Intellectual history does not emerge in a vacuum. First, it has to be created by those who think, talk, and write about events and people and places. Second, what they write, think, and discuss has to be located in the context of the interactions of people in society, and of the interactions of that society with other places and spaces. Third, by turning ideas into some sort of power, those who generate knowledge envisage a future for themselves and their society. The foundation of writing about Nigeria—a component of African historiography and intellectual history—was laid during the nineteenth century, although with events and traditions that preceded that era. The circumstances that led to modern Nigerian historiography contained a combination of external and internal factors, and a small group of individuals with the facility to write exploited this opportunity to inaugurate a process of documentation and reflection.