CHAPTER XII

MOHAMMEDANS, SLAVE-RAIDING, AND DOMESTIC SERVITUDE

It has been truly remarked that more permanent good can be accomplished “by tact and gold with Mohammedan chiefs in West Africa than by the Maxim and the rifle.” That is a policy which has had much to do with our great and striking success in India. Its application to Afghanistan has within recent years been amply justified by results. Why should it not be followed in Northern Nigeria? Which is cheaper, an output of £5000 per annum in subsidies, or the expenditure of much larger sums in military operations? What is more likely to conduce to the prosperity of a vast densely populated tropical estate where the white man cannot settle, to gain your own ends peaceably, albeit not so speedily as might be desired, or to use force and face the dislocation of the existing social system which violent measures entail? Few people, if they will but calmly consider the matter, can fail to endorse the quotation given above. In Northern Nigeria the question is not merely one of expediency; it affects the honour of England.

When MacGregor Laird started on his pioneering expedition up the Niger which laid the foundations of British trade in the Upper River, his instructions from the Government ran as follows: “It is most desirable to impress upon the chiefs that you are there as traders, not as colonists, not as acquirers of land, but simply as traders and for the protection of trade.” When Lord John Russell despatched Captain Trotter and Commander William Allen up the Niger in 1840, he recognised the advisability of subsidising the native chiefs: “he himself (the chief) shall have for his own share, and without any payment on his part, a sum not exceeding one-twentieth part value of every article of British merchandise brought by British ships and sold in his dominions.” When Mr. Joseph Thomson concluded in 1884, on behalf of the National African Company, a treaty of amity and friendship with Umoru, Emir of Sokoto, “King of the Mussulmans of the Sudan,” he undertook on behalf of the Company to pay the Emir 3000 bags of cowries (roughly £1500) per annum. When that treaty was confirmed with the Emir on behalf of the Royal Niger Company (the designation of the National African Company when it received its charter) in 1890, and again with the Emir’s successor in 1894, the payment of the annual subsidy was confirmed. It was distinctly stipulated in those treaties that the Royal Niger Company “received” its power from the Queen of Great Britain and that “they (the Company) are her Majesty’s representatives to me.” In the eyes of the Emir, therefore, the Company was just as much “Great Britain” as a consular representative, or a High Commissioner. In exchange for this annual subsidy, the Emir of Sokoto transferred “to the above people (the Company) _or other with whom they may arrange_, my entire rights to the country on both sides of the River Benue and rivers flowing into it throughout my dominions for such distance from its and their banks as they may desire.” The Emir also bound himself not to “recognise any other white nation, because the Company are my help.” In a letter dated April 27, 1894, the Prime Minister of Sokoto repudiated any intention of treating “with any other from the white man’s country except with the Royal Niger Company, Limited.” Separate subsidies were also paid by “her Majesty’s representatives (the Niger Company)” to Gandu, as well as to the rulers of Nupe, Adamawa, and other important vassals of the Emir of Sokoto. That, at any rate, was a well-defined political relationship. By it the Royal Niger Company were able to secure this vast and populous country to Great Britain, and by it peace was, with the exception of Nupe[75] and Ilorin, preserved. Whatever may be said of the merits and demerits of the Royal Niger Company as an administrative body, it must be readily granted that a coherent policy was here applied, and that its results were, from the Imperial standpoint, exceedingly satisfactory. The nature of the bargain was precise. The Emir of Sokoto and his vassals conferred extensive rights upon England’s representatives and agreed to treat with no other country but England on the basis of a subsidy of £1500 per annum in the case of Sokoto, and sums varying in importance in the case of Sokoto’s vassals. The bargain was—according to the terms of the treaty—binding upon the Niger Company and its successors. The Emir of Sokoto kept to his share of it, and at a time when France endeavoured, through Colonel Monteil, to upset the Company’s treaty, the Emir loyally observed his obligations.[76] The Company no less loyally observed theirs. It is humiliating to have to confess it, but the British Government has been less loyal than the Company, and less loyal than the African chief whose loyalty enabled England at a critical moment to uphold the claims of her representatives to political influence over Sokoto. The Crown, it seems, has declined to fulfil the obligations imposed on England by these treaties, while reaping to the full the advantages which the existence of the treaties confers. The first public intimation that the Imperial Government had broken faith with the Emir of Sokoto was made by the Rev. J. A. E. Richardson, already alluded to. His statement ran as follows: “The yearly payment in form of gifts which was made to the Emir of Sokoto by the Niger Company has not been continued by the Imperial Government, and quite recently the Emir flatly refused to allow the erection of a British telegraph line.” No official announcement has been made on the subject, nor has any member of Parliament taken the trouble to inquire. But there is not, I think, any doubt whatever that the Imperial Government has, in point of fact, done this thing. I have made careful inquiries in quarters likely to be well informed, and it seems that it was considered _infra dig._ for a Government to politically subsidise a West African chief. That is an extraordinary doctrine. Since when has it been considered _infra dig._ for Englishmen to keep their word with native potentates? Since when has it been thought a criterion of Imperial rule to show native rulers that England’s promise is not worth the paper upon which it is written? Is that what has been called the “new Imperialism”? Is it astonishing that the Emir of Sokoto should, in the face of such a repudiation of treaty obligations, “flatly refuse” to allow the erection of a telegraph-line or anything else? Is it not a terrible handicap upon the professed intentions of the most well-meaning administrator, to be confronted at the outset with so powerful a cause of native suspicion and hostility?

Let us observe, for a moment, how the successive stages of British action on the Niger must appear to the native rulers of the country. We start off by saying that we have come to the country as merchants and nothing more, not as acquirers of land, but simply as traders. In 1870 the Emir of Nupe, Maroba, is found co-operating with Bishop Crowther—an earnest and godly man—to facilitate the operations of merchants at Lokoja. In 1884 Mr. Joseph Thomson is able, without any show of pomp or power, to induce the Emir of Sokoto, supreme ruler of the whole country, to sign a treaty of enormous importance, which practically amounts to a Protectorate, in exchange for a yearly subsidy. Sixteen years later a British Government ceases the subsidy, and follows up that performance by initiating a policy of active interference in the Emir’s dominions. As this costs money, the next step will very probably be that the Emir and his subjects will be expected to contribute towards the up-keep of the Administration, and England, having agreed through her representatives to subsidise the Emir in return for advantages conferred, will end by making the Emir pay for permission to remain in his own country. “It seems really incredible,” remarked the _Morning Post_ the other day, commenting upon the fighting with the Emir of Kontagora,[77] “that a great Empire administering savage countries should have no other weapon save an appeal to arms.” It has other weapons, and the most potent of them is the one upon which the Indian Empire has been reared. That weapon may be described thus, “Keep to your plighted word.”

The cause of the repeated military expeditions of which Northern Nigeria is the scene, is said to be slave-raiding. “Slave-raiding” is an evil which no one can possibly defend. It leads to great misery, to depopulation and devastation. Its agency is violence. To suppress it is the duty of every European Government. On those points there can be no difference of opinion. The difference comes in when the means adopted to do away with “slave-raiding” are examined. At present but one remedy has been devised and put into practice in Nigeria. It consists in opposing violence by violence. It has the merit of simplicity, but at best it is but a crude way of procedure, and its efficacy as a reforming agent is open to doubt. “The very foundation,” says Carl Schurz, “of all civilization consists in the dispensation of justice by peaceable methods, instead of the rule of brute force,” and he adds a sentence well worth thinking over: “Although a course of warlike adventure may have begun with the desire to liberate and civilise certain foreign populations, it will be likely to develop itself, unless soon checked, into a downright and reckless policy of conquest with all the criminal aggression and savagery such a policy implies.” It is impossible not to feel the force and the truth of this sentence when the history of British East Africa is studied. These “nigger hunts,” to use the term, not of a “deluded philanthropist” or “impracticable sentimentalist,” two of the many choice epithets with which people who do not believe in the practical advantages of “nigger hunts” are consistently assailed, but of a specially gifted officer, have worked incalculable mischief, and have put back the hands of the clock for many years. “Some of the wars and the punitive expeditions of the past few years,” remarks Professor Gregory in his admirable and impartial work,[78] “have been no doubt inevitable and just. They have been the ‘Cruel wars of peace.’ But some of the military expeditions in East Africa have been simply criminal in their folly and thoughtlessness.” Yet the Home Authorities defended all these expeditions, and covered the perpetrators of blunders with its sheltering wing, to the detriment not only of the general interests of the Empire, but of the efficiency of the public service, by discouraging officials who had a different conception of the duties of their position, but who saw, by experience, that to get up a row with the natives, to fight some brilliant action and get their “heroism” talked about, was the surest way to obtain promotion. That, I am afraid, is in West Africa also a motive power to advancement.

In his report Sir Frederick Lugard shows that he is alive to the abuses which a too constant “appeal to arms” may give rise to, and how the designation of “slave-raiding” can be converted into a mere excuse to justify acts of injustice and oppression. “Though force,” he says, “must be occasionally applied to bands of recalcitrant robbers, I am convinced that a few such lessons will suffice, and that the district officer, with tact and patience, aided by sufficient civil police, can achieve the pacification of the country effectively, and that parsimony in the appointment of these officers, and of their native staff of police, &c., would be a policy of false economy, resulting in unnecessary bloodshed.” And again, “It is my conviction that throughout Africa—East and West—much injustice and oppression have been unwittingly done by our forces acting on crude information, and accusations of slave-raiding, &c., brought by enemies of the accused to procure their destruction.”

What is the genesis of this slave-raiding we hear so much about? In the first place, it must be obvious to all who have studied the history of inland Western Africa with any degree of attention, that a great deal of what is called “slave-raiding” is not “slave-raiding” at all, but military operations undertaken by the rulers of Mohammedan States for the suppression of risings against their authority, rendered weak by ineffective organisation, and by the absence of adequate means of communication. Sir Frederick Lugard has thrown useful light upon other circumstances which may lead to wrongful accusations of slave-raiding.[79] But, taking the first case, how often may not an expedition entered upon by a Mohammedan Emir against his pagan subjects in West Africa be as justifiable, if reckoned by the same standard, as the chastisement of a tribe by the representatives of a European Power for resisting a tax enforced by that Power, and considered by the tribe excessive and unjust? The only fair and rational interpretation of slave-raiding, properly so-called, is the incursion of an armed band, without previous provocation of any kind, into a peaceful district, followed by the capture of a number of prisoners of war who are subsequently sold into slavery by the victors. That is a condition of affairs by no means peculiar to West Africa. It prevailed in Europe and in Great Britain at a period when civilisation was infinitely more advanced than it is at present in West Africa.

The motive forces to which slave-raiding is due in Nigeria are: (1) economic necessities, or, in other words, the revenue needs of native rulers, requiring many prisoners of war who, as has been well said, serve the double purpose of cheque-book and beast of burden; (2) the incidental effect of conquest; (3) the direct incitement given to intertribal wars by white men on the West Coast of Africa for a period extending over several centuries, a system which, by the way, prevailed not farther back than slightly over fifty years ago on the Niger; witness Richardson’s and Barth’s representations to the Government of the day. Those three causes are common to, or have been common to, West Africa as a whole. To them must be added, in the case of Northern Nigeria and other countries in West Africa converted to Islam by the sword, religious zeal. Let us take those causes severally one by one and examine them.

[Illustration: A MOHAMMEDAN CHIEF AND HIS STANDARD-BEARER]

With regard to the first, it must be patent to all who can look at the matter with unprejudiced eyes that, until native rulers in Northern Nigeria are able to count upon a source of revenue replacing that which they lose by the disappearance of raiding operations for slaves, and until a portable currency can be introduced into the country to take the place of the human currency—that is, slaves—the economic _raison d’être_ of raids will remain; and that is why, apart from any other considerations, a subsidy to the native rulers on the part of the European “over-lord” cannot but prove itself an instrument for good, pending the slower but certain modifications which the creation of roads, railways, the development of trade which should ensue from their creation, and the introduction of an easily portable currency—such as silver coinage—cannot fail to bring with them. When in course of time such development takes place, matters should be so arranged that the rulers of the country benefit by the growth of trade in their respective districts, or, in other words, that a portion of the revenue derived by the Administration from trade in a given district should accrue to the ruler of that district, and be expended in the improvement of that district.

In all communities where the ethical standard of the people has not been influenced by the Christian ideal, the enslavement of prisoners of war has existed from time immemorial. The moral standard of the Fulani Chieftains of to-day is not lower than that of Imperial Rome, and for many, many centuries after the tragedy of Golgotha, men enslaved one another in England and in Europe as the natural sequel to warfare.

As for the heavy load of responsibility which England shares—and to a very large extent—with other Powers towards the native of West Africa in her actual _rôle_ of inculcator of the higher principles of morality, it cannot too often be called to mind. It is not so very long ago—a mere nothing in the history of nations—that Englishmen hounded on these native chiefs against one another, supplied them with arms and ammunition, excited their fiercest passions, pandered to their worst vices, and all for what? To secure, under circumstances of cruelty more aggravated because more protracted, those very slaves which Englishmen to-day are but too ready to liberate, by killing the descendants of the chiefs who formerly supplied them with the objects of their desire!

Religious fanaticism has ever been attended with outrages upon humanity, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. In considering the case of the Fulani conquerors of Nigeria, we must, if we are just, recollect how relative good and evil are in matters of this kind, how dependent upon those hundred and one things which make up hereditary instincts and environment. Have the Fulani committed more atrocities than Christian Europe (although far behind Christian Europe of those days) perpetrated upon the Jews? Can we turn over the pages of Gibbon and condemn to the death penalty these wanderers in Darkest Africa, when we read of the deeds of Christians amid “civilised” surroundings, where art and crafts, the ease and luxuries of life, culture and refinement had reached, comparatively, so high a stage—a stage which West Africa had never known? Are the episodes of Saint Bartholomew and the persecutions of “bloody” Mary not vividly within our recollection? Do not the lessons of history suggest that “civilisation” would best fulfil its mandate, and rise to the level of its claims, by drawing upon an abundant store of patience in dealing with the evil of “slave-raiding” in Nigeria and elsewhere in West Africa? And if there be a fair prospect, as there undoubtedly is, of removing the causes, economical and otherwise, which produce slave raids, by peaceful methods, to employ the ways of peace rather than the sword, although the process be a slower one, we can have made but very few real strides in the last two thousand years if statesmanship be not equal to the task. This is sentimentalism, you will say. Well, it is easy to call names, but the following passage indicates, at least, that a British Government was not ashamed once upon a time to preach much the same doctrine:

“While you describe the power and wealth of your country, you will, in all your interviews with the African chiefs and with other African natives on the subject of the suppression of the slave trade, abstain carefully from any threat or intimidation that hostilities upon their territory will be the result of their refusal to treat.... You will allow for any hardness of feeling you may witness in them on the subject of the slave trade, a hardness naturally engendered by the exercise of that traffic, and in some cases increased by intercourse with the lowest and basest of Europeans. You will endeavour to convince them by courtesy, by kindness, by patience, and forbearance of your most persevering desire to be on good terms with them.”[80]

At what period, and under what circumstances, has this persevering desire to establish friendly terms, as a basis upon which to work to do away with the internal slave-trade of Nigeria by the exercise of courtesy, kindness, patience, and forbearance been consistently applied, or been given a fair chance? We should be hard put to it to supply even one instance, in a given district.[81]

So much for the moral aspect of the question. There is another aspect to which the most unsentimental of mortals will not deny the attributes of severest practicability. I refer to the effect of these wars, nominally undertaken for the suppression of slave-raiding and the upsetting of priestly theocracies in West Africa, upon the well-being of the inhabitants and upon the prosperity of the Colonies themselves. Those who may be inclined to look into the matter may peruse with advantage that very able volume, “Ashanti and Jaman,” by Dr. Richard Austin Freeman, one time Assistant Colonial Surgeon and Anglo-German Boundary Commissioner of the Gold Coast.[82] Sir Frederick Lugard in his report writes: “Already, with the removal of the fear of the Fulani, each petty village is claiming its ancient lands, or raiding those of its weaker neighbour, and interminable feuds are the result.” That passage entirely confirms Dr. Freeman’s opinion with regard to the forcible splitting up of the Ashanti confederation after the Wolseley expedition. The latter part of it is almost word for word that of a letter which lies before me at the present moment, and which I received from an Englishman in the Niger shortly after Sir George Goldie’s brilliant but inconclusive campaign against Nupe. “The whole country is confused”—wrote my correspondent—“the central authority having been suppressed; each man raids on his own.” In point of sober fact, almost every war waged in West Africa has a deteriorating effect, unless it be followed immediately by constructive action, which in the vast majority of cases is impossible owing to the vastness of the country. We read of a chief falling foul of the British Authorities and being deposed. If captured, he is marched off to the coast and deported; if he succeeds in escaping, the chances are he will rally some followers round him and prove a source of trouble for a considerable time. However that may be, he is at any rate replaced by some other individual who may or may not have, according to local custom, a right to the chieftainship. A resident with a small escort may or may not be left in the capital. Now, bearing in mind that in Nigeria a district over which a particular chief holds at least a nominal sway is sometimes as large as Wales or larger, no great amount of imagination is required to picture what but too often happens. Let us, for the sake of argument, consider Wales an inland kingdom, and imagine it under the feudal system, the King aided by his barons ruling the country, with many abuses no doubt, but still ruling it after a fashion and able to make his power felt. At a given moment the King quarrels with a neighbour. The neighbour enters the country, defeats the King’s armies, marches on the capital, captures it and the King together. The King is taken away a prisoner and the conqueror remains in the capital with a small force, ignorant of the language of the people, of their history, traditions, customs and laws. He will not be attacked because it is known that his soldiers possess weapons which kill easily at 300 yards, which mow down men in heaps, and which it is as futile to attempt to face as it is to stand against the roaring tornado hurtling through the forest. But for obvious reasons it is also known that he cannot effectively hold the country. Result number one: all semblance of authority within gun-shot of the capital has disappeared. Result number two: every ambitious baron develops schemes of aggrandisement, starts foraging in the property of his neighbours, who do ditto with religious unanimity; another party remains faithful to the deposed King and intrigues to get him back; another may take the part of the dummy appointed by the conqueror, presuming that step to have been adopted. Sequel: disorganisation, widening of area of disturbance, social chaos, impoverishment of the country.

This is not, indeed, the exception but the rule in West Africa. The facts are on record. I have quoted two eminent authorities in specific instances and mentioned one other case. But the examples are numerous, and were it necessary one might amplify them considerably. Sometimes the effect is chiefly commercial, as in the case of Nana, ex-chief of Lower Benin.[83] Since his removal after the war in that district the volume of trade has fallen considerably, which has been a bad thing, of course, all round, from the point of view of both revenue and commerce. Speaking generally, the only logical outcome of a punitive expedition in West Africa is the replacing of what has been pulled down by something else which shall answer to the needs of the people in the same way, or a military occupation of every yard of the country. West Africa being what it is, the thing cannot be done, and the consequence of punitive expeditions in that part of the world, no matter what the motives, alleged or real, may have been, is ninety times out of every hundred reactionary, sterile, and morally destructive. Hence, whether it be a matter of slave-raiding or fetishism, or disputes about land, or difficulties about trade, punitive expeditions are things to be avoided, and the Administrator who avoids them is the type of man which West Africa needs most.

A reference to the question of slave-raiding in Nigeria would be incomplete without mention being made of domestic slavery, or more properly termed domestic servitude. I remember assisting, not so long ago, at a lecture by a missionary on Northern Nigeria. With great impressiveness the lecturer announced that a large proportion, four-fifths I think he said, of Hausas in Nigeria are slaves. There was no doubt of the effect of the statement upon the audience, composed of benevolent, well-meaning people, who conjured up at once the most horrible visions. The mere enunciation of the fact, or alleged fact—because, from what I have been able to ascertain, the estimate is widely exaggerated—is calculated to horrify a public ignorant of the nature and characteristics of domestic slavery in West Africa, and there can be as little doubt that such is the deliberate and perfectly sincere intention of the individuals who make these bald statements, as that their after consequences upon the public mind are harmful. All are agreed that the intestine warfare which results in the capture of many prisoners and their conveyance over large distances always involves great hardships and sorrow, and very often fearful sufferings upon the victims. But the weight of evidence is decidedly against the supposition, still so widely entertained, that domestic slavery in West Africa is what the unscientific advocates of its hasty abolition, regardless of the obvious political objections to such a course, would have the public believe.

[Illustration: MANDINGO MUSLIMS]

Nay more, while it may be fully admitted that a condition of servitude is indicative of a state of society which we happily have grown out of, and which in itself is essentially opposed to the moral law, no impartial student will be prepared to deny that the condition of tens of thousands of toilers in this country is infinitely worse than anything which prevails under the West African native system, where poverty at least is normally non-existent. The latter, it is true, are technically free, but to them actual freedom would, if exercised, lead to starvation pure and simple. They are bound in chains more enduring than any forged by native blacksmiths in Nigeria. The “White Slaves of England” was an appropriate title to a series of terrible articles published a short time ago in a popular London magazine, the absolute accuracy of which has since been acknowledged. “The West African slave”—a celebrated French explorer and administrator has said—“is not so unhappy as many people who live round us and whom _we will not see_.” That is the simple truth. Between the domestic servitude of Nigeria—where any form of paid labour is unknown as a native institution—and plantation slavery under European supervision there is all the difference in the world. Compared with the latter, the former is relative bliss. Degradation was the keynote of the one. The other permits and frequently leads to equality between the owner and the servant. Under the European system the slave was a dog and worse than a dog; under the West African system the slave is part and parcel of the social life of the people, a member, and not unfrequently an honoured member, of the family.[84] With the second generation, the distinction between the owning and serving class in West Africa is less pronounced, and with the third generation, if it has not already been practically effaced, the distinction is simply theoretical. Slaves then own slaves of their own, while still theoretically remaining slaves themselves. Once a slave is incorporated in a household he usually remains a fixture, is decently treated, and, if his conduct is good, his material prosperity rapidly increases. It is the commonest thing in the world for a slave to rise high in his master’s favour, and even to hold lucrative and responsible positions. All the relations of domestic life in three-fourths of the Niger territories are based upon the system of domestic slavery, and there is no question which requires to be approached by the authorities with greater breadth of comprehension, with greater largeness of views, with a more sincere resolve to resolutely set aside all appeals, by whomsoever uttered, to bigotry, passion, or prejudice.

The harm which hasty legislation tending to violently interfere with the entire social fabric of a people and with a custom centuries old entails cannot be exaggerated. It spells utter disorganisation, and has already worked incalculable mischief in the British West African possessions by destroying the authority and influence of the chiefs and breaking up the whole labour of the country. The lesson has been learned rather late in the day, and there is hope that it will bear fruit, but the influences on the side of error are very strong at home, and it never seems to occur to those amongst us whose profession in life is the inculcation of the moral virtues, that we have no greater right to destroy or abolish domestic slavery without compensation of some sort, if only that of substituting railway transport and portable currency in West Africa, than we had in the West Indies or in South Africa. Why should West Indian planters and Cape Colonists receive compensation for the loss of their slaves, and the African chief nothing—except bullets? The policy of the sword and the application of twentieth-century legislation to twelfth-century conditions, however good the intentions, are, in the main, Imperial mistakes, for which England may indirectly pay, but whom the present generation of natives and the generations which come afterwards do—and will—suffer in their persons. “It is understood”—cabled Reuter’s agent on the Binue on September 21, 1901, subsequent to the capture of Yola—“that Government will not interfere for the present with domestic slavery, the evil effects of such a policy being still felt in the provinces of Nupe and Ilorin. It upset the internal economy of the whole country, and the male slaves, instead of working on their master’s farms, became rogues and vagabonds, and the women something worse.” What a biting satire upon the notion that immemorial customs can be changed by a stroke of the pen without breeding disorder and social chaos! The question of domestic slavery in Nigeria may best be approached by once again recalling that great truth, “God’s design in the perfecting of man’s mind is evolutionary and not revolutionary.”