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Happy New year everybody. I felt this is an added resource information for 
students of African History. Note that the now popular Benin Massacre 
happened during the annual Ague Festival when the Oba of Benin can not 
receive or be seen by any visitor.

Ade Iyi-Eweka

Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:01:40 +0100


January in Edo kingdom's history
>
January 1 1897

Lieutenant James R. Phillip (RN), the acting commissioner and
consul-General of the Niger Coast Protectorate, in company of six
British trading agents: Clarke Crawford, Kenneth Campbell, Arthur
Maling, Harris Powis, Thomas Gordon and Locke, a medical doctor; Dr.
Robert Elliott, and Hubert Clarke, an interpreter of mixed race,
arrived in Sapele onwards to Benin City. Philips expedition was
escorted by some 250 black African soldiers of the Niger Coast
Protectorate Force under the command of Captain Alan Maxwell
Boisragon. Two prominent Itsekiri trading chiefs, Dore and Dudu, plead
with him not to press ahead to Benin, and when Phillip brushed aside
their entreaties that evening they sent a messenger to Benin City to
inform the Omo n'Oba Ovenramwen that the white man was bringing war.

January 1 1911

Benin prison is formally put to use by the British colonial Authorities

January 2 1897

Phillip and his invading force left Sapele on an extraordinary
expedition that was the first of its kind in British colonial history.
His missions, yet to be approved by his superiors in London, was the
abduction of Omo n'Oba Ovenramwen and replace him with a `Native
Council'. Phillips had hoped to offset the cost of the operation with
the `Ivory' he expected to find in his victim's palace.

January 3 1897

Phillip and his marauders arrived in Ughoton (Gwato), and the
ohenolokun, priest of Olokun and head of the town, who assumed that
the invaders were on a trade mission, formally received them by
ordering the washing of the British men feet. It was a practice that
was given to Europeans traders since the 16th century.
January 4 1897
Phillip's expedition was surprised and annihilated at Ugbine a village
just east of Ughoton Benin Benin emergency strike force composed
mostly of personal retainers and servants of some ekhaemwen notably
Aiyobahan, Ehondor, Ehanire, Ihaza, Inneh, Obaseki, Obanor and Osague,
which was commanded ologbose Irabor. The ologbose and his lieutenants
were acting strictly on the orders of the commander in chief of all
Benin army, Iyase Okizi Only two white men and few of the African
soldiers escaped this Benin military victory, which interestingly
historians and experts of African history prefer to refer to as the
`Benin Massacre'.

January 4 1914

Omo n'Oba Ovenramwen n'ogbaisi after 17 year in exile Calabar joined
his ancestors

January 9 1925

Oloi Iyare is found in Ughara-Efe. In late 1924 a petition was sent to
the British colonial authorities that Omo n'Oba Eweka II had murdered
oloi Iyare, one of his wives. The British authorities gave Omo n'Oba
Eweka II, an ultimatum to produce the woman or face the consequences.
With the help of medicine men from Evbohimwin, the woman was found in
Ughara-Efe living with an Urhobo man. This incidence and another
subsequent on forced Omo n'Oba Eweka II to give up some Edo and palace
rituals and festivities.

January 10 1897

An urgent telegram was dispatched from the British Colony of Lagos to
the British Foreign Office in London.
The telegram claim that, the acting commissioner and Consul General of
the Niger Coast Protectorate, lieutenant James R. Phillip (RN), some
British traders including their African porters, on a peaceful trade
and political mission to Benin City, had been ambushed by a group of
Benin chiefs at Ugbine on January 4 1897. The telegram further claimed
The British men, were taken to Benin City and sacrificed to the gods
of the Benin king.
In response to this incident, which became universally known as the
`Benin massacre', the British government `promptly' declared war on
the kingdom of Benin.

January 1925

Slavery was formally abolished in the territories of the former Benin
Empire

January 1934

Omo n'Oba Akenzua II visited Lagos for the opening of Yaba Higher
College (Yaba college of Technology)



Okpame Edward Oronsaye   [log in to unmask]

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