Collaboration and the British Conquest of Bida in 1798: The Role and Achievement of the Indigenous Interest Groups

Abstract

The British conquest of parts of Africa in the nineteenth century has attracted a lot of studies. Yet, all scholars involved hold different views especially as to the role of the indigenous African groups in it. There are those who opined that the Africans who resisted the British were patriotic in spite of the futility of their actions, and the Africans who supported the British are portrayed as collaborators or saboteurs that facilitated imperialism. Other scholars are however of the opinion that those who took sides with the British were not necessarily collaborators or unpatriotic elements but that they merely reacted to the circumstances of the time. Therefore, it is the contention of this paper that the ideas of collaboration or resistance in African history are less relevant because the two groups were concerned mainly with the protection of their socio-political and economic interests. The 1897 British conquest of Nupeland, which is situated in the central part of the present day Nigeria, provides a good example of the argument above. While the members of the Fulani ruling class of Bida dynasty organized a strong force to resist the British in order to maintain their own political and economic interest, significant sections of their subjects took sides with the British for similar reasons. The northeast Yoruba, the Kyadya and the Yissazhi gave their moral and material support to the British with the hope of bringing Bida domination to an end. It never mattered to them whether the British were imperialists or not. Their target was to get rid of the Fulani ruling dynasty. Despite the stiff resistance by Bida army led by the members of the Fulani ruling class, it was overwhelmed not by the superior weaponry of the British but by the massive support given to the British by the interest groups who were expected to be on the sides of Bida. At the end of the war, these groups were handsomely rewarded even though short-lived.