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

Kristin Mann's Slavery and the Birth of an Africa City is a splendid study of the rise of Lagos during the Atlantic slave trade and the city's relative decline after its abolition. Just as the slave trade was the primary factor for Lagos' rise to greatness, it was also the primary reason for its conquest, occupation, and colonization by Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century. After Lagos became a colony in 1861—and this is where Mann makes her contribution—Britain, having abolished the slave trade there, was faced with the institution of slavery itself but was ambivalent about what to do. The government's dilemmas, according to the author, were economic, moral, and legal. Economically, the slavery institution and the Atlantic slave trade had both enriched and sustained successive obas (kings) and the nobility of Lagos for almost two hundred years. Thus, they had provided the backbone of the city's economy, a sudden abolition of both at the same time would result in economic collapse. Morally, how to turn a blind eye toward the existence of slavery in a British colony while championing the fight against the slavery institution was difficult to explain. This moral dilemma of the existence of slavery in a British dominion was also to become a major issue in the relationship between Britain and the sultans of Zanzibar in late nineteenth century. The Third Marquess of Salisbury's (British prime minister and foreign secretary at the time) admonition of festina lente was to crumble under the intense pressure from abolitionists in Britain. The government, therefore, was forced to abolish slavery in Zanzibar (G. N. Uzoigwe, Britain and the Conquest of Africa: The Age of Salisbury, 1974). Although such a pressure group existed in the 1860s, it was not strong enough to influence British policy in Lagos. Legally, slavery had long been abolished in British colonies and its continued existence in Lagos was therefore illegal. And yet the colonial government, for a long time, turned a blind eye to its existence.

The book is divided into eight chapters plus a conclusion. Chapter 1 examines the rise of Lagos as an Atlantic port city as a result of the slave trade between 1760 and 1851, rehashing the origins of Lagos, its dynastic relationship with the Bini kingdom of the Bight of Benin, and the early history of the city before the colonial period. Chapter 2 discusses how the slave trade was organized and how it transformed the Lagos precolonial state. The author concludes that the trade resulted in the increase of the power and wealth of the Lagos ruling class as well as gave rise "to chronic factionalism at the center of the state" (p. 21). Chapter 3 is an informed, detailed account of the anti-slavery movement, the incidents leading to the British interference in the affairs of the kingdom of Lagos, the occupation of the kingdom, its annexation as a British colony, and the problems associated with early years of colonial administration. It also discusses the consequences of declaring Lagos a British colony, particularly how it provided an impetus to British imperial expansion in the Bight of Benin, the eventual conquest of Nigeria, and the character of the colonial state that evolved. Chapter 4 looks at the rise of what is called "legitimate commerce" in palm produce as a replacement for the slave trade. It analyzes the conditions in Europe that created demand for it and focuses on the organization of the trade and how it created new opportunities for those who were not part of the ruling oligarchy that benefited from the slave trade. But this so-called new commerce had the interesting effect of creating the need for local markets for slaves, consequently impacting indigenous slavery. Chapter 5 turns attention to this domestic slavery, focusing on the evolution of British policy toward slaveholding in a British colony...