Ogbebo

Ogbebo was the thirty-second ('king') of the Kingdom of Benin who briefly ruled during a succession dispute around 1816. He was a son of Obanosa and contested the throne with his brother Eredia-Uwa, later Osemwede. Ogbebo initially drove Eredia-Uwa into exile in Ishan. After ruling for approximately eight months, Ogbebo was defeated by Eredia-Uwa's supporters. Tradition states that he then destroyed palace treasures, burned part of the royal palace, and hanged himself. Accounts of his brief rule concern the civil war, damage to the palace and Benin court art, and political instability following Obanosa's death.

Background and accession Ogbebo was a son of ('king') Obanosa, who succeeded to the throne of the Kingdom of Benin in 1804 following the death of his father, Akengbuda, who reigned for fifty-four years. Before becoming Obanosa, he was known as Osifo and was already elderly at his accession. An oral account states that Osifo regularly sent strands of his grey hair to Akengbuda, reminding his father of his age and the expected succession. Obanosa's accession faced opposition from Osopakharha of Ugbague village, and the conflict that followed reportedly caused about one thousand deaths. During his rule, Obanosa extended Benin territory through the conquest of Ute, a town in the Owo division. Historical accounts differ concerning the date and circumstances of Obanosa's death. Historians Jacob Egharevba and Toyin Falola et al. (1991) date the succession crisis to 1816, while art historian Barbara Blackmun places Obanosa's death at about 1815. Historian Osarhieme Osadolor instead characterises Obanosa's death as an assassination in 1815, and interprets the ensuing war as the culmination of wider political instability.

Blackmun describes Benin royal succession as operating through primogeniture and observes that, for much of the eighteenth century, the designation of a leading son in each generation had generally been accepted. The number of wives maintained by each , however, could complicate succession, and Obanosa's death left unresolved whether Ogbebo or Eredia-Uwa held the stronger claim. Egharevba identifies Ogbebo and Eredia-Uwa as Obanosa's two eldest sons, while Roese and Bondarenko identify Eredia-Uwa as the elder brother and Ogbebo as the younger contender, and Blackmun describes the two rivals as half-brothers.

After Obanosa died, both Ogbebo and Eredia-Uwa asserted claims to the throne, and their contest developed into a civil war. Ogbebo prevailed in the initial fighting and forced Eredia-Uwa to take refuge in Ishan, at a place described in accounts as Evbokhinmwi or Ewokhimi. His initial success was attributed to support from his mother's influential relatives and enslaved dependants. Sources differ on the formal character of Ogbebo's accession. Egharevba and Falola et al. (1991) state that he declared himself without performing customary ceremonies and compelled the chiefs to swear allegiance. Blackmun, by contrast, records that Benin elders consulted and selected Ogbebo as heir before crowning him Benin's divine ruler. Anthropologist Flora Kaplan later described Ogbebo as a usurper who took the throne in 1816.

Reign Campaign against Eredia-Uwa Following Eredia-Uwa's escape to Ishan, Ogbebo sought to have him killed. He dispatched messengers with two leather boxes, called , containing coral beads intended for the ('dukes') of Ishan. Their instructions were to arrange Eredia-Uwa's death, return his severed head in one of the boxes, and deliver it to Ogbebo. The account attributes to Ogbebo the intention of spitting on the head each morning after it was returned.

alt=Front view of a copper-alloy commemorative royal head wearing a beaded crown and high collar. Eighteenth-century commemorative head of an , showing the coral-bead crown and collar associated with the rulers of Benin Ogie, Eredia-Uwa's cousin, intercepted the party, ambushed the messengers, and shot some of them; the survivors fled. Ogie subsequently gave the coral beads to Eredia-Uwa, who distributed them among the of Ishan. Roese and Bondarenko state that the distribution of the beads strengthened Eredia-Uwa's support among Ishan chiefs. Egharevba's narrative also links the Ishan response to efforts by local magicians to bring Erebo, the of Uzebu, and the people of Uselu into the conflict against Ogbebo. Historian J.O. Ahazuem characterises Ogie's intervention as the development that shifted the balance of the struggle in Eredia-Uwa's favour.

Civil war

alt=Copper-alloy group of standing warriors raising broad ceremonial swords. Benin sculpture of warriors holding ceremonial swords, dated to the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries Ogbebo assembled troops from his maternal kin network under the command of Eyen and Eboide. The soldiers backing Eredia-Uwa sang a war song demanding punishment for Eyen and Eboide, and denouncing the replacement of a firstborn by a younger brother. The fighting caused casualties on both sides and property damage. Ahazuem characterises the contest between Osemwede and Ogbebo as a prolonged and destructive civil war.

Defeat, death and succession After a reign of about eight months, Ogbebo was defeated by Eredia-Uwa's forces. Following his defeat, he reportedly destroyed valuables within the royal palace and set part of the building on fire. In the official Edo account described by Blackmun, Ogbebo then hanged himself. Blackmun suggests, however, that Eredia-Uwa may also have participated in the palace conflagration. Eyen and Eboide are said to have taken their own lives after Ogbebo's death. A European observer from the 1820s, cited by Blackmun, described Ogbebo as having support among Benin inhabitants before he was overthrown in a conflict that killed many chiefs and was followed by the executions of defeated opponents. Historians Peter Roese and Dmitri Bondarenko write that Lieutenant John King and an anonymous report in the Royal Gold Coast Gazette corroborate aspects of the conflict's aftermath. King, who entered the Benin capital in 1820, reported destroyed sections of palace walls and stated that the civil war had reduced the town's population.

Following Ogbebo's defeat, messengers travelled to Ishan to bring Eredia-Uwa back to the Benin capital, where he was crowned in or about 1816 under the regnal name , meaning "my time has come".

Legacy Palace destruction and court art

alt=Long ivory tusk densely carved with rows of human figures and other motifs. Carved Benin altar tusk dated to about 1820, close to the period of Ogbebo's reign Interpretations of the material effects of Ogbebo's defeat focus on the palace fire. Blackmun mentions that European accounts and oral traditions indicate that part of the palace, together with at least some of its treasures, was destroyed. Blackmun relates the conflict to the royal ancestral altars and Benin's ivory-carving tradition. She argues that, if later Edo custom reflected earlier practice, Ogbebo's first responsibility as ruler would have been to call on the Igbesanmwan carvers to make tusks for an altar commemorating his father Obanosa. Under this interpretation, the altar needed to be equipped and dedicated before Ogbebo's kingship was ritually secure. Blackmun proposes that newly carved altar tusks supporting Ogbebo's spiritual and temporal succession may have been destroyed along with the palace treasures during the fire. Kaplan connects an apparent break between earlier and later Benin ('queen mother') heads with the reported burning of the royal palace by Ogbebo.

Archaeological context Excavations by archaeologist Graham Connah at Benin City's Clerks' Quarters site provide archaeological context for traditions concerning palace destruction. Following technical advances during the 1962 season, Connah's 1963 work examined another part of a room in the building he called the nineteenth-century palace. The investigation exposed an additional stretch of pink floor, enclosed by an outer wall whose exterior retained horizontal fluting associated with upper-class Benin buildings. Nearby stood a parallel mud wall fluted on both faces, attached to a complex of four lighter mud walls. The rooms contained decorated brass and pottery fragments, many beads and imported nineteenth-century European objects. Connah initially proposed that the excavated structures may have been built after an earlier palace was burned in 1816 during Ogbebo's struggle with the future Osemwede. He cautioned, however, that a fire would not necessarily have required complete rebuilding of substantial mud walls and allowed that the uncovered walls could belong to an earlier period. The site was occupied in the nineteenth century and remained in use until it was burned during the British Benin Expedition of 1897, but its construction date is unknown.

Historiography The principal account of Ogbebo's reign comes from historian Egharevba's collection of Benin oral history, which historian Blackmun describes as a historical tradition. Subsequent historical and art-historical works describe a short reign, civil war against Eredia-Uwa, palace destruction and Ogbebo's reported death by hanging. Historian Osarhieme Osadolor disputes an interpretation of the conflict solely as a rivalry between Eredia-Uwa and Ogbebo. Instead, he interprets the civil war as emerging from broader political competition, violence under Obanosa and instability following Obanosa's alleged assassination.

Explanatory notes