The Punitive Expedition of 1897 was a military excursion by a British force of 1200 under Admiral Sir Harry Rawson that captured, burned, and looted the city of Benin, incidentally bringing to an end the highly sophisticated West African Kingdom of Benin. At the time it was regarded in British circles as a justified action of a civilized European Empire in redressing savage native butchery, but historians of the colonial era now view it as more of an overt act of colonial domination, especially in light of the fact that the British colony of Nigeria was set up in much of the land that had previously been controlled by Benin.
The sack of Benin distributed the famous Benin bronzes and other works of art into the European art market, as the British Admiralty auctioned off the confiscated patrimony to defray costs of the Expedition. Most of the great Benin bronzes went first to purchasers in Germany, though a sizable group remain in the British Museum, London. The Benin bronzes catalyzed the beginnings of a long reassessment of the value of West African culture, which had strong influences on the formation of modernism.
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Punitive Expedition also refers to U.S. General John J. Pershing's pursuit of Pancho Villa in Mexico.