Lagos in the 19th Century

The history of Lagos in the 19th century divides into two periods, separated by the British takeover in 1861. The major events of the first period were a protracted succession dispute among claimants to the Lagos throne between 1805 and 1851, the influx of refugees from wars in the immediate and distant hinterlands, and the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which was exploited by the British to intrude into the politics of Lagos. Lagos was transformed in the second period by a combination of local and external political, economic, and social dynamics. First, it became a British colony and the seat of a colonial administration, with the trappings of modernity, such as a legislative council, modern courts, and rudimentary social facilities. The colony subsequently acquired a protectorate in the Yoruba hinterland, especially after the defeat of the Ijebu in 1892. Second, the advent of European Christian missions, and the influx of descendants of slaves and recaptives from Brazil, Cuba, Sierra Leone, and Liberia on the wings of the Abolition had epochal social consequences. The establishment of primary and secondary educational institutions produced an African elite of medical doctors, lawyers, teachers, and journalists from the 1870s. Newspapers promoted the earliest forms of anti-colonial nationalism, including cultural nationalism. Third, forest produce displaced slaves as the leading Lagos export. By the 1880s, Lagos had developed into the premier port and commercial settlement along the West Coast of Africa, earning it the sobriquet of “The Liverpool of West Africa.” By the 1890s, road and railway transport had connected the port to a densely populated agricultural hinterland, including an expanding protectorate.