THE SATIRU UPRISING, NIGERIA, 1906

Lieutenant Francis Edward Blackwood, East Surrey Regiment
All Saints, Kingston-upon-Thames

After the fall of the Islamic Sokoto Caliphate in Northern Nigeria in 1903, and the deposing of the Sultan,  the posts of the Sultan and all the regional Emirs became British appointments, thus ensuring that even though they still retained considerable local powers and authority the postholders owed their continuing position to the British. That did not guarantee trouble-free times however. Any people with a tradition of proud independence objects to being conquered, especially if that conquest is combined with a heavy increase in taxation and the suppression of a money-making activity such as slavery. Add to that the natural resistance felt by an Islamic population against Christian rule and outbursts of resentment can be understood.

This resentment was manifested in the sporadic occurrence of a number of different preachers declaring themselves a Mahdi and promising to deliver Islam from the infidels. However, although these preachers gained followers they were scattered and unconnected, so they were never really threatening, relatively easily controlled.

One such outbreak occurred in February, 1904, in the village of Satiru, fourteen miles south-west of Sokoto. There the village chief declared himself The Mahdi, with his son, Isa, as the prophet Jesus. The new Sultan of Sokoto arrested the chief and imprisoned him. He died in prison, but his son succeeded him as chief, and retained his following as the prophet. 

Apart from some difficulty with collecting taxes, nothing unusual at the time, things remained quiet until January 1906. A preacher called Dan Makafo arrived in Satiru, accompanied by a large group of followers, having fled French Niger after a failed uprising. He arrived in Satiru having heard of Isa's role as Prophet, and his arrival prompted a resurgence in insurgent thinking. In February the nearby village of Tsomo refused to recognise Isa. In revenge Isa and his followers attacked Tsomo, killing at least fourteen villagers, and declared a jihad against the British.

So far, apart from the fatalities at Tsomo, so straightforward, but now the British authorities began to make mistakes.

Back in 1904 the Sultan of Sokoto had been allowed to deal with the insurrection in his own way, using his own traditional local authority. This time the British decided to deal with it themselves. This may have been because the decision-makers involved were all new appointees. The previous Resident, Major Alder Burdon, had left post only recently, and was still en route to his new posting. His replacement, H.R.P. Hillary, was only Acting Resident, and his Assistant Resident, A.G.M. Scott, was also Acting. They had as military support in Sokoto a company of Mounted Infantry under a senior officer, Lieutenant Francis Blackwood, and a European N.C.O., Sergeant Gosling. Both Blackwood and Gosling had been in position for less than a month.

​Francis Blackwood, born at Lymington in 1874, was the son of Sir Francis Blackwood, a naval commander and baronet (4th Blackwood Baronet of the Navy). Francis the younger had initially been with the Oxfordshire Light Infantry, then transferred to the East Surrey Regiment, before going the West African Frontier Force and the Northern Nigeria Regiment. I presume this was to further his military career, and it is probable that the posting to Sokoto was his first independent command.

When Hillary heard of the attack on Tsomo he should probably have sent the Sultan's forces to deal with it, but instead he decided to deal with it himself. At three in the morning of Valentine's Day, 1906, Hillary set out with a small force. As well as Scott he took a medical officer, Dr. Ellis, seventy Mounted Infantry led by Blackwood and Gosling, and one Maxim gun. The Maxim gun is important because when Hillary decided to leave the gun was not ready, and so its crew were instructed to catch up as soon as possible.

At quarter past seven, as they neared the village, the party were confronted by an estimated two thousand men, armed with spears and farm implements. Hillary and Scott went forward to parlay, saying they had come in peace. Meanwhile behind them Blackwood ordered his men to dismount and form a square.

Trying to convince rebellious people that you have come in peace when you are accompanied by seventy armed troops is not very convincing. Certainly Isa's men were not convinced and they moved towards Hillary and Scott. Blackwood, seeing the threat, ordered his men forward to defend the two civil officers, but some of the troopers were still dismounting, while those who had already dismounted were forming into the square. Those at the rear could not hear the orders from the front. Chaos ensued, and into that chaos came the villagers, armed with spears and sharpened farm implements. Within twenty minutes Blackwood, Hillary and Scott were all killed, along with twenty-nine of their troops. The rest, including a wounded Dr. Ellis, were fleeing, with Sergeant Gosling and C.S.M. Aduma Yola attempting to maintain the semblance of a fighting retreat. During the flight they passed the Maxim gun, which was abandoned, lost to the insurgents. It was a disaster, the largest British defeat so far in the Nigerian Protectorate.

Did the victory result in a major rebellion? The answer is no, because although the British, through Hillary's presumption and inexperience, stumbled into the disaster, experience and pragmatism pulled them out.

The obvious next move for Isa's men was to take Sokoto, but they were not strong enough. Isa himself had been fatally wounded, leaving Dan Makafo as leader - not a local man. In Sokoto the Sultan stuck with the British, and other local Emirs sent their support. The previous Resident, Major Alder Burdon, returned to the post he had only just left. The plans for retribution began.

By March 1st reinforcements had arrived at Sokoto, and by the 8th they were ready. On the morning of the 9th March the British force, over five hundred strong under the command of Major R. H. Goodwin, marched out, this time accompanied by two Maxim guns and a field gun. The result was inevitable.

The Satiru villagers advanced in parties of a few hundred at a time; they were mown down by the Maxim guns. The village was taken at bayonet point, with those trying to escape gunned down. Makafo was captured, while a search and destroy mission slew many of those who had fled. In total it was estimated that Satiru lost over two thousand men killed, with over three thousand women and children captured. By half-past two in the afternoon the mission had ended, and the town burnt to the ground. The Sultan destroyed the ruins utterly, and decreed that the town should never be rebuilt. It hasn't been.

Dan Makafo and five of his leading followers were tried in the Sultan's court (not a British court) and executed. The remains of Francis Blackwood, Hillary and Scott were buried in the cemetery in Sokoto. In the 1970s they were still there.

Francis Blackwood's father outlived his son by two decades, dying in Chelsea in 1924. He had other children, and one of them is the ancestor of the current, the 11th,  Baron Dufferin and Claneboye. Sir John Alder Burdon, born in Beijing in 1866, became a diplomat in the Caribbean, eventually serving as Governor-General of British Honduras. He died in 1933, and is buried in Hampstead Cemetery.

Meanwhile, in Northern Nigeria, Boko Haram continue the slaughter - and they cannot blame the British.

​

 DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO POTRIA MORIA TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN MEMORY OF FRANCIS EDWARD BLACKWOOD LIEUT. EAST SURRY REGT AND MOUNTED INFANTRY NORTHERN NIGERIA REGT. (SON OF CAPTAIN SIR FRANCIS BLACKWOOD, BART. R.N.) WHO WAS KILLED IN ACTION AT SATIRU NEAR SOKOTO, 14TH FEBRY 1906, WHILST GALLANTLY LEADING HIS COMPANY THIS TABLET WAS ERECTED BY HIS BROTHER OFFICERS WHO SERVED WITH HIM IN M.I. NORTHERN NIGERIA REGT. 1904-1905

Sources
Photo
Plaque to Francis Blackwood - photo by John Dewhurst, from iwm.org.uk

Military
Mahdist Triumph and British Revenge in Northern Nigeria: Satiru 1906 - R. A. Adeleye (Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Vol. 6, No.2, 1972)
Revolutionary Mahdism and Resistance to Colonial Rule in the Sokoto Caliphate, 1905-06 - Paul E. Lovejoy and J. S. Hogendorn (The Journal of African History, Vol. 31, No. 2, 19900
Islam and Colonialism: Intellectual responses of Muslims in Northern Nigeria to British Colonial Rule - Muhammad S. Umar (Brill, Leiden & Boston, 2006)
www.dnw.co.uk - Catalogue sale in March 2014 included Blackwood's African Campaign Medal, and catalogue entry contains transcript of Sir Frederick Lugard's report, published in The London Gazette, 2nd July, 1906

Genealogy
Ancestry

ⓒ Jonathan Dewhirst, May 2020