Dr. O. Oluwaniyi: Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 4.0 International License

EVOLUTION OF STATE AND SOCIETY
IN PRE-COLONIAL NIGERIA 1500-

1800
DR. O. OLUWANIYI
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
International License.
•
The
pre-colonial economic institutions that were bu
ilt in Yorubaland
during the 19
th
Century developed partly as a result of the articu
lation of
Yoruba economy in relation to the Atlantic Commerce
between the 16
th
and 18
th
Centuries. Although the Yoruba economy was monetiz
ed during
and before the 19
th
Century, the cowry that sustained the monetization
,
was an European import, and therefore, the growth o
f domestic economy
was dependent on a foreign import, the production,
supply and
convertibility of which no Yoruba State had control
over.
•
This grew due to European merchant capitalism in th
e 16
th
Century, which
finally culminated in colonialism in the late 19
th
Century. In other words,
despite the local economy based on local commercial
initiatives such as
‘trade by barter’, and indigenous transactional con
ventions, “the currency
that oiled the engine of the local economy and gave
it life after the 16
th
Century depended on a transcontinental economic sys
tem that was
dominated by Europe.
•
Moreover, Caravan system thrived in Yorubaland
because long-distance trade was important to the
economy of Yorubaland despite the pervasive
insecurity in the region during the 19
th
C.
•
Itinerant trading, credits and employment that linke
d
different parts of Yorubaland were also cultural chai
ns
that connected villages, towns and cities to one
another and to regional and global circuits of goods
and a wide universe of thought.
•
As distributors of new products, itinerant traders were
also harbingers of new ideas, novelty and consumer
cultures.
•
The state and the political elite also collected to
lls from travelling parties.
The tolls collected from caravans, each sometimes,
numbering about a
hundred participants, constituted part of the econo
mic basis of power of
the Yoruba states and the elite.
•
The toll is, in addition, to the agricultural taxes
, through which the state
survived.
•
The toll system was controlled by powerful politica
l figures, usually senior
chieftains who collected tolls for the purpose of s
atisfying both their
private desire and for executing public projects su
ch as road maintenance,
public administration and prosecution of wars. One
of the significant
features of tolls was that the bulk of them were co
llected in cash (cowry
currency). This helped the monetisation of the regi
onal economy.
•
Interestingly, the upper class (royal and noble, pr
inces and lineage chiefs)
succeeded in presiding over the imperial economy to
the exclusion of the
lower classes, which led to a protracted conflict b
etween the two groups.
•
In terms of regional commerce, unlike the Igbo or th
e
Hausa long-distance traders in pre-colonial Nigeria,
women dominated the Yoruba caravans. Caravan
membership was neither based on membership in a
particular religion, town, or group nor organised an
d
controlled by powerful and dominating proprietors.
•
Rather, the caravans were open to interested
individuals with each trader buying and selling, payi
ng
the tolls and other dues.
•
It was a lucrative means of accumulating wealth and
the expected high profit returns made the troubles an
d
risks of itinerant trading worthwhile
•
The process by which a town developed out of market
sites intensified particularly after 1500 due to the
expansion in the Yoruba regional economy and
increasing scale in regional mobility, especially
between 1500 and 1900.
•
According to Samuel Johnson, ‘a cluster of huts aroun
d
the farmstead of an enterprising farmer may be the
starting point: perhaps a halting place for refreshme
nts
in a long line of march between two towns...if the site
be on the highway...in a caravan route, so much the
better; a market soon springs up in the place, into
which neighbouring farmers (and their wives) bring
their wares for sale, and weekly fairs held.
•
As soon as houses began to spring up and a
village...formed, the necessity for order and control
becomes apparent...the principal man who has
attracted people to the place and formally recognise
him as the Bale ...of the village...the village must
necessarily be answerable to the nearest town from
which it sprang and thus an embryo town is
formed...From this we see how it is that the principal
market is always in the centre of the town and in fro
nt
of the house of the chief ruler (Oba or Baale, or an
y
other chieftaincy). This explains why the term Oloja
(owner of the market) is applied as generic appellati
on
or title for all the rulers of a town.’
•
Farmers also participated in craftworks and public
works. Though they lived in
towns from where they commuted to their farmlands d
aily. In cases where the
farmland was more than five kilometres from the tow
n, members of a household
often opted to live for most of the year on the far
m, especially during the planting
season, and returned periodically to the town for s
ocial and other economic
engagements.
•
The Yoruba people had the guild system, which was m
ainly a capacity-based
contributory scheme designed to enhance the economi
c empowerment of its
members. The women folk established clear dominance
in the affairs of several
guilds in pre-colonial Yorubaland.
•
Among the Yoruba during the pre-colonial period, ea
ch town or state organised its
own guild system (Akinjogbin, 1981:69). Within ever
y settlement or town, the
guild process had three main categories which were:
guild of general traders (
Egbe
Alajapa
), that traded largely in inanimate objects such as
medicinal herbs, fruits
and other food items , guild of traders (
Egbe Alaroobo
) that trade in different types
of animate objects such as fowls, goats, etc,
Egbe alaso
(guild of cloth dealers),
Egbe olose
(guild of soap makers),
Egbe alaro
(guild of dyers),
Egbe alata
(guild of
pepper sellers),
Egbe eleni
(guild of mat makers),
Egbe onisona
(guild of carvers),
Egbe alagbede
(guild of smelters)
Warfare and Diplomacy

•
The political model suggests the ambition of the
ruling class for territorial gains and expansion as
the causes of most wars, the economic thesis
suggests that the primary purpose of wars in
Atlantic Africa was for the projected profit in the
enslavement ad trading of war captives.
•
However, both political and economic
considerations are related factors in relation to
the several wars in Yorubaland in the 19
th
C.

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EVOLUTION OF STATE AND SOCIETY

IN PRE-COLONIAL NIGERIA 1500-

Warfare and Diplomacy

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