Нигерия: народы и проблемы

Нигерия: народы и проблемы
Эдмунд Дене Морель

«Нигерия: народы и проблемы» – это научно-популярная работа Э. Д. Мореля, написанная им в начале XX века. В книге представлен анализ социально-политического ландшафта Нигерии под британским правлением. Морель исследует сложности нигерийского общества, проблемы, с которыми сталкивались колониальные администраторы, и их влияние на жителей. В начале книги есть предисловие и введение, которые подготавливают почву для подробного исследования разнообразных общин Нигерии и сложной сети проблем, с которыми они сталкиваются. Морель выражает благодарность всем лицам и организациям, которые помогли его исследованию, подчеркивая свою цель – повысить общественный интерес к состоянию Нигерии. Он освещает свой опыт во время путешествий по региону, касаясь политической напряженности между коренным населением и британскими властями.

Оригинал: Nigeria. Its Peoples and its Problems. By Edmund Dene Morel (1873-1924).

Перевод с английского языка на русский: Виктор Евгеньевич Никитин.

Эдмунд Дене Морель

Нигерия: народы и проблемы

NIGERIA ITS PEOPLES AND ITS PROBLEMS

BY E. D. MOREL

TO THE MEMORY OF MARY KINGSLEY WHO POINTED THE WAY

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PREFACE

I have to express, in the first place, my indebtedness to the Editor and Management of the Times and of the Manchester Guardian for permission to reproduce the articles and maps which appeared in the columns of those newspapers, and to all those who have so generously helped me to overcome an accident to my camera by placing their own admirable photographic work at my disposal.

In the second place, I desire to record my sincere appreciation for the courtesy I received from the Colonial Office in connection with a recent visit to Nigeria; and to Sir Walter and Lady Egerton, Sir Henry Hesketh Bell, Mr. Charles Temple (Acting-Governor of Northern Nigeria) and their Staffs for the kindness and hospitality extended to me while there.

Also to the Management and Staff of the Southern and Northern Nigeria railways; in particular to the Director of the Public Works Department of the Northern Protectorate, Mr. John Eaglesome and to Mrs. Eaglesome, and to Mr. Firmin, the Resident Engineer of the Southern Nigeria line at Jebba.

My travels in the country were facilitated in every way possible, and the kindness everywhere shown me in both Protectorates far transcended any claim which ordinary courtesy to a stranger might have suggested.

To the British merchants established in Nigeria I am under similar obligations, more particularly to Messrs. John Holt & Co., Ltd., who were good enough to place their steamers at my disposal. To Messrs. Elder Dempster & Co. I am similarly indebted.

My special thanks are due to my friends Mr. and Mrs. William A. Cadbury and Mr. John Holt and his sons, for much personal kindness in connection with my journey. I am indebted to Mr. Trigge, of the Niger Company, Mr. W. H. Himbury, of the British Cotton Growing Association, and many others who have responded with unwearied patience to my importunate questionings.

I have also to express my sense of obligation to the Native Community of Lagos—Christian, Mohammedan and Pagan—for the cordial public reception they accorded to me in that place; and for the address with which they were good enough to present me. Also to the leading Native gentlemen of Freetown for the kind hospitality they extended to me during my short stay at the capital of Sierra Leone, and to the Mohammedan Chiefs representing many different tribes of the hinterland, who there foregathered, under Dr. Blyden’s roof, to bid me welcome, and for the addresses they presented to me.

West Africa is a land of controversy. There is not, I think, any question of public interest concerned with it that does not give rise to acute differences of opinion into which some influence—the climate, perhaps—and the fact that the country is going through a difficult transition stage, seems not infrequently to infuse a measure of bitterness. I fear it is unavoidable that some of the opinions expressed in this volume, if they give pleasure in certain quarters, will give displeasure in others. I can only ask those who may be affected in the latter sense to believe that the writer has really had no other object in view than that of setting forth the facts as he saw them, and to draw from those facts the inferences which commended themselves to a judgment no doubt full of imperfections, but able, at any rate, to claim sincerity as its guiding motive.

E. D. MOREL.

August, 1911.

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INTRODUCTION

My chief object in presenting to the public in book form a collection of articles recently published in the Times as revised, together with additional matter, has been that of increasing—if haply this should be the effect—public interest in the greatest and most interesting of our tropical African Protectorates. It has been my endeavour throughout not to overload the story with detail, but to paint, or try to paint, a picture of Nigeria as it is to-day; to portray the life of its people, the difficulties and tasks of its British governors, and the Imperial responsibilities the nation has contracted in assuming control over this vast region.

Parts II., III., and IV. consist of an attempt at a serious study of these things.

Part I. consists of a mere series of pen and ink sketches, so to speak; impressions jotted down in varying moods. The value, if, indeed, they have any value at all, of these disjointed ramblings lies in the glimpse they may afford of native character and the nature of the country, thus helping, perhaps, to bring Nigeria a little nearer to us.

I ought, perhaps, to apologize for not having incorporated a history of the British occupation of Nigeria. But, apart from the circumstance that Captain Orr, now Colonial Secretary for Cyprus, and for many years Resident in Northern Nigeria, is, I understand, about to publish a volume on that subject written with the inside knowledge which he so peculiarly possesses: the thing has already been done by others.

It seemed to me that if any public utility at all were to be attached to my own modest effort, it could more fittingly be sought in the direction of handling, from an independent outsider’s point of view, problems of actuality in their setting of existing circumstances and conditions; and in emphasizing a fact sometimes apt to be forgotten. I mean that in these Dependencies the Native is the important person to be considered, quite as much from the Imperial as from any other standpoint, interpreting Imperialism as personally I interpret it, to signify a good deal more than painting the map red and indulging in tall talk about “possessions” and about “inferior races.” In Nigeria, the Nigerian is not, as some persons appear to regard him, merely an incidental factor but the paramount factor. Nigeria is not a Colony; it is a Dependency.

The West African native has two classes of enemies, one positive, the other unconscious. The ranks of both are not only recruited from members of the white race: they are to be found among members of the West African’s own household. The first class corresponds to the school of European thought concerning tropical Africa, whose adherents object to the West African being a land-owner, and whose doctrine it is that in the economic development of the country the profits should be the exclusive appanage of the white race, the native’s r?le being that of labourer and wage-earner for all time.

In the fulfilment of the r?le thus assigned to him, some of the adherents of this school, those with the longest sight, would be quite prepared to treat the individual native well; others would cheerfully impose their will by brutal violence. That is a temperamental affair which does not touch the essence of the deeper issue.

To this class of enemies belong some of the educated or half-educated Europeanized natives whom our educational and religious system divorces from their race, and who, having no outlet and bereft of national or racial pride, betray the interests of their country into the hands of its foes.

The second class is to be met with among the ranks of those who, by striking at slavery and abuse, have rendered enormous benefit to the West African, but who were also unwittingly responsible for fastening upon his neck a heavy yoke, and who, not only with no motive of self-interest, but, on the contrary, with the most generous desire to minister to his welfare, are to-day in danger of ministering to his undoing. It is not easy to affix any particular label to those influences which, in the political field, contributed so powerfully in handing over the Congo to Leopold II. (afterwards strenuously co-operating in freeing its peoples from his grasp) and in placing two million West Africans in Liberia under the pettily tyrannous incompetence of a handful of American Blacks. They are partly educational, partly philanthropic, partly religious. The basis of sentiment animating them appears to be that a kindness is being done to the West African by the bestowal upon him of European culture, law, religion and dress, and that, having thus unmade him as an African, those responsible are in duty bound to support the product of their own creation in its automatic and inevitable revolt against authority, whether represented by the Native Ruler or by the European Administrator. In the form it at present takes, and in the circumstances too often accompanying it, this is not a kindness but a cruel wrong.

Let me try to make my meaning perfectly clear in regard to this latter case. I make no attack upon any organization or body. I criticize the trend of certain influences, and I willingly admit, as all must do, even those who most dread their effects, that these influences have their origin in centres imbued with genuine altruism. Also that of one side of them nothing but good can be said—the destructive side, the side which is ever prepared to respond to the call of human suffering. Neither do I suggest that education can, or should be, arrested. I simply lay down this double proposition. First, that educational and allied influences, whose combined effect is to cause the West African to lose his racial identity, must produce unhappiness and unrest of a kind which is not susceptible of evolving a compensating constructive side. Secondly, that in no period of time which can be forecast, will the condition of West African society permit of the supreme governing power being shared by both races, although short of the casting vote, so to speak, policy should everywhere be directed towards consolidating and strengthening Native authority.

Still less do I make any reflection upon the educated West African as such. Among these Westernized Natives are men to be regarded with the utmost respect, for they have achieved the well-nigh insuperable. They have succeeded, despite all, in remaining African in heart and sentiment; and in retaining their dignity in the midst of difficulties which only the most sympathetic alien mind can appreciate, and, even so, not wholly. To Mary Kingsley alone, perhaps, was it given to probe right down to the painful complexities of their position as only a woman, and a gifted woman, specially endowed, could do. Of such men the great Fanti lawyer, John Mensah Sarbah, whose recent and premature death is a calamity for West Africa, was one of the best types. The venerable Dr. E. Wilmot Blyden, whose race will regard him some day as its misunderstood prophet, is another. One could name others. Perchance their numbers are greater than is usually supposed, and are not confined to men of social distinction and learning. And these men wring their hands. They see, and they feel, the pernicious results of a well-meaning but mistaken policy. They appreciate the depth of the abyss. But they lack the power of combination, and their position is delicate to a degree which Europeans, who do not realize the innumerable undercurrents and intrigues of denationalized West African society are unable to grasp.

Between these two schools of thought, the “damned nigger” school and the denationalizing school (that, without appreciating it, plays into the hands of the first), which threaten the West African in his freedom, his property and his manhood, there is room for a third. One which, taking note to-day that the West African is a land-owner, desires that he shall continue to be one under British rule, not with decreasing but with increasing security of tenure; taking note that to-day the West African is an agriculturist, a farmer, a herdsman, and, above all, to the marrow of his bones, a trader, declines to admit that he should be degraded, whether by direct or indirect means, to the position of a hireling; taking note that customary law it is which holds native society together, calls for its increased study and demands that time shall be allowed for its gradual improvement from within, deprecating its supersession by European formul? of law in the name of “reform,” for which the country is not ripe and whose application can only dislocate, not raise, West African social life. A school of thought which, while prepared to fight with every available weapon against attempts to impose conditions of helotism upon the West African, earnestly pleads that those controlling the various influences moulding his destinies from without, shall be inspired to direct their energies towards making him a better African, not a hybrid. A school of thought which sees in the preservation of the West African’s land for him and his descendants; in a system of education which shall not anglicize; in technical instruction; in assisting and encouraging agriculture, local industries and scientific forestry; in introducing labour-saving appliances, and in strengthening all that is best, materially and spiritually, in aboriginal institutions, the highest duties of our Imperial rule. A school of thought whose aim it is to see Nigeria, at least, become in time the home of highly-trained African peoples, protected in their property and in their rights by the paramount Power, proud of their institutions, proud of their race, proud of their own fertile and beautiful land.

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PART I

THOUGHTS ON TREK

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CHAPTER I

ON WHAT HAS BEEN AND MAY BE

After trekking on horseback five hundred miles or so, you acquire the philosophy of this kind of locomotion. For it has a philosophy of its own, and with each day that passes you become an apter pupil. You learn many things, or you hope you do, things internally evolved. But when you come to the point of giving external shape to them by those inefficient means the human species is as yet virtually confined to—speech and writing—you become painfully conscious of inadequate powers. Every day brings its own panorama of nature unfolding before your advance; its own special series of human incidents—serious, humorous, irritating, soothing—its own thought waves. And it is not my experience that these long silent hours—for conversation with one’s African companions is necessarily limited and sporadic—induce, by what one would imagine natural re-action, descriptive expansiveness when, pen in hand, one seeks to give substance to one’s impressions. Rather the reverse, alack! Silent communing doth seem to cut off communication between brain and pen. You are driven in upon yourself, and the channel of outward expression dries up. For a scribbler, against whom much has been imputed, well-nigh all the crimes, indeed, save paucity of output, the phenomenon is not without its alarming side, at least to one’s self. In one’s friends it may well inspire a sense of blessed relief.

One day holds much—so much of time, so much of space, so much of change. The paling stars or the waning moon greet your first swing into the saddle, and the air strikes crisp and chill. You are still there as the orange globe mounts the skies, silhouetting, perchance, a group of palms, flooding the crumbling walls of some African village, to whose inhabitants peace has ceased to make walls necessary—a sacrifice of the picturesque which, artistically, saddens—or lighting some fantastic peak of granite boulders piled up as though by Titan’s hand. You are still there when the rays pour downwards from on high, strike upwards from dusty track and burning rock, and all the countryside quivers and simmers in the glow. Sometimes you may still be there—it has happened, to me—when the shadows fall swiftly, and the cry of the crown-birds, seeking shelter for the night on some marshy spot to their liking, heralds the dying of the day. From cold, cold great enough to numb hands and feet, to gentle warmth, as on a June morning at home; from fierce and stunning heat, wherein, rocked by the “triple” of your mount, you drowse and nod, to cooling evening breeze. You pass, in the twenty-four hours, through all the gamut of climatic moods, which, at this time of the year, makes this country at once invigorating and, to my thinking, singularly treacherous, especially on the Bauchi plateau, over which a cold wind often seems to sweep, even in the intensity of the noontide sun, and where often a heavy overcoat seems insufficient to foster warmth when darkness falls upon the land.

So much of time and change—each day seems composed of many days. Ushered in on level plain, furrowed by the agriculturist’s hoe, dotted with colossal trees, smiling with farm and hamlet; it carries you onward through many miles of thick young forest, where saplings of but a few years’ growth dispute their life with rank and yellow grasses, and thence in gradual ascent through rock-strewn paths until your eye sees naught but a network of hills; to leave you at its close skirting a valley thickly overgrown with bamboo and semi-tropical vegetation, where the flies do congregate, and seek, unwelcomed, a resting-place inside your helmet. Dawning amid a sleeping town, heralded by the sonorous call of the Muslim priest, which lets loose the vocal chords of human, quadruped and fowl, swelling into a murmur of countless sounds and increasing bustle; it will take you for many hours through desolate stretches, whence human life, if life there ever was, has been extirpated by long years of such lawlessness and ignorance as once laid the blight of grisly ruin over many a fair stretch of English homestead. Yes, you may, in this land of many memories, and mysteries still unravelled, pass, within the same twenty-four hours, the flourishing settlement with every sign of plenty and of promise, and the blackened wreck of communities once prosperous before this or that marauding band of freebooters brought fire and slaughter, death to the man, slavery to the woman and the infant—much as our truculent barons, whose doughty deeds we are taught in childhood to admire, acted in their little day. The motive and the immediate results differed not at all. What the ultimate end may be here lies in the womb of the future, for at this point the roads diverge. With us those dark hours vanished through the slow growth of indigenous evolution. Here the strong hand of the alien has interposed, and, stretching at present the unbridged chasm of a thousand years, has enforced reform from without.

And what a weird thing it is when you come to worry it out, that this alien hand should have descended and compelled peace! Viewed in the abstract, one feels it may be discussed as a problem of theory, for a second. One feels it permissible to ask, will the people, or rather will the Governors of the people which has brought peace to this land, which has enabled the peasant to till the soil and reap his harvest in quietness, which has allowed the weaver to pursue and profit by his industry in safety, which has established such security throughout the land, that you may see a woman and her child travelling alone and unprotected in the highways, carrying all their worldly possessions between them; will this people’s ultimate action be as equally beneficial as the early stages have been, or will its interference be the medium through which evils, not of violence, but economic, and as great as the old, will slowly, but certainly and subtly, eat into the hearts of these Nigerian homes and destroy their happiness, not of set purpose, but automatically, inevitably so? I say that, approached as an abstract problem, it seems permissible to ask one’s self that question as one wanders here and there over the face of the land, and one hears the necessity of commercially developing the country to save the British taxpayers’ pockets, of the gentlemen who want to exploit the rubber forests of the Bauchi plateau, of the Chambers of Commerce that require the reservation of lands for British capitalists, and of those who argue that a native, who learned how to smelt tin before we knew there was tin in the country, should no longer be permitted to do so, now that we wish to smelt it ourselves, and of the railways and the roads which have to be built—yes, it seems permissible, though quite useless. But I confess that when one studies what is being done out here in the concrete, from the point of view of the men who are doing it, then it is no longer permissible to doubt. When one sees this man managing, almost single-handed, a country as large as Scotland; when one sees that man, living in a leaky mud hut, holding, by the sway of his personality, the balance even between fiercely antagonistic races, in a land which would cover half a dozen of the large English counties; when one sees the marvels accomplished by tact, passionate interest and self-control, with utterly inadequate means, in continuous personal discomfort, short-handed, on poor pay, out here in Northern Nigeria—then one feels that permanent evil cannot ultimately evolve from so much admirable work accomplished, and that the end must make for good.

And, thinking over this personal side of the matter as one jogs along up hill and down dale, through plain and valley and mountain side, through lands of plenty and lands of desolation, past carefully fenced-in fields of cotton and cassava, past the crumbling ruins of deserted habitations, along the great white dusty road through the heart of Hausaland, along the tortuous mountain track to the pagan stronghold, there keeps on murmuring in one’s brain the refrain: “How is it done? How is it done?” Ten years ago, nay, but six, neither property nor life were safe. The peasant fled to the hills, or hurried at nightfall within the sheltering walls of the town. Now he is descending from the hills and abandoning the towns.

And the answer forced upon one, by one’s own observations, is that the incredible has been wrought, primarily and fundamentally, not by this or that brilliant feat of arms, not by Britain’s might or Britain’s wealth, but by a handful of quiet men, enthusiastic in their appreciation of the opportunity, strong in their sense of duty, keen in their sense of right, firm in their sense of justice, who, working in an independence, and with a personal responsibility in respect to which, probably, no country now under the British flag can offer a parallel, whose deeds are unsung, and whose very names are unknown to their countrymen, have shown, and are every day showing, that, with all her faults, Britain does still breed sons worthy of the highest traditions of the race.

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CHAPTER II

ON THE GREAT WHITE ROAD