Truth about Abame

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is based on many actual events in the Igbo community during the arrival of the British in Africa. For one, the destruction of the village named Abame, which is mentioned in chapter 15, is based on the story of Ahiara. In the book, Obierika tells Okonkwo that a white man had rode an iron horse (a bicycle) into Abame. Because the Oracle told them that a strange man would break their clan and spread destruction among them, the villagers killed him. Obierika said that they were afraid that the iron horse would run away so they tied it to a tree. Then white men, angered by the death of the man on the iron horse, destroyed the town of Abame during the busiest time, the market week.
Ahiara was also a town in the Igbo tribe. What happened was that  on November 16, 1905, a white man named JF Stewart rode his bicycle into Ahiara and was killed by the natives. As a result of this, an expedition of British forces searched the villages near Ahiara and killed many natives. 

Because the research does not provide many details, it is not for certain that the Igbo men tied JF Stewart's bicycle to a tree or that the British forces shot people down in a market. What is for sure is that the Igbo people, not knowing who the white man was, did what they did to defend themselves and that there were British forces that killed an entire town. Certain details might have been what Chinua Achebe added to the story himself. I feel that the use of actual events in the book makes the fictional story real.