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This paper is an assessment of the gradual rise of the British owned Royal Niger Company (RNC) to power in the confluence area and the schemes it devised in outwitting other European trading companies on the rivers in the 19th century. Historical approaches were adopted as methodology for this paper. This included primary and secondary sources from the archives and libraries. A good number of materials relevant to the study were carefully studied and analyzed using historical methods. The paper agrees that the discovery of the mouth of the Niger by Richard and John Landers, and the realization of the navigability of the River Niger from the Gulf of Guinea to the interior galvanised Britain into scrambling for the ownership and control of the Niger-Benue confluence area. The paper proves that the Eurocentric claims that Africans on the banks of the Niger knew little about the river than fishing in it before the arrival of the Europeans is no longer tenable. In the course of their exploration, the Lander Brothers came into contact with the lieutenants of the local chief in the confluence area.

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Fidelis Achoba, Department of History and International Studies Federal University Lokoja.

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