In his youth, Jaja was kidnapped from
Igboland, possibly by the
Aro Confederacy, and sold into
slavery. He was then brought to Bonny thereafter. Jaja earned his way out of slavery after serving his master for a number of years. At the death of his master, he took charge of the trade and went on to head the Anna Pepple House merchant faction of
Bonny. Under him, Annie Pepple absorbed other trade houses until a war with the
Manilla Pepple House led by
Oko Jumbo compelled Jaja to break away to establish Opobo Kingdom (26 miles east of Bonny) in 1869. Opobo came to be a prominent trading post in the region's
palm oil trade. Jaja barred entry to European and African middlemen, effectively monopolising
trade, and by 1870 was selling eight thousand tons of palm oil directly to the British. Opobo also shipped palm oil directly to
Liverpool. Jaja sent his children to schools in
Glasgow and enlisted whites to staff the secular school he built in Opobo. He barred any missionaries from entering Opobo. At the 1884
Berlin Conference the Europeans designated Opobo as British territory. When Jaja refused to cease taxing the British traders,
Henry Hamilton Johnston, a British vice consul, invited Jaja for negotiations in 1887. Jaja was abducted on arrival aboard a British vessel; he was tried in
Accra in the
Gold Coast (now
Ghana) then exiled, first to London, and later to
Saint Vincent and
Barbados in the
British West Indies. His presence in the West Indies was alleged to be the cause of civil unrest, as the people of
Barbados, of
African descent, were upset at the
poor treatment of a king from their homeland. In 1891, Jaja was granted permission to return to Opobo, but died on the way. Following his exile and death, the power of the Opobo state rapidly declined. In 1903 the
King Jaja of Opobo Memorial was erected in his honour in Opobo town centre. The grave of his son, Prince Waribo, is in the churchyard at
St Laurence's Church, Frodsham, Cheshire, United Kingdom. Waribo was sent to Frodsham to be educated at Manor House School. He died a year later from inflammation of the lungs on 21 April 1882, aged 13 or 14. There are two white arrows indicating the way to the Prince's grave. One is at the entrance opposite the Ring O'Bells pub, and the other further down the pathway showing the direction to his grave. It has no headstone, but there is an inscription on the edging stone. ==References==