The Dynamics of Intergroup Relations in Pre-Colonial Nigeria up to 1800: A Reappraisal of a Lopsided Historiography

Abstract

Since the inception of intergroup relations as a recent theme in African and Nigerian historiography, most pioneer scholars who stimulated interest in the field would appear to have circumvented its political angle. In the study of inter-group relations, thus far historians have been extremely wary about venturing into direct discussion of political relations between groups, in the period before 1800. They rather concentrate their focus on the analysis of its form, pattern and content as well as the ways and manner it manifests between groups, creating thereby the impression that it is in the economic sphere that inter-group relations can be most meaningfully studied. The aim of this essay therefore is to reappraise the dynamics of intergroup relations within the context of political relations as against the preponderant economic theme that had hitherto held sway to balance the historiography of Nigerian precolonial intergroup relations.