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Who colonized Nigeria?

West Africa — the powers that ruled Nigeria, the dates, and what independence did and did not change.

In short

Who colonized Nigeria?

Britain. The Royal Niger Company chartered the trade from 1886, Britain took Lagos in 1861 and amalgamated the northern and southern protectorates into one colony in 1914; independence came on 1 October 1960.

Nigeria is a British administrative invention. Two protectorates with different legal systems, religions and economies were merged in 1914 for the convenience of a single balance sheet, and the seams of that merger have shaped the country's politics ever since.

Reference

Who ruled Nigeria, and when

before 1861
Sokoto Caliphate, Benin, Oyo, Igbo polities
1861–1900
Britain — Lagos Colony
1886–1899
Royal Niger Company charter
1914–1960
Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria

At a glance

Key facts

Colonising powers
Britain
Independence
1 October 1960
Country created
1914, by administrative merger, not by any Nigerian decision
Benin Bronzes
Thousands looted in 1897; most still held in European museums
Method
Indirect rule through existing emirs and chiefs

Chronology

Key dates

  1. 1861

    Britain annexes Lagos.

  2. 1897

    Punitive expedition sacks Benin City and loots the Benin Bronzes.

  3. 1903

    Fall of Sokoto; indirect rule extended across the north.

  4. 1914

    Amalgamation creates Nigeria as a single administrative unit.

  5. 1929

    Women's War (Aba) against colonial taxation.

  6. 1960

    Independence.

Context

What the record shows

The 1897 expedition against Benin is the clearest single episode: a kingdom burned, its ruler exiled, and its royal art distributed to European museums where most of it remains.

Questions

Frequently asked

Who colonised Nigeria?
Britain, from the annexation of Lagos in 1861 through the amalgamated Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria in 1914 to independence in 1960.
Why is Nigeria's border shaped that way?
Because it was drawn by British and French negotiators in the 1890s and finalised by the 1914 amalgamation of two separate protectorates.
When did Nigeria gain independence?
1 October 1960.

Read on

Related in the archive

References

Sources — colonial Nigeria

  1. [1]Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Seville, 1552).
  2. [2]Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
  3. [3]Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review Press, 1971; English 1973).
  4. [4]Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
  5. [5]Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (Random House, 1991).
  6. [6]Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (Hurst, 2017).
  7. [7]Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2005).
  8. [8]Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Wisconsin, 2009).
  9. [9]Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
  10. [10]Jürgen Zimmerer, "The birth of the Ostland out of the spirit of colonialism", Patterns of Prejudice 39:2 (2005), on the German South-West Africa → Holocaust lineage.
  11. [11]Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1972).
  12. [12]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (1867), Chapter 31 ("Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist").

All works cited in good faith for documentary, educational and critical use. Errors and omissions: contact the archive.