Niger Coast Protectorate

Oil Rivers Protectorate (1884–1893) Niger Coast Protectorate (1893–1900)
1884–1900
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: God Save the Queen
Status	Protectorate of the United Kingdom
Capital	Old Calabar
Common languages	English, Igbo, Ibibio-Efik, Edo, Ijaw and others
Religion	Christianity, Igbo religion, Edo religion
Government	Colonial administration
Monarch
• 1884—1900	Victoria
Consul General
• 1884–1891	Edward Hyde Hewett
• 1891–1896	Claude Maxwell MacDonald
• 1896–1900	Ralph Moor
Historical era	New Imperialism
• Established	1884
• Disestablished	1 January 1900
Currency	Pound sterling
Preceded by Succeeded by Aro Confederacy Kingdom of Benin Akpakip Oro Akwa Akpa Kingdom of Bonny Southern Nigeria Protectorate

The Niger Coast Protectorate was a British protectorate in the Oil Rivers area of present-day Nigeria, originally established as the Oil Rivers Protectorate in 1884 and confirmed at the Berlin Conference the following year. It was renamed on 12 May 1893, and merged with the chartered territories of the Royal Niger Company on 1 January 1900 to form the Southern Nigeria Protectorate.

Queen Victoria on a stamp of the Niger Coast Protectorate, 1894

This covered the eastern coast of what it today Nigeria, and in theory extended inland as far as Lokoja. It was established to better regulate and control the large trade in palm oil that was coming through both Calabar and the Niger Delta, and which had given the various rivers in the area the name of oil rivers.

References

• Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (Random House, 1991), pp. 197–199
• StampWorldHistory
• Stamworld stamp