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Establishing the Facts: P. A. Talbot and the 1921 Census of Nigeria*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Dmitri van den Bersselaar
Dmitri van den Bersselaar*
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Extract

Most historians writing about twentieth-century Africa have, at one time or other, used colonial statistical data. When we do this, we normally add a disclaimer, pointing out that these statistics are likely to be unreliable, and then proceed to use them anyway. But surely, we should be able to say something more definite about the reliability of these data? If we know more about the process by which these statistics were collected, for which aims, and with what preconceived ideas in mind, we should be able to establish, if not a margin of error, then at least some idea of which aspects of colonial statistics are more reliable than others. Furthermore, the process of colonial data-collecting was linked to establishing ethnic and other categories, which have since become generally accepted. This paper addresses these questions in an analysis of the context and contents of the published report of the 1921 Census of Southern Nigeria, and discusses its usefulness as a source for historians. The issues I discuss here with specific reference to this Nigerian census are characteristic for colonial censuses in general and should therefore be of relevance to all historians using colonial census data, and also—more generally—help us to understand how some of the most basic categories describing African societies have been constructed in the process of the acquisition of information by colonial governments.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 31 , 2004 , pp. 69 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2004

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Bernard Foley, Michael Tadman, and Simon Yarrow for their valuable comments and suggestions on reading a draft of this essay. NAE=National Archives of Nigeria, Enugu; NAI=National Archives of Nigeria, Ibadan; NGA=National Archives of Ghana, Accra (PRAAD); PRO=Public Record Office, London.

References

1 The Colonial Office Register for Correspondence, 1922-23, for Nigeria contains a reference to a letter from the Nigerian Government enquiring how to dispose of census materials. However, this letter has been destroyed and I could not find any reply to the query. PRO; CO 763/10.

2 Meek, C. K., The Northern Tribes of Nigeria. An Ethnographical Account of the Northern Provinces of Nigeria Together with a Report on the 1921 Decennial Census (2 vols.: London, 1925)Google Scholar; Charles Kingsley Meek, a District Officer, was the Census Officer for Northern Nigeria.

3 Talbot, P. A., In the Shadow of the Bush (London, 1913)Google Scholar and ibid., Life in Southern Nigeria (London, 1923) respectively.

4 NAI; CSO 26 09258 G. J. E. Tomlinson to the Secretary, Southern Provinces (Lagos, 17 July 1923).

5 Talbot, , Peoples, 1:v, 2:viii.Google Scholar

6 PRO; CO 763/11 Register of Correspondence for 1924.

7 See for example Talbot, , Peoples, 4:124.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., 1:v.

9 See for examples: Ahonsi, Babatunde A., “Deliberate Falsification and Census Data in Nigeria,” African Affairs 87(1988), 553–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Aluko, S. A., “How Many Nigerians? An Analysis of Nigeria”s Census Problems, 1901-63,” Journal of Modern African Studies 3(1965), 371–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Fetter, Bruce, “Decoding and Interpreting African Census Data: Vital Evidence From an Unsavory Witness,” Cahiers d'Études Africaines 27(1987), 83–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar; uvin, Peter, “On Counting, Categorizing, and Violence in Burundi and Rwanda” in Kertzer, D. I. and Arel, D., eds., Census and Identity. The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses (Cambridge, 2002), 148–75Google Scholar.

11 Cohn, Bernard S., “The Census, Social Structure and Objectification in South Asia” in Kertzer, D. I. and Arel, D., eds., An Anthropologist among the Historians and Other Essays (Delhi, 1987), 224–54Google Scholar.

12 PuruShotam, Nirmala, “Disciplining difference: “race” in Singapore” in Kahn, Joel S., ed., Southeast Asian Identities. Culture and the Politics of Representation in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand (Singapore, 1998), 51–94Google Scholar.

13 Aluko, , “How Many Nigerians?” 372Google Scholar.

14 “Extract from Census Report of Southern Nigeria, 1911” [From a report by C. A. Birthwistle, Superintendent of Census], in: Burns, A. C., ed., The Nigeria Handbook. Containing Statistical and General Information respecting the Colony and Protectorate (Lagos, 1919), 133CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 The 1931 census is severely criticized by Arnett, E. J. in “The Census of Nigeria, 1931,” Journal of the Royal African Society 32(1933), 398–404Google Scholar. Arnett points out many inaccuracies and improbabilities, the extent of which “makes one doubt whether the Administration of the Southern Provinces in 1931 realised the importance of Census work,” the report being a compilation of existing data “by a junior officer with only slight experience of one part of the Southern Provinces” (398); see also: Aluko, , “How Many Nigerians?” 375Google Scholar.

16 NGA; ADM 5/2/5 Census Report 1921 for the Gold Coast Colony, Ashanti, the Northern Territories and the Mandated Area of Togoland (Accra, 1923), 18Google Scholar.

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19 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Memo from Resident, Owerri, to District Officers (9 March 1921). The same age was used in Ghana (see NGA; ADM 5/2/5 Census Report 1921 for the Gold Coast Colony). See also Fetter, , “Decoding,” 84Google Scholar.

20 Talbot, , Peoples, 4:144.Google Scholar

21 Ibid.

22 Fetter, , “Decoding,” 84Google Scholar.

23 Said, Edward, “Yeats and Decolonisation” in Kruger, Barbara, ed., Remaking History (Seattle, 1989), 6Google Scholar, quoted in Thomas, Nicholas, Colonialism's Culture. Anthropology, Travel and Government (Cambridge, 1994), 38Google Scholar.

24 Cohn, Bernard, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge. The British in India (Princeton, 1996), 3Google Scholar.

25 Ibid, 5.

26 Talbot, , Peoples, 1:vi.Google Scholar I discuss this in more detail below.

27 Cohn, , Colonialism, 5Google Scholar.

28 Vansina, Jan, “The Ethnographic Account as a Genre in Central Africa,” Paideuma 33 (1987), 435, 438–39Google Scholar.

29 Stocking, George W. Jr., After Tylor. British Social Anthropology, 1888-1951 (Madison, 1995), 377Google Scholar.

30 PRO; CO 583/22 Letter to Crown Agents, October 1914.

31 Kuklick, Henrika, The Savage Within. The Social History of British Anthropology, 1885-1945 (Cambridge 1991), 200Google Scholar.

32 PRO; CO 583/176/1003 Memorandum Fiddian, 16 December 1930.

33 Stocking, , After Tylor, p. 378Google Scholar.

34 PRO; CO 583/176/1003 Memorandum Fiddian; on Lugard's opinions see Afigbo, A. E., “Anthropology and Colonial Administration in Southeastern Nigeria, 1891-1939,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 8/1(1975), 24Google Scholar.

35 Kuklick, , Savage Within, 189Google Scholar.

36 PRO; CO 583/102 [end.] Circular Bertram Hodges, Acting Secretary, Southern Provinces, on the compilation of a book on the customs and superstitions of the tribes of Nigeria, 3 September 1920; CO 583/102 Cameron to Churchill, 13 August 1921.

37 NAI; CSO 26 074 Vol. I R. Hargrove to the Governor of Nigeria, 17 November 1922.

38 NAI; CSO 26 074 Vol. I Letter R. Hargrove to the secretary, Southern Provinces, 18 June 1921; also: Cameron, Acting Governor, Nigeria, to S. of S. for the Colonies, 2 August 1923.

39 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Memo from Resident, Owerri, to the District Officers, 9 March 1921.

40 PRO; CO583/100 1921.

41 Cohn, , Colonialism, 8Google Scholar.

42 Talbot, , Peoples, 1:v.Google Scholar

43 van den Bersselaar, Dmitri, In Search of Igbo Identity. Language, Culture and Politics in Nigeria, 1900-1966 (Leiden, 1998), 180–82Google Scholar.

44 Nicolson, I. F., The Administration of Nigeria 1900-1960. Men, Methods, and Myths (Oxford, 1969), 223–24Google Scholar.

45 NGA; ADM 5/2/5 Census Report 1921 for the Gold Coast Colony, Ashanti, the Northern Territories and the Mandated Area of Togoland (Accra, 1923), 18Google Scholar; Talbot, , Peoples, 4:1–2.Google Scholar

46 NGA; ADM 5/2/5 Census Report 1921, 44.

47 Meek, , Northern Tribes, 2:173Google Scholar; Nigeria. Blue Book 1921 (London n.d.). For comparison, the £1000 spent on the Northern Nigerian census in 1921, would be worth about £30,257 today (John J. McCusker, “Comparing the Purchase Power of Money in Great Britain from 1264 to Any Other Year Including the Present” Economic History Services, 2001, URL: http://www.eh.net/hmit/ppowerbp/).

48 I checked the Nigeria Blue Books of Statistics for 1920-1923, but the census is not mentioned as a cost; I also checked the Nigeria [Annual] Reports for 1920-1923, and although the census was mentioned in the report for 1921, there is no indication as to its cost.

49 Afigbo, A. E., The Warrant Chiefs: Indirect Rule in Southeastern Nigeria, 1891-1929 (London 1979), 109Google Scholar.

50 Talbot, , Peoples, 4:3.Google Scholar

51 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Circular Memorandum from Resident, Owerri Province, to District Officers (Owerri, 23 December 1920).

52 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 [printed] Instructions for the 1921 Census.

53 Talbot, , Peoples, 4:135.Google Scholar

54 NGA; ADM 5/2/5 Census Report 1921 for the Gold Coast Colony, Ashanti, the Northern Territories and the Mandated Area of Togoland (Accra, 1923), 16Google Scholar.

55 Ibid., 21.

56 Talbot, , Peoples, 4:126.Google Scholar

57 Ibid., 4:3.

58 Ibid., 4:160-61.

59 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 [printed] Census form 1921 Census.

60 Talbot, , Peoples, 4:24.Google Scholar We must note, however, that the Hausa ethnonym can be used to indicate different levels of inclusion, and the extent to which Hausa society absorbs outsiders and makes them into Hausa (its “assimilative tendencies”) has often been commented on. For a recent statement see Anthony, Douglas A., Poison and Medicine. Ethnicity, Power, and Violence in a Nigerian City, 1966 to 1986 (Portsmouth, NH, 2002), 17–19Google Scholar.

61 I consider this as likely to have been the case, but I have found no concrete evidence that this occurred in the Nigerian 1921 data. For a comparable situation see PuruShotam, , “Disciplining Difference,” 58Google Scholar.

62 NGA; ADM 5/2/5 Census Report 1921 for the Gold Coast Colony, 23.

63 Talbot, , Peoples, 1:vi.Google Scholar

64 Ibid., 4:17.

65 Ibid., 4:16.

66 This has often been noted; see for example Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1991), 70Google Scholar.

67 Talbot, , Peoples, i:vi.Google Scholar

68 Ibid., 4:19.

69 Thomas, , Colonialism's Culture, 38Google Scholar.

70 Talbot, , Peoples, 4:4.Google Scholar The figure given for Northern Nigeria is 10,259,983, giving a total population for Nigeria of 18,631,442.

71 Ibid., 4:3.

72 Ibid., 4:16.

73 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Letter from census clerk to Divisional Officer, Owerri (16 May 1921).

74 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Letter M. Tasie to Divisional Officer, Owerri (Omuakpo Native Court, 17 May 1921).

75 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Letter from census clerk to Divisional Officer, Owerri (16 May 1921).

76 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Report on Census 1921 by District Officer, Owerri Division.

77 Nigeria Report for 1921 (London 1922), 7Google Scholar.

78 Talbot, , Peoples, 4:2.Google Scholar In his study of British administration in Eastern Nigeria Gailey also noted that the counting of humans was against traditional beliefs: a man could count only what was his own property. He refers to the idea that counting caused death because it “reminded evil spirits what a particular kin-group had multiplied beyond a certain point and that the time had come to prune it.” Harry A., Gailey, The Road to Aba; A Study of British Administrative Policy in Eastern Nigeria (New York, 1970), 91Google Scholar.

79 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Report on Census 1921 by District Officer, Owerri Division.

80 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Letter from census clerk to Divisional Officer, Owerri (16 May 1921).

81 Gailey, , Road to Aba, 76–77, 86–91Google Scholar.

82 Talbot, , Peoples, 4:2–3.Google Scholar The least resistance was found among the Igbo (not yet taxed). This is worth pointing out, as this included the area of the 1929 Women's War. Gailey and others have pointed out that popular memory of the Women's War links the outbreak of the protest to census taking and taxation (taxation was introduced in this area in 1927). See Gailey, , Road to Aba, 90Google Scholar; Oriji, John N., “Igbo women from 1929-1960,” West Africa Review (2000) http://www.westafricare-view.com/war/vol2.1/oriji.htmlGoogle Scholar.

83 NAE; AWDIST 1/5/1 Awka District Annual Report 1921.

84 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Report on Census 1921 by District Officer, Owerri Division.

85 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 [printed] Instructions for the 1921 Census.

86 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Report on Census 1921 by District Officer, Owerri Division.

87 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Memo Resident, Owerri Province, to District Officer, Owerri (2 August 1921); Memo District Officer, Owerri, to Resident, Owerri Province (5 August 1921).

88 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Memo to Resident, Owerri Province (5 April 1922).

89 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Memorandum from Resident, Owerri Province to District Officers (Owerri, 26 March 1921); See Talbot, , Peoples, 4:153Google Scholar, table 8.

90 Ibid., 4:17.

91 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Circular Memo from Resident, Owerri Province to District Officers (Owerri, 10 August 1921); Map Main Tribe Ibo Owerri Division Tribal Divisions Census 1921.

92 Talbot, , Peoples, 4:25.Google Scholar

93 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Telex to Executive Owerri from Census Oshogbo 29 November 1921; Telex to Census Oshogbo from Executive Owerri 29 November 1921; and other in the same file.

94 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Memo Resident, Owerri Province, to District Officer, Owerri (22 August 1921): “The District Officer OKIGWI states in connexion with the recent Census that the Obowo sub-tribes are continued into the OWERRI Division, will you please check the statement and revise the information already sent in.”

95 Talbot, , Peoples, 4:17.Google Scholar

96 This was also the view of his bosses; see for example: NAI; CSO 26 09258 Letter from the Secretary, Southern Provinces, to the Chief Secretary, Lagos (Lagos, 31 May 1923).

97 Cohn, , Colonialisms, 8Google Scholar.

98 The following discussion of Talbot's general historical notes summarizes the arguments in Talbot, , Peoples, 2:1–78.Google Scholar

99 Cf. Afigbo, A. E., “Colonial Historiography” in Falola, Toyin, ed., African Historiography: Essays in Honour of Jacob Ade Ajayi (Harlow, 1993), 39–51Google Scholar. Afigbo does not actually mention Talbot's work.

100 Talbot, , Peoples, 2:151.Google Scholar

101 Ibid, 2:vii.

102 NAI; CSO 26 074 Vol. I Letter R. Hargrove to the Governor of Nigeria (London, 17 November 1922).

103 PRO; CO 583/102 [printed] Circular Bertram Hodges to Residents and District Officers dated 3 September 1920, enclosed in Cameron to Churchill, 13 August 1921.

104 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Memorandum from Resident, Owerri Province, to the District Officers (Owerri, 9 March 1921).

105 NAI; CSO 26 074 Vol. I Letter R. Hargrove to Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (London, 21 May 1922).

106 Talbot, , Peoples, 2:200.Google Scholar

107 Ibid., 2:209.

108 According to Simon Ottenberg the report “contains just about everything that an anthropologist of the time might write about:” Ottenberg, , “A History of the Studies of Culture and Social Life in Southeastern Nigeria” in Falola, Toyin, ed., Nigeria in the Twentieth Century (Durham, NC, 2002), 42Google Scholar.

109 NAI; CSO 26 44134 Memo by Daryll Forde, Director, International African Institute, London 10 January 1945 and further correspondence in CSO 26/44134. An example of the reports produced is Forde, C. Daryll and Jones, G.I., The Ibo and Ibibio-speaking Peoples of South-Eastern Nigeria (London, 1950)Google Scholar.

110 Torday, Emil, Man 27(1927), 119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

111 Ibid.

112 Talbot, , Peoples, 2:vii.Google Scholar

113 Kuklick, , Savage Within, 188Google Scholar.

114 Van den Bersselaar, , In Search of Igbo Identity, 192Google Scholar.

115 NAE; OWDIST 9/6/2 Memo from Resident, Owerri Province, to District Officer, Owerri (Port Harcourt, 28 October 1926).

116 Basden, G. T., Among the Ibos of Nigeria (London, 1921)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Meek, C. K., Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe: A Study in Indirect Rule (Oxford, 1937)Google Scholar; Johnson, Samuel, A History of the Yorubas (Lagos, 1929)Google Scholar.

117 On the use of Meek's work see Hannerz, Ulf, “Structures for Strangers. Ethnicity and Institutions in a Colonial Nigerian town” in Southall, Aidan, Nas, Peter J. and Ansari, Chaus, eds., City and Society: Studies in Urban Ethnicity, Life-Style and Class (Leiden, 1985), 99Google Scholar; NAI; CSO16 27948 Petition from the members of the Osu family group to the Chief Commissioner, S.P., Umuororonjo Compound, Owerri Town, 22 May 1936. For examples of the use of Intelligence Reports see PRO; CO 957 35 Memorandum submitted by “The Ikwerre National Congress” Ikwerre, Ahoada Division Eastern Region of Nigeria, November 1957; PRO; CO 957 35; Memorandum submitted to the Commission of Inquiry into Minority fears in the Federation of Nigeria by the Ndoki Women”s Congress. Signed, 13 November 1957, by Mrs. Grace C. George, Mrs. Flo. N. Tetenta, Mrs. Virgina Stanley, and Mrs. Eunice Emuchay.

118 Ottenberg, , “History,” 42Google Scholar, similarly suggests that Talbot's impact is likely to have been through direct interaction with Colonial Administrators, rather than through his publications.

119 See, for instance, Nigeria Report for 1919 (London, 1921), 13Google Scholar; PRO; CO 583/88 Report on operations of Igbo patrol February-March 1920 by H. Jones, 19 March 1920 (enclosure to Cameron to Milner, 30 May 1920).

120 Ahonsi, , “Deliberate Falsification,” 553–62Google Scholar; Aluko, “How Many Nigerians?”