This chapter examines the detention of African chiefs who stood in the way of British expansion in the Niger Delta in the era of the Berlin Conference. At a time when the legal conception of protectorates was being rethought, Britain began to claim more extensive jurisdiction over chiefs with whom it had signed treaties. This chapter concerns the cases of three rulers – Jaja of Opobo, Nana Olomu and Ovonramwen of Benin – each of whom had signed the standard form treaty of protection first taken to the region in 1884. Jaja had struck out a clause permitting free trade, and, when he continued to insist on controlling his rivers, he was removed to Accra. After an inquiry into his conduct, he was removed under an ordinance. In the following decade, after the creation of the Niger Coast Protectorate, Nana, who had also blocked trade after reserving his rights, was tried by a career soldier in a consular court, before also being exiled by ordinance. Ovonramwen’s deposition and removal (after an ambush of a British party on its way to Benin City) was made without trial or authorising ordinance, but by a simple assertion of power which was not legally validated until 1911.