The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution

by Dan Hicks

Walk into any European museum today and you will see the curated spoils of Empire. They sit behind plate glass: dignified, tastefully lit. Accompanying pieces of card offer a name, date and place of origin. They do not mention that the objects are all stolen.

Few artefacts embody this history of rapacious and extractive colonialism better than the Benin Bronzes - a collection of thousands of brass plaques and carved ivory tusks depicting the history of the Royal Court of the Obas of Benin City, Nigeria. Pillaged during a British naval attack in 1897, the loot was passed on to Queen Victoria, the British Museum and countless private collections.

The story of the Benin Bronzes sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums. In The Brutish Museums, Dan Hicks makes a powerful case for the urgent return of such objects, as part of a wider project of addressing the outstanding debt of colonialism.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Art, Politics, Museums, Africa, Anthropology

320 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2020

About the author

Dan Hicks is Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at the University of Oxford, Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford

Reviews

[Jenn Kause]

As someone who is researching the repatriation of museum artifacts, this book could not have come out at a better time. I know how difficult it is to explain the complicated concepts of ownership and "culture war" on museums, but this book plainly explains the violence behind colonialist looting and the importance of these artifacts to their people.
It's an amazing book to think about when you visit museums, what stories are they telling? Whose stories are they telling? Where do these objects actually come from, and how?

[Heather]

This book was honestly so disappointing. I fully support that there are some works that will have a more academic tone. But this book is very hard to read, and most of it comes down to writing style. Many sentences are too long, and the author unfortunately does not construct a readable narrative. While I give credit for the extensive amount of research, it is just not presented well. It's a shame because this is such an important subject matter.

[Jens Hieber]

This is a very uneven book: 3.5 stars.

Quite a bit about this evidences excellent scholarship (even the parts that seem unnecessarily detailed for a lay-reader like myself). Hicks has a strong argument and at times makes his case very well. In its content, I support the role he envisions for museums and the importance of anthropology as he puts it forth. As a curator, he quite adequately is able to point to the failings of both the past and the present and overall, this is a much needed book.

And yet I wish it had been written by someone else with the same level of expertise. I found his writing quite insufferable at times, with the overuse of rhetorical questions and a sardonic tone that at times bordered on a thinly concealed self-righteousness. The historical account he attempts to portray of the destruction and looting of the kingdom of Benin is not particularly clear and often confusing; having recently read Hochschild's 'King Leopold's Ghost' and Olusoga/Erichsen's 'The Kaiser's Holocaust', I can't help but compare their excellent writing to this, much less capable effort.

[Isolde]

such a fascinating topic but omg could the writing BE more convoluted

[Malcolm]

Britain’s self-narrative of empire never fails to unsettle me, with its claims to a humanitarian empire, one of benevolence integrating those scattered far and wide into a global family with advanced education and efficient railways. We are told to be proud of it, as perhaps Britain’s greatest global contribution. These praise singers acknowledge that perhaps some things could have been done better, but by the standards of the time it was better than all the others even if now we might wince at some aspects of a difficult history.

Yet, as Priyamvada Gopal has shown in her excellent Insurgent Empire there were plenty of opponents at the time. Dan Hicks, in this exceptional piece of work, shows the gratuitous excesses of imperial outreach as not just happening ‘back then’ but as an integral part of and re-enacted every day in anthropology museums. Hicks makes the powerful point, on one or two occasions explicitly but mainly implicitly, that these are not ‘difficult pasts’ but presents that demand resolution and justice. He is curator of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, an anthropology museum full entirely of loot and plunder from Britain’s colonial and imperial adventures.

Rather than range across the entire collection of confront colonial expropriation and looting in an expansive manner, Hicks focuses in on one cabinet (vitrine) marked in the museum as ‘Benin Court Art’. These pieces represent one of the two most contested collections in British museology – the Benin Bronzes (the other of course being the Parthenon/Elgin Marbles in the British Museum). In doing so he asks three questions: how did they come to be there, what do they represent and what should be done about them.

At the heart of his story in Britain’s west African colonies, the Victorian empire, a quest for profit, and the construction of the white supremacy at the heart of Britain’s imperial self-justification. It all turns on a military raid of extreme ferocity in 1897 that struck at the heart of the Kingdom of Benin, destroyed its urban core, shifted the balance of economic and political forces in what is now Nigeria and reshaped the emerging state structures of the region controlled by Britain but wedged between French and German occupied territories in what are now Benin and Cameroon.

Hicks links the attack to shifts in internal British government relations that were pushing private partner companies out of colonial influence – it had already happened in India and was coming to a close in much of Africa as well. This is a compelling part of the argument where he challenges the myths and images of Victorian ‘gentlemanly imperialism’ to argue for a military-corporate imperialism, recasting over 60 years of ‘small wars’ during Victoria’s reign as ‘World War Zero’ as Britain indulged in military conquest across ¼ of the world in Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

His detailed focus on the 1897 ‘raid’ means that he does little to mitigate the horrors of the attacks made by canon, rockets, machine guns, hollow point bullets and more against local armies at best armed muzzle loading, unrifled, pellet firing guns and more often against civilian settlements in what seems close to a scorched earth attack. And for those who want to say, it was a different time, he reminds us that many of these tactics, as well as the widespread looting at the core of his case, were outlawed by the Geneva Accords in 1899: two years later.

This event provides the core of his analysis, but this is not a military or colonial history, but an exploration of the place of looted artefacts in anthropology (increasingly relabelled ‘world culture’) museums. The Benin Bronzes are art works of exquisite quality – so good that they then became the subject of denial where the analysts and ideologists of the period argued that they must have been based in skills learned from elsewhere in Europe or West Asia. Here was empire’s white supremacy in action: he links this to arguments against restitution where the justification lies in the inability of nations whose stuff this is to protect and preserve it.

This then is a theoretically sophisticated argument, worn lightly, exploring the persistence of empire in the present, with the looting and destruction of those same ‘world cultures’ re-enacted every time the museum opens each day. He casts this as the study and writing of death, and the weaponisation of time in the interests of the regimes of power the built and continue to shore up those imperial relations. It may, in a sense, be a study in museum practice – but it is more than that because the contested character of restitution means that those stolen artefacts have now become seen as the legitimate property of the metropolitan state (as point also brilliantly made by the comedian James Acaster in 2019).

Hicks does at least three vital things here. He challenges us to rethink the legitimacy and role of anthropology museums (whatever we call them), he rethinks the global dynamics of Victorian empire and the violence and expropriation at its core, and he reminds us that that empire is not an event of the past, but is a continuing phenomenon. Others, I suspect, will see other things in this richly cast and articulated case. On top of all that, for the post part it is an engaging (if in places harrowing) read justly praised and celebrated by many (while also criticised by those whose interest lies in protecting the current order).

In a year where (so far) I have read some superb books – this stands out both as a powerful and impressive piece of work, and as one that may well have an impact for quite some time to come. Very highly recommended.

[ra]

this is almost certainly the best nonfiction book i've had the pleasure of reading in 2023. the arguments are so well-crafted, and hicks has a habit of guiding you back to his main arguments (granted, a little repetitively, but whatever honestly) which is probably helpful if you're not someone with a background in curatorial studies. that being said i do wanna contest the other reviews which call the language of this book inaccessible because although hicks does cite theoretical frameworks (e.g mbembe's concept of necropolitics) he does so 1) purposefully i.e in a way that is clearly explained and justified and 2) ... literally you could just google it if you don't understand + i know for a fact there are podcasts dedicated to explaining theory and philosophy in that vein (because i myself have used them. all you need is curiosity) fundamentally this is an academic book so it's not going to be handing you knowledge in layman's terms, and complicated subject matter deserves equally complex engagement. why shouldn't the reader have to do a little legwork?

anyway point is. love this book, im particularly pleased with the last few chapters, and i'm going to keep shoving it at everyone for the rest of the year lol

[Adam]

3.5 rounded up. The ideas presented are interesting and important, and I do personally agree very strongly with most of it. The role and nature of museums in supporting structural racism is important and in need of questioning- presenting cultures and objects as frozen snippets, removing contexts of brutal democide and looting, reifying imperialistic narratives created by the thieves, whitewashing and rewriting histories in public displays, etc etc. Understanding the pressing need for museums (both national and private) to return looted goods, whose very existance in our museums upholds and legitimises the violence performed to capture them, requires understanding the history around them, and that is one of the strenghts of the book. However, I do not think the book always manages to present its arguements in a compelling or convincing way, and despite my interest I still found much of the first half boring and convoluted. Still, I'd recommend it, and if you're unsure you should check it out of a library and read some of the last few chapters where it discusses modern museums and the actions needed now.

[ramlah 🌻]

3.5* - this book’s premise was very interesting & it made lots of very important points, however it was so (and maybe unnecessarily) academic and complex in parts.trying to increase accessibility, and retribution in museums go hand in hand, and it being difficult to get through perhaps in some ways defeats the point of the book? it’s easy to be committed to inclusion , and then write a book that not everyone can easily read.

[Jake]

This book talks about a topic very close to my heart. I did a seminar for a gallery opening connected to the RCA in May on this.

The book is much more eloquent than I could ever be. Hicks creates a convincing argument for the atrocity that dispossession is in the wider context of colonial violence. These objects act as a continuation of colonialism and undermine claims to the historical nature of white supremacy. They are time bombs to the contradictions of the national modern identities in the West.

The bronzes should be returned now!

[Lydia Housley]

A timely and well researched book on a topic that is crying out for more attention. I appreciate the academic style as befitting a curator but, if the aim is to incite action among the general public, this should have been a much more accessible read.

Nonetheless, a great review of the historical context around the looting of the Benin bronzes and an impassioned invocation of the need for these objects to be returned. Takes a while to get through, but worth it for those interested in the topic.

[Steve C]

Loved this book!

[Linda]

must read for museum folks

[Dan McCarthy]

A clear and in-depth look at the destruction of Benin City in 1897, its looting of priceless artifacts, their place in museums, and what this event can tell us about the importance of restitution and the destruction of the idea of ‘universal museums’. I recommend this book to everyone in the Public History field - read and consider your place in this ongoing injustice.

Dan Hicks is the curator of world archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Britain - home to some looted Benin artifacts. This familiarity to the artifacts and their place in British museums led Hicks to do an in-depth cataloging of the number of Benin artifacts and their locations to further restitution, and eventually this book to put these artifacts into the violent context which museums have removed them from.

“The purpose of this book is to take stock of the use of the anthropology museum during the 1890s as a weapon, a method and a device for the ideology of white supremacy to legitimise, extend and naturalize new extremes of violence within corporate colonialism - in order to reclaim the vital function of these institutions in the future, to transform their purpose, to put an end to their function as the warehouses of disaster capitalist-colonialism: dismantle, repurpose, restitute, recognise their status as sites of conscience. The book aims to break three dominant narratives about key aspects of the sacking of Benin City. First, to expand the story of the punitive expedition to become a wider history of colonial violence in the 19th century. Second, to expose the truth about the supposed official nature of the looting and sale of the Benin Bronzes, and thus to trace how the sheer force with which a cultural center was destroyed still fractures and splinters across time and space throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. Third, to reveal the intimate links of the narrative of the so-called ‘universal museum’ with enduring processes of militarist-corporate colonialism in 21st-century global capitalism. In each case, this is about stepping back from a focus on nation states, understanding the intertwined nature of German and British traders on the Niger River and museum curators from Berlin to Oxford, and seeing African cultural restitution today as about more than just nation-to-nation, especially where the European nation is often limited to the former colonial power; the global geographies of the Benin Bronzes holds lessons for many other cases.”

The Brutish Museums is written in a very academic tone which some may find difficult to consume, however I found it reminiscent of many of the texts we read in courses during my own MA and MLIS courses when discussing museums and memory. I found myself wishing on a number of occasions while reading this book that it had come out during my graduate studies, and that I could have discussed it with my peers.

“The book has been written with this motto in mind: as the border is to the nation state so the museum is to the empire. Like the border uses space to classify, making distinctions between different kinds of humans, so the museum uses time. Like the telegraph, the camera and the disciplines of archeology and anthropology themselves, the museum seeks to annihilate time and space, to weaponize distance, Like the camera, the museum does not freeze time but controls exposure, measures out duration.”

According to Hicks, western museums are in-part a weapon of imperialism. They have collected the loot from hundreds of of violence and display them as evidence of the strength of the empire, and to other those defeated. By looking at a number of the plaques in museums to provide ‘context’ to the Benin bronzes we can see the one-sided story of white supremacy that is used to excuse the existence of these items in western collections; By looking at the excuses museums give for the continued refusal to return looted items to colonized peoples of the Global South we can see the continued failure to understand the power context behind these exhibits

“Are museums just neutral containers, custodians of a universal heritage, displaying a common global cultural patrimony to an international public of millions each year, celebrations of African creativity that radically lift up African art alongside European sculpture and painting as a universal heritage? The point of departure for this book is the idea that, for as long as they continue to display sacred and royal objects looted during colonial massacres, they will remain the very inverse of all this: hundreds of monuments to the violent propaganda of western superiority above African civilizations erected in the name of ‘race science’, littered across Europe and North America like war memorials to gain rather than to loss, devices for the construction of the Global South as backward, institutions complicit in a prolongation of extreme violence and cultural destruction, indexes of mass atrocity and iconoclasm and ongoing degradation, legacies of when the ideology of cultural evolution, which was an ideology of white supremacy, used the museum as a tool for the production of alterity; tools still operating, hiding in plain sight.”

This copy came from my library, however I enjoyed it enough that when the hoped-for second edition does come out i’ll have to buy it for my own collection, and highlight and mark it up with notes.

I’m reminded of the table-top role playing game “It Was Never Yours” in which the players are thieves breaking into a post-Brexit British Museum to take back items and return them to their rightful owners. I’m reminded of Killmonger in ‘The Black Panther’ looking at African artifacts in the museum and telling the employee “How do you think your ancestors got these? Do you think they paid a fair price? Or did they take it, like they took everything else?”

[Elizabeth Judd Taylor]

Dealing specifically with the Benin Bronzes, this book discusses the many insidious ways Western museums justify keeping works of art acquired through looting, war, and violence, and the many facts they conveniently forget or sweep under the carpet. An important book.

[Hanno]

This book lays bare the hypocrisy used by those who object giving back looted objects. The book is particularly convincing because it was written by someone on the inside, a museum curator. I really enjoyed the language and style. Overall, an excellent book. Can highly recommend!

[Paloma Berggren]

The Brutish Museums is thought-provoking. It is a compelling read and for whatever reason you have, just make sure you read it.

[kit]

dan hicks is a very interesting writer with a no-take-backs formatted stance on what has been done, what is being done, and what needs to be done. it took a bit to get into the book - he switches between deeply researched history to theory with grandizing phrases of academic jargon aimed at an academic audience or possibly fellow museum professionals imploring a sense of understanding of the hard hitting truths and necessary action that is often avoided and ignored. although i did say 'he likes to hear himself talk', i think this kind of writing is both a little much but also necessary - in a way, not backing down from this fight is the most poignant way of getting the point across --> change is necessary and it comes from action, ironically not from words.
this book is equal parts defeatist and punishing of museums who refuse to change and how in 120 years, so much hate and war and loss has happened and continued to be displayed and realities of pain ignored, but more importantly is equally as optimistically hopeful for a decade of new restitution and repatriation, at least in cases of clear wrong doings such as the benin massacre and diaspora of bronzes.
as much as he was preaching to the choir, i think this was a great read and gives me some ideas, some direction, and hope to carry with me into a career, and also more timely, my dissertation lol

[Stefanie]

Hicks brings passion and conviction to the heartbreaking topics of looting and repatriation. At times he is preachy, heavy-handed, and repetitive; I lost count of the number of mentions of literally what "this book is about." But at others, he is captivating, drawing unique details from what might otherwise be dense background and historical information. He writes, for better or worse, like he wants to be read aloud in front of a class. The story he is telling deserves to be shouted from rooftops, so it is mostly apt.

For such mighty subject matter, the book is a relatively quick read. By the end, I was stirred and disgusted by the decades of entitlement, condescension, and violence perpetrated by European and Western society and museums on African people, culture, and artwork. I have wanted to work in museums for a long time, and Hicks' undeniable arguments make me further question my motivation to do so.

[Estelle Praet]

An essential book to understand the violence associated with the rise of western museums. You have to read this if you want to have tools to understand museums and looting during colonial times. It is putting together very important (and greatly elaborated) theoretical concepts to analyse museums as structures reinforcing white supremacy and maintaining colonial mechanisms in handling non western heritage. It is paving the way for restitutions in the future with a massive work documenting collections of looted artefacts from the Benin "punitive" expedition. A must-read!

[Harrison Peters]

An in-depth analysis of the present and recent issue of restitution in the museum space. Both view points are outlined and supported with extensive scholarly evidence; a wonderful starting point to facilitate a contemporaneous and wholistic further study of the topic. Admittedly, it is rather academic and I can understand it’s dual reception it does not confound the barrier of ivory scholarship but it neither encourages it. I think the mode is well suited for the topic at hand but understand the style could perhaps be less academically inclined.

[Chiara]

The concept and content of this book are so so important and the research put into it is so extensive and well-structured that I really wish it wasn't affected so much by the writing being insufferable, to the point of this book being inaccessible to read if you aren't already an expert in this area. Really wish it had been written with a broader audience in mind, because everyone should learn more about this topic.

[Porter]

Centered around the 1897 looting of the Benin Bronzes, “Brutish Museums” is a timely argument for the decolonization of Western ethnological museums and the repatriation of colonial acquisitions. Contributing his vast experience as a curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Hicks delivers a valuable work that errs at times in reading pedantic and disconnected.

[Jack Rowe]

One of the most meticulously researched books I have ever read. Absolutely essential reading for historians, anthropologists, and anyone with a general interest in the cataloguing and documentation of history, and how our views are completely shaped by the colonial systems that we are forced to interact with. Argued exceptionally well, and applicable not just to the specific case of the atrocities at Benin but with other cultural genocides like India and Palestine.

[Meg McLaren]

Unfortunately only interesting towards the end. The chapters and chapters examining the military mechanics of colonial brutality were too long for what I thought was going to be a book more about museum & museum management’s place in colonisation. Important book but wish it was reworked a bit.

[Monika]

There are definitely interesting moments and the author makes some good arguments but overall I feel like other books about this theme do a better job at telling it.

[M]

easily comprehensible read about institutional racism, objects as memories in dialogue, ongoing issues of modern anthropology & archeology, alongside the wrongs of capitalism and the terrible realities of colonization.

[Autumn Scaglione]

An interesting subject, but the writing is ponderous.

[Tallulah]

Extremely well researched, pretty well-written. I will say, however, I think I expected this book to be a little different than it actually is. I would have liked more information on the lives of the looted artifacts after their removal from their homes and a vision of what a post-colonial museum might look like. I was not expecting most of the book to be about the 1897 British punitive expedition to Benin (which is important! I just didn't need so much historical background to understand that it was terrible) instead of the looted artifacts themselves.

[Alice]

4.5 stars. Harrowing.

[snomelz]

Really good book. Read it for a research project on the misconceptions and appropriation of African art and artifacts in Western museums and this became my main point of reference.