From: maluko55 <alukome@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 7:16 PM
Subject: Lagos Kingdom - A History Lesson in Five Minutes
To: naijapolitics@yahoogroups.com, nigerianworldforum@yahoogroups.com, nidoa@yahoogroups.com, omoodua@yahoogroups.com, ekitipanupo@yahoogroups.com, naijaintellects@yahoogroups.com, alukome@gmail.com
Lagos Kingdom - A History Lesson in Five Minutes
August 28, 2009
Offered up by Bolaji Aluko
http://lagoscity.info/a-pix/lagos-map-250.png
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/africa/nigeria/lagos/map_of_lagos.jpg
_________________
Source: "The Kingdom of the Yoruba", Robert S. Smith, U. Wisconsin Press (Third Edition, 1988), [Chapter Six: Kingdoms of the South: Ijebu, Egba, Egbado, and Lagos], pages 72-75 on Lagos Kingdom
- materials deleted –
Lagos
The interaction of geography and history, of trade and politics, of the outside
world and of local affairs: all this is illustrated in the past of Lagos. This is the first
of Nigeria's ports and also the terminus of the railway which, far more than the
River Niger, has linked together the disparate regions. Today Lagos is still (though
perhaps for not much longer) the Federal capital, a crowded, cosmopolitan city of
several million inhabitants. Its names reflect its past; to the Yoruba it is Eko,
deriving probably from the farm (oko) of the earliest settlers, though alternatively
- or additionally - it may be the Bini word (eko) for a war-camp; to other
Nigerians and to the rest of the world it is Lagos, contracted from the Portuguese
Lago de Curamo (the name Kuramo survives for an inlet of the great lagoon
nearby), while there are traces of yet another, probably later but now almost
forgotten name, Onim or Aunis, apparently also used by the Portuguese.
Here at Lagos occurs the first permanent break in the miles of beach and dune of
the outer coast-line to the east of the Volta estuary. The bar which had to be
crossed in order to gain access to the harbour was one of notorious difficulty and
danger, and so shallow and of so narrow a tidal range that until the completion of
the breakwaters in 1916 entrance was denied to ships of over twelve-feet draught.
But once across the bar and in the calm waters of the lagoon, there opened up a
vast system of inland waterways connecting Lagos by canoe (and today by motor-
launch) with Porto Novo and beyond on the west and with the creeks 100 miles to
the east. This Rio de Laguo, or entrance into the lagoon, was noted by the earliest
Portuguese visitors to the West African coast, and appears on a Portuguese map as
early as c. 1485. Pacheco writes of it in his Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis:
There is no trade in this country nor anything from which one can make a profit. All this
region of the river Lagua, of which we spoke above, as far as the river Primeiro, and
beyond for a distance of a 100 leagues, is all broken up inland by numerous other rivers
in such a way that the whole consists of numerous islands. It is very unhealthy and is
very hot throughout the year, on account of the proximity of the sun. The middle of the
winter occurs here during the months of August and September when it rains heavily.
The Blacks of this country are idolaters and circumcised, without having any Iaw, and
without knowing the reason for their circumcision.
But even if Pacheco's rather superficial account of Lagos is correct in its estimate of
trade at the end of the fifteenth century, three centuries later the position had
entirely changed. Captain John Adams, describing conditions at the end of the
eighteenth century, wrote that an `active traffic in slaves' was carried on at Lagos,
a town `built on a bank or island, which appears to have been raised from Cradoo
lake, by the eddies, after the sea and periodical rains had broken down the bound-
ary which separated it from the ocean'. He continues:
It has always been the policy of the Lagos people, like those of Bonny, to be themselves
the traders and not brokers. They therefore go in their canoes to Ardrah and Badagry,
and to the towns situated at the NE extremity of Cradoo lake, where they purchase
slaves, Jaboo cloth, and such articles as are required for domestic consumption.
The early traditions of Lagos ascribe the peopling of this sandy waste near the
edge of the ocean to a small-scale migration of Awori Yoruba, who had first settled
under the leadership of a hunter named Ogunfunminire about twelve miles up the
River Ogun at Isheri, a village which though still mainly inhabited by Awori is
now at the southern limit of Egbaland. Ogunfunminire is said to have been a
member of the royal house of Ife, but his settlement of hunters arid fishermen
seems to represent the farthest and latest extension of one of those movements
which people the Awori region. From lsheri the settlers spread to Ebute Meta (the
name means `three landing places') on the lagoon, but.the uncertainties of life on
the mainland (perhaps due already to the ambitions of Benin in this area) led them
to seek greater safety across the channel on the small island now called Iddo,
whence they spread farther to the adjacent larger island - some five by one and a
half miles - which is Lagos and which lies by the entrance into the lagoon from the
sea. According to legend, the islanders were at first subject to a ruler known as the
Olofin, on whose death the land was divided among the ten eldest of his thirty-two
sons, these ten chiefs being the ancestors of the Idejo, `owners of the land', better
known today as the White Cap Chiefs of Lagos. The senior of these, Aromire
(`friend of the water'), had his farm at Isale Eko (meaning `under' or, in modern use,
`downtown' Lagos). The present afin of Lagos is situated on this site and is called
lga Idunganran, `the pepper palace', a recollection in the Lagos Awori dialect of the
pepper bushes on Aromire's farm.
A series of attacks had now been launched against Lagos by the armies of Benin.
At first these were repulsed under the leadership of the Olofin. After the Olofin's
Death, however, the Bini succeeded in establishing themselves on Iddo island
Under Asheru, one of their warriors. The impression given by Lagos tradition is
that this was achieved by peaceful infiltration rather than by conquest; perhaps
the Lagosians, seeing themselves outflanked by the advance of the Bini along the
coast to their west, lost hope of being able to prolong their resistance. According to
traditional history of Benin as related by Egharevba, Oba Orhogba of Benin,
campaigning in person, made a war-camp on Lagos island which he used as a base
extending his control over the area. An early corroborative account is pro-
by the German, Josua Ulsheimer, who visited Lagos in 1603 and who
described the island as a military camp occupied by the soldiers of the King of
Benin and governed by four of his generals' Some time later, it seems, the Oba
appointed a ruler for Lagos to represent the interest of Benin and to forward tribute
there. The man chosen is named in both Lagos and Benin tradition as Ashipa. The
Lagos account is that the Bini warrior Asheru died while campaigning on the
mainland near by and that Ashipa, an Isheri chief and (like Ogunfunminire and
the Olofin before him) of the Ife royalty, carried his body home to Benin, thereby
gaining such favour with the Oba that he was sent back to Lagos as its king.
Egharevba describes Ashipa (`Esikpa' in his spelling, but the name is clearly the
same) as a grandson of the Oba of Benin, and adds that after his death his remains
and those of his successors were taken for burial to Benin, a claim which is
confirmed in Lagos tradition. Ashipa founded a new dynasty which continued to
rule Lagos, using the title either of Ologun (contracted from Oloriogun, `warrior')
or of Eleko, and the present Oba of Lagos - the modern use of the general word for
king as the title is reminiscent of Benin — is his twentieth successor and descendant
on the throne. The dynasty's dependence on Benin was emphasized by the
appointment of another chief, the Eletu Odibo - still one of the Akanigbere, or
kingmakers, of Lagos - who alone had the right to crown the oba and who in early
times probably maintained close connection with Benin. Meanwhile, the senior
descendant of the Olofin, the Oloto, maintained a nominal independence as ruler
of the northern corner of Iddo island and as first among the ldejo.
The extension of the rule of Benin to Lagos and its neighbourhood has been
gradually assigned to the sixteenth century, possibly associated with the use of
firearms obtained by the Bini from their European trade. Ulsheimer's account,
referred to above, shows that Benin was in military control of the island at the very
beginning of the seventeenth century, but suggests that the appointment of a single
vice-regal representative had not yet been made. On the other hand tradition in
Benin asserts that Ashipa took up his office, thus founding the present ruling
dynasty of Lagos, during the reign at Benin of Oba Orhogba, which Bradbury
agrees with Egharevba in placing in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Here,
however, the king list at Lagos presents a difficulty. Adele, who died in or about
1836 (after being deposed and later restored), appears as only the sixth oba. Thus,
if Egharevba and Bradbury were right, and if the list were complete, the average
length of reign would be between thirty-three and forty years, which is too long to
be credible. But it is possible, even likely, that the names of some oba have been
forgotten, particularly of those early ones whose bodies were taken to Benin for
burial.' The problem remains, but for the present it seems reasonable to conclude
that, while Benin established its ascendancy in and around Lagos during the six-
teenth century, the kingship there came into being some time during the seven-
teenth century.
From its physical situation Lagos can be assumed to have long been a centre of
the indigenous lagoon trade. For the Europeans who began to operate inter-
mittently along this coast from the end of the fifteenth century the Lagos river and
lagoon were of some importance as giving access (despite the hazards of the bar) to
ljebu, a source of locally produced cloth. Thus there began, at first very slowly,
what Law describes as `a fascinating interaction between the two waterborne
systems', that of the Yoruba and their neighbours around the lagoons and that of
the Europeans sailing across the Atlantic. In 1603 Ulsheimer noted that Lagos was
the resort of traders coming `by water and land', and like Adams two hundred
years later he makes specific mention of the buying of cotton cloth. Communication
between Lagos and Benin, the centre of power, was probably also maintained
mostly by water. Mahin, giving access to the lagoon at its eastern end, had been
conquered by Benin at about the same time that Lagos was brought under control,
and tradition records that Oba Ehengbuda met his death while on his way by
canoe to visit Lagos.' It was not until the 1760s that direct European trade with
Lagos can be described as regular or continuous. This development was almost
certainly due to the rise of Lagos as a slave port, which in turn stemmed from the
gradual eastward drift of European trade from Whydah where local conditions
were increasingly unfavourable. It is said to have been Oba Akinshemoyin, fourth
ruler of Lagos after Ashipa, who invited Portuguese slave-dealers to the town, and
that his Portuguese friends presented him with tiles for roofing his palace, the Iga.
A Portuguese report of 1807 ascribes the growth of the slave trade at Lagos to
warfare between Dahomey and Porto Novo which interrupted supplies to ports
further west, so that Lagos, beyond the reach of Dahomean raiders, now became
the principal slave mart of the western lagoon, some 7,000 to 10,000 slaves being
sold there annually. After the fall of Owu in c. 1820 these numbers probably rose
even further as the devastating wars of the Yoruba provided an abundant supply
of enslaved captives from the hinterland. Thus until the British occupation in
1851 Lagos remained the main centre of the slave trade on this part of the West
African coast.
As Lagos grew richer, the annual tribute rendered to Benin presumably
increased and became an important source of revenue for the latter kingdom. This
tribute was paid until about 1830, and Egharevba writes that an official was sent to
claim it as late as 1845 during the civil war at Lagos between Akitoye and Kosoko,
the two rival claimants to the throne. Their wealth may well have encouraged the
rulers to assert their independence, and according to Dalzel, the `powerful King of
Lagos' took part with the Dahomeans in an attack on Badagry in 1784, an opera-
tion from which Benin could hardly have derived benefit.
A few years before the establishment of British influence in Lagos in 1851 it was
estimated that the population of the town was some 25,000 to 30,000. Apart from
descendants of the early Awori settlers, and presumably some of remotely Bini
origin too, and newcomers, there were now many domestic slaves, both Yoruba
and non-Yoruba; Mahi from the hinterland were particularly numerous. Indeed,
Campbell, the British consul, thought the majority of Lagosians around the middle
of the nineteenth century to be of slave orlgin. Most of these people were occupying
the western half of the island, Isale Leko. In addition to Eko and Iddo, however,
the small kingdom also embraced scattered villages on the mainland, stretching
some 20—30 miles to the west and (if claims advanced in the nineteenth century are
accepted) as far along the coast to the east as Lekki, though here the population
remains ljebu.'
END
_____________________________________________________________________________
Contemporaneous Obas of Lagos and Benin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oba_of_Lagos
Obas of Lagos
--
http://www.edofolks.com/html/osahon_oba_dynasty.htm
Oba of Benin Dynasty By: Naiwu Osahon
http://www.dawodu.net/edodyn.htm
Edo Dynasties
---
| S/N | Obas of Lagos | S/N | Obas of Benin |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 1 | Eweka I (about 1200 A.D.) |
|
|
| 2 | Uwakhuahen |
|
|
| 3 | Ehenmihen |
|
|
| 4 | Ewedo (about 1255 A.D.) |
|
|
| 5 | Oguola (about 1280 A.D.) |
|
|
| 6 | Edoni (about 1295 A.D.) |
|
|
| 7 | Udagbedo (about 1299 A.D.) |
|
|
| 8 | Ohen (about 1334 A.D.) |
|
|
| 9 | Ogbeka (about 1370 A.D.) |
|
|
| 10 | Orobiru (about 1400 A.D.) |
|
|
| 11 | Uwaifiokun (about l432 A.D.) |
|
|
| 12 | Ewuare, the Great (about 1440) |
|
|
| 13 | Ezoti (about 1473 A.D.) |
|
|
| 14 | Olua (about 1473 A.D.) |
|
|
| 15 | Ozolua the Conqueror. (about 1481 A.D.) |
|
|
| 16 | Esigie (about 1504 A.D.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 17 | Orhogbua (about I550 A.D.) |
|
|
| 18 | Ehengbuda (about 1578 A.D.) |
| 1 | Ashipa (1600-1630) | 19 | Ohuan (about 1606 A.D.) |
| 2 | King Ado (1630-1669) | 20 | Ahenzae (about 1641 A.D.) |
|
|
| 21 | Akenzae (about I661 A.D.) |
| 3 | King Gabaro or Guobaro (1669-1704) | 22 | Akengboi (about 1669 A.D.) |
|
|
| 23 | Akenkpaye (about 1675 A.D.) |
|
|
| 24 | Akengbedo (about 1684 A.D.) |
|
|
| 25 | Oreoghene (about 1689 A.D.) |
|
|
| 26 | Ewuakpe (about 1700 A.D.) |
| 4 | King Akinsemoyin (1704-1749) | 27 | Ozuere (about 1712 A.D.) |
|
|
| 28 | Akenzua I (about 1713) |
|
|
| 29 | Eresoyen (about 1735 A.D.) |
| 5 | Eletu Kekere (1749) |
|
|
| 6 | King Ologun Kutere (1749-1775) | 30 | Akengbuda (1750 A.D.) |
| 7 | Adele Ajosun (1775-1780 & 1832-1834) |
|
|
| 8 | Eshilokun (1780-1819) | 31 | Obanosa (about 1804 A.D.) |
|
|
| 32 | Ogbebo (about 1816 A.D.) |
| 9 | Oba Idewu Ojulari (1819-1832) | 33 | Osemwede (1816-1847) |
| 10 | King Oluwole (1836-1841) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 11 | King Akintoye or Akitoye (1841-1845 & 1851-1853) | 34 | Adolo (1848-1888) |
| 12 | Oba Kosoko (1845-1851) |
|
|
| 13 | King Dosunmu [Docemo] (1853-1885) |
|
|
| 14 | Oba Oyekan (1885-1900) | 35 | Ovonramwen (1888-1914) |
| 15 | Oba Esugbayi Eleko (1901-1925 & 1932) | 36 | Eweka II (1914-1933) |
| 16 | Oba Ibikunle Akitoye (1925-1928) |
|
|
| 17 | Oba Sanusi Olusi (1928-1931) |
|
|
| 18 | Oba Falolu (1932-1949) | 37 | Akenzua II (1933-1978) |
| 19 | Oba Adeniji Adele (1949-1964) |
|
|
| 20 | Oba Adeyinka Oyekan II (1965-2003) |
|
|
| 21 | Oba Rilwan Akiolu (2003-present) | 38 | Oba Erediauwa, Uku Akpolo Kpolo, the Omo N'Oba N'Edo (1979 – present).
|
______________________________________________________________________________________
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