syllabus -- slave trades

Igbo or Ibo, one of the major ethnic groups in Nigeria, with roughly 17 to 20 million members concentrated in the southeastern part of the country.

Belonging to the Kwa subgroup of the Niger-Congo linguistic family, scholars believe the Igbo language separated from related languages such as Yoruba, Igala, Idoma, and Edo several thousand years ago (see Languages, African: An Overview). There are some 30 Igbo dialects, which vary in their mutual intelligibility; Owerri Igbo and Onitsha Igbo are the most widely understood "standard" dialects. The traditional Igbo homeland lies on both sides of the lower Niger River, though most Igbo live to the east of the Niger between the Niger Delta and the Benue Valley. Igboland is one of Africa's most densely populated regions. Although Igbo speakers fall into over a dozen subgroups, they share a common culture and have lived in the same area for thousands of years.
The Igbo have a long history of cultural achievement. Traditionally, the Igbo have excelled at metalwork, weaving, and woodcarving. Excavations at the village of Igbo-Ukwu have unearthed sophisticated cast bronze artifacts and textiles dating from the 9th century. Since ancient times, the Igbo have traded craft goods and agricultural products. Traditional Igbo religion varied regionally, but generally included a belief in an afterlife and reincarnation, sacrifice, and spirit and ancestor worship. The Igbo performed elaborate ceremonies marking funerals and other life passages.
Unlike some of their neighbors, the Igbo never developed a centralized monarchy. Chiefs or kings with limited powers ruled the villages of a few subgroups, such as the Nri, the Onitsha Igbo, and groups to the west of the Niger. Until the colonial era, however, most Igbo lived in autonomous, fairly democratic villages, where a complex structure of kinship ties, secret societies, professional organizations, oracles, and religious leaders regulated village society. This mix of overlapping institutions gave most Igbo some decision-making power and prevented any single person from gaining too much power.

Europeans arrived in the late 15th century, and by the late 17th century, the area became a major center for the slave trade. Many Igbo, especially those living along the Niger River, became traders who sold captives from the interior, including both interior Igbo and members of other ethnic groups. The British (and their North American colonists) played a key role in this trade during the 1700s. Igboland exported large quantities of palm oil after the British suppressed the slave trade in the early 1800s. The British wanted to encourage what they called "legitimate trade" in products, such as palm oil, needed in British manufacturing. Later in the century, the British sought to establish effective control over Igboland, and the decentralized Igbo could not resist British advances. In 1885 the British established the Oil rivers Protectorate, named for Igboland's abundant palm oil. By the 1890s, the British had occupied the area. They imposed indirect rule (seeColonial Rule) in 1900 by appointing African warrant officers, who frequently lacked any standing in the Igbo communities they were supposed to oversee.

The decentralization and cultural openness of the Igbo made them prime targets for missionaries. Today most Igbo are Christian, and they have a high literacy rate. From the colonial period onward, the Igbo produced disproportionate numbers of civil servants and military officers. Educated Igbo thus played a central role in the struggle for Nigerian independence. Nigeria's first president, Nnamdi Azikiwe, was an Igbo. When the country achieved independencein 1960 thousands of Igbo moved to cities all over Nigeria to work as civil servants and administrators. Members of other groups, especially in the north, came to resent the perceived Igbo dominance.
Rising ethnic tensions followed the discovery in the mid-1960s that Nigeria had large oil reserves, mostly in or near Igboland. Many Igbo feared that plans to redraw the boundaries of Nigeria's internal administrative divisions would reduce their political clout and deprive them of revenue by placing the main oil-producing regions in divisions outside Igbo control. In 1966, following protests that the presidential election had been rigged, a group of Igbo military officers staged a coup. A countercoup by northern officers followed, along with a massacre of Igbo living in the north. In 1967 the military governor of the eastern region, Lieutenant Colonel Ojukwu, declared the independent state of Biafra, dominated by the Igbo. Nigerian forces quickly forced the Biafran troops to withdraw to a small territory in Igboland, where hundreds of thousands of Igbo starved before Biafra surrendered to Nigerian troops in 1970.

The central government was largely magnanimous in victory. They failed to take reprisals against the Igbo and allowed Ojukwu to return from exile. While ethnic tensions remain, the Igbo are again integrated into Nigerian society. They play an important role in the oil-producing economy based in the cities of the southeast, though Igbo reside in cities throughout Nigeria. Several of Nigeria's leading writers are Igbo, including Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwenis, and Nkem Nwankwo.