The British razed and looted the Benin Kingdom as revenge.

British soldiers in Benin during the expedition.

The expedition of the Benin Kingdom happened in 1897 by a British military group led by Admiral Sir Harry Rawson.
The group was 1,200 strong and the expedition was a response to the ambush of the Acting Consul General James Phillips led group. The ambush was deadly and only two people survived.

In November 1896, Phillips wrote a letter to his superiors in England for permission to invade the kingdom of Benin. When he didn't get a response he decided to invade Benin on his own in December of that year.

The British after the expedition of Benin
The British after the expedition of Benin (Facebook)
Acting Consul General James Philips travelled to Benin with 250 African soldiers, two Niger Coast Protectorate Force officers, a medical officer, and two trading agents. The African soldiers posed as porters and members of a musical band.

Philips believed he would get rid of the Oba of Benin and replace him with a Native Council. He also believed that the ivory at the Oba's palace would pay for his military expedition.

Philips and his party would get a rude shock. Trading chiefs in Itsekiri had alerted the Benin Kingdom that Philips and his men were on there way. A strike force led by Ologbosere, a senior army commander in Benin ambushed Philips and his men on January 4, 1897. It was a bloodbath as only two men came out alive.

This piece of bad news swiftly got to London. On 12 January 1897, the British Admiralty instructed Rear-Admiral Harry Rawson to lead an expedition to Benin and level the city.

Rawson took 1,200 Royal Marines on this mission. The British got their revenge as they burnt houses and palaces and looted the kingdom. Monuments and artifacts were taken from palaces and the homes of high ranking chiefs and transported to Britain.

British forces invading Benin
British forces invading Benin (weebly)
Many of these artifacts are still in Britain.

THE GREAT BENIN KINGDOM!!


THEM JEALOUS ATTACHEE BY FORCE PEOPLE GO SOON REACH HERE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IlUMUGUorw

The royal marines were not alone, they were commanding some black british trained and equipped soldiers/mercenaries.

fancifulasuquo:
The British razed and looted the Benin Kingdom as revenge.

British soldiers in Benin during the expedition.

The expedition of the Benin Kingdom happened in 1897 by a British military group led by Admiral Sir Harry Rawson.
The group was 1,200 strong and the expedition was a response to the ambush of the Acting Consul General James Phillips led group. The ambush was deadly and only two people survived.

In November 1896, Phillips wrote a letter to his superiors in England for permission to invade the kingdom of Benin. When he didn't get a response he decided to invade Benin on his own in December of that year.

The British after the expedition of Benin
The British after the expedition of Benin (Facebook)
Acting Consul General James Philips travelled to Benin with 250 African soldiers, two Niger Coast Protectorate Force officers, a medical officer, and two trading agents. The African soldiers posed as porters and members of a musical band.

Philips believed he would get rid of the Oba of Benin and replace him with a Native Council. He also believed that the ivory at the Oba's palace would pay for his military expedition.

Philips and his party would get a rude shock. Trading chiefs in Itsekiri had alerted the Benin Kingdom that Philips and his men were on there way. A strike force led by Ologbosere, a senior army commander in Benin ambushed Philips and his men on January 4, 1897. It was a bloodbath as only two men came out alive.

This piece of bad news swiftly got to London. On 12 January 1897, the British Admiralty instructed Rear-Admiral Harry Rawson to lead an expedition to Benin and level the city.

Rawson took 1,200 Royal Marines on this mission. The British got their revenge as they burnt houses and palaces and looted the kingdom. Monuments and artifacts were taken from palaces and the homes of high ranking chiefs and transported to Britain.

British forces invading Benin
British forces invading Benin (weebly)
Many of these artifacts are still in Britain.

The rulers or kings were commonly known as Ogiso. Igodo, the first Ogiso, wielded much influence and gained popularity as a good ruler. He died after a long reign and was succeeded by Ere, his eldest son. In the 12th century, a great palace intrigue and battle for power erupted between the warrior crown prince Ekaladerhan son of the last Ogiso and his young paternal uncle. In anger over an oracle, Prince Ekaladerhan left the royal court with his warriors. When his old father the Ogiso died, the Ogiso dynasty was ended as the people and royal kingmakers preferred their king's son as natural next in line to rule.

The exiled Prince Ekaladerhan later became Izoduwa or Oduduwa the first Oni in uhe (ile ife). Oranmiyan, grand son of Oduduwa took up his abode in the palace built for him at Usama by the elders (now a coronation shrine). Soon after his arrival he married a beautiful lady, Erinmwinde, daughter of Osa-nego, was the ninth Enogie (Duke) of Ego, by whom he had a son. After some years residence here he called a meeting of the people and renounced his office, remarking that the country was a land of vexation, Ile-Ibinu (by which name the country was afterward known) and that only a child born, trained and educated in the arts and mysteries of the land could reign over the people. He caused his son born to him by Erinmwinde to be made King in his place, and returned to Yoruba land Ile-Ife. After some years in Ife, he left for Oyo, where he also left a son behind on leaving the place, and his son Ajaka ultimately became the first Alafin of Oyo of the present line, while Oranmiyan himself was reigning as Oni of Ife. Therefore, Oranmiyan of Ife, the father of Eweka I, the Oba of Benin, was also the father of Ajaka, the first Alafin of Oyo. Oni of Ife and Alafe of Oyo.

By the 15th century, Edo as a system of protected settlements expanded into a thriving city-state. In the 15th century, the twelfth Oba in line, Oba Ewuare the Great (1440–1473) would expand the city-state to an empire.

It was not until the 15th century during the reign of Oba Ewuare the Great that the kingdom's administrative centre, the city Ubinu, began to be known as Benin City by the Portuguese, and would later be adopted by the locals as well. Before then, due to the pronounced ethnic diversity at the kingdom's headquarters during the 15th century from the successes of Oba Ewuare, the earlier name ('Ubinu') by a tribe of the Edos was colloquially spoken as "Bini" by the mix of Itsekhiri, Esan, Ika, Ijaw Edo, Urhobo living together in the royal administrative centre of the kingdom. The Portuguese would write this down as Benin City. Though, farther Edo clans, such as the Itsekiris and the Urhobos still referred to the city as Ubini up till the late 19th century, as evidence implies.

Aside from Benin City, the system of rule of the Oba in his kingdom, even through the golden age of the kingdom, was still loosely based after the Ogiso dynasty, which was military and royal protection in exchange of use of resources and implementation of taxes paid to the royal administrative centre. Language and culture was not enforced but remained heterogeneous and localized according to each group within the kingdom, though a local "Enogie" (duke) was often appointed by the Oba for specified ethnic areas.


Oral tradition


Bronze plaque of Benin Warriors with ceremonial swords. 16th–18th centuries, Nigeria.
The first name of the Benin Empire, since its creation some time in the first millennium CE, was Igodomigodo, as called by its own inhabitants. Their ruler was called Ogiso.[3]

Nowadays, nearly 36 known Ogiso are accounted for as rulers of this first form of the state. According to the Edo oral tradition, during the reign of the last Ogiso, his son and heir apparent, Ekaladerhan, was banished from Igodomigodo as a result of one of the Queens having deliberately changed an oracle message to the Ogiso. Prince Ekaladerhan was a powerful warrior and well loved. On leaving Benin he travelled west to the land of the Yoruba where he reportedly became a king. Most Yoruba cultures and festival ethnics are now practiced by Edo such as Ishango, Ogun, Festac of Idia Mother of Oba Esigie of Benin. Also most foods of the Yoruba are now consumed by the Edo, such as Iyan, Eman, Usi, Ighiawo and Ogi

On the death of the last Ogiso, a group of Benin Chiefs led by Chief Oliha came to Ife, pleading with Oduduwa (The Ooni) to come reign as King in Igodomigodo (later known as Benin City in the 15th century during Oba Ewuare) to ascend the throne. Oduduwa's reply was that a ruler cannot leave his domain but he had seven sons and would ask one of them to go back to become the next king there.


An Edo figure from the reign of the oba Esigie (c. 1504-1550) Brooklyn Museum.
Eweka I was the first 'Oba' or king of the new dynasty after the end of the era of Ogiso. He changed the ancient name of Igodomigodo to Edo.

Centuries later, in 1440, Oba Ewuare, also known as Ewuare the Great, came to power and turned the city-state into an empire. It was only at this time that the administrative centre of the kingdom began to be referred to as Ubinu after the Itsekhiri word and corrupted to Bini by the Itsekhiri, Edo, Urhobo living together in the royal administrative centre of the kingdom. The Portuguese who arrived on expedition led by Joao Afonso de Aveiro in 1485 would refer to it as Benin and the centre would become known as Benin City and its empire Benin Empire.

The Ancient Benin Empire, as with the Oyo Empire which eventually gained political ascendancy over even Ile-Ife, gained political strength and ascendancy over much of what is now Mid-Western and Western Nigeria, with the Oyo Empire bordering it on the west, the Niger river on the east, and the northerly lands succumbing to Fulani Muslim invasion in the North. Interestingly, much of what is now known as Western Iboland and even Yorubaland was conquered by the Benin Kingdom in the late 19th century – Agbor (Ika), Akure, Owo and even the present day Lagos Island, which was named "Eko" meaning "War Camp" by the Bini.

Nowadays, scientists discovered out that the Edo people did not have a writing system, but their art work, had let the scientists discover their true history. Including the armor, magnificent drawing skills.


Golden Age


Benin city in the 17th century.
The Oba had become the mount of power within the region. Oba Ewuare, the first Golden Age Oba, is credited with turning Benin City into City States from a military fortress built by Ogiso, protected by moats and walls. It was from this bastion that he launched his military campaigns and began the expansion of the kingdom from the Edo-speaking heartlands.

Oba Ewuare was a direct descendant of Eweka I great grandson of Oduduwa, Oni of Ife.

And ofcourse, the yoruba will do what they always do: come and claim other people's glory.
By the way, my wife will soon give birth to my son. Yoruba do you want to come and claim that glory as well ?
id2019, you and your yoruba fellows need to leave Edo history alone. Stop trying to steal Edo history and turn it into yoruba history.
And there was never any such thing as oyo empire !

How can a whole people just be famous for one thing and one thing alone ...LIES!

SMH!! FOR UNA OO

historyworld030:
And ofcourse, the yoruba will do what they always do: come and claim other people's glory.
By the way, my wife will soon give birth to my son. Yoruba do you want to come and claim that glory as well ?
id2019, you and your yoruba fellows need to leave Edo history alone. Stop trying to steal Edo history and turn it into yoruba history.
And there was never any such thing as oyo empire !

Their oyo empire was all fabricated and written in their Ibadan printing press

historyworld030, the Story was copied from Oba Ewuare The Great page... he said it himself. I'm not Yoruba , I'm from the great Benin Kingdom

PrinceOgun:


Their oyo empire was all fabricated and written in their Ibadan printing press

I believe all this was started by the slave returnees who were dropped in Lagos.
In order to blend in, those slaves probably started cooking up these stories and brainwashing the locals.
They created a mythology and a fictional people "the yorubas" and the locals bought it.
A lot of the people calling theselves yoruba today are actually Edo people who were brainwashed.
Just take a look at the precolonial maps, they show you that these guys calling themselves yoruba don't have a clue of who they actually are !

id2019:
historyworld030, the Story was copied from Oba Ewuare The Great page... he said it himself. I'm not Yoruba , I'm from the great Benin Kingdom

Do you agree oduduwa was a Benin prince? ... And he taught the Yoruba's our way of life?

So now Oba Ewuare the Great had access to computers and the internet all this more than 200 years ago !
Why must you guys ("yoruba" just keep trying to decieve others ?
Once agin, leave us alone, leave our history alone !

id2019:
historyworld030, the Story was copied from Oba Ewuare The Great page... he said it himself. I'm not Yoruba , I'm from the great Benin Kingdom

historyworld030:

I believe all this was started by the slave returnees who were dropped in Lagos.
In order to blend in, those slaves probably started cooking up these stories and brainwashing the locals.
They created a mythology and a fictional people "the yorubas" and the locals bought it.
A lot of the people calling theselves yoruba today are actually Edo people who were brainwashed.
Just take a look at the precolonial maps, they show you that these guys calling thelselves yoruba don't have a clue of who they actually are !

Yes na , I kind of pity them self..... Mostly the ones in Ekiti and Ondo.... After been brainwashed by awolowo to join d leaking Yoruba umbrella the are not still accepted.

Lemme tell you a story, I did nysc in a Yoruba village called ogbomoso do you know that the yorubas from osun and oya treat those from ekiti and Ondo as trash, they make jest and say they aren't real Yoruba's that their language is foriengn and sounds like gibberish , I had to take one of those who felt really bad and depressed over this , a girl under my wings and taught a lot about history and the Great Benin Empire and that Ondo and Ekiti are Edo people who have lost their roots over the years but the influence is still in their language hence why the so called real Yoruba's (osun and oyo) do not understand the language and call it gibberish, she was so happy and I could feel her sense of satisfaction in knowing who she truly is... She told me she always felt deep down she wasn't really Yoruba ... She is married now and guess what she Even named her child and Edo name Osasenaga