Trading posts often get bogged down in nation building. Even after the failure of the British East India company, it was tried again later, this time in Nigeria. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
A trading post in an exotic land can produce a stamp a little different than a colony. The users of the stamp will almost always be employees of the trading company stationed in what to them must have seemed the darkest of Africa. Native attacks, tropical diseases, and even attacks of rival traders were real threats. There must have been a terrible sense of being alone. The mail service must have been a lifeline and of course Queen Victoria was a welcome presence on the stamps. To make these adventurers think their home remembered them.
Todays stamp is issue A20, a one Shilling stamp issued by the Royal Niger Company for use in the Niger Coast Protectorate, currently southern Nigeria, in 1894. It was part of a 6 stamp issue in various denominations. One Shilling in 1894 is worth 5.21 Pounds today. According to the Scott catalog, The stamp is worth $90 today in it’s mint state. For once in my undistinguished collection, this is the most valuable version of the issue, if we exclude overprints.
The trade with the Niger river delta mainly involved palm oil, that was used in the production of soap. The early trading post were not successful economically as there were many rival trading stations that often engaged in price wars with each other. There were British, French, and German trading posts in the area which was still ruled by local Africans.
Sir George Goldie had the idea to merge several of the rival British firms so as to be a monopoly of the trade. The British Gladstone government refused a charter. The failure of the British East India Company was recent and the government did not think a private company could adequately administer the area in question. The rival German and French traders also might bring conflict with those countries. Goldie set out raising money to prove his plans creditable and signed exclusive trading agreements with area tribes. A Royal Charter would be good for the stock he was floating and would make the treaties he was signing enforceable by the British government. A conference in Berlin conferred to Britain the territory that Goldie was operating in and the charter was then granted.
Though the harvesting from the palms was performed by African women regardless of the race of the trading house, one local tribal leader became a rival to Goldie and the Royal charter proved it’s worth. King Jaja of Opobo had been sold into slavery among Africans at age 12. He proved his worth in business and rose in a trading house in Bonny earning his freedom. His tribe named him a chief and he became a head of the biggest local palm oil trading house. His trading house broke away the city state of Opobo from the African territory of Bonny. He managed later shipments of palm oil to Britain without dealing with any British middlemen. the only native to do so. He was on board the ship heading for Liverpool with a shipment when a British warship invited him aboard. He was then arrested for violating the trade treaty signed by Goldie but now enforced by Britain and sent into exile. Though he was not imprisoned, indeed was a guest of Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace. He was not allowed to return to Bonny out of fear he would go back into business. As an old man, King Jaja was given permission to return home but died on the journey. His city state did not survive his absence.
The fears of Prime Minister Gladstone proved correct. The Royal Niger Company was forced to cede the area to the new British Crown Colony of Southern Nigeria. The company was paid less than it’s original capital but was able to continue as a trading house in the new colony. In the 1920s, the company was bought out by Unilever the Anglo-Dutch soap maker. The Nigerian city of Opobo still contains a statue to King Jaja put up at public subscription in 1903.
Palm oil cultivation is no longer a huge industry in independent Nigeria. World suppliers are now dominated by Malaysia and Indonesia. Nigeria is now actually a net importer of palm oil. There is talk of outside economic aid bringing it back this time as a tool of female economic empowerment.
Well my drink is empty. This turned more a story of economics than of local subjugation as most colony stories end up. The relentless effort to get lower prices eventually makes the underlying activity not worth doing. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.