history of Nigeria from background

PISTORY OF NIGERIA
Historic regions
Fulani and Sokoto
British explorers
SS Alburkah
Trade and anti-slavery
British colonial rule
Independence and secession
From oil wealth to disaster
HistoryWorld MENU
Historic regions: 5th century BC – 20th century
Nigeria contains more
historic cultures and
empires than any other
other nation in Africa. They
date back as far as the 5th
century BC, when
communities living around the southern slopes
of the Jos plateau make wonderfully expressive
terracotta figures – in a tradition known now as
the Nok culture , from the Nigerian village where
these sculptures are first unearthed. The Nok
people are neolithic tribes who have recently
acquired the iron technology spreading
southwards through Africa.
The Jos plateau is in the centre of Nigeria, but
the first extensive kingdoms of the region –
more than a millennium after the Nok people –
are in the north and northeast, deriving their
wealth from trade north through the Sahara and
east into the Sudan.
During the 9th centurya trading empire grows
up around Lake Chad. Its original centre is east
of the lake, in the Kanem region, but it soon
extends to Bornu on the western side. In the
11th century the ruler of Kanem-Bornu converts
to Islam.
West of Bornu, along the northern frontier of
Nigeria, is the land of the Hausa people. Well
placed to control trade with the forest regions to
the south, the Hausa develop a number of small
but stable kingdoms, each ruled from a strong
walled city. They are often threatened by larger
neighbours ( Mali and Gao to the west, Bornu to
the east). But the Hausa traders benefit also
from being on the route between these empires.
By the 14th century they too are Muslim.
In the savanna grasslands
and the forest regions west
of the Niger, between the
Hausa kingdoms and the
coast, the Yoruba people are
the dominant tribes. Here
they establish two powerful states.
The first is Ife, on the border between forest and
savanna. Famous now for its sculpture, Ife
flourishes from the 11th to 15th century. In the
16th century a larger Yoruba empire develops,
based slightly further from the forest at Oyo.
Using the profits of trade to develop a forceful
cavalry, Oyo grows in strength during the 16th
century. By the end of the 18th century the
rulers of Oyo are controlling a region from the
Niger to the west of Dahomey .
Meanwhile, firmly within the
forest, the best known of all
the Nigerian kingdoms
establishes itself in the 15th
century (from small
beginnings in the 13th).
Benin becomes a name internationally known for
its cast-metal sculpture, in a tradition inherited
from the Ife (see Sculpture of Ife and Benin).
In terms of extent Benin is no match for Oyo, its
contemporary to the north. In the 15th century
the region brought under central control is a
mere seventy-miles across (people and places
being harder to subdue in the tropical forest
than on the savanna), though a century later
Benin stretches from the Niger delta in the east
to Lagos in the west.
But Benin’s fame is based on factors other than
power. This is the coastal kingdom which the
Portuguese discover when they reach the mouth
of the Niger in the 1470s, bringing back to
Europe the first news of superb African artefacts
and of the ceremonial splendour of Benin’s oba
or king.
The kings of Benin are a story in themselves. In
the 19th century they scandalize the west by
their use of human sacrifice in court rituals. And
they have stamina. At the end of the 20th
century the original dynasty is still in place,
though without political power. All in all, among
Nigeria’s many historic kingdoms, Benin has
earned its widespread renown.
The Fulani and Sokoto: 1804-1903
Living among the Hausa in the northern regions
of Nigeria are a tribe, the Fulani, whose leaders
in the early 19th century become passionate
advocates of strict Islam. From 1804 sheikh
Usman dan Fodio and his two sons lead the
Fulani in an immensely successful holy war
against the lax Muslim rulers of the Hausa