Slavery and the Birth of an African City: Lagos, 1760--1900

2. Trade, Oligarchy, and the Transformation of thePrecolonial State

The rise of the slave trade at Lagos increased the income of its obas and a number of its leading chiefs. These individuals used their new wealth to expand their commercial activities and augment their military and political power, which strengthened their position within the kingdom and made the state a more significant player in regional affairs. During the era of the external slave trade, Lagos’s rulers also invested in large numbers of slaves for their own use, and slavery acquired new importance in the local political economy as a means of organizing not only labor in trade and production, but also military and political support. Despite the growing power and prestige of the state, its ruling oligarchy was deeply divided internally, and tensions in the capital erupted intermittently into civil war. This chapter examines the interrelationship of the rise of the slave trade at Lagos, the growth and development of the precolonial state, and the history of conflict within it that eventually contributed to colonization by Great Britain. The analysis also sheds new light on the changing place of slavery in coastal society relative to other means of accumulating dependents. The investigation begins with a discussion of the organization of the external slave trade and its impact on the distribution of wealth and power within the local community. The Conduct of the External Slave Trade Lagosians dominated the trade in slaves shipped from their town throughout the history of the commerce there. Unlike on certain other 2 Trade, Oligarchy, and the Transformation of the Precolonial State 52 / Slavery and the Birth of an African City parts of the African coast, neither foreigners, nor Euro-Africans, nor powerful rulers in the interior succeeded in breaking the control of these coastal people over the sale of slaves at their port.1 The foreign slave trade was not a royal or state monopoly at Lagos. From the time of its origin until abolition, private individuals could engage in the commerce on their own behalf. However, obas, other members of the ruling oligarchy, and a few favored free and slave supporters of both enjoyed clear advantages in the trade and enriched themselves through it. Virtually all of the prominent slave traders who can be identified at Lagos throughout the history of the commerce there were close to the center of political and military power in the kingdom. If not obas, they were members of the royal lineage, prominent chiefs, or wives, clients, or slaves of royals and chiefs. Benjamin Campbell, a British consul at Lagos in the 1850s, observed that the slave trade in the town had been confined to “the king, his chiefs, and principal people.”2 Moreover, people outside the state hierarchy who became wealthy through the trade were normally incorporated into it by having titles—usually of the war grade—bestowed upon them. Lagos warriors captured a number of the slaves shipped from the town, although the proportion of exports acquired in local wars declined as the commerce expanded after 1800. The small states along the Slave Coast fought intermittently throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and Dahomey, Oyo, Ijebu, and other inland powers sometimes intervened in these wars as allies on one side or another. In addition , political conflicts within the kingdom itself exploded periodically into open warfare. Consul Campbell maintained that a “constant succession of civil wars” had resulted in the destruction of the kingdom and the enslavement “of a great portion of its inhabitants.”3 Detailed information about the distribution of war captives does not survive, but the available evidence suggests that they were shared among the oba, war chiefs who led the campaign, and warriors who seized the slaves. The strong identification of àbàgbpn (war) chiefs with the slave trade in popular memory underscores the relationship between warfare and the supply of slaves for sale.4 The oba’s and warrior elite’s control over captives seized in battle gave them preferential access to slaves for export, which worked to their commercial advantage. Obas, claimants to the crown, and certain chiefs also received slaves as gifts and tribute. The king of Dahomey, for example, sent Ologun Kuture “bribes,” including a number of slaves, to persuade him to join an attack on Badagry in 1784, and the defeated town subsequently paid Lagos trib- Trade, Oligarchy, and the Transformation of the Precolonial State / 53 ute in...