816 



WEST AFRICA. 



with the English. After the French abandoned 

 their post at Arenberg. below the Boussa rapids, 

 this place, otherwise called Bajibo, was occupied 

 by the Niger Company. The Niger region is ex- 

 ceedingly fertile, producing rice and cereal grains 

 for export, besides dates, honey, the fruit of the 

 butter tree, and doria seeds. Cotton is grown and 

 made into native cloth, which is dyed with indigo 

 and other colors produced in the country. Leather 

 is tanned and manufactured into pouches, sandals, 

 and saddlery, which are exchanged for salt from 

 the Sahara. The Niger Company claims sover- 

 eignty over the pagan kingdom of Borgu by vir- 

 tue of a treaty similar to that made with the King 

 of Sokoto. This territory lies south of Gando and 

 north of Ilorin, which is claimed by the British as 

 a province of Ilorin. In this region the British 

 touches on the south the French conquests in Da- 

 homey. On the strength of the Anglo-German 

 agreement the British sphere is made to include 

 the western half of the kingdom of Bornu. The 

 Fulahs are Mohammedans, but the subject peoples 

 in the Niger valley are in great part pagans. 



The President of the Council of the Royal Niger 

 Company, which has its seat in London, is Sir George 

 Taubman Goldie. The company grew out of the 

 National African Company, Limited, founded in 

 1882 with the object of acquiring for Great Britain 

 the regions of the middle Niger, to which France 

 was reaching by building a railroad connecting the 

 Senegal with the head of navigation on the Niger 

 and developing its military power on the upper 

 Niger. Between 1884 and 1886 the agents of the 

 British company made about 300 treaties with 

 tribes and native states, including Sokoto and 

 Borgu, and on July 10, 1886, it received a royal 

 charter as the Royal Niger Company, conferring 

 dominion and jurisdiction in the name of Great 

 Britain over the territories acquired. The com- 

 pany has a paid-up capital of 1.000,000, which it 

 has authority to increase indefinitely. 



The total area of the territories of the Royal Niger 

 Company is estimated at 500,000 square miles, and 

 the population is variously estimated between 20,- 

 000,000 and 35,000,000. The capital is Asaba, but 

 the military headquarters are at Lokoja. The ex- 

 ports, consisting of gums, hides, India rubber, ivory, 

 palm kernels, palm oil. and vegetable butter, were 

 valued in 1893 at 406,000, having increased from 

 230,000 in 1888. The imports are cottons, silks, 

 woolens, earthenware, hardware, beads, tobacco, and 

 salt. Very heavy duties are imposed on spirits, the 

 importation of which in regions north of 7 of north 

 latitude is totally prohibited. Tobacco and salt are 

 also taxed, and heavy duties are imposed on exports, 

 producing most of the revenue of the company. The 

 tax on imported gunpowder is almost prohibitory, 

 and the importation of firearms is likewise discour- 

 aged, those of improved modern mechanism being 

 prohibited entirely. Nevertheless large quantities 

 of gunpowder, breech-loading rifles, percussion caps, 

 and spirits are smuggled into the country from the 

 neighboring territories of the British Niger Coast 

 Protectorate, where the merchants accumulated 

 large stocks in anticipation of the going into force 

 of the prohibitive and restrictive clauses of the 

 Brussels Convention which were not brought into 

 operation in the protectorate till August, 1894. 

 The smuggling trade that is carried on from the 

 Brass district and other parts of the Niger Coast 

 Protectorate is enough in the estimation of Sir John 

 Kirk to deprive the Niger Company of 30,000 of 

 revenue, which is more than the amount of its an- 

 nual dividend of 6 per cent, on the capital. The 

 coast guard of the Niger Company endeavor to 

 keep this contraband traffic in check by firing on 

 the smugglers, confiscating their canoes and cargoes, 



and the killing or wounding of Brass natives has 

 given rise to retaliatory acts and to complaints to 

 the British Government, which appointed Sir John 

 Kirk a commissioner to inquire into the matter. 

 The report that lie made justified the authorities of 

 the chartered company in every case. 



The British possessions on the Gulf of Guinea 

 have a frontage of nearly 500 miles, and the British 

 sphere extends inland to the Say-Barrua line ar- 

 ranged with France and to Lake Chad, spreading 

 out like a fan. The Niger and its Benue branch 

 form a natural water-way that gives access to the 

 entire region. In the coast district small rivers, 

 intersected by bayous that afford intercommunica- 

 tion, run parallel to the Niger into the sea. These 

 streams are known collectively as the Oil Rivers, 

 and the territory through which they run forms the 

 Niger Coast Protectorate. The Royal Niger Com- 

 pany obtained a charter in 1886 that gave it the 

 command of a strip of territory on either side of 

 the main outlet of the Niger. The native traders 

 of the Oil Rivers districts have been accustomed for 

 many generations to make use of the creeks con- 

 necting the lesser rivers with each other and with 

 the Niger for the purpose of ascending the Niger 

 and trading with the interior. The Niger Com- 

 pany has made an end to this traffic, establishing 

 an elaborate chain of customhouses along the fron- 

 tier on either side of the Niger and levying heavy 

 duties on merchandise passing the border to the 

 great prejudice of traders, both European and na- 

 tive, established in the Oil Rivers territory. The 

 most important of the native traders are those of 

 the Brass district, who formed a guild that used to 

 possess exclusive privileges in the Niger trade. 

 These they renounced in 1884, signing under com- 

 pulsion a treaty accepting the British system of 

 free trade. Shortly after they had done this the 

 treaty was granted to the Royal Niger Company 

 that cut them off from their old markets because 

 such duties and licenses were exacted along the 

 frontiers that open trade was rendered impossible. 

 Under these circumstances they resorted to smug- 

 gling. The conflict between them and the Niger 

 authorities led in 1895 to their attacking the open 

 town of Akassa. King Koko, of Brass, refused the 

 terms offered on April 1, 1896, by the Niger Com- 

 pany for the admission of Brass traders to the mar- 

 kets on the Niger, and consequently he was deposed 

 and proclaimed an outlaw. 



In the Anglo-French agreement of Jan. 15, 1896, 

 dealing principally with Siam, a clause was inserted 

 providing for the appointment of a joint commis- 

 sion charged with fixing by mutual agreement the 

 most equitable delimitation between the British 

 and French possessions in the region west of the 

 lower Niger after exainination of the titles pro- 

 duced on each side. Mr. Howard and Sir Augus- 

 tus Hemming, the commissioners appointed in be- 

 half of England, met their French colleagues, M. 

 Larrouy and M. Roume, at Paris on Feb. 9. At 

 the proposal of the British Government France 

 agreed to widen the ground of discussion so that 

 the Niger Commission may settle the boundary 

 questions in regard to territories on both sides of 

 the Niger and all the claims in those regions, and 

 also continue the negotiations from the points 

 reached by the convention of 1894. Toward the 

 close of 1896 the Niger Company made preparations 

 for military operations on a larger scale than they 

 had yet undertaken, sending out 19 English officers 

 and 2 light-draught river gunboats. The Niger 

 Company has not attempted to suppress slave-raid- 

 ing, which is carried on by all the chiefs, who pay 

 in slaves the tribute to their paramount rulers. 

 At times the company has intervened to defend a 

 tribe from raiders and has thus gained as allies the 



