Brass River
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Brass River is one of the branches of the
Nun River A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...
, which in turn is a branch of the
Niger River The Niger River ( ; ) is the main river of West Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in south-eastern Guinea near the Sierra Leone border. It runs in a crescent shape through ...
, in the
Niger Delta The Niger Delta is the delta of the Niger River sitting directly on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean in Nigeria. It is located within nine coastal southern Nigerian states, which include: all six states from the South South geopolitical ...
in Nigeria. In the 19th century the river was an important trading route, first for slaves and later for palm oil. Brass River Crude Oil is named for a refinery on the river.


Name

The name "Brass" is European, said to have been given to the
Nembe Nembe is a Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Its headquarters are in the town of Nembe in the east of the area at The people of Brass, Nembe and Southern Ijaw Councils of Bayelsa State have bemoaned their neglect by oil companies ...
coastal villages because they traded for brass pans and neptunes to use for salt boiling. The "Brass Ijo" were all the
Ijaw people The Izon people or Izon Otu, otherwise known as the Ijaw people due to the historic mispronunciation of the name ''Izon'', are an ethnic group majorly found in the Niger Delta in Nigeria, with significant population clusters in Bayelsa, in Delta, ...
from Cape Formosa to the Santa Barbara River. The name was used specifically for Twon village on the Brass river, the route to the Nembe capital in the interior. In the 1884 and 1886 treaties "Brass" referred to the Nembe state. The Brass river was also called the Rio Bento, or St. John river.


Course

The Brass River is a branch, or
distributary A distributary, or a distributary channel, is a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel. Distributaries are a common feature of river deltas. The phenomenon is known as river bifurcation. The opposite of a distributar ...
, of the
Nun River A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...
, which flows to the west. The Nun River is itself a continuation of the
Niger River The Niger River ( ; ) is the main river of West Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in south-eastern Guinea near the Sierra Leone border. It runs in a crescent shape through ...
, which divides into the Nun and
Forçados Forçados is a small town in Burutu LGA of Delta State, Nigeria. It is most noted for the Forcados River, which is a major navigable channel of the Niger Delta. The river starts about downstream from Aboh and flows through zones of freshwater sw ...
Rivers about downstream from
Aboh Aboh or Abo,"Ibo, a district of British West Africa..." () is a city in Delta State of Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nig ...
. The Brass leaves the east side of the Nun at
Yenagoa Yenagoa is a Local Government Area and capital city of Bayelsa State, southern Nigeria. It is located at the southern part of the country at coordinates . The LGA has an area of 706 km² and a population of 352,285 at the 2006 census. Th ...
and flows south to discharge into the
Gulf of Guinea The Gulf of Guinea is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian (zero degrees latitude and longitude) is in the ...
. The tidal flats of the river have a reticulate drainage pattern, with higher elevation at the edges of the flats than at the center. Discharge varies depending on the season and state of the tide: An 1893 navigation guide says of the river, The mouth of the river is protected by a sand bar, which in 1893 could not be crossed by vessels with more than draft. Akassa creek, inland from the mouth of the river, provided a route from the Brass river to the Nun river for vessels of draft. It was often used by merchant steamers trading on the Niger, since the entrance of the Brass was easier than that of the Nun. Many factories lay on the east shore of the Brass just inside the entrance, handling the extensive trade in palm oil and ivory. At that time Akedo, about above cape Nun, was the market place for traders from the Brass river. The town of
Twon-Brass Twon-Brass, previously known simply as Brass or Brasstown, is a community on Brass Island in the Nun River estuary of Southern Bayelsa State, Nigeria, in the Brass Local Government Area. The royal Chief is Alfred Diete-Spiff. The town is on the ...
lies near the mouth of the Brass River. This was a slaving port in the early 19th century, and later a collection point for palm oil and kernels. In 2005 the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) was producing oil from 146 wells, and operated an export terminal at Brass River. Brass River Crude Oil is a sweet medium light crude.


Early European exploration

In the 17th and 18th centuries the Portuguese controlled the Brass River, which was closed to British traders and was an outlet for shipping slaves to the Americas. The town of Brass was inaccessible, reached only via the creeks. After 1807 the British began trying to suppress the slave trade. Don Pablo Frexas, in alliance with the chiefs of Brass and Bonny, was the main organizer of the river's slave trade.
James Holman James Holman FRS (15 October 1786 – 29 July 1857), known as the "Blind Traveller," was a British adventurer, author and social observer, best known for his writings on his extensive travels. Completely blind and experiencing pain and limi ...
visited the Guinea coast during his 1827−32 voyage round the world. Holman observed that all the rivers between the Bonny and Cape Formosa communicate with each other in the interior, and all were navigable by canoes. He wrote, In June 1830 the explorer
Richard Lemon Lander Richard Lemon Lander (8 February 1804 – 6 February 1834) was a British explorer of western Africa. He and his brother John were the first Europeans to follow the course of the River Niger, and discover that it led to the Atlantic. Biograp ...
and this brother John reached
Bussa Bussa's rebellion (14–16 April 1816) was the largest slave revolt in Barbadian history. The rebellion takes its name from the African-born slave, Bussa, who led the rebellion. The rebellion, which was eventually defeated by the colonial mili ...
on the Niger, the place where Mungo Park had died. After exploring the region, they started down the Niger on 20 September 1830, and reached Brass Town on 14 November 1830. Brass Town at this time was built on a large creek, which connected with the main Nun and Brass rivers by numerous winding rivulets. An account of the journey says, In 1838 the boats of H.M.S. ''Viper'' ascended the Brass river for about . They reported that it was wide, and deep. The banks were fringed with impenetrable mangroves. On the return voyage they were assisted by a current running at along the western shore.


Slave trade

An 1842 report to the British House of Commons said that "Slaves may be taken from the Bonny to the Brass River, and are taken there; the Brass River is not under King Peppel, and separate treaties must be made with the kings ... The slave trade up the Brass is carried on by agents from the and from the Havannah. King Peppel seldom makes good his engagements, He may be concerned in the slave trade on the Brass River. There have been no slave vessels at Bonny since the treaty with King Peppel, and the trade in the creeks of the Brass River is much reduced." The report included the testimony of Captain Gentle Brown, who said, On 17 November 1856
Thomas Joseph Hutchinson Thomas Joseph Hutchinson (1820–1885) was an Anglo-Irish explorer and writer. Born in January 1820 at Stonyford County Kilkenny, Ireland, he reportedly studied medicine in Germany. After a trip to West Africa in 1851, he became chief surgeon on ...
, Her Britannic Majesty's Consul for the Bight of Biafra and the Island of Fernando Po, concluded a treaty with the kings of the territories adjacent to the Brass River. They agreed to stop the slave trade, and agreed on pilots' fees, duties and other terms of trade. Hutchinson reported of a visit to Brass on 9 July 1857,


Later trade

In 1847 the new partnership of Stuart and Douglas bought a 282-ton barque, the ''Adriana'', and sent it to the Brass River. Their agent was told to offer the local chiefs a share of the profits from palm oil trading on condition they stopped trading in slaves. This was the start of a lucrative new trade. The prominent Nigerian journalist and nationalist
John Payne Jackson John Payne Jackson (25 March 1848 – 1 August 1915) was an Americo-Liberian journalist, born in Liberia who was influential in Lagos, Nigeria around the turn of the 20th century. He edited and published the ''Lagos Weekly Record'' from 1891 until ...
at first wanted to be a merchant. After traveling throughout West Africa, in the late 1860s he found work with the prominent
Lagos Lagos (Nigerian English: ; ) is the largest city in Nigeria and the List of cities in Africa by population, second most populous city in Africa, with a population of 15.4 million as of 2015 within the city proper. Lagos was the national ca ...
merchant J. S. Leigh. He was sent to the Brass River in the 1870s to manage Leigh's station there. Jackson branched out into trading palm products on his own account, but was forced out of business by European competitors, an experience that may have affected his outlook towards Europeans. S. A. Crowther, Bishop of Niger Territory, reported in 1885 that the native converts at Nembe, Brass River, had contributed towards building an iron church. It was opened on 9 October 1884 in presence of the congregation of 1,202 people. The congregation of St. Barnabas at Tawn, Brass River, had started to raise contributions for a similar iron church. At one time the town of Twon-Brass was the main port of the
Nembe Kingdom The Nembe Kingdom is a traditional state in Niger Delta. It includes the Nembe and Brass Local Government Areas of Bayelsa State, Nigeria. The traditional rulers take the title "Amanyanabo". Today, leadership is split between the Amanyanabos of O ...
, called by one historian "the Venice of the Niger Delta", and was dominant in the
palm oil Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 33% of global oils produced from ...
trade of the region. When the
Royal Niger Company The Royal Niger Company was a mercantile company chartered by the British government in the nineteenth century. It was formed in 1879 as the ''United African Company '' and renamed to ''National African Company'' in 1881 and to ''Royal Niger Co ...
became an increasingly strong rival in the trade, the town's economy was severely damaged. In January 1895 the Nembe king William Koko led a dawn attack of more than a thousand warriors on the company's headquarters at Akassa, which triggered a retaliatory raid that destroyed the kingdom's inland capital of
Nembe Nembe is a Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Its headquarters are in the town of Nembe in the east of the area at The people of Brass, Nembe and Southern Ijaw Councils of Bayelsa State have bemoaned their neglect by oil companies ...
. The British already had a consulate in Twon-Brass, from which after the fall of Koko they administered the area.


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{Use dmy dates, date=April 2017 Niger River Rivers of Nigeria Bayelsa State