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Testing the Boundaries of Marginality: Twentieth-Century Slavery and Emancipation Struggles in Nkanu, Northern Igboland, 1920–29*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Carolyn A. Brown
Carolyn A. Brown
Affiliation:
Rutgers University
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Extract

In 1914 the Enugu Government Colliery and the construction of its railway link to the Biafran coast used slave-owning chiefs as labor recruiters. Although aware of slavery in the Nkanu clan area the state simply outlawed the slave trade and excessive treatment but left it to slaves to secure their ‘freedom’. Nkanu slavery was unusually pervasive, incorporating over half of some villages, with few opportunities for manumission or marriage to the freeborn. Severe ritualistic proscriptions excluded slave men from village politics. But forced labor destabilized slavery, causing unrest which reached crisis proportions in the fall of 1922. The revolt presents a unique opportunity for historical study of the goals, ideology and strategies of indigenous slave populations creating ‘freedom’ within the emergent colonial order.

When owners demanded slaves' wages, the slaves resisted and demanded full social and political equality with the freeborn. Slaves who remained in the village struggled to provision Enugu's urban working class. For both slavery hindered opportunities in the colonial economy. In retaliation owners evicted slave families, increased their labor requirements and unleashed a reign of terror, abduction and sacrifice of slave women and children. By the fall of 1922 local government collapsed forcing the state to develop a policy on emancipation. It is significant that this struggle converted the slaves from a scattered subordinate group of patrilineages to an aggressive and cohesive community.

Type
Labor in Colonial West Africa
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 1996 , pp. 51 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

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34 There was apparently an important market for slave children in the Cross River area during the 1920s. Frank Hives, a former Resident of Onitsha, noted in a sensationalist racist book that much of his time was spent intercepting Aro caravans in which small children were abducted in long baskets. See Hives, Frank, Justice in the Jungle (London, 1932), 207–21.Google Scholar

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37 This happened with those slaves in the Akegbe who had successfully eliminated many of the symbolic and actual restrictions on their freedom, only to have them reasserted by their master in the wake of the uprising. NNAE, OP82/1924, D.O. Awgu to Res. Onitsha, 1 09 1924.Google Scholar

38 This analysis is an interpretation of Horton's conclusions about the foundations of solidarity in totally segregated slave villages in Nike clan area in North Nkanu. I have applied them to all slave quarters of mixed villages where possession of an Ani shrine is a symbol of community cohesion. Horton, , ‘God, man and the land’, 17–28Google Scholar; ‘Ohu system’, 329.Google Scholar

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41 Today some slave descendants cite this as proof of their indigenous origins. But as Horton notes, this assertion is questionable: ‘Ohu system of slavery’, 324.Google Scholar This is another example of the inaccuracy of earlier Igbo studies. Uchendu claimed that this was prohibited to slaves: ‘Slavery in Igboland’, 128.Google Scholar

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43 The Egede drum is played by this title society which includes community elders. It is the highest band used at funerals. They sacrifice cows, horses, goats, etc. and when they dance they show all they have done. The dance usually lasts four days. Ohu could not dance the same day as the Amadi. Interview with Victor Uke, research assistant, 5 07 1989.Google Scholar

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52 This is another dissimilarity with central Igboland, where eldest sons were heirs: Ibid.

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80 Several years later a district officer claimed that continuing slave unrest was related to ‘Erroneous ideas … possibly acquired from missions or Colliery Camps as to their being entitled to absolute freedom with all property rights’. NNAE, OP82/1924, ONPROF 7/11/10, D.O. Awgu to Resident, 1 09 1924.Google Scholar

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98 NNAE, Dew, , 11 10 1921.Google Scholar

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106 NNAE, OP268/1921, 1812 1922, D.O. Enugu to Sr. Resident.Google Scholar

107 Later that year an Ugbawka slave woman was murdered for funeral purposes: NNAE, OP168/1921, Res. Onitsha to S.S.P., 29 03 1923Google Scholar; OP268/1921, ‘Agbani Outstanding Case No. 21, April–30 November 1922’.

108 Dew, the D.O. Enugu, noted that slavery was so widespread in Nkanu that aggressive enforcement of anti-slavery laws would lead to the arrest of most Nkanu free patriarchs. NNAE, OW301/1922, enclosure in Moorhouse, , 23 12 1921.Google Scholar

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110 In November Moorhouse noted, ‘What they want is what no Ordinance can give them, and that is to enjoy in their own villages equal rights with the freeborn’. NNAE, OW301/1922, Moorhouse, H. O., 25 11 1921.Google Scholar

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115 The latter claim challenged Igbo land law which gave ‘outsiders’ access to land through a token or ‘kola’ rent or market rent. NNAE, OW301/1922, Cooke, W. H., 18 10 1921.Google Scholar

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118 NNAE, OP268/1921, S.S.P. to Res. Onitsha, 11 12 1922Google Scholar; Owen, , ‘Memorandum’.Google Scholar

119 Owen, , ‘Memorandum’.Google Scholar

120 NNAE, OP268/1921, D.O. Enugu to Sr. Res. Onitsha, 18 12 1922Google Scholar; Wood, A. C., ‘Nkanu Patrol Progress Report No. 4’, 1 06 1923.Google Scholar

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124 NNAE, OP268/1921, Lawton, J. G., ‘An Inquiry Under the Collective Punishment Ordinance 1914 Holden [sic] at Oborka Before J. G. Lawton Esqre [sic] District Officer, Political Officer on Nkanu Patrol on April 2nd 1923’, 2 04 1923.Google Scholar

125 NNAE, OP268/1921 D.O. to Res. 6 09 1923Google Scholar; D.O. Enugu to Res., 24 09 1923Google Scholar; OP268/1922, Wood, A. G., ‘Final Report on the Nkanu Patrol’, 18 06 1923Google Scholar; Res. Onitsha to S.S.P., 9 07 1923.Google Scholar

126 NNAE, OP82/1924, D.O. to Resident, 7 11 1924Google Scholar; OP268/1921, Lt. Governor Moorhouse to Resident, 1 05 1923.Google Scholar

127 NNAE, OP82/1924, ‘Petition from Agbani Town Chiefs’, 15 10 1924Google Scholar; S.S.P. to Sr. Res., 23 12 1924.Google Scholar

128 In Agbani slaves killed a horse and flaunted tradition by refusing to share the first meat with their owner. Predictably the Secretary was inundated with petitions protesting this use of the courts to usurp freeborn privileges. NNAE, OP 82/1924, S.S.P. to Sr. Res., 23 12 1924.Google Scholar

129 NNAE, OP82/1924, D.O. Awgu to Res. Onitsha, 1 09 1924Google Scholar; ‘Awbia Petition to Res. Onitsha’, 21 04 1924.Google Scholar

130 NNAE, OP29, ONDIST 12/1/102, Vol. II, D.O. Enugu to Res. Onitsha, 7 03 1925.Google Scholar

131 NNAE, OP268/1921, Confidential, Resident to S.S.P., 26 11 1923.Google Scholar

132 NNAE, OP245/25, 207 1924, Assistant D.O. Nkanu to D.O. Enugu.Google Scholar

133 The fee was not considered exorbitant because it approximated the daily wage of men in the mines or on the railway. NNAE, OP82/1924, D.O. Enugu to Res., 12 03 1924Google Scholar; OPROF 1/26/99, ‘Annual Report for Onitsha Province – 1925’.

134 NNAE, OP82/1924, Asst. D.O. Nkanu to D.O. Enugu, 26 07 1925Google Scholar; ‘Petition from Agbani Town Chiefs’, 21 04 1924.Google Scholar

135 NNAE, OP82/1924, D.O. Enugu to Res. Onitsha, 7 03 1925.Google Scholar

136 NNAE, OP82/1924, Political Officer Grey to D.O. Enugu, 7 11 1931.Google Scholar

137 Interview at Akwuke, Nigeria with Benson A. Ugwu, 21 08 1986.Google Scholar

138 In an interview in Akwuke several Awbia spoke proudly of their parents' decision to leave the freeborn and establish their own home. They considered themselves superior to those who chose to remain behind and live under freeborn harassment. Interview with Benson A. Ugwu, 21 08 1986Google Scholar; Nwaka, Geoffrey, ‘The civil rights movement in Igboland’.Google Scholar

139 After World War II they protested their exclusion from some of the development programs. NNAE, ONDIST 12/1/103, ‘Petition to the Res. Onitsha from Ndiobias’, 21 01 1946.Google Scholar

140 Ibid.; Nwaka, , ‘Civil rights movement’.Google Scholar