Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T07:43:52.223Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Development of Institutions in the States of the Eastern Niger Delta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

E. J. Alagoa
E. J. Alagoa
Affiliation:
University of Ibadan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It has been observed for a long time that the states of the Eastern Niger Delta responded in recognizable ways to the introduction of European overseas trade in slaves and palm-oil from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century. It is suggested here that by the time of European advent these states were already in the process of profound changes in response to other internal situations.

First, migration from the fresh water Central Delta to the salt-water Eastern Delta (possibly before A.D. 1000) dictated changes. A change from a farming to a fishing economy led to changes in the social and political system.

Second, the inability of the fishing economy to satisfy all the basic needs of these communities led to the growth of long distance trade to the hinterland and to other parts of the Niger Delta. This trade set in motion other structural changes which were accelerated by the European overseas trade.

Thus were the institutions of the farming village, based largely on age and the simple lineage, developed into the kingship (before about 1400) and House system (before about 1600) of the states of the Eastern Niger Delta, described variously as city-states and trading states.

Type
Other Articles
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , April 1971 , pp. 269 - 278
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Dike, K. O., Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830–1885 (London, 1956), first referred to them as city-states in their developed stage.Google ScholarJones, G. I., The trading States of the Oil Rivers, a study of political Development in Eastern Nigeria (London, 1963).Google ScholarRobin, Horton, ‘From fishing village to city-state: a Social History of New Calabar’ in Douglas, M. and Kaberry, P. M. (eds.), Man in Africa (London, 1969).Google Scholar

2 Horton, ‘From fishing village to city-state’.

3 Alagoa, E. J., ‘Long Distance Trade and States in the Niger Delta’, J. Afr. Hist. XI, 3 (1970).Google Scholar

4 Greenberg, J. H., Languages of Africa (Bloomington, 1966), 8.Google ScholarKay, Williamson, ‘Languages of the Niger Delta’, Nigeria Magazine, no. 97 (1968), 124.Google Scholar

5 For a discussion of these traditions, see Alagoa, E. J. ‘Ịjọ origins and migrations’, Nigeria Magazine, no. 91, 1966; no. 92, 1967.Google Scholar

6 Horton, , ‘From fishing village to city-state’, 39–45.Google Scholar

7 E. J. Alagoa, ‘Long Distance Trade and States in the Niger Delta’.

8 Horton, , ‘From fishing village to city-state’, 52.Google Scholar

9 Kimble, G. H. T., Esmeraldo de situ orbis by Duarte Pacheco Pereira (London, 1937), 132.Google Scholar

10 Robin, Horton, ‘Kalaḅarị Ekine Society: a borderland of religion and art’, Africa, 33 (1963).Google Scholar

11 Horton, , ‘From fishing village to city-state’, 54.Google Scholar

12 Brown-West, H. W., A short genealogica1 history of Amachree I of Kalabari (Yaba. 1956), 18–20.Google Scholar

13 Brown-West, , A short genealogical history, 9 ff.Google Scholar

14 Alagoa, E. J., The Small Brave City-State, a history of Nembe (Brass) in the Niger Delta (Madison and Ibadan, 1964), 91–116.Google Scholar

15 Alagoa, E. J., ‘Dating Oral Tradition’, African Notes, 4, no. i (1966), 6–10.Google Scholar

16 Kay, Williamson, A Grammar of the Kolokuma Dialect of Ijo (Cambridge, 1965), 3, notes that on the Swadesh 200-word list, Kolokuma (Central Delta) scores 65.2 per cent with Nembe and 62.4 per cent with Kalabari. Personal communication on the 1,000 year estimate from these percentages.Google Scholar