Stuff about Things: An Art History Podcast
Stuff about Things: An Art History Podcast
Episode 32: The Benin Bronzes, Part II
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Wait, am I recording? You are listening to Stuff About Things, an art history podcast. Alright, let's bango. Hello and welcome to Stuff About Things, an Art History Podcast. My name is Lindsay. Hello. I recently got my PhD in art history, which really just means that I am three letters more qualified to do what I do best, which is to tell you stuff about some things. If this is the first time that you are hearing my voice, please, please know that this is part two of a two-part series on the Benin Bronz. The first episode, episode 31, explored the history of the Kingdom of Benin and the creation of the bronzes, what they look like, what purposes they have served, how they were made, all of that good stuff. This episode is going to cover the rest of it. You do not have to listen to them in order, you don't even have to listen to them both, but if you find yourself confused at any juncture in this current episode, it might be helpful to go back and listen to episode 31. Before getting started, I wanted to give a little note at the beginning of the episode that this includes some serious topics. There's talk of what I call the colonial special, which is death, violence, slavery, and a stealing. I don't get particularly graphic, but I also don't skirt around it, so if there's younger listeners around, or if any of you are looking for a particularly upbeat episode, this one might not be for you, and that's okay. I will also undoubtedly butcher the pronunciations of Nigerian and Edo names and words. It's gonna happen. Many of you probably don't know how to pronounce this stuff either, but if you are Nigerian or you speak Edo, or you know, something like Yoruba, you are more than welcome to point and laugh at me. I'm very cool with that. Now that that's out of the way, it's time to give credit where credit is due and celebrate and mention the two books that were absolutely instrumental to me writing this episode. The first is Dan Hicks's book entitled The Brutish Museums: The Benning Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution. The second book is by Barnaby Phillips, entitled Loot, Britain and the Benning Bronzes. And of course, as always, you'll be able to find a full list of the sources that I used on the podcast's website, StuffAboutThingsPodcast.com. With that said, let's get to it. This is the part where I tell you stuff about a few thousand things, the institutions and people that keep them, and those who want them back. The Benin Bronzes, part two. For those of you who have not listened to part one or maybe just need a little refresher, we all do sometimes. Here is the sparknotes version of what we talked about in episode 31. Here goes. The kingdom of Benin refers to a small but mighty kingdom in West Africa that thrived due to its proximity to the Niger River and the Atlantic coastline in present-day Nigeria. The kingdom is sometimes referred to as the Edo Kingdom, E.D.O., which is also the name of the ethnic group that composed the primary inhabitants of this kingdom, the Edo people. Benin City serves as, well, served as the kingdom's capital and home to the Oba, or the King. From around 1500 to 1700-ish, there was no system of writing, so we don't have these historical facts set in stone, or you know, on parchment or anything. But from between about 1500 and 1700, the kingdom has a golden age. This is in large part due to increasing contact with Europeans. Not because Europeans are so great and whatever, I think this episode will establish that they're definitely not, but due to increasing trade, with the Europeans being particularly interested in natural resources like ivory and pepper, but also human resources like slaves. During this same period in which there's money just flowing into the kingdom, the Edo people become very, very good at bronze casting and produce hundreds and hundreds of bronze plaques, statues, and ancestral busts, most of which were commissioned by Obas. In addition to being like super dope and really beautiful, it's believed that these objects also served practical functions, like hyping up the kingdom's history or being used for religious purposes such as commemorating the memories of ancestors. The majority of the most famous of the Benin bronzes were probably made in this window of 1500 to 1700, though the practice also continued after those dates. Bada bing bada boom! That is the SparkNotes version of episode 31. What else happened after those dates, you ask? Well, I will tell you. Buckle up because it gets pretty sad. Around the year 1700, the Kingdom of Benin enters a decline. There was civil war, there were ineffective obas, there were coups for power, and a bunch of other stuff happening. Things got even more dire in the early to mid-1800s, yes, we're skipping an entire century, after most European nations, as well as the newly formed United States of America, abolished the slave trade, which was one of the primary quote-unquote resources through which the kingdom acquired wealth. However, the Kingdom of Benin had access to another resource that in the 19th century was as good as gold. One that the British in particular were very invested in. Palm oil. Although palm oil had been around for a very long time, it wasn't until the 19th century that the British, and Europeans more broadly, developed a particular need for palm oil. What were they using it for, you ask? To lubricate their machinery, of course. Get your mind out of the gutter. Because I'm referring to the Industrial Revolution. Palm oil was absolutely crucial to that process, and it became more and more important as the revolution progressed, and the Kingdom of Benin was lousy with it. The British, naturally, were worried about having to compete with other European powers for this palm oil that the kingdom was producing. That all changed in the decades leading up to the 1880s, when European powers were becoming rivals for these resources and decided to do the civilized thing. Yes, I'm being sarcastic when I say that. They decided to sit down with each other in Berlin and divided Africa amongst themselves. They literally sat there and were like, okay, the Belgian want this, the French want this, the British take this, Germans take that, until the entire continent was spoken for. Just to put this into perspective for you, as of 1880, only 10% of Africa had been colonized. By the start of World War I in 1914, 90% of Africa was under the control of colonial powers. 99-0. Now, did these European powers inquire as to whether or not Africans wanted this? No, no, they did not. Shocker, I know. The British claimed West Africa, established a monopoly over trade in that region, and started making super sketchy treaties with West African kingdoms that really only benefited the British. The Kingdom of Benin is no exception. In 1892, the Oba, Oba of Voroman, signs a treaty with the British, essentially signing away the kingdom's independence. Now the kingdom does not become a colony officially, it's known as a protectorate. But the British suddenly have a bunch of control over what the kingdom can and cannot do, specifically with regards to trade. This treaty was straight up predatory. There was absolutely no benefit for the Kingdom of Benin, and no one really knows why Oba Ovoroman signed it in the first place. It's all super sketchy. The details also seem to have been a bit murky to Oba Ovoroman, who continued to frustrate the British by charging taxes on trade goods and even occasionally restricting the export of palm oil, basically as a kind of power play. This obviously made the British mad as hell. One such angry British man was a 33-year-old upstart by the name of James Robert Phillips, who is becoming a big muckity muck in the British operations in the Niger River area of West Africa. Phillips comes up with this amazing plan that could not possibly go wrong. Excuse me. My sarcasm was really acting up there. His plan goes a little something like this. Hey, you know how we have this problem with the Oba of Benin?
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Yep, you're thinking of the right one. The one that's not abiding by the treaty we tricked him into signing. Absolutely. What if we just scooch in there, kick him off the throne, install a British puppet government, and then we just bathe naked in pure palm oil. Okay, that last part isn't mentioned anywhere, but seems like this kid would do it. Phillips isn't just thinking about this stuff. He's not just noodling over it while trying to fend off mosquitoes on the bite of Benin. No. He formally petitions the British government for permission to invade the kingdom. He writes a whole damn letter about it, sends it off. Our home fry Phillips does not wait for a response. He just starts planning. In the final days of 1896 and the early days of 1897, he sets out towards Benin City with a group of eight other British men and 250 African soldiers who are disguised, quote unquote, disguised, as porters. First of all, how much stuff do you have that you need 250 porters? Also, who do you think you're fooling? Oh yes, that strapping man back there. Just he's just carrying my bags. My bags full of nothing in particular. To be fair, Phillips was considerate enough to send the Oba a message indicating his imminent arrival to Benin City to discuss trade. Unfortunately for Phillips, chieftains of another West African kingdom, where the group stopped, also sent word to the Oba warning him that the white men were, quote unquote, bringing war. Doubly unfortunately for Phillips and his crew, they happened to be attempting to access Benin City during one of the kingdom's biggest festivals, one that essentially celebrates the Oba and his divine powers. And no British dudes were invited to this partee. And in fact, were strongly warned to turn back and wait until the festival season concluded. Did they though? No. No, they did not. Long story short, the Oba's soldiers took action to prevent this British-led expedition from coming into Benin City. That action resulted in the deaths of all but two of the British people involved in the expedition, so including Phillips, he was one of the casualties, and resulted in the killing or the capture of the vast majority of the 250 African soldiers that accompanied them, putting the death toll at around 230 people. When word of the quote unquote Benin massacre got back to Britain, the fish and chips hit the freaking fan. Within two weeks, two weeks of the attack, there were 1,200 soldiers, some of them British, some of them Africans in British employ, who were on the ground in West Africa and ready to invade the Kingdom of Benin in retaliation for this attack on Phillips and his crew. Punitive meaning punishment. This was a scorched earth campaign. Dan Hicks, who wrote a book about the Punitive Expedition, described their actions as, quote, massacres of towns and villages from the air, scorching the earth with rockets, fire, and mines. Primary among war crimes was the scale of the killing and bombings of civilian targets. End quote. This included the Oba. The British were instead greeted by the horrific sight of widespread human sacrifice. The city was a landscape of blood and bodies, each one more mutilated than the next. It is believed that the Oba ordered such atrocities to stave off and appease the heavens as the British came closer and closer. Professor Kathy Cunro writes, quote, it was panic. Extensive human sacrifice was not common in Benin, but it did happen in moments of vulnerability. The British would later claim that the continuation of human sacrifice in the kingdom was one of the primary reasons for the invasion. It was a duty as good Christians to civilize these people. Now, however, like today, it's largely accepted that this was an after-the-fact justification for the invasion, something for the British to hide behind and that they knew would generate public sympathy. The fact remains, however, that there was no greater loss of life than the one the British troops inflicted on the Edo people with their vastly superior weaponry, including repeating rifles and airborne bombs, killing thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people, many of whom were women, children, and unarmed civilians. When they returned home, British soldiers were not empty-handed, not at all. After taking Benin City in mid-February, the troops stuck around, set up shop, and engaged in the systematic destruction of the city, from its famous earthen walls to the Oba's palace. That destruction included the extensive looting of anything and everything that looked remotely valuable, with bronzes and ivories receiving top billing. Much like the loss of human life, the sheer amount of stuff taken from the kingdom is hard to quantify. There are numerous photographs showing British personnel among said loot, just like white guys in a sea of stuff. Soldiers were known to yoink a thing or two or five for themselves. And there are even accounts of soldiers taking things like human skulls and teeth. There were vague claims that the government intended to sell these items in order to recoup the money they had sunk into this mission, in addition to paying the families of the killed and the wounded. However, it is now well established that the ultimate goal in looting Benin City was profit and punishment. As if that wasn't enough, in the final days of the British occupation, a fire broke out in the city. Whether an accident, hmm, or more likely, deliberate, the outcome was the same. By the time the British left, Benin City, the capital of the Kingdom of Benin for over a thousand years, had been burnt to the ground. Within months of the Benin Punitive Expedition, cases and cases of loot started to arrive in England, and what they contained caused nothing less than shock and awe. The level of craftsmanship demonstrated by many of these bronze and ivory artifacts was absolutely astounding to European viewers. It's a perspective that makes a lot of sense given the dominating narratives about Africa during the 19th and 20th centuries. I've read lots of accounts from this time period, and as I'm sure you can imagine, some of them are very upsetting in how they talk about native populations. They were seen as uncivilized, subhuman, even bestial, and definitely, definitely, definitely not capable of making things of this caliber. To put it mildly, people kind of freaked out. There were even conspiracy theories that cropped up here and there, as conspiracy theories I want to do, about how these works weren't actually made in the Kingdom of Benin. Some people thought they might have come from the Arab-speaking world, others thought that maybe the Portuguese brought them with them when they started trading in the 16th and 17th centuries. None of these theories make sense, but it didn't stop people from making them. In absolutely no time at all, these precious items were already being bought, sold, and traded throughout Europe and the world. Some went on display, some went into private collections, and others adorned the homes of the officers who took them. Other officers sought out art dealers to help them sell these things. Between 1897 and 1901, so a period of four years, one London art dealer alone, William Downing Webster, sold about 560 objects taken from Benin City. That is one art dealer. Downing's records also show just how international the demand was for these objects. To name but a handful, he had buyers in Dublin, Leipzig, Cologne, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Basel, Leiden, Dresden, Vienna, and I am sure many other places. Museums were particularly keen on collecting as many bronzes and ivories as they possibly could, and it turns out they were pretty good at it. The museum with the greatest collection of the Benin bronzes is Surpras, the British Museum in London, which has over 900 such works, about a hundred of which are on display at any given time. The next greatest collection is the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, Germany, which holds over 500 bronzes. In the US, the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York has between 160 and 300 bronzes. Quite the range, but they tend to get real cagey when you ask them for a specific number. Based on that context clue alone, we can probably assume that the number is closer to 300 than it is to 160. I think that's a pretty safe assumption. While those are some of the most well-known museums to have Benine bronzes and have a lot of them, there are obviously dozens, if not hundreds, of other museums and private collectors who have these things in their possession. As museums and private collectors were scrambling to get their hands on these extremely novel and highly desired objects, things in Benin City were very dire. The British continued their colonial efforts in West Africa, and the Edo people were left to recover whatever pieces of their lives and their culture that were left to them after the 1897 expedition. A British anthropologist who visited Benin City in 1904 recounted that he would see people digging in the scorched dirt around the ruins of the Oba's palace in hopes of finding anything that the British may have missed, which is heartbreaking. As you can probably imagine, Benin City and the Kingdom of Benin more broadly never recovered from the events of 1897. What did remain was a shadow of its former self. For 17 years, Benin City was also without its Oba. The Oba that the British had been so eager to dethrone, Oba Avoraman, remained in exile until his death in 1914. The British government did allow Ovoroman's son, Oweka II, to assume the throne as a figurehead with limited power, or should I say limited political power, because Oweka II got stuff done. He dedicated much of his reign to reconstructing Benin City and attempting to reinvent the kingdom, its traditions, and its art forms. This monumental undertaking was then continued by his son, Oba Akenzua II. It was Akenzua II who in 1936 made the first official appeal for the return of some items looted from Benin in 1897. I say some because rather than asking for everything back, which Akenzua was a smart man who knew that that was very unlikely, he instead asked for specific items related to the position of the Oba. For example, he requested two bronze stools that had served as thrones. He was even assisted in these attempts by a British government official who used sale records to track down these stools. Unfortunately, those stools had wound up in Germany. I'm sure it's a lovely place, I've never managed to get there myself. But in the 1930s, probably not the best people to be negotiating with, considering that Hitler was in charge, and uh spewing all kinds of bull crap about racial purity and whatnot. Needless to say, Germany responded to this request with a big, fat Nine. Despite ruling for over 50 years, Akenza's plea for the return of Benin's cultural treasures was only answered by one individual, the son of someone who participated in the 1897 expedition. That man, the son, G. M. Miller, returned three items to the Oba. They weren't bronzes, they were coral and then a kind of clothing piece, but still the gesture was significant, even if no one else followed suit. Akenza II wasn't just preoccupied with getting back what had been stolen. He was also instrumental in collecting and displaying what was left. Mind you, what remained, what was left, was often left for a reason. One professor even referred to them as quote-unquote third-rate objects. But that's what was left, and what was left, regardless of how it compared to what was taken, still deserved preservation, celebration, and display. But once again, these requests went unanswered, and this brand new museum sat relatively empty for decades. But that was not an unusual occurrence in post-colonial Africa. Here is a stat that blew my mind. It concerns Sub-Saharan Africa in particular, which is all of Africa below the Sahara Desert, so Sub-Saharan Africa is most of Africa. It is estimated that 80 to 90% of Sub-Saharan Africa's cultural heritage, the material stuff of its culture, resides not in Africa, but in Europe, specifically in European museums. That is how much colonial powers took, which is to say robbed from the continent. Even crazier, like crazy times, is that most museums display only 0.5 to 5% of their collections at any given time. Ergo, therefore, the vast majority of Africa's cultural heritage is not just in Europe. It is in storage. That fact makes the blanket no that most museums give to African repatriation requests all the more a slap in the face. But the nose, the slaps in the face, just kept on coming for decades. When Oba Akenzawa II died in 1978, his efforts to better Benin City and secure the return of its cultural treasures were taken up by his son, Oba Aidiowa. Aidiowa was highly educated and even studied law at Cambridge University in England. He proved to be an extremely competent leader, even a politician, who actively engaged with the modern world and its leaders. Aidiowa reigned for almost 40 years. He only just died in 2016. Now that sounds kind of bad, like he only just died. Like I wasn't waiting for it to happen, but it also for some reason surprised me that he was Oba for the first 26 years of my life. Did I know who he was at all during those 26 years? No. But for whatever reason, that surprised me. Like the requests of his father, Oba Akenzuwa II, Oba Eidio also didn't have much luck convincing people and institutions to return objects taken from Benin in 1897. He was, however, actively working with people in England to drum up support for the cause. That really takes off in the 1990s thanks to one of the first black members of British Parliament, Bernard Grant, aka Bernie Grant, who was a British activist for African reparations. So the repatriation of the Benning Bronzes, the sending of them back, would serve as a reparation, a compensation, for the damages inflicted by the 1897 expedition and colonialism period. It was during Bernie Grant's years as a British MP, Member of Parliament, that the public became more aware of the Benning Bronz and, more broadly, the fact that British and European museums are absolutely filled to the gills with colonial loot. At the request of the Oba and his representatives, Grant used his political capital to pressure the British government and museums in England, Ireland, and Scotland into returning any Benin bronzes in their collections. And do you know what happened? They all said no. Did you expect there to be a surprise there that they all said yes? Absolutely not. Now hopefully you'll be thinking, how? How are these museums saying no to repatriating the bronzes, something that was so obviously stolen? Good question. The question, you might say. Generally speaking, African nations have no legal options to recover what was stolen during colonial rule. Some of you are probably outraged by this. That is a valid response. Others of you might be thinking to yourselves, well, like what's the big deal? It was over a century ago, and at the time, finders' keepers or takers keepers was the law of the land. However, many of the problems that African nations have faced in the past century or so can be traced back, at least in part, to the continued legacies of colonialism and slavery. The impact of those things, the damages they caused, doesn't just go away because slavery was abolished and colonists finally retreated. It doesn't work that way. Now you might think, well, colonialism happened, it sucked, but my generation is not responsible for the colonial activities of our ancestors, and we owe you nothing. The reality is that present-day generations in places like Benin City are still suffering from the long-term damage caused by our Rutin Tutan ancestors. Just because you didn't cause the problem doesn't mean that you don't have to help find a solution. Life and relationships don't work that way. And to those who say, well, the past is the past, and returning the bronzes or giving reparations or any of that kind of stuff won't help heal the past. You can't change it. No, returning the bronzes wouldn't do anything to change what happened in 1897. It won't bring people back to life or resurrect the culture and traditions that were destroyed during that expedition and its aftermath. But returning the bronzes to Benin City could certainly help reshape that culture and those traditions for present and future generations. The Benin bronzes have become such a focus for repatriation efforts because their extraction from Africa didn't happen slowly or invisibly like so much else. There are literally photographs of British soldiers with all of their loot. It's the colonial era equivalent of Instagramming yourself committing a crime. At the time, though, it wasn't a crime, not technically. And any subsequent laws that have been passed since do not apply retroactively. That means that these museums and collectors legally own the Benin Bronzes. Whether it's ethical or not, it's not. That's simply the way things are. But it isn't the way things have to be. As you may have already gandered, the repatriation of the Benin Bronzes is not only complicated, it's an emotionally and politically charged topic. Case in point, I was once at a department event, an art history event, very fancy, except not fancy at all, and somehow, someone brought up the Benin Bronzes. It wasn't me, I know better than to bring such things up, and this story will explain why. An acquaintance of mine, a fellow art history student, declared with an almost violent conviction that anyone who does not support the immediate and unconditional return of every object taken from Benin, if you don't agree with that, then you are a neocolonial racist. That was her take. And here I am just standing there, clutching my plastic cup of free Pinot Grigio, thinking, well, that escalated quickly. And then I proceeded to chug my wine and declared that I needed another one just to get away from that conversation. Today, hardcore advocates for repatriation, like my art history acquaintance, tend to turn museums and private collectors who own Benin bronzes into the big bad wolf. Why? It has been proven a hundred times over that many museums in the West continue to benefit and even celebrate colonialism. And it's kind of hard not to do that when national museums in places like Britain and France and the United States are filled with things taken by force during colonial rule. While I am personally a supporter of repatriation efforts, I do feel a lot of compassion for what museums are up against right now. And full disclosure, I formerly interned at a museum with Benin Bronzes and a couple of other very sketchily acquired objects in its collection. If you work for a museum, like any museum in Europe or the US, you could probably say the same. Whether it's a Benin bronze or an Egyptian mummy, many museums have quite a few skeletons in their closets. And no, that's not necessarily a joke. There are actual reports about museums having skeletons in their closets. It's crazy. To put it very bluntly, so many museums have said no to repatriation requests for so long. Because for the last 120 years, many museums have had more to lose by giving into repatriation requests than to saying no and simply managing the fallout. Oftentimes, the Benin bronzes are regarded not only as a highlight of a museum's collection, but ones that are invaluable artistic and cultural masterpieces. There is also the fact that the bronzes are straight up valuable. In 2016, a Benin bronze sold for over $15 million to a private collector. Repatriating the bronzes would require most museums to actively work against their own self-interests. That is not something that institutions tend to embrace. There's also no one person making these decisions. It's not up to a curator or even a director. These kinds of decisions typically go through the board of trustees. Some museums even have rules in their bylaws, even national laws, that prohibit giving away or selling any works in the collection regardless of the circumstances. That may seem super sketchy, and it is, to a certain extent, but those laws are also there to protect the museum's collection from being sold off for profit. Magically, bylaws become easier to ignore when the museum has something to benefit from, and they stay pretty rigid when the museum has something to lose. But times are changing. Public opinion is shifting, and the cost of saying no to repatriation requests gets bigger and bigger every year. A similar reality is facing private collectors. Most major auction houses are no longer willing to broker sales of any Benin bronzes whose acquisition can be traced to 1897, which is most of them, not all of them, but most of them. A seller quoted in Barnaby Phillips' book Loot simply called the bronzes, quote unquote, too hot to handle. In other words, the public backlash that these companies would receive for helping to sell a Benin bronze would be worse than the loss of a big fat commission check. And that's really saying something, because these auction companies, let me tell you, like money. Museums are now feeling that heat themselves, and it's only a matter of time before their collection of Benin bronzes becomes too hot to handle. That is, of course, unless they do something about it. In the past, I don't know, five or six years, there have been more developments and discussions about the repatriation of the Benning bronzes than the entire 20th century combined. These developments have been a long time coming, but they've also been catalyzed by present-day events like the Black Lives Matter movement and a push to quote unquote decolonize museums, which, in a nutshell, encourages museums to think critically and inclusively about what is on display, how those things are displayed, and what is being communicated to visitors about those displays. Since around 2016, there have also been several high-profile instances in which museums, universities, and governments have pledged to repatriate their collection of Benin bronzes. In 2016, a group of students at the University of Cambridge in England protested the bronze rooster, technically a cockerel, which is a word I've never said in my entire life, that had adorned the dining hall of Jesus College for decades. The group argued that the possession of this bronze was not only immoral given how it was acquired, but that the rooster also celebrated the college's ties to things like colonialism and slavery. The university removed the bronze from public almost immediately, but it really dragged its feet on the issue of repatriation. There was a lot of we'll think about it going on. But as of 2021, the bronze rooster has been repatriated to Benin City, where it was received with great fanfare. The master of Jesus College at Cambridge, Sonita Alain, described the reason for the return of the bronze as, quote, not a bid to erase history, but in the honest spirit of acknowledging the past and shaping the future, end quote. In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron commissioned a report that examines African cultural heritage in French national collections. That report, which is called the Savoy Sar Report, after the people who compiled it, strongly advocates for European restitutions to Africa for colonialism, in large part through the repatriation of unethically sourced objects. Now, contrary to what many think, the report does not advocate for the blanket application of these ideas. If it did, European museums would be totally empty. It instead encourages good faith negotiations between European and African institutions to return the works that African countries want returned. And that's something that gets lost in these discussions. Hardcore advocates want every Benin bronze to be sent back to Nigeria, but that's not necessarily what the Oba or his court or even the Nigerian government are asking for. After the release of the Savoy SAR reports, other European governments set to work on establishing new guidelines for the repatriation of objects. Some countries, like Germany and France, have even pledged to repatriate looted objects from African countries. As of 2021, Germany has promised to return all looted objects from Benin currently held in state collections, so hundreds of bronzes. Although, to my knowledge, there are no plans in place to actually send these works back to Benin City. Promises after all, are only as good as the actions that follow. And it seems like we will have to wait and see what happens with these particular promises in the years to come. One of the primary reasons that governments and museums have Been so hesitant to repatriate the Benin bronzes, or maybe I should say, one of the primary reasons spoken out loud for being hesitant to return the Benin bronzes, is the fear that Nigerian institutions will not be able to keep the bronzes safe or properly care for them. That is obviously a deeply offensive assumption about whether or not Nigerians can care for their own cultural heritage, aka you've been drinking the colonial Kool-Aid, but unfortunately, it's also not totally unfounded. Nigeria has a history of political unrest, funding to national institutions can be unpredictable, and that funding or the objects in the museum sometimes fall prey to political corruption. There are also questions about whether or not these objects could be kept safe from robbery, because now it is very well established that one bronze plaque or head could earn someone millions and millions of dollars. To be clear, this is not a problem that is limited to Nigeria. Just ask the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum about their 1990 theft. Ooh, burn. But it is something that people against repatriating the bronzes have pointed to for a long time as a reason not only to not repatriate the bronzes, but even loan them to Nigerian museums. Those circumstances are now changing. The group at the forefront of those changes is the Benin Dialogue Group, which was founded in 2007. The group's aim is to foster collaboration and cooperation between European museums, the courts of Benin, and the Nigerian government, and to work towards building a museum in Benin City where objects looted from Benin in 1897 can go on permanent display. Although it was officially founded in 2007, the Benin Dialogue Group really didn't start making big strides until 2017, thanks in large part to the Savoysar reports and the general shifting of attitudes in Europe. This shift also had a lot to do with things happening in Benin City, with 2016 being a particularly watershed year. In April, after 37 years on the throne, Oba Ediowa died at the age of 92 and was succeeded by his son, Oba Aware II. As Aware II assumed the throne in Benin City, Edo State also elected a new governor, Godwin Obasiki, who is a great lover of the arts and a very effective politician. He knows how to wheel and deal. With these two new forces working with the Benin Dialogue Group, conversations started to flow more freely, and there was a greater sense of good faith in their negotiations. In short, things were starting to happen. At this point in 2017, the idea for this museum in Benin City was still quite abstract. That changed in 2019, when Obasaki announced plans to build an actual brick and mortar museum that would not only be under autonomous independent leadership from the Nigerian government, but would also be designed by one of the world's most in-demand architects, Sir David Adjay. Adjay's name might be familiar to some of you as he was the architect behind the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History, which opened to great acclaim in 2016. This new museum would be known as the Edo Museum of West African Art, which would not only make it a space for things like the Benin bronzes to be displayed, but also for the visual traditions and art forms and material culture of other places in West Africa. In 2020, Adjay unveiled his vision for this museum. It's a design that utilizes and plays with traditional West African architectural types. The anticipated curatorial strategy will be to display objects in something that resembles, at least, their original environments, thereby injecting context into works that have for so long sat decontextualized in Western museums, if they were on display at all. What does this mean for repatriation requests? Or, you know, how is this going to work? In some cases, you have museums like the state museums in Germany who have agreed to repatriate bronzes in their collections to the museum. So in other words, the Edo Museum would become the quote unquote owner of those objects. They would be theirs, full stop. In other instances, I think this is the more popular route, museums have agreed to participate in indefinite loans. So that means the Edo Museum will have physical possession of the works for however long, but that the legal ownership of those works will still be in the hands of whatever institution is loaning them. Another possibility is for museums with larger collections of Benin bronz to enter into a revolving loan. So that means they would always have a certain number of bronzes on loan to the Edo Museum at any given time, but that that lineup of objects would change every, you know, six months, a year, whatever it is. The support of this museum by Western institutions also extends to other aspects of its construction and implementation. There is, for example, an archaeological project that has been established that will occur alongside construction, as it is expected that there will be artifacts and you know stuff where the construction crew will be digging the foundations of the museum. This archaeological project will ensure that anything found while digging is preserved and incorporated into the museum's collection. The British Museum is helping to fund and facilitate that project, in addition to its agreement to loan many of its spending bronzes to the museum when it opens. That said, the museum is not set to open until 2025, and I think that was the projected opening date before COVID. So who knows? As with all things in life, not everyone is super psyched about this museum or the way negotiations with European institutions have been going. First, there are individuals who are straight up offended by the idea that European museums are agreeing to loans but not repatriation. As the governor Obasiki has said publicly, however, these kinds of projects require negotiations. And for him and presumably the Oba of Benin, they are focused on bringing many of these cultural treasures home for the first time in 120 years. Obasiki has called this a quote-unquote interim solution, while discussions about repatriation continue. This is pretty wise because museums, number one, still don't want to give up their legal ownership of these works. But two, even if they agree to do that, the red tape to achieve repatriation would require years to work through. So the issue of ownership is still absolutely on the table. It is that concessions have to be made in order to achieve the goal of bringing these bronzes home sooner rather than later, if ever. There are others in Benning City who have criticized the decision to invest millions of dollars into this project while many people in Benning City are struggling to find work and feed their families. So why is money being invested into a museum rather than, say, social programs? Governor Obasiki has insisted that investing in this museum also means investing in Benning City and its people. In his mind, the museum will catalyze change by helping to lift up morale and build community in the city while also injecting new life and opportunities into the area. In yet another take, there are some people from Nigeria and Benin City who are even proud to see these bronzes on display in what are arguably some of the West's greatest museums. For his book, Barnaby Phillips interviewed Dr. Ekagoza Ison, who was a doctor as well as the grandson of a famous Eda warrior who died defending Benin City in 1897. Dr. Eisen spoke openly about how proud he was to see the Benin bronzes on display at the British Museum, not only as a university student many decades ago, but also as a man in the final phase of his life. In fact, Dr. Eisen passed away this past September at the age of 91. When interviewed by Barnaby Phillips, Dr. Isin said the following quote, to imagine that the things my forefathers made with their own hands are what the white man now cherishes and treasures so that they spend so much on their maintenance. When I saw the outside world, the developed world, the more aware world regarding these things as important, I felt an enormous pride, which still remains with me. The Indians, the Japanese, the Chinese going to the British Museum and saying, Oh, these things are from Africa. You know that people say that the black man has contributed nothing to the history of humanity. Now they would say, something good has come out of Africa. End quote. The present Oba of Benin, Awari II, has, of course, continued to make repatriation requests. His overall perspective, however, echoes some of the things that Dr. Eisen said. Like his father before him, Awari II is a man of the world. He has degrees from universities in Nigeria, England, Wales, and the U.S. Before he became Oba, he also enjoyed a successful career as a diplomat and foreign ambassador for Nigeria. Barnaby Phillips spoke with Awari II's personal secretary, Frank Irabo, who expressed that the Oba absolutely supports the repatriation of the Benin bronzes. Of that, there is no question. However, the Oba doesn't necessarily want all of them back, because, as Dr. Eisen suggested, the bronzes are now important ambassadors for West African culture. They should be on display around the world. Mr. Irobeau was nevertheless careful to say that any bronzes or objects returned to Benin City in the future will not just be welcomed home, but cherished and celebrated like the cultural treasures that they are. As we have seen, the back and forth about the repatriation of the Benin bronzes has been going on for decades. It's clear that all or nothing thinking is not the way forward, at least not for people who want practical solutions that don't require decades to sort out, if they ever get sorted out at all. These solutions do not have to be permanent. They can be interim, as Governor Obasaki has said. That will allow not just for more flexibility, but also time to build trust and constructive relationships between museums in Europe and the US and those in Nigeria, whether they are run by the government or the one that is set to open in 2025 in Benin City. It is true that we cannot change the past, but it is also true that the past is no static thing. We may not be able to change what happened, but we do have control over how that past informs and shapes our present, which in turn can help us form and shape our futures. Now, I don't know what the future has in store for the Benin bronzes, but things are looking more promising today than they were even five years ago. So while the history of these bronzes and their acquisition by Western museums is very dark, the future is starting to look brighter. It is my personal hope that many of these bronzes will return home to Benin City, where they can be seen by Nigerians and foreign visitors alike. I am very eager to see what effect that has on Benin City and Nigeria more broadly. It may be one of the first case studies ever of whether or not repatriating cultural items can have as big and as positive an effect as so many people hope. At the same time, as an art historian and museum person, I am glad that people from around the world continue to have access to these objects in a variety of collections. Even if the displays aren't perfect, and I don't know that any of them are, I would much rather see them out and available to the public rather than hidden from view in storage in some random city like, I don't know, Düsseldorf. Many people will not agree with me on that point, and that's okay. For my part, I try to remain open and respectful of different perspectives and hopeful that eventually common ground can be found. After all, crazier things have happened. Like how finally, after 120 years of what seemed like no cockerels, just goose eggs, which is to say, a whole lot of nothing, we are starting to see action. But of course, as I hope to have demonstrated, just because efforts don't yield the desired results right away or at all, does not mean that they are not effective at building a foundation to support future successes. The reason we are seeing so many exciting developments with regards to the Benny and Bronzes is because of the work of past Obas, their representatives, activists, and government officials who, despite being told no over and over and over again, kept trying, kept pushing, kept asking. We are now seeing the fruits of that resilience paying off, and you better bet that there will be much more to come in the future. And that, my friends, is all I have for you on the Ben Neen Bronzes. I am going to post a host of sources on the podcast website, which is stuffaboutthingspodcast.com. I once again want to recognize the two books that were super duper helpful in writing this episode. Those are Dan Hicks's The Brutish Museums and Barnaby Phillips's Loot, Britain and the Benin Bronzes. Links to those will be posted alongside all of the other sources and media that I consulted on the website. Again, stuffaboutthingspodcast.com. That is also where you can contact me if you so choose through the contact me tab, or you can just use the podcast email stuffaboutthingspodcast at gmail.com. I always reply, might take me a couple days, maybe even a week, but I do love hearing from you. Speaking of, if you enjoyed the episode, I would really appreciate it if you left it a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to it. And thank you to the people who recently did. I see all of the reviews, I appreciate every one of them, and especially the people who take the time to write a little something. I really, really appreciate it, so thank you so much. As for Gus Corner this week, despite it being absolutely frigid here in Wisconsin, like negative degrees, he has still been enjoying his daily three-mile walks. And when it's really cold, his little whiskers freeze and he looks just like a walrus. He's just the cutest. As for me, corner, I am already working on the next episode. I think it'll be the second time that it's a listener-requested topic. Very exciting. And I'll try to have that up as soon as I can. Who knows? The usual thank yous go out to hooksounds.com and freemusicarchive.org for the royalty free music that I use in the intro and the outro. The first tune that you hear is a version of Box Brandenburg Concerto No. While the jauntier tune that leads you into and out of the episode is a song called Success Dreams. That is all I have for you today from my closet in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I hope that you are staying safe and warm and happy and healthy, and of course, I hope that you take the time to look at something beautiful today and tomorrow and the day after that. Alright, this is Lindsay over now. A la próxima Michi. There's a spider. I must kill it. Got it. Goodbye.