Throughline - The Kingdom Behind Glass

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Who owns stolen art? Today on the show, the bloody journey of a Benin Bronze from West Africa to the halls of one of England's most elite universities — a tale of imperialism, betrayal, and the making of the modern world.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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Okay, so several months back, one of ThruLine's producers, Lawrence Wu, came to a pitch meeting with this wild story. It was one of those pitches that immediately made all of us sit up in our seats and listen. It had layers that just kept getting deeper and deeper, and I don't wanna ruin it for you, so obviously I will just say that it's about an object. A thing that just sat around on a shelf for decades,

going pretty much unnoticed. But in 2015, that changed. And it changed because a first-year college student decided it needed to change. Hi. Hey there. Sorry, give me a second. No problem. Sorry, I'm trying to untangle this headphone.

So you know we have to call her up. Okay, headphones on. Okay, awesome. First, how are you? I. First, how are you? I'm good, how are you? Good. Her name is Ore Ogunbi. I'm an Africa correspondent at The Economist, and I'm also a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge.

In 2015, she was in her first year at one of England's most prestigious universities. I've lived between England and Nigeria my whole life. I was born in England, I moved to Nigeria when I was seven, and I've been back and forth between both countries ever since. And so university-wise, my dad always really wanted me to go to Cambridge. In his view, you know, the best place I could end up, which I understand why people see it that way. Cambridge is like the Harvard of England. Actually, it's much older, so I really should

be saying that Harvard is like the Cambridge of the United States. It's this kind of old elite institution that, for most of its history, had a student body that came from England's upper classes, mostly male and mostly white. So when Orey arrived on campus, she felt out of place. When I got there, it was not very diverse. So settling in in that first term was quite difficult because I just felt like I couldn't find people who I could relate with. But it wasn't just the lack of diversity among the students that felt alienating for Ore. It was everything she was surrounded by, the physical space itself. You go to any college dining hall, you go to prestigious parts of the college, really

historical parts of any college in Cambridge. And it's likely to be covered in paintings of old white men who have made some significant contribution to the culture. It's that there's never going to be a black person on those walls. covered in paintings of old white men who have made some significant contribution to the culture. There's never going to be a black person on those walls. Ori went back and forth to classes and meals and activities surrounded by these images of past school chancellors, donors, alumni. It just became part of the background. Maybe that's why, at first, she didn't notice the one object in the dining hall that would change the course of her life.

In the same way that there was art on the walls, there's things on shelves, there's a whole bunch of things kind of lying around, I didn't notice it. It felt very much like it was hiding in plain sight. The thing she's talking about is a statue, a statue of a rooster, also known as the Okoko. That's at least 125 years old. A few months into her first year, a friend of hers told her where to look for it. But the second he drew my attention to it, obviously, I picked up on it the next time I went into the dining hall.

It's not massive. It's not too much bigger than your laptop. But it was sat on this shelf. And underneath it was a plaque with a message written in Latin. Which was basically this art or this piece of art was bequeathed to the college by William Neville and was looted from Benin in the punitive expedition of 1897. Something to that effect.

Today, Benin is a country in West Africa. But Benin was also the name of a major kingdom that was located in what's now southern Nigeria, as early as the 1200s, a civilization that produced incredible works of art, collectively known as Benin bronzes, like the metal rooster Ore was staring at in her dining hall. I was embarrassed that I hadn't picked up on that. I know enough about African art and I'm familiar enough with what those kinds of antiques look like. My dad has been collecting similar works since I was a child. But it wouldn't take long for that feeling of embarrassment to turn into something else.

Then the anger began to seep in because I'm just like, what on earth? Like in what world is this okay? What is going on? And that to me was when the cogs started turning and then we kind of set off down the rabbit hole. That rabbit hole would take Ore on a years long journey to uncover how the rooster statue was looted, its journey to her college at Cambridge University, and the fight to return it to Nigeria.

The origin story of this rooster is a tale of a clash between two major powers, one from Europe and one from West Africa. It's a tale of imperialism, betrayal, and the making of the modern world. And it will remind you that behind every artifact is a universe, a story that will change how you think about your own history. I'm Rand Habdel Fattah. And I'm Ramtin Arab-Louis. On this episode of Throughline from NPR, the journey of the Cambridge Benin Bronze

and the war over artifacts. Thanks for watching! Hello, this is Naomi Kemp calling from South Carolina and you're listening to Throughline from NPR. This is my favorite podcast. I tell people about it all the time. Over the last year, it's been my reintroduction to NPR. Sometimes news is too overwhelming, and I have to turn it off for my own mental health.

But Throughline is always a breath of fresh air and able to teach me just so much about things that I thought I knew something about already and can always find something new to learn about. President Trump is back in Washington pursuing major policy changes on his own terms. We know from the past that means challenging precedent, busting norms and pushing against the status quo. NPR is covering it all with Trump's Terms, a podcast where we curate stories about the 47th president with a focus on how he is upending the way Washington works. Listen to Trump's terms from NPR. Here's some news that really stinks. Garbage is responsible for 20% of planet warming methane emissions.

That's why all week, Here and Now is looking at ways people are cutting back on waste. Robot dogs hiking landfills, textile recyclers melting down old clothes, dumpster divers scoring big, and builders deconstructing homes instead of demolishing them. You can hear all that by following our podcast. It's called Here and Now, Anytime. Every January, millions of people take the pledge to cut down on alcohol in the new year. If you're one of them, count on LifeKit and PR's Self-Help

Podcast for tips and tricks you can use to make the most out of your commitment. We'll help you draw up plans and have experts weigh in on how to stay motivated and kind to yourself throughout the month. Search LifeKits Dry January, wherever you get your podcasts for the tools you need to pull it off from NPR. Part one, blood metal.

Benin City, 1500s. It was nothing short of a marvel. It was very vibrant and dynamic. It had bustling markets with trade in yams, palm oil, textiles, iron tools and more. Located in what's now southern Nigeria, Benin City was the capital of a vast kingdom. The kingdom's military was highly effective, maintaining stability within the region and controlling all of the key waterways as far as Lagos. And it was technologically advanced. Benin City even had street lighting.

These large metal lamps filled with palm oil, which illuminated the streets at night. Making it one of the first cities in the world with such a feature. And even an underground drainage system. This is Wando Achebe. And I am the Jack and Margaret Sweet Endowed Professor of History at Michigan State University. My main area of concentration is West Africa. Wando says the Benin Kingdom's golden age was between the 15th and 19th centuries.

At its height, it was well organized, it was thriving, it was a highly advanced society. And one of the kingdom's greatest feats was the walls that they built. Which stretched over 10,000 miles, making them the largest earthworks in the pre-mechanized world. The walls, which rivaled the length of the Great Wall of China, took hundreds of years to be built, requiring unfathomable hours of labor. Its interconnected earthworks were not just defensive structures, but also a statement of the kingdom's engineering brilliance and power. These marvels are what greeted the first Europeans who came to Benin city in the 15th century.

So when European traders and explorers arrived, which is how we know what we know, for the most part about Benin, they were astonished by what they saw. For instance, you had a Portuguese captain remarking that Benin city was larger than Lisbon and described its streets as seemingly endless. And the Benin Kingdom's power and wealth would only increase as they started trading with

Europeans. They would trade raw materials like pepper, ivory, and eventually rubber. And in return, European traders are offering firearms, textiles, and other goods. Firearms that help the kingdom conquer their neighbors and expand their territory. The Benin Kingdom would use the guns to raid villages, to steal people and sell them. This is De'Adriya Farmer-Palman. I'm executive director of the Restitution Study Group, and we fight for reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans globally. Like with any kingdom, there's almost always a dark side.

The Benin Kingdom had long participated in the slave trade in West Africa. And when the Europeans arrived, the Benin Kingdom began selling them enslaved people too, making them a part of the transatlantic slave trade. During the late 15th and 16th century, the kingdom is actively participating in the slave trade. These are captives from all of its military campaigns,

and sometimes it would be captives or these tributary states made offerings to Benin, right? In addition, the kingdom also enslaved individuals who were convicted of crimes. In exchange for slaves, the Europeans would give the Benin Kingdom brass manillas. Manila is derived from the Portuguese word for bracelet.

They often came in the shape of a horseshoe of various sizes, usually made of brass, bronze, or copper. And they were used as slave trade currency throughout West Africa by European traders. The Benin Kingdom required that the Portuguese pay for human captives with these manillas. And roughly at the beginning of their trading, you could buy an enslaved captive for seven manillas, probably towards the end a male would cost 57 manillas, a female would cost 50. These manillas were used to fuel the kingdom's artistic tradition. These renowned artisans would mount these bracelets

down to create these intricate bronze and brass sculptures and plaques. Sculptures like the rooster statue that Ore Ogumbi saw in the dining hall at Jesus College. And it's these so-called Benin bronzes that we're talking about today. What D'Adrià now refers to as... Blood metal. Blood metal, meaning that the price for these works of art were the lives of enslaved West

Africans sent into the abyss of the Middle Passage. And the principal purpose of creating these bronzes was in service of Benin Kingdom's royal family. The royal palace was adorned with copper engravings and brass plaques that celebrated victories. They recorded Benin's achievements and reflected the kingdom's grandeur. So these engravings and plaques told stories. And at the center of the Benin royal family was the Oba. The Oba or king wasn't just a political leader but held divine status, acting as a spiritual bridge between his people and the gods.

The Benin kingdom was ruled by a long line of Obas. They were like religious, political, and military leaders rolled into one. And for centuries, they enjoyed control over the trade routes in their kingdom. But all of this would begin to change when Europeans started making their way into the region's local economies and politics.

Starting with the Portuguese. And eventually, by the 1800s, the British became one of the primary trading partners with the Benin Kingdom. With the introduction of the pneumatic tire by J.B. Dumlap in 1888, rubber became a critical raw material for industries in Europe, especially for bicycles and later automobiles, right? Benin had vast rubber forests.

This was an era of massive industrial growth in Europe, especially in England. And so natural resources like rubber and palm oil were in high demand. And it turns out that many of those resources were in what's now southern Nigeria, the land the Oba ruled over. So throughout the 1800s, the British tried to insert themselves more and more into the rubber and palm oil trade.

It became a struggle over control of resources. It got so bad that the ObBA would periodically shut down trade, frustrating the British. And so the British tried to fix this by proposing a treaty in 1892, which historians say... —... undermined Benin's sovereignty. Allowing for free trade, it allowed for the presence of Christian missionaries, and it required the king, the oba, to consult with British on governance.

— In other words, the oba would need British approval for dealing with anyone else. Yet according to the British, the OBBA signed this treaty, something historians like Wando Achebe call into question. — So a number of historians have actually suggested that if he did sign this treaty, he probably didn't understand what he was signing. — The answer is still, to this day, unclear. But another perspective from historians is that the OBA only had one question on his mind as the British were trying to explain this treaty.

Were they declaring peace or war? The British reassured the OBA that it was a peace treaty. And so the OBA might have signed the treaty in the hopes that it would quell tensions, that it might prevent an all-out war. But despite this treaty, the Oba maintained control over trade. And it's this control that frustrated the heck out of British ambitions. The Oba continued to exert control even though the British claimed he was violating their treaty. This would set the stage for a confrontation, one that would change the course of West African history. Coming up, an unannounced guest.

This is Sanjay from San Jose in California and you're listening to True Line by NPR, brought to you by the best podcast show hosts ever, Rampin' and Rund, who've transformed my indifference to the subject of history in middle and high school to curiosity and joy as I listen to every episode. Usher, Yo-Yo Ma, Boy Genius, Shaka Khan, Billie Eilish, Weird Al, one thing all these big stars have in common, they've all played behind NPR's Tiny Desk. And if you enter NPR's Tiny Desk Contest between now and February 10th, you could be next. Unsigned musicians can find out more and see the official rules at npr.org slash tiny desk contest.

Hey, it's Robin Hilton from NPR Music. Many years ago, I helped start the Tiny Desk Concert Series. And right now, NPR is looking for the next great, undiscovered musician to perform behind the famous desk. Think you've got what it takes? Submit a video of you playing an original song to the Tiny Desk Contest by February 10th. Find out more and see the official rules at npr.org slash tinydeskcontest. Are you the greatest musician the world has never heard? Unsigned artists, now's your opportunity to play the Tiny Desk Contest. Are you the greatest musician the world has never heard? Unsigned artists, now's your opportunity to play the Tiny Desk.

Enter the 2025 Tiny Desk Contest, our nationwide search for the next undiscovered star. The winner will play a Tiny Desk concert and a US tour. To learn more, visit npr.org slash tiny desk contest. Part Two. The City of Blood. By the late 1800s, the British Empire and the Benin Kingdom were on the brink of a conflict over control of key trading positions in West Africa. The British claimed that the Oba, or king, was violating a treaty they'd signed. The Oba, for his part, shut down trade whenever he felt the British were becoming a threat. Both sides were at an impasse.

In comes James Phillips. James Phillips. He was acting British Consul. Which meant his job was to oversee trade in West Africa on behalf of the British Crown. He'd basically been raised to eventually have this kind of job. He grew up in a family with strong clerical and military background. We know that he was educated at Oppenham School, which was a prestigious independent boarding school.

Phillips later attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied law. By his early 30s, James Phillips, like many other upper-class British bureaucrats, decided to pursue his fortunes overseas, working for the empire. A lot of these young European men were going for adventure, making a name for themselves. By the way, this is Wando Acebe, a history professor at Michigan State University.

And I think that was a propelling force for a lot of these European men in Africa during this time period. And that propelling force would put Phillips in the center of a national scandal, a news story that would grip all of England in the late 1890s. The King of Benin has continued to do everything in his power to stop the people from trading

and prevent the government from opening up the country. This is from a letter James Phillips sent to the British Prime Minister in 1897, arguing that they should take action. In order to fully open the region to British trade, I am convinced from information which leaves no room for doubt, as well as from experience of Native character, that Pacific measures are now quite useless and that the time has come to remove their obstruction. Basically, Phillips is like, look, if we want to efficiently extract resources like

rubber and palm oil, things England needed to fuel its rapid industrial growth, we need to get the Benin Kingdom's king, or oba, out of the way. I therefore ask for his lordship's permission to visit Banin city in February next to depose and remove the King of Banin. Monday 16th of November 1896. Well the British Prime Minister basically left Phillips on read for several weeks. Still Phillips was an ambitious young man and he decided to send a letter to Benin's king requesting a meeting. So Phillips requests to meet with the Abba. And he does this,

even though he'd already made it clear in his letter to the British Prime Minister that he wanted to depose Benin's king. The timing of this request clashed with the sacred Igwe festival, during which the Oba was secluded to perform rituals that renewed his spiritual authority. Remember, Oba of Aranwen was semi-divine. And Phillips gets a response. The king said, no, you cannot visit. Why don't you come back in about two moons, two months? Phillips ignored all of the cultural imperatives, and he proceeded toward Benin City. He set out with eight other white men and with an uncertain number of servants, but perhaps over 200 carriers. This is Dan Hicks.

I'm professor of contemporary archeology at the University of Oxford, curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. And he wrote the book, The Brutish Museums, which, among other things, tells the story of James Phillips and his crew, most of whom were African workers hired by the British. They reportedly took no firearms except for revolvers, we're told, in some of the accounts. No firearms except for revolvers, we're told, in some of the accounts. Along the way, a royal agent of the Oba warned Phillips that any white man visiting the city would be killed. We have been threatened and solemnly warned at every step that the soldiers of the King of Benin are waiting to fire on us.

Despite the warning, Phillips' party continued working their way towards Benin City. The road, or rather path, we went along was rather broader than the usual West African brush path, but only fit for marching in single file. This is from an account of a British officer who was there. It was then about 3 p.m. and we were walking in much the same order as when we started. They stopped at villages along the way to rest. In the afternoon, they were about 14 miles into their march when— Suddenly, a shot rang out a few yards behind us.

—followed by rapid fire that seemed to go back almost to the last village we had passed. At the first shot, we couldn't believe that the firing was in earnest and thought, as someone suggested, that it was only a salute in our honor. Phillips party, in their confusion, thought they were being welcomed by soldiers from the Benin Kingdom. In fact, Phillips told his men not to get out their revolvers. This was a mistake because soon they were facing a hail of ammunition. The idea was soon exploded by the cries from our wretched carriers and yells from the Benin men. A surviving British officer recounted a chaotic scene of gunfire and machetes.

On a strip of road about 15 yards long were the bodies of some six or seven of our unfortunate carriers lying on the road. It was carnage. Phillips does not survive. Phillips is killed. The exact numbers of dead are still, to this day, unclear. But it's thought that most of the Europeans in Phillips' party were killed along with many of the African workers they'd hired. Word quickly got back to England. Newspapers there called it a massacre. The circumstances of how the killing comes about and the nature of that expedition, was it hostile? Was it seeking to provoke? Was it an inexperienced administrator sent off in order to provoke a response. All of that's

unclear. But the damage was done. It's this ambush that outrages Britain to no end. Over the next several weeks, some of the British press began running stories about what a horrible place Benin City was. They published disturbing accounts of human sacrifice and brutality. By the time the punitive expedition was launched in 1897, the British public had been primed to see it as a moral crusade. One body was on a crucifix tree with the arms and legs outstretched. was on a crucifix tree with the arms and legs outstretched. The Manchester Guardian, January 1897.

You know, they didn't hold back, you know, imaginative account as they possibly could of the blood and guts. At various parts of the city there were corpses, some headless or armless or otherwise mutilated. The idea of the city of blood was associated with Benin City. Portraying Benin as a barbaric society. We should note here that there is historical evidence of human sacrifices being carried out at the royal court. Without a doubt, you know, this was a royal court that continued to practice forms of

court slavery, almost certainly forms of human sacrifice. But these descriptions often lacked any kind of context. Benin City the British government prepared for a revenge attack. It would come to be called the punitive expedition. A very large force with hundreds of sailors and soldiers was amassed. A flotilla of ships was stocked with heavy weaponry. A dozen 7-pounder RML mountain guns.

Think of a small cannon. 14 Maxim guns to be carried across the land. Machine guns. 24 Maxims on the warships. Six rocket tubes. Early form of a rocket launcher. 1,200 rifles. More than three million brass bullets.

By February 1897, British forces sailed for Benin. By 1897, British forces sailed for Benin. Coming up, the battle for a kingdom begins. Hi, this is Jill Macacy from Atlanta, Georgia, and you're listening to Through Line from NPR. On NPR's Wild Card podcast, comedian Michelle Butoh says she's glad she ignored the people who told her to lose weight. I'm just going to show you what it looks like to love my body, my double chin, my extra rolls, okay?

My buckets of thighs. Sauce on the side, you can't afford it. I'm Rachel Martin. Michelle Butoh is on the Wild Card Podcast, the show where cards control the conversation. Part three, as much mine as it is yours. Imagine a country of 2,500 square miles, one mass of forest. Imagine this forest stocked with trees, some 200 feet high. Imagine the fact that you might easily walk for an hour without seeing the sun overhead and only at times get a glimmer of a sunbeam across the path.

And you have an elementary conception of the bush country of Benin. Reginald Bacon. This is an account from a naval officer who took part in the punitive expedition. So in February 1897, a force of about 1,500 British soldiers were equipped with Maxim machine guns, artillery and rockets. They set off in three columns, attacking villages along the way. And they've got barbed wire and they've got electric lighting and they've got all these sorts of modern forms of weaponry. Weapons that were not used by most West African forces. And it was with these that they launched their punitive expedition against Benin.

Over the course of nine days, the British violently ripped through the rain forest and zeroed in on Benin city. A searching volley soon disclosed the enemy who commenced the attack, never venturing into the open, but keeping inside the cover of the bush and firing their long guns at us. The Benin defenders were regrettably armed with outdated weapons. To these we replied with sectional volleys and a deadly sweeping fire of the maxims. And because their weapons were outdated, they were quickly overwhelmed. Eventually, the British soldiers arrived in the heart of the kingdom. They enter Benin City on February 18, 1897.

Wildfire is the only name for describing the flames. They razed the Abbas Palace. They razed sacred sites. The air was filled with a thin black smoke which gusts of wind swept in every direction, curling and wreathing it in fantastic shapes. They erased much of the kingdom's physical and cultural heritage. Soon everything seemed in a blaze.

I think the sheer scale of the destruction is something that's hard to get a sense of. This is Dan Hicks again, author of The Brutish Museums. The fact that this was a desecration of a religious as well as a royal landscape, and that literally they burned everything to the ground. They absolutely, you know, levelled the place to the ground. After the attack, the British forces did as they wished, including… The British built themselves a golf course, never mind other things.

A golf course? Yeah, there's a golf course there within the first month. A nine-hole golf course. As for Oba Obamamwin, the king, he fled the city and hid out in the rainforest for six months. He later surrenders in 1897 and he was exiled to Calabar where he remained until his death. With the Oba out of the way, the British incorporated the Benin Kingdom's lands into its own holdings in West Africa. Marking the end of Benin Kingdom sovereignty, which is what the British wanted to do from the get-go.

Among the rubble in Benin City, the British forces found treasure beyond their wildest dreams. Buried in the dirt of ages in one house were several hundred unique bronze plaques suggestive of almost Egyptian design, but of really superb casting. The British encounter an unparalleled number of cultural treasures. So it is estimated that over 4,000 treasures were looted, including brass plaques, ivory carvings, ceremonial regalia, and textiles. These treasures were distributed among British officers. So it's a chaotic three-four. They were taken back to London by soldiers and sailors and administrators. Some kept in families over generations, some sold immediately on the open market. And so within weeks, the artworks, items that were royal sacred ancestral art, were being

brought up in Berlin, in London, in Oxford, and were being put on display. And the message was very clear. This is a dead culture. And over the next century, many of these artifacts, known collectively as Benin bronzes, ended up in museums. So today these treasures are housed in museums worldwide, with the British Museum holding the largest collection of about 700 treasures. And others ended up in private collections and universities.

Like the rooster statue that Ore Ogumbi first spotted in her college dining hall. This piece of art was bequeathed to the college by William Neville. Who was a Liverpool trader and a banker in Lagos, who donated this item to Jesus College Cambridge. The reason supposedly was the form of the cockerel or the rooster is an emblem of the college that sits there in the dining hall of Jesus College for decades. Until 2016, after Ore and her peers began organizing for it to be taken out of the dining hall

and returned to Nigeria. We were asked to present to the Ethical Affairs Committee. And yeah, they asked us a bunch of questions about where it's gonna go, can they look after it? Ore and her classmates had done their research, and the college had even gotten a letter from the Nigerian government formally requesting the return of the Rooster statue.

— So we thought that might help our case. — But... — Nothing. — And then, one day, sort of out of nowhere, the statue disappeared. But it wasn't clear what they were going to do with it. A spokesperson said at the time that the college and university would discuss and determine the best future for the Ococo, including the question of repatriation. Jesus College declined to comment further on this issue.

As for Ore and her peers, their hope started to wane. I don't think there's anything more we could have done. It just felt like no progress was being made. I mean, I just, I'd given up on this thing happening, to be quite honest, but I was still going to these meetings convincing myself that I don't know, maybe this one next meeting would be different. So in the meantime, Ore went on with her life. By the time I graduated I was like, okay, they've succeeded in wearing me down.

I'm not screaming and kicking up a fuss about this anymore. It's clearly not going to happen. But then in 2019, Jesus College decided to return the statue. And a few years after that, Ore gets an email. Friday 15th of October 2021. Dear Jezawin, I'm now pleased to share that the College is to return the Benin Bronze Cockerell to Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments on Wednesday 27th of October. This will be the first institutional return of its kind.

I was like, what? All those years of fighting for the Benin bronze to be returned to what Ore and her peers believed to be its rightful place was finally going to happen. It was going back to Nigeria. Welcome, everyone, here to the Frank Pan Auditorium at Jesus College, as we gather for the ceremony to formally hand over this Benin bronze, this Okoko,

which does not belong to us. I'm just need to relate. This is the video from the ceremony of Jesus College formally handing over the Benin bronze. The head of the college, the director of Nigeria's commission for national museums, and the younger brother of the sitting oba are all in attendance.

And center stage on a white pedestal is the Rooster statue. And in the crowd were Ore and her fellow students, watching what they had started six years earlier, come to fruition. And to see it happening, especially when you would, well, I had definitely given up on the idea that it ever would. It was crazy. Cambridge University's Jesus College would be the first institution to return a Benin bronze.

Shortly after, other institutions and even museums started following suit. Countries like Germany pledged to return looted Benin artworks. And so did the Smithsonian Institution here in the United States, which had a total collection of 39 Benin bronzes. In 2022, I saw an article in the New York Times that the Smithsonian would be returned in the bronzes. I was quite shocked. This is De'Adriah Farmer-Palman again, who's the executive director of the Restitution Study Group. The moral claim is that the bronzes for us are the embodiment of our enslaved ancestors, and they are the source of our education about who we are. De'Adrià argues that the Benin bronzes should also belong to the descendants of the people

the Benin Kingdom sold to European slave traders. I have Isan DNA and by the way anyone listening to this program that has Isan DNA from their ancestors who were enslaved are literally coming from the Benin Kingdom. The Isan people were part of the kingdoms neighboring the Benin Kingdom. So when De'Adriah found out about the Smithsonian's decision to return its collection of Benin bronzes to Nigeria, she was shocked. Their justification was that they were looted, that they were stolen artifacts. They had been taken by colonizers.

But De'Adrià was like, well, the colonizers, the British, took these bronzes from the kingdom that enslaved my ancestors. So why should Nigeria have full control over them? These are very expensive relics. The value of the bronzes is something people don't like to talk about. One overhead sold not long ago for about 12 million US dollars. Diadria and her organization filed a petition to stop the Smithsonian from returning the bronzes to Nigeria.

The goal? To allow the descendants of people sold into slavery by the Benin Kingdom to have a say in their fate. So, you know, I sent them documentation, not just, you know, from all of the scholars around bronzes, but from their own website and their own publications. In an email exchange at the time, the Smithsonian told De'Adrià more research was needed to concretely link the objects in their collection

to the slave trade. For institutions like the Smithsonian, the question of ownership and repatriation is a tricky process. The process of return is not something that is simply about a decision by the British Museum or by the British government or by the Metropolitan Museum in New York or whatever. It's about hundreds of institutions and individuals who at the moment are caring for these items and the decisions that they make. It doesn't mean that you can suddenly decolonize the museum.

It doesn't work like that. It's case by case. It takes time. So what we found was that 29 of the Benin bronzes that we had here at the Museum of African Art were from the raid of the Benin Kingdom in 1897. This is Linda St. Thomas. She's a chief spokesperson at the Smithsonian Institution and was interviewed by NPR culture correspondent Chloe Veltman about how museums go about repatriation of artworks like the Benin bronzes.

And they were beyond questionable. I mean, they were obviously stolen from their place of origin and then sent to museums and private collectors around the world in the early 1900s. Therefore, we did not want to keep them in our possession anymore, and we wanted to return them. As for De'Adria's argument that descendants of slaves should have some form of ownership

over the Benin bronzes, Linda declined to comment. Instead, she pointed us to the district court's decision, where a judge ruled that De'Adria and the restitution study group lacked valid claims to challenge the Smithsonian's transfer of their Benin bronzes. After they were denied, De'Adrià and the Restitution Study Group appealed to have their case brought up to the Supreme Court. The court would ultimately decline to hear De'Adrià and her organization's petition

against the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian had already begun transferring much of its collection to Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments. I agree 100% that African Americans, African Caribbean people, Africans have every single right to this history, to these treasures. It is our heritage. It is that which makes us who we are. And so what I'm saying is I agree to agree 100% with her characterisation. It's as much hers as it is mine. But historian Wando Achebe does not agree with the Adria about where the Benin bronzes should be housed or who should really

have control over them. Treasures that were stolen away from Africa should remain in Africa. It is a heritage that should be enjoyed on African soil. And if the Benin Kingdom, if the Federal Republic of Nigeria decides that it wants to loan Europe, the U.S. wherever our treasures for a period of time, then we do so. — For Diadria, this is about more than just control over the bronzes. Part of this whole effort is to ensure that we have access to these relics so that we can learn our history. The willingness to sit and work together is about sharing cross-cultural education and

just ending what essentially is a war. You know, it hasn't ended yet. It won't end until we sit down together and we work together and heal. Which brings us back to Ore and the Rooster. This isn't just a pretty thing to sit on a shelf. It's not just a fancy trophy of your war. It's history. It means things to people and has meant things to people for centuries. So you can't understand this object without all of that history because it's not just an object. It is all those things.

That's it for this week's show. I'm Randabdid Fattah. I'm Ramtin Adabluy, and you've been listening to Thru Line from NPR. This episode was produced by me, and me, and Lawrence Wu, Julie Kane, Anya Steinberg, Casey Minor, Christina Kim, Devin Kadiyama. Irene Noguchi. Voiceover work in this episode was also done by Aidan Crow, Greg Hards, Felix Salmon, Jonathan Levin, Chris Springthorpe, and Ghislaine Carden-Retti. Thank you to Johanna Sturge, Tony Cavan, Nadia Lancy,

Jay Vanasco, Chloe Veltman, Edith Chapin, and Colin Campbell. Fact-checking for this episode was done by Kevin Voelkel. This episode was mixed by Robert Rodriguez. Music for this episode was composed by Ramtin and his band, Drop Electric, which includes Naveed Marvi, Sho Fujiwara, Anya Mizani. And finally, if you have an idea or like something you heard on the show, write us at throughlineatnpr.org. Thanks for listening.

Want to know what it's like to play behind the tiny desk? If you've got the talent, we've got the desk. Unsigned artists, enter the 2025 Tiny Desk Contest for an opportunity to play your own tiny desk concert. Our nationwide star search starts now, and the winner will play their own tiny desk concert and a US tour. To learn more, visit npr.org slash tiny desk contest. Technologist Paul Garcia is using AI to create photos of people's most precious memories.

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