WARFARE AND PEACEMAKING IN PRE-COLONIAL IGBOLAND

Anyaele, Michael C.
Department of History and International Studies
AlvanIkoku Federal College of Education Owerri, Imo State
Email: [e-mail]
&
Chukwuleta, Chinenyenwa Obiaku (PhD)
AlvanIkoku Federal College of Education, Owerri
Email: [e-mail]
&
Agomuo, Kevin Obinna (PhD)
Department of History and International Relations
Abia State University Uturu, Abia State
Email: [e-mail]

Abstract
States have disparate interest groups, which may be ethnic, economic, ideological etc. Dealing
with all these forces often involved the use of diplomacy and coercion, to prevent or balance
destructive conflicts of interests and values. And so one of the most important functions of any
State is to ensure peaceful co-existence and social justice among the various groups within and
outside its borders through its social, legal, political and military institutions. In pre-colonial
times, Igbo States like others in the area that later morphed into Nigeria, experienced various
forms and levels of conflicts that sometimes escalated into intra-group and inter-group wars.
This work considers such wars, by using historical data from primary and secondary sources
as well as interviews to survey selected wars that occurred in certain parts of Igboland. These
accounts formed the basis for careful generalisation on warfare in the region during the pre-
colonial times. The work infers that warfare and the processes of peace making in Igboland
before the colonial period were determined by among other things socio-political structure of
the society and the world view of the Igbo at the time, such as abhorence for shedding of a
kinsman's blood in time of peace or war. Finally, their humane conduct of wars and treatment
of the defeated and prisoners of war have much to recommend them even in present times.
Keywords: pre-colonial, war, diplomacy, peace making, warfare,

Introduction
War is a situation of violent conflict where two groups or States fight against each other over
values or scarce resources. Wars were unavoidable features of States in the pre-colonial period
and occurred when diplomacy failed to resolve serious conflicts in intra-state and inter-state
relations. This work considers warfare and peace making in Igboland in pre-colonial times
paying close attention to the nature of wars, environmental influence on wars, preparation and
weapons, causes of wars and peace-making processes.

Like many other parts of pre-colonial Africa, wars in Igboland were triggered by diverse
factors, the most common being economic, particularly contestation over land. Wars could be
prolonged but not endless. Efforts were made by both State and non-State actors to terminate
wars and to ensure peace often times on conditions that preserved the prestige of the
belligerents. Long before the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of wars, the Igbo had
military conventions adopted to reduce the brutality of conflicts. Warring States or groups
refrained from attacking such soft targets as women, children and markets as well as religious
centres or shrines.

Nature of Conflicts and Warfare
Inter-group relations in pre-colonial Igboland was not always peaceful. Sometimes wars were
fought when diplomacy failed to resolve serious disagreements. In the pre-colonial period, wars
were an essential feature in domestic and external relations of both centralized and non-
centralised States. However, military historians agree that the nature, intensity and frequency
of wars varied from society to society and was dependent on certain factors. In this regard,
Osadolor (2011) notes the significant influence of the physical environment on combats. He
contends that "there was not a model of a single military culture. For instance, while the forest
promoted fighting on foot, the river promoted fighting from boat and the savannah promoted
fighting from horse back" (Osadolor 2011:12).

Igboland is located in the forest zone where mobility and interaction were very difficult. The
forest environment barred the use of horses for movement and for wars. Wars were therefore
fought by foot soldiers (infantry) due to the absence of the horse. In riverine Igbo communities
with largely maritime economies, wars were waged on water using war canoes to control
territories and river routes. Richard and John Lander in their exploration of the River Niger,
reported of the presence of patrolling war canoes in the lower Niger believed to be owned by
the Aboh of Western Igboland. Isichei (1977), also describes the Osomari an Igbo state as one
of the major naval powers on the lower Niger in the nineteenth century. All these demonstrate
the reality of naval warfare among the riverine Igbo States and communities in pre-colonial
times.

In addition to location, other factors such as the socio-political structure of the society and
available technology to a large extent defined the nature of pre-colonial African wars. In the
case of Igboland, the decentralized State system also, affected the nature of warfare and military
organization in the area. There were no pan-Igbo wars just as there was no pan- Igbo State but
wars could breakout between lineages, villages and village groups. The segmentary system of
many Igbo States unlike some centralized large kingdoms did not call for large armies to fight
their wars. It is believed that this small size of Igbo States and their armies also contributed to
"their pacifist tendencies" in intra-group and inter-group relations (Onwumechili, 2000:23).

Moreover, the absence of repressive socio-political institutions encouraged a culture of peace
and diplomacy instead of war and coercion among the largely egalitarian Igbo States. Igbo
States like many pre-colonial states in West Africa did not have a standing or regular army of
professional and full time soldiers (Akinade 2021; Ajayi and Smith, 1971). In Igboland, the
famed war-like Ohafia and Abam village States produced what could approximate to
professional soldiers. However, soldiers including the regularly engaged Ohafia and Abam
warriors were not known to undergo any formal training. Rather, troops were raised to fight as
the need arose and once hostilities ceased soldiers moved back to peace time occupations
(Odoemene, 2011; Akinade, 2021; Akinjogbin,1980).

In some parts of Igboland, soldiers were raised from selected youthful age grades with
physically fit young men ready to fight on short notice (Isichei, 1977; Azuonye, 2002). Ohafia
represents an example of States with such military security, based on well organised age grades.
Ohafia's warlike culture is explained by her geographical location in the midst of hostile Igbo
and non-Igbo neighbours. She had to develop her military strength and readiness by making
active participation in wars compulsory for certain age grades.

Her survivalist aggressive security involved head hunting expeditions and frequent wars in
Igboland and the Cross River areas. These wars were made compulsory for certain age grades.
Ohafia society therefore came to glorify gallantry and the warrior or dike. Those who failed to
fight in wars and to bring back human heads were excluded from induction into the revered
warrior class and were greatly despised and consistently humiliated in Ohafia society. They
were described as ujo meaning cowards or the fearful (Azuonye, 2002).

Among the Obowo people, young men were not forced to go to war but were expected as a
sense of duty to offer military services when their community needed them. However, as
Anyanwu (1988:9) elaborates; "Obowo people did not take kindly toward those who failed to
enlist in the army; such persons were treated as "saboteurs" of the common will to survive".
The penalty for dodging enlistment for no good reason in this Igbo society include ostracism
and loss of face for the family.

Igbo States waged both regular (open) and irregular wars (guerilla and commando attacks)
depending on the circumstances. In the same war situation, combatants could adopt any or a
combination of these approaches against their enemies. However, guerilla warfare and
commando attacks were used mostly in slave raids and counter-raids and in dealing with other
military missions that could not be effectively carried out with regular methods. For instance,
irregular warfare was used by Igbo groups to wage wars and to abduct or kill fugitive offenders
or criminals living in exile in enemy territories. It was also adopted to capture or assassinate
renowned warriors in enemy camps (Anyanwu, 1988, Odoemene, 2011).

In Western Igboland, just before the dawn of formal colonial rule, Ekumeku warriors adopted
guerilla methods in fighting against the better equipped army of the Royal Niger Company and
later the British colonial force (Isichei, 1976). For years, the Ekumeku soldiers controlled the
Asaba hinterlands and successfully resisted company and later protectorate soldiers sent against
them.

Also, in his micro study of Obowo military history, Anyanwu (1988) records that Umungwa,
an Obowo village used their commandos to eliminate a fugitive who fled to his maternal home,
another Obowo village known as Umuokeh. This was carried out after several diplomatic
moves for his repatriation to Umungwa failed. The assassination of this popular fugitive which
Umuokeh saw as a violation of her sovereignty precipitated the Umungwa-Umuokeh war that
lasted for about three years.

Preparation and Weapons of Wars in Pre-colonial Igboland
Igbo village states especially with heightened insecurity of the slave trade period, made
arrangements to safe guard their territories against invasion and surprise attacks. They dug
trenches and moats and set traps around their towns or communities to prevent sudden or
surprise attacks from enemies (Odoemene, 2011; Basden, 1982).

Before the commencement of wars, communities often engaged the services of medicine men
to prepare medicine for the safety of their society and soldiers. Such religious preparation
boosted the morale of fighters as they embarked on wars. Basden (1982:203) observes this
feature of Igbo warfare in the Awka Civil War early in the twentieth century (1903-1904) where
a medicine man was invited by a section of the belligerents “to concort medicine, provide
charms, and offer sacrifices to ensure success" and to immune the fighters against bullets.
Isichei (1976) comments on this practice of resorting to supernatural protection in wars by
individuals and communities in Igboland. She stressed that "to the Igbo, religio - magical

protection was at least as important as conventional weaponry in preparing for war. No war
preparations were complete without the dibia who arranged religious protection both for
individuals and for the whole town". (Isichei, 1976:78)

Prosecution of wars in pre-colonial times was also aided by military intelligence. Intelligence
gathering involved the use of spies, informants, and usually a recource to the supernatural to
gain inside information and early warning on impending danger or attack, plans, strengths and
weaknesses of an enemy State. In Igboland, women were not known to have played any direct
role as combatants in wars and extant literature hardly reveals any organised and widespread
use of women for intelligence gathering. This aspect of pre-colonial Igbo history needs more
research attention. Nonetheless, in some traditions like the Alayi-Nkalu war, a daughter of
Alayi married in Nkalu was said to have passed on critical information to her natal home, used
to neutralise the powers of the Nkalu Warrior and commander, which led to the defeat of the
Nkalu people.

Combatants in Igbo wars employed different types of weapons such as sticks, clubs, stones,
knives, bows and arrows, spears etc. (Odoemene, 2011). Fire arms were not widely used in
Igboland before the second half of the nineteenth century. However, the possession of guns in
wars gave a State or group, military and psychological edge over others that did not have fire
arms. Basden (1982) submits that by the beginning of the nineteenth century, Danish (dane)
guns and American snider rifles had become common among the Igbo. These guns were
imported mainly from Europe and the United States, through the Littoral States of the Niger
Delta. Growing demand for guns in the course of time gave rise to local fabrication of guns
that supplemented imports and servicing of damaged or malfunctioning ones. The introduction
of fire arms in Igboland is implicated in the increasing brutality of wars in the area, especially
from the nineteenth century onwards.

The manner these Western weapons were used initially depended on the type of war. In civil
wars or intra-village wars (ogu) likely to involve kinsmen or groups that have real or putative
blood relationship; weapons were used with caution to avoid killing a kinsman something the
Igbo abhorred. But in inter-state wars involving one village group and another without kinship
relationship (agha or ogu egbe) all sorts of weapons including guns were freely used and
belligerents could be killed without remorse. In wars between kin groups military codes or
certain conventions were observed such as the exemption of women, children and visiting
traders as well as markets and shrines etc. from attacks.

Causes of Wars in Pre-colonial Igboland
Different conditions and circumstances were strong motives for wars in pre-colonial times not
only in Igboland but in other parts of West Africa. Just as in modern wars, these factors were
as diverse as the need and desire for territorial expansion, economic advancement, protection
and enforcement of cultural values, personal and political interests (Akinade, 2021; Odoemene,
2011; Anyanwu, 1988). Some of these reasons for wars will be subsequently examined using
specific experiences of few Igbo Village States and communities.

The most prevalent cause of wars in Igboland just as in other parts of pre-colonial Africa was
expansionism especially the desire to acquire land or retain land for farming or settlement.
Typical examples of wars triggered by contestation over land include wars fought in the late
nineteenth century by a number of village groups in the Owerri area known as 'Ogu Mkpuru
Oka'. Territorial expansion often became necessary with population increase. Obibi village
group faced this situation but unfortunately she was surrounded by other village groups giving

her little or no room for expansion without encroaching into a neighbour's farmland. Since
every village group protected its land jealously, Obibi had no alternative but to endeavour to
extend her boundaries by war (Isichei, 1976:79).

Records also show that the Ezza of northeastern Igboland, hemmed in by Igbo and non-Igbo
groups resorted to wars of expansion to deal with the problem of land hunger. Ottenberg (2005)
notes that the Ezza were locked in on all sides by other Igbo or the Cross River peoples and
were prone to fight in order to expand. It is therefore not surprising that like the Ohafia they
made "military service compulsory for age groups of fighting age" (Ottenberg, 2005:14).

The Alayi people of Southern Igboland expanded eastward due largely to population pressure
on available land, by defeating the Nkanu people who probably were the autochthons in the
whole or part of the present Amankalu area. The war described in the local tradition as tough
and prolonged, was fought by selected age groups in Alayi. The memory of this war is still
preserved in the way the Amankalu areas of Alayi address themselves as "Mba gburu enyi".

In the pre-colonial times, issues that were quite personal in nature could escalate into wars
between one community and another due to the slim divide between the individual and the
community in the traditional society. For this reason, inter-personal conflicts or disagrements
often pitched one community against another. The Igbo consider it a great honour to defend
their kinship interests and values. Therefore every family, village or village group was duty
bound to protect its territorial integrity and the lives of its members within or outside its
physical space. Also, a village or a village group had what could be described as collective or
national prestige. A group might also go to war if its sovereignty and also this perceived
prestige or honour appeared to be insulted or at stake. Not to do anything at all in the face of
real or perceived wrong, provocation and insult was interpreted as weakness and could mean
loss of face or social prestige for a group concerned.

This inter-weaving of personal and communal interests partly explains why particularly the
killing of a kinsman in such matters that were wholly personal when not properly addressed
and restituted often snowballed into wars involving entire communities. For instance, Anyanwu
(1988) attributes the Avutu civil war of about 1740 AD and the Umuokeh - Umulogho war that
started in the 1890s all among the Obowo, to inter-personal economic disputes. The first started
as a disagreement between two women over the price of local beans, which resulted to the
death of a young man. The second was a dispute over the amount of balance due to a buyer in
a transaction.

Another inter-personal issue that often led to wars was marriage dispute in either endogamous
or exogamous marriages. In the pre-colonial times marriages were used to cement inter-
personal and inter-group relationships. Contrarily, marriage was also a frequent source of wars.
Families and the larger groups never took it lightly when their married daughters were
maltreated or harmed by their husbands and could resort to the use of force to seek redress
when attempts at peaceful resolution failed. Therefore, while marriage was a vital source of
peace making and peace keeping, it could also be a factor of conflict. As Isichei (1970) aptly
observes; the practice of exogamy was a fruitful source of disputes. Every village had a large
group of daughters married in other towns. If any of them was maltreated in life or in death,
the resulting dispute easily escalated into wars.

In Orlu area, flouting of tradition in a marital relationship was behind the Amucha - Umudioka
war, which occurred in the late nineteenth century. The tradition of the people required that the

remains of a married daughter be sent to her family of birth for burial. Where disagreements
arose, families of a deceased married woman often used force to ensure that this tradition was
respected. In this particular case one titled man from Amucha "refused to send the corpse of
his late wife to Umudioka her natal home" for burial against tradition and consent of the
woman’s family (Anyanwu, 1988; 161). This triggered the inter-village war between Amucha
and Umudioka as efforts at peaceful resolution of the matter failed.

Inter-personal disagreements often degenerate into inter-group or inter-community wars
especially when death occurred in the circumstance. Usually, communities tried to resolve such
conflicts through diplomatic processes and could only engage in war when diplomacy failed.
In Achebe's Things Fall Apart, a historical fiction on pre-colonial Igbo society; the inter-
personal conflict that resulted in the death of an Umuofia daughter at Mbaino market nearly
led to an inter-state war. This was, however, resolved through diplomacy with Mbaino
accepting Umuofia's conditions for peace (Achebe, 1958).

In the period of the slave trade, some Igbo states waged wars with other communities to obtain
captives. Isichei (1976) highlights how Osomari fought other Igbo states to procure war
captives, who were then sold into slavery. The Aro of Cross River Igboland, with the help of
Ohafia, Abam and Edda soldiers warred against Igbo and non-Igbo communities that
supposedly hindered their slaving and trading activities (Afigbo, 1981). Such wars when
successful on the side of the Aro, produced more war captives that were disposed in the slave
markets.

Termination of Wars and Peace making in Pre-colonial Igboland
Certain processes were involved in termination of wars and peace making in pre-colonial
Igboland. In conflicts involving two villages, some neutral villages or communities sufficiently
trusted by the two parties could intervene to return the belligerents to peaceful conditions. Well
informed elders and diplomats with sound arbitrating skills from these neutral villages could
initiate or facilitate a peace process to resolve the issues at stake between combatants. In the
Umungwa-Umuokeh war, which lasted for about three years (1891-1894), some villages in
Obowo waded in to end the war, and successfully mediated between the warring groups. The
mediators helped the parties to negotiate a mutually acceptable peace settlement (Anyanwu,
1988).

In Igbo communities women were sometimes instrumental to ending conflicts. Daughters
(umuada) married within and outside their village were influential in peace making process not
only in their natal families or lineage of birth but in the entire village because of the respect the
traditional society accorded them. The umuada had the "the reputation of firmness, frankness
and impartiality" and for this reason their decisions on inter-group disputes were usually
accepted or honoured (Anyanwu, 1993:118). Therefore their intervention through persuasion,
protests and other traditional strategies could ensure peace in intra-group and inter-group
conflicts at different levels of the society.

Sources show, though with some varying degree, that this function of women in conflict
resolution was universal among the Igbo. An astounding example of women's involvement in
the context of peace making was evident among the Umuezechima Communities in Western
Igboland, where a group appearance in war front of the highly respected Umuada (Umundomi)
or married daughters of the disputants signaled the end of hostility. With regard to this role of
women in termination of wars, Ejiofor (nd) cited in Ejiofor (1982:304) recalls this oral account;

We were told that there were military codes of conduct (Iwu Ogu) but that was
the case long, long ago. If during a war in those days the Umuada (daughters)
who formed a link between warring parties appeared in the war front as a group
the war stopped...

The appearance of Umuada in a battle field was not just a sign for a truce but for a permanent
cessation of hostilities. It was a call to settle the causes of the war through diplomacy.

Also in parts of Ngwaland peace was enforced between warring parties when the ezeala, the
priest of ala sent an osu carrying palm fronds, an emblem of peace, to the battle field. The
combatants were expected to stop fighting upon sighting the osu. After this a date would be
fixed for a peace convention to resolve the contentious issues that led to the war (Oguntomisin,
2004)

Wars often ended with a covenant of peace presided by priests. Anyanwu (1988), Odoemene
(2011) and Oguntomisin (2004) all underscore the important position of priests in ending wars
in pre-colonial times. Reputable priests of concerned groups and those invited from trusted
neutral communities administered oaths and offered sacrifices to seal agreements of peace or
treaties reached by warring parties. Usually such peace covenants or treaties were expected to
be respected by the affected groups for generations and sometimes memorials were raised at
the time, like planting of trees, to preserve such agreements for posterity.

Conclusion
In pre-colonial Igboland, inter-group and intra-group relations or dealings expectedly were not
always peaceful. The need for territorial expansion, founding of new settlements in the process
of state formation and also serious disagreements or disputes between groups or communities,
which failed to be resolved through diplomacy led to wars.

The nature of these wars was influenced by a number of factors such as the forest environment,
the social organization of the society including kinship relations. Wars were waged largely with
traditional weapons. And the conduct of wars was regulated by certain military conventions
such as the exemption from attacks of soft targets including; women, children, shrines and
visiting traders.

Certain changes in warfare occurred over time, due to contacts with the Europeans, which
resulted to introduction of fire arms and the drive for war captives who were either sold or
converted into domestic slaves. Although the use of guns and the desire for slaves increased
the brutality of wars in Igboland they did not completely eliminate the traditional and humane
military conventions in Igbo wars.

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