Lagos Colony of 1861

         
Lagos Colony was a British colonial possession centred on the port of Lagos in what is now southern Nigeria. Lagos was annexed on 6 August 1861 under the threat of force by Commander Beddingfield of HMS Prometheus who was accompanied by the Acting British Consul,William McCoskry.Oba Dosunmu of Lagos (spelled "Docemo" in British documents) resisted the cession for 11 days while facing the threat of violence on Lagos and its people, but capitulated and signed the Lagos Treaty of Cession.Lagos was declared a colony on 5 March 1862.By 1872 Lagos was a cosmopolitan trading center with a population over 60,000.In the aftermath of prolonged wars between the mainland Yoruba states, the colony established a protectorate over most of Yorubaland between 1890 and 1897.The colony and protectorate was incorporated into Southern Nigeria in February 1906, and Lagos became the capital of the protectorate of Nigeria in January 1914. Since then, Lagos has grown to become the largest city in West Africa, with an estimated metropolitan population of over 9,000,000 as of 2011.
                                 
                                        The first missionary house in Nigeria at Badagry

The earliest incarnation of Lagos was an Awori Yoruba fishing community located on the series of islands and peninsula that form the modern state.The area was inhabited by families that claimed a semi-mythical ancestry from a figure called Olofin^. The modern descendants of this figure are the contemporary nobility known as the Idejo or "white cap chiefs" of Lagos. In the 16th century, Lagos island was reputedly sacked by troops of the Oba of Benin during that kingdom's expansionary phase and became known as Eko. The monarchs of Lagos since then have claimed descent from the warrior Ashipa (who is alternately claimed to be a prince of Benin or an Awori freebooter loyal to the Benin throne), although the aristocracy or the Idejo remained Yoruba. Ashipa's son built his palace on Lagos Island, and his grandson moved the seat of government to the palace from the Iddo peninsula. In 1730 the Oba of Lagos invited Portuguese slave traders to the island, and soon a flourishing trade developed.
In the first half of the 19th century the Yoruba hinterland was in a state of near-constant warfare due to internal conflicts and incursions from the northern and western neighbouring states. By now the fortified island of Lagos had become a major centre of the slave trade. The United Kingdom had abolished import of slaves to their colonies in 1807, and abolished slavery in all British territories in 1833. The British became increasingly active in suppressing the slave trade. At the end of 1851 a naval expedition bombarded Lagos into submission,deposed Oba Kosoko, installed Oba Akintoye(who was more amenable), and signed the Great Britain-Lagos treaty that made slavery illegal in Lagos on January 1, 1852. A few months later a vice-consul from the Bight of Benin consulate was posted to the island, and the next year Lagos was upgraded to a full consulate.A Yoruba emigrant, the catechist James White, wrote in 1853 "By the taking of Lagos, England has performed an act which the grateful children of Africa shall long remember ... One of the principal roots of the slave trade is torn out of the soil".
Tensions between the new ruler, Akitoye, and supporters of the deposed Kosoko led to fighting in August 1853. An attempt by Kosoko himself to take the town was defeated, but Akitoye died suddenly on 2 September 1853, perhaps by poison. After consulting with the local chiefs, the consul declared Dosunmu (Docemo), the eldest son of Akitoye, the new Oba.With successive crises and interventions, the consulate evolved over the following years into a form of protectorate. Lagos became a base from which the British would gradually extend their jurisdiction in the form of a protectorate over the hinterland. The process was driven by demands of trade and security rather than by any deliberate policy of expansion.The CMS Grammer School was founded in Lagos on 6 June 1859 by the Church Missionary Society, modelled on the The CMS Grammer School in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Early years

                                                          Richard Francis Burton

In August 1861 a British naval force entered Lagos and annexed Lagos as a British colony via the Lagos Treaty of Cession. King Dosumu was exiled and the consul William McCoskry became acting governor. As a colony, Lagos was now protected and governed directly from Britain. Africans born in the colony were British subjects, with full rights including access to the courts. By contrast, Africans in the later protectorates of southern and northern Nigeria were protected people but remained under the jurisdiction of their traditional rulers.
In the early years, trade with the interior was severely restricted due to a war between Ibadan and Abeokuta.The Ogun River leading to Abeokuta was not safe for canoe traffic, with travellers at risk from Egba robbers. On 14 November 1862 Governor Henry Stanhope Freeman called on all British subjects to return from Abeokuta to Lagos, leaving their property, for which the chiefs of Abeokuta would be answerable to the British government.The acting Governor William Rice Mulliner met the Bashorun of Abeokuta in May 1863, who told him that the recent robberies of traders' property were due to the custom of suppressing trading so as to force the men to war. The plunder would cease when the war was over. In the meantime, traders should not travel to Abeokuta since their safety could not be guaranteed.Despite the dangers of travel in the interior, an 1865 parliamentary committee on the west coast of Africa was informed that Lagos was at no risk from Abeokuta for two reasons. First, the people of Abeokuta were too intelligent to make such an attack. Second, although Abeokuta had 1,000 canoes used for trading with Lagos, they had no war canoes, and even if they did they could never storm the well-defended island from across the lagoon.
Although the slave trade had been suppressed, and slavery was illegal in British territory, slavery still continued in the region. Lagos was seen as a haven by runaway slaves, who were something of a problem for the administration. McCoskry set up a court to hear cases of abuse against slaves and of runaway slaves from the interior, and established a "Liberated African Yard" to give employment to freed runaways until they were able to look after themselves. He did not consider that abolition of slavery in the colony would be practical.
McCloskry, and other merchants in the colony, were opposed to the activities of missionaries which they felt interfered with trade. In 1855 he had been among signatories of a petition to prevent two missionaries who had gone on leave from returning to Lagos. McCloskry communicated his view to the former explorer Richard Francis Burton, who visited Lagos and Abeokuta in 1861 while acting as consul at Fernando Po,and who was also opposed to missionary work.His successor, Freeman, agreed with Burton that the blacks were more likely to be converted by Islam than by Christianity.Freeman attempted to suppress an attempt by Robert Campbell, a Jamaican of part-Scottish, part-African descent, to establish a newspaper in the colony. He consider it would be "a dangerous instrument in the hands of semi-civilized Negroes". The British government did not agree, and the first issue of the Anglo-African, appeared on 6 June 1863.Earlier there had been a newspaper that can truly be described as the first Nigerian newspaper called 'Iwe Iroyin Yoruba fun awon Egba ati Yoruba' in1854.
 Colonial Lagos developed into a busy, cosmopolitan port, with an architecture that blended Victorian and Brazilian styles.The Brazilian element was imparted by skilled builders and masons who had returned from Brazil.The black elite was composed of English-speaking "Saros" from Sierra Leone and other emancipated slaves who had been repatriated from Brazil and Cuba.By 1872 the population of the colony was over 60,000, of whom less than 100 were of European origin. In 1876 imports were valued at £476,813 and exports at £619,260.
 Lagos was the capital of Nigeria until 1991, when that role was ceded to the Federal Capital Territory,Abuja and remains the commercial capital.The estimated population in 2016 was over 25 million

Culled from wikipedia.org