History of West Africa Nigeria
1914-1918






Lagos, 1861-1906



Slaves freed by the Royal Navy when they captured slave trading vessels in the 1830es settled at the coast of western Nigeria, a.o. at LAGOS; British missionaries and traders followed. In 1851 the Royal Navy interfered in a local power struggle, deposing King Kosoko. In 1861, Britain proclaimed a PROTECTORATE over Lagos to keep Kosoko from coming back.
The climate at Lagos was unhealthy for Europeans; the city long was administrated from Freetown (Sierra Leone), later from Accra (Gold Coast). In 1886, Lagos was declared a separate colony.
Meanwhile, the ROYAL NIGER COMPANY acquired wide lands to the north and east of Lagos, which became part of the NIGER COAST PROTECTORATE in 1894, which was renamed COLONY AND PROTECTORATE OF SOUTHERN NIGERIA in 1900. In 1906, Lagos was integrated into the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, the capital of which was relocated from Calabar to Lagos.
In 1883 the colony had a size of 189 square km, a population of 87,165 (Meyers).






EXTERNAL
FILES 		Timeline of Nigerian History, from Nigeria Exchange
History of Nigeria, from Library of Congress, Country Studies : Nigeria
History of Lagos, from Cyber Schoolbus
The Caliban Army, from Nigeria Canada Pageant, on the early history of Nigeria's Armed Forces
DOCUMENTS Flag, from FOTW
Article Lagos, from Meyers Konversationslexikon, 1888-1890 edition, in German
Lagos, pp.513-514 in vol.9 of Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America 1776-1949, 1972, GB
REFERENCE Article : West African Colonies - Lagos, in : Statesman's Year Book 1895 pp.196-199, 1898 pp.200-203, 1901 pp.230-235, 1905 pp.254-261 [G]
Article : Lagos, in : International Year Book 1898 p.462 [G]
Article : West Africa, British, in : International Year Book 1898 pp.908-909 [G]
Economic History Hans Meyer, Die Eisenbahnen im Tropischen Afrika (The Railroads in Tropical Africa), Leipzig : Duncker & Humblot 1902, in German, posted by DTBSWS, chapter Lagos, pp.32-37



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2001, last revised on August 31st 2007

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