Colonial Subjugation of People, Land, and Nature: Slave Trade, Resource Extraction, and the Invention of a National Territory
The colonization of Nigeria ultimately began with the slave trade that was occurring in the 15th century. According to an article from The Atlantic that was written by Max Fisher, prior to the British, the Portuguese were the rulers of the slave trade. They sold slaves in order to obtain spices and weapons. However, the Nigerians themselves were the ones who provided the slaves. Tensions between different ethnic groups and tribes caused prisoners of war, so to speak, who would be sold to the Portuguese as slaves. For many, this was their main source of income.
Fisher also writes that in the 18th Century, Britain replaced the Portuguese as the rulers of the slave trade. Millions of Nigerian slaves were now being sold over seas to the Americas. However, once the slave trade was banned by the British empire in 1807, the British found another way to gain profits from Nigeria: through trade in palm oil. It wasn't until 1900 that Britain had conquered the powerful groups of the area and officially gained control of Nigeria. They exercised their control through indirect rule, meaning there were local leaders that had direct control over Nigeria rather than the British. [Are you sure all of the preceding is from Fisher? I read the article and I think you may be drawing at least partially on other sources for some of this history. Clean it up please.]
The British Broadcasting Channel, or BBC, states that throughout the early 20th century the British created the borders as they saw fit and profitable. Additionally, a large influence on Nigerian borders was World War Two. Germany was forced to give up its colonies by order of the League of Nations, and in turn, the former German colony Kamerun was added to Nigeria. [a map would be helpful to illustrate this change of borders--or using the map below, identify which areas were effectively added as a result of Germany's loss]
The History News Network, in an article entitled "It's Time to Face the Whole Truth About the Atlantic Slave Trade," states that following WWII, Nigeria regained control of its countries [wrong word? territory?]. The new leaders, however, saw it most fit to keep the borders the same in order to avoid conflict. Nevertheless, the different ethnic groups sharing boundaries proved to be a major source of conflict in the years that followed. [Could you say something here about how this history affects the Niger River Delta States more specifically? Maybe also a sentence or two about how oil wealth and oil extraction becomes both a centripedal and centrifugal force for national and regional identity and power politics?]
The following map shows 21st century Nigeria and the major ethnic groups that live within the country. The increasing population as well as the many different groups within the country has been just one issue that has hindered Nigeria from prospering. To learn about other issues regarding Nigeria's population and government in the viewpoint of a Nigerian author, see this page.
Works Cited
Fisher, Max. "The Dividing of a Continent: Africa's Separatist Problem." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company. 10 September 2010. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.
"It's Time to Face the Whole Truth About the Atlantic Slave Trade." History News Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.
"Nigeria Profile- Timeline." BBC. N.p., 12 June 2015. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.
