William Allen Vivour (fl. 1830-1890) was the single most successful 19th-century planter in Africa due to his substantial and flourishing cocoa plantation in Fernando Po (Equatorial Guinea). He was the son of a recaptive of Awori, Yoruba ancestry captured from what is now present day Lagos, Nigeria and resettled in Sierra Leone by the British West Africa Squadron, and eventually settled in present day Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria.
Historical context
In 1807, Britain outlawed the African slave trade, took over Sierra Leone and called its capital Freetown. It was there that all Africans freed from attempted enslavement on the high seas were settled and educated. Between 1807 (when the slave trade was outlawed) and 1863 (when the last slaving ship was captured), about 50,000 Africans were released and set free in Freetown. Many returned home, but many also remained in Freetown. Notable among these were Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, Crispin Curtis Adeniyi-Jones, Samuel Johnson (History of Yorubas author), Christopher Sapara Williams, James Pinson Labulo Davies, and Thomas Babington Macaulay (founder of CMS grammar school).
Education was universal; their common language was English, they were Christians and they were free. These new Africans became known as the Sierra Leone Creoles or Krios. They became the leaders and developers of the western area of Africa, and above all they looked at the white man as equals and expected to be so treated in turn. By 1827, they had a college of higher education, and by 1845 they had a grammar school for boys and girls. By 1864, their first bishop was consecrated in England.
Family
The name Vivour is a contraction of the word Survivor, which is related to the circumstances that led to his father's arrival at Sierra Leone. William Allen Vivour was born in Sierra Leone and had four siblings (two brothers and two sisters) which included Sally Vivour (grandmother to Robert Wellesley Cole) and Jacob Vivour.
By 1855, William Allen Vivour migrated from Sierra Leone to set up his base in Nigeria and Fernando Po.
"About the middle of last century, my father’s eldest uncle, William Allen Vivour, returned to Nigeria (Lagos) and set up his business in Fernando Po. With his success, he educated his two brothers in Europe, including the doctor, and sustained his sisters in Freetown comfortably."
Jacob Vivour (known also as Jacob Vivour Pratt) became a pupil at Monkton Combe School from 1879 to 1881, before going on to study law at Christ Church, Oxford University. He obtained his law degree in 1887, then went to Edinburgh where he studied medicine, qualified as a doctor in 1895, and returned to Nigeria were he set up his practice in Eastern Nigeria.
Palm oil trade
On arrival at Fernando Po, W. A. Vivour entered the trade of palm oil and yams with the indigenous Bubi tribes. This involved the collection of the palm oil fruits by the Bubi which were then sold to merchants like Vivour. With time he had saved enough money to buy a schooner from John Holt with the aim to expand his palm oil business. On 16 March 1871, he purchased a schooner boat from Holt to use in the yam and palm oil trade.
The following year Holt's assistant W. J. Jones wrote that the black merchant was thriving:
W. A. Vivour's interest in palm oil grew so significant that it brought him into direct conflict with King Jaja of Opobo in the time leading up to the Jaja-Ibeno War.
At the time, Vivour was trading directly with Liverpool and had established trading factories on the Kwa Ibo; to achieve this, he had agreements with the Ibeno hierarchy. Ibeno sovereignty was independent of Jaja's Opobo. Jaja himself knew this and said, "Although I had no claim to the territory near the mouth of the Qua Eboe River, Mr. Vivour would still have no right to trade there, for any oil which he could get would either be bought in or drawn from my markets".
At last dialogue between the Opobo and the Ibeno failed. Jaja did not take it kindly to see the same Liverpool traders whom he sent away from Opobo because of their free trade policy, establishing trading factories on the Kwa Ibo. About twenty eight of them including George Watts, Henry Watts, Holt and Vivour had agreements with the Ibeno hierarchy. Nevertheless, Jaja's threat for war was ignored by the Ibeno. European traders told Ibeno chiefs not to exercise any fear that ‘Whatever rights Jaja has at Opobo were conferred by Her Majesty’s Consul and no rights whatever were given to him over the Qua Iboe people’.