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An Unknown Nigerian Export: Tiv Benniseed Production, 1900–1960

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

D. C. Dorward
D. C. Dorward
Affiliation:
C.W.A.S., University of Birmingham
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Extract

The article examines the factors which influenced Tiv initiative and response in the development of the Nigerian export production of benniseed or sesamum indicum. A trade hitherto largely ignored, it has been overshadowed by the Bohannans' classic account, with its emphasis on the subsistence aspect of Tiv economy. It is therefore presented both as a case study of the development of an African export commodity and as a contribution to the broader field of socio-economic history of the colonial era.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , July 1975 , pp. 431 - 459
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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Original 1948 Revised 1948

Commodity export values export values Export duty

£ £ £

Bananas 309.593 146,460 34.497

Raw cotton 400,918 34.75.785

Groundnuts 6.785,330 9,806,200 405.554

Palm kernel 6,262,253 11,451.097 520,938

Palm oil 3,880,653 9,048,260 329,605

Benniseed 113.538 301,680

Cocoa 7.459,580 17,878,736 408,509

116 Agricultural Officer, Yandev, to Resident Benue, 11 Oct. 1951, NAK, MAKPROF 480, vol. IV.

117 This is the only instance of a major discrepancy between the customs returns in the Blue Books, which list 1,196 tons of benniseed valued at £16,918, with a unit value of £14 15 per ton, exported in 1921 and the sum of the monthly entries for 1921 in the Nigerian Gazette, Trade Supplement, which come to 2,102 tons valued at £30,347, with a unit value of £14 44 Per ton The Annual Summary in the Trade Supplement of 26 Jan. 1922 liste 1,195 tons at £16,917. One suspects an error in the unusually high entry for benniseed exports for June 1921 in Trade Supplement of 25 Aug. 1921.