Photo courtesy of Mr.TinMD via Flickr. 31 Benin bronzes have been returned to Nigeria from notable U.S. museums. The bronzes were stolen in 1897 and are now housed around the world.
By Kiera McLaughlin ’26
Staff Writer
Content warning: This article discusses colonial violence.
On Oct. 13, 2022, CNN reported on a ceremony in Washington D.C., between some of the most prominent U.S. museums and Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments to return 31 Benin bronzes to their homeland of Nigeria. The National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum co-hosted the ceremony to celebrate this momentous occasion of repatriation. Many African artists and museums have expressed hope that this will influence a continuous return of stolen objects from Western nations, according to CNN.
CNN reported that one of the Benin bronzes being returned was a cockerel statue, which “was one of up to 10,000 artifacts stolen by British troops from the royal palace in the Kingdom of Benin,in present-day Nigeria, in 1897.”
In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, Diamond Abiakalam-Chinagorom ’25 an international Mount Holyoke Student from Nigeria said, “It doesn’t surprise me [that the artifacts were stolen] because I knew that artifacts were stolen in Benin[’s] history. Going into learning about colonialism, you find out when [the British] went into those villages they stole lots of things.” She continued, “But I didn’t know it was that amount, 10,000 artifacts from one kingdom. And [from] one [ethnic group], not even counting the other cultures, that’s crazy. [The amount] was shocking, … but the deed was not.”
Throughout history, Western nations have stolen and displayed African artifacts. In another article, CNN reported about the history of the Kingdom of Benin and the British troops that stormed and pillaged the kingdom. The article reflects on the items stolen from Benin in the 1897 expedition that are now scattered around the world in 160 museums and many different private collections.
Dan Hicks, a curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum of the University of Oxford wrote in his book, “The Brutish Museums,” that these museums were used to “legitimize, extend and naturalize new extremes of violence within corporate colonialism.” In a phone interview with CNN, he said exhibitions minimize cultures in order “to tell the story of the victory of Europeans over Africans.” He continued, “They were used ‘to inspire colonial administrators and soldiers … who fought these wars and thought they were doing so in the name of civilization.’”
This history demonstrates that these museums, many now used for educational purposes, were created as a celebration of colonialist triumph. With restitution on the table, as reported by CNN, in 1981 “the British Museum reportedly claimed the Benin bronzes were acquired legally as ‘the British, [in their own words], were the legitimate authority.’”
Hicks explained his research and “notes that bronzes preserved for centuries at Benin’s royal court have only been lost, neglected or destroyed since arriving in London,” the article continued. “His research led to the discovery of sculptures abandoned in broom cupboards and used as doorstops, and ivory artifacts repurposed as piano keys and billiard balls,” CNN explained. It is clear that these items that could have had great importance to Nigerian culture and religion were disrespected by the British, who violently stole the artifacts.
Chika Okeke-Agulu, a Nigerian artist, art historian and professor at Princeton University said in an interview with CNN, that returning the Benin artifacts “could contribute in significant ways to the necessary task of repair, of healing long-festering psychological wounds inflicted on Africans during that moment of violent, rapacious encounter with European colonial machinery and ideology.”
In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, Aaron Miller, the associate curator of visual and material culture and Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act coordinator at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, said, “I hope [the returning of the artifacts will accomplish what Okeke-Agulu suggested]. I think it’s definitely a step in the right direction.” He continued, “I primarily worked with Native American communities in this sort of work in the more recent past, and the impression that I get is that it is immensely important. I think it’s just part of what needs to happen.”
Miller also talked about how the Museum is “dealing with … [and] talking about” the role of Western nations in historical seizure. Abiakalam-Chinagorom said, “I do believe [returning artifacts can contribute to healing “psychological wounds”] … because I feel like some artifacts are seen as art, … but it holds a lot of culture and means a lot to people. … [By returning it], people [can reconnect] to the culture that they didn’t know because of colonialism. … As someone who grew up with a lot of things being influenced by colonialism, any small chance I get to reconnect with my culture before there were Europeans on the continent is … really big.”
As Miller explained, this is just a small step toward repatriation. Hopefully, it will influence other Western museums and collections to continue to return artifacts that are not rightfully theirs.
About the importance of returning these artifacts to Nigeria, Abiakalam-Chinagorom said, “I think it’s important for people to see because then people are able to come in contact with their history. … When [the British] actually [looked] at these artifacts they thought, ‘Oh yeah, what’s the big deal?’ To you it is just an object, to some people, it’s a lifestyle. It is history. So when they bring this artifact home, people are able to have conversations about certain things and how colonialism is still reflective in our own city.”