The Kingdom Behind Glass

Summary

Throughline: The Kingdom Behind Glass
Host/Author: NPR
Release Date: January 30, 2025

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Overview

In the episode titled "The Kingdom Behind Glass," NPR's Throughline delves into the intricate history of the Benin Kingdom, its cultural zenith, the tumultuous clash with British colonial forces, and the enduring legacy of the looted Benin Bronzes. Central to the narrative is the personal journey of Ore Ogunbi, a Cambridge student, whose discovery of a Benin bronze rooster ignites a movement for repatriation of cultural artifacts. This summary captures the key discussions, insights, and conclusions presented throughout the episode.

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1. The Benin Kingdom: A Flourishing Civilization

The Benin Kingdom, located in present-day southern Nigeria, thrived from the 15th to the 19th centuries. Renowned for its advanced engineering, vibrant markets, and sophisticated governance, Benin was a beacon of African civilization.

• Wando Achebe, the Jack and Margaret Sweet Endowed Professor of History at Michigan State University, states:
  “[Benin] was nothing short of a marvel. It was very vibrant and dynamic... It had street lighting, these large metal lamps filled with palm oil, which illuminated the streets at night” [10:01].

Benin's capital, Benin City, was a technological marvel with features such as an underground drainage system and extensive earthwork walls spanning over 10,000 miles, surpassing even the Great Wall of China in length. These walls were not merely defensive structures but also symbols of the kingdom's engineering prowess and authority [11:27].

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2. British Colonialism and the Punitive Expedition

The late 19th century marked increased British interest in West Africa's resources, particularly rubber and palm oil, essential for Europe's industrial growth. This period saw escalating tensions between the British Empire and the Benin Kingdom over trade control.

• Wando Achebe explains:
  “With the introduction of the pneumatic tire by J.B. Dunlop in 1888, rubber became a critical raw material... Benin had vast rubber forests” [17:05].

In 1892, a contentious treaty was proposed by the British, which many historians believe undermined Benin's sovereignty by mandating the Oba (king) to consult with British authorities on governance matters [18:07]. This treaty sowed the seeds of conflict, as the Oba sought to maintain control over trade despite British objections [19:33].

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3. The Ambush and the Punitive Expedition

In January 1897, James Phillips, the acting British Consul, led an expedition to depose the Oba of Benin. Ignoring cultural protocols, Phillips proceeded to Benin City, resulting in an ambush that decimated his party and escalated tensions.

• Lawrence Wu narrates:
  “Phillips does not survive. Phillips is killed... It was carnage” [29:01].

The British response was swift and brutal. Labeling Benin City the "City of Blood" based on sensationalist media reports depicting human sacrifices, the British amassed a formidable military force equipped with advanced weaponry, including Maxim guns and artillery [30:32].

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4. Looting of the Benin Bronzes

The British punitive expedition culminated in the sacking of Benin City on February 18, 1897. British forces looted over 4,000 artifacts, including brass plaques, ivory carvings, and ceremonial regalia, now collectively known as the Benin Bronzes.

• Sanjay, Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, reflects:
  “They were bought up in Berlin, in London, in Oxford, and were being put on display... This is a dead culture” [39:11].

These artifacts were dispersed globally, finding homes in prestigious museums and private collections. Notably, the British Museum holds the largest collection with approximately 700 pieces [39:52].

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5. The Rooster Statue at Cambridge and Repatriation Efforts

Ore Ogunbi's discovery of a Benin bronze rooster at Jesus College, Cambridge, served as a catalyst for contemporary repatriation movements. Despite initial resistance, persistent advocacy by Ore and her peers led to the statue’s eventual return to Nigeria in 2019.

• Ore Ogunbi shares:
  “This isn't just a pretty thing to sit on a shelf... It is all those things” [50:37].

The return of the rooster statue marked the first institutional repatriation of its kind, inspiring other institutions and museums worldwide to reconsider the rightful ownership of looted artifacts [43:37].

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6. Modern Repatriation Debates and Perspectives

The episode highlights ongoing debates surrounding the repatriation of cultural artifacts. D'Adria Farmer Palmer, Executive Director of the Restitution Study Group, argues for the involvement of descendants of enslaved Africans in decisions regarding the Benin Bronzes.

• Palmer states:
  “The bronzes for us are the embodiment of our enslaved ancestors... It is our heritage” [44:34].

Conversely, Wando Achebe advocates for the bronzes to remain in Africa, emphasizing their cultural significance and historical context.

• Achebe asserts:
  “Treasures that were stolen away from Africa should remain in Africa. It is a heritage that should be enjoyed on African soil” [49:24].

These perspectives underscore the complexity of repatriation, balancing historical injustice with contemporary cultural stewardship.

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7. Conclusions and Reflections

"The Kingdom Behind Glass" weaves a narrative that interlaces personal discovery with broader historical and ethical considerations. It underscores the enduring impact of colonialism on cultural heritage and the ongoing efforts to rectify historical wrongs through repatriation.

• Ore Ogunbi reflects:
  “It's history. It means things to people and has meant things to people for centuries” [50:37].

The episode concludes by highlighting the transformative power of history in shaping present identities and the importance of addressing past injustices to foster a more equitable future.

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Notable Quotes

• Ore Ogunbi [05:01]:
  “I was embarrassed that I hadn't picked up on that... But it wouldn’t take long for that feeling of embarrassment to turn into something else.”

• Wando Achebe [44:49]:
  “I agree 100% that African Americans, African Caribbean people, Africans have every single right to this history, to these treasures. It is our heritage.”

• Lawrence Wu [50:04]:
  “What do you want your 2025 story to be? Therapy can help you craft the next chapters with purpose.”

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Final Thoughts

Through a meticulously researched narrative, Throughline's "The Kingdom Behind Glass" offers listeners a profound exploration of the Benin Kingdom's legacy, the ramifications of colonial plunder, and the vital discourse surrounding cultural restitution. By intertwining historical exposition with personal testimony, the episode not only illuminates the past but also resonates with contemporary movements for justice and recognition.

Transcript

[Ramtin Arablouei]

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[Rand Abdelfatah]

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[Lawrence Wu]

Get started, we just wanted to let you know that this episode contains descriptions of human sacrifice. Now on with the show.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Okay, so several months back, one of Throughline's producers, Lawrence Wu, came to a pitch meeting with this wild story. It was one of those pitches that immediately made all of us sit up in our seats and listen. It had layers that just kept getting deeper and deeper and I don't want to ruin it for you. So obviously I will just say that it's about an object, a thing that just sat around on a shelf for decades, going pretty much unnoticed. But in 2015, that changed. And it changed because a first year college student decided it needed to change.

[Ore Ogunbi]

Hi.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Hey there.

[Ore Ogunbi]

Sorry. Give me a second.

[Sanjay]

No problem.

[Ore Ogunbi]

Sorry, I'm trying to untangle this headphones.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

So, you know, we had to call her up.

[Wando Achebe]

Okay.

[Ore Ogunbi]

Headphones on.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Okay. Awesome. First, how are you?

[Ore Ogunbi]

I'm good.

[Lawrence Wu]

How are you?

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Good.

[Lawrence Wu]

Her name is Ore Ogunbi.

[Ore Ogunbi]

I'm an Africa correspondent at the Economist and I'm also a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge.

[Lawrence Wu]

In 2015, she was in her first year at one of England's most prestigious universities.

[Ore Ogunbi]

I've lived between England and Nigeria my whole life. I was born in England. I moved to Nigeria when I was 7. And I've been back and forth between both countries ever since. And so university wise, my dad always really wanted me to go to Cambridge. In his view, you know, the best place I could end up, which I understand why people see it that way.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Cambridge is like the Harvard of England. Actually, it's much older, so I really should be saying that Harvard is like the Cambridge of the United States. It's this kind of old elite institution that for most of its history had a student body that came from England's upper classes, mostly male and mostly white. So when Ore arrived on campus, she felt out of place.

[Ore Ogunbi]

When I got there, it was not very diverse. So settling in in that first term was quite difficult because I just felt like I couldn't find people who I could relate with.

[Lawrence Wu]

But it wasn't just the lack of diversity among the students that felt alienating. For Ore, it was everything. She was surrounded by the physical space itself.

[Ore Ogunbi]

You go to any college dining hall, you go to prestigious parts of the college, really historical parts of any college in Cambridge, and it's likely to be covered in paintings of old white men who have made some significant contribution to the culture. There's never going to be a black person on those walls.

[Lawrence Wu]

Ori went back and forth to classes and meals and activities, surrounded by these images of past school chancellors, donors, alumni. It just became part of the backgr. Maybe that's why at first she didn't notice the one object in the dining hall that would change the course of her life.

[Ore Ogunbi]

In the same way that there was art on the walls, there's things on shelves, there's a whole, you know, bunch of things kind of lying around I didn't notice. Felt very much like it was hiding in plain sight.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The thing she's talking about is a statue, a statue of a rooster, also known as the okoko, that's at least 125 years old. A few months into her first year, a friend of hers told her where to look for it.

[Ore Ogunbi]

But the second he drew my attention to it, obviously I picked up on it the next time I went into the dining hall. It's not massive, it's not too much bigger than your laptop. But it was sat on this shelf.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And underneath it was a plaque with a message written in Latin, which was.

[Ore Ogunbi]

Basically this art or this piece of art was bequeathed to the college by William Neville and was looted from Benin in the punitive expedition of 1897, something to that effect.

[Lawrence Wu]

Today, Benin is a country in West Africa. But Benin was also the name of a major kingdom that was located in what's now southern Nigeria as early as the 1200s, a civilization that produced incredible works of art collectively known as Benin bronzes, Like the metal rooster Aure was staring at in her dining hall.

[Ore Ogunbi]

I was embarrassed that I hadn't picked up on that. I know enough about African art and I'm familiar enough with what those kinds of antiques look like. My dad has been collecting similar work since I was a child.

[Lawrence Wu]

But it wouldn't take long for that feeling of embarrassment to turn into something else.

[Ore Ogunbi]

Then the anger began to seep in because I'm just like, what on earth like in what world is this okay? What is going on? And that to me was when the cog started turning and then we kind of set off down the rabbit hole.

[Lawrence Wu]

That rabbit hole would take ore on a years long journey to uncover how the rooster statue was looted, its journey to her college at Cambrid, diversity, and the fight to return it to Nigeria.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The origin story of this rooster is a tale of a clash between two major powers, one from Europe and one from West Africa. It's a tale of imperialism, betrayal and the making of the modern world. And it will remind you that behind every artifact is a universe, a story that will change how you think about your own history.

[Lawrence Wu]

I'm Rand Abdelfatah.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And I'm Ramtin Arablouei.

[Lawrence Wu]

On this episode of Throughline from npr, the journey of the Cambridge Benin Bronze and the war over artifacts. Hello, this is Naomi Kemp calling from South Carolina, and you're listening to Throughline from npr. This is my favorite podcast. I tell people about it all the time and over the last year it's been my reintroduction to npr.

[Wando Achebe]

Sometimes news is too overwhelming and I.

[Lawrence Wu]

Have to turn it off for my own mental health. But Throughline is always a breath of fresh air and able to teach me just so much about things that I thought I knew something about already and.

[Ore Ogunbi]

Can always find something new to learn about.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Support for NPR and the following message come from Betterment, the automated investing and savings app. CEO Sarah Levy shares how Betterment utilizes tech tools powered by human advice.

[Wando Achebe]

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[Lawrence Wu]

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[Wando Achebe]

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[Lawrence Wu]

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[Rand Abdelfatah]

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[Ramtin Arablouei]

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[Wando Achebe]

Benin City 1500s it was nothing short of a marvel. It was very vibrant and dynamic. It had bustling markets with trade in yams, palm oil, textiles, iron tools, and more.

[Lawrence Wu]

Located in what's now southern Nigeria, Benin City was the capital of a vast kingdom.

[Wando Achebe]

The kingdom's military was highly effective, maintaining stability within the region and controlling all of the key waterways as far as Lagos.

[Lawrence Wu]

And it was technologically advanced.

[Wando Achebe]

Benin's city even had street lighting, these large metal lamps filled with palm oil, which illuminated the streets at night, making it one of the first cities in the world with such a feature and even an underground drainage system.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Foreign.

[Lawrence Wu]

This is Wando Achebe, and I.

[Wando Achebe]

Am the Jack and Margaret Sweet endowed professor of history at Michigan State University. My main area of concentration is west Africa.

[Lawrence Wu]

Wando says the Benin kingdom's golden age.

[Wando Achebe]

Was between the 15th and 19th centuries. At its height, it was well organized, it was thriving. It was a highly advanced society.

[Lawrence Wu]

And one of the kingdom's greatest feats was the walls that they built, which.

[Wando Achebe]

Stretched over 10,000 miles, making them the largest earthwork in the pre mechanized world.

[Lawrence Wu]

The walls, which rivaled the length of the Great wall of China, took hundreds of years to be built, requiring unfathomable hours of labor.

[Wando Achebe]

Its interconnected earthworks were not just defensive structures, but also a statement of the kingdom's engineering brilliance and power.

[Lawrence Wu]

These marvels are what greeted the first Europeans who came to Benin city in the 15th century.

[Wando Achebe]

So when European traders and explorers arrived, which is how we know what we know for the most part about Benin, they were astonished by what they saw. For instance, you had a Portuguese captain remarking that Benin's city was larger than Lisbon and described its streets as seemingly endless.

[Lawrence Wu]

And the Benin kingdom's power and wealth would only increase as they started trading with Europeans. They would trade raw materials like pepper.

[Wando Achebe]

Ivory, and eventually rubber. And in return, European traders are offering firearms, textiles, and other goods.

[Lawrence Wu]

Firearms that help the kingdom conquer their neighbors and expand their territory.

[Wando Achebe]

The Benin kingdom would use the guns to raid villages, to steal people and sell them.

[Lawrence Wu]

This is d'adria farmer Palman.

[Wando Achebe]

I'm executive director of the restitution study group, and we fight for reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans globally.

[Lawrence Wu]

Like with any kingdom, there's almost always a Dark side. The Benin kingdom had long participated in the slave trade in West Africa. And when the Europeans arrived, the Benin kingdom began selling them enslaved people too, making them a part of the transatlantic slave trade.

[Wando Achebe]

During the late 15th and 16th century, the kingdom is actively participating in the slave trade. These are captives from all of its military campaigns. And sometimes it will be captives or these tributary states made offerings to Benin, Right. In addition, the kingdom also enslaved individuals who were convicted of crimes.

[Lawrence Wu]

In exchange for slaves, the Europeans would.

[Wando Achebe]

Give the Benin Kingdom brass manilas.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Manila is derived from the Portuguese word for bracelet. They often came in the shape of a horseshoe of various sizes, usually made of brass, bronze or copper. And they were used as slave trade currency throughout West Africa by European traders.

[Wando Achebe]

The Benin kingdom required that the Portuguese pay for human captives with these manilas. And roughly at the beginning of their trading, you could buy an enslaved captive for seven manilas. Probably towards the end, a male would cost 57 manilas, a female would cost 50.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

These manilas were used to fuel the kingdom's artistic tradition.

[Wando Achebe]

These renowned artisans would melt these bracelets down to create these intricate bronze and brass sculptures and plaques, sculptures like the.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Rooster statue that Oregonbi saw in the dining hall at Jesus College.

[Wando Achebe]

And it's these so called Benin bronzes that we're talking about today, what D'Adrio.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Now refers to as blood metal. Blood metal, meaning that the price for these works of art were the lives of enslaved West Africans sent into the abyss of the Middle Passage. And the principal purpose of creating these bronzes was in service of Benin Kingdom's royal family.

[Wando Achebe]

The royal palace was adorned with copper engravings and brass plaques that celebrated victories. They recorded Benin's achievements and reflected the kingdom's grandeur. So these engravings and plaques told stories.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And at the center of the Benin royal family was the Oba.

[Wando Achebe]

The Oba, or king, wasn't just a political leader, but held divine status, acting as a spiritual bridge between his people and the gods.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The Benin kingdom was ruled by a long line of Obas. They were like religious, political and military leaders, rolled into one. And for centuries, they enjoyed control over the trade routes in their kingdom. But all of this would begin to change when Europeans started making their way into the region's local economies and politics.

[Lawrence Wu]

Starting with the Portuguese. And eventually, by the 1800s, the British became one of the primary trading partners with the Benin kingdom.

[Wando Achebe]

With the introduction of the pneumatic tire by J.B. dunlop in 1888, rubber became a critical raw material for industries in Europe, especially for bicycles and later automobiles. Right. Benin had vast rubber forest.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This was an era of massive industrial growth in Europe, especially in England. And so natural resources like rubber and palm oil were in high demand. And it turns out that many of those resources were in what's now southern Nigeria, the land the Oba ruled over. So throughout the 1800s, the British tried to insert themselves more and more into the rubber and palm oil trade. It became a struggle over control of resources.

[Lawrence Wu]

It got so bad that the Oba would periodically shut down trade, frustrating the British. And so the British tried to fix this by proposing a treaty in 1892.

[Wando Achebe]

Which historians say undermined Benin's sovereignty, allowing for free trade. It allowed for the presence of Christian missionaries and it required the king, the Oba, to consult with British on governance.

[Lawrence Wu]

In other words, the Oba would need British approval for dealing with anyone else. Yet according to the British, the Oba signed this treaty, something historians like Wando Achebe call into question.

[Wando Achebe]

So a number of historians have actually suggested that if he did sign sign this treaty, he probably didn't understand what he was signing.

[Lawrence Wu]

The answer is still to this day unclear. But another perspective from historians is that the Oba only had one question on his mind. As the British were trying to explain this treaty, were they declaring peace or war? The British reassured the Oba that it was a peace treaty. And so the Oba might have signed the treaty in the hopes that it would quite quell tensions, that it might prevent an all out war.

[Wando Achebe]

But despite this treaty, the Oba maintained control over trade. And it's this control that frustrated the heck out of British ambitions.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The Oba continued to exert control even though the British claimed he was violating their treaty. This would set the stage for a confrontation, one that would change the course of West African history. Coming up, an unannounced guest.

[Sanjay]

This is Sanjay from San Jose in.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

California and you're listening to Throughline by npr.

[Lawrence Wu]

Brought to you by the best podcast.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Show hosts ever, ramped in and rund.

[Lawrence Wu]

Who transformed by indifference to the subject of history in Midland High School to curiosity and joy as I listen to every episode.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This message comes from BetterHelp. Every January brings you 365 blank pages waiting to be filled. What do you want your 2025 story to be? Therapy can help you craft the next chapters with purpose. BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online with a diverse network of over 30,000 therapists worldwide. Visit BetterHelp H-E-L-P.com NPR today to get 10% off your first month.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

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[Ramtin Arablouei]

Part 2 the City of Blood.

[Lawrence Wu]

By the late 1800s, the British Empire and the Benin Kingdom were on the brink of a conflict over control of key trading positions in West Africa. The British claimed that the Oba, or King, was violating a treaty they'd signed. The Oba, for his part, shut down trade whenever he felt the British were becoming a threat. Both sides were at an impasse.

[Wando Achebe]

In comes James Phillips. James Phillips, he was acting British Consul.

[Lawrence Wu]

Which meant his job was to oversee trade in West Africa on behalf of the British Crown. He'd basically been raised to eventually have this kind of job.

[Wando Achebe]

He grew up in a family with strong clerical and military background. We know that he was educated at Oppenham School, which was a prestigious independent boarding school. Phillips later attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied law.

[Lawrence Wu]

By his early 30s, James Phillips, like many other upper class British bureaucrats, decided to pursue his fortunes overseas working for the empire.

[Wando Achebe]

A lot of these young European men were going for adventure, making a name for themselves.

[Lawrence Wu]

By the way, this is Wando Achebe, a history professor at Michigan State University.

[Wando Achebe]

And I think that was a propelling force for a lot of these European men in Africa during this time period.

[Lawrence Wu]

And that propelling force would put Phillips in the center of a national scandal, a news story that would grip all of England in the late 1890s.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The king of Benin has continued to do everything in his power to stop.

[Wando Achebe]

The people from trading and prevent the.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Government from opening up the country. This is from a letter James Phillips sent to the British prime minister in 1897, arguing that they should take action.

[Wando Achebe]

In order to fully open the region to British trade.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I am convinced from information which leaves.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

No room for doubt, as well as.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

From experience of native character, that pacific measures are now quite useless and that.

[Wando Achebe]

The time has come to remove their obstruction.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Basically, Phillips is Like, look, if we want to efficiently extract resources like rubber and palm oil, things England needed to fuel its rapid industrial growth, we need to get the Benin kingdom's king, or Oba, out of the way.

[Wando Achebe]

I therefore ask for His Lordship's permission to visit Bunin City in February next to depose and remove the King of Bunin. Monday, 16th of November 1896.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Well, the British Prime Minister basically left Phillips on Reading for several weeks. Still, Phillips was an ambitious young man and he decided to send a letter to Benin's king requesting a meeting.

[Wando Achebe]

So Phillips requests to meet with the Oba.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And he does this even though he'd already made it clear in his letter to the British Prime Minister that he wanted to depose Benin's king.

[Wando Achebe]

The timing of this request clashed with the sacred Igwe festival, during which the Oba was secluded to perform rituals that renewed his spiritual authority. Remember, Oba of Aranwen was semi divine.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

And Phillips gets a response.

[Wando Achebe]

The King said, no, you cannot visit. Why don't you come back in about two moons, two months. Phillips ignored all of the cultural imperatives and he proceeded Toward Benin City.

[Lawrence Wu]

January 1890.

[Sanjay]

He set out with eight other white men and with an uncertain number of servants, but perhaps over 200 carriers.

[Lawrence Wu]

This is Dan Hicks, I'm professor of.

[Sanjay]

Contemporary archaeology at the University of Oxford, curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum in.

[Lawrence Wu]

Oxford, and he wrote the book the Brutish Museums, which, among other things, tells the story of James Phillips and his crew, most of whom were African workers hired by the British.

[Sanjay]

They reportedly took no firearms except for revolvers, we're told in some of the accounts.

[Lawrence Wu]

Along the way, a royal agent of the Oba warned Phillips that any white man visiting the city would be killed.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

We have been threatened and solemnly warned at every step that the soldiers of the King of Benin are waiting to fire on us.

[Lawrence Wu]

Despite the warning, Philip's party continued working their way towards Benin City.

[Sanjay]

The road, or rather path we went along was rather broader than the usual West African brush path, but only fit for marching in single file.

[Lawrence Wu]

This is from an account of a British officer who was there.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

It was then about 3pm and we.

[Sanjay]

Were walking in much the same order as when we started.

[Lawrence Wu]

They stopped at villages along the way to rest. In the afternoon, they were about 14 miles into their march when suddenly a.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Shot rang out a few yards behind us.

[Lawrence Wu]

Followed by rapid fire that seemed.

[Sanjay]

To go back almost to the last village we had passed. At the first shot, we couldn't believe that the firing was in earnest and thought, as someone suggested, that it was only a salute in our honor.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Philip's party, in their confusion, thought they were being welcomed by soldiers from the Benin Kingdom. In fact, Phillips told his men not to get out their revolvers. This was a mistake, because soon they were facing a hail of ammunition.

[Sanjay]

The idea was soon exploded by the.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Cries from our wretched carriers and yells from the Benin men. A surviving British officer recounted a chaotic scene of gunfire and machetes on a.

[Sanjay]

Strip of Road about 15 yards long, with the bodies of some six or seven of our unfortunate carriers lying on the road.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

It was carnage.

[Wando Achebe]

Phillips does not survive. Phillips is killed.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The exact numbers of dead are still to this day unclear, but it's thought that most of the Europeans in Phillips's party were killed, along with many of the African workers they'd hired. Word quickly got back to England. Newspapers there called it a massacre.

[Sanjay]

The circumstances of how the killing comes about and the nature of that expedition. Was it hostile? Was it seeking to provoke? Was it an inexperienced administrator sent off in order to provoke a response?

[Ramtin Arablouei]

All of that's unclear, but the damage was done.

[Wando Achebe]

It's this ambush that outrages Britain to no end.

[Lawrence Wu]

Over the next several weeks, some of the British press began running stories about what a horrible place Benin's city was. They published disturbing accounts of human sacrifice and brutality.

[Wando Achebe]

By the time the punitive expedition was launched in 1897, the British public had been primed to see it as a moral crusade.

[Sanjay]

One body was on a crucifix tree.

[Lawrence Wu]

With the arms and legs outstretched.

[Sanjay]

The Manchester Guardian, January 1897. You know, they didn't hold back, you know, imaginative account as they possibly could, of the blood and guts.

[Lawrence Wu]

At various parts of the city.

[Sanjay]

There were corpses, some headless or armless or otherwise mutilated. The idea of the City of Blood was associated with Benin's city, portraying Benin.

[Wando Achebe]

As a barbaric society.

[Lawrence Wu]

We should note here that there is historical evidence of human sacrifices being carried out at the royal court.

[Sanjay]

Without a doubt, you know, this was a royal court that continued to practice forms of court slavery, almost certainly forms of human sacrifice.

[Wando Achebe]

But these descriptions often lacked any kind of context.

[Lawrence Wu]

Benin City became known among many in England as the City of Blood.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Just weeks after Phillips's party was ambushed in Benin, the British government prepared for a revenge attack. It would come to be called the Punitive Expedition. A very large force with hundreds of sailors and soldiers was amassed. A flotilla of ships was stocked with heavy weaponry. A dozen 7 pounder RML mountain guns. Think of a small cannon. 14 Maxim guns to be carried across the land machine guns 24 maxims on the warships 6 rocket tubes, early form of a rocket launcher 1200 rifles, more than than 3 million brass bullets.

[Lawrence Wu]

By February 1897, British forces sailed for Benin. Coming up, the battle for a kingdom begins.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Foreign.

[Wando Achebe]

Hi, this is Jill McAfee from.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Atlanta, Georgia, and you're listening to Throughline from NPR.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This message comes from CarMax. Searching for your next car? Don't settle thrive at CarMax. It's easy to shop online or in person with upfront pricing and tools designed to help. Finding a car you love has never been easier. Plus, you can sell or trade in your current vehicle with an online offer in minutes, no strings attached. Start shopping now to find a car you'll [e-mail] CarMax the way it should be part three as much mine as it is yours Imagine a country of 2,500 square miles, one mass of forest. Imagine this forest stocked with trees some 200ft high. Imagine the fact that you might easily walk for an hour without seeing the sun overhead and only at times get a glimmer of a sunbeam across the part and you have an elementary conception of the bush country of Benin. Reginald Bacon, this is an account from a naval officer who took part in the punitive expedition.

[Wando Achebe]

So in February 1897, a force of about 1500 British soldiers were equipped with Maxim machine guns, artillery and rockets.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

They set off in three columns, attacking villages along the way.

[Sanjay]

And I've got barbed wire and they've got electric lighting and they've got all these sort of modern forms of weaponry.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Weapons that were not used by most West African forces.

[Wando Achebe]

And it was with these that they launched their punitive expedition against Benin.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Over the course of nine days, the British violently ripped through the rainforest and zeroed in on Benin City. A searching volley soon disclosed the enemy who commenced the attack, never venturing into the open, but keeping inside the COVID of the bush and firing their long guns at us.

[Wando Achebe]

The Benin defenders were regrettably armed with outdated weapons.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

To these we replied with sectional volleys and the deadly sweeping fire of the Maxims.

[Wando Achebe]

And because there was weapons were outdated, they were quickly overwhelmed.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Eventually, the British soldiers arrived in the heart of the kingdom.

[Wando Achebe]

They enter Benin City on February 18, 1897.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Wildfire is the only name for describing.

[Wando Achebe]

The flames they raised the Abbas Palace. They raised secret sites.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The air was filled with a thin black smoke, which gusts of wind swept in every direction, curling and wreathing it in fantastic shapes.

[Wando Achebe]

They erased much of the kingdom's physical and cultural heritage.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Soon everything Seemed in a blaze.

[Sanjay]

I think the sheer scale of the destruction is something that's hard to get a sense of.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is Dan Hicks again, author of the Brutish Museums.

[Sanjay]

The fact that this was a desecration of a religious as well as a royal landscape, and that literally they burned everything to the ground. They absolutely, you know, leveled the place to the ground.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

After the attack, the British forces did as they wished, including the British, built.

[Sanjay]

Themselves a golf course. Never mind other things.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Golf course?

[Sanjay]

Yeah, yeah, there's a golf course there within.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Within the first month, a nine hole golf course. As for Oba Ovamomwin, the king, he fled the city and hid out in the rainforest forest for six months.

[Wando Achebe]

He later surrenders in 1897 and he was exiled to Calabar, where he remained until his death.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

With the Oba out of the way, the British incorporated the Benin kingdom's lands into its own holdings in West Africa.

[Wando Achebe]

Marking the end of Benin kindan sovereignty, which is what the British wanted to do from the get go.

[Lawrence Wu]

Among the rubble in Benin City, the British forces found treasure beyond their wildest dreams.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Buried in the dirt of ages. In one house were several hundred unique bronze plaques, suggestive of almost Egyptian design, but of really superb casting.

[Wando Achebe]

The British encounter an unparalleled number of cultural treasures. So it is estimated that over 4,000 treasures were looted, including brass plaques, ivory carvings, ceremonial regalia, and textiles. These treasures were distributed among British officers.

[Sanjay]

So it's a chaotic free floor. They were taken back to London by soldiers and sailors and administrators. Some kept in families over generations, Some sold immediately on the open market. And so within weeks, the artworks, items that were royal, sacred, ancestral art, were being bought up in Berlin, in London, in Oxford, and were being put on display. And the message was very clear, this is a dead culture.

[Lawrence Wu]

And over the next century, many of these artifacts, known collectively as Benin bronzes, ended up in museums.

[Wando Achebe]

So today these treasures are housed in museums worldwide, with the British Museum holding the largest collection of about 700 treasures.

[Lawrence Wu]

And others ended up in private collections and universities, like the rooster statue that Ore Ogumbi first spotted in her college dining hall.

[Ore Ogunbi]

This piece of art was bequeathed to the college by William Neville, who was.

[Sanjay]

A Liverpool trader and a banker in Lagos, who donated this item to Jesus College, Cambridge. The reason, supposedly, was the form of the cockerel or the rooster is an emblem of the college that sits there in the dining hall of Jesus College.

[Lawrence Wu]

For decades, until 2016 after ore and her peers began organizing for it to be taken out of the dining hall and returned to Nigeria.

[Ore Ogunbi]

We were asked to present to the Ethical Affairs Committee. And yeah, they asked us a bunch of questions about where it's going to go, can they look after it.

[Lawrence Wu]

Ore and her classmates had done their research and the college had even gotten a letter from the Nigerian government formally requesting the return of the rooster statue.

[Ore Ogunbi]

So we thought that might help our case, but nothing.

[Lawrence Wu]

And then one day, sort of out of nowhere, the statue disappeared. But it wasn't clear what they were going to do with it. A spokesperson said at the time that the college and university would discuss and determine the best future for the Okoko, including the question of repatriation.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Jesus College declined to comment further on this.

[Lawrence Wu]

As for Ore and her peers, their hope started to wane.

[Ore Ogunbi]

I don't think there's anything more we could have done. It just felt like no progress was being made. I mean, I just. I'd given up on this thing happening, to be quite honest, but I was still going to these meetings, convincing myself that, I don't know, maybe this one next meeting would be different.

[Lawrence Wu]

So in the meantime, Aure went on with her life.

[Ore Ogunbi]

By the time I graduated, I was like, okay, they've succeeded in wearing me down. I'm not screaming and kicking up a fuss about this anymore. It's clearly not going to happen.

[Lawrence Wu]

But then in 2019, Jesus College decided to return the statue. And a few years after that, Ore gets an email.

[Wando Achebe]

Friday, 15th of October, 2021.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

Dear Jezawin, I'm now pleased to share.

[Wando Achebe]

That the college is to return the.

[Lawrence Wu]

Benin Bronze cockful to Nigeria's National Commission.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

For Museums and monuments on Wednesday, 27th of October.

[Lawrence Wu]

This will be the first institutional return of its kind.

[Ore Ogunbi]

I was like, what?

[Lawrence Wu]

All those years of fighting for the Benin Bronze to be returned to what Aure and her peers believed to be its rightful place was finally going to happen. It was going back to Nigeria.

[Wando Achebe]

Welcome everyone here to the Frank Pan Auditorium at Jesus College. As we gather for the ceremony to formally hand over this Benin Bronze, this Okoko, which does not belong to us.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I'm Sunita.

[Lawrence Wu]

This is the video from the ceremony of Jesus College formally handing over the Benin Bronze. The head of the college, the director of Nigeria's Commission for National Museums, and the younger brother of the sitting Oba are all in attendance. And center stage on a white pedestal is the rooster statue. And in the crowd were Ore and her fellow students, watching what they had started six years earlier come to fruition.

[Ore Ogunbi]

And to see it happening, especially when you had, well, I had definitely given up on the Idea that it ever would. It was crazy.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Cambridge University's Jesus College would be the first institution to return a Benin bronze. Shortly after, other institutions and even museums started following suit, countries like Germany pledged to return looted Benin artworks. And so did the Smithsonian Institution here in the United States, which had a total collection of 39 Benin Bronzes.

[Wando Achebe]

In 2022, I saw an article in the New York Times that the Smithsonian would be returning the bronzes. I was quite shocked.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

This is Diedrea Farmer Palman again, who's the executive director of the restitution Study Group.

[Wando Achebe]

The moral claim is that the bronzes for us are the embodiment of our enslaved ancestors, and they are the source of our education about who we are.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

D'Adria argues that the Benin bronzes should also belong to the descendants of the people the Benin kingdom sold to European slave traders.

[Wando Achebe]

I have Isan DNA. And by the way, anyone listening to this program that has Isan DNA from their ancestors who were enslaved are literally coming from the Benin kingdom.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

The Isan people. People were part of the kingdoms neighboring the Benin kingdom. So when D'Adria found out about the Smithsonian's decision to return its collection of Benin bronzes to Nigeria, she was shocked.

[Wando Achebe]

Their justification was that they were looted, that they were stolen artifacts, that they had been taken by colonizers.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

But D'Adria was like, well, the colonizers didn't. The British took these bronzes from the kingdom that enslaved my ancestors. So why should Nigeria have full control over them?

[Wando Achebe]

These are very expensive relics. The value of the bronzes is something people don't like to talk about. One overhead sold not long ago for about US$12 million.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

D'Aedria and her organization Four filed a petition to stop the Smithsonian from returning the bronzes to Nigeria. The goal? To allow the descendants of people sold into slavery by the Benin kingdom to have a say in their fate.

[Wando Achebe]

So, you know, I sent them documentation, not just, you know, from all of the scholars around bronzes, but from their own website and their own publications.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

In an email exchange at the time The Smithsonian told D'Adria more research was needed to concretely link the objects in their collection to the slave trade.

[Lawrence Wu]

For institutions like the Smithsonian, the question of ownership and repatriation is a tricky process.

[Sanjay]

The process of return is not something that is simply about a decision by the British Museum or by the British government or. Or by the Metropolitan Museum in New York or whatever. It's about hundreds of institutions and individuals who at the moment are caring for these items and the decisions that they make. That doesn't mean that you can suddenly decolonize the museum. It doesn't work like that. It's case by case. It takes time.

[Wando Achebe]

So what we found was that 29 of the Benin bronzes that we had here at the Museum of African Art were from the raid of the Benin Kingdom in 1897.

[Lawrence Wu]

This is Linda St. Thomas. She's the chief spokesperson at the Smithsonian Institution and was interviewed by NPR culture correspondent Chloe Veltman about how museums go about repatriation of artworks like the Benin bronzes.

[Wando Achebe]

And they were beyond questionable. I mean, they were obviously stolen from their, you know, place of origin and then sent to museums and private collectors around the world in the early 1900s. Therefore, we did not want to keep them in our possession anymore and we wanted to return them.

[Lawrence Wu]

As for D'Adria's argument that descendants of slaves should have some form of ownership over the Benin bronzes, Linda declined to comment. Instead, she pointed us to the district court's decision where a judge ruled that D'Adria and the restitution Study Group lacked valid claims to challenge the Smithsonian's transfer of their Benin bronzes.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

After they were denied, D'Adria and the restitution Study Group appealed to have their case brought up to the Supreme Court. The court would ultimately Decline to hear D'Adria and her organization's petition against the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian had already begun transferring much of its collection to Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and monuments.

[Wando Achebe]

I agree 100% that African Americans, African Caribbean people, Africans have every single right to this history, to these treasures. It is our heritage. It is that which makes us who we are. And so what I'm saying is I agree to agree 100% with her characterization. It's as much hers as it is mine.

[Lawrence Wu]

But historian Wando Achebe does not agree with D'Adria about where the Benin bronzes should be housed or who should really have control over them.

[Wando Achebe]

Treasures that were stolen away from Africa should remain in Africa. It is a heritage that, that should be enjoyed on African soil. And if the Benin Kingdom, if the Federal Republic of Nigeria decides that it wants to loan Europe, the US Wherever our treasures for a period of time, then we do so.

[Lawrence Wu]

For D'Adria, this is about more than just control over the bronzes.

[Wando Achebe]

Part of this whole effort is to ensure that we have access to these relics so that we can learn our history. The willingness to sit and work together is about sharing cross cultural education and just ending what essentially is a war. You know, it hasn't ended yet. It won't end until we sit down together and we work together and heal.

[Lawrence Wu]

Which brings us back to Ore and the rooster.

[Ore Ogunbi]

This isn't just a pretty thing to sit on a shelf. It's not just a fancy trophy of your wall. It's history. It means things to people and has meant things to people for centuries. So you can't understand this object without all of that history, because it's not just an object. It is all those things.

[Lawrence Wu]

That's it for this week's show. I'm Rund Abdelfatah.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

I'm Ramtin Adablouei, and you've been listening to throughline from npr.

[Lawrence Wu]

This episode was produced by me and.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Me and Lawrence Wu, Julie Kane, Anya.

[Lawrence Wu]

Steinberg, Casey Miner, Christina Kim, Devin Kadayama, Irene Noguchi voiceover Work in this episode was also done by Aidan Crowe, Greg Hards, Felix Salmon, Jonathan Levin, Chris Springthorpe and Ghislan Karden Reti.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Thank you to Johannes Durgi, Tony Cavan, Nadia Lanci, Jay Vanasco, Chloe Veltman, Edith Chapin and Colin Campbell.

[Lawrence Wu]

Fact checking for this episode was done by Kevin Voelkel. This episode was mixed by Robert Rodriguez. Music for this episode was composed by Ramtin and his band Drop Electric, which.

[Ramtin Arablouei]

Includes Naveed Marvi Sho Fujiwara, Anya Mizani, and finally, if you have an idea or like something you heard on the show, write [e-mail] thanks for listening.

[Rand Abdelfatah]

This message comes from Warby Parker what makes a great pair of glasses at Warby Parker? It's all the invisible extras without the extra cost, like free adjustments for life. Find your [e-mail] or visit one of their hundreds of stores around the country. This message comes from Warby Parker Prescription eyewear that's expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Glasses designed in house from premium materials starting at just $95, including prescription lenses. Stop by a Warby Parker store near you. This message comes from Mint Mobile. From the gas pump to the grocery store, inflation is everywhere. So Mint Mobile is offering premium wireless starting at just $15 a month. To get your new phone plan for just $15, go to mintmobile dot.