Ovonramwen
Oba Ovonramwen Nogbaisi (c. 1857 - January 1914) was Oba (king) of the Kingdom of Benin (now part of Nigeria) from 1888 until he was deposed by the British Empire in the Benin Expedition of 1897 in retaliation for ordering the murders of an unarmed British delegation earlier that year. He was the last independent Oba of Benin.
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Biography edit
Ovonramwen was born around 1857 to Oba Adolo. He succeeded his father as Oba in 1888, taking the Name "Ovonramwen Nogbaisi" meaning "The Rising Sun Which Spreads Over All".
At the end of the 19th Century, the Kingdom of Benin had resisted European colonialism in the Scramble for Africa and maintained its economic independence. The British Empire considered this a threat to their overseas interests and the Colonial Office sent Vice-Consul Henry Gallwey to negotiate a trade agreement with the Oba allowing Britain free passage of goods through the kingdom and access to the palm oil trade. Against his better judgement, the Oba reluctantly signed the agreement.
During negotiations the British consul Richard Burton visited Benin and described it as "a place of gratuitous barbarity which stinks of death". Burton and other observers both during and after treaty negotiations noted a number of "bloody customs" in Benin, notably the widespread practices of slavery and human sacrifice. Many reported that slaves and criminals were regularly sacrificed in public ceremonies in service of the Ju-Ju religion. Other accusations included that the Oba had ordered for a number of captives to be chained to the wall of his palace and have their ears sliced off; that the path to the Oba's palace was lined with skulls and rotting corpses as a demonstration of his power; and even that the Oba's servants had engaged in cannibalism after killing a number of British native servants. These atrocities were used as a justification for British involvement in Benin; however, the actual treaty made no reference to these "bloody customs" beyond a vague mention that the Oba was required to "ensure the general progress of civilization" and in practice the British initially took little action to stop them.
After the trade agreement was signed, Ovonramwen angered the British by demanding that British traders pay customs duties, which Consul-General Claude Maxwell Macdonald argued was a violation of the agreement. The Colonial Office refused to allow a military expedition to enforce the treaty and tensions continued until March 1896, when, in response to native middlemen refusing to pay him the required tributes, Ovonramwen placed an embargo on the palm oil trade with Britain. This was too great a violation of the Gallwey Treaty to ignore, and Acting Consul-General James Phillips decided in November 1896 to negotiate with the Oba to re-open trade.
Benin Massacre edit
Phillips set out for Benin City in December 1896 with an unarmed delegation comprising himself, ten other British, several local civil policemen, guides and interpreters and around 241 native porters and manservants. Phillips sent an envoy bearing gifts for trade ahead to Benin City to inform the Oba that Phillips wished to discuss peace and trade. At the time the Oba was celebrating Igue, during which he was forbidden from being in the presence of non-natives, and replied that he could not see the British at the time. Not satisfied, and possibly believing that the Igue ritual season involved human sacrifice, Phillips sent word that he was coming anyway and insulted the Oba by sending him his staff.
On 4 January 1897, the British delegation was ambushed near Gwato on the way to Benin City. British and Africans were cut down indiscriminately, with victims being shot and then decapitated as soon as they fell. Only two British - Alan Boisragon and Ralph Locke - survived and escaped; a third survivor, Kenneth Campbell, was captured and taken back to Benin City, where he was beheaded on the Oba's orders. It later transpired that Ovonramwen had directly ordered the party be ambushed before they reached Benin City. Upon hearing of the massacre, the British government ordered a punitive expedition to depose Ovonramwen.
Punitive expedition edit
On 9 February 1897, British forces under Rear Admiral Harry Rawson invaded the Kingdom of Benin and immediately began ravaging the kingdom as they made their way towards Benin City, committing numerous war crimes along the way. Fearing that he would be defeated, Ovonramwen began sacrificing slaves in the hope that the gods would have mercy on him. As they neared Benin City, British troops found sacrificial victims, both male and female, nailed to the ground with their bellies cut open in a cross shape and their intestines hanging out. This further inflamed the British troops against the Beni, leading to further atrocities by the expeditionary force.
On 18 February Benin City was captured, with Ovonramwen having fled. He had left behind him a gruesome scene which, witnesses reported, "reeked of human blood". Numerous victims had been slaughtered in sacrifice rituals and thrown into body pits, including native porters from General Phillips' expedition. Some victims had been crucified, and the streets were filled with mutilated human remains (it is impossible to know for certain how many of these were killed during the expedition and how many were victims of the prior "bloody customs" which had been reported since 1892). The city was soon burned, possibly by accident, but not before the Oba's palace was looted. This led to the theft of the Benin Bronzes, thousands of metal plaques and sculptures belonging to the Oba intended to glorify him and his predecessors. Controversy over their return persists to this day.
Ovonramwen remained at large until 5 August, when he emerged from his hiding place in the jungle to formally surrender to the British. He attempted to secure a pardon by offering to tell the British where he had buried 500 ivory tusks worth approximately £2 million, but the British had already found them. He was sentenced by the British to go into exile, after which slavery and human sacrifice were outlawed by the British (although they soon began using forced labour with conditions only marginally better than those under the previous system). Ovonramwen was exiled to Calabar, where he remained until his death in 1914.