It came in response to the ambush and slaughter of a 250 strong party led by British Acting Consul General James Phillips of the Niger Coast Protectorate.

[citation needed] In 1892, Deputy Commissioner and Vice-Consul Captain Henry Lionel Galway (1859–1949) tried to negotiate a trade agreement with Oba Ovọnramwẹn Nọgbaisi (1888–1914) to allow for the free passage of goods through his territory and the development of the palm oil industry.

Captain Gallwey (as his name was then spelled) pushed for British interests in the region, especially of the palm oil industry, by attempting to negotiate a free trade agreement with the Oba at the time.

[4] The treaty itself does not explicitly mention anything about the "bloody customs" that Burton had written about, and instead includes a vague clause about ensuring "the general progress of civilization".

[6] While the treaty granted free trade to British merchants operating in the Kingdom of Benin, the Oba persisted in requiring customs duties.

[7] Since Major (later Sir) Claude Maxwell Macdonald, the Consul General of the Oil River Protectorate authorities considered the treaty legal and binding, he deemed the Oba's requirements a violation of the accord and thus a hostile act.

These developments combined with the Colonial Office's refusal to grant approval for an invasion of Benin City scuttled an expedition the Protectorate had planned for early 1895.

[citation needed] In March 1896, following price fixing and refusals by Itsekiri middle men to pay the required tributes, the Oba of Benin ordered a cessation of the supply of oil palm produce to them.

He formally asked his superiors in London for permission to visit Benin City, claiming that the costs of such an embassy would be recouped by trading for ivory.

[12][13] As a result of this attack, the Foreign Office authorized military action, leading to the "punitive expedition", the purported intention by Moor: »It is imperative that a most severe lesson be given the Kings, Chiefs, and JuJu men of all surrounding countries, that white men cannot be killed with impunity, and that human sacrifices, with the oppression of the weak and poor, must cease.« According to historian Philip Igbafe, the humanitarian and punitive justifications given by Moor ran counter to the economic justifications for military action that he and other members of the Protectorate administration promoted in the months and years before the events of February 1897.

It is a story that still has power to amaze and horrify, as well as to remind us that the British had motives for pushing into Africa other than the intention to exploit the natives and glorify themselves.

:- 'As we neared Benin City we passed several human sacrifices, live women slaves gagged and pegged on their backs to the ground, the abdominal wall being cut in the form of a cross, and the uninjured gut hanging out.

[19] According to professor of African studies, Robin Law, the issue of human sacrifices is an extremely sensitive one and prone to bias.

Law suggests that the reported extent of the practice in Benin was exaggerated by the British in order to establish the need for military intervention.

The Oba in panic of what he had done and in fear of a retaliatory attack, had embarked in a great mass of human sacrifice in order to stave off full disaster.

[15] Most of the plunder from the city was retained by the expedition with some 2,500 (official figures) religious artefacts, Benin visual history, mnemonics and artworks being sent to Britain.

The dispersal of Benin artworks to museums around the world catalysed the beginnings of a long and slow European reassessment of the value of West African art.

[28] However, the British instituted a system of drafting locals to work as forced labourers in often poor conditions that were not much better than had been during the previous Benin Empire.

[5] Phillips's journey has been described by Mona Zutshi Opubor as a period of lull before the outbreak of a violent storm which had been gathering for years with the pressure of traders, consuls and a few visits of armed Europeans to the Benin Empire.

[5] In 2017 a cockerel statue or okukor looted during the 1897 Benin Expedition was removed from the hall of Jesus College, Cambridge, following protests by students of the university.

[34] On 27 October 2021, the okukor was received by Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments in a Benin Bronze Restitution Ceremony held and livestreamed by Jesus College.