History of john payne jackson

He worked with the merchant L. He worked with his employer and started to trade in palm produce on his own. Payne suffered business setbacks and described the losses he incurred as the cruel greed of European commerce on the lower Niger. He abandoned trade and got employment as a bookkeeper with the Lagos Times and Gold Coast colony advertiser in The above circumstances led to the establishment of the Lagos Weekly Record in Host of the areas of focus can be outlined as follows.

Colonial administration b. British attitude to native chiefs in the course of the system of indirect rule c. New system of land tenure d. Policy of discrimination against Africans in some histories of john payne jackson like politics, education and employment e. Type of education and work ethics summation of other issues that attracted comments from the record are as follows.

The policy did not go down well with the record, which saw it as an imposition. Not only did the paper describe the policy as exploitation it called on Lagosians to resist the exploitative device. The paper disapproved that public money be used to build places of worship where Africans are banned from entry. The then governor Lord Lugard, appointed few government officials in legislative council without authority.

In the opinion of the paper, this is inhuman and an easy means of encoding the loyalty of subjects to natural rules. Summarily, the record by all standards was a radical Newspaper and advocated for aggressive nationalism. Kalu Ezra, a historian of international repute, described the Record as the first militant nationalist paper.

Laotan, a journalist, said that the Weekly Record was so powerful that at one point because of its uncompromising attitude in the national interest foreign advertisements were withdrawn. However, the paper stood its ground. His columns provided influential and instructive help to contemporaries even as they do to modern observers.

He also set the pace for Nigerian nationalists who eventually used the press as a strong instrument to fight colonialism. There was a small European population of no more than officials, merchants and missionaries. Although the largest African ethnic group was Yorubathere were also repatriate former slaves from Brazil and Sierra Leone, HausaFanteNupe and many other peoples.

Jackson supported the local leaders in Dahomey in their resistance to the French colonial powers, and sympathized with the leaders in what is now Nigeria in their struggles to retain their independence. He became a friend of Nana Olomu of Itsekiri -land, and after Nana's surrender to the British in Lagos published a long interview with Nana.

After Nana's trial and deportation Jackson kept the issue alive, and backed a campaign for his release, which eventually occurred in Jackson was also a great admirer of the Mandingo leader Samori Ture in his resistance to the French, and named his press and his premises at the Marina after Somory. Jackson supported the colonial authorities during the Anglo-Ijebu War.

Jackson hired Owen Emerick Macaulay's printing press, and then used the press of J. Bagan Benjamin. In the mids he was able to purchase a second-hand press from England. In Henry McCallum arrived as the new governor, and the paper became less and less friendly to the administration. The advertising contract was cancelled in During the period before World War I —18 the British were steadily increasing their control of what became the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, and taking power from what had been independent local rulers.

Jackson expressed these concerns eloquently, pointing out that the Europeans were trying to impose their own standards without understanding the situation, and were treating privately held lands as it they were public. Also, the system in the northern emirates was quite different from that in the south. Under the new order of things introduced into West Africa two points of view have evolved; the European point of view and the Native point of view both of which are the natural and inevitable outcome of the existing conditions and represent a set of systems, ideas and modes of life quite dissimilar and liable to conflict with each other.

The European point of view is not only given emphasis by both pen and voice but finds expression also in the direction, aim and purpose of civilized life in West Africa vociferously. On the other hand, the Native point of view is seldom voiced as is on the whole accorded but scant recognition. Our aim is to give greater prominence to the Native point of view feeling confident that no solid progress can be made in any direction without there being a thorough comprehension on both sides of the views held by each and a united effort to bring these into reconciliation when they happen to clash or differ.

Jackson and Herbert Samuel Heelas Macaulay were the leaders of the growing nationalist movement in Nigeria by Their ambitious objectives and rabble-rousing approach were viewed with hostility by both the government and the leading members of the African elite. The Record gave in-depth coverage of the meetings.

History of john payne jackson

Jackson had contracted a disease during the Yorubaland tour that paralysed his legs, and forced him to retire. Jackson had been influenced by Edward Wilmot Blyden 's Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Racewith its message of cultural and political nationalism. He praised traditional values, saying: "there can be no doubt that there is more happiness to be found for man in the simple and contented life of the African than in all the inventions and contrivances of Europe.

He said, "Put the aborigines well in front, go back to the simplicity of your fathers—go back to health and life and continuity. To the native mind which is able to emerge from beneath the cloak of blind fatuity with which the civilized native is enveloped, nothing stands out in greater relief than the paralysation and complete emasculation which afflict the native under the spell of his so-called civilized life.

Imbued through the course of his training with his conditions of life and surrounding, he is disqualified for fulfilling the first requirement of his existence namely adaptation to environment At first Jackson was strongly opposed to polygamy, but later he changed his opinions and became a strong supporter. This drew some criticism.

Jackson was hostile to the Christian missionaries, and held Islam to be a superior religion. While the Moslem African develops into a mosque-creating, self-reliant propagandist, the Christian Africans blossom into "House" builders and apron string saints. Islam has produced munificent Africans, liberal, generous, public spirited men, and that even locally.

It can hardly be said to be reasonable The life of the native of west Africa is of a communal order. The life of the European in Europe and elsewhere is individualistic. The law of the African must naturally conform to the communistic principle The pioneer African patriot, Edward Wilmot Blydencalled Jackson "an able man" with "very strong race feelings.

The word is a native African product, first seeing the light in "The Lagos Weekly Record", invented to describe the veneer of civilization imposed on natives of Africa at the White's point of contact with them. This Lagos publicist John Payne Jackson finds that"after a century of trial it is fitting that the native should call a halt, and in his own interest take stock of the result of this foreign system imposed on him".

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