Legends of Africa - The Benin Kingdom, Benin City

The Benin Kingdom, Benin City

Now part of Nigeria

Founded around the 10th century, Benin served as the capital of the Kingdom of Benin, the empire of the Oba of Benin, which flourished from the 14th through the 17th century. No trace remains of the structures admired by European travellers to "the Great Benin", though the fabled Walls of Benin have been undergoing preservation and restoration procedures for years. After Benin was visited by the Portuguese in 1472, historical Benin grew rich during the 16th and 17th centuries on the slave trade with Europe, carried in Dutch and Portuguese ships, as well as through the export of some tropical products.

The Bight of Benin's shore was part of the so-called "Slave Coast", from where many West Africans were sold (usually by local rulers) to foreign slave traders. In the early 16th century the Oba sent an ambassador to Lisbon, and the King of Portugal sent Christian missionaries to Benin. Some residents of Benin could still speak a pidgin Portuguese in the late 19th century.

The city and kingdom of Benin declined after 1700, with the decline in the European slave trade, but revived in the 19th century with the development of the trade in palm products with Europeans. To preserve Benin's independence, bit by bit the Oba banned the export of goods from Benin, until the trade was exclusively in palm oil.

On 1 February 1852, the whole Bight of Benin became a British protectorate where a Consul (representative) represented the protector, until on the 6th of August, 1861, the Bights of Biafra and Benin became a united British protectorate, again under a British Consul.

In the "Punitive Expedition" of 1897, a 1200-strong British force, under the command of Admiral Sir Harry Rawson, conquered and burned the city, destroying much of the country's treasured art and dispersing nearly all that remained. Due to this the "Benin Bronzes": portrait figures, busts, and groups created in iron, carved ivory, and especially in brass (conventionally called "bronze"), are on display in museums around the world. A scattered catalogue of some 2,500 pieces, the collection arguably constitutes the most argued over pool of antiquities after the disputed treasures of Ancient Egypt itself. After the fall of Benin, the British set apart Warri province in a bid to punish the Oba and curb his imperial power. The Benin monarchy was restored in 1914, but true power now lay with the colonial adminisration of Nigeria. The defeat, capture and subjugation of the empire's war-like people marked the sovereign end of one of Africa's greatest medieval states.