![]() ![]() When the Benin captured and killed a diplomatic detachment from Britain, the British army invaded Benin territory and toppled the monarchy. Britain’s aim was to “civilize” the Benin by persuading them to prohibit slavery and human sacrifice. Within forty years Britain controlled the coast and had begun to negotiate with the Benin, who controlled the central region. When negotiations proved unsuccessful, the British invaded and captured the city in 1851. For example, in the 1840s British negotiators met with leaders in the coastal city of Lagos, which had become the most active port in the Nigerian slave market. By the mid nineteenth century the Fulani and the Benin were the most powerful states in the country.Īfter the British abolished slavery in 1807, they engaged in diplomatic and military efforts to disrupt the slave trade. He and his followers had eclipsed the Kanem-Bornu by 1809 and became the leaders of the Islamic slave trade from their capital city, Sokoto. In 1804 Usuman dan Fodio (1754–1817), a Muslim reformer from the Fulani tribal group, began a holy war to unite the tribes in northern Nigeria. In the following centuries millions of native Nigerians were captured and shipped to the colonies of the European powers. In the sixteenth century Portuguese, British, French, and Dutch traders began purchasing slaves from merchants operating on the coast. Stories of those rituals, including tales of human sacrifice, spread throughout Europe and fueled the perception that African societies were “uncivilized.” Benin society, which had highly developed artistic and sculptural traditions, was dominated by spiritual rituals. The Benin Kingdom, which controlled the central forests and the southern coast, was the first of the Nigerian kingdoms to be visited by Portuguese explorers, who arrived in the fifteenth century. The Kanem-Bornu adopted Islam in the thirteenth century and, by the fifteenth century, were trading slaves and other commodities along the trans–Saharan trade routes. In the sixteenth century the Kanem-Bornu Kingdom, which originated around Lake Chad in the ninth century, controlled what is now eastern Nigeria. Through immigration and military conquest, they gradually came under the control of a series of powerful kingdoms. By the ninth century BC many of the native tribes had coalesced into agricultural societies on the Jos Plateau. BackgroundĪrchaeological surveys of Nigeria indicate that tribal societies occupied the region from at least 2000 BC. The judicial branch is led by the Supreme Court, with justices appointed by the president upon approval of the legislators. The legislature’s two independent chambers, whose members represent constituencies in the nation’s thirty-six states and the federal capital, cooperate to develop laws and approve budgets. Nigeria is a federal republic with a popularly elected president-who serves as head of state, commander of the armed forces, and head of government-assisted by a vice president and an executive cabinet. Federal Republic of Nigeria Type of Government
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