Benin Expedition of 1897 The Benin Expedition of 1897 was a punitive expedition by a United Kingdom force of 1 , 200 under Admiral Sir Harry Rawson in response to the defeat of a previous British - led invasion force under Acting Consul General James Philips ( which had left all but two men dead ) . Rawson ' s troops captured , burned , and looted Benin City , bringing to an end the west African Kingdom of Benin . As a result much of the country ' s art , including the Benin Bronzes , was either destroyed , looted or dispersed . Background . At the end of the 19th century , the Kingdom of Benin had managed to retain its independence and the Oba exercised a monopoly over trade which the British found irksome . The territory was coveted by an influential group of investors for its rich natural resources such as palm - oil , rubber and ivory . [ 2 ] The kingdom was largely independent of British control , and pressure continued from figures such as Vice - Consul James Robert Phillips and Captain Gallwey ( the British vice - Consul of Oil Rivers Protectorate ) who were pushing for British annexation of the Benin Empire and the removal of the Oba . In March 1892 , Henry Gallwey , the British Vice - Consul of Oil Rivers Protectorate ( later Niger Coast Protectorate ) , visited Benin City hoping to annexe Benin Kingdom and make it a British protectorate . Although the King of Benin , Omo n ’ Oba ( Ovonramwen ) , was sceptical of the British motives he was willing to endorse what he believed was a friendship and trade agreement . The treaty signed by the king agreed to the abolition of the Benin slave trade and human sacrifice . The King refrained from endorsing Gallwey ' s treaty when it became apparent that the document was a deceptive ploy intended to make Benin Kingdom a British colony . Consequently the King issued an edict barring all British officials and traders from entering Benin territories . Since Major ( later Sir ) Claude Maxwell Macdonald , the Consul General of the Oil River Protectorate authorities considered the ' Treaty ' legal and binding , he deemed the King ' s reaction a violation of the accord and thus a hostile act . In 1894 after the invasion and destruction of Brohomi , the trading town of the chief Nana Olomu , the leading Itsekiri trader in the Benin River District by a combined British Royal Navy and Niger Coast Protectorate forces , Benin Kingdom increased her military presence on her southern borders . This vigilance and the Colonial Office ' s refusal to grant approval for an invasion of Benin City scuttled the expedition the Protectorate had planned for early 1895 . Even so between September 1895 and mid - 1896 three attempts were made by the Protectorate to enforce the Gallwey ' Treaty ' . Major P . Copland - Crawford , Vice - Consul of the Benin District , made the first attempt , Mr . Locke , the Vice - Consul Assistant , made a second one and the third one was made by Captain Arthur Maling , the Commandant of the Niger Coast Protectorate Force detachment based in Sapele . In March 1896 , following price fixing and refusal by Itsekiri middle men to pay the required tributes , the King of Benin ordered a cessation of the supply of oil palm produce to them . The trade embargo brought trade in the Benin River region to a standstill , and the British traders and agents of the British trading firms quickly appealed to the Protectorate ' s Consul - General to ' open up ' Benin territories , and send the King ( whom they claimed was an ‘ obstruction ’ ) into exile . In October 1896 Lieutenant James Robert Phillips ( RN ) [ Edit : Phillips was not a Lieutenant , he was a lawyer ; after completing articles he was Sheriff and Overseer of Prisons in the Gold Coast and later Acting Queen ' s Advocate there , before his appointment as Acting Consul - Generalin the Protectorate – see Home , cited below already , at page 30 ] the Acting Consul - General visited the Benin River District and had meetings with the agents and traders . In the end the agents and traders were able to convince him that ' there is a future on the Benin River if Benin territories were opened ' . Benin had developed a reputation for sending strong messages of resistance . But the way Benin treated its slaves and the public display of large quantities of human remains hardened British attitudes towards Benin ' s rulers . The trader James Pinnock wrote that he saw ' a large number of men all handcuffed and chained ' there , with ' their ears cut off with a razor ' . T . B Auchterlonie described the approach to the capital through an avenue of trees hung with decomposing human remains . After the ' lane of horrors ' came a grass common ' thickly stewn with the skulls and bones of sacrificed human beings . ' The " Benin Massacre " . In November Phillips made a formal request to his superiors in England for permission to invade Benin City , and , in late December 1896 , without waiting for a reply or approval from London , Phillips embarked on a military expedition with two Niger Coast Protectorate Force officers , a medical officer , two trading agents , 250 African soldiers masquerading in part as porters , and in part as a drum and pipe band . To disguise their true intent , the force ' s weapons were hidden in the baggage carried by the ' porters ' . His request to London was to depose the king of Benin City , replace him with a Native Council and pay for the invasion with the ' ivory ' he hoped to find in the Benin king ' s palace . In the meantime he sent a message forward to the Oba , Benin ' s king , that his present mission was to discuss trade and peace and demanding admission to the territory in defiance of Benin law explicitly forbidding his entry . Unfortunately for Phillips , some Itsekiri trading chiefs sent a message to the Benin king that ' the white man is bringing war ' . On receiving the news the Benin king quickly summoned the city ' s high - ranking nobles for an emergency meeting , and during the discussions the Iyase , the commander in chief of the Benin Army argued that the British were on planning a surprise attack and must be defeated . The Benin king however argued that the British should be allowed to enter the city so that it can be ascertained whether or not the visit was a friendly one . The Iyase ignored the king ' s views , and ordered the formation of a strike force that was commanded by the Ologbose , a senior army commander , which was sent to Gwato to destroy the invaders . On 4 January 1897 , the Benin strike force composed mainly of border guards and servants of some chiefs caught Phillips ' column totally unprepared at Ugbine village near Gwato . Since Phillips was not expecting any opposition and was unaware that his operation was being perceived with alarm in Benin , the contingent ' s only weapons , consisting of the officers ' pistols , were locked up in the head packs of the African porters . Only two British officers survived the annihilation of Phillips ' expedition , which became known as the ' The Benin Massacre ' . British objectives . On 12 January 1897 , Rear - Admiral Harry Rawson , commanding the squadron at the Cape of Good Hope was appointed by the British Admiralty to lead an expedition to capture the Benin king and destroy Benin City . The operation was named Benin Punitive Expedition , and on 9 February 1897 the invasion of Benin kingdom began . The field commanders were instructed by their commander - in – chief to burn down all Benin kingdom ' s towns and villages , and hang the king of Benin wherever and whenever he was captured . The invasion force of about 1200 British Marines , sailors and Niger Coast Protectorate Forces , and composed of three columns ; the ' Sapoba ' , ' Gwato ' and ' Main ' Columns . The ' Sapoba ' column , and the ' Main column ' reached Benin City after 10 days of bitter fighting but the ' Gwato ' column was routed at Gwato . Aftermath . Immediately after the British invaders secured the city , looting began . It was an exercise that was carried out by all members of the expedition . Monuments and palaces of many high - ranking chiefs were looted . There was evidence of previous human sacrifice found by the British , a tradition they construed as " barbaric , " with Reuters and the Illustrated London News reporting that the town ' reeked of human blood . ' They did not seek to understand the practice from Benin perspectives . Homes , religious buildings and palaces were deliberately torched . On the third day , the blaze grew out of control and engulfed part of the city . Most of the plunder was retained by the expedition with some 2500 ( official figures ) religious artefacts , Benin visual history , mnemonics and artworks being sent to England . The British Admiralty confiscated and auctioned off the war booty to defray the costs of the Expedition . The expected revenue from the expedition was discussed already before Phillips set out on his ill - fated journey to the city of Benin in 1896 . In a letter to Lord Salisbury , the British Foreign Secretary , Phillips requested approval to invade Benin and depose the Oba , adding the following footnote : " I would add that I have reason to hope that sufficient ivory would be found in the King ' s house to pay the expenses incurred in removing the King from his stool . " In late 1897 the art was auctioned in Paris , France , to raise funds to pay for the expedition . Most of the Benin bronzes went first to purchasers in Germany , but a sizeable group is now back in London at the British Museum . The dispersement of the Benin art to museums around the world catalysed the beginnings of a long and slow European reassessment of the value of West African art . The Benin art was copied and the style integrated into the art of many European artists and thus had a strong influence on the early formation of modernism in Europe . The King of Benin was eventually captured by the British consul - general Moor , deposed and sent to live out his days in Calabar . He died in 1914 . Moor committed suicide in Barnes , Middlesex in 1909 .