<P> Colonial Nigeria was the area of West Africa that later evolved into the modern day Nigeria, during the time of British rule in the 19th and 20th centuries . British influence in the region began with the prohibition of slave trade to British subjects in 1807 . Britain annexed Lagos in 1861 and established the Oil River Protectorate in 1884 . British influence in the Niger area increased gradually over the 19th century, but Britain did not effectively occupy the area until 1885 . Other European powers acknowledged Britain's power over the area in the 1885 Berlin Conference . </P> <P> From 1886 to 1899, much of the country was ruled by Royal Niger Company, authorised by charter, and governed by George Taubman Goldie . In 1900, the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate passed from company hands to the Crown . At the urging of governor Frederick Lugard, the two territories were amalgamated as the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, while maintaining considerable regional autonomy among the three major regions . Progressive constitutions after World War II provided for increasing representation and electoral government by Nigerians . The colonial period proper in Nigeria lasted from 1900 to 1960, after which Nigeria gained its independence . </P> <P> Through a progressive sequence of regimes the British imposed Crown Colony government on the area of West Africa which came to be known as Nigeria, a form of rule which was both autocratic and bureaucratic . After initially adopting an indirect rule approach, in 1906 the British merged the small Lagos Colony and the Southern Nigeria Protectorate into a new Colony of Southern Nigeria, and in 1914 that was combined with the Northern Nigeria Protectorate to form the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria . Administration and military control of the territory was done primarily by white Britons, both in London and in Nigeria . </P> <P> Following military conquest, the British imposed an economic system designed to profit from African labour . The essential basis of this system was a money economy--specifically the British pound sterling--which could be demanded through taxation, paid to cooperative natives, and levied as a fine . </P>

When did nigeria became a colony of britain