21/08/2024
True Story of King Jaja of Opobo: The anti-Slave trade activist
Between 1400 and 1900, close to 20 million individuals were captured from Africa. By 1800, it is reported that Africa’s population was half of what it would have been, had these trades of enslaved Africans not occurred.
Any documentary about the defeat of Slave trade in present day Nigeria and Africa at large that does not include the mention of valiant African men who fought against all odds is outrightly incomplete.
One of those valiant men is King Jaja of Opobo. Jaja of Opobo was regarded as smart political and military strategist whose impact is quite enormous in the fight against Slavery in Nigeria.
Who is Jaja of Opobo?
He was the first king of Opobo. He was the founder of Opobo city-state in present day Rivers State of Nigeria. He was a former slave who worked his way out of slavery.
Born in Umuduruoha, Amaigbo, in the present day Imo state in the year 1821, his actual birth name is unknown, and also the identity of his true parents. The Igbo land in the 1800s was in chaos, as it saw Europeans invade the land for slaves, in exchange for fi****ms, to***co, bullets. Black slave raiders were invading different regions and selling Igbo’s to slavery.
After he was kidnapped and taken to Bonny Island, Rivers state, Jaja was renamed Jubo Jubogha by his first master, and later resold to Chief Alali, the head of the Opobu Manila Group of Houses. It was here that the British who couldn’t pronounce his name properly gave him the name “Jaja”.
From the 15th to the 18th century, Opobo, like the other city-states, gained its wealth from the profits of the slave trade. This thriving business was enough to make one rich as well as give him popularity. However, the abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807 was supplanted by the trade in palm oil. Palm oil, in itself, was so vibrant that the region was named the Oil Rivers area.
Astute in business and politics, Jaja became the head of the Anna Pepple House, extending its activities and influence by absorbing other houses, increasing operations in the hinterland and augmenting the number of European contacts.
Later on, a power struggle would ensue among rival factions in the houses at Bonny, led by Pepple House’s High Chief Oko Jumbo leading to the breakaway of the faction led by Jaja. He established a new settlement, which he named Opobo in 1869 where he became King Jaja of Opobo. This new status saw him declare himself independent of Bonny.
Opobo soon dominated the region’s lucrative palm oil trade and became home to fourteen of what were formerly Bonny’s eighteen trade houses. Part of this success is attributed to the fact that Jaja made moves to block the access of British merchants to the interior, giving him an effective monopoly. At times, Opobo even shipped palm oil directly to Liverpool, independent of British middlemen.
Apart from the fact that he was a wealthy merchant and a very diplomatic man, he was also a man of honour and power. This is exemplified when he aided the Queen of England in a battle in the Gold Coast (The Ashanti war) and was awarded a sword of honour from Queen Victoria in 1871.
Deception
As time went on, the Oil trade business in Opobo land began to expand and the ambitions of the Europeans to dominate this market grew, thus creating a conflict between Jaja and British top sales and business tycoons. One of who was John Holt of Liverpool. While Jaja evaded attempts by Holt to pe*****te Jaja’s market in Qua Ibo River, Liverpool members of the African Association were pressing for strong action against Jaja over what they described as “falling rates of profit”.
In the course of “national interest”, King Jaja dealt severe blows on the Qua Ibo people in 1881. He raided about seven of their villages, captured many, and executed about 100 people for engaging in direct trade with the Europeans. Even when the British came up with funny tricks and laws to outrun Jaja in the quest of control of the Oil region, like a game of chess he always checkmated them and this angered the British the more.
At the 1884 Berlin Conference, however, the other European powers designated Opobo as British territory, and the British soon moved to claim it. When Jaja refused to cease taxing British traders, Henry Hamilton Johnston, a British vice-consul, invited Jaja to negotiations in 1887.
By September of 1887, Johnson brought a “Warship” named HMS Goshawk to Opobo and invited Jaja on board. He assured Jaja that nothing will happen to him. When he went on board, he was given two bad choices by Johnson. One was that if he would not allow the Europeans access, he could go back and face immediate bombardment from the British navy, and the other that he goes into exile.dont be betraying someone please read this and share
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