5 - Lagos and the Niger Area

Summary

This chapter shifts its focus away from Nigeria at large and narrows the discussion down to a more specific area: the coastal regions of Southern Nigeria, with the city of Lagos as the chapter’s focal point. It examines the city’s origin, beginning as a small, relatively insignificant coastal town peripheral to the old and well-established Benin Empire. From humble origins, this chapter will explore the region’s rise to prominence, prompted primarily by the expansion of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. For Lagos specifically, its ascension began at the turn of the nineteenth century. Lagos became a regional center of the slave trade due to the ostracization of the Kingdom of Dahomey, a major exporter of slaves, by European powers. After the center of the slave trade shifted to Lagos, the city and region at large experienced a flurry of economic activity, the details and consequences of which will be explored in detail. The latter half of this chapter will explain the gradual transformation in the trade systems away from the slave trade toward a system of “legitimate” trade, which would facilitate the erosion of indigenous state power and eventual colonial acquisition of Lagos and the Niger Delta area at large.