Korieh, Chima J. „Gender and Peasant REsistance: Recasting the Myth of the Invisible Women in Colonial Eastern Nigeria, 1925-1945“. The Foundations of Nigeria: Essays in Honor

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Book and Co1-er Design: Sam Saverance

u ~ - o r e ~ Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The foundarioos of Nigeria : : s s a ~ in honor of Toyin Falola 1 edited by

Adeba)'J O ~ d e .p. cm

Cootinues: The transformation of Nigeria.

··Volume rwo.··

Includ<:s bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-59221-119-4- ISBN 1-59221-120-8 (pbk.)

1. Nigma-Politics and government-To 1960. L ())"bade, Adebayo.

11. F lola, Toyin.

DT515.75.F6B 2003

966.9'03--<ic21

2003009088



CONTENTS

Introduction

Part A: Reflections on Colonial Nigeria

I. A Retrospect on Colonial Nigeria

Adebayo Oyebade 15

2. Toy in Falola and the Historiography of Colonial Economy

Adebayo Oyebade 27

Part B: Nationalism, Constitutional Development, and

Judicial Reforms

3. Contested History in Colonial Historiography

Osarhieme Benson Osadolor

4. Nationalism and the Struggle for Freedom, 1880-1960

Ehiedu E. G. Jweriebor

5. Radicalism and the National Liberation Struggles,

1930-1950

Ehiedu E. G. Jweriebor

6. Understanding the Nationalist Issues in the

Colonial Central Legislature

Osarhieme Benson Osadolor

57

79

107

127



7. Constitutional Development. 1914-1960: BritishLegacy or Local Exigency?

Chilra B. Onwuelrwe I53

8. Federalism Versus Centralism: Continuity and Change

G. N. Uzoigwe 181

9. Colonial Rule and Judicial Reforms, 1900-1960Akin Alao 201

I 0. Changes in Perception of Rights and Governmental

Responsibilities in Colonial Egbaland

Babatunde Od!Dltan 21 7

Part C: Cultures and Knowledge in a Colonial Society

I I. At the Barricades: Resurgent Media in Colonial

Nigeria, 1900-1960

Ayo 0/ukot!Dl 229

12. "Apes Obey!" The Historical Enigma of Discord

Between Higher Education and the Military in Nigeria

Michael 0. Afolayan 247

13. British Civilizing Missions and the Truncation

of a Civilization

Ademola Babalola 267

14. Elite Lifestyle and Consumption in Colonial Ibadan

0/ufunke Adeboye 281

I 5. Senses and Legal Expression in Kalahari Culture

Nimi Wariboko 305

16. Representing the Foreign as Other: The Use of

Allegory in Fagunwa's Novels

0/ayinka Agbetuyi 333

Part D: Colonial Political Economy

17. British Colonialism and Economic Transformation

f."zekiel Ayodele Walker 347



18 · "Subsidizing the Merchants at the E x p c ~ s c ~ f t h cAdministration": Railway Tariffs and N1genanMaritime Trade in the I 920sAyodeji Olukoju 373

19. Road Transportation and the Economy ofSouthwestern Nigeria, 1900-1920Dipo 0/ubomehin

20. The Faulkner "Blueprint" and the Evolution ofAgricultural Policy in Inter-War Colonial NigeriaAyodeji 0/ukoju

21. Poverty and its Alleviation in Colonial NigeriaOgbu U Kalu

22. The Transformation of Eastern Nigeria:

From Self-sufficiency to Social Crisis

Andrew C. Okolie

23. The Colonial Joint Venture: An Interpretation of

"Indirect Rule" in Southern Nigeria, 1900-1940

G. Ugo Nwokeji

24. The "Colonial Hangovers" and the Collapse

ofNigeria's First Republic, 1960-1966

Raphael Chijioke Njoku

Part E: Identities and Colonial Ideology

25. Beyond Those Arbitrary BordersDesire Baloubi

26. The Ekiti ofNouthern Nigeria: Boundary Adjustment

as a Solution to Unequal Status, 1901-1936

R. T Akinyele

27. The Colonial Government and the Minority Question

0/ayemi Akinwumi

389

403

423

447



211. Nigma-Equatorial Guinea Relations Since 1927:

A Critique of the HistoriographyE ~ . : : e r (>bodlrf

575

29. Impact of Islam on Women in Hausaland and

Northern Nigeria

Par Jf"illiams591

30. Gender and Peasant Resistance: Recasting the Myth

of the lnYisible Woman in Colonial Eastern Nigeria,

1925-1945

Chima J Korieh 623

31. ~ M c C a r t h y i s m " in Colonial Nigeria: The Ban on the

Employment of Communists

Hakeem Tijani 647

Notes on Contributors 669

Index 677



30

GENDER AND PEASANT RESISTANCE:

RECASTING THE MYTH OF THE INVISIBLE

WOMAN IN COLONIAL EASTERN NIGERIA1925-1945

Chima J. Korieh

INTRODUCTION

lmperial historiography has largely neglected the participation

of African women in formal resistance movements during the

colonial period as well as the gender implications of the colonial en-

terprise as a whole. The omission of women's participation in thesemovements casts these actions as a struggle mostly between African

men and European men. Unlike many parts of Nigeria, however,

women's experiences in colonial Eastern Nigerian has received sig-

nificant attention.1

This chapter, however, seeks to offer some revi-

sionist view on the nature of the colonial enterprise in Eastern Nige-

ria and the form of historiography it has generated by revisiting the

1929 Women's Revolt against the colonial authority.! will first ex-

amine the political and economic position of women in the colonialcontext. This is followed by a review of women's resistance to colo-

nial domination. I will then assess the ideological implication of the

British response to the Women's Revolts in Eastern Nigeria. The

analysis provides a framework within which to explore the multiple

causes of these revolts and to contest the dominant political interpre-

tation of the events leading to the 1929 Women's Revolt in particu-

lar, by emphasizing the economic roots of this revolt. The chapterchallenges the dominant feminist interpretations of the 1929



624 The Foundations of Nigeria

Women's Revolt in particular by emphasizing its root in the peasant

economy. I argue that the reaction of the women of Eastern Nigeria

in 1929 displayed their independent spirit, their intellectual ability to

articulate their demands at an important historical moment, and their

ability. as peasants to challenge the hegemony of the colonial state.

But the women were not fighting for gender equality or for the interest of their own sex; they were leading a popular movement that

prm-;ded the driving force for economic and political change. Addi

tionally, if the various revolts in Eastern Nigeria are examined as

peasant revolts, we can gain insight into the British colonial percep

tion of the local economy in this period, their perception of women

as invisible, and how women challenged such economic and gender

ideology.

WOMEN IN THE COLONIAL CONTEXT

Social and feminist historians of late have enhanced our under

standing ofthe impacts of colonialism on women. As many scholars

have shown. theories of colonialism relate a "dialectical world of the

colonizer ~ d the colonized that is often presumed as male."2

Oye

wumi argues that while it is not difficult to sustain the idea that "the

colonizer was predominantly male, the idea that the colonized was

uniformly male is less so."3 British colonial officials had a universal

patriarchal ideology which created new institutions based on Euro

pean notions of gender in the colonies. Their failure to recognize

existing local institutions transformed the roles women and men had

previously played in society and show the lack of "fit" between co

lonial ideological perceptions and African realities. As Annie Lebeuf

argues:

[By a] habit of thought deeply rooted in the Westernmind, women are relegated to the sphere of domestictasks and private life, and men alone are considered equalto the task of shouldering the burden of public affairs

4

Lebeuf calls for a broader perspective that allows for the under

standing of the manner in which activities are shared between men

and women, particularly in Africa.5 Sylvia Leith-Ross's classic, Afri-

can Women, was the first major attempt to study the Igbo women of

Eastern Nigeria. The major aim of the project was to understand "the

conditions of life of the women of Igboland."6This attempt was

made after women in Eastern Nigeria carried out mass demonstra

tions, revolts, and open confrontation against the British colonial



Gender and Peasant Resistance 625

government in the 1929 Women's Revolt. Since the event in 1929,

lgbo women in particular became the focus of many historical and

feminist studies.7

Indeed, the role of Igbo women has been used to

critique what Chandra Talpade Mohanty calls "the production of

'Third World' women as a homogenous, powerless group of victims

in Western feminist discourse, robbing them of agency and historywhile sustaining the idea of the superiority of the West."8 Thus, any

attempt to place women's political and economic participation in

relation to the histories of imperialism entails the adoption of a criti

cal perspective on Western notions of women's subjectivity, espe

cially in the colonial context.

For the societies in Eastern Nigeria, women's responsibilities

and participation in the traditional sociopolitical and economic froc

esses can be examined in terms of both "structures and values." TheIgbo, for example, offer perhaps the most illustrative example of

women's participation in the political, social and economic lives of

their communities in pre-colonial times. The roles that women play

challenge the patriarchal representation of lgbo culture. In the for

ward to African Women, Fredrick Lugard, the first governor-general

of Nigeria, described the Igbo woman of Eastern Nigeria in particu

lar as "ambitious, courageous, self-reliant, hardworking, and inde

pendent, who claims full equality with the opposite sex and wouldseem indeed to be the dominant partner." 10 Leith-Ross described

lgbo women as "economically and politically equals of the men."11

Women in Nigeria, according to Leith-Ross, "are seldom of the chat

tel type and correspond little to the widely held idea of the down

trodden slave as unregarded beast of burdens." For Igb<1 women in

particular, Leith-Ross observed that their number, their industry,

their ambitions, their independence, would enable t h ~ m to play. a

leading role in the development of their country. 12 Victor Uchendumade similar observations about the position of the Igbo woman

among other African women:

The African woman regarded as a chattel of her husband,who has made a bride wealth payment on her account is

not an lgbo woman, who enjoys a high socio-economicand legal status. She can leave her husband at will, abandon him if he becomes a thief, and summon him to a tri

bunal, where she will get fair hearing. She marries in herown right and manages her trading capital and her profitas she sees fit."




The above ,-ie\\"S show that women in Eastern Nigeria were not

only visible in both the public and private spheres, but also chal-

lenged the dominant ideology that informed colonial policies in the

region. The evidence JX>ints to the participation of women in the so-

cioJX>Iitical and economic life of the societies of Eastern Nigeria.

The socio-JX>litical structure was one in which women took an activepart in day-to-day life through various mediums and organizations

which were an integral part of community life. The nature of the in-

digenous political systems incorporated female and male roles. De-

spite women's socioJX>litical and economic autonomy in Eastern Ni-

geria, British colonial policies were based on a gender ideology that

delineated the public sphere as the arena for men and the private or

domestic arena as the proper place for women. Throughout the colo-

nial era, therefore, precolonial gender ideologies that formed theframework for JX>litical and economic organization of the colony

were grossly neglected despite the Native Authority system of ad-

ministration.14

As early as 1900, British colonial administration was effectively

established in what became Eastern Nigeria. Colonial officials drew

upon the ideological formulation of gender then current in the me-

tropolis, but they failed to realize that gender ideologies and roles

were different from what obtained in Britain. Colonial officials drewupon the ideological constructs of public and private spheres in insti-

tutionalizing the "indirect rule"15

system where African societies

were ruled through their local representatives. Women in particular

were subject to restrictions, limitations, and expectations based on

their sex. An obstacle to the institution of British indirect rule policy

in Eastern Nigeria was the vast difference in gender ideologies and

the precolonial political system which did not exclude female par-

ticipation. Another obstacle centered on a neglect of the ideology ofconsensus inherent in precolonial social and political relations in

Eastern Nigeria. The warrant chiefs were not only all males, but

were chosen without consulting the local people, an issue which

women raised very strongly in the Women's Revolt of 1929.16

In fact, British rule in Nigeria transformed the context of tradi

tional society by creating colonial institutions based on European

notions of gender which often led to new gender and class relations.

These institutions directly violated traditions and weakened thepower women held previously. The status of women throughout

much of Africa declined under colonialism, as colonial policies often

reinforced patriarchal authority.17

Considering this preconceived

gender ideology, only males were appointed as warrant chiefs to rep-




resent local communities. British officials, whose perceptions of fe-

male roles were based on their European experience, worked through

male authorities and ignored their female counterparts. 18 Only malechiefs became salaried officials among the Niger Igbo where theOmu, the female counterpart of the male Obi existed. 19

Some men participated in the local administration as interpreters, messengers, policemen, and army recruits and traders. A few

were given warrants to act as the representatives of the administra

tion in their areas, and they exercised powers which were unprece

dented in the pre-colonial system. In the colonial setting, therefore,

the imposition of a new patriarchal ideology and a Victorian uni

verse of morality came together in a collaborative hegemony which

excluded women. The position of was a peculiar one. They were, to

a large extent, an invisible factor within the new administrative arrangement. Although women were virtually excluded from the ad

ministration, they nevertheless came under the surveillance of the

colonial regime. The colonial courts interfered with women's tradi

tional judicial responsibilities. Just as the local judicial authorities

were forbidden to take punitive action on offenders, so women were

not allowed to "sit on"20

anyone or to discipline offending members

of their associations.21

The indigenous governing structure which

validated or reinforced women in ways that normalized their pres

ence in the judicial, economic, and political spheres of life were to

tally eroded. Before colonialism, Igbo men could in fact accept the

"sitting on a man" mode of conflict resolution, together with its

graphic imagery of "being sat on," because, in these communities,

women adjudicated cases, established and enforced rules and regula

tions, and worked in concert with male authorities in the administration of the community. 22

The theoretical significance of the act of "sitting on a man,"

Nzegwu argues, is that it "forcefully reveals the existence of a soci

ety in which men lacked the sort of patriarchal authority that most

ethnographic literatures present as a universal, cross-cultural condi

tion for African societies."23 She argues that from a political stand

point, "this punitive force afforded women a powerful social check

on male excesses, and ensured that women's views were adequately

factored into policy decisions."24 Since political identity was a reality

for women, and in "their eyes nwayibuife (women are of signifi

cance), there could be no shame in acknowledging and abiding by

women's regulations."25

Nevertheless, this was unacceptable to the

colonial state despite the policy of indirect rule which sought to respect indigenous political systems.



628The Foundations ofNigeria

The colonial e111 WBS also a period of fundamental chan e inlocal economy. The gradual expansion of the colonial e c o ~ o m ~ ~the begmnmg of the twent1eth cenlur)• stimulated peasant produc?t'ionof palm produce for export. The demand for 111w materials intro-duced fundamental changes in the local economy and in productionmethods. Unfortunately, w o m ~ n did not fare better economically.

The transformatiOn that came m the wake of the increased demandfor cash crops by European industries and the perception of colonialofficials that only men were farmers ensured that men took control

of cash crop production and marketing.26

The colonial development

ideology, the export potential of palm products, and the cash income

derived from sales encouraged men to participate actively in produc-

tion. The colonial government's interventionist approach created

boundaries of economic and social difference based on gender.

However, the government's agricultural and development policy, the

changes in the sexual division of labor, and control over and exploi-

tation of the local agricultural resource base did not often stimulate

increased production or revolutionize production methods. Since the

new economic structure was predicated on the patriarchal ideology

of the male farmer, the neglect of women farmers that intensified

with colonial exploitation of peasant agriculture is important in

understanding the political economy of colonialism, the impact on

women's autonomy, and the response of women in particular to the

crisis that colonial policy generated in the agricultural economy.

Nevertheless, the strategic role ofwomen as agriculturallaborers and

peasant producer subsidized the colonial state and peasant house-

hold. But the colonial authorities' development ideology, the neglect

of women farmers in particular, and colonial extraction measures,

stimulated an agricultural crisis in the region to which peasant

women responded through both peaceful and violent protests.

WOMEN AND ACTMSM

IN COLONIAL EASTERN NIGERIA

In response to the political and economic marginalization of

peasants as a result of British colonial policies in Eastern Nigeria,

peasants organized protests at different historical times. According to

Nzegwu, women increasingly organized protest rallies and picketed

the offices and residences of colonial officials to "wrest some form

of representation for themselves from the British."27

The women be-

lieved, like most colonial subjects, that they had been left out in the

new dispensation. They associated British colonialism with moral



laxity and decadence. Women also linked the decline in the worldmarket for export produce, especially palm produce, to colonial andimperial policy. Although some of the peasant resistance movementsin this period were dominated by women, men were not entirely onthe sideline.

The women's initial response was the \925 "Dance Movement"which originated in the Okigwe division of the Owerri province but

soon spread to a large portion of Igboland. The movement started asa result of a message said to have been received from God. It was"anti-Government, anti-Christian and anti-British in particular andcalled for a return to ancient customs."28 The women's demands in-cluded forbidding the use of European coins, the fixing of prices offoodstuffs in the markets, and regulating the style and quantity of

clothing worn by women.29 In Awgu division, women called for theexhortation of old customs, the exclusion of the men from cassava

farming, and the fixing of the prices of fowls, cassava, eggs, andother commodities in the market at certain rates?0 In their view, the

participation of men in the cassava trade reduced the profits the

women could make and undermined their economic independence.

Several colonial reports showed the authorities' apprehension of the

~ o m e n ' s protest and the need to stop its spread with the collabora

tion of the male warrants chiefs.31 How to stop the women's protest

was a perplexing problem. Both colonial officials and the African

warrant chiefs had firm assumptions about how women should be-have. For colonial officials, in particular, transgressing gender

boundaries was in itself seen as disruptive and unfeminine. What

both parties failed to understand was that women were particularly

affected by the political and economic transformations taking place

as a result of colonial policies.

In 192 7, another movement "The Spirit Movement" originated

among the adherents of the Kwa Ibo Mission in Uyo district. Unlike

the Dance Movement, the Spirit Movement was anti-pagan. 32 TheSpirit Movement was of a revivalist nature, affecting both men and

women, but chiefly the women. It was directed against paganism, but

later degenerated into a movement for the discovery and exorcism of

witches. In late 1929, women in Eastern Nigeria, pressured by the

economic crisis in the region, started a protest that spread throughout

most of Eastern Nigcria. 33 The low returns from palm oil and ker

nels, the general economic crisis resulting from the worldwided ~ -

pression, and the British taxation policy in the colony set off a cha.m

of events that brought the colonial administration into direct conflict

with peasant women in Eastern Nigeria. The most vocal criticism



..-.......

__ _ , - . , t

--


focused on the_ low price of produce, the high cost of imported

goods. and the m t c r f e r e ~ , c e by the produce inspectors in the agricul-tu!111 cCJmmod•tres trade:

The previous moments tested the colonial authorities but no di-

rect confrontation or articulated resistance took place until December

1929 when the Women's War occurred. In actuality, the emergence

of the Women's War was long in the making. In April I927, theBritish colonial government in Nigeria took measures to enforce the

Native Revenue (Amendment) Ordinance. A colonial resident, W. E.

Hunt was commissioned by the lieutenant governor of Nigeria to

explain the provisions and objects of the new ordinance to the people

throughout the five provinces in the Eastern Region. This was to

prepare the ground for the introduction of direct taxation due to take

effect in April 1928. Direct taxation on men was introduced in 1928

without major incidents, thanks to the careful propaganda during thepreceding twelve months. In September 1929, Captain J. Cook, an

assistant district officer, was sent to take over the Bende division

temporarily from the district officer, Mr. Weir, until the arrival of

Captain Hill from leave in November. Upon taking over, Cook found

the original nominal rolls for taxation purposes inadequate because

they did not include details of the number of wives, children, and

livestock in each household. He set about to revise the nominal roll.

This exercise was to bring the colonial authority in direct conflictwith women in Eastern Nigeria and the catalyst for fundamental

change in the local administration.

The announcement of his intent to revise the nominal roll was

made by Cook to a few chiefs in Oloko Native Court and the count-

ing began about October 14 1929. The women of Oloko suspected

that the enumeration exercise was a prelude to the extension of direct

taxation, which was imposed on the men the previous year. On De-

cember 2, 1929, more than ten thousand women demonstrated at

Oloko, Bende division against the enumeration of men, women, and

livestock by colonial officials. This event at Oloko was to spread to

most parts of the Eastern Region within the next four weeks in the

now famous Ogu Umunwanyi or Women's War of 1929. In the ensu-

ing rhetoric, the women's protest was seen as a threat to the colonial

authority and a disruption to the economic and political life of theregion.

In the meantime, about fifty to sixty women from the Bende di-vision proceeded to Port Harcourt to see the Colonial Resident, Mr.

Jngles regarding the taxation issue. The women could not see the

resident who was busy with the visiting lieutenant governor, Mr.




Alexander who was inspecting Port Harcourt. The women met withthe deputy resident, Mr. Weir. It became obvious at this meeting that

groups of women had gone to Calabar, Onitsha, and other parts of

the country, complaining of the counting of women and their prop

erty.H Although the women were assured by the deputy resident that

they would not be taxed, women throughout the Owerri and Calabarprovinces resorted to more violent measures against the visible in-

struments of the colonial authority: the chiefs and the Native Courts

in December 1929. From Oloko in Bende division, the suspicion that

women would be taxed spread through the market system and most

of Eastern Nigeria. As the Commission of Inquiry noted, "the

women of the whole Ngwa clan, at least from Bende to Owerrinta,

were in a ferment about taxation and very little was needed to bring

their nervousness and discontent to a head."36

The response of the women was a development unanticipated

by colonial authorities. Based on the experiences of the previous

year, colonial calculations erroneously assumed that local peasants

could accommodate an increased tax burden. They miscalculated. In

his testimony to the Commission of Inquiry set up by the colonial

administration to investigate the women's protest, Captain Hill, the

district officer for Bende described how more than ten thousand

women were in a frenzy, shouting and yelling and demanding thecap of office of one warrant chief, Okugo, which he threw to them.37

The cap, according to Captain Hill, "met the same fate as a fox's

carcass thrown to a park ofhounds."38 Captain Hill told the commis

sion that between his office and the prison resembled "Epson Downs

on Derby day."39

Hill noted that the pandemonium following the

women's protest was so disruptive that it took him two hours to get

the opportunity to send a wire asking for more police.40

The Commission of Inquiry condemned Hill's action of throwing Okugo's cap to the women, describing it as equal to dismissing

Okugo from his post as a member of the native court. The Commis

sion described this action as indefensible.41

For the commission, this

action was a most unfortunate surrender to the women and one that

would have far-reaching consequences as demonstrated by the nu

merous instances elsewhere in which the surrender of court mem

bers' caps was demanded and usually secured.42

Although the Com

mission of Inquiry described the incident as a surrender to mob rule,it nevertheless noted that they did not wish to be too hard on Captain

Hill because he found himself in "a hornet's nest" in an area in

which he was still new.43

The presence of his wife in a remote loca

tion, the commission argued, must have added to his a n x i e t i e s . ~ ~



632

Nevertheless. the Commission noted that the perception by thewomen that the government was beginning to be afraid of their demonstration and gradually yielding to pressure "must have been steadily grrming. and "ill undoubtedly embolden them to increase theirdemand and to go to greater and still greater length to get them satisfied."' In the Commission's view, this sense of surrender to what it

described as the mob in respect to Okugo was "the most importantcontributory factor to the spread of the disorder which followed."45

As noted earlier, the women's protests were carried out on a

scale that the colonial state had never witnessed in any part of Africa. Until the end of December 1929, when troops restored order,

ten native courts were destroyed, a number of others were damaged,

houses of native court personnel were attacked, and European facto

ries at Imo River, Aba, Mbawsi, and Amata were looted. Women

attacked prisons and released prisoners.46

But the response of the

colonial authority was also decisive. They authorities not only used

soldiers to disperse the women, they also used extra legal means to

achieve their goals. In an incident at Ikot Ekpene on 15 December

1929, colonial officials were forced to use leprosy as a weapon when

a British doctor let loose a horde of lepers on the women to disperse

them.47 By the time order was restored, about fifty-five women were

killed by the colonial troops.48 British troops left Owerri on 27 De-

cember 1929, and the last patrol in Abak Division withdrew on 9

January 1930. By 10 January 1930, the revolt was regarded as

crushed. Throughout late December 1929 and early January 1930,

more than thirty collective punishment inquiries were carried out. It

is generally believed, according to Nina Mba, that this event marked

the end of the women's activities because the new administration

under Governor Donald Cameron took into account some of the

women's recommendations in revising the structure of the Native

Administration. Thus, the Women's War is seen as the historical dividing point in British colonial administration in Nigeria with far

reaching implications.49

There is no uniform agreement on the immediate and remote

causes of the revolt. Historians and feminist scholars to date have

considered that the Women's War of 1929 was primarily inspired by

political grievances. Colonial officials and warrant chiefs were the

most overt symbol of the attack by colonialism on the local political

tradition and culture. However, the traditional interpretation fails toboth account for the agrarian roots of the revolt, the economic mo

tives, and to recognize why only women carried out the protest. Con

trary to the dominant historiography, economic rather than political



motives were paramount to these peasant women. The political and

feminist interpretations of the Women's War were by no means passive acts. They emerged partly from the concerns of nationalist historians who were interested in portraying African resistance to colonialism, and partly from feminism's attempts to use gender/women as

a u ~ c ~ u l ~ ~ t c g o r y for historical analysis and struggle within AfricanSOCiettCS.

Nzegwu, for example, argues that the Women's War was an at-tempt by the women to restore the erosion of their rights and showsthe working of a female-identified consciousness and the importanceof female solidarity.

51

Thus, Nzegwu argues that women's politicalconsciousness was directed toward the restoration of equitable gender relation that had been affected by the colonial patriarchal socialand political policies. The comparison between the "Women's War"

slogan Oha ndi inyom52

and the women's suffrage movement in Eng

land "where militant feminism committed breach of the law with a~ i e w to drawing the widest attention to what they believed to be the

mherent justice of their cause,"53 show the premium placed on the

1929 Women's War as a feminist movement.

Perham, Gailey, and Afigbo see the main causes of the

W o ~ e ~ ; s War as primarily political and only secondarily eco

nomtc. To them, the women's reaction was inevitable because the

colonial administration allowed them no other means of expressing

t?eir grievances. Perham, in particular, explains the revolt as a reaction to the "pathological condition" of the Eastern Provinces-that

is, the fact that the political system was so different from the rest of

the country that indirect rule could not succeed. She and Gailey be-

lieve that the women's exr:ression amounted to a rejection of an alien

system of administration. 5 Afigbo further argues that the Women's

War was another manifestation of the anti-colonialism expressed in

the nwobia la movement in 1925.56 According to Afigbo, "the

movement [nwobia la] was essentially anti-government ... [I]n

fighting for the old political and moral order, the women were asking

for the exodus of the British."57 In 1929, however, the women re

jected not just the system of administration but the whole colonial

order. According to Afigbo, 1929 was "the last of the conservative

revolts against the colonial regime in Nigeria."58

J. S. Coleman

places the Women's War in the context of "traditional n a t i ~ n a ~ -ism."59 Onwuteaka linked the Women's War to the system of mdtrect rule in Eastern Nigeria.

60Judith Van Alien also sees the cause of

the Women's War as primarily a political protest in which women

were using their traditional method of protest of "sitting on a man"




on a larger scale to regain the political participation they had in theprecolonial society.•1

The above commentators. however, agree that it was the wide-spread belief that women would be taxed that actually precipitated

the disturbances and the timing of the revolts.62This view does not

diminish the political weight given to the revolt. My argument is thatthe 1 9 ~ 9 Women's \\'ar \\ ' liS a peasant revolt with a primarily eco-

nomic objective, although it was dominated by women. The immedi-

ate cause of the revolt, as the Commission of Inquiry also acknowl-

edged. was the widespread belief throughout the affected areas that

the government was about to impose a tax upon women.63

The

Commission of Inquiry stated in its report that taxation, first of the

men and then the fear of it being extended to women, was the main

cause of the riots. Although women drew upon traditional forms of

political language and discourse to articulate their demands, the his-

tonography is deficient on the economic roots of the revolt. As Ste-

ven Feierman explains, "when peasants organize political move-

ments, or when they reflect on collective experience, they speak

about how politics can be ordered to bring life rather than death, to

bring prosperity rather tban hunger, and to bring justice rather than

i n e q u a l i t y . ' , & ~It is to the actions and behavior of the women that we must turn,

for the existing records are hopelessly deficient in recording their

voices, the range of their emotions, and their motives. The various

forms of resistance are a key to understanding their actions, which

also need to be more broadly understood within the context of the

exercise of colonial power but most importantly within the economic

dilemma that tbe region faced during the Great Depression of the

1920s and 30s.65

Ikodia, one of the women of Oloko, explains the

position of women:

We heard that women were being counted by their chiefs.Women became annoyed at this and decided to ask whogave the order, as they did not wish to accept it. As wewent to various markets, we asked other women whetherthey too had h e ~ d the rumor about the counting of

women. They rephed that they had heard it. We heardalso that Oloko Chiefs had counted their respectivewomen. We, women, therefore held a large meeting atwh1ch we dec1ded to wait until we heard defmitely fromone person that women were to be taxed, in which casewe would m ~ k e trouble, as we did not mind to be killedfor domg so. ·




In the commission's view, it was not the intention of the government

to impose a tax upon women in the Calabar and Owerri provinces,

but the "very action in the matter of this re-assessment pointed to

such an intension."67

Taxation for women, however, raised a very

strong moral and psychological dilemma and the women were de

termined to resist it. Enyidia of Oloko, a leader of the women'smovement, demanded to know why women should be taxed. In her

view, women are like fruit bearing and should not be counted.68 This

comparison between women and fruit-bearing trees, Afigbo argues,

"lies at the root of certain aspects of indigenous social and ethical

philosophy. Just as one cannot, in the interest of human beings, joke

with the survival of fruit-bearing trees, one could not play with the

fate of women. "69

And the Aba Commission oflnquiry concluded in

its report that the belief that women were about to be taxed was"general and women were in a ferment of apprehension."70 They al

ready bore indirectly a portion of the burden of the tax on men,

which had been introduced only a year before. For the women, that

"a tax upon themselves should be superimposed was more that theycould bear."71

Many women echoed similar sentiments. Nwakaji, a woman

from Ekweli, Oloko, asked, "how could women who have no means

themselves to buy food or clothing pay tax?"72

And Uligbo of A wonUku, Oloko, queried, "how could we pay tax? We depend upon our

husbands; we cannot buy food or clothe ourselves: how shall we get

money to pay tax?"73

To a large extent, taxation on men directly af

fected women as a result of the interrelated nature of the household

economy. Many women expressed the view that the tax on men was

already a big burden.74

A large number of women stated that men

pawned themselves or their children in order to pay government

taxes.75

The women's testimonies are important here. They speak toa historical convergence of forces which did not recognize the inter

relatedness of the household economy or the degree to which taxa

tion had eroded the dignity of many families. The fact that a man

pawned himself or his child to pay a tax further reveals the insensi

tivity of the colonial officials to the plight of the poor in the colonial

society.

The women's role in the economy enabled them to implement a

gender-specific remedy to combat the colonial state's imposition andoppression. But were they acting because they were women or in the

interest of only the women? Why were the men invisible in this pro

test? The answer to these questions lies in understanding two important factors about Eastern Nigerian societies. First, the earlier con-




nicts with the British were dominated by the men. The memories of

the Ah1ara Exped1t1on of 1905, for example, and the brutality of theBnt1sh towards the natives in Ahi8Jll were still fresh in the minds of

many in 1929. Many other communities throughout the area affectedby the Women·s War had witnessed the military force the Britishused to establish their authority. Both men and women believed that

the colonial officials would not use such force against women. Sec-ond. the uncritical presentation of the 1929 Women's War as female

reality ignores the prevailing ideology that war and violence is the

arena for men. In the attempt to push the Women's War as a feminist

political protest, there is little attempt to conceptualize the women's

action as a rural peasant protest.Evidently. the root of the Women's Revolt can also be found in

the severe economic depression of the late 1920s, characterized by

falling prices for export goods, especially palm oil and kernels. Theslump in palm produce prices coinciding with the imposition of taxa-

tion and coupled with the discontent caused by the taxation of men

helped to fuel the revolt. The Commission of Inquiry acknowledged

that women readily stated their grievances when a s ~ e d t ~ do ~ o . One

of such grievances was the low price of produce. Thts gnevance

was not an imaginary one. When the assessment of the income of

adult males was made in 1927 for the purpose of fixing the rate of

taxation, one of the principal sources of income taken into accountwas the proceeds of the sale of palm products.

77But while the prices

of export products were at their lowest, the prices of imported goods

were on the increase, a genuine complaint by the women.78

Political and social matters also featured in the women's de-

mands. The commission believed, and rightly, too, that discontent

over the "persecution, extortion and corruption by the native court

members (Warrant Chiefs) was another principal contributory cause"

of the women's discontentment.79

The women complained about theconstitution of the native court members. Women in Owerri prov-

ince, like their counterparts in other provinces, demanded that the

native court members be changed.

However, political grievances were secondary to the women's

demands. Even the demand to change the native court members was

e c o n ~ m i c in origin, and could be found in the severe economic op-

prcsston of peasants by a colonial capitalist structure. The warrant

chiefs were accused of corruption and bribery which directly si-

phoned the pockets of the rural peasants. As Nwanyeruwa of Oloko

1old the Commission of Inquiry:



Gender and Peasant Resistance

Okugo became a rich man because of the money he gotfrom us. If he had not got money from us, he would nothave been able to provide for himself On one occasion,he called both men and women together and told themthat the District Orficer had ordered that money should becollected for him to build a house. We collected 20

pounds sterling and handed it to him. He made use of themoney in conjunction with his women and did not build ahouse as he had told us he was going to do. On anotheroccasion, he told us that the District Officer had been

worrying him for a young wife [that the District Officerwanted a young wife] and that both men and women

should collect money to pay the dowry of a young wifefor the District Officer. We collected the sum of 20pounds sterling and gave it to him as a dowry for the

young woman requtred for the District Officer . . . . We

are s u r e ~ e s e three women were not given to the DistrictOfficer.

637

How to attack the native authority system was a perplexing

problem for the natives. On this question there had been no con

certed effort in the past. And it appears that the colonial authority in

Eastern Nigeria was remarkably ignorant of the level of corruption in

the native authority system. The grievances against local officialgave rise to the destruction of native courts because they were the

instruments of the government and of the local administrative sys

tem.81 There was overwhelming evidence at the Commission of In

quiry hearings regarding the "persecution, extortion, bribery and cor

ruption in the native courts.',s2

Indeed the Commission of Inquiry

concluded in its report that "although allegations of corruption and

bribery was of a general nature, we heard enough to be satisfied that

persecution by native courts members and corruption in the nativecourts are a source of very considerable discontent among the peo

ple."83 The movement finally assumed the character of a revolt

against all fonns of established authority and control.84 For the gen

erality of women, it was a reaction against the severe economic con

ditions existing in their society at this period. As a group of women

stated:

We wish relations between us and government to be as

cordial as those existing between us and the Reverend Fa-thers. If there is co-operation between us and governmentwe shaH be able to select new men to t ~ e the place of

those chtefs who have been oppressmg us.



.•lI

Tltc B ~ l \ " C stlltcn_tt."'nl u n d ~ , " o r r ~ _ m ~ ' " ~ I R i m that the \ \ 'omen's \\ 'ar

was nN ~ - e s s a n l ~ an a n t t ~ e > l < > m a l movement seeking to expel the

'"''' '"tal a u t h . . v i t ~ C " l ' N.1t a pt'&sartt ' " ' ' ' ~ m e n t or struggle against colomal exn-a.:n,,n ,,t pt'&..<Artt resoun."es and income.

l1lc ""''men's pn'f<'Sts in Eastern ~ i g e r i a continued after 1929

An,,ther SCl"ll'US pn">ll"St ....,,men over produce prices occurred

On,n. Calat>ar pnwin."e. in 1o_;3 when about fifteen hundred market""''rnl"n stag<--.l a b._,yce>n ,,f trade and hroke up surrounding markets

w enf,,n.·e the hcwe<'n. TheY demanded from the United African

C o m p a n ~ (l":\C) ~ n i n c r e a ~ in the price of palm oil.80

There was

another mass pn'fest against taxation by both women and men in

Okigwe and Bende divisions of Owerri province. This disturbance,

whi.;-h dcYeloped inte riots. spread over an area of more than five

hundred square miles.8• There was also a mass protest against market

cen!J\.'1 offcx'<l items in the local market in 1944 as a result of World

War I!. The protest centered mainly on the imposition of government

price cvntrol on the cost of garri (cassava flour), which was con-

trolled by women. In actuality, the various protests were a reaction to

the economic crisis in the !U1'111 economy. But the domination of

these protests by women raised a serious ideological dilemma for the

British administration regarding appropriate gender roles and the

women's response to their invisibility under colonialism.

COLONIAL IDEOLOGY,WOMEN'S

RESISTANCE, AND REPRESENTATIONS

Oyewumi has argued that the gender identity of the colonizers

is important in understanding how colonialism affected males and

females. Colonial policies and practices were largely shaped by cer-

tain ideologies and values which influenced the behavior of the

colonizer and the system of colonial domination.88

Colonial gender

ideology and perceptions of what women could do informed the way

the event of 1929 was presented in the commission's report. Colonial

observers distorted the women's participation in the uprising. "Riot,"

the term used by the British, V an Alien argues "conveys a picture of

uncontrolled, irrational action, involving violence to property or per-

son or both." 'Aba Riots,' neatly removed women fiom the picture

while "Women's War" conveys an action bl women and an elaborate

application of the act of "sitting on men."8

Indeed, the British adap-

tation of the term "Aba Riots" to describe the women's revolt instead

of the "Women's War'' as the women called it was an attempt to be-

linle women's opposition to the colonial state structure and put



"'''""'" in their "proper place." The colonial reports and inquiries

1,JI,ml·d this pallcm. a glaring example of the misrepresentation of

thl' "'''men· s goals and ideology.l'n understand onicial Rrilish position, however, one needs to

''"'"-closely at the reports of the Commission of Inquiry and the tes-timony of many colonial officials. The commission held public sit-

tings for thirty-eight days at various locations in the Owcrri and

Calabar Provinces and interviewed 485 witnesses. Of this total num-ber of witnesses, only about I 03 were women. The rest consisted of

local men and British administrative officials who were either called

to explain their role in the revolt or why they could not stop the

women. The commission was continuously looking for the men be-

hind the scene or the instigator of the women.9Q The residents of the

Calabar and Owerri provinces, to mention a few, were of the opinion

that men were behind the women's movement. Mr. Falk suggested,

with regard to the burning of the Utu Etim Ekpo and Ika NativeCourts by the women, that the real conspirators were the men who

remained outwardly disinterested and used the women as a eat's

paw.91

Mr. Ingles went further and said that in his "opinion the trou

ble was engineered by agitators outside the Province who had pre-

pared a very efficient and thorough organization which only awaited

a pretext for the machinery to be put in motion."92 The efficiency of

the women's organization persuaded Mr. Weir ofOkigwe division in

theOwerri province

that there must have been a "master mind" atthe back of the movement.93 Mr. Hughes was convinced that the

men who were equally dissatisfied encouraged or at least did "noth

ing to discourage the women in their lawless behavior,"94

while Mr.

Jackson considered that following the rumor that women were to be

taxed, "there was seditious agitation among the men to induce the

women to demonstrate against the Native Court system."95

Although some residents had reservations regarding men's im-

plication in the revolt, the report reveals a general f e e l i ~ g that even .if

the men were not behind the movement, they did nothmg to stop tt.

Mr. Cochrane, however, thought that the movement was organized

entirely by women.96 This sentiment was supported by the testimony

of Akulechula of Obowo, a female witness, and perhaps summed up

by the views of many women:

I t has been suggested here that men encouraged women tomove about. I deny that statement; it is not true. We werenot encouraged by men . . . It is against the native custom

for women to leave their houses without the permission oftheir husbands but in this case, men had been made to pay



640 The Founaauuuo:. ...... · -eo

tax and the rurnor that women were going to be taxed wasspread around. Women became infuriated because they

had already felt the burdens of the tax on men ... We

acted according to our own conscience . . . there is no law

made by men that women should not move about. The

matter did not concern men.97

And another woman, Ada of Ihitte Ngor in Owerri division, said

"men are ignorant of what we are doing. They did not support us.,.8These statements were supported by the testimonies of several other

women in the "Collective Punishment Inquiries" hearings. The evi

dence suggests that women acted independently. It seems that

women, for the most part, accommodated the colonial state and their

African agents because their former policies had not touched directly

on women's traditional rights although they were undermined. It ap

pears also that the woman's reaction and protests w e r ~ delayed so

long because of the collaborative nature of the colomal state and

some African men. Women must have seen the regime mostly from

the eyes of the native collaborators-the Native Court members and

warrant chiefs. But the situation that confronted the women in 1929

was one that called upon the assertion of their right to contribute to

community life and the threat that the colonial economic and politi

cal structures posed to their autonomy.

Again, believing the historiography to be deficient and being

uncertain if the incident in the Igbo and Ibibio lands in 1929 consti

tuted a riot, a revolt, an uprising, or a rebellion, I believe the term

"Women's War" is most appropriate. The uprising was a revolt and

not a riot because it had some degree of planning and organization.99

The Women's War had national significance because it was more

widespread geographically than the word "Aba" which localizes the

women's resistance. The Women's War had a clear ideology whichchallenged the entire edifice of the colonial state structure and led to

major administrative reforms in native administration. The term

"Women's War" also places women at the center of the revolt.

CONCLUSION

The historical importance of the Women's War is not confined

to the ability of the women of Eastern Nigeria to challenge their invisibility in the colonial context. Rather it reveals that their revolt

must be understood as a struggle between local peasants and British

~ d m i n i s t r a t o r s , and between peasants, indigenous official over both

he- ideology and economic practice of colonialism. The events lead-




ing to the 1929 Women's Revolts in Eastern Nigeria demonstratesthat assessments of resistance to colonialism and British gender ideology are inadequate without examining the link between the capitalist nature of the colonial economy and the economic roots of

women's agitation. Both colonialism and the commercialization of

agriculture speeded up the rate of social and economic change. Although opportunities for women remained limited, the evidence doesnot support the 1929 Women's Revolt as a feminist movement. The

women's domination of the peasant resistance could be analyzed as a

marker of their important roles in the economy in general and the

agricultural sector in particular. However, the women protested

a g a i ~ s t market regulations and price controls, and demanded eco

nomic autonomy not because they were fighting for women. Their

engagements are a reflection of the crisis in the agrarian economy of

thei_r society and the marginalization of local people in the colonialSOCiety.

NOTES

There are a number of studies on women in Eastern Nigeria in general

and lgbo women in particular. See, for example, Nina Mba, Nigerian

Women Mobilized: Women's Political Activity in Southern Nigeria,

1900-1965 (Berkeley: University of California, 1982) and "Heroinesof the Women's War," in Nigerian Women in Historical Perspectives

ed. Bolanle Awe (Ibadan: Sankare/Bookcraft, 1992), 75-88; Sylvia

Leith-Ross, African Women: A Study of the Ibo ofNigeria (London:

Routledge and K. Paul, 1965); Adiele E. Afigbo, "Revolution and Re-

action in Eastern Nigeria: 1900-1929 (Background to the Women's

Riot of 1929.)" Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 3, no. 3

(December 1966): 539-57; Ekwere Akpan and Violena Ekpo, The

Women's War of 1929: Preliminary Study (Calabar: Government

Printer, 1988); Ardener Shirley, "Sexual Insult and Female Mili

tancy," Man 8 ( 1973): 422-40; Ifeka Caroline, "The Self viewed from

'Within' or 'Without' Twist and Turn in Gender Identity in a Patrilin

eal Society," Mankind 13, 5 (1982): 401-415; Ifeka-Moller Caroline,

"Female Militancy and Colonial Revolt: The Women's War of 1929,"

in Perceiving Women ed. Shirly Ardener (New York: John Wiley,

1975), 127-57.

Mainstream colonial policies generally ignored the complexity of the

local sociopolitical and economic life of colonized peoples. The belief

that men were the only means through whom economic and social de

velopments could be implemented in the colonial context presents a

framework within which the gendered nature of colonial policy could

be assessed. For a review essay on this subject, see Malia B. Formes.



"Beyond Comp'.idty ~ ~ r . > u s Resistance: Recent Work on Gender andEuropean 1mpenahsm. Journal ofSocial History· (Spring 1995): 629.641. For an overview. see also Oyeronke Oyewumi, The Jrrvention of

Women: Mahng an African Sense of Western Gender Discourse(MinneJ!jXl1is: Univer.>ity of Minnesota Press, 1997), 121; He1en Ca1-

1away. Gender. C"lture and Empire: European Women in Colonial

Nigeria (Urbana: Uni\·er.;ity of Illinois. 1987); and Nupur Chaudhuriand Margaret Strobe!. eels. Western Women and Imperialism: Com

plicity and Resistance (B1oomington, IN: Indiana University Press,

1992).Oyewumi, The /m-ention of Women, 121. See also Chima J. Korieh,"The Imisible Farmer' Women, Gender, and Colonial AgriculturalPolicy in the lgbo Region of Nigeria, C. 1913-1954," African Eco

nomic Historr 29 (2001): 1-37 (forthcoming).Annie L e b e ~ f , "The Role of Women in the Political Organization of

African Societies.'' in Women of Tropical Africa, ed. Denise Paulme

(Berkeley: Universityof

California Press, 1963), 93.Ibid.Leith-Ross, forward to, African Women, 5. .See Tamale Sylvia, "Taking the Beast by Its Horns: Formal Reststance

to Women's Oppression in Africa," African D ~ e l o p m e n t 21, no 4

(1996): 5-21; Van Alien Judith, '"Aba Riots' or Igbo ' W o m . ~ n ~ sWar?' Ideology, Stratification, and the Invisibility of Women, m

Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change, ed. Nancy

J. Hafkin and Edna G. Bay (Stanford: Stanford University Press,

1976); Ward Kathryn, "Female Resistance to Marginalization: Thelgbo Women's War of 1929," in Racism, Sexism, and the World Sys-

tem, ed. Joan Smith (Greenwood, 1988); Wipper Audrey, "Riot and

Rebellion Among African Women: Three Examples of Women's Po

litical Clout," in Perspectives on Power: Women in Africa, Asia, and

Latin America, ed. Jean O'Barr (Durham, NC.: Duke University Cen

tre for International Studies, 1982), 50-72.

See C. T. Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and

Colonial Discourse," in Third World Women and the Politics ofFemi-nism, ed. Chandra T. Mohanty, Ann Russo and Lourdes Torres

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991 ), 51-80. Cited in Clare

Midgley, "Anti-Slavery and the Tools of 'Imperial Feminism,"' in

Gender and Imperialism, ed. Clare Midgley (Manchester UniversityPress, 1998).

Ibid., 62.

Leith-Ross, African Women, 19.

Ibid.

/bid ' 19-20.

Victor Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria (New York: HoltRineha.rt & Winston Inc., 1965), 87. '




14 The tern1 "Native Administration" refers to the policy adopted by the

British in administering colonial territories through their local repre

sentatives. In Eastern Nigeria, it involved the appointment of the so

called warrant chiefs under the Native Authority system.

15

Sec Adiele E. Afigbo, The Warrant Chiefs: Indirect Rulein

SouthEastern Nigeria, 1891-1929 (London: Longman, 1972).See also C. K.

Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe: A Study in Indirect

Rule (London: Oxford University Press, 1937).

16 Commission of Inquiry, 100.

17 For investigations of this issue, see, for example, Jane Parpat,

"Women and the State in Africa" in The Precarious Balance: State

and Society in Africa, ed. Donald Rothchild and Naomi Chazan

(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988), 208-15; Jane Parpat and

Kathleen A. Staudt eds., Women and the State in Africa (Boulder,Colo.: Lynn R.ienner Publishers, 1989); Hafkin and Bay eds., Women

in Africa; Claire Robertson and Iris Berger, Women and Class in Af

rica (New York: Africana Publishing Co., 1986).

18 See Afigbo, The Warrant Chieft.

19 Ibid., 55. See also, Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized, 140.

20 "To sit on" is used by Igbo women to expression their grievance. It

involves collective public demonstrations, ridicule, satirical singing,

dancing, and group strikes. In the case of the Women's Revolt,

women demanded the caps of the warrant chiefs, the symbol of their

authority. See Judith Van Alien, "Sitting on a Man: Colonialism and

the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women," Canadian Journal of

African Studies 6, no. 2 (I 972), for further explanation on the act of

"sitting on a man".

21 Mba, "Heroines ofthe Women's War," 77.

22 N. Nzegwu, "Confronting Racism: Towards the Formation of a Fe

male-Identified Alliance," Canadian Journal of Women and the Law

7, no. I (1994): 26-27.23 Ibid. See also Richard Henderson, The King in Every Man: Evolution

ary Trend in Onitsha Igbo Society (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 1972); Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere,

(eds.), Women, Culture, and Society (Stanford: Stanford University

Press, 1974). The central theme of Rosaldo and Lamphere's book is

the universal domination of women by men.

24 Nzegwu, "Confronting Racism," 26.

25 Barbara Roger, The Domestication of Women: Discrimination in De

veloping Societies (London: Tavistock, 1980), 29-33. Cited in

Nzegwu, "Confronting Racism," 27.

26 The problem of gender and the economic transformation in the context

of the commercialization of agriculture and the European colonial and

economic policies in many parts of Africa has yet to receive the atten

tion it deserves. For the Ngwa area of Eastern Nigeria, see, for exam-



pie: Susan Manin, "Gender and Innovation, Cooking and Palm Processmg_ m Ngwa Reg1on of Southeastern Nigeria 1900-1930," Journal

ofAfrrcan History' 25 (1984): 411-27; and "Slaves, Igbo Women and

Oil Palm'" in From Slave Trade to Legitimate Commerce: The Com-

mercial Transition in NineteenJh Century West Africa, ed. Robin Law

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1995). See also, Korieh,

"The Invisible Farmer?" 1-37.27 Nzegwu, "Confronting Racism: Towards the Formation of a Female

Identified Alliance," Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 7, no.

I (1994). 15-33.28 National Archives Enugu, Nigeria (hereafter NAE) File no. 62/1925

AWDIST-2/1/57 and File no. 39111925 OMPROF 7/12/92, "Report

on Women's Disturbances." See also Report of he Commission o f In-

quiry AppoinJed to Inquire into the Disturbances in the Calabar and

Owerri Provinces (Aba Commission of Inquiry) (Lagos: Government

Printer, 1930), Appendix I l l (I): 11-12. (Hereafter, Commission of In-

qui1J').See also

Report of the Aba Commission o f Inquiry Notes of

Evidence (Lagos: Government Printer, I 930). (Hereafter, Notes of

Evidence).

29 Korieh "The Invisible Farmer?" 1-37.30 NAE File no. 6211925, AWDIST 211/57; and NAE File no. 391/1925

OMPROF 7/12/92. See also Korieh, "The Invisible Fanner?" 1-37.

31 Ibid.32 The colonial government took action to stop the movement for what it

regarded as "atrocities committed by members of the movement." See

Commission ofInquiry, I9.33 Korieh, "The Invisible Farmer?" 1-37.

34 Ibid.

35 Commission of nquiry, \8.

36 Ibid., 13.

37 Under the British administrative policy in Eastern Nigeria, certain

individuals were given authority to act as local representatives of the

colonial administration. The warrant chiefs, as they were called, were

given red caps which represented their office and symbol of authority.

For more on the ideology of indirect rule, see Fredrick Lugard, The

Dual Mandate in Tropical Africa (London: W. Black wood, I 926). For

its application in Eastern Nigeria, see Afigbo, The Warrant Chiefs.

38 Captain Hill's testimony to the Commission of Inquiry regarding the

demonstration by women at Oloko. Commission of Inquiry, 15, Notes

ofEvrdence, 143.

39 Ibid.

40 !bid

41 Ibid.

42 !bid

43 !bid



en er an easan es s ance

44Ibid.

45Ibid.

46Ibid. See also Commission of Inquiry,


48 Commission of Inquiry.

49 The Commission of Inquiry recommended reforms of the Native Ad-ministration system and a review of the taxation system. Mba, Nige-

rian Women Mobilized, 94.

50 See, for example, Ifeka-Moller, Caroline "Female Militancy and Co-

lonial Revolt: The Women's War of 1929, Eastern Nigeria" in Shirley

Ardener (ed.), Perceiving Women (New York: John Wiley & Sons,1975), 128-132.


52 Literally, this means a "gathering of all women." The women used it

in this context to identify themselves both as individuals and as agroup, showing the solidarity which united both lgbo and non-Igbo

women during the revolt.


54 See for example, M. Perham, Native Administration in Nigeria (Lon

don, Oxford University Press, 1937), 214; H. A. Gailey, The Road to

Aba: A Study of British Administrative Policy in Eastern Nigeria

(London: London University Press, 1970); and Afigbo, "Revolution

and Reaction." For feminist perspectives, see for example, RogersSusan, "Anti-Colonial Protest in Africa: A Female Strategy Reconsid

ered," Heresies 9, no. 3 (1980): 22-25.

55 Afigbo, "Revolution and Reaction," 554.

56 Nwobia la literally means stranger/visitor go. This is otherwise known

as the "Dance Movement." See also Hanna Judith Lynne, "Dance,

Protest, and Women's Wars: Cases from Nigeria and the United

States, in Women and Social Protest, ed. Guida West and Rhoda Lois

Blurnberg (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, 333-45.

57 Afigbo, "Revolution and Reaction," 554.58 Ibid.

59 James S. Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1960).

60 U. C. Onwuteaka, "The Aba Riot of 1929 and Its Relation to the Sys

tem of 'Indirect Rule."' Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social

Studies 7 ( 1965): 273-82.

61 See Judith Van Alien, "Sitting on a Man," for further explanation of

the act of"sitting on a man."62 Mba, Nigerian Women, 78.

63 Commission of Inquiry, 93.

64 Steven Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in

Tanzania (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press.1990), 3.




65 Few scholar.; have analyzed the "Notes of Evidence" collected by theCommission of Inquiry which. to a large extent, gave the women

voices and otters a different per.;pective into the causes of the revolt.

66 Commissionof/nquiry·, 12.

67 Ibid.

68 See. !l'otes o fE••idence.69 Afigbo, "Re-volution and Reaction in Eastern Nigeria."

70 Commission ofInquiry, 93.

71 Ibid.

72 Ibid . 12

73 Ibid.74 Commission of Inquiry, 96.

75 Ibid.

76 Ibid., 103.

77 Ibid.78 Ibid.

79 Ibid.

80 Notes ofEvidence, 24-30.

81 Ibid., 98.

82 Ibid. - -83 !bid The evidence by administrative officers, police officers, miSSIOn-

a r i e ~ and others of many years' experience in the area indicate that

locai officials were very corrupt. This was not an issue for ~ o m e nalone. Many male witnesses strongly raised the issue of corruptiOn by

the native courts and warrant chiefs.

84 Commission ofInquiry, 263.

85 Ibid., 57.

86 Mba, Nigeria Women, 47.

87 Ibid., 98.

88 Oyewumi, The Invention ofWomen, 123.

89 Van Alien, '"Aba Riot' or 'lgbo Women's War?'"

90See, Commission ofInquiry, !05.91 Commission of nquiry, Appendix iv (2) (31) 2.

92 Ibid., 105.

93 Ibid.

94 Ibid., district officer for ltu.

95 Ibid., district officer for Aba.

96 Ibid., district officer for Ahoda.

97 Commission of nquiry, 105.

98 Ibid.

99 Women met in several places throughout the Eastern region, met with

the colonial official, made representations to native chiefs and coordi-

nated their action far and wide. For women's initial plans of action,

Documents

Korieh, Chima J. „Gender and Peasant REsistance: Recasting the Myth of the Invisible Women in Colonial Eastern Nigeria, 1925-1945“. The Foundations of Nigeria: Essays in Honor