Bonny Nineteenth Century Slave Revolt Revisited

Keyword : Bonny, slave, revolt, crisis and trade

Author(s) : TUONIMI EZE OKO-JAJA, JONES M. JAJA And EDNA ADAGOGO BROWN

Abstract :

The study analyzes the nineteenth century Bonny crisis that terminated with the 1869 Opubo Annie Pepple group of War Canoe House revolt against the Fubara Manilla Pepple group supported by the King. The work uses data from the secondary sources of information and applies the qualitative approach in analyzing the data. The study opines that the 19th century Bonny crisis was not a class oriented struggle vis-à-vis slave revolt as suggested by some pioneer historians such as Kenneth Dike. The study reveals that the 19th century crisis was group struggle for political-cumeconomic dominance of the City State, and created the opportunity for the1869 episode which was a continuum of internal movements into preferred locations within the Niger Delta space for advantage in intergroup relations of learning to make peace after war. The study established that the quest to dominate the palm oil trade was the main reason why Opubo group eluded Bonny and established at the estuary of Imo River on the conviction that the area had the potentials for palm oil trade between them (as middlemen), the hinterland people and the European traders. The paper concludes that, this study and the ones by previous scholars are geared towards attempting an interpretation that truly reflects the 19th century Ibani history.

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