Truth About Abame

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a fiction, however, there are many stories and themes used in the book that reflect factual and historical events. The greatest and most interesting of these connections and references with actual events is Achebe’s fictional massacre of Abame and the real life incident of Ahiara.

The two events have striking similarities, and both revolve around the massacre and death of native Africans in the hands of angry colonists seeking vengeance. On November 16^th, 1905, a British man, known as J.F. Stewart, riding his bicycle arrived in Ahiara was killed by the native warriors. The British man’s bike and skin colour was something the natives had never seen before, and killed him in fear and confusion of who and what he was. This incident sparked an investigation and search from British forces, who killed many natives in reprisal of Stewart’s death. Both the natives and British explorers were unfamiliar with each other’s culture and eventually; the British initiated the Bende-Onitsha Hinterland Expedition organized and established to eliminate all Igbo villages. The Bende-Onitsha Hinterland Expedition wiped out many African villages, and as they swept across the country of Nigeria, the British established themselves as the rulers, and enforced unfair and selfish laws to control the natives. For example, they ‘punished entire villages and communities for crimes by even just one person against the colonists’. The participants of the Bende-Onitsha Hinterland Expedition slaughtered and destroyed an Igbo people or villages, and even killed the important Awka Oracle of the Igbo tribes.

The similarities between Achebe’s fictional version of Abame and the tragic story of Ahiara include the death of a white colonist on his bicycle, killed by the scared and baffled natives. Both stories include the murder and death of many natives, and the destruction of the Igbo villages. In both accounts, the natives kill the ‘mysterious white man’ because they are shocked, scared, and unsure of how to react or why and who he was, and simply decide to kill the man as an act of caution, warning, and fear.