INTER-GROUP RELATIONS AMONG THE UKWANI AND URHOBO PEOPLE IN THE PRE-COLONIAL ERA

ABSTRACT

As a history of the peoples of western Delta area of Nigeria in 1900-1960, what has been attempted here is really no more than a survey. The available evidence cannot yet support any detailed history and a great deal more work requires to be done. It is however, important to draw attention once again to a few aspects of this survey. Firstly, it is clear that the unit of operations among the Ukwani and Urhobo clan were very small. For most of them the clan was the highest level of political organization. Even for the kingdoms of Ukwani and Urhobo, the component parts were not well knitted together, and it is an autonomous group. The family was the known unit of operation and brought members together closely. Secondly, there was a great deal of interaction largely as a result of trade, the people of Ukwani were in touch with the people of Urhobo and trade ensued among them. They travelled on foot, by canoes, and displayed their wares especially on their market days but as for the Urhobo clan which was an urban Centre trade took place there at any time. They also engaged in selling from each other clan slaves during the period of the slave trade. Indeed a map of modern Nigeria showing the various routes of trade in this period is likely to review that even in the 20th century period the people who now make up Nigeria and Delta state are not removed from the other as it sometimes thought and publicly asserted. Finally, the development of the two clans were unequal, being that they both dwelt in the forest region, they tended to remain within their smaller units and to engage in much more limited trading activities, because 57 they mostly use foots as a means of transportation but then the Ukwani and Urhobo people being that they were close to more rivers made use of canoes. This unequal development continued, whereby Urhobo clan developed quickly into a major city through the 20th century, and was to be a major factor in the history of the colonial period of Nigeria’s history.