Frederick Lugard

“ Direct taxation, therefore, as being the State recognition of the rights and duties of the individual, is the moral charter of independence of a people. Communities, moreover, who have only recently emerged from such a state of servitude take some time to acquire this sense of responsibility and of obligation. One of the chief defects of Mohammedan rule in Africa is that it holds a large section of the people in this state of irresponsible tutelage, thereby arresting all progress. ”

“ All cases in which an officer considers that cruelty, or recent enslavement, or other good cause, gives just pounds for liberation he can deal with judicially; but if, after inquiry, he finds that the runaway slave is merely a criminal or vagrant, he would, while not denying his right to assert his freedom, decline to grant him land on which to settle, or if a vagrant in a city would allow the native courts to deal with the matter. ”

“ Formerly it was almost impossible for a slave to gain his freedom by desertion. He was seized and returned to his owner by any Mohammedan chief into whose territory he has escaped. Land was in possession of fief-holders, and he could build no village and cultivate no farm without the knowledge and sanction of the overlord. The introduction of peace and security, which has opened up to cultivation and reclamation the great depopulated but fertile areas lying waste in the country, has on the one hand afforded to the runaway slave illimitable opportunities for setting up for himself ”

“ The large majority of runaways are women, and the question can be dealt with as one of divorce, and not of slavery, while the Government forbids the marriage of soldiers and other Government employés with fugitive slave women. Self-redemption is encouraged by Government, both in justice to the master for property legally acquired (at the time of acquisition) and because the slave will value the freedom which he has himself earned, and which confers on him in native public opinion a status of freedom which the arbitrary law of the white man is powerless to confer. ”

“ Men are killed by thousands and women and children are carried off or starve in the Bush, while in the slave-raiders there grows up a lawlessness born of the lust for butchery, rape, and rapine. In the second place, the institution of domestic slavery results in holding a very large portion (including the farm-slaves, probably considerably more than half the population of a Mohammedan community) in a state of tutelage, which arrests all progress towards a higher plane of life and civilization, and limits industry and production. ”

“ Where, therefore, it is feasible and possible to introduce the first rudiments of a direct taxation among uncivilized tribes, it has a value apart from the mere amount of revenue collected, in habituating them to the idea of an obligation to the State which it is incumbent on them to discharge, and at the same time it is an outward and visible sign which they well understand of the acknowledgment of the Suzerain Power, with the correlative necessity of obeying the injunctions of the Government to abstain from outrages and lawlessness. ”

“ This means that the law (as administered by British courts only) does not recognise the existence of slavery. Property in persons (as slaves) is not admitted; a 'slave' is held to be personally responsible for his acts, and competent to give evidence in court The institution of domestic slavery is not thereby abolished, as would be the case were a decree of general emancipation enacted, but it gives to the slave the right to assert his freedom if he wishes. ”

“ It has been the task of the Administration to endeavour to restore the ancient régime, improved by British ideas of justice and organization, and to introduce a system of rule in which the native chief and the British rulers shall be identified in a single effective machine, each cooperating with and complementing the other, while the emancipation of the peasantry alike from slavery and from extortion may lead to the increase of population, and of productive industry. ”

“ For the evils of an alien and absentee landlordism, working through an agency of alien tax-gatherers, is substituted a system under which each village chief collects from the individual, and pays to a local district headman, who in turn pays direct to the Emir and Government This effects decentralization of native rule—which is no less important than decentralization by the Administration itself—and gives to the men who occupy positions of importance definite duties and responsibilities. ”

“ The pagan tribes which fringed the emirates and the rebellious subjects were alike the victims of ceaseless raids, for slaves, and vast areas of land were depopulated, devastated, and deluged in blood. ”

“ The merchant who pays these adds correspondingly to the selling price of his goods, and the native producer, who therefore ultimately pays by collecting a larger quantity of produce for a given amount of goods, neither knows of nor cares about the tax. Such methods of indirect taxation are suitable to a savage population, but among the higher races of Northern Nigeria, who have inherited a Mohammedan civilization, direct taxation, as I have already said, is an institution sanctioned by tradition, and accepted as a natural law by the people. ”

“ He is supported in sickness as well as in health; his master is responsible for any crime committed by him; he is usually given one or more days in the week to work on a piece of land of his own, and its proceeds are his personal property, with which he can, if he desires, redeem himself. Under a good master he becomes one of the family and cannot be sold when he has been long in service, and he may often rise to positions of high command. There are many other liberal provisions for the benefit of the slave in Mohammedan law, which space forbids me to discuss here. ”

“ In Northern Nigeria slave-raiding is a thing of the past, and some progress has already been made in the education of the people in the directions I have indicated, while slave-trading and slave-dealing are, I think, becoming daily more rare.
(b) Liquor Traffic.—I have shown already how the importation of crude spirits took its origin in the days of the oversea slave trade, nearly three centuries ago, as the commodity with which slaves were chiefly purchased, and how it still remained the chief article of import in exchange for the legitimate exports of a later period. ”

“ Among such tribes in West Africa property is usually held on a communal basis, and the impost is therefore necessarily in the nature of a capitation or poll-tax; whereas among the more civilized races, where individual rights in property have become recognised, it is possible to institute a graduated taxation, according to the wealth and ability of each member of the community to pay it. ”

“ The difficulty which has stood in the way of reform is, that as long as the Colonies of France and Germany, which are sandwiched between the British Colonies on the West Coast, maintain the import and decline to increase their duties, it is said to be impossible for us seriously to increase ours. ”

“ The fertility of the soil and the abundance of marketable sylvan produce which needs no culture, the employment of women in manual labour, and the absence of the pressure of population in countries devastated by tribal wars and slave raids, combine to afford the African an abundant leisure, which, in the absence of any external incentive to work, is apt to be devoted to indolence, quarrelling, drink, or sensuality. ”

“ It is its duty during this period of transition to educate both the upper and the servile classes to the idea of a free labour contract between master and servant To promote this the introduction of a cash currency is a very valuable medium, and the introduction of a direct and individual taxation teaches the peasant his responsibility to the State, and his personal interest in and obligation to it. The law holds him personally responsible for his acts, and the executive holds him personally responsible for his contribution to the revenue. ”

“ The knowledge that their slaves can assert their freedom has meanwhile the effect of making the masters treat them well, and insures to the slave population a great amelioration of their conditions. In taking this line, however, the Government assumes a heavy responsibility. ”

“ The staple exports of the West African Colonies are rubber and oil seeds (especially palm-oil, shea, and ground nuts) , while hides, cocoa, and many minor products are yearly increasing in importance. Efforts have recently been made to develop cotton as a new and lucrative staple, so as to supersede the American supply from within the Empire.
Exactly forty years ago, as we have seen, the total revenue of the West African Settlements was £80,400, and their total trade was only £1,183,000. ”

“ Nor can the conditions of the peasantry in Egypt, where I understand that irrigable and cultivatable land is of great value, be considered as identical with those of a country like Nigeria, where limitless land, fertile and well watered, lies ready to the hand of the cultivator, who needs only an incentive to employ his indolent leisure. ”

“ It is as yet early to judge how far the untiring enthusiasm of the political staff has succeeded in realizing the first beginnings of these ideals, for the Administration is as yet but five and a half years old, and the first years were occupied in consolidating British rule, and in creating the machinery with which to work. ”

“ In 1900 the British Government came for the first time into contact with the traditions of the ancient civilization of the Sudan, and with races whose rulers professed a monotheistic religion, and were descended from a type of humanity greatly superior in intellectual ability to the coast population. ”

“ The civilization, therefore, of the Niger Sudan took its origin from the north, derived all its traditions from that direction, and conducted its trade with the Mediterranean coast Its cultured progress ever thrust southwards the barbarian hordes of negro pagans which it encountered on its frontiers. ”

“ To govern properly, said the Committee, needs a much larger expenditure, a more thorough occupation of the country, and larger public works. Meanwhile, for the suppression of the slave trade it would be a wiser policy to maintain forts and treaties only, while commercial agents must keep on good terms with the natives without the assistance of Government force. ”

“ It happens that this is the precise amount of the grant in aid for Northern Nigeria last year, a country in which, by means of this grant in aid, a vast system of internal slave trade and slave-raiding has been almost entirely suppressed. It is the only West African Settlement to which any grant is now made, and, apart from the slave trade question, an important area for legitimate commerce is being opened up. ”

“ The condition of the 'West African Settlements' in the year 1865 was, briefly, as follows: Each had a Governor and Colonial Secretary, a Chief Justice and Queen's Advocate, a few Stipendiary and Police Magistrates and Clerks, and a Legislative and Executive Council. The grant in aid for all the civil establishments on the coast was £14,000, in addition to charges for liberated slaves and missions. The troops consisted, on an average, of sixteen companies of natives, commanded by some fifty British officers, among whom the proportion of deaths and invalidings was very heavy indeed ”

“ Here the arts of painting, sculpture, music, and architecture, and the sciences of mathematics, astronomy, and medicine attained an eminence which, clouded through the dark ages which followed the fall of the Moors and Berbers, was only revived and hardly excelled in quite modern times. ”

“ I have said that the country inherited an ancient civilization, and it will perhaps be well to describe in a brief word the salient points of that civilization, which was not introduced by the Fulani, but adopted by them from their predecessors, and has its origin in remote antiquity. ”

“ This brief sketch of the conditions which obtain in West Africa, and more especially in Northern Nigeria, will, I trust, have aroused sufficient interest in my reader to justify me in adding a few words on the nature of some of the problems with which the young British Administrator has to deal in Africa, and the methods by which he endeavours to solve them. ”

“ Though in the case of individuals high standards of education have been attained, there is a tendency among the partially educated to parody the manners and dress of Europe, while the non-educated masses relinquish with reluctance, or do not relinquish at all, the cannibalism and the horrible fetish rites of thenancestors. ”

“ The small extensions of territory which the Committee complain had taken place were stated to have been caused by the necessity or keeping the natives at some little distance from the forts, for me suppression of the slave trade, and the opening up of legitimate commerce, including the collection of a small revenue by Customs duties. They involved no protection of native tribes. ”

“ The serious difficulty lies in the fact that, in the early stages, pending the wider distribution of currency, payment must be made in kind, and its transport and realization present obstacles which almost nullify its practical value. ”