West African studies Part 28

Trading stations of the white men are at the mouth of the river and at Eguanga, the latter a station a few miles above Opobo town.

Opobo became, under King Ja Ja's firm rule, one of the largest exporting centres of palm oil in the Delta, and for years King Ja Ja enjoyed a not undeserved popularity amongst the white traders who visited his river, but a time came when the price of palm oil fell to such a low figure in England that the European firms established in Opobo could not make both ends meet, so they intimated to King Ja Ja that they were going to reduce the price paid in the river, to which he replied by shipping large quant.i.ties of his oil to England, allowing his people only to sell a portion of their produce to the white men. The latter now formulated a scheme amongst themselves to divide equally whatever produce came into the river, and thus do away with compet.i.tion amongst themselves. Ja Ja found that sending his oil to England was not quite so lucrative as he could wish, owing to the length of time it took to get his returns back, namely, about three months at the earliest, whilst by selling in the river he could turn over his money three or four times during that period. He therefore tried several means to break the white men's combination, at last hitting upon the bright idea of offering the whole of the river's trade to one English house. The mere fact of his being able to make this offer shows the absolute power to which he had arrived amongst his own people. His bait took with one of the European traders; the latter could not resist the golden vision of the yellow grease thus displayed before him by the astute Ja Ja, who metaphorically dangled before his eyes hundreds of canoes laden with the coveted palm oil. A bargain was struck, and one fine morning the other white traders in the river woke up to the fact that their combination was at an end, for on taking their morning spy round the river through their binoculars (no palm oil trader that respects himself being without a pair of these and a tripod telescope, for more minute observation of his opponents'

doings) they saw a fleet of over a hundred canoes round the renegade's wharf, and for nearly two years this trader scooped all the trade. The fat was fairly in the fire now, and the other white traders sent a notice to Ja Ja that they intended to go to his markets. Ja Ja replied that he held a treaty, signed in 1873, by Mr. Consul Charles Livingstone, Her Britannic Majesty's Consul, that empowered him to stop any white traders from establishing factories anywhere above Hippopotamus Creek, and under which he was empowered to stop and hold any vessel for a fine of one hundred puncheons of oil. In June, 1885, the traders applied to Mr. Consul White, who informed King Ja Ja that the Protectorate treaty meant freedom of navigation and trade.

So the traders finding their occupation gone, decided amongst themselves to take a trip to Ja Ja's markets, the only sensible thing they had done since the trouble commenced. This was a step in the right direction, namely, by attempting to break down the curse of Western Africa _id est_, the power of the middle-man.

The names of the four traders who first attempted to trade in the Ibo markets of King Ja Ja deserve to be recorded, for their action was not without great risk to themselves. They were:

Mr. S. B. Hall } Mr. Thomas Wright } English Mr. Richard Foster } Mr. A. E. Brunschweiler--Swiss.

To these must be added the name of Mr. F. D. Mitch.e.l.l, who, though not in the first trip to the markets, joined in the subsequent attempt to establish business amongst the interior tribes. Their reception at the markets was not altogether a success, owing to the reception committee, or whatever represented it in those parts, being packed with either Ja Ja's own people or Ibos favourable to him.

This good beginning was continued under great difficulties by these first traders with little profit or success for about two years, owing to the great power of Ja Ja amongst the interior tribes and the pressure he was able to bring to bear on the Ibo and Kwo natives.

In the meantime, clouds had been gathering round the head of King Ja Ja.

His wonderful success since 1870 had gradually obscured his former keen perception of how far his rights as a petty African king would be recognised by the English Government under the new order of things just being inaugurated in the Oil Rivers; honestly believing that in signing the Protectorate treaty of December 19th, 1884, with the _sixth_ clause crossed out, he had retained the right given him by the commercial treaty of 1873 to keep white men from proceeding to his markets, he got himself entangled in a number of disputes which culminated in his being taken out of the Opobo River in September, 1887, by Her Britannic Majesty's Consul, Mr. H. H. Johnston, C.B., now Sir Harry Johnston, and conveyed to Accra, where he was tried before Admiral Sir Hunt Grubbe, who condemned him to five years' deportation to the West Indies, making him an allowance of about 800 per annum and returning a fine of thirty puncheons of palm oil, value about 450 in those days, which the late Consul Hewett had imposed upon him, a fine that the Admiral did not think the Consul was warranted in having imposed.

Poor Ja Ja did not live to return to his country and his people whom he loved so well, and whose condition he had done so much to improve, though at times his rule often became despotic. One trait of his character may interest the public just now, as the Liquor Question in West Africa is so much _en evidence_, and that is, that he was a strict teetotaler himself and inculcated the same principles in all his chiefs.

In his eighteen years' rule as a king in Opobo he reduced two of his chiefs for drunkenness--one he sent to live in exile in a small fishing village for the rest of his life, the other, who had aggravated his offence by a.s.saulting a white trader, he had deprived of all outward signs of a chief and put in a canoe to paddle as a pull-away boy within an hour of his committing the offence.

During the Ashantee campaign of 1873 Sir Garnet Wolseley sent Captain Nicol to the Oil Rivers to raise a contingent of friendly natives; on his arrival in Bonny he was not immediately successful, so continued on to Opobo, where he was the guest of the writer. Upon Captain Nicol explaining his errand, Ja Ja furnished him with over sixty of his war-boys, most of whom had seen considerable fighting in the late war between Bonny and Opobo. The news reaching Bonny of what Ja Ja had done, put the Bonny men upon their mettle, and when Captain Nicol reached Bonny on his way back to Ashantee, he found a further contingent waiting for him from the Bonny chiefs.

This combined contingent did good work against the Ashantees, being favourably mentioned in despatches. Poor Captain Nicol, who raised them, and commanded them in most of their engagements with the enemy, was, I regret to say, killed whilst gallantly leading them on in one of the final rushes just before Cooma.s.sie was taken.

In recognition of the above services of his men, Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria presented King Ja Ja with a sword of honour, the King of Bonny receiving one at the same time.

Shipwrecked people were always sure of kindly treatment if they fell into the hands of Ja Ja's subjects, for he had given strict orders to his people dwelling on the sea-sh.o.r.e to a.s.sist vessels in distress and convey any one cast on sh.o.r.e to the European factories, warning them at the same time on no account to touch any of their property. He was also the first king in the Delta to restrain his people from plundering a wrecked ship, though the custom had been from time immemorial that a vessel wrecked upon their sh.o.r.es belonged to them by rights as being a gift from their Ju-Ju--an idea held by savage people in many other parts of the world.

It seems a pity that a man who had so many good qualities should have ended as he did. He was a man who, properly handled, could have been made of much use in the opening up of his country. Unfortunately, the late Consul Hewett was prejudiced against Ja Ja from his first interview with him, finding in this n.i.g.g.e.r king a man of superior natural abilities to his own.

Had the late Mr. Consul Hewett had the fiftieth part of the ability in dealing with the natives his sub and successor, Mr. H. H. Johnston, showed, there would never have been any necessity to deport Ja Ja.

Unfortunately, between Ja Ja's stubbornness and the late Consul Hewett's bungling, matters had come to such a pa.s.s that some decisive measures were actually necessary to uphold the dignity of the Consular Office.

When Mr. H. H. Johnston succeeded the late Mr. Consul Hewett, the Opobo palaver was in about as muddled a state as it was possible for it to have got into. Matters had been in an unsatisfactory state for some years between King Ja Ja and the late Consul. Ja Ja had over-stepped the bounds of propriety in more ways than one. He tried the same tactics with Mr. Johnston, who to look at, is the mildest-looking little man you can imagine, and therefore did not fill the native's eye as a ruler of men; but Mr. Johnston very soon let Ja Ja and the natives generally see he was made of different stuff to his predecessor, and the first attempts on Ja Ja's part not to act up to the lines he laid down for him settled his fate. Mr. Johnston offered him the choice of delivering himself up quietly as a prisoner or being treated as an enemy of the Queen, his town destroyed and himself eventually captured and exiled for ever. He elected to give himself up, was taken to Accra and there tried and condemned after a fair hearing. I was present myself at the trial, and old friend as I was to him, I don't think the verdict would have been otherwise had I been in the judge's place, though there were many extenuating circ.u.mstances in his case, all of which were fully considered by Admiral Hunt Grubbe in his final sentence.

I feel confident that had Mr. Consul Johnston had the management of affairs in the Opobo a few years earlier, Ja Ja would never have been deported, and instead of having to censure him, he would have handled him in such a manner as to make use of his influence in furthering British interests. I do not think I can describe the late King Ja Ja better than Mr. Consul Johnston did in a letter he addressed to Lord Salisbury under date of September 24th, 1887, wherein he writes as follows:--"Ja Ja's chief friends and supporters for years past have been the naval officers on the coast. His generous hospitality, his frank, engaging manner, his naf discourse, and amusing crudities of diction have gained the ready sympathy of these gentlemen; no doubt Ja Ja is no common man, though he is in origin a runaway slave,[89] he was cut out by nature for a king, and he has the instinct of rule, though it not unfrequently degenerates into cruel tyranny.

"His demeanour is marked by quiet dignity, and his appearance and conversation are impressive.

"Nevertheless, I know Ja Ja to be a deliberate liar,[90] who exhibits little shame or confusion when his falsehoods are exposed. He is a bitter and unscrupulous enemy[91] of all who attempt to dispute his trade monopolies, and the five British firms whose trade he has almost ruined during the past two years."

A complaint often made against the Government by merchants established on the West Coast of Africa is want of official protection and a.s.sistance; in many cases in the past this has been the case; but they certainly could not make this complaint during the few months that Mr.

Consul Johnston was at the head of the Consular service in the Oil Rivers. I will here give a summary of what exertions were made by the Government to a.s.sist the merchants in their praiseworthy attempts to get behind the middlemen in this one river, where Ja Ja was always given the credit of being the head and front of the obstruction, nothing ever being said about the king and chiefs of Bonny, who were equally interested with Ja Ja in keeping the white men out of the markets, their princ.i.p.al markets being on the River Opobo.

Owing to the energetic representations of Mr. Consul H. H. Johnston, the British Government placed at his disposal for the settlement of the market question and the Ja Ja palaver the following Government vessels, viz., the _Watchful_, the _Goshawk_, the _Alecto_, the _Acorn_, the _Royalist_, and the _Raleigh_, the latter bringing Admiral Sir Hunt Grubbe up from the Cape of Good Hope for the trial of King Ja Ja.

Result: Within a very short time after the deportation of Ja Ja, all the firms who had been so anxious to establish in the interior markets and thus get behind the middlemen (without doubt the curse of the Oil Rivers and every part of Africa where they are tolerated) gave up trading at the interior markets that had caused the Government so much trouble to open for them, and made an agreement with the middlemen, represented in this case by the Bonny men and Opobo men, that they would not attempt to trade any more in the interior markets if the middlemen would promise to trade with no European firm that attempted to trade in the interior markets. On the writer's last visit to the Opobo in 1896 there was only one firm trading in the interior markets, and that firm was not one of those that were in the river at the time of the clamour for the removal of Ja Ja and the opening of the interior in 1887.

KWO IBO.

This river was first visited in modern days in 1871 by the late Mr.

Archie McEachan, who found the people very troublesome to deal with, and did not long remain there. No doubt the people were not so easy to deal with as those natives that have been for some hundreds of years dealing with Europeans; but as he was at the same time posing as a friend and supporter of Ja Ja, and the oil he got in Kwo Ibo was being diverted from Ja Ja's markets, the latter no doubt exerted a certain amount of pressure on his friend, and aided, if he did not actually cause him to decide to withdraw from Kwo Ibo.

Kwo Ibo lay fallow for some time, then one or two Sierra Leone men attempted to trade there, but with little success, owing to the influence King Ja Ja had in the country. It was not until 1880-1 that any sustained effort was made to trade in this river; but about this time a Mr. Watts established a small trading station there, and succeeded in creating a trade, though he had a very difficult task to combat the opposition of King Ja Ja, who considered he was being defrauded of some of his supposed just rights. Had Mr. Watts pushed his way into the interior markets and dealt direct with the producers, he would deserve the united thanks of every merchant connected with the trade in the Niger Delta; but he did not, and contented himself with buying his produce on a little better terms than he could have done in Opobo or Old Calabar, and created another set of middlemen, who to-day consider they, like their neighbours, are justified in doing their utmost in keeping the European out of the interior. Mr. Watts eventually sold out his interest in the trade of this river to the combination of river firms now known under the name of the African a.s.sociation of Liverpool.

A mission has been established here for some years and I had the pleasure of meeting the missionary in charge, some two years ago, on his way home after a long sojourn in the Kwo Ibo; his description of the people and of the success of his mission work was most interesting. If he has returned to the seat of his labours and is still alive, I can only wish him every success in the work in which evidently his whole heart was centred.

The name Kwo Ibo, which has been given to this river, gives one the idea that the inhabitants are a mixture of Kwos and Ibos. This to a certain extent may be a very good description as regards the inhabitants of the upper reaches of the river, which takes its rise, so it is supposed, in a lake in the Ibo country, afterwards pa.s.sing through the Kwo, and discharges itself into the sea about half-way between the east point of the Opobo River and the Tom Shotts Point.

The lower part of the river is inhabited princ.i.p.ally by Andoni men by origin, but calling themselves Ibenos or Ibrons.

These people deserve a great deal of credit for the plucky manner in which they withstood the numerous attacks the late King Ja Ja made upon them, and their stubborn refusal to discontinue trading with the white men established in their river, though they were but ill-provided with arms to defend themselves. During several years they must have suffered severely from the repeated raids the late King Ja Ja made upon them, not only from losses in battle, but also in having their towns destroyed and many of their people carried off as prisoners. Some of the earlier raids made by Ja Ja, I must in fairness to him say, were to a great extent brought on by the actions of the Ibrons themselves, who were not slow to attack and slay any Opobo men they caught wandering about, if the latter were not in sufficient numbers to defend themselves.

In language, these people are closely allied to the old Calabar people, and many of their customs show them to have had more communication with those people than they have had with the Andoni people, at any rate for many years. I find no mention amongst the writings of the early travellers to Western Africa of their having visited this river, nor is it even named on any old chart that I have consulted, though on some I have seen a river indicated at the spot where the Kwo Ibo enters the sea.

Needless to mention, they were, and the majority are to-day, steeped in Ju-Juism, witchcraft, and their attendant horrors.

The Kwo people, whose country lies on both sides of the Kwo Ibo, and behind the Ibenos, are the tribe from whom were drawn the supplies of Kwo or Kwa slaves known under the name of the Mocoes in the West Indies.

OLD CALABAR.

I now come to the last river in the Niger Coast Protectorate, both banks of which belong to England, the next river being the Rio del Rey, of which England now only claims the right bank, Germany claiming the left and all the territory south to the river Campo, a territory almost as large as, if not equal to, the whole of the Niger Coast Protectorate, which ought to have been English, for was it not English by right of commercial conquest, if by no other, and for years had been looked upon by the commanders of foreign naval vessels as under English influence?

Owing to some one blundering, this nice slice of African territory was allowed to slip into the hands of the Germans, hence my account of the Oil Rivers ought to be called an account of the Oil Rivers reduced by Germany.

In speaking of the inhabitants of this river, I must also include the people who inhabit the lower part of the Cross River. This explanation would not have been necessary some few years ago, but I notice the more recent hydrographers make the Cross River the main river and the Old Calabar only a tributary of that river, which is, without doubt, the most correct.

The princ.i.p.al towns are Duke Town (where are to be found nowadays the headquarters of the Niger Coast Protectorate, the Presbyterian Mission, and the princ.i.p.al trading factories of the Europeans), Henshaw Town, Creek and Town; besides these, the various kings and chiefs have numberless small towns and villages in the environs. In the lower part of the Cross river are many fishing villages, the inhabitants of which are looked upon as Old Calabar people, and owing to the latter being the dominant race they have to-day lost, or very nearly so, any trace of their forefathers, who I believe to have been Kwos with a strong strain of Andoni blood.

These villages did, in days anterior to the advent of the European traders, an immense business with the interior in dried shrimps, the latter being used by the natives, not only as a flavouring to their stews and ragouts, but as a subst.i.tute for the all necessary salt.

The original inhabitants of the district now occupied by the Old Calabar people were the Akpas, whom the Calabarese drove out, and to a great extent afterwards absorbed. This immigration of the Calabarese is said to have taken place very little over one hundred and fifty years ago.

Originally coming from the upper Ibibio district of the Cross River, they belong to the Efik race, and speak that language, though nowadays, owing to numerous intermarriages with Cameroon natives and the great number of slaves bought from the Cameroons district, they are of very mixed blood. Most of the kings and chiefs of Old Calabar owe their rank and position to direct descent, some of them being of ancient lineage, a fact of which they are very proud. In this respect they differ in a great measure from their neighbours in Bonny and Opobo, where, oftener than otherwise, the succession falls to the most influential man in the House, slave or free-born.

The princ.i.p.al town of these people boasted, some few years ago, of many very nice villa residences, belonging to the chiefs, built of wood, and roofed with corrugated iron, mostly erected by a Scotch carpenter, who had established himself in Old Calabar, and who was in great request amongst the chiefs as an architect and builder. Unfortunately, these houses being erected haphazard amongst the surrounding native-built houses did not lend that air of improvement to the town they might otherwise have done if the chiefs had studied more uniformity in the building of the town, and arranged for wide streets in place of alley ways, many of which are not wide enough to let two Calabar ladies of the higher rank pa.s.s one another without the risk of their finery being daubed with streaks of yellow mud from the adjacent walls.

The native houses of the better cla.s.ses are certainly an improvement upon any others in the Protectorate, showing as they do some artistic taste in their embellishments. They are generally built in the form of a square or several squares, more or less exact, according to the extent of ground the builder has to deal with and the number of apartments the owner has need for. In some cases, I have seen a native commence his building operations by marking out two or three squares or oblongs, about twenty feet by fifteen, round which he would build his various apartments or rooms. In the centre of the inner squares, which are always left open to the sky, you almost invariably find a tree growing, either left there purposely when clearing the ground, or planted by the owner; occasionally you will find a fine crop of charms and Ju-Jus hanging from the branches of these trees.

The inner walls, especially of the courtyards, are in most cases tastefully decorated with paintings, somewhat resembling the arabesque designs one sees amongst the Moors. No doubt this art and that of designing fantastic figures on bra.s.s dishes, which they buy from the Europeans and afterwards embellish with the aid of a big-headed nail and a hammer, comes to them from the Mohammedans of the Niger, of whom they used to see a good deal in former days.

With regard to the dress of these people, I have not anything so interesting to relate about them as I had of the New Calabar gentlemen.

Except on high days and holidays, there is little to distinguish the upper cla.s.ses here from the same cla.s.ses in any of the other rivers of the Protectorate, except that it might be in the peculiar way they knot the loin cloth on, leaving it to trail a little on the ground on one side, and their great liking for scarlet and other bright coloured stove-pipe hats. On their high festivals the kings appear in crowns and silk garments; the chiefs, who do not stick to the native gala garments of many-hued silks, generally appear in European clothes, not always of irreproachable fit, their queen, as every chief calls his head wife, appearing in a gorgeous silk costume that may have been worn several seasons before at Ascot or Goodwood by a London belle. Sometimes you may be treated to the sight of a dusky queen gaily displaying her ample charms in a low-cut secondhand dinner or ball dress that may have created a sensation when first worn at some swagger function in London or Paris. As the native ladies do not wear stays, and one of the greatest attributes of female beauty in Calabar is plumpness, and plenty of it, you may imagine that the local _modiste_ has her wits greatly exercised in devising means to fill up the gaping s.p.a.ce between the hooks and eyes. I once heard a captain of one of the mail steamers describe this job as "letting in a graving piece down the back."

One of the customs peculiar to the Old Calabar people, practised generally amongst all cla.s.ses, but most strictly observed by the wealthier people, is for a girl about to become a bride to go into retirement for several weeks just previous to her marriage, during which time she undergoes a fattening treatment, similar to that practised in Tunis. The fatter the bride the more she is admired. It is said that during this seclusion the future bride is initiated into the mysteries of some female secret society. Many of the chiefs are very stout, and given to _embonpoint_, a fact of which they are very proud.