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Who
are the real Lagosians?
Are the real Lagosians ‘saro’
descendants from Olowogbowo, or a
member of an old Brazilian family from Oke-popo or “Aguda”, or
a member of old chiefly families-like Oluwo, Bajulaiye, Ojora,
Oniru, Oshodi etc. could a Lagosian be one of the Muslims who
have lived in Obalende since the end of the Asante wars.
(Member of the West African frontier Force of Captain Glover
in 19th century) or is it one that lives on Siriki street near
the central mosque? In the sense and according to the school
of thought, any of these people can be called true lagosians,
yet the cultural spectrum the groups cover reveals the variety
and heterogeneity of Lagos.
To understand this view or conclusion of these notable
scholars on Lagos, one must appreciate that the answer lies in
the history of Lagos itself. A code study will reveal two key
factors that are interwoven, that is the development of the
city and its society and added to these two, was also the
element of trade.
Foundations which were based on the various successive waves
of immigration that was intra and inter continental. Each wave
of immigration from the earliest beginning brought about the
creation of various settlement on the island. Increase and
rapidity of these waves which were as a result of different
but interrelated events, brought about an expansion that was
to spread beyond the island to its environs.
Each group of immigrants concentrated in the areas or quarters
named after them. They also brought with them their various
religion and culture, which they practiced. All these elements
of geographical space, religion and cultural practice, have
survived and became woven into the rich tapestry of the
heritage of the Lagosians. Descendants of the settlers who
were born and grew up in Lagos have no connection with the
places of their past ancestry. The most information they have
is from ‘stories’ passed down through the generations as
attested to by a Lagosians, Mrs. Efunjoke Coker (M.F.R), in
her autobiography.
The majority of the immigrants came from the surrounding
Yoruba area and the hinterlands, bringing new religions the
Ogboni cult, Islam for instance was introduced in the 18th
century, new institutions and customs (from Benin and
elsewhere). These development of trades, both peaceful and
slave trade brought first of all the indigenous people of the
surroundings and hinterlands and later the Portuguese, French
Dutch and British and further wave of repatriated freed slaves
from the Americans, Liberia and Sierra Leone. These people
Brazilians, Caribbean and Europeans brought aspect of their
cultures, Christianity and Western Education.
From the first wave of the settlers in the 15th century to the
first half of the 19th century, four (quarters) were separated
from the Europeans, the educated Africans (Saros & Akus), the
Brazilians and the indigenous community. By far, the earliest
and the most important and without which the other quarter
could have existed was the Isale-Eko quarter, here that the
aboriginal Aworis descendants of Olofin of Isheri led by
Aromire carefully settled in dry choice sites.
This nuclear settlement was between Itolo and Idumagbo lagoon
including Ebute Ero in Isale Eko. With the help of place names
and oral tradition, the extent of this important (quarter) of
Lagos may be delineated. It must have been extended to Ofin
area to Ebute Ero, the heart of Isale Eko to that part of
Lagos named Victoria street after Queen Victoria of England
during the colonial era renamed Nnamdi Azikiwe after
independence. The original was Ehin Ogba (behind the fence)
indicating that it was outside the inhabitant part of town,
according to oral tradition, it was indeed the dumping ground
for corpses of paupers and those class of children regarded as
mysterious ‘Abiku’ ( born to die). The unceremonious burial
being regarded as a kind deterrent to these children from
dying so often. It was jungle then and seldom traversed. The
history of Lagos had been chequered affected by the powerful
influence of Dahomey on the West and Benin on the East.
According to P.D Cole and A.B Aderibigbe, the expansionist
policy of these kingdoms, forced more people living between
them to emigrate to Lagos.
The Aworis were soon joined by other Yorubas, there was the
considerable Ijebu population at Idumagbo, substancial body of
immigrants from Ota who first came in search of trade at Obun
Eko, but eventually settled at Idumota named after them. An
extension of the premier, but with its own distinctive feature
was Ofin. Its main center was Itolo squre with the Onitolo and
the descendants of the earliest inhabitants. Outside this
centre was Offin Ile in Ijebu Remo territory. The unique
feature of this whole area was the internal water way formed
by the Offin canal, the Elgbata creek and Itolo, which made
the canoe an effective means of transportation. The second
stage was marked by the military encounter between the
invading army from Benin and Olofins men of Iddo Island. There
was a protracted struggle until the era of Oba Orhogbua of
Benin sent his grandson Eskipa (Ashipa in Yoruba) to further
consolidate Benin influence and to firmly establish a vice
royality. Authorities are divided in opinion, whether the new
government was first based at Iddo and was moved by the third
king in the dispensation Gabaro to Lagos Island, or whether it
was from the beginning of this existence that it seized the
Island of Lagos, avoiding Iddo Island with its tradition of
resistance to Benin influence.
According to the ‘Idejo” source-they, the Bini people, did not
conquer them- they were invaded to settle disputes among the
sons of Olofin. According to this source, the facts that the
Obas of Lagos ‘owned’ no land in Lagos which is disposed of
exclusively by the Yoruba Idejo chiefs, and that the Idejo
chiefs did not perform any administrative duties on behalf of
the Oba and took to the mainland in time of war leaving the
Oba to defend Lagos, do not suggest an original Benin
conquest. They suggest a shadowy tributary relationship,
occasional intervention in an Obaship that quickly became
indigenously Yoruba and independent in Lagos. Lagos external
relations where conducted with no reference to Benin.
According to Benin source, Oba Orhogbua, during his punitive
expedition against recalcitrant vassal states in about 1550
made his war camp (Eko) on Lagos Island and from there
attacked his enemies for many years. Anyway the origins of the
Benin connection is obscure and laden with controversy. It
probably originated in a vice- royalty from the mid 16th
century.
It is strongly believe that the king and his retinue of Benin
adviers and warriors first pitched their camp in the area
known as Enu Owa with the celebrant Oju Olobun’ now a
‘national shrine’, but at the beginning a spiritual symbol of
supremacy of the Oba of Benin. The truth of this belief is
attested to by the fact that the coronation of an Oba is not
regarded as valid, without the performance of ‘kikam’ (ikanse)
at this same place. That Lagos derived its name “Eko” from
Orhogbuas camp should not be seen as contradicting the claim
of Yoruba sources that Olofin and his subjects regarded Lagos
as “Oko” farm. Oba Gabaro did more that start a tradition. By
choosing for his permanent abode, the very site for which
Aromire had made his ‘red paper’ farm3, this Oba showed
remarkable political acumen. A new regime had indeed arrived
but was housed on the soil prepared by Aronire, the first
settler on the Island and the son of Olofin, whose sway the
new order has come to displaced. This was a visible evidence
of the factor of continuity and change in history. Indeed it
had been pointed out that ‘Oko” and ‘Eko’ marked two distinct
periods and waves of immigration in the history of Lagos, the
earliest Awori Yoruba settlement and rule, and of Bini
hegemony, ‘Eko’ supplanting ‘Oko’ once the Bini were in the
ascendant.
The similarity between the two words must have facilitated
this transition in the minds of the people. Also a new nucleus
of chiefs, royal courtiers and warlords was established, not
based on possession of land like the Idejo, but on service to
the Oba. They all lived, each in his own Iga, a lesser version
of the Oba’s palace. The area of Isale-Eko, thus delimited,
was the hub of Lagos politics. Its focus was the Iga Idungaran.
Here dwelt both the Awori and bini aristocracies. Despite the
conflicting myth both aristocracies made adjustment between
Yoruba and Benin political structures and traditions. The
local Yoruba aristocracy reserved the right to opt out of the
political struggles in which the political struggles in which
Benin counterpart might engage. This right was always
threatened by increased intermarriage and the growing power of
the Oba. There was the considerable Ijebu population and there
was the hard core settlers from Idoluwo Ile, who came with the
Obanikoro, head of the Ogalade Class of Chiefs who gave their
name Idoluwo to their present abode.
Here dwell also the most influential of those who took part in
the peaceful commerce. Although the 18th and 19th centuries
saw the beginning and dominance of the Trans Atlantic Slave
trade, it is often erroneously assumed that the more natural
kind of commercial trade did not play a vital role in the
relationship between Lagos and her neighbors. The available
oral evidence against that, on the contrary, the nucleus of
the system of periodic markers could be discerned in the
proceeding the era of the slave trade even at the height of
the slave trading period the ‘legitimate’ type of trade,
especially in the articles of domestic consumption, held its
own. The antiquity and indispensable nature of Ebute Ero and
Obun Eko market for trade of large area of Lagos hinterland,
was of the most notable Lagos market, for peaceful commerce,
it also acted as a forum for social activities other than
commerce – in the Roman sense of the word. The periodic
markets of Badagry patronized by the people of Lagos and the
surrounding countries no doubt, received greater prominence
after the British ‘pax’ but were not created by it. The market
noted for the profusion of foodstuff brought to Lagos by
traders from Potto Novo is now immortalized in the street
named Poto Novo Market Street. It should not be thought that
effects of Bini hegemony were limited to the aristocracy. The
ordinary citizens must have felt the impact of the changes
that came in its wake. Even right from its formative stage,
there was systematic consultation between the Oba and his
Chiefs, for example the institution of ‘Osa Iga’, when
important chiefs were expected at the palace and at which
important affairs of the state were discussed. The absence of
chiefs from this particular meeting was interpreted a san act
of rebellion against the king. There was the ‘Ilupeju’-
literally a meeting of the whole town – which enable proposals
from the Oba to be published and commented upon by eminent
personalities in the community. The strong tradition of the
ancestors worship in the religion, the different order or
class of chiefs surrounding the court of the oba, are Bini
elements, and important strands in the web of traditional
culture of Lagos.
Two principle factors are responsible for the rapid rise in
population and the importance of Lagos as the commercial
center in the second half of the 19th century; one was the
abolition of the slave trade and the consequent introduction
of the British preventive squadron to patrol the West Coast.
This increased the risk and cost of the Atlantic Slave trade
from the traditional West Coast slaving ports and thereby help
in rise of small towns like Lagos and Badagry, which were till
then, not heavily frequented points on the coast, therefore
not heavily patrolled by the squadron) it offered traders
relatively safe and cheap ports for the evacuation of slaves.
More so the hinterland of Lagos was quite disorganized, during
the early part of the 19th century. Oyo Empire was breaking up
a result of its own internal inadequacies, conflicts, and
pressure of the Fulani from the North. This pressure led to
general disorder in the interior, it also brought about the
fall of the Oyo Empire in 1835, and the resultant rise of
Ibadan a military power. These circumstances brought about
more waves of migration of those escaping from the wars, to
find refuge in relatively peaceful Lagos, such as the Egbas,
Egbados and Aworis. Inn terms of population, various parts of
Lagos itself and the mainland benefited vastly from these
movements of people. These circumstances first acted in the
interest of Lagos and Badagry, which now prospered. However
this advantage eventually became a liability of another kind
in that it strengthened the stand of those ready to bring
pressure on the British government to use the pretext of the
illegal ( and in the 1850’s diminishing) trade in slaves, to
reduce Lagos to a colony by mid 19th century.
The second factor in this development was the gradual opening
up of the interior for both missionaries and business. The
activities of the missionaries in Abeokuta area were already
extensive prior to the reduction of Lagos in 1861 Reverend
Townsend (agent of the church Missionary Society), Mr. Robert
Campbell (later of the Lagos Press) and Mr. Samuel Crowther
Jnr had all been seeking expanded roles for missions and for
the returning slaves in the Abeokuta area. Indeed it is well
known, both Christian and business pressure was behind the
final decision of the B5rirish government to support Akintoye
and his Badagry allies against king Kosoko. Their activities
in Abeokuta hinterland and the prospect of intermediary trade
between Abeokuta and Lagos led to the increase in the number
of rescued or emancipated slaves from Sierra Leone and
Liberia, Brazil and Cuba who either desired or could be
encouraged to return to their homes in Yoruba land. The
creation of the British ‘Pax’ in 1861, when British annexed
Lagos, further accentuated the influx of peoples to various
parts of the colony. The prevailing peace in British Lagos,
induced a large number of Yoruba to forsake their homeland
plagued with internecine was and to seek their fortunes in the
colony. An example, after the destruction of Ijaye town, as
result of war which ended 1862 a large number of Ijaye refuges
found a new home in the Oke Arin section of Lagos named Ijaye
court and Ijaye Street after them.
A much more important exodus of people to Lagos was occasioned
by the upheaval Abeokuta, the expulsion of the missionaries
and converts locally known as ‘Ifole’ in 1867. so great was
the number of the refuges, that Governor Glover had to settle
them at Ebute-metta on the mainland inn the quarter now known
as Ago Egba, the Egba camp. There were other quarters
Isale-Eko, which judged by their names, were originally farms,
Errko and Oko Faji. These areas seemed to have served the
interest of the inhabitants of the Isale Eko quarter. but the
distinction between town and farm usually maintained rigidly
in order parts of Yuroba land by a town wall, was fluid in
Lagos, and farms soon began to assume the appearance of
settled ‘quarters’. The transformation was generally started
by influential Chiefs of Isale Eko who in search for more dry
land for their clientele (the domestic of oral tradition)
eventually turned farmland into more permanent abodes. Ereko
was to be completely transformed into a princely dominion with
an Iga of its own, by the intransigent Kosoko, after his
rapprochements with the new British authorities and his
consequent return to Lagos in 1862. Some of his followers who
returned with him from Epe settled at Epetedo between 1862 and
1868. Epetedo means settlement of Epe members, notable among
these retunees was Oshodi Tapa, Kososko’s war general. Tapa
Street is named after him. Oba Faji, had the unique
distinction of being owned and named after a woman Chief
Fajinola, who emigrated from Imahi in Egun with her husband
and her only daughter Samota. She was a native doctor invited
bu Oba Akinsemoyin. She was unhappy because she preferred to
settle where she could find an Iroko tree to worship. Oba
Akinsemoyin begged chief Aromire for a piece of land to be
given to her. On getting to Faji, she found a female Iroko
tree. She settled there and started worshiping there. Near the
iroko tree, is now her Iga, known as Iga Faji, named after
her, but shortened to Faji. Oko faji, owned and governed by
this very wealthy lady was a very large family stretching from
present Faji market to the Trinity Methodist Church Tinubu. It
was within the same quarter that another distinguished lady,
Efunroye. Tinubu played her remarkable economics and
anti-British roles, roles for which the British expelled her
from Lagos, to her native Abeokuta, but which also, won her
the admiration of succeeding generation and an honored place
in the history of Lagos. Place names (Faji Market, Ita Faji,
Tinubu Street, Tinubu Court, Tinubu Square) now proclaim the
significant of the activities of Faji and Tinibu in this
quarter of Lagos and should serve as a warning to historians,
who often ignore the vital roles played by women in African
societies. The continues growth of two new types of quarters,
which were exclusively settled by freed slave and also British
occupation of Lagos, influenced Lagos society ty to a
significant degree. It brought in its wake a large number
repatriates from Sierra Leone, Brazil, Cuba who were to have a
great influence on the structure and nature of the society.
Their return profoundly affected the history of Lagos. The
Sierra Leone and Liberians were known as ‘Saros’ or ‘Akus” the
Brazilian, and Cubans as ‘Agudas’
The Agudas were mainly Catholics, skilled artisans and crafts
men (in trades such as masonry, carpentry, mechanics, bakery
and confectionery)who had purchased their freedom and returned
home to their country origin’ the Akus or Saros’ were slaves
(or descendants of slaves) rescued by the British naval
squadron that patrolled the high seas on the lookout for
slaves. The Saros emigrants were mainly missionaries
(Protestants, teachers and clerks) and traders. All returned
emigrants had their homes in one of the hinterland kingdom,
Ijebu Egba, Ekiti, Oyo0Ibadan, Nupe, Edo, Hausa, Fulani,
Boguwa, Kanuri. Most were probably shipped from Lagos but none
seem to have been Lagosians. Separated by distance, the “Saro”
at Olowogbowo area and the “Agudas” at Portuguese town (popo
Aguda) brought with them different but complimentary skills
the former the benefits of the grammar-school- type of
education with little emphasis on its practical application,
the latter the rich experience and expertise in crafts-manship.
These qualities were to make the communities very important in
the future development of Lagos. Whether they were repatriates
from the Americans, from Liberia and Sierra Leone, or simply
educated immigrants from Egbaland, these people were a force
in setting Lagos apart, as the youngest and fastest growing
community, on the West Coast of Africa.
Educated and sophisticated, they constituted themselves into a
unique community maintaining ties with the Yuroba homeland and
yet sharing a great deal with the small but prominent and
prosperous European community, which by 1890, according a
cross of that year unnumbered just about 150, half of them
British. It should not be imagined, however that Lagos was the
exclusive preserve of the Africans, indigenous or immigrants.
A small European quarter was already in evidence near the
coast. Situated in an area called ‘Ehingben’ by the local
people, who valued it mainly as a place for refuse disposal
and therefore beyond the pale of responsibility, this
insipient “European’ area must have excited the curiosity of
the local people concerning the sense of judgment of the
‘white man’. They could understand the first phase of this
European enterprise when it consisted only of ‘piers’ or
trading wharfs, but when by the end of the 1850s, the once
neglected Ehingbeti was cleared and with construction of the
‘Broad’ road, it was transformed what we call the Marina and
Broad Streets. The Marina became a promenade fronting the
lagoon where merchants built their stores and luxurious
dwellings with important timber, marble and prefabs for the
glorious life-sustaining breezes “Markets have been regulated,
soldiers and police force organized, and a race course
established, schools, courthouses, hospitals, government house
and barracks built, and a cemetery
(which drives a brisk trade)”.
The Marina had access to the priers and so to business, it
faced outward from the center of native residences, and was
occupied by the Europeans. In short, it became one of the best
area in colonial Lagos. An unprecedented value was henceforth
placed on ‘land fronting the sea; and the struggle for
possession of land in this formerly despise area of the town.
Some of the successful Yorubas who lived side by side the
Europeans were Henry Pratt, Ben Dawodu, R.B.Blaize, J.S.Leigh,
Samuel Crowther, E. Campbell. They were the select few. This
struggle for land fronting the sea was to find its highest
expression in the latter day scramble, on the part of eminent
Nigerians, for the land on Victoria Island, which was, in time
past the haunt of humble and itinerant fishermen.
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