Lugard and the Abeokuta Uprising
The Demise of Egba Independence
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5158403 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Robert Smith (0000-0002-8593-1298), Harry A Gailey |
| Year | 1985 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 362 |
| Publication date | 1985-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The International Journal of African Historical Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0361-7882 • E-ISSN: 2326-3016 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/217768 |
| OpenAlex | W2323252382 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
One is confronted here with strikingly different approaches-Gailey's, a tightly constructed, carefully-documented monograph, and Harrison's, a livelier, more impressionistic account based on contemporary interviews. In the end, Harrison's is the more impressive achievement. Gailey has written a work aimed at specialists and graduate students of Africa and imperialism; Harrison has produced a book for generalists interested in the human condition, appropriate for college undergraduates. Galley is concerned with revising, if not dethroning, Lord Lugard and his system of indirect rule as applies to southern Nigeria following its amalgamation with the north in 1914. By focusing on an uprising among the Egba of southwestern Nigeria, Gailey convincingly demonstrates that this disorder arose from the strains produced by Lugard's effort to force the Egba into the logic of indirect rule. An independent Egbaland, anchored by its major city of Abeokuta, emerged from the disintegration of Oyo power inYorubaland by the early nineteenth century. Characterized by its modernizing elements, Abeokuta developed a quasi-republican government by the 1870s and signed a treaty with the British governor at Lagos in 1893 recognizing its nominal independence. By 1914, however, Abeokuta's independence was overshadowed by an amalgamation scheme designed to introduce Lugard's methods of indirect rule to all of southern Nigeria. In 1914 the British formally annexed Egbaland, but did not expose Egba to the brunt of their new administrative theory until direct taxation methods were introduced in 1918. Egba-British relations, strained by annexation, were temporarily severed by Lugard's taxation program, and a brief but bloddy uprising in the summer of 1918 erupted. Immediately following the incident, an impartial committee of inquiry drafted a report linking the uprising to misguided administration. Piqued, Lugard convinced the Colonial Office that Yoruba intransigence and outside agitation were more important factors, and the report was never published. This is unfortunate, Gailey tells us, because bolstered by an unscathed reputation Lugard went on to become one of the most important apologists for imperialism. Gailey excels in describing the personal dynamics of colonial policy-making, but his earlier chapters on Egba history lack a similar luster and consistency. In Chapter Two, for example, Gailey painstakingly takes us through a somewhat tedious account of Egba external relations between 1865-1877, and then abandons a similarly detailed examination of the period 1877-1893 because, as he claims, it is not possible or necessary . . . to analyse deeply the background to this period (p. 21). Such lapses are fortunately not characteristic of his later
Ancient history · Demise · Economic history · Independence (probability theory · Political science · African history and culture analysis · African history and culture studies · History · Law · Mathematics · Religion and Sociopolitical Dynamics in Nigeria
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,23 |
| Citation span | 1986 - 2019 (34) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |