Commerce and Exploration

Commerce

The principal commodities of legitimate trade were palm oil and palm kernels, which were used in Europe to make soap and as lubricants for machinery, before petroleum products were developed for that purpose. Although this trade grew to significant proportions—palm oil exports alone were worth £1 billion a year by 1840—it was concentrated near the coast, where palm trees grew in abundance. Gradually, however, the trade forced major economic and social changes in the interior, although it hardly undermined slavery and the slave trade. The incidence of slavery in local societies increased.

Initially most palm oil (and later kernels) came from Igboland, where palm trees formed a canopy over the densely inhabited areas of the Ngwa, Nri Kingdom, Awka and other Igbo peoples. Palm oil was used locally for cooking, the kernels were a source for food, trees were tapped for palm wine, and the fronds were used for building material. It was a relatively simple adjustment for many Igbo families to transport the oil to rivers and streams that led to the Niger Delta for sale to European merchants. The rapid expansion in exports, especially after 1830, occurred precisely at the time slave exports collapsed. The Igbo redirected slaves into the domestic economy, especially to grow the staple food crop, yams, in northern Igboland for marketing throughout the palm-tree belt. As before, Aro merchants dominated trade in the hinterland, including palm products to the coast and the sale of slaves within Igboland.

From 1815–1840, palm oil exports increased by a factor of 25, from 800 to 20,000 tons per year. British merchants led the trade in palm oil, while the Portuguese and others continued the slave trade. Much of this oil was sold elsewhere in the British Empire. To produce all this oil, the economy of the southern region crossed over from mostly subsistence to the production of palm oil as a cash crop.

The Niger Delta and Calabar, which once had been known for the export of slaves, became notable for the export of palm oil. The Delta streams were called "oil rivers". The basic economic units in each town were "houses", family-operated entities that engendered loyalty for its employees. A "house" included the extended family of the trader, including retainers and slaves. As its head, the master trader taxed other traders who were members of his "house"; he maintained a war vessel, a large dugout canoe that could hold several tons of cargo and dozens of crew, for the defence of the harbour. Whenever a trader had become successful enough to keep a war canoe, he was expected to form his own "house". Economic competition among these "houses" was so fierce that trade often erupted into armed battle between the crews of the large canoes.

Because of the hazards of climate and tropical diseases for Europeans and the absence of any centralized authorities on the mainland responsive to their interests, European merchants moored their ships outside harbours or in the delta, and used the ships as trading stations and warehouses. In time they built depots onshore and eventually moved up the Niger River to establish stations in the interior. An example was that at Onitsha, where they could bargain directly with local suppliers and purchase products likely to turn a profit.

Some European traders switched to legitimate business only when the commerce in slaves became too hazardous. The traders suffered from the risks of their position and believed they were at the mercy of the coastal rulers, whom they considered unpredictable. Accordingly, as the volume of trade increased, merchants requested that the British Government appoint a consul to cover the region. Consequently, in 1849, John Beecroft was accredited as consul for the bights of Benin and Biafra, a jurisdiction stretching from Dahomey to Cameroon. Beecroft was the British representative to Fernando Po, where the prevention squadron of the Royal Navy was stationed.

In 1850, the British created a "Court of Equity" at Bonny, overseen by Beecroft, which would deal with trade disputes. Another court was established in 1856 at Calabar, based on an agreement with local Efiktraders which prohibited them from interfering with British merchants. These courts contained majorities British members and represented a new level of presumptive British sovereignty in the Bight of Biafra. West Africa also bought British exports, supplying 30–40% of the demand for British cotton during the Industrial Revolution of 1750–1790.

Exploration

At the same time, British scientists were interested in exploring the course and related settlements along the Niger River. The delta masked the mouth of the great river, and for centuries Nigerians chose not to tell Europeans the secrets of the interior. In 1794 the African Association in Great Britain commissioned Mungo Park, an intrepid Scottish physician and naturalist, to search for the headwaters of the Niger and follow the river downstream. Park reached the upper Niger the next year by travelling inland from the Gambia River. Although he reported on the eastward flow of the Niger, he was forced to turn back when his equipment was lost to Muslim Arab slave traders. In 1805 he set out on a second expedition, sponsored by the British Government, to follow the Niger to the sea. His mission failed, but Park and his party covered more than 1,500 kilometres (930 mi), passing through the western portions of the Sokoto Caliphate, before drowning when their boats overturned in rapids near Bussa.

On a subsequent expedition to the Sokoto Caliphate, Scottish explorer Hugh Clapperton learned about the mouth of the Niger River, and where it reached the sea, but after suffering malaria, depression and dysentery, he died before confirming it. His servant, Richard Lander, and Lander's brother John were the ones to demonstrate that the Niger flowed into the sea. The Lander brothers were seized by slave traders in the interior and sold down the river to a waiting European ship.

Initial British attempts to open trade with the interior by way of the Niger could not overcome climate and diseases such as malaria. A third of the people associated with an 1842 riverine expedition died. In the 1850s, quinine had been found to combat malaria, and aided by the medicine, a Liverpool merchant, Macgregor Laird, opened the river. Laird's efforts were stimulated by the detailed reports of a pioneer German explorer, Heinrich Barth, who travelled through much of Borno and the Sokoto Caliphate, where he recorded information about the region's geography, economy and inhabitants.