This chapter explores the methodology behind the attempts of Nigeria’s colonial administration to consolidate the complex patchwork of peoples, cultures, polities, and interests acquired throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As with their conquests and acquisitions of Nigerian polities, the strategies used by colonial officials differed from region to region due to the differing conditions and extreme diversity of Nigeria. The chapter will detail these different strategies and why they were assigned to the regions in question. However, despite the great diversity in administrative techniques, the chapter seeks to contextualize the overarching strategies and policies implemented by colonial officials who wished to maximize control while minimizing costs. To this end, the British colonial government sought to promote local authorities who would bear the brunt of “less important” administrative responsibilities. This marked a shift from previous colonial policies, which sought to destabilize native power structures to make their acquisition easier. The process of administrative consolidation was far from a one-sided affair. The chapter details how native authorities, cultures, and people reacted to and influenced the activities mentioned earlier.

After the death of Cabinda’s Mfuka Andris Pukuta, assumedly in 1786, the precious silver kimpaba that La Rochelle’s slave traders gave to him as a gift in 1777 was displaced from Cabinda to Abomey, the capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey. The chapter explores various hypotheses explaining how the object was transferred from the Loango coast to the Bight of Benin. Identifying the presence of specific French slave traders in the ports of these two regions, the chapter argues that the tortuous trajectory of the silver sword embodies the complex connections between Cabinda, Ouidah, Porto-Novo, and Abomey during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.