The conquest of Awka

In 1903, Agụlụ warmly welcomed European Christian evangelizers to their quarter in the hope that the Europeans would aid them in their war against Amikwo. They were disappointed, for the preachers had no intention whatsoever in taking part in the fight. The reports written by these missionaries show clearly that the Amikwo people had the upper hand in the war by 1903. Part of Agụlụ had been burnt down and several of its men killed. Reverend George T. Basden, who joined the missionaries at Awka in early 1904, summarized events in these words:

‘.... the Agulu Quarter [was] more ready to accept us, they hoping thereby to reap some advantage over their enemies, the people of the Amikwo Quarter. At that time the two Quarters were engaged in civil war owing to the alleged infringement of blacksmithing rights by the Amikwu men. Part of Agulu was burnt down and eleven people lost their lives as the result of one assault by the Amikwus. With the thought in their minds that the presence of Europeans might, in some way, assist them the Agulus agreed to let us settle on the edge of their Quarter. Although no help whatsoever was rendered to either party, beyond doing what was possible for the wounded, yet it was very difficult to get the Amikwus (especially) to accept this fact. for several months that Quarter was subjected to a very rigorous siege, the Agulu hoping to bring them into submission by means of hunger and particularly, by preventing the people from obtaining water outside the village. The siege was raised eventually by the intervention of the Government.’

Finally, in 1904, the people of Agụlụ Quarter made one last desperate move. They sent a delegation to Asaba( headquarters of the British Protectorate of Southern Nigeria), to invite British soldiers to come intervene in the war on their behalf. Coincidentally, the British Government was at that time already making plans to send a military expedition into the region. In June, 1904, the British soldiers led by Major Moorhouse arrived and put an end to the two-and-a-half-year-old civil war. Awka did not resist.The war was over, but Awka also lost its