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^[1], 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^[2] word and corrupted
to Bini by the Itsekhiri^[3]s, Urhobo^[4]s 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^[5]. 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^[6]. 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^[7] 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^[8], now best known as
the FESTAC Mask^[9] 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^[10] 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^[11], pepper^[12] and palm oil^[13] for European goods
such as manillas^[14] and guns^[15]. In the early 16th
century, the Oba sent an ambassador to Lisbon^[16], and the king of
Portugal sent Christian^[17] missionaries to
Benin City. Some residents of Benin City could still speak
a pidgin^[18] 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^[19] 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^[20], 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^[21]’s Nauwkeurige
Beschrijvinge der Afrikaansche Gewesten, published
in Amsterdam^[22] in 1668 says.

The king’s palace or court is a square, and is as large as the
town of Haarlem^[23] 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^[24], 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^[25]. 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.