West African studies

by Mary Henrietta Kingsley

After leaving Andoni, and continuing down the coast some ten or fifteen miles, the Opobo discharges itself into the sea. This river, marked in ancient maps as the Rio Condé and Ekomtoro, is the most direct way to the Ibo palm-oil-producing country.

This river was well known to the Portuguese and Spanish slave traders, but as Bonny became the great centre for the slave trade, this river was completely deserted and forgotten to such an extent that, though an opening in the coast line was shown on the English charts where this river was supposed to be, it was never thought worth the trouble of naming, and remained quite unknown to the English traders until it came suddenly into repute, owing to Ja Ja establishing himself here in 1870.

The people here are the Bonny men and their descendants who followed Ja Ja’s fortunes, therefore their manners and customs are identical with those of Bonny.

The physical appearance of these people is somewhat better than that of the Bonny men, owing, I think, to the position of their town, which is built on a better soil, and raised a few feet higher than that of Bonny from the level of the river, also their uninterrupted successful trade since their arrival in this country has doubtless not a little contributed to their improved condition, while, on the other hand, the Bonny men suffered severely during the years from 1869 to 1873, owing to Ja Ja barring their way to the markets, and they seem never to have recovered themselves.

Trading stations of the white men are at the mouth of the river and at Eguanga, the latter a station a few miles above Opobo town.

Opobo became, under King Ja Ja’s firm rule, one of the largest exporting centres of palm oil in the Delta, and for years King Ja Ja enjoyed a not undeserved popularity amongst the white traders who visited his river, but a time came when the price of palm oil fell to such a low figure in England that the European firms established in Opobo could not make both ends meet, so they intimated to King Ja Ja that they were going to reduce the price paid in the river, to which he replied by shipping large quantities of his oil to England, allowing his people only to sell a portion of their produce to the white men. The latter now formulated a scheme amongst themselves to divide equally whatever produce came into the river, and thus do away with competition amongst themselves. Ja Ja found that sending his oil to England was not quite so lucrative as he could wish, owing to the length of time it took to get his returns back, namely, about three months at the earliest, whilst by selling in the river he could turn over his money three or four times during that period. He therefore tried several means to break the white men’s combination, at last hitting upon the bright idea of offering the whole of the river’s trade to one English house. The mere fact of his being able to make this offer shows the absolute power to which he had arrived amongst his own people. His bait took with one of the European traders; the latter could not resist the golden vision of the yellow grease thus displayed before him by the astute Ja Ja, who metaphorically dangled before his eyes hundreds of canoes laden with the coveted palm oil. A bargain was struck, and one fine morning the other white traders in the river woke up to the fact that their combination was at an end, for on taking their morning spy round the river through their binoculars (no palm oil trader that respects himself being without a pair of these and a tripod telescope, for more minute observation of his opponents’ doings) they saw a fleet of over a hundred canoes round the renegade’s wharf, and for nearly two years this trader scooped all the trade. The fat was fairly in the fire now, and the other white traders sent a notice to Ja Ja that they intended to go to his markets. Ja Ja replied that he held a treaty, signed in 1873, by Mr. Consul Charles Livingstone, Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul, that empowered him to stop any white traders from establishing factories anywhere above Hippopotamus Creek, and under which he was empowered to stop and hold any vessel for a fine of one hundred puncheons of oil. In June, 1885, the traders applied to Mr. Consul White, who informed King Ja Ja that the Protectorate treaty meant freedom of navigation and trade.

So the traders finding their occupation gone, decided amongst themselves to take a trip to Ja Ja’s markets, the only sensible thing they had done since the trouble commenced. This was a step in the right direction, namely, by attempting to break down the curse of Western Africa id est, the power of the middle-man.

The names of the four traders who first attempted to trade in the Ibo markets of King Ja Ja deserve to be recorded, for their action was not without great risk to themselves. They were:

Mr. S. B. Hall Mr. Thomas Wright Mr. Richard Foster	}	English
Mr. A. E. Brunschweiler—Swiss.

To these must be added the name of Mr. F. D. Mitchell, who, though not in the first trip to the markets, joined in the subsequent attempt to establish business amongst the interior tribes. Their reception at the markets was not altogether a success, owing to the reception committee, or whatever represented it in those parts, being packed with either Ja Ja’s own people or Ibos favourable to him.