Kingdom of Benin

Territory of the Kingdom of Benin

Benin Ivory Mask of the Queen Mother Idia, 16th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York.

Bronze head of the Queen Mother Idia, early 16th century, Ethnological Museum , Berlin.

Benin bronze plates: warrior with the ceremonial sword Eben , 16th – 18th centuries Century, Musée du Louvre , Paris.

Ride of Oba, Benin City in the background in the 17th century.

Ride of the Oba from Benin (depiction of Milan 1815–1827) Roof decorated with turrets and birds cast in copper with outspread wings.

Benin City, drawing by an English officer, 1897.

Ovonramwen Nogbaisi with his wives, Queen Egbe (left) and Queen Aighobahi (right), circa 1898 - 1913.

Reconstruction of a flag captured by the British colonial troops , probably Itsekiri, which is kept in the archives of the National Maritime Museum .

Benin is one of Edo -Völkern established Kingdom in what is now southwestern Nigeria , which was until 1897 regardless. The official language was Edo . The kingdom is one of the most extensively documented pre-colonial empires in West Africa and was only destroyed at the end of the 19th century.

location

The center of the Kingdom of Benin is located on the lower reaches of the Niger around its eponymous capital, Benin , about 300 km east of Lagos . At the time of its greatest expansion, the empire stretched from Niger in the east to the Atlantic coast ( Bay of Benin ) in the west. In the north it bordered the kingdom of Oyo and reached about the level of the river Benue . At times, Benin - trying to expand the empire to the west - also controlled the area around today's Lagos.

history

Beginnings

The Kingdom of Benin was founded around 600 AD by the Ogiso dynasty , who ruled the country until the 11th century. The current dynasty , which decisively shaped the social structure of the state and thus our present image of the Kingdom of Benin, seized power in the 12th century. According to tradition, a woman named Erimwinde gave birth to the Yoruba nobleman Oranjan , son of Obudawa , the first king of the kingdom of Oyo, to a son named Eweka . During Oranjan's efforts to retake his hometown of Ife from Edo lands, he is said to have left Erimwinde and Eweka behind. The latter became the first Oba (ruler) of Benin some time later and was nicknamed the much-loved during his reign . In this way the Kingdom of Benin was connected to the Yoruba. It was already Eweka who set up a seven-member king election committee before his death, thus turning the kingdom into a kind of elective monarchy , although elections were only allowed from among the male descendants or relatives of the previous king. This “Council of State” had not only an instance-giving but also an advisory function.

The place where the current Palace of Benin stands was conquered by one of the subsequent rulers named Ewedo . During his time, extensive fortifications were built and the Oba's position vis-à-vis the nobility was strengthened. The choice of king was retained. Under Egbeka , the ninth Oba, there are said to have been violent arguments between the head and the State Council, which, however, did not change the general political system.

Rise and slave trade

1471–1490 the kingdom of Benin rose to become the strongest power west of the Niger. The first Portuguese seafarers reach the Bay of Benin and Benin City. An ambassador from Benin was sent to the court in Lisbon, and trade with Portugal was greatly expanded . The kingdoms maintain contacts, Portugal was mainly interested in trade relations. Lisbon's monopoly of trade in Africa was recognized in the Treaty of Alcáçovas of 1479 and a papal bulletin. At that time, like most areas in the region, Benin was predominantly agricultural. Important commodities were palm oil , Malagueta pepper and ivory . During this time the kingdom was approaching the zenith of its power. Oba Ewuare (Ewuare the Great), who had ascended the throne in 1440, first made important conquests in the surrounding areas, then improved the infrastructure of the empire by building roads and beautifying the capital with the help of artisans. The ruler of the neighboring kingdom Ife sent one of his most skilled masters, the blacksmith Iguehae, who was venerated like a god in the stories over the centuries. The craftsmen of Benin learned metal casting from immigrants like him , which they combined with their already highly developed wood and ivory carving to create a new art style. The Benin-art at that time flourished. When the ruling Oba, due to the death of his two sons, issued his people a kind of national mourning for three years, which brought severe restrictions on life (prohibition of clothing, body washing and childbearing), there was great unrest in the empire and a disgruntlement in the relationship between People and rulers.

In the later 15th and early 16th centuries the interest in slaves for the colonies in America increased and the slave trade flourished on the entire Gulf of Guinea (including the slave coast ) , but especially in Benin. The kingdom developed (alongside the Gold Coast and the Bay of Biafra ) into one of the main centers of the slave trade with the Europeans. Empires like Benin (but also Dahomey ) developed into slave trading centers between the inner regions of Africa and the slave markets on the coast. Today it is estimated that in the course of the slave trade a total of 13 million people were deported from the coasts of West Africa alone , a significant part of which went to Benin. According to trade notes, around 35,000 slaves were shipped from this area annually in the 18th century . Important direct buyers are Portuguese, British, Dutch, Spanish and French.

In the early 16th century, the rulers of Benin made attempts to expand their power westward along what is now the Bay of Benin. Portugal supports Benin with arms and military advice. In this course it was possible to create a kind of satellite kingdom in Eko (now Lagos) by setting up a ruling dynasty belonging to the kings of Benin. Under Okpame (also known as Ozobwa ), the 16th Oba of Benin, the national territory was once again expanded to include conquests in Egba Land. During its greatest expansion, the kingdom encompasses the area from present-day Ghana to the east of the Niger River.

Society and state

Society in the Kingdom of Benin was cosmopolitan and characterized by a complex hierarchy . The ruling class was made up of aristocratic circles . Most of the highest offices were hereditary. According to European travel reports, the vast majority of society lived in a slave-like relationship with the ruler.

The royal palace of Benin was a large cultural complex, the royal court was as big as a European city at the time. The Dutch geographer Olfert Dapper wrote in 1668: "It is divided into many palaces, houses and apartments of the courtiers, and includes beautiful and square galleries ... that rest on wooden pillars covered from top to bottom with cast copper on which pictures of their and Battles are depicted ... each roof is adorned with a small tower that ends at a point with birds standing on it, birds cast in copper, with outspread wings. "

Since the end of the 17th century, Benin has succeeded in obtaining not inconsiderable quantities of European firearms , mainly through exchange for slaves . This enabled the kingdom to gain an additional advantage over neighboring empires. In the 18th century, Benin restricted trade with the Europeans and focused on controlling the empire and the surrounding regions. There were more and more disputes over the throne, which weakened the previously very tightly organized empire and the integrity of the state and made the empire more susceptible to external interests.

The Oba and his court

The highest political and ritual head of the Kingdom of Benin was the so-called Oba . His subjects considered him godlike and ascribed a kind of mystical power to him that justified his choice. Within his domain he had the legal and administrative authority and a trading monopoly on certain goods, especially on the most valuable resources of the country such as ivory, copper , zinc and tin for the production of the " Benin bronzes " (which are mostly made of brass ). For all subjects, especially for the court, strict rules of conduct and dress applied. The Oba was not only king, but also the supreme judicial and religious authority and the foremost protagonist in all traditional rites . But although he acted like an absolutist ruler, his power was not unlimited. It was limited by the council of the Orizama or Uzama n Ihirin , the "kingmakers". This State or Privy Council consisted of seven members and had the task of assisting the Oba with their advice, choosing a successor from his two eldest sons or his brothers after his death and observing the strict moral laws that also regulated the Oba's existence to monitor. This also included precise rules on how the Oba should sleep and eat. The Uzama n Ihirin legitimized their power through alleged descent from the first Yoruba dynasty and inherited their titles and offices through firstborn. This also applies to the office of the highest general, who was directly below the Council of State in the hierarchy.

The Oba commanded a tightly organized court of governors , palace commanders , followers and religious heads. He was so influential on them that when he died many of them chose to accompany him to the grave. This immediacy of power distinguished the monarchy in Benin from that of the surrounding empires, where the king's power often depended on the favor of influential aristocratic clans and regicide was not uncommon. The hierarchy was not static over time, but developed, which contributed to the long existence of the kingship and its rule.

The rank and dignity of a member of the administrative class was marked by special jewelry such as coral necklaces.

Special customs and rituals

Special veneration was given to the Queen Mother , who held a powerful position. Their job was to educate the heir to the throne. Due to her naturally special influence on the Oba, the custom prescribed her to live outside the palace area. Once her son was enthroned , he was never allowed to see her again and was only allowed to seek advice from third parties.

In the religion of the people of Benin there was a belief in a life in the afterlife . Oba's death was a gruesome event in the Kingdom of Benin. According to the Olfert Dapper's travelogue, the king's grave had to be dug so deep that the workers fall into the water and drown. Only then was Oba's corpse put into the grave in the presence of the entire court. The court servants are said to have offered to accompany their ruler into the afterlife. This privilege was only granted to those who were most popular with the Oba during his lifetime. They went with him into the grave, which was then closed with a heavy stone.

It was also customary in the kingdom to offer human sacrifices at high feasts . Most of them were slaves who were believed to have a better fate in the hereafter. The sacrifice was made by beheading or strangling . This practice is said to have increased in proportions, especially in the 19th century, when up to 23 sacrifices were reportedly made a day.

military

According to the book Umbstaendliche und proper description von Afrika by the geographer Olfert Dapper, first published in Amsterdam in 1668, the Oba's military was as tightly organized as the court. Dapper reports that the Oba could mobilize 20,000 men in one day and another 80,000 in a little more time. The army was commanded by noblemen who were directly subordinate to the Oba and the Supreme Army Commander. Dapper estimates their number at 300 to 400.

Loss of power and aftermath

During the early 19th century, European colonial powers were fighting more and more aggressively for territories in Africa. Internal uprisings and wars with neighbors weaken the royal family. Benin's economic decline begins a. with the collapse of the export markets for Benin fabrics, the decline in intra-African trade and the ban on the transatlantic slave trade. On February 12, 1761, the Portuguese Prime Minister Marquês de Pombal abolished slavery in Portugal and the Indian colonies. Abolitionism in the transatlantic area continued and together with Great Britain the slave trade was banned at the beginning of the 19th century ( Slave Trade Act 1807 ) and in 1854 all slaves of Portugal were released in the colonies by decree. On February 25, 1869, the abolition of slavery was finally proclaimed in the entire Portuguese Empire. This leads to the loss of importance of Benin's ports.

After the Berlin West Africa Conference in 1884/5, the British Empire used abolitionism as a pretext for colonial wars against slave kingdoms on the Gulf of Guinea, including against the Kingdom of Benin in the 1890s. They colonize the territories around Benin. A central goal was the control of trade and trade routes. Benin lost the city of Lagos to the British Empire. Under strong foreign policy pressure, Oba Ovonramwen signed a free trade agreement with the British in 1892 , de jure it was his disempowerment. In fact, he ignores the treaty. Oba Ovonramwen continued to impose duties on British traders on goods leaving his territory. In 1897 a British delegation of Benin warriors was wiped out. The British Empire immediately dispatched 1200 soldiers for a punitive expedition that was technically superior in terms of weapons.

The Kingdom of Benin was conquered in 1897 by this punitive expedition - for the first time since its establishment. The soldiers, led by Commander-in-Chief Harry Rawson , burned and devastated large parts of the capital, Benin City . Little is known about the number of dead. They looted thousands of art objects from the royal palace and the residences of the dignitaries, around 3,500 to 4,000 bronzes, terracotta, ivory and wood carvings, including the virtuoso handcrafted commemorative heads whose origins date back to the 15th century. Much of the art was then auctioned off by the British government.

The victory over the Kingdom of Benin was enthusiastically celebrated in London. Queen Victoria congratulated the Royal Navy on a successful mission. The British exiled Oba Ovonramwen, the last independent Oba, to Calabar and incorporated the previously independent Kingdom of Benin into the "Protectorate of Southern Nigeria" and the British colonial empire. This was followed by an interregnum of 17 years, only in 1914 with the enthronement of Oba Eweka II did a gradual restoration of kingship take place under him, but without military or economic power. The palace was rebuilt and especially the bronze guild was promoted again. Today the territory of the Kingdom of Benin is integrated into the state of Nigeria, but still has a significant impact on people's consciousness through its traditional structures of authority and glorious history.

During the Biafra War , a republic of the same name was proclaimed on the territory of the Kingdom of Benin in 1967, the Republic of Benin , which was soon reintegrated into Nigeria.

The name Benin lives on today in the official name of the Republique du Bénin , which, however, has no historical connection with the Kingdom of Benin.

Art and architecture

In pre-colonial Benin, the production of brass sculptures was under the control of Oba and the foundries were among the highest-ranking craft guilds . They worked using the lost wax technique ( casting in lost form ). The perfect mastery of the casting technique and the portrait-like expressiveness of the works of art were on a par, if not superior, to the best European bronze works. The artisans who worked wood and ivory were also organized into guilds.

Bronze head sculpture of Oni (King) Obalufon, around 12th century, discovered near the holy city of Yoruba Ile-Ife , Nigerian National Museum , Lagos .

The planning and design of Benin City was carried out according to careful rules of symmetry, proportionality and repetition, which is now known as fractal design : In the center of the city was the royal court, from which 30 very straight, wide streets with a width of each ran about 50 meters. These main roads, which ran at right angles to each other, had underground drainage from an impluvium with a drain for rainwater. Many narrow sides and intersecting streets protruded from them. There were lawns in the middle of the streets where animals grazed. The city and its surrounding villages were purposely designed to form perfect fractals, the shapes of which were repeated in the rooms of each house. And the house itself and the groups of houses in the city were laid out in mathematically predictable patterns.

The Walls of Benin , which were completed in the 15th century, are considered a logistical and architectural masterpiece and were considered the largest man-made fortification in the world until they were destroyed during the British Benin Penal Expedition in 1897. When the bronzes and other works of art were brought to London with the spoils of war , it was a sensation. Its existence refuted the colonialist and racist ideology of Africa as a dark continent devoid of history, culture and art, as represented by the philosopher Hegel . They inspired art experts like Justus Brinckmann from the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg or the Berlin researcher Felix von Luschan . A run on the works began, institutions like the British Museum and the German Ethnographic Museum in Berlin bought the most beautiful pieces. Felix von Luschan was able to acquire almost 600 of them at an auction in London for the Völkerkundemuseum. 413 of these objects were evacuated to Silesia during World War II . Their whereabouts are still unclear.

It was this sack of Benin that made African art visible to Europeans, this flood of objects in European collections gave many European artists the first impression of African art and influenced representatives of Expressionism, Fauvism and later Cubism. The German African explorer Leo Frobenius could not believe that the bronze heads from Ile-Ife from the 12th to 15th centuries, which were earlier than the art of Benin, were of African origin; he speculated that they were the work of the ancient Greeks from the lost city of Atlantis .

Restitution of looted art

As anti-colonial movements grew stronger worldwide and Nigeria gained independence in 1960, military and civil governments followed. The Obas had lost political power, but were courted at the same time because of their continued strong influence on the population. They continued to be important in evaluating common law. Under Oba Akenzua II (1933–1979) and Oba Erediauwa (1979–2016) restitution claims to the works of art stolen from the royal palace in 1897 became louder. The so-called Benin bronzes had become an emotional symbol of colonial humiliation. In 2016 Oba Ewuara II N'Ogidigan came to the throne.

The Edo people did not use written language, but recorded all important events on the bronzes. The plates showed which deeds a king had performed, when and against whom wars, how the succession was arranged and which rituals were held. Many Benin works of art had sacred functions and were the means of communication of the Obas / kings and collective memory . The national archives and relics of the country were stolen.

Prime Minister Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki declared the restitution of the Benin bronzes to be the highest priority in 2018: “These works of art embody what we are: our people, our culture, our religion, also part of our political structure, they are symbols of our identity. 100 years after they were torn from us with terrible violence, we are still trying to get them back. What happened in 1897 traumatized all of our people. It was a shock. Don't forget that Benin was once a world power. "

Since 1914, all of Benin's Obas had reclaimed their heritage from the various museums in Great Britain, France, Germany and the USA. These and similar demands were also supported in November 2018 by the report on the restitution of African cultural goods commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Even if none of the museums was ready for such a restitution by 2019 , they have now started working with representatives of the Edo in the Benin Dialogue Group . From 5.-7. In July 2019, this group met again in Benin City , in which museums from Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden work together with Nigerian partners and representatives of the royal court of Benin. In addition to regular professional exchange, the establishment of a future museum for the famous sculptures and other cultural assets of the former Kingdom of Benin is planned.

literature

Eno Beuchelt, Wilhelm Ziehr: Black Kingdoms. Peoples and cultures of West Africa . W. Krüger Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-8105-2605-3 .
Olfert Dapper: Ambient and actual description of Africa . Amsterdam 1668.
Jakob Uwadiae Egharevba : A Short History of Benin . 4th edition. Ibadan 1968.
Paula Ben-Amos Girshick: The Art of Benin . 2nd Edition. London 1995, ISBN 0-7141-2520-2 .
Mechthildis Jungwirth: Benin in the years 1485–1700 . Notring, Vienna 1968.
Peter M. Roese: The Kingdom of Benin - from its beginnings to 1485 . In: Anthropos . No. 79 , 1984, ISSN 0257-9774 , pp. 191-222 , JSTOR : 40460800 .
Joseph Ki-Zerbo: The History of Black Africa . 7th edition. Hammer, Wuppertal 1985, ISBN 3-87294-153-4 .
Jacob E. Mabe: The Africa Lexicon. Special edition. A continent in a thousand keywords . Metzler, Wuppertal 2004, ISBN 3-476-02046-0 .
Thorsten Spahr: Benin. Arts and Traditions of Oral Edo Culture; Perspectives and limits of interpretation as historical sources . Pro-Literatur-Verlag, Mammendorf 2006, ISBN 3-86611-247-5 .
Stefan Eisenhofer: Courtly ivory carving in the Empire of Benin - continuity or continuity postulate? (= Munich ethnological treatises ) Edition Marino, Akademischer Verlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 978-3929115345
Leonhard Harding : The Kingdom of Benin. History - culture - economy . Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-486-59757-8

Sources (translation, editions):

Adam Jones: Olfert Dapper's Description of Benin (1668) . University of Madison, Madison 1998.
Thorsten Spahr: Benin around 1700. Annotated German translation of a letter from David van Nyendael to Willem Bosman about the Kingdom of Benin, together with a synopsis of the original, first published in Dutch in 1704, and the contemporary translations into English (1705) and German (1708) . Pro-Literatur-Verlag, Mammendorf 2006, ISBN 3-86611-208-4 . (Dutch, German and English)

Bibliography:

Thorsten Spahr: Benin Bibliography - multiple systematized, bilingual commented bibliography on the history of the Edo culture in the Kingdom of Benin (southern Nigeria) . Pro-Literatur-Verlag, Mammendorf 2006, ISBN 3-86611-209-2 . (German and English)

Atlases:

Geoffrey Barraclough : Knaur's historical world atlas . Knaur, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-426-66421-6 .
John Haywood: Races, States and Cultures. A universal historical atlas . Westermann, Braunschweig 2002, ISBN 3-07-509521-4 .
The new atlas of world history . Chronik-Verlag, Munich and Gütersloh 2002, ISBN 3-577-14605-2 .

Web links

Commons : Kingdom of Benin - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Edofolks.com. Website with some information on the history of the Edo peoples (English, content disputed)
BeninKunst.de. Comprehensive website on the history, art and culture of the Kingdom of Benin: bibliography, museums, glossaries, written sources
Benin Chronology. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History of the Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York (English)