Jimmy Hill

History of Modern Nigeria

April 21, 2019

An Evolution of Labor Exploitation: Fernando Po

Introduction:

This paper, while focusing on the understanding of Nigerians of the event, will dive more

fully into how Fernando Po demonstrates a specific pattern of labor exploitation that has been

present for centuries. The general guiding question for the paper is, ‘How does the example of

Fernando Po demonstrate how the Atlantic Slave Trade transitioned into other exploitative labor

processes?’

Fernando Po: A Portrait

Fernando Po is the largest of the Guinea islands. It is about forty miles by twenty,

covered in rugged, mountainous terrain and marked with extinct volcanoes. There is diverse

vegetation, extending into three separate ecospheres marked by altitude. The island was at one

time a peninsula of the mainland. Seismic instability separated the two, leaving only an

underwater ledge connecting Fernando Po to the mainland. The ledge is approximately two

hundred to three hundred feet deep, while the surrounding water is between seven and nine

thousand feet. The explorer, adventurer, poet, and diplomat Richard Burton was assigned as

consul to the island in 1861. He wrote I Fall in Love with Fernando Po – little more than an

essay or a journal entry, it gave a picture of the island’s appearance. His description of entering

within sight rolls languidly from his pen:

men come on deck feeling they know not what; çela porte à l’amour, as the typical

Frenchman remarks. The oil-like swell is too lazy to break upon the silent shore, the wind

has hardly enough energy to sigh, the tallest trees nod and bend drowsily downwards,

even the grass is, from idless, averse to wave: the sluggish clouds bask in the soft light of

the sky, while the veiled sun seems in no hurry to run his course.”1

The island was as beautiful as it was dangerous. The diseases so deadly to Europeans wreaked

havoc upon the white settlers. Yellow fever, malaria, dysentery. The cost of territory was high.

During the eighteenth century, when slaves were being exported in massive numbers

from West Africa, the Biafran region was the center of the slave trade. More captives per square

mile were shipped than any other part of Africa. Historian Philip Curtin estimates that at least

one in six slaves from the Atlantic Slave Trade came from this region.2

Fernando Po was largely outside these developments until the end of the nineteenth

century. Portugal was the first European power to lie claim, then, in 1777, they transferred

control of the island to Spain. The Spanish, expecting to move into a colonized island, were

surprised to find it unsettled. Writing to the Spanish government, Jose de Varela y Ulloa, a

frigate commander, reported that “the Portuguese do not have any rights to this island save that

of discovery, because they have never established themselves on it; nor have they ever conducted

any commerce with its inhabitants.”3 After this, the economy of Fernando Po lethargically

developed. Spain had claims to the island, but these claims were not acted on until the 1840s.

The prior story of the island was one of sporadic attempts (usually followed by failures), to find a

1
Burton, Sir Richard Francis. Wanderings in West Africa from Liverpool to Fernando Po. Tinsley brothers, 1863.
2
Curtin, Philip D. African History. Longman, 1990.
3
Abelardo de Unzueta y Yuste, Geografía historíca de la isla de Fernando Póo (Madrid, 1947), Pg. 101
use for it. Slavers never managed to take more than a few single individuals, and never

penetrated into the interior of the island.

The population slowly increased around the island’s perimeter. The Bubi – the

indigenous, Bantu speaking ethnic group – soon differentiated between themselves, the

Portuguese, and the descendants of those marooned. At first, the Bubi engaged with small-scale

meetings with Europeans for provisions, but intensely resisted any larger-scale attempts by

European (Spanish or British) to settle or create slave-systems. Over the decades and centuries,

settlements, for the most part autonomous from any European government, began to emerge. The

population slowly morphed into a multiethnic melting pot of Cubans, Kru, Fang, Nigerians,

Bubi, Spanish, British, Mexicans, Jamaican, and an assortment of others: African and European,

American and Asian. This is the story of that island. It is the story of the Europeans who

attempted to settle it, and eventually did. It is the story of the Bubi, who resisted exploitation and

would be all but eradicated. And finally it is the story of migrant laborers from West Africa,

taken and put into a system that would exploit and degrade far beyond the abolition of slavery.

The Legacy of Slavery and the Abolitionist Movement:

There is debate over whether the slave trade ended because of capitalist economics or

despite it. Eric Williams represents capitalism as a positive destructive force. When Industrialism

hit Britain, it changed its primary markets. While the slave trade’s monopoly had been supported

when it benefited from commerce in England, slavery was attacked when it hindered ‘free trade.’

“The capitalists had first encouraged West Indian slavery and then helped to destroy it.”4

Industrialization and ‘free trade’ were at odds with the slave system, which relied on coerced

4
Williams, Eric. Capitalism and Slavery. University of North Carolina Press, 1994.
labor to function, particularly labor removed from its original location and transplanted into a

new geographic space.

Yet it has also been put forward that the British Abolition movement appears to be an

economic anomaly. The exportation of slaves was at (or near) all-time highs as the age of British

Abolition began. Nine-tenths of the world’s sugar was produced within the Atlantic Slave

structure.5 Without political restraints, there was no impetus for the slave trade to decline. As an

economic system, the slave trade performed well – only the politico-moral dimensions of the

trade led to its fall. The continuation of the African element of the slave trade, which maintained

its relationship with the American colonies well into the 19th century, shows the monopoly this

system held over the world.

An alternative explanation: antislavery sentiment was a reaction to Enlightenment

‘progressivism.’ David Brion Davis viewed the narrative of abolition in terms of public

perception. Slavery was originally touted as a mark of civilization, a way to end barbarism. Later

it was denounced for its barbarity. The transition occurred when Christians felt forced into a

corner: “Christianity had been leached of its vitality by the Enlightenment and the treason of

clerks; shocked into a reactionary hysteria by the French Revolution; contaminated by prosperity

and worldly compromise -- but it could still be redeemed and resurrected by its victory over

black slavery. Christianity as 'practical benevolence' could then meet the demands of a new

industrial age.”6 The push to end slavery was not economic (although economic arguments about

the benefits of free labor over slave labor were used), but moral. If this model is correct, it would

seem to support the argument that the end of slavery was not economic in nature. Religious

concepts combined with the new values of social science. “Retribution” and “sin;”

5
Williams, Eric. Capitalism and Slavery. University of North Carolina Press, 1994.
6
Davis, David Brion. Slavery and Human Progress. Oxford University Press, 1986.
“productivity” and “punishment.”7 Whatever the cause, it occurred in Britain, but its implications

were felt worldwide.

And this is where Fernando Po returns to the story. A new fervor arose to end slavery,

that inhumane system. In 1807, Britain prohibited the slave trade, and in 1811, it was made a

felony, One pamphlet – published in 1816 – warned that “slave factories will be established on

many points of the [African] coast; great numbers of ships will be built or purchased for the

trade; and a vast capital will be employed in their outfit from Europe and the consignees at the

Havannah and Cadiz will raise their heads into the ephemeral splendor and consequence which

from the magnitude of the early returns generally distinguish houses embarked in this

commerce.”8 Slavery became the bane of human progress, something to be feared and attacked.

In 1819 a British ‘anti-slave trade squadron’ was created to operate off the coast of west Africa.

The original base tasked with stopping slave ships was in Freetown, a city far from the

Bight of Biafra. Biafra, along with the Bight of Benin, was a hotspot for slavers. The British

force would take the slaves they 'rescued' in the Bights and send them to Sierra Leon. There they

had established a British colony where “recaptives” (slaves captured from slave ships), were

deposited. Ironically, the journey to Sierra Leone was significantly farther than the few hundred

miles back to their homes. Many newly ‘rescued’ slaves would die on the journey to their new

home. By the mid-1820s, the British government had realized the inadequacy of Freetown and its

distance from Sierra Leone. So they sent Captain William Fitzwilliam Owen and his ship, the

HMS Eden, to begin a British settlement on the island. He carved a path into the cliffs, put up

defenses, and named the new settlement Clarence. It was 1827. For two years he patrolled the

seas, capturing what ships he could. In 1929, he was recalled after clashes with officials in

7
Ibid
8
An Inquiry into the Right and duty of Compelling Spain to Relinquish Her Slave Trade in Northern Africa (London,
1816), Pg. 82
Freetown and a refusal to become an administrator. His replacement was Lieutenant Colonel

Edward Nicolls.

The actual efficacy of Owen and Nicolls is questionable; they were only responsible for

stopping about a thousand slaves from reaching their destination.9 Yet, while the military may

not have captured many slavers, it is possible that simply putting Clarence on Fernando Po made

it extremely difficult for slavers to continue operating in the area. It was nearly impossible for a

slaver to operate in the Bight without a high probability of capture. In 1831, the base was

removed from Clarence. Spain had renewed its interest in the island. For the next four years, the

British squadron would search the waters for slavers, baseless and roaming. The experiment with

Clarence proved far more effective than the roving cruisers. The British government was

convinced that a stable base on Fernando Po was significantly more cost effective and efficient.

They began serious negotiations with Spain to buy the island.

During this time, Spain experienced a renewed interest in commercial ventures in the

Spanish Guinea. The idea of a legitimate trade slowly gained traction, the purpose to expand

beyond the slave trade. They rejected Britain’s offer to purchase the island, and in 1841, Spain’s

minister of state, Antonio González, proposed an expedition to the Bight of Biafra. A year later,

Captain Juan José de Lerena left for the west African Coast, visiting Sierra Leone, the Spanish

trading station at Rio Gallinas, and eventually Fernando Po. One of his primary goals was to

assess Spanish territories and ensure that Spain’s claim to them had not been violated. When he

landed on Fernando Po, he found that there were a total of two Spaniards and a Mexican – all

former slavers – representing the Spanish population on the island. De Lerena’s only option was

to name a British trader, John Beecroft, as Spanish governor.

9
Sundiata, I. K. From Slaving to Neoslavery: The Bight of Biafra and Fernando Po in the Era of Abolition, 1827-
1930. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1996.
 This expedition marked the beginning of Spain’s active intervention in Fernando Po. De

Lerena and Beecroft exemplify the complete disconnect between the Spanish mainland and their

territorial holding in the Spanish Guinea. But in the 1850s Spain entered a new period of

economic prosperity, and their gaze returned to those West African holdings. All that lay

between Spain and expansion was the British Empire and their “ruthless desire to monopolize all

of West Africa's commerce. Anti-slaving was just a ploy in economic competition.”10 Spain, a

second-rate power in the nineteenth century, desired to reassert their authority and maintain their

holdings in Spanish Guinea.

To develop the island, they would have to first establish control in the mostly anglophile

settlement of Clarence (renamed Santa Isabel by De Lerena). Santa Isabel had become its own

autonomous and functioning town. It was a hub of trade; a mix of Europeans and freed slaves. It

served primarily as a waystation for shipping, with white and black traders operating free from

the constraints of direct European jurisdiction. Spain, in order to begin development, would have

to expand the population beyond the small trading settlement built around commerce.

The Emergence of the Plantation System:

In 1822, cocoa seeds were first introduced to the West African coast. They were planted

on Fernando Po’s neighbor, Sao Tome, and grew exceedingly well. In 1854 they came to

Fernando Po. The island had a decision. Would they choose “trade vs. agriculture, open trade vs.

monopolized trade, peasant proprietorship vs. European-managed plantations.”11 These decisions

were not made by the residents of Fernando Po, but by outside forces. The transition throughout

10
Sundiata, I. K. From Slaving to Neoslavery: The Bight of Biafra and Fernando Po in the Era of Abolition, 1827-
1930. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1996.
11
Curtin, Philip. The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780-1850 (Madison, 1964), vol. 2, pg. 435
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was slow, but it was directed towards the eventual, highly

monopolized, European-managed plantation system.

The economy would be based around three staple crops: cocoa, coffee, and timber. At

first, agriculture was in the hands of small-scale farmers, usually owning a hectare or two. They

were often African farmers. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the island had been largely

neglected. This was to the advantage of black planters, who otherwise would have faced

competition from Europeans and the structural barriers that a European-run economy would have

brought with it. It did, however, also mean that there was a dearth of infrastructure to aid in

planting. During bad seasons the reliance on a monoculture was felt. Entire crops could be wiped

out. The fledgling agricultural economy of the island was subject to the boom and bust of new

farmers with a new crop. Fernando Po exported significantly less than the smaller, neighboring

islands of Sao Tome and Principe, whose plantation systems had begun decades before.

The plantation system came with drawbacks. The question of where the labor was to be

found was first asked during this period. Owens, the first British settler of Fernando Po, the

blight of slavers from Cameroon to Liberia, had the same question. The original idea was the

Bible and the plow. Convert the indigenous, and then teach them to work. Owens believed in a

plantation system where black laborers worked for white masters. While it would not emerge

during his time, this idea permeated the culture. The Bubi, who had never been responsive to this

treatment, stayed outside of the labor system. So it was used on other African populations.

Sundiata describes how the British colonial secretary was quoted as saying, “a middle course

between allowing the natives to live in idleness and vice and using improper means to get them
to work” must be found.12 Sir Richard Francis Burton viewed his workers in much more

discriminatory terms:

Nothing will prevent them calling themselves my “children,” that is to say, my slaves;

and indeed no white man who has lived long in the outer tropics can prevent feeling that

he is pro tempore the lord, the master, and the proprietor of the black humanity placed

under him. It is true the fellows have no overseer, consequently there is no whip;

punishment resolves itself into retrenching rum and tobacco; moreover, they come and go

as they please. But if a little “moral influence” were not applied to their lives, they would

be dozing or quarrelling all day in their quarters, and twanging a native guitar half the

night, much to their own discomfort and more to their owner's.13

It has been argued that slavery was rendered obsolete by European colonialism (labor abuses

notwithstanding). Paul Lovejoy argued that the slave system disintegrated.14 This argument,

however, is drawn into question in Fernando Po, where the difference between 'slavery' and

'forced labor' was often much smaller than one would hope.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, all three islands off the west coast of Africa –

Sao Tome, Principe, and Fernando Po – would be subject to two major trends: increased cocoa

production and marginalization of African farmers.

The Labor Question:

12
Sundiata, I. K. From Slaving to Neoslavery: The Bight of Biafra and Fernando Po in the Era of Abolition, 1827-
1930. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1996.
13
Burton, Sir Richard Francis. Wanderings in West Africa from Liverpool to Fernando Po. Tinsley brothers, 1863.
14
Lovejoy, Paul E. Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
 Spanish holdings in Africa during the twentieth century were precarious – “a

disappearing Spanish Empire had wedged itself into the Bight of Biafra.”15 The economic

question of labor, brought up in regards to slavery, again becomes relevant. Fernando Po, in a

microscopic sense, supports the notion that slavery was an economically viable option, at least

within the plantation system that had been created. The “Labor Question” loomed large. Who

would man these large-scale plantations surging up at the end of the nineteenth century and the

beginning of the twentieth? Scarcity reigned supreme. Without forced labor, the economic

powerhouse that Fernando Po had become would collapse. But labor migration to the Spanish

colonial holdings had been banned by all other Imperial powers. The recruitment that occurred in

the period of Fernando Po’s rise as a commercial mainstay was clandestine and reminiscent of

slavery.

Needing labor, but not controlling the mainland, Spain had to resort to different ways of

acquiring a workforce. One group that they used were the Fang, a group from the mainland that

was strong politically, and spread out geographically. They would offer a wife and give the Fang

individual the 'down payment' for the woman (which would later be reduced from their salary) if

they came to Fernando Po. This was done extensively, with a few thousand taken each year to

the island. It was still not enough, however, and plantation owners continued to look for labor in

other places. ‘Kruboys,’ or migrant laborers from the Windward Coast, became the mainstay of

the alien labor force. These Kru were a part of the largest linguistic group in Liberia. Ibrahim

Sundiata situates this recruitment in that devastatingly grey area between ‘free labor’ and

coercion. Even as the plantation owners advocated for this new system of ‘free labor’ and

15
Martino, Enrique. “Clandestine Recruitment Networks in the Bight of Biafra: Fernando Pó’s Answer to the
Labour Question, 1926–1945.” International Review of Social History 57, no. S20 (December 2012): 39–72.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859012000417.
Capitalist autonomy, they created systems of indenture to prevent the development of free

markets.

It was a system that oscillated between labels: “The recruitment constellations examined

here [Nigerian labor taken to Fernando Po]… cannot be categorized by the binary pairs of

free/unfree and legal/illegal correlated by the modern state. That constant and shady borderland

was home to a para-state, quasi-open market of trafficking entrepreneurialism.”16 The methods

used by recruiters fell into a complicated system of indigenous societal norms and politics. Many

were recruited; not all knew where they were going. Sundiata, quoting Monica Schuler in

reference to Kru migration to the French Guiana, relates how, “At the recruitment points 'what

employers sought in theory, at least, was some sovereign people willing and able to devise a

system by which disciplined hardworking young men could be detached without force from land

and lineage to rotate in and out of European overseas export enclaves under a system with low,

fixed wages.’”17 The fall of the institution of slavery does not exclude conditions of slavery. He

goes on to give a warning:

We must avoid seeing 'slavery,' in and of itself, as necessarily incompatible with

European imperialism in all areas of Africa after the Scramble. On the contrary, in the

Gulf of Guinea, the triumph of British-imposed abolition and emancipation coincided

with the increasing exploitation of the worker and the tying of the laborer to the

plantation. The development of various forms of forced labor and slavery was not linear,

16
Martino, Enrique. “Clandestine Recruitment Networks in the Bight of Biafra: Fernando Pó’s Answer to the
Labour Question, 1926–1945.” International Review of Social History 57, no. S20 (December 2012): 39–72.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859012000417.
17
Sundiata, I. K. From Slaving to Neoslavery: The Bight of Biafra and Fernando Po in the Era of Abolition, 1827-
1930. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1996. Quoting Clarence-Smith, Gervase. “Africans in Bondage. Studies in Slavery
and the Slave Trade. Essays in Honour of Philip D. Curtin on the Occasion of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of
African Studies at the University of Wisconsin. Edited By Paul E. Lovejoy. Madison, Wisconsin, and London:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1986. Pp. x + 378. $16 (Soft Covers).” The Journal of African History 29, no. 1
(March 1988): Schuler, Monica. Chapter 8: Kru emigration to British and French Guiana, 1841-1857, pp. [155]-201.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853700036239.
 but fluctuated with the intensity of economic activity. The introduction of coffee and

cocoa increased the value of bound workers and emphasized their role as producers rather

than as dependents. Far from collapsing, traditional slaving networks interdigitated with

the new traffic in 'contract laborers.' And, it must be remembered, these plantation

economies were, or were to become, among the most productive in colonial Africa.

Migratory Labor and the First Labor Controversies

The concept of migratory wage labor provides a unique set of challenges for historians.

The systems of indigenous groups suddenly clash with Capitalistic European commerce; the

inability to parse out motivations for money or land from extraction. There is a fuzzy area

between where labor is ‘free’ and where it becomes forced. Particularly in instances such as

these, where the African (Kru, Fang, Liberian) laborer is paid a wage, it can be unclear the extent

of coercion. A general tendency in the exploitation of labor on Fernando Po seemed to be

misleading, failing to pay, and mistreating. Historian Nancie L. Solien de Gonzalez divided

migratory labor into five types: seasonal migration; temporary, nonseasonal migration; recurrent

migration; continuous migration; and permanent removal. For the continental workers taken to

Fernando Po, the most common was thought to be temporary, nonseasonal migration.18 Workers

believed themselves to be signing between one- and four-year contracts. The reality was

frequently very different. Plantation bosses failed to pay, did not uphold their end of the

contracts, and punished their workers. The workers were not allowed to leave the boundaries of

their plantations. In 1913 Vice-Consul Smallbones cited a formal complaint that a Samuel

Gonzalez, Nancie L. Solien de. “Family Organization in Five Types of Migratory Wage Labor.” American
18

Anthropologist 63, no. 6 (December 1961): 1264–80. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1961.63.6.02a00070.

contract.19

The “Labor Question” was asked at the individual level of farmer and laborer. It was

asked at the geographic space of recruitment. The “Labor Question” pervaded and underscored

nearly all abuses. A large percentage of the worst labor abuses came from African landholders.

Already struggling with insufficient labor on their small plots and plantations, they tried to

maximize efficiency through labor abuses. What would begin the end for these Creole

agriculturalists was not racism, but rather land legislation and the flooding in of European

capital. It was impossible for all of the small farmers to compete. In the name of labor reform,

the Spanish government passed labor legislation that would seek to limit these abuses. In reality,

however, it actually just drove more small and medium-scale farmers out of business by making

them pay their workers each month instead of at the end of the cacao season.

Recruitment was equally responsible for the situation that resulted on Fernando Po. As

reports of labor abuse of British colonial citizens in Spanish Guinea trickled to the British

government in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, the government was compelled to

take action. They recommended to all of British West Africa that workers look to other locations

for work. The labor embargo by British West Africa forced dependency on coercive labor

recruitment elsewhere. In the years preceding WWl, the reports of abuses grew worse. The

British began to take further action, putting policemen on many of the steamers leaving British

holdings.

The first of the labor controversies on Fernando Po was over extremely questionable

practices with Liberian labor. Liberia had signed an agreement with the island in 1914; they

19
Sundiata, I. K. From Slaving to Neoslavery: The Bight of Biafra and Fernando Po in the Era of Abolition, 1827-
1930. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1996.
would transport labor to the plantations. In 1927, they cancelled the arrangement. Fernando Po,

once again, was forced to ask the dreaded “labor question.” Two superintendents of Liberian

counties - Allen Yancy and Samuel Ross - entered into a private agreement with the Spanish

company Sindicato Agricola de Guinea. This bargain led to the transport of over two thousand

laborers to Fernando Po. In 1929, America said that they had found evidence of a "slave trade"

and told Liberia to make changes. Liberia enacted an inquiry, and the Liberian side of affairs was

addressed, but not the Spanish side. There was found to be no "slave trade," but the "pawning

and forced porterage" were condemned by the League of Nations. Little was done to address the

actual labor conditions on Fernando Po.20

African-American journalist George Schuyler, who visited the island in 1931 while

documenting the labor practices in Liberia, maintained that conditions were terrible. In response,

he wrote a novel, Slaves Today: A Story of Liberia. Artistically, the book was a failure, buts its

point still stands.21 His fictional account of the Liberian labor exploitation occurring on Fernando

Po related the treatment to slavery, where “regardless of the polite name that masks it while

bloody profits are ground out for white and black masters, it differs only in slight degree from

slavery in the classic sense, except that the chattel slaves’ lives were not held so cheaply. . . . If

this novel can help arouse enlightened world opinion against this brutalizing of the native

population in a Negro republic, perhaps the conscience of civilized people will stop similar

atrocities in native lands ruled by proud white nations that boast of their superior culture.”22 In

this conceptualization of slavery, it is an oppressive system of forced and exploitative labor

based out of racist rhetoric and domineering cultural practices. Slavery as an institution does not

20
Sundiata, I. K. From Slaving to Neoslavery: The Bight of Biafra and Fernando Po in the Era of Abolition, 1827-
1930. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1996.
21
Putnam, Aric. “‘Modern Slaves’: The Liberian Labor Crisis and the Politics of Race and Class.” Rhetoric &
Public Affairs 9, no. 2 (September 25, 2006): 235–56. https://doi.org/10.1353/rap.2006.0052.
22
Schuyler, George Samuel. Slaves Today: A Story of Liberia. AMS Press, 1931.
have to exist for slavery as a practice to occur. This point fits well with Sundiata’s perception of

labor. The name of his book is From Slaving to Neoslavery. Slavery is more than just an

economic system. It is more than just a trade system, albeit an inhumane one. It is the

exploitation of black bodies, their “brutalization.”

Liberia to Nigeria: Neoslavery and the Call for Annexation

It was in the post-Liberian climate that commercial interests turned their vision towards

Nigeria. By 1940, more accusations of mistreatment of laborers surfaced. The Nigerian colonial

administration was obliged to act. They assigned a consul to the island, and made a list of

demands, codified in an inter-governmental agreement in 1942. No workers younger than

eighteen. All workers had to be checked by a Nigerian doctor before any contract would be

signed. The contract must explicitly lay out minimum wage, housing, food, and medical.23

Fifteen years later, another official delegation was sent to the island. They found mixed results;

there were both good plantations and bad ones. Good plantations had suitable accommodations,

paid well and on time, and did not punish. Bad plantations frequently had eight men in a single

room. Work hours could extend from six in the morning to six in the evening, without a break.

Whippings and beatings were reported. The difference between good and bad was stark, men

taken advantage of and exploited. The Spanish government was found, for the most part, to

enforce the labor legislation. They actively sought out horrible conditions and were known to

punish those responsible. In Nigeria, the press focused on the slave-like conditions. At this point,

Nigeria was still a British colony. The West African Pilot – Nnamdi Azikiwe’s magazine (who

23
Akinyemi, Bolaji. “Nigeria and Fernando Poo, 1958-1966: The Politics of Irridentism.” African Affairs 69, no.
276 (1970): 236–49.
had been vocal against the labor exploitation in Fernando Po as early as the 1930s) – began to

call for annexation of the island, arguing that “geographically it is part of the Federation.”24

According to Bolaji Akinyemi, by 1960 the Spanish government felt pressured into a

demonstration of military might. This was to dissuade a newly independent Nigeria from

invading the territory. The Finance Minister was invited to visit at the same time as the annual

visit from the Spanish navy. He subsequently recommended against any use of military might to

take the island.25 The West African Pilot continued to agitate. They blamed the Labour Office of

an apathy in protecting Nigerian migrant workers. In 1961 Beatrice Bassey published a piece in

the West African Pilot with a dramatic cover claiming, “Nigerians in Chains.” In the picture eight

men look back at the camera. Their hands are behind their backs, their gazes pointed, brows

furrowed. Eyes look back challengingly. Five hundred workers got off the boat at Calabar. Their

backs, Bassey says, were covered in scars. Whip marks. Emaciated and “dejected,” they

“appeared to have no life in them.”26 An overseer was said to have gotten angry. He had thrown a

knife, striking a young man in the leg and cutting an artery. He fell to the ground, blood flowing

uncontrollably from the gash. Later, an army unit had arrived and arrested twelve men. The men

had planned a strike, but called it off at the last minute. The police took them anyway. These

were the stories Bassey was told by the men getting off the boat. The anger felt about the abuse

was further justified.

Between the Sunday Times and the West African Pilot, the Nigerian press riled up public

opinion. This put pressure on the government; they claimed they would seek a new agreement

with the Spanish government. The output of anti-Fernando Po rhetoric by the Nigerian press put

the government in an awkward position. With the advocates calling for complete annexation, the
24
Editorial, West African Pilot, 7 January 1958.
25
Akinyemi, Bolaji. “Nigeria and Fernando Poo, 1958-1966: The Politics of Irridentism.” African Affairs 69, no.
276 (1970): 236–49.
26
Bassey, Beatrice, ‘Nigerians in Chains’, West African Pilot (Lagos, 31 January 1961), AGA 81/11850 E-1.
government could not easily approve of this. While there were clearly labor abuses, the method

of discourse was far more extreme than the government was willing to concede. They were

pushed to into defending Spain and Fernando Po, arguing the labor situation was not as horrific

as the media was portraying.27 The emerging conflict was largely between the government and

the media. While both sides did not doubt that exploitation was occurring, the extremity of the

situation and the solution became contentious points. An interesting question arose: what is the

responsibility of government when abuses are found?

Akinyemi argues that it was not ‘slave-like’ conditions that fostered the urgent calls in

Nigeria to annexation. The organizations with the loudest voices – by the Zikist National

Movement, the Nigerian Trades Union Congress, the West African Pilot, and the Sunday Times –

were all nationalistic and anti ‘neo-colonialism.’ They sought the reparation and repatriation of

African land. Akinyemi points out that Nigerian laborers were killed in Ivory Coast, Gabon, and

Congo. There was no uproar in the press for those dead Nigerians.28

A Brief Counterpoint:

When the Nigerian government heard the accusations of labor abuses in the 1940s, they

acted. They passed the legislation and made the agreements with Spain, as noted in the section

before. While this was occurring, an interesting story transpired in the media to run counter to

the common narrative of labor exploitation on Fernando Po and its ties to slavery.

In the early months of 1939, the Nigerian press had brought forth claims that labor

conditions on the island of Fernando Po “look like indirect resuscitation of the old slave trade.”29
27
Akinyemi, Bolaji. “Nigeria and Fernando Poo, 1958-1966: The Politics of Irridentism.” African Affairs 69, no.
276 (1970): 236–49.
28
Akinyemi, Bolaji. “Nigeria and Fernando Poo, 1958-1966: The Politics of Irridentism.” African Affairs 69, no.
276 (1970): 236–49.
29
The "Nigerian Easter Mail" Alleges Slavery in Oron. The West African Pilot, Lagos, January 21, 1939.
Recruitment of labour for island of Fernando Po. 1939. CO 554/119/5
These claims were extremely sensational. This does not mean fake by any means, but it does

point to the rhetoric in the media serving a purpose (namely annexation). It built upon a deep

history of labor mistreatment by the Spanish owners of the coffee and coco plantations of

Fernando Po, narratives that were intensely felt and connected to slavery, colonialism, and

imperialism. It led to outrage in Nigeria, drummed up mostly through media outlets. As the West

African Pilot and the Sunday Times claimed, the instances of labor abuse threatened to

demonstrate that the exploitative process of labor acquisition as carried out during the Atlantic

Slave Trade continued well into the twentieth century. Modern historians have come to the

conclusion that the conditions under which Nigerian workers labored were abusive and

hazardous, however, the dialogue connecting it to slavery attached it to deeper cultural

narratives. Many pushed back against this use of the narrative – not just the government. A Rev.

Ewart Shepherd wrote a detailed response to the allegations, arguing that they were completely

misinformed.30 His voice is interesting primarily because of its singularity. His end desire was

for a legalized scheme for the labor forces entering Fernando Po from Nigeria.

Why did the Reverend Ewart Shepherd come into such sharp conflict with these

allegations and the general trend of the understanding of the event? As he wrote in the

introduction to his response, he was a Methodist missionary of twelve years whose goal is to

warn of the potential dangers of making false allegations with the weight of claims about

slavery: “England is not so liberally endowed with friends that she can afford to forfeit

friendships through the activities of well-intentioned but ill-informed persons.” He asserted that,

due to his position as a missionary, he was in no way political; he merely wanted to help inform

30
Rev. Ewart Shepherd, ‘‘Nigerian Labourers in Fernando Po: Dr. Haden Guest Mis- informed? Allegations of
Slavery Cannot Be Substantiated’’, West Africa, 19 May 1939.
the public and clarify the truth. Stepping into this space he quickly placed himself counter to the

general outrage of the time.

His main point was that the main issue with the arrangement is that the Nigerian

government had refused to grant permission to laborers to come to Fernando Po. They were thus

incentivized to take on the journey to the island themselves. In his conclusion he defined that his

primary goal was to end the dangerous “middle-passage” that emerged to sustain this labor

relationship. Recruiters were known to inhabit the cities of the Nigerian coast looking for

potential laborers. Once found, they would be put onto canoes to be transported. These were

often dangerous, with storms and other natural occurrences frequently leading to the deaths of

the Nigerians being transported.

The Reverend’s arguments, while attempting to end the dangerous middle-passage, are

interesting because they claim that, upon visiting the island he did not witness any of the

atrocities or slave-like conditions that had been represented by such papers as the West African

Pilot. Shepherd turned the blame from the colonies of Fernando Po into an attack on the British

government. It was their responsibility for hindering passage to the colonies and thus putting the

people in danger. In a way, his critique could be read as an anti-colonial push towards

deregulation by European nations into the affairs of the Nigerian people. The argument, which

could be read initially as pro-colonial in the sense that it might be seen as supporting the Spanish

colonial machine, could also be turned on its head and read as a sharp attack on the British

apathy to the deaths of Nigerians as well as the work conditions in the country that would lead to

the laborers attempts to leave for Fernando Po. The motivations and goals of Shepherd, while

difficult to flesh out, offer an interesting counterpoint to the general narrative of the time and its

portrayal of Spanish misconduct. He does not deny allegations of misconduct. His solution,
however, was to legalize the transportation of labor. Shepherd does not rely on the narrative, for

better or worse, of slavery.

Tragedy: A Brief Conclusion to an Incalculably Complicated Topic

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani is a writer, sometimes for The New Yorker, sometimes for

herself. She wrote a novel – I Do Not Come to you by Chance. The name Nwaubani came from

her great-grandfather. It was a nickname because of his “bright skin” and “healthy appearance.”31

Nwaubani’s great-grandfather was a slave trader. He operated with a license from the Royal

Niger Company during the end of the nineteenth century, capturing slaves in Southern Nigeria

and sending them to middlemen on the coast. These middlemen then sold the slaves to Brazil and

Cuba. He amassed wealth and wives. Colonial officials made him chief of several towns. In Igbo

culture, when a man of prominence dies, he is buried with livestock – as much as his family can

afford. He was buried with a leopard. And six slaves, alive when they entered the earth.

Nwaubani’s father was proud of his grandfather. He was a man of repute, of reputation.

He lived in a different time, one when the selling of a human being was acceptable. The original

Nwaubani had made a name for himself. Adaobi has to grapple with that legacy now. What is

Nwaubani’s position in the family?

This complicated question pervades political questions of the victimhood or lack thereof

in West Africa generally, and in Fernando Po particularly. To apply complete victimhood is to

reduce the people to agentless pawns, drifting along in the tide of history. Africans participated

in the slave trade before European conquest, during European conquest, and after. It would be a

travesty to try and remove blame from Europe, but to reduce the situation to black-and-white is

31
Nwaubani, Adaobi Tricia. “My Great-Grandfather, the Nigerian Slave-Trader,” July 15, 2018.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/my-great-grandfather-the-nigerian-slave-trader.
to rob many individuals of their stories. Fernando Po was a chaotic, confused place where

indigenous narratives, European narratives, and African narratives, clashed. Sociopolitical,

environmental, and political factors make Fernando Po’s story unique. It did not participate in

the slave trade. It was a base for anti-slaving operations throughout the early nineteenth century.

Yet after the institution of slavery had been removed as an economic system, the Spanish on

Fernando Po were accused of slavery.

Patrick Manning portrays slavery as a tragedy; it is “condensed” and “dramatic,” with the

end result victims on all sides. It is an economic issue, a matter of costs and benefits, supply and

demand, but it is also a history of human sacrifice and victimhood. Manning integrates the

dramatic in order to evoke emotion. “The tragic experience of slavery in the modern world left

Africans depleted in population, divided irremediably among themselves, retarded economically,

and despised as an inferior race in a world which had built a vision of racial hierarchy based on

the inspiration of their enslavement.”32 He also acknowledges that, like Nwaubani’s grandfather,

many participated and perpetuated the trade.

Fernando Po was a tragedy. Everything from casual racism and discrimination to the

eventual near-extermination of the indigenous Bubi. Free Africans held positions of power

during the nineteenth century. At first traders and shippers, later small-land owners. Their

tragedy was of simple economics. Capital came flooding in from Europe, and slowly squeezed

small-scale landowners out of the economy. To survive, many of these free Africans were the

worst offenders in labor crimes. The victims became the oppressors. When the Spanish

plantation economy was at its peak in the twentieth century, they failed to protect the Nigerian

workers beneath them. This became an opportunity for nationalistic and anti-colonial currents in

Manning, Patrick. Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades. Cambridge
32

University Press, 1990.

what they saw was slavery. This pitted them against their own government, a fledging one, born

only a year before and still seeking to understand its position. To take on a European power was

dangerous, if that was even the correct response to the allegations (many would argue it was not).

Nigerians in conflict with Nigerians. And this doesn’t even take into account the long history of

abused workers on Fernando Po. The evolution of slave trade into abusive labor practices was

complete. Bubi, Fang, Kru, Liberian, Nigerian. The list extends down the length of the African

coast. A tragedy.