This chapter details the circumstances and techniques behind the colonial acquisitions and conquests of Nigeria during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It details two broad categories of methods used by colonial forces: forceful acquisitions and acquisitions achieved through diplomacy. While broad categorizations of colonial techniques are made, this chapter outlines that different techniques could and were used for every Indigenous polity involved. The strategy behind every colonial conquest depended on numerous factors such as the size, “sophistication,” geography, and local political landscape of the polity in question. However, while the techniques behind the colonial acquisitions could drastically differ, this chapter outlines the common goals behind each strategy: to drive a set of processes that weakened the power and authority of indigenous power structures. This would create a power void that, through gradual or rapid action, would be filled by colonial forces or actors aligned with colonial interests. The reactions and independent actions taken by indigenous polities are equally crucial to the history in question. Like their European counterparts, the indigenous states of Nigeria reacted to colonial meddling and the actions of their fellow polities in many different ways, with varying degrees of success.

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.

Following the silver kimpaba displacement from Cabinda to Abomey, this chapter studies how the precious article was received and incorporated in its new home in the royal palaces of the Kingdom of Dahomey, where material culture and objects of prestige were highly valued. Fon artists of Abomey, including silversmiths, appropriated foreign items to create a panoply of articles combining local and foreign elements. The chapter analyzes the silver kimpaba in comparison to other silver articles fabricated by royal silversmiths in Abomey and discusses how the item became an object of prestige and power, until it was looted by the French troops led by Alfred Amédée Dodds in the late nineteenth century. The chapter also discusses the silver kimpabas legacy in Cabinda. As European powers prepared to conquest and colonize the region, they started offering silver swords modeled after the local kimpaba as gifts to local rulers. Overall, the chapter argues, the silver sword embodied the Mfukas increasing power and the fragmentation of Loango coasts societies.

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.