The petition was sent by the Brass King Ockiya on behalf of himself and 27 other chiefs to the former British Colonial Secretary, the Earl of Derby, and was dated February 21, 1877. Brass was a native African enclave in the River Niger delta whose people had dealt with British trading firms for decades. They were the suppliers of the valued palm oil resources which they collected in the hinterland and this proceeded smoothly as long as there was no penetration by Europeans beyond the coast, conscious as they were of the monopoly they held. By the 1850's, however, the increasing profit-seeking activity of British traders (anxious to by-pass the African middleman) along the Lower Niger River, created tremendous friction and, often, violence be tween the two groups. Conditions got worse over the following decades as the British traders availed of steam navigation to open up the River to their activities and employed modern weapons to subdue their native rivals. The circumstances described by Ki ng Ockiya adumbrated the gradual destruction of the economy of Brass which was to come to a head in the late 1890s, a period of aggressive activity in the penetration of the hinterland by the British Royal Niger Company (chartered in the wake of the Berl in Conference in 1886).
We the undersigned Kings and Chiefs of Brass, West Coast of Africa, beg and pray that you will take our case into consideration.
Many years ago we used to make our living by selling slaves to Europeans which was stopped by your Government and a Treaty made between you and our country that we discontinue doing go, and that we should enter into a legitimate trade and that if we did so an allowance . . . should be paid us by the traders on all produce bought. This we did and our trade gradually increased. We shipped ... about 4,500 to 5,000 tons of palm oil per annum.
To do all this we had to open up place[s] on the Niger, trading Stations or markets as we call them up as far as a place called Onitsha on the Niger. Some years ago the White men began trading on the Niger with the intention of opening up this River; th
is did us no harm as they went up a long way farther than we could go in their Steamers and also bought a different kind of produce to what we were buying, but lately within the last six years they have begun putting trading Stations at our places and con
sequently they have stopped our trade completely as well as of those in the Lower part of the River Niger, . . . and formerly when we sent nearly 5,000 tons of [palm]oil away we do not [now]send 1,500 per annum. This means starvation to my people as well
as Natives of the Niger under my rule. I have about 8,ooo people and there are another 8,ooo in the lower part of the Niger suffering with me.
It is very hard this on us; in all the other rivers in the Bight . . . the markets are secured to them and why should a difference be made for this my river. We have no land where we can grow plantains or yams and if we cannot trade we must starve, and
we earnestly beg and pray that you will take our case into consideration. We do not want anything that is not fair, we only want the markets that we and our money have made to be secured to us and that the white men who have had nothing to do with opening
up the Palm Oil trade shall not come and reap all our benefits.
One of the steamers has just been up the Niger and the people over whom I have no rule and who are starving have fought with her and the white men now accuse me and my people of having done it although I assure them I have nothing to do with it. I have asked the consul out here two or three times to write home and lay our case before your Lordship and he has promised to do so but I have never received an answer. I can truly say that I have never myself nor have I ever allowed my people to break the tre aty we have with England nor will I allow them to do so again [sic]. I beg that you will look into this affair for me and my people. What we want is that the markets we have made between the river and Onitsha should be left to ourselves . . .
ITEM B
The Chiefs of Temne to Acting Governor Caulfield (Regarding the Protectorate Ordinance of June 28, 1897)
Temne was a tribal district in the in the hinterland of Britain's Sierra Leone protectorate in West Africa. After the Berlin Conference of 1884-5, generally credited as opening up the African interior to the penetration of the imperialist po wers, the British administration in West Africa, like their imperialist rivals France and Germany, moved inland to subdue native tribes and acquire control of resources. This brought them into conflict with the tribes, as in the case of the insurrection ( or "Hut-Tax War") in 1896. The insurrection derived from the general imposition of various taxes by the administration in an effort to defray the costs of administration and colonial improvements: colonies were expected to pay their own way, not burden th e British taxpayer. In that case it was the hut (house) tax that sparked the rebellion, coupled with the harsh manner in which it was enforced.. The following protest by the Temne chiefs suggests the wide-ranging assault, as seen by the natives, on their, livelihood, customs and traditions.
The substance of the laws is as follows:
1. That the country is no more your petitioners' [i.e., the Chiefs], it
is the Queen's; and that your petitioners have no more power over their
lands and property; and that their Chiefs cannot do even so much as to
settle matters respecting their common farms. All gold and silver found in
the country to be the property of the Government.
2. Your petitioners are to pay for their houses from 5s. to 10s. a year.
3. Your petitioners are not to carry on any trade unless they pay to the Queen £2 a year.
4. No rum is to be sold in any part of the country unless your
petitioners pay the £2 a year.
5. Native Chiefs may be deposed and deported at the Governor's pleasure.
6. The country is to be in charge of the District Commissioners, whose
decision in all cases, and that by the English laws, is final, against
which there is no appeal except by paying a large amount of money.
7. . . . that any Chief hearing any case not belonging to his Court will
be punished by fine, imprisonment, and flogging.
8. No slave-dealing of any kind to take place in the country.
9. All cases of witchcraft to be tried by the Government.
These and many others, were the laws interpreted to us . . . but those which have thrown your petitioners into the greatest consternation are the following:
(a) That your petitioners are to have no more power over their country. They are not to hear any cases relating to their lands, farms, and the boundaries of their country; this your petitioners take to mean nothing short of total dispossession of their country . . . your petitioners are not aware that they have done anything to merit such great calamity from their friends and benefactors.
(b) That your petitioners are to pay for their houses and huts. The nature of their houses, built of mud and sticks, and thatched with grass and leaves . . will show the true condition of your petitioners. The numberless deserted villages to be met with in the country tell of the present unsettled state of the country; your petitioners fear that taxing houses will certainly hinder the return of the poor people to their homes. . . . Chiefs own the villages, and the huts therein are built for them by their retainers, the majority of whom can scarcely save enough to provide a suit of clothes for themselves, their children, and wives for the whole year; the burden of paying the tax must necessarily fall upon the Chiefs, and, failing to pay, the villages must fall to the ground . . the name of the tax recalls to the minds of your petitioners the dreadful days . . when, for house tax, men and women were ruthlessly dragged from place to place, plundered, and some flogged almost to death by the tax collectors. . . They have not the means to pay these taxes, and therefore fall at your Excellency's feet and pray to be saved from so much dreaded misfortune.
(c) That any Chief having any case not in his jurisdiction shall be punished by fine, imprisonment and flogging. Your petitioners regard this as a terrible punishment for a right they had enjoyed from their forefathers, and not for any wrong done to the Government or the community at large . . . your petitioners respectfully beg your Excellency to save them from the serious disgrace and pending scourge of a fine, imprisonment, and flogging, by being allowed to continue their ancient privileges of settling all their cases, subject to an appeal to the District Commissioner. Your petitioners, moreover, pray that in their country they be judged by their native laws so long as they do not affect their loyalty to the Queen or her government. . . . . .
(f) As regards the question of Slavery, your petitioners beg to assure your Excellency that from so many years' experience they now know something of the mind of the English Government on the subject. To buy and sell slaves is now out of the question . . . All your petitioners desire is, that the few domestics left to them by their people, and who have become part and parcel of their family, should not be encouraged to leave them and come to Freetown [capital of the Sierra Leone colony, where they become subjects of Britain but a loss of labor to the Chiefs]. Your petitioners have not the means of keeping money in banks as the White people do; a few of them, it is admitted, run away from ill-treatment, but the greater part of the runaways are those who are lazy and who refuse to work. . .
Refs.: C.W.Newbury, British Policy Towards West Africa, II, pp.94 - 5, 298-99
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