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Historical Change in an Ibo Polity: Asaba to 1885

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Elizabeth Isichei
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Extract

Asaba is an Ibo town, which, because of its position on the Niger, came into relatively early contact with Europeans. This means that we have materials for its history in European records for more than a hundred years. This article is based on these records, and on present-day oral traditions. It begins with an account of Asaba's traditional social and political structure, and its former role in the economic life of the lower Niger.

Asaba traditions relate in detail how the town was founded by a man from Nteje, east of the Niger, called Nnebisi. There is less information about its subsequent history, though it seems that it went through a significant changefrom the rule of a single Eze to a system of personal titles, like that found in eastern Iboland. Some attempts have been made to make a king list for Asaba, but it does not seem possible to establish either this or any other useful chronological framework other than that provided by family genealogies. These suggest that Nnebisi lived in the seventeenth century. The main theme in Asaba's external history is her changing relationship with her powerful neighbour, Benin.

The choice of Onitsha, rather than Asaba, as a missionary and trading centre, meant that Asaba went through a period of relative eclipse. The first C.M.S. missionaries came to the town in 1875, but they had little impact on Asaba life. In the middle eighties, Asaba became the administrative capital of the newlyestablished Royal Niger Company. The impact of the Company on Asaba, though great, was short-lived. But one result of its choice of Asaba as a capital was the renewal of missionary endeavour, both Catholic and Protestant, in the town. This in its turn was to have a very great impact on Asaba's way of life.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , July 1969 , pp. 421 - 438
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

1 Rev. John Milum, ‘Notes of a journey from Lagos up the River Niger to Bida… 1879–80’, Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc. iii (1881) 27.

2 Baikie, William Balfour, Narrative of an Exploring Voyage up the Rivers Kwora and Binue… in 1854 (London, 1856), 294–5.Google Scholar

3 Burdo, Adolphe, The Niger and the Benue Travels in Central Africa (Eng. trans., London, 1880), 193Google Scholar; Thomas, Northcote W., Anthropological Report on Ibo-Speaking Peoples of Nigeria, Part IV, Law and Custom of the Ibo of the Asaba District, S. Nigeria (London, 1914), 3Google Scholar.

4 Church Missionary Society Archives, London CA3/043; J. B. Wood, ‘Report of a visit to the Niger Mission… 1880’.

5 C. M. S. Niger Mission, 1891/67, letter from R. Bennett, 5 Feb. 1890.

6 Society of African Missions Archives, Rome; 14/80302/15917, Zappa to Superior General 28 Aug. 1897.

7 S.M.A. Archives, Rome; 2 E. 30, Mgr. Paul Pellet, Journal (separate leaf after fo. 158).

8 The account that follows is based primarily on information from F. O. Isichei. There is a short account of Asaba age-grades in G. I. Jones, ‘Ibo age organisation, with special reference to the Cross River and north-eastern Ibo’, J. Roy. Anthrop. Jnst. July–Dec. 1962 (92), 191 ff. The account in Thomas, op. cit., is garbled and incomplete.

9 Cf. p. 427 below.

10 For the increasing number of Eze title-holders see C.M.S. Archives CA3/02; I. B. Spencer, ‘Araba and the Arabans’. There is much other evidence to this effect.

11 Baikie, Narrative, 294, 296; Rev. Samuel Crowther and Rev. John Christopher Taylor, The Gospel on the Banks of the Niger, i (London, 1859), 39–40.

12 Burdo, The Niger, 193.

13 According to one of two alternative systems. Cf. R. E. Bradbury, ‘The kingdom of Benin’, in Daryll Forde and P. M. Kaberry (eds.), West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century, 28.

14 Thomas, Anthropological Report 187 ff.

15 MS by F. O. Isichei. Cf. C.M.S. Archives CA3/037, J. C. Taylor, Journal, i Mar. 1866.

16 Davidson, Basil, Black Mother: Africa, The Years of Trial (London, 1961), 196 ff., 207–9, 229–30Google Scholar. A missionary account (Isaac Spencer, loc. cit) of the sacred grove in Asaba where human sacrifice was offered, is strikingly reminiscent of nineteenth-century accounts of Benin, Bonny and Old Calabar.

17 Crowther and Taylor, The Gospel, 385 (Aboh and Igala). For Brass see F.O. 84/2109, MacDonald Report 1890, ch. iii, encl. 2.

18 Richard, and Lander, John, Journal of an Expedition to explore the Course and Termination of the Niger…, iii (London, 1832), 132Google Scholar ff.

19 Capt. Allen, W. and Thomson, T. R. H., A Narrative of the Expedition to the Niger River in 1841, i (London, 1848), 270.Google Scholar

20 C.M.S. Archives CA3/037 Taylor, Journal, i Mar. 1866.

21 Informant: F. O. Isichei. Cf. F.O. 84/2109, MacDonald Report 1890, ch. x.

22 I. B. Spencer, ‘Araba and the Arabans’ (C.M.S. Archives CA3/02), 10 Sept. 1879. He resigned from the C.M.S. in 1881 because of the inquisition into ‘native agents’ at the time. He worked as a trader until 1887, when he accepted an invitation to return to C.M.S. service, but he died soon after. (C.M.S. Archives, Niger Mission, 1881/116; 1887/91; 1889/96.)

23 ‘The history of Asaba and its kings’ Niger and Yoruba Notes, Sept. 1901, pp. 20–1.

24 C.M.S. Archives, Niger Mission, 1891/142; 1892/52; 1894/76; 79; 94; 97. C.M.S. Register of Missionaries and Native Clergy. Ben. N. Azikiwe, ‘Fragments of Onitsha history’, J. of Negro History, xv (1930), 435.

25 H. Vaux, Intelligence Report on the Asaba Clan, Asaba Division, 1936. This is in the National Archives, Ibadan. I have not yet been able to consult this material, but have used Dr J. S. Boston's notes and transcripts made from this Report and from B. G. Stone, Intelligence Report on the Umueri Villages of the Aguleri Native Court Area of the Onitsha Division… (1932). I am most grateful to Dr Boston for his generosity in this respect.

26 ‘Asaba’, Nigeria Magazine, liv (1957), 226 ff.

27 Mr F. O. Isichei of Umuaji Quarter, Asaba, to whom I am deeply indebted for his unfailing co-operation in the face of poor health.

28 It is certain that Julius Spencer had not read Isaac Spencer's MS letter to the C.M.S. London headquarters, and that Thomas had not read either Spencer's account. Vaux was presumably familiar with Thomas's book. There is no way of knowing what sources were used for the short anonymous article in Nigeria Magazine—I have made little use of it for that reason. F. O. Isichei's account is based on oral tradition alone. (Asaba people are not familiar with Thomas's book—nor, of course, with the other, mainly unpublished, sources.)

29 Variant: Isaac Spencer (1879): Nnebisi came from ‘Ntemedsah’; he travelled to Asaba via Nsube.

30 Variant: ibid. Nnebisi fled with his betrothed after killing a prince who insulted her. The other version, which gives the Asaba a less illustrious origin and is found in all other sources, is probably correct.

31 Some versions say they were his sons, but this version is confirmed by the fact that Umuezei, Umuaji and Umuonaje together form Umuone, and the other two quarters, Umueze Umunne.

32 Eye-witness account: F. O. Isichei.

33 North-east of Onitsha. It includes Nsube, Nteje, Aguleri, Igbariam.

34 Dr Boston suggests the prefix Ama- is the Igala prefix, Ama (‘those o f…’ ) .

35 F. O. Isichei; cf. Arthur Glyn Leonard, The Lower Niger and its Tribes (London, 1906), 34.

36 On Nri, cf. Jeffries, M. D. W., The divine Umundri king’, Africa, viii (1935), 346CrossRefGoogle Scholar ff., and “The Umundri tradition of origin’, African Studies, xv (1956), 119Google Scholar ff. There is an urgent need for more research on Nri, to which excavations in Igbo, Awka Division, have a fascinating relevance (Thurstan Shaw, C., ‘Bronzes from eastern Nigeria’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, ii (1960), 162Google Scholar ff.).

37 F. O. Isichei. (Cf. Thomas's king-list, p. 430 below.) Only Ezebogo's descent is given in this table. Other versions omit One and Ezeumune and give the next generation as Nnebisi's sons.

38 Mr F. O. Isichei, who supplied this table, and who is descended from Ezebogo, is the thirteenth generation. He was born in 1903. Therefore the mean of the four intervening generations is higher than twenty, but since we do not know Ezebogo's age in 1854, and since any given generational gap may in fact be much greater than twenty years, precise calculation is impossible. Families preserved these genealogies carefully, because political eminence in the town depended on descent from Nnebisi.

39 Ezago (Eze ago) and Ago are clearly the same.

40 On the evolution of the office of Asagba, Mr F. O. Isichei writes that the title is said to have developed from small beginnings. The meeting place of Asaba was the Ogbeafo market. If it rained, the people retired to Afadia's compound, where he entertained them. In return, he and his successors took the title of Asagba. The office ‘only entailed personal and private expenses expressed in general entertainment.… It was this reason based on the peculiar nature of the office that gave rise to the Asaba adage that “repeatedly adjourned and regular meetings make it impossible for a minor to assume the office of Asagba“.’

41 F. O. Isichei. Cf. Falk MSS (Rhodes House, Oxford): MSS Afr. 1000 s4, f40.

42 Cf. the genealogy on p. 431. Thomas states that Adanjo should have been succeeded by his son, Ezogo (i.e. Ezebogo) but he could not afford it, so the children of a younger ‘old man’ in 1854) and the unnamed Asagba (Onyemenam), who was 60 in 1914, belong to the same generation? But in large polygamous families the ages of a single generation can vary by as much as fifty years. Ezebogo was the eldest son of an eldest son, and Onyemenam was the son of a younger son.

43 Op. cit. Anthropological Report, 45–7.

44 ‘Handing-over note from the outgoing Oturaza age group to the in-going Oturaza age group of Asaba’, 15 Aug. 1966, made ‘In view of the great changes in our time which also involve our traditions and customs…’. Typed copy from John Umunnah, Major Seminary, Ibadan.

45 Egharevba, Jacob U., A Short History of Benin (Lagos, 1936), 21Google Scholar. Cf. R. E. Bradbury, The Benin Kingdom and the Edo-speaking Peoples of South-Westem Nigeria (Ethnographic Survey of Africa, 1959), 22.

46 The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (abridged and ed. Edwards, Paul, London, 1967), iGoogle Scholar. On the disputed question of Equiano's home, I follow the view of Jones, G. I., in Curtin, Philip D. (ed.), Africa Remembered: Narratives by West Africans from the Era of the Slave Trade (Wisconsin, 1967), 61.Google Scholar

47 Cf. p. 427 above.

48 Egharevba, 34.

49 Azikiwe, loc. cit. 476.

50 F. O. Isichei; Julius Spencer.

51 There is a similar story—with different names—in Julius Spencer.

52 Spencer refers to birds, Thomas to ‘a civet cat and greater plantain eater’. (Presentday informants differ on this point. Asaba had a number of sacred birds and animals.) Cf. Nigeria Magazine, liv (1957), 236.

53 Bradbury, R. E., ‘Chronological problems in the study of Benin history’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, i (1959), 266, 270–1.Google Scholar

54 Thomas, Anthropological Report, 0–10.

55 Cf. ibid. 9; Nigeria Magazine (1957), 236. For Igala tradition, cf. Boston, J. S., ‘Notes on contact between the Igala and the Ibo’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, ii (1960), 54.Google Scholar See also p. 425 above.

56 F. O. 84/1508, Hopkins to Sec. of State for Foreign Affairs, 18 Nov. 1878.

57 Crowther and Taylor, The Gospel, i, 262.

58 Dike, K. Onwuka, in Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830-1885 (Oxford, 1956), 212Google Scholar states that there was a rising in Asaba against the National African Company in 1882, but the context of the relevant dispatch makes it clear that this was Asaba Assay, in the Delta. (Cf. F.O. 84/1617, Hewett to Granville, 8 Nov. 1882.)

59 Crowther, and Taylor, , The Gospel, i, 40.Google Scholar

60 Isaac Spencer, loc. cit.

61 Crowther, and Taylor, , The Gospel, i, 394–5, 429Google Scholar. ‘The practice of piracy seems incompatible with the Asabas’ reluctance to venture on the Niger. Perhaps the pirates were the ‘aliens’ who lived near the river.

62 Church Missionary Record (1875), 351.

63 Isaac Spencer, writing in 1879, states that the civil war occurred twenty-three years earlier. Julius Spencer in 1901 stated that it took place ‘a little over half a century ago’.

64 The account which follows is based on oral tradition, supplemented by Burdo, The Niger, 193, Julius Spencer, loc cit. (1901), and scattered references in the C.M.S. archives.

65 Hertslet, E., Commercial Treaties, xvii, 168Google Scholar.

66 C.M.S. Archives, CA3/041, List of Native Agents, 14 Feb. 1879.

67 CA3/031, Phillips to Crowther, 8 Oct. 1875; Niger Mission 1890/29, H. S. Macaulay, Report on Asaba, 31 Dec. 1889.

68 C.M.S. Archives, Niger Mission, 1881, 103 (ii); 1883/136, 137, 143.

69 Niger Mission, G3A3/oi, Bishop Crowther's Report for 1880; Church Missionary Intelligencer (1881), 336.

70 G3A3 1881b, deposition by Edward Phillips, ‘Difficulties at Asaba’.

71 F.O. 84/1508, loc. cit.

72 E. Hertslet, Map of Africa by Treaty, i, 458–9.

73 F.O. 84/2109, MacDonald Report, ch. vi, encl. 2.

74 Ibid.

75 Colonial Reports Annual: Southern Nigeria (1906),73; cf. Talbot, P. A., The Peoples of Southern Nigeria, i, 180Google Scholar, where the relevant date is given as 1904.

76 S.M.A. Archives, Rome, 14/80302 15829, Zappa to Superior General, 4 Oct. 1888; C.M.S. Archives, Niger Mission, 1887/77, Johnson to Lang, 5 July 1888.

77 Cohen, Annual Report on the Asaba Division, 1947, p. 21 (Rhodes House, Oxford, MSS Afr. 727 h.)