Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard
Frederick John Dealtry Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard , known as Sir Frederick Lugard between 1901 and 1928, was a British soldier, explorer of Africa and colonial administrator. He was Governor of Hong Kong, the last Governor of Southern Nigeria Protectorate, the first High Commissioner, the last Governor of Northern Nigeria Protectorate and the first Governor-General of Nigeria.
Early life and education
Lugard was born in Madras, India, but was brought up in Worcester, England. He was the son of the Reverend Frederick Grueber Lugard, a British Army chaplain at Madras, and his third wife, Mary Howard, the youngest daughter of Reverend John Garton Howard, a younger son of landed gentry from Thorne and Melbourne, near York. His paternal uncle was Sir Edward Lugard, Adjutant-General in India from 1857 to 1858 and Permanent Under-Secretary of State for War at the War Office from 1861 to 1871. Lugard was educated at Rossall School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. The name 'Dealtry' was in honour of Thomas Dealtry, a friend of his father.Military career
Lugard was commissioned into the 9th Foot in 1878 and joined the second battalion in India. He served in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, the Sudan campaign and the Third Anglo-Burmese War and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1887. His career was derailed when he fell in love with a twice-married British divorcee he had met in India. Learning she had been injured in an accident, he abandoned his post in Burma to join her in Lucknow and followed her to England. When she rejected him, Lugard decided to make a fresh start in Africa.Karonga War
Around 1880, a group of Swahili traders, under Mlozi bin Kazbadema, established trading bases in the north-western sector of Lake Malawi, including a stockade at Chilumba, on the lake, from which ivory and slaves could be shipped across the lake. In 1883 the African Lakes Company set up a base in Karonga to exchange ivory for trade goods from the Swahili merchants.Relations between the two groups deteriorated, partly because of the company's delays or unwillingness to provide guns, ammunition and other trade goods and also because the Swahili traders turned more to slaving and attacking communities that the company had promised to protect. Hostilities broke out in mid-1887. The series of intermittent armed clashes that took place up to mid-1889 is known as the Karonga War or sometimes the "Arab War".
The African Lakes Company depot at Karonga was evacuated at the end of the year, but in May 1888, Captain Lugard, persuaded by the British Consul at Mozambique, arrived to lead an expedition against Mlozi, sponsored by the African Lakes Company but without official support from the British government.
Lugard's first expedition of May to June 1888 attacked the Swahili stockades with limited success, and in the course of one attack, he was wounded and withdrew southward. Lugard's second expedition in December 1888 to March 1889 was larger and included a 7-pounder gun, which, however, failed to breach the stockade walls. Following the second failure, Lugard left the Lake Malawi region for Britain in April 1889.
Exploration of East Africa
After leaving Nyasaland in April 1889, Lugard accepted a position with the Imperial British East Africa Company and arrived in Mombasa, on the coast of East Africa, in December. A year earlier, in 1888, the IBEAC had been granted a royal charter by Queen Victoria to colonise the "British sphere of influence" between Zanzibar and Uganda and wanted to open a trading route between Lake Victoria, in Uganda, and the coastal port of Mombasa. The first interior trading post was established at Machakos, 240 miles in from the coast, but the established traditional route to Machakos was a treacherous journey through the large Taru Desert, 93 miles of scorching dust bowl.Lugard's first mission was to determine the feasibility of a route from Mombasa to Machakos that would bypass the Taru Desert. He explored the Sabaki River and the neighbouring region, in addition to elaborating a scheme for the emancipation of the slaves held by Arabs in the mainland of Zanzibar.
On 6 August 1890, Lugard began his caravan expedition to Uganda and was accompanied by five other Europeans: George Wilson, Fenwick De Winton, William Grant and Archibald Brown.
File:Captain Lugard, F. de Winton and Grant at Kampala, Mengo.png|thumb|Captain Frederick Lugard, Fenwick de Winton and William Grant at Mengo, Uganda with men of the King's African Rifles and a Maxim Gun
He departed from Mombasa towards Uganda to secure British predominance over German influence in the area and to put an end to the civil disturbances between factions in the Kingdom of Buganda.
En route, Lugard was instructed to enter into treaties with local tribes and build forts to secure safe passage for future IBEAC expeditions. The IBEAC employed official treaty documents, which were signed by their administrator and the local leaders, but Lugard preferred the more equitable blood brotherhood ceremony and entered into several brotherhood partnerships with leaders who inhabited the areas between Mombasa and Uganda. One of his famed blood partnerships was sealed in October 1890 during his journey to Uganda, when he stopped at Dagoretti in Kikuyu territory and entered into an alliance with Waiyaki Wa Hinga.
Lugard was Military Administrator of Uganda from 26 December 1890 to May 1892. While administering Uganda, he journeyed around the Rwenzori Mountains to Lake Edward and mapped a large area of the country. He also visited Lake Albert and brought away some thousands of Sudanese who had been left there by Emin Pasha and Henry Morton Stanley during the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition.
When Lugard returned to England in 1892, he successfully dissuaded Prime Minister William Gladstone from allowing the IBEAC to abandon Uganda.
Early colonial service
In 1894, Lugard was dispatched by the Royal Niger Company to Borgu, where he secured treaties with the kings and chiefs who acknowledged the sovereignty of the British company and reduced the influence of other colonial powers. From 1896 to 1897, Lugard took charge of an expedition to Lake Ngami, in modern-day Botswana, on behalf of the British West Charterland Company. He was recalled from Ngami by the British government and sent to West Africa, where he was commissioned to raise a native force to protect British interests in the hinterland of the Lagos Colony and Nigeria against French aggression. He led the 'Race to Nikki' in 1894 and arrived in the important city in Borgu weeks before his French rival. In August 1897, Lugard organised the West African Frontier Force and commanded it until the end of December 1899, when the disputes with France were settled, but Nikki was integrated into the colony of French Dahomey.After relinquishing command of the West African Frontier Force, Lugard was appointed High Commissioner of the newly created Protectorate of Northern Nigeria. He was present at Mount Patti, Lokoja, and read the proclamation that established the protectorate on 1 January 1900. The portion of Northern Nigeria under effective control was then small, and Lugard's task in organising this vast territory was made more difficult by the refusal of the sultan of Sokoto and many other Fula princes to fulfill their treaty obligations.
In 1903, British control over the whole protectorate was made possible by a successful campaign against the Kano Emirate and the Sokoto Caliphate. When Lugard resigned as commissioner in 1906, the entire region of modern-day Nigeria had become administered under the supervision of British residents.
Lugard was knighted in the 1901 New Year Honours for his service in Nigeria. He stopped slave raiding and abolished slavery and the slave trade. He began developing the country by getting it surveyed and mapped, and he improved transport and communications for colonial convenience. He also reorganised the taxation system. Lugard is most importantly remembered for his political system of rule that was practised in Nigeria, called indirect rule, and for his contributions in the 1914 amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria.
However, the system of indirect rule has remained criticised from several scholars for its construction of social hierarchies, imbalance of political power and forced adoption of ethnicities, which has increased ethnic conflicts. Although the 1914 amalgamation was intended to create a united nation, it is often considered a "total failure" by scholars, as no attempts were made to integrate several ethnically diverse groups.
Governor of Hong Kong
About a year, after he resigned as High Commissioner of the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, Lugard was appointed Governor of Hong Kong, a position he held until March 1912. During his tenure, Lugard proposed to return Weihaiwei to the Chinese government in return for the ceding of the rented New Territories in perpetuity. However, the proposal was neither well received nor acted upon. Some believed that if the proposal were carried through, Hong Kong might forever have remained in British hands.Lugard's chief interest was education, and he was largely remembered for his efforts to the founding of the University of Hong Kong in 1911. He became the first chancellor despite a cold reception from the Colonial Office and local British companies, such as the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. The Colonial Office called the idea of a university "Sir Frederick's pet lamb". Lugard's chief impetus from founding the university was to have it serve as a bearer of Western culture in East Asia. He expected the university, however, to adopt a politically conservative framework supportive of the colonial authorities and to refrain from teaching ideas such as democracy or equality. He was financially backed by his personal friend Sir Hormusjee Naorojee Mody, who shared the same vision for the establishment of a university in Hong Kong.