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Short Stuff: Benin Bronzes · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, Chuck's
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: here too, Jerry's here to Dave's not, but you know
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the jam and this is short stuff. You go, Okay,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'll go. So we're talking about the Benin bronzes and
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  Speaker 1: they are a treasure trove of artworks that came out
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of Benin, which is a former kingdom. Actually it's still
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: a current kingdom in Edo State in the south of
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  Speaker 1: Nigeria right now, but before Nigeria was Nigeria, Benin was
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  Speaker 1: a kingdom along West Africa that was a very powerful kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: And one of the things that they did when a
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  Speaker 1: new king, which they called an obah oba or a
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  Speaker 1: new queen mother, ascended to the throne, when there was
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  Speaker 1: some sort of important event or even something that they
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  Speaker 1: just wanted to kind of chronicle, they would make these plaques,
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  Speaker 1: these incredibly intricate, well made ron's plaques. And over time,
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  Speaker 1: over hundreds of years of creating these things and documenting
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  Speaker 1: the kingdom, they ended up with a lot of these things,
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  Speaker 1: and so much so that it became essentially considered a
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  Speaker 1: cultural legacy of the world, but in particular of Benin
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  Speaker 1: in West Africa.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, boy, what a set up.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks. I've been practicing it for like eight days.
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  Speaker 2: I really know what you're doing. They also serve as
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  Speaker 2: a historical record, of course, because like you said, they
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  Speaker 2: came along when there were new obas and new queen mothers.
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  Speaker 2: So it's art and its history all wrapped up into one.
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  Speaker 2: And one element of the historical part of it is
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  Speaker 2: how it figures in, and this very much figures in
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  Speaker 2: with sort of the story. Here is their contact with
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  Speaker 2: Europeans in Europe and these countries, the first of which
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: was the Portuguese. When they started trading and having diplomatic
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: contacts and relations with Portugal, so they were sort of
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  Speaker 2: the first on board. They would send emissaries back and
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  Speaker 2: forth between Portugal and Benin and they negotiated their their
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  Speaker 2: their deal, their trade deal, their sort of how they
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  Speaker 2: were going to work together as people, and that's where
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Europe enters the picture basically as far as Benin is concerned.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was just the Portuguese at first. That
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  Speaker 1: was I don't know if you said it or not,
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  Speaker 1: but starting in the fifteenth century they made contact and
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  Speaker 1: we're trading with them, and then shortly after that this
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  Speaker 1: is like the Age of Discovery, where people from Europe
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  Speaker 1: just started sailing around being like, hey, hey, who wants
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  Speaker 1: to buy our stuff? And whose stuff can we buy
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  Speaker 1: so or take? Yeah, yeah, exactly. They were very quickly
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  Speaker 1: followed by the French, the Dutch, the English, and Benins
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  Speaker 1: trading with all of these European nations. And they were
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  Speaker 1: already a fairly powerful kingdom from what I can tell,
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  Speaker 1: but they became exponentially powerful because they positioned themselves as
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  Speaker 1: the contact between European traders and countries and kingdoms and
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  Speaker 1: states in the interior. You wanted to trade with any
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  Speaker 1: other groups in West Africa, you needed to go through
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  Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Benin to do that if you were
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  Speaker 1: a European. And so they became very very powerful, and
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  Speaker 1: that's kind of how things went for a couple of centuries.
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  Speaker 1: They became really involved in the West African slave trade.
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  Speaker 1: They supplied slaves to the Europeans, They traded leopard skins, pepper, ivory,
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  Speaker 1: things that were really valued in Europe. They had a
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  Speaker 1: lot of stuff that the Europeans wanted, So, like I said,
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  Speaker 1: they became powerful. But as industrializations started to really take
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  Speaker 1: hold in Europe, particularly in the UK, Great Britain became
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  Speaker 1: more and more powerful, and essentially eventually I should say,
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  Speaker 1: dominated trade with West Africa and Benin in particular. But
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  Speaker 1: they weren't happy with having a monopoly. They wanted to
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  Speaker 1: get rid of Benin altogether and just be able to
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  Speaker 1: trade with people in the er. Why should they have
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  Speaker 1: a middle man, and so they started to kind of
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  Speaker 1: antagonize Benin and things just kind of went south from there.
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  Speaker 2: It's a little early, but I think we should take
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: a break because it's such a good cliffhanger.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, thanks man, all right, we'll be right.
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  Speaker 2: Back, all right. So when we left off, Great Britain
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  Speaker 2: was like, hey, you know what, we don't need this
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  Speaker 2: gatekeeper anymore. We don't need a middle man. We want
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  Speaker 2: to be able to do what we want in Africa
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  Speaker 2: and Central Africa and not go through Benin. So in
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  Speaker 2: eighteen ninety seven, in January of that year, they supposedly
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  Speaker 2: a peaceful mission, but it was a pretty aggressive, provocative
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  Speaker 2: thing that they did. The British Trade mission went in
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  Speaker 2: and they were attacked when they're on their way to
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  Speaker 2: Benin City, and this really changed everything. There were seven
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  Speaker 2: British delegates who died in this attack. I think two
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  Speaker 2: hundred and thirty of the African carriers died. But as
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  Speaker 2: far as Britain was concerned, is it's on now because
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  Speaker 2: seven of us are dead. And that triggered a full
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  Speaker 2: scale a retaliatory military assault and expedition on Benin, which
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  Speaker 2: of course was no match at all for the British
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  Speaker 2: forces at the time. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: No, it was something that Great Britain could point to
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  Speaker 1: and just be like, oh, look, we don't have any
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  Speaker 1: moral quander anymore. We can go take over Benin now
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  Speaker 1: under the guise of revenge. This is called the Punitive expedition.
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  Speaker 1: And so they sent in a bunch of a large
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  Speaker 1: military contingent and they just occupied Benin, killed off a
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  Speaker 1: lot of the chiefs, they exiled the Oba, they pilled
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  Speaker 1: and this is really critical, This is kind of the
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  Speaker 1: point of this short stuff. They pillaged stuff, they found treasures,
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  Speaker 1: they found a Benin and one of the things they
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  Speaker 1: pillaged was the Benin bronzes. And in addition to those
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  Speaker 1: plaques that we talked about, the Benin bronze, that that term,
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  Speaker 1: it's like an umbrella term to describe a whole group
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  Speaker 1: of artworks that were created in the Kingdom of Benin
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  Speaker 1: from about the at least the fifteenth century up until
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  Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, although they seem to have been creating
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  Speaker 1: pretty great artworks even before that fifteenth century, like in
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  Speaker 1: the medieval era. But this it could be made of ivory,
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  Speaker 1: it could be made of brass, it could be made
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  Speaker 1: of bronze. All sorts of different media in making jewelry,
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  Speaker 1: or making busts, or making altar pieces, or making those plaques,
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  Speaker 1: all of those are encompassed by this Benin bronze term.
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  Speaker 1: And all of those were pillaged. I think ten thousand
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  Speaker 1: pieces of art and cultural artifacts were pillaged during this
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: occupation by the British of Benin.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of that went back to the UK.
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  Speaker 2: You know, they call that spoils of war, which is
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  Speaker 2: a nice way to say things we stole after we
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  Speaker 2: invaded a country, and some of it they distributed among
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  Speaker 2: some of the people of the expedition, like here, you
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  Speaker 2: take this, you take this, I'll be taking this, and
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  Speaker 2: they basically remove Benin as that gatekeeper, and all of
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  Speaker 2: a sudden, you know, Central Africa was open for all
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  Speaker 2: of Europe to trade with, certainly England, and these artifacts
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  Speaker 2: ended up you know where they always end up in
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  Speaker 2: the hands of nobility, private collections and notably museums, where
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: a lot of this stuff are still in these museums today, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the two largest collections are held by the British
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  Speaker 1: Museum and the Ethnographic Museum in Berlin. And even though
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  Speaker 1: that that umbrella term Benine bronzes refers to a lot
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  Speaker 1: of different artworks, typically you're also really talking about those
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  Speaker 1: plaques that show different you know, different Obasa sending to
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  Speaker 1: the throne, different you know, moments in benin history. And
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  Speaker 1: they're they're considered like a again I think I said,
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  Speaker 1: a cultural legacy of humanity. But they're also just treasure.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, they're worth Chuck, I saw an estimated one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and thirty billion dollars. They are priceless, I guess
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  Speaker 1: not priceless. They were the one hundred and thirty billion,
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  Speaker 1: but they're incredibly valuable, not just monetarily, but also culturally
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  Speaker 1: and historically, and they are outside of Africa. There was
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  Speaker 1: a French report by a restitution group that was commissioned
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  Speaker 1: by Emanuel Macron in twenty seventeen that estimated that ninety
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  Speaker 1: to ninety five percent of Africa's cultural hair is held
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  Speaker 1: by major museums outside of Africa because of something called
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  Speaker 1: the Scramble for Africa in the late nineteenth century, when
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  Speaker 1: all these European powers just invaded Africa and started carving
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  Speaker 1: it up and turning it into colonies. They took all
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  Speaker 1: the stuff that they liked and sent it back to
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  Speaker 1: Europe and it's still in these museums.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. But and this is something we've talked about before
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  Speaker 2: in some other art podcasts. Part of that twenty seventeen study.
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  Speaker 2: The whole point of that was repatriation, was getting this
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  Speaker 2: art back into the hands of the countries of origin,
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  Speaker 2: these stolen artifacts. And Emmanuel Macron said, you know what,
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  Speaker 2: over the next five years, we're gonna return the stuff
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  Speaker 2: that we have. Germany got involved the Smithsonian, like individual museums,
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  Speaker 2: the Smithsonian and the met all have said like, all right,
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  Speaker 2: we need to start, you know, returning these these looted
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  Speaker 2: art pieces, especially these were not as spac actually, but
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  Speaker 2: for this episode, you know, notably these bronze plaques from Nigeria,
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  Speaker 2: and so Nigeria is getting so much stuff back that
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  Speaker 2: next year. I don't know if it's still on track,
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  Speaker 2: but in twenty twenty five, they are opening the Edo
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  Speaker 2: Museum of West African Art because they finally have art again.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a sculptor from Nigeria called a Hanjazo Gleiley,
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  Speaker 1: He's a sculptor and said that there's an artistic awakening
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  Speaker 1: in Nigeria because of the return of these bronzes.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. But I think this one in particular comes with
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  Speaker 2: a little bit of controversy, right because the the current
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  Speaker 2: OBA is that right, Yes, his Royal Majesty Oba Uwaar
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  Speaker 2: the second I'm going with ure the second okay, legally
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  Speaker 2: speaking as the rightful owner of these bronzes. But in
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, Muhammadu Bihari, who is the outgoing president said,
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  Speaker 2: you know, any of this looted stuff that comes back
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  Speaker 2: to the Oba like belongs to the Oba and the
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  Speaker 2: palace of the Oba, and no one can do anything
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  Speaker 2: with it unless the Oba says so.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you are in Nigeria and like Benin,
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  Speaker 1: it's still it's just a department, like we said, it's
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  Speaker 1: a not considered like an independent nation state or even kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: I guess it's part of Nigeria. But it's like the
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  Speaker 1: Oba has like a government advisory role to the Nigerian
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  Speaker 1: government like they're they're viewed legitimately in similar lines to
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  Speaker 1: the way the man somebody's gonna kill us for this
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  Speaker 1: little bit. But the royal family is in Great Britain.
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  Speaker 1: They don't actually rule Great Britain, but they still have
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  Speaker 1: they're still consulted on things, they still have some sort
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  Speaker 1: of cultural importance as well. That's the impression that I
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  Speaker 1: have there. But so the Nigerian president doing that makes
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  Speaker 1: total sense in Nigeria, like it was the Kingdom of
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  Speaker 1: Benins to begin with, the Kingdom of Benin is still there.
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  Speaker 1: Though oh Ba is the leader of the Kingdom of Benina,
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  Speaker 1: ancestor or a descendant of these people from whom these
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  Speaker 1: plaques were stolen, it makes sense that it's his. But
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  Speaker 1: outside of Nigeria, if you're a museum curator, you don't
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  Speaker 1: like the sound of that at all.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely been some complaints from these
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  Speaker 2: Western museums who are like, you know, I don't know
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  Speaker 2: about returning all this stuff and having it just be
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: claimed by the palace, and you know, apparently the museum
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  Speaker 2: director there, Philip Ihanako, is how I'm going to pronounce it.
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  Speaker 2: Although I have appealing that I might be silent, said,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: you know what, you don't really get a say in
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  Speaker 2: this anymore. Yeah, like you can't loot this stuff over
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  Speaker 2: you know, a long period of time and then a
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: expect it to be you know, handled like you want
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: or handled you know, perfectly in a very quick manner.
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  Speaker 1: And so yeah, the West is like, okay, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we agreed, like these are illegitimately taken from Benin, so
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  Speaker 1: they need to go back to Benin, and they're just
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  Speaker 1: going to have to deal with the fact that this
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  Speaker 1: this cultural legacy of humanity is privately owned by one person,
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  Speaker 1: the Oba of Benin.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, is it the complaint that it's not going
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  Speaker 2: to be or not necessarily going to be on display.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, because they built the Museum of West
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  Speaker 1: African Art, so I don't know that that's it. I
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  Speaker 1: think the idea is in the West, if a museum
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  Speaker 1: owns something, it belongs to everybody, and the museums is
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  Speaker 1: kind of the keeper of that. They protected the keeper shape.
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  Speaker 1: They show you this this stuff, they put it on display.
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  Speaker 1: This is like, no, these things belong to the Oba.
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  Speaker 1: He can do whatever he wants.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, essentially, Okay, so they're afraid it's just going to
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: be like decorating the bathroom or something.
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  Speaker 1: I guess I think so, I'm not sure. I just
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: think that they're a little skittish about the whole thing.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: And I think the guy who, like Well West needs
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: to butt out of it and just give us our
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: plaques back. It's tough not to. It's tough to discount
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: his thoughts too. Are you got anything else?
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: I got nothing else.
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  Speaker 1: If you want to know more about the Benin bronzes,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: go look them up online. They're really fascinating and beautiful.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: And since I said that short, stuff's out.
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