Loot.
In a quiet corner of the British Museum, two flights of stairs underneath the Rapa Nui moai that thrones above the Sainsbury Gallery, is the legacy of a forgotten kingdom.
The Benin collection fills a large room, white walls and wood floor. It’s unusually quiet there, for few visitors venture in what, effectively, is a basement cul-de-sac. And that’s a shame, because the art on display in Room 25 is worthy of a much grander stage.
There are long swords with blades moulded in the shape of sinuous flames. There are life-size bronze replicas of men and women’s heads, replete with intricate ornaments worthy of a sci-fi film. There are brass cheetahs and cockerels and even a statuette depicting a Portuguese soldier sporting full armour, arquebus, and a neatly trimmed Van Dyke.
But the real pièce de resistance, if you will, is on the far wall of the room. Fifty-six bronze plaques of astounding beauty and detail. There are kings and queens flanked by servants; then there are knights on horsebacks, soldiers brandishing weapons, men offering food and people holding hands. The details, the care, are exquisite. One can count the toes of every barefoot figure, see the creases in the royal robes or follow the geometric patterns woven into the characters’ clothes. There are nipples, belly buttons, bulging muscles tensing under the skin.
To gaze at these tiny figurines moulded into bronze is to catch a glimpse into a world that none of us has ever studied at school, a culture that rises in the face of the trope that characterised Africa as terra nullius ripe for conquest.
These are the Benin Bronzes and, to keep it simple, they are war loot.
In the beginning it was Igodomigodo. Such was the name of a kingdom that appeared on the sweltering coasts of the Gulf of Guinea, west of today’s Lagos. Led by deified rulers known as the Oba the kingdom grew until it controlled much of what today is Nigeria’s coast. The Benin empire, as it was to be called, was a complex society with intricate social rules, a crowded pantheon of deities and an enigmatic network of earthen mounds that some researchers think longer than the Great Wall of China.
Benin met the Age of Discovery face on. The Oba traded with every European power that dropped anchor along his coasts: first the Portuguese, then the French and then with the Dutch potentate known as the West India Company. Beninese traders exchanged spices, wood, cloth, and the slaves they captured from neighbouring states for European goods, including guns. A treaty signed in 1715 between the Dutch and Benin hinted at a relationship that was, by far and large, mutually beneficial. From his side, the Oba agreed to build and maintain some trading infrastructure, while the Dutch promised to respect the royal monopoly on certain products, while also swearing not to shoot any rival Portuguese trader they might run into while in Benin.
Things changed as the Dutch star waned and Britain’s rose in the colonial firmament. The British wanted control, not trade, and Benin was fast becoming one of the few corners of Africa not yet colonised. In 1892 the Brits succeeded in getting the Oba to agree to a protectorate treaty that smelt a lot like a capitulation.
The Oba accepted Queen Victoria’s “favour and protection”, in exchange for which he relinquished any judicial authority on British citizens in Benin, gave full access to missionaries and, dulcis in fundo, promised to follow Britain’s advice on “any matter related to the general progress of civilisation”.
The Oba gave the treaty the same level of attention we all grant to those publicity flyers we find stuffed in our mailboxes, and it wasn’t long before things came to a head. The Consul-General for the Niger Coast Protectorate decided to get rid of the Oba and plotted an invasion of Benin. The expedition, he calculated, could be repaid simply by seizing the ivory in the Oba’s palace. He was so sure of the outcome that he didn’t even bother waiting for approval from London and set off with 250 men at the tail end of 1896. Much to his surprise, however, his column was ambushed, with only two officers surviving the onslaught.
Now Britain wanted blood. A punitive mission set off the next year, with 1,200 Marines and gunboats. In ten days of fighting they occupied the capital, suffering a grand total of eight casualties; the tally of Beninese dead was, and is, unknown. The public at home was fed lurid stories of barbarism and human sacrifices, while the indiscriminate shelling of civilians and gang-rapes were glossed over (the commander of the expeditionary force was eventually forced to retire). Once in Benin City, the capital of the empire, the Marines ran amok. The city was ‘accidentally’ set on fire and the Oba’s palace so thoroughly ransacked that the Admiralty was left with 2,500 artefacts and pieces of ivory, much of which it sold at auction in London. What remains today is here, in room 25 under the Sainsbury Gallery of the British Museum.
As it often is the case for anything built of and made by man, the British Museum is not without blemishes. The Moai standing to attention above room 25 was unceremoniously pilfered from Rapa Nui, to say nothing of the Parthenon friezes. The Sackler family, whose Oxycontin brought so much grief to America, can still associate their names to a collection of Mesopotamian artefact instead of being considered as a gringo Medellin cartel. But I daresay that, even against such a backdrop of human fallacies, the story of the Benin Bronzes is egregiously stinky.
What’s more, the violence associated with the arrival of the Bronzes to these shores still seem to pour out of the plaques. As we looked at the artefacts, we couldn’t help but noticing how their edges were frayed. We saw what seemed torn rivets, bent metal and the cuts left by tools as the Marines yanked the plaques off Benin’s walls.
The British Museum doesn’t shy away from the story of the Bronzes’ arrival. Yet, its response to multiple calls for repatriation is a masterclass in evasiveness: a few lines of waffling in the best Hugh Grant style ending with a generic promise to look into the possibility of a permanent exhibition in Nigeria with some participation from the Museum’s collections.
Sodden by a persistent rain, its forecourt deserted, the neoclassical façade of the Museum looked rather forlorn as we left. I surprised myself by feeling a sudden surge of sympathy for the old gal: like an ageing uncle at a family dinner, the Museum was finding itself increasingly at odds with the new ‘woke’ zeitgeist. It’s hard, I thought, to be a Victorian institute dedicated to human history and art in the time that has given us cultural appropriation.
At the same time, denying the past doesn’t work either. Feigning irritation at the act of remembering past wrongs is a hit with the readers of the Telegraph or the audience of Fox News, but I think we can all agree that it isn’t the healthiest way to face reality.
The past is past, and no amount of goodwill can expunge the wrongs of the Punitive expedition of 1897; the only way forward, I think, is to learn from it. If the past was built on predation, deceit and exploitation, why not basing our future on fairness? Instead of a monumental amount of hot air and dithering, why doesn’t the British Museum do the honourable thing and returns the whole lot of the Benin Bronzes to their home country?
The counterargument, of course, is that the Museum would find itself with an empty room, and visitors without the Bronzes to admire. And while both points are true, they needn’t be the end of the story. Besides the fact that there are thousands of objects not on display in the Museum’s vaults, there are many ways with which the institution could showcase Beninese art. They could get it on loan; make copies; or even purchase it – legally, obviously – from Nigeria.
I, for one would love to carry on visiting the British Museum in the future, marvelling at the finest art ever produced by our species, knowing that none of it has been looted, stolen, pilfered or nicked from their legitimate owners.
