The Benin Expedition of 1897 was a punitive expedition by a United Kingdom force of 1,200 under Admiral Sir Harry Rawson
in response to the defeat of a previous British-led invasion force
under Acting Consul General James Philips (which had left all but two
men dead). Rawson's troops captured, burned, and looted Benin City, bringing to an end the west African Kingdom of Benin. As a result much of the country's art, including the Benin Bronzes, was either destroyed, looted or dispersed.
Background
At the end of the 19th century, the Kingdom of Benin had managed to
retain its independence and the Oba exercised a monopoly over trade
which the British found irksome. The territory was coveted by an
influential group of investors for its rich natural resources such as
palm-oil, rubber and ivory. The kingdom was largely independent of
British control, and pressure continued from figures such as Vice-Consul
James Robert Phillips and Captain Gallwey (the British vice-Consul of
Oil Rivers Protectorate) who were pushing for British annexation of the
Benin Empire and the removal of the Oba.
In March 1892, Henry Gallwey, the British Vice-Consul of Oil Rivers Protectorate (later Niger Coast Protectorate), visited Benin City hoping to annexe Benin Kingdom and make it a British protectorate. Although the King of Benin, Omo n’Oba (Ovonramwen),
was sceptical of the British motives he was willing to endorse what he
believed was a friendship and trade agreement. The treaty signed by the
king agreed to the abolition of the Benin slave trade and human
sacrifice.
The King refrained from endorsing Gallwey's treaty when it became
apparent that the document was a deceptive ploy intended to make Benin
Kingdom a British colony. Consequently the King issued an edict barring
all British officials and traders from entering Benin territories. Since
Major (later Sir) Claude Maxwell Macdonald,
the Consul General of the Oil River Protectorate authorities considered
the 'Treaty' legal and binding, he deemed the King's reaction a
violation of the accord and thus a hostile act.
In 1894 after the invasion and destruction of Brohomi, the trading town of the chief Nana Olomu,
the leading Itsekiri trader in the Benin River District by a combined
British Royal Navy and Niger Coast Protectorate forces, Benin Kingdom
increased her military presence on her southern borders. This vigilance
and the Colonial Office's refusal to grant approval for an invasion of
Benin City scuttled the expedition the Protectorate had planned for
early 1895. Even so between September 1895 and mid-1896 three attempts
were made by the Protectorate to enforce the Gallwey 'Treaty'. Major P.
Copland-Crawford, Vice-Consul of the Benin District, made the first
attempt, Mr. Locke, the Vice-Consul Assistant, made a second one and the
third one was made by Captain Arthur Maling, the Commandant of the
Niger Coast Protectorate Force detachment based in Sapele.
In March 1896, following price fixing and refusal by Itsekiri middle
men to pay the required tributes, the King of Benin ordered a cessation
of the supply of oil palm produce to them. The trade embargo brought
trade in the Benin River region to a standstill, and the British traders
and agents of the British trading firms quickly appealed to the
Protectorate's Consul-General to 'open up' Benin territories, and send
the King (whom they claimed was an ‘obstruction’) into exile. In October
1896 Lieutenant James Robert Phillips (RN) [Edit: Phillips was not a
Lieutenant, he was a lawyer; after completing articles he was Sheriff
and Overseer of Prisons in the Gold Coast and later Acting Queen's
Advocate there, before his appointment as Acting Consul-Generalin the
Protectorate – see Home, cited below already, at page 30] the Acting
Consul-General visited the Benin River District and had meetings with
the agents and traders. In the end the agents and traders were able to
convince him that 'there is a future on the Benin River if Benin
territories were opened'.
Benin had developed a reputation for sending strong messages of
resistance. But the way Benin treated its slaves and the public display
of large quantities of human remains hardened British attitudes towards
Benin's rulers. The trader James Pinnock wrote that he saw 'a large
number of men all handcuffed and chained' there, with 'their ears cut
off with a razor'. T.B Auchterlonie described the approach to the
capital through an avenue of trees hung with decomposing human remains.
After the 'lane of horrors' came a grass common 'thickly stewn with the
skulls and bones of sacrificed human beings.'
[3]
The "Benin Massacre"
In November Phillips made a formal request to his superiors in England for permission to invade Benin City,
[1]
and, in late December 1896, without waiting for a reply or approval
from London, Phillips embarked on a military expedition with two Niger
Coast Protectorate Force officers, a medical officer, two trading
agents, 250 African soldiers masquerading in part as porters, and in
part as a drum and pipe band. To disguise their true intent, the force's
weapons were hidden in the baggage carried by the 'porters'. His
request to London was to depose the king of Benin City, replace him with
a Native Council and pay for the invasion with the 'ivory' he hoped to
find in the Benin king's palace.
In the meantime he sent a message forward to the Oba, Benin's king,
that his present mission was to discuss trade and peace and demanding
admission to the territory in defiance of Benin law explicitly
forbidding his entry. Unfortunately for Phillips, some Itsekiri trading
chiefs sent a message to the Benin king that 'the white man is bringing
war'. On receiving the news the Benin king quickly summoned the city's
high-ranking nobles for an emergency meeting, and during the discussions
the Iyase, the commander in chief of the Benin Army argued that the
British were planning a surprise attack and must be defeated. The Benin
king however argued that the British should be allowed to enter the city
so that it can be ascertained whether or not the visit was a friendly
one. The Iyase ignored the king's views, and ordered the formation of a
strike force that was commanded by the Ologbose, a senior army
commander, which was sent to Gwato to destroy the invaders.
On 4 January 1897, the Benin strike force composed mainly of border
guards and servants of some chiefs caught Phillips' column totally
unprepared at Ugbine village near Gwato. Since Phillips was not
expecting any opposition and was unaware that his operation was being
perceived with alarm in Benin, the contingent's only weapons, consisting
of the officers' pistols, were locked up in the head packs of the
African porters.
Only two British officers survived the annihilation of Phillips' expedition,
[4] which became known as the 'The Benin Massacre'.
British objectives
Admiral Sir Harry Rawson
On 12 January 1897, Rear-Admiral Harry Rawson,
commanding the squadron at the Cape of Good Hope was appointed by the
British Admiralty to lead an expedition to capture the Benin king and
destroy Benin City. The operation was named the Benin Punitive
Expedition, and on 9 February 1897 the invasion of the Benin kingdom
began.
The field commanders were instructed by their commander-in–chief to
burn down all Benin kingdom's towns and villages, and hang the king of
Benin wherever and whenever he was captured. The invasion force of about
1,200 Royal Marines, sailors and Niger Coast Protectorate Forces, and
composed of three columns; the 'Sapoba', 'Gwato' and 'Main' Columns. The
'Sapoba' column, and the 'Main column' reached Benin City after 10 days
of bitter fighting but the 'Gwato' column was routed at Gwato.
Aftermath
Immediately after the British invaders secured the city, looting
began. It was an exercise that was carried out by all members of the
expedition. Monuments and palaces of many high-ranking chiefs were
looted. There was evidence of previous human sacrifice found by the
British, a tradition they construed as "barbaric,"
with Reuters and the Illustrated London News reporting that the town 'reeked of human blood.'
Homes, religious buildings and palaces were deliberately torched. On
the third day, the blaze grew out of control and engulfed part of the
city. Most of the plunder was retained by the expedition with some 2,500
(official figures) religious artefacts, Benin visual history, mnemonics
and artworks being sent to England.
The British Admiralty confiscated and auctioned off the war booty to defray the costs of the Expedition.
The expected revenue from the expedition was discussed already before
Phillips set out on his ill-fated journey to the city of Benin in 1896.
In a letter to Lord Salisbury,
the British Foreign Secretary, Phillips requested approval to invade
Benin and depose the Oba, adding the following footnote: "I would add
that I have reason to hope that sufficient ivory would be found in the
King's house to pay the expenses incurred in removing the King from his
stool."
In late 1897 the art was auctioned in Paris, France, to raise funds
to pay for the expedition. Most of the Benin bronzes went first to
purchasers in Germany, but a sizeable group is now back in London at the
British Museum.
The dispersement of the Benin art to museums around the world catalysed
the beginnings of a long and slow European reassessment of the value of
West African art. The Benin art was copied and the style integrated
into the art of many European artists and thus had a strong influence on
the early formation of modernism in Europe.
The King of Benin was eventually captured by the British
consul-general Moor, deposed and sent to live out his days in Calabar.
He died in 1914. Moor committed suicide in Barnes, Middlesex in 1909.
Reference: en.wikipedia.org
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