growth of the sacred city from 850 AD until its decline in the 16th century. To enclose his palace, Oba Ewuare commanded, the building of Benin’s inner walls, an 11-kilometre-long (7 miles) earthen rampart girded by a moat 6 m (20 ft) deep; great thorough fares and nine fortified gateways. This was excavated in the early 1960s by Graham Connah. Connah estimated that its construction if spread out over five dry seasons, would have required a workforce of 1,000 labourers working ten hours a day seven days a week. Ewuare also added great thoroughfares and erected nine fortified gateways.

More excavations later uncovered a rural network of earthen walls 6,000 to 13,000 km (4,000 to 8,000 mi) long, all of which would have taken an estimated 150 million man-hours to build and must have taken hundreds of years to build. These were apparently raised to mark out territories for towns and cities. Thirteen years after Ewuare’s death, tales of Benin’s splendors lured more Portuguese traders to the city gates.

At its height, Benin dominated the entire trade along the entire coastline from the Western Niger Delta, through Lagos to modern-day Ghana. It was for this reason that this important coastline was named the Bight of Benin. The present-day Republic of Benin, formerly Dahomey, decided to choose the name of this Bight as the name of its country. Benin ruled over the tribes of the Niger Delta, including the Western Igbos, Ijaws, Itshekiris, and Urhobos, amongst others. It also held sway over the Eastern Yoruba tribes of Ondo, Ekiti, Mahin/Ugbo, and Ijebu. It also conquered what eventually became the city of Lagos hundreds of years before the British took over in 1851.

The state developed an advanced artistic culture, especially in its famous artifacts of bronze, iron and ivory. These include bronze wall plaques and life-sized bronze heads depicting the Obas and Iyobas of Benin. The most well-known artifact is based on Queen Idia, now best known as the FESTAC Mask after its use in 1977 in the logo of the Nigeria-financed and hosted Second Festival of Black & African Arts and Culture (FESTAC 77).

By the late 1400s, the capital of Benin, Benin City, was already a large and highly regulated city. Europeans who visited were always impressed by its splendor and compared it to the major European cities at the time. The city was laid out on a clear plan, the buildings were reportedly all well-kept, and the city included a massive palace compound decorated with thousands of intricate metal, ivory, and wood plaques (known as the Benin Bronzes), most of which were made between the 1400s and 1600s, after which the craft declined. In the mid-1600s, the power of the Obas also waned, as administrators and officials took more control over the government.

EUROPEAN CONTACT

The first European travelers to reach Benin were Portuguese explorers under Joao Afonso de Aveiro in about 1485. A strong mercantile relationship developed, with the Edo trading slaves and tropical products such as ivory, pepper and palm oil for European goods such as manillas and guns. In the early 16th century, the Oba sent an ambassador to Lisbon, and the king of Portugal sent Christian missionaries to Benin City. Some residents of Benin City could still speak a pidgin Portuguese in the late 19th century.

The first English expedition to Benin was in 1553, and significant trading developed between England and Benin based on the export of ivory, palm oil, pepper, and slaves. Visitors in the 16th and 19th centuries brought back to Europe tales of “Great Benin”, a fabulous city of noble buildings, ruled over by a powerful king. On his part, the Oba began to suspect Britain of larger colonial designs and ceased communications with the British until the British Expedition in 1896-97, when British troops captured, burned, and looted Benin City as part of a punitive mission, which brought the kingdom’s imperial era to an end. A 17th-century Dutch engraving from Olfert Dapper’s Nauwkeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaansche Gewesten, published in Amsterdam in 1668 says.

The king’s palace or court is a square, and is as large as the town of Haarlem and entirely surrounded by a special wall, like that which encircles the town. It is divided into many magnificent palaces, houses, and apartments of the courtiers, and comprises beautiful and long square galleries, about as large as the Exchange at Amsterdam, but one larger than another, resting on wooden pillars, from top to bottom covered with cast copper, on which are engraved the pictures of their war exploits and battles.

Another Dutch traveler was David van Nyendael, who in 1699 wrote an eye-witness account.

MILITARY SUPERIORITY

 Military operations relied on a well-trained disciplined force. At the head of the host stood the Oba of Benin. The monarch of the realm served as supreme military commander. Beneath him were subordinate generalissimos, the Ezomo, the Iyase, and others who supervised a Metropolitan Regiment based in the capital, and a Royal Regiment made up of hand-picked warriors that also served as bodyguards. Benin’s Queen Mother also retained her own regiment, the “Queen’s Own”. The Metropolitan and Royal regiments were relatively stable semi-permanent or permanent formations. The Village Regiments provided the bulk of the fighting force and were mobilized as needed, sending contingents of warriors upon the command of the king and his generals. Formations were broken down into sub-units under designated commanders. Foreign observers often commented favorably on Benin’s discipline and organization as “better disciplined than any other Guinea nation”, contrasting them with the slacker troops from the Gold Coast.

 Until the introduction of guns in the 15th century, traditional weapons like the spear, short sword, and bow held sway. Efforts were made to reorganize a local guild of blacksmiths in the 18th century to manufacture light firearms, but dependence on imports was still heavy. Before the coming of the gun, guilds of blacksmiths were charged with war production-particularly swords and iron spearheads. (To be continued).

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

“I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.” (James Baldwin).

 LAST LINE

I thank Nigerians for always keeping faith with the Sunday Sermon on the Mount of the Nigerian Project, by Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, OFR, FCIArb., Ph.D, LL.D. I enjoin you to look forward to next week’s treatise.