The Photography of J. A. Green

In the 19th century, Europe pushed to control the economic prospects of Africa. Following the 1885 scramble chaired by the German vice-chancellor Otto Von Bismark, it was clear that the British had registered major colonial presence in West Africa. Fair to say, the ‘acquisition’ and administration of these parts had violence as vehicle. In Nigeria particularly, the British mission took off, almost concurrently, in two important parts of the country: the coastal Lagos area and the south, where trade relations had been established after the dissolution of the slave trade, otherwise prosperous in the region. The area around Onitsha and the Niger Delta were areas of intense British activity, and their need to document the events of their colonialist movement, brought into these areas the imagistic tool of the camera which had begun taking off in Europe in that same period.