Ijaw

Collaboration with HopelessPandora 


Queen Amina                     Yauri                  Zamfara             Kebbi and Gwari                    Gobir, Katsina and Zaria

Daura               Fulani-Wodaabe               Fulani-Fula          Hausa-Kano    Kanuri           Fulani-Kontagora

Nupe          Jukun       Ngas       Igala

SOUTHEAST NIGERIA 
Fon           Hausa-Zinder      Futa-Jallon    Fulani-Toucouleur      Fulani-Massina       Futa-Toro

 Kanem     Bornu

Tribes side by side 

Blood of the Kingdoms story featuring all the characters

Government history

Sokoto Caliphate

Ijaw-Itsekiri Conflicts

Famous Individuals and Groups

Queen Amina 

Queen Nzinga

Religious Matters

Ekwensu

Anyanwu and Agbala

Ahia and Menri

Chukwu and the Alusi

Nimu Kwome

Maps

West Africa in 1050 CE by upvoteanthology

West Africa in 1100 CE by upvoteanthology



Name: Bome (Ijaw for praise)

This is an original character and the history will be described according to Hetalia terms to describe the history. There are over 40 different tribes but the Ijaw I will be using those normally found in Benin state and Bayelsa state as the main historical background. Other qualities of the Ijaw will be used however, unlike some of the others apart from President Jonathan of Nigeria I am not aware of notable Ijaw. If any fellow Nigerians can inform me more on Ijaw history I will correct where appropriate.

Ijaw is one of the oldest individuals in the southeast of Nigeria, slightly younger than Nri-Igbo. She spent her time wandering West Africa until she settled in the delta region of Nigeria in the 3rd century BCE where she ended up trading with the older kingdoms, Umuleri-Igbo (father of the Igbos) and Ife-Ife (father of the Yorubas). In the 400CE more indigenous people, some known as the Oru came across Ijaw and she peacefully absorbed them into her culture, as she started to practice fishing more and more she absorbed more smaller towns and cultures until they were all speaking Ijaw. She often engaged in trade with both Oyo-Yoruba and Nri-Igbo and their siblings where she established fishing towns, and huge plantations of rice, plantain and often exported timber which she used to build fleets of fishing ships to keep up with the demand from the other kingdoms that she was trading with. Once she began trading with the Benin Kingdom she adopted some of his styles of government, such as loose clusters of confederacies.

Due to her access to the sea that most of the other larger kingdoms did not at the time she was well known for having unique seafood dishes, such as Kalabari, and Kekefiyai. For the longest time, apart from the Kingdom of Bonny which she founded in the 14th century she was relatively not as wealthy as the larger kingdom despite being a very important trading hub for many of the kingdoms as far as agriculture went.

Things took a turn when she was the first of the kingdoms to encounter the Europeans, specifically the Portuguese. She began trading palm oil and many other resources but as more Europeans arrived she saw that what they desired the most was slaves, so she began capturing people from other kingdoms and sold them into slavery. All was good up until the British Empire began to increase its influence over her trade and attempted to convert her to Anglican Christianity though Portugal tried to convert her to Roman Catholicism and to this day she cannot decide which branch she prefers.

Her ports were then dually seized by Netherlands and England, split between VOC (Dutch Trading Company) and the fledgling English trading companies. When England ended the slave trade in 1807 she could no longer trade slaves so instead switched to peppers and palm oil. Her ports were named Bonny by the British. Then in 1830 she acquired an incompetent King William Dappa Pepple I, who England was forced to deport due to regional tensions in 1854 but his replacement died a year later. This forced England to assign Regents but William Dappa's throne was restored to him in 1861 and he had a better reign the second time around. His son George Oruigbiji Pepple returned from his education in England to take the throne after his father died on September 30 1866. He convinced Ijaw to discount the Iguana as their chief deity and stick with the Christian God instead. When other kingdoms in Nigeria began to take trade away from Ijaw she attacked them in order to retain the trading rights though England had to step in to curb the violence. This ended up with England deposing George and making Ijaw his protectorate in 1886 then restoring George's throne and the Ijaw royal line was allowed to continue in Bonny. The current king is William Dappa Pepple III.

Ijaw participated in both world wars in the East and West African campaigns and fought against Japan in world War 2.

One of the Kingdoms that she ran into conflict with was the Baptist Itsekiri and this continued well into the 20th century, curtailed by the formation of Nigeria in 1914. Things were peaceful between her and Itsekiri until Nigerian independence in 1960 which allowed their rivalry to renew. She mostly ignored the power plays until Nri-Igbo decided to secede and create a new nation called Biafra. Ijaw was initially up to join until she found out Itsekiri was part of the new nation. Feeling that the Nigerian government would be better than the Biafran government she reported the troop movements of the Biafrans to the Nigerians and was rewarded after the Biafran war ended in 1970. However the two still fought each other in what became known as the Warri conflicts a bloody intrastate conflict over land and trade and resources. Then in 1999 Ijaw tried to defend the acquisition of her oil fields from Nri-Igbo and struck at her. Nri-Igbo retaliated by killing the entire town of Odi in the Odi massacre. Afterwards Ijaw followed the politics of the nation and joined with Fula in presenting presidential candidates. Winning the vice-presidency Fula's candidate died leaving Ijaw's candidate to become the current leader of Nigeria.


Likes: Fishing, cooking, brasswork, wine making, Iguanas and swimming

Relationships: Igbo and Itsekiri are very tense rivalry, the others she has no issue with. England is a good trading partner and so is the Netherlands which she trades often especially with the oil company known as Shell.

She does not interact much with the Asian states or the South American states preferring to remain mostly insular