Category: History – Social
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Salami Agbaje, industrial magnate of the Ibadan colonial era, son of an early Muslim convert from Iseyin was born in Lagos in c.1867. Agbaje acquired an Islamic education to the exclusion of a Western supplement due to the objection raised by his parents who were at the time contemptuous of Christianity-proselytizing Christian Mission schools. When…
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Ara Suicide; In August 1855, the mass suicide in Ara, an Ekiti town, to prevent their enslavement by the ravaging Ibadan army. The act of suicide was first committed by Chief Elejofi, the town’s leader, who with the help of his eldest son, destroyed his house, belongings, many of his wives and children, before taking…
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James Africanus Beale Horton was a pioneer Nigerian medical doctor of full Igbo parentage, born in Sierra Leone in 1835. His father had been settled in Freetown like many freed slaves following the interception of their ship from those who traded in humans. Horton schooled at the CMS Grammar School and the Fourah Bay College. His…
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Blood Men is a society of Igbo slaves in the Calabar oil palm plantation formed in 1850 to oppose their encroachment and oppression in the Delta especially the use of their brethren in human sacrifice. The revolutionary movement of slaves grew among the very lowest class, who, to historian Elizabeth Isichei’s chagrin, were supposed to…
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Amodu Tijani’s case against the secretary to the government of Southern Nigeria was the watershed legal event in 1921 by which the ownership of Lagos lands was decided in favour of natives. Amodu Tijani, the chief Oluwa of Lagos was an Idejo chief whose influence extended to several villages and towns in the Lagos area…
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Efunroye Tinubu was an amazon and Lagos merchant of the 19th Century who lent support to military efforts, and thereby became a powerful force in the politics of her time. Efunroye, in Oladipo Yemitan’s account was married to Adele as a prince, who later became king of Lagos, 1835 to 1837. In her natal home…
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Ibadan Lights Order was an order in 1941 for the diminution and cessation of lightning in the city of Ibadan during the Second World War. In this order, every outdoor light was required to be obscured that no reflection thereof was visible from the air. Restrictions were announced for vehicles moving within a radius of…
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James Pearse was a Lagos clergyman of the late 19th Century who was tutor to distinguished persons like Ademola II, Alake of Egba, Eric Moore, Adebesin Folarin and J.K. Coker. Pearse was born in Abeokuta on April 3, 1857. He attended St. Peter’s Day School till the Ifole crisis in 1867 when he came over…
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Augustus Otonba-Payne was a key figure in Lagos Colony during the reign of Queen Victoria of England. Otonba Payne was born 1839 in Sierra Leone. His father was captured from Ijebu Ode during one of the raids in which individuals were sold to slavery, but was soon rescued by the British anti-slavery squadron. Payne was educated…
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Alimotu Pelewura was an activist trader of pre-colonial Nigeria, who, though illiterate, led women successfully in their struggle against unjust taxation and for suffrage. Pelewura was born in the last decade of the 19th Century to a Muslim family. During the Second World War, she organized demonstrations against British policy of monopoly in the distribution…