Who sold Nigeria to the British for £865k in 1899?
BY Cheta Nwanze The Royal Niger Company and the founding of what became Nigeria. Sir George Goldie. Via Wiki Commons. All through the 19th century, palm oil was highly sought-after by the British, for use as an industrial lubricant for machinery. Remember that Britain was the world’s first industrialised nation, so they needed resources such as palm oil to maintain that. Palm oil, of course, is a tropical plant native to the Niger Delta. Malaysia’s dominance came a century later. By 1870, palm oil had replaced slaves as the main export of the Niger Delta, the area which was once known as the Slave Coast. At first, most of the trade in the oil palm was uncoordinated, with natives selling to those who gave them the best deals. Native chiefs such as former slave, Jaja of Opobo, became immensely wealthy because of oil palm. With wealth comes influence. However, among the Europeans, there was competition for who would get preferential access to the lucrative oil palm trade. In 1879, George ...
