Royal Niger Company

The Royal Niger Company was a trading company that was hired in the 19th century by the British Empire. It formed the basis for the modern state of Nigeria.

History

Sir George Goldie Taub man had the right to make available to the Empire, the relatively unexplored regions around the lower and middle parts of the river Niger. More than 20 years he tried to implement his plans. He tried to pass the government hired to work within the Empire Company, a method that is actually with the British East India Company together out of the picture should disappear. In the first step, he united all British economic interests in Niger, which he succeeded in 1879 with the United African Company. 1881 Goldie hoped on a contract of Gladstone's government, but his attempts were unsuccessful.

At this time French traders spread, encouraged by Léon Gambetta, in the lower area of ​​the river, so that it was difficult for the company to secure the territorial rights. But the French were in 1884 bought their areas so that Goldie was 1885 in the Berlin West Africa Conference, where he was an expert on questions concerning the Niger River, declare that at the lower Niger only the British flag waving. At the same time, the Niger Coast Protectorate was British. Over 400 political treaties were concluded with the traditional leaders in the area of the lower Niger and with representatives of the Hausa people. After the British had overcome their scruples, the government contract to the National African Company was passed in July 1886 officially, which became the Royal Niger Company, with Henry Austin Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare, as chairman and Goldie as vice. The place Lokoja at the confluence of the rivers Niger and Benue became the headquarters of the Company.

The Royal Niger Company as a private company, it was not possible, the state-supported protectorates of France and Germany to withstand. And so was on 1 January 1900, the Royal Niger Company from their territories for the sum of £ 865,000 to the British Government. The regions obtained were, divided, together with the coastal protectorate, which was already in British hands in the protectorates Northern and Southern Nigeria.

In 1920 again, the English Lever Brothers Group bought the company, which operated under the name Niger Company. As a result, negative price movements in the commodities market Royal Niger merged 1929 with the African & Eastern Trade Corporation of United African Company. After Lever Brothers merged in the same year with the Dutch Margarine Union for Unilever, the United African Company finally went on in the new conglomerate.