First Colonial Claims

Lagos Colony

As part of an anti-slavery campaign and a pretext for making inroads into Lagos, Britain bombarded Lagos in November 1851, ousted the pro-slavery Oba Kosoko and established a treaty with the newly installed Oba Akintoye, who was more amenable. Lagos was annexed as a Crown Colony in 1861 via the Lagos Treaty of Cession.

Flag of the Lagos Colony (1886–1906).

British expansion accelerated in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The early history of Lagos Colony was one of repeated attempts to end the Yoruba wars. In the face of threats to the divided Yoruba states from Dahomey and the Sokoto Caliphate, as represented by the emirate of Ilorin, the British Governor—assisted by the CMS—succeeded in imposing peace settlements on the interior.

Colonial Lagos was a busy, cosmopolitan port. Its architecture was in both Victorian and Brazilian style, as many of the black elite were English-speakers from Sierra Leone and freedmen repatriated from Brazil and Cuba. Its residents were employed in official capacities and were active in business. Africans also were represented on the Lagos Legislative Council, a largely appointed assembly. The Colony was ultimately governed by the British Colonial Office in London.

Captain John Glover, the colony's administrator, created a militia of Hausa troops in 1861. This became the Lagos Constabulary, and subsequently the Nigerian Police Force.

In 1880, the British Government and traders demonetised the Maria Theresa dollar, to the considerable dismay of its local holders, in favour of the pound. In 1891, the African Banking Corporation founded the Bank of British West Africa in Lagos.

Oil Rivers Protectorate

After the Berlin Conference of 1884, Britain announced the formation of the Oil Rivers Protectorate, which included the Niger Delta and extended eastward to Calabar, where the British Consulate General was relocated from Fernando Po. The protectorate was organised to control and develop trade coming down the Niger. Vice consuls were assigned to ports that already had concluded treaties of cooperation with the Foreign Office. Local rulers continued to administer their territories, but consular authorities assumed jurisdiction for the equity courts established earlier by the foreign mercantile communities. A constabulary force was raised and used to pacify the coastal area.

Queen Victoria on a stamp of the Niger Coast Protectorate of 1894.

In 1894 the territory was redesignated the Niger Coast Protectorate and was expanded to include the region from Calabar to Lagos Colony and Protectorate, including the hinterland, and northward up the Niger River as far as Lokoja, the headquarters of the Royal Niger Company. As a protectorate, it did not have the status of a colony, so its officials were appointed by the Foreign Office and not by the Colonial Office.

In 1891, the Consulate established the Niger Coast Protectorate Force or "Oil Rivers Irregulars".