1902 Office Five Sheet Set (1 results)
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Seller: Geographicus Rare Antique Maps, Brooklyn, U.S.A.Geographicus Rare Antique Maps
Contact seller4-star sellerVery good. 5 sheets of uniform size. All dissected and mounted on linen. One sheet has pinholes in all 4 corners. One sheet has some soiling. Size 21.25 x 28.5 Inches. A concurrent set of five folding sheets, together forming a map covering central and eastern Nigeria, produced by the Intelligence Division of the British War Off…ice in 1902 (with one map being dated 1905). The maps cover this region as it was roiled by opposition to British encroachments and was being negotiated over between the British and Germans, who controlled the neighboring colony of Kamerun. A Closer Look These sheets cover a large portion of eastern and central Nigeria, stretching from Lake Chad to the Bight of Benin and westwards beyond the Niger River to the limit of territory surveyed by the Anglo-French Boundary Commission in 1900, following an agreement between the two colonial powers to fix the border of Northern Nigeria. At right, the Anglo-German Boundary is marked, below which was the German colony of Kamerun. These sheets were an enlargement and elaboration of the 1901 map of Nigeria produced by the War Office's Intelligence Division (previously sold by us), a foundational map in the cartography of Nigeria. Like their predecessor, these maps note settlements in remarkable detail, along with rivers (especially the Benue and Niger Rivers, which meet at Lokoja), lakes, areas of elevation, 'well defined main tracks,' other routes, wells, springs, and additional features. Notes throughout provide supplemental detail, such as 'uninhabited wilderness' or 'dense vegetation.' Abuja, the modern capital of Nigeria, appears at left, towards bottom of the 'Central Nigeria' sheet (though the modern city is closer to Waru, slightly to the southeast of the settlement labelled Abuja here, now known as Suleja). Larger settlements towards top, especially Zaria and Kano, were well-established cities linked with trans-Saharan trading networks that in the 19th century fell to the powerful Fulani Sokoto Caliphate. British Nigeria British colonial activity in Nigeria can be traced to 1861 when Britain annexed Lagos as part of its ongoing war against the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. In 1884, the Crown established the Oil River Protectorate - referring to the Niger Delta's rich production of Palm Oil. From Lagos, the British gradually expanded their influence, forcing, cajoling, and buying the loyalty of surrounding kingdoms. In the 1885 Berlin Conference, the other European colonial powers acknowledged British suzerainty over the region. The Crown founded the Royal Niger Company in 1886, granting the joint stock company a charter calling for the exploitation and development of Nigerian resources, but in the end, Nigeria proved an untenable money pit. They did, however, expand British influence southwards into the Lower Niger, driving out rival German colonials and renaming the area the Southern Nigeria Protectorate (SNP). Nonetheless, by 1900, the Royal Niger Company was in default and ceded its claims to the British Crown for £865,000. Under Crown control, the Northern and Southern Nigerian Protectorates were amalgamated as the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. By 1901, the Protectorate began to aggressively expand its borders, fighting in a series of wars with neighboring African kingdoms, tribal confederations, and the Sokoto Caliphate. The largest of these were the Anglo-Aro War (1901 - 1902), in the borderlands between British Nigeria and German Kamerun, and the subjugation of the Sokoto Caliphate (1900 - 1903), which faced attacks from both the British and Germans. British General Frederick Lugard (1858 - 1945), who would play a leading administrative role in Nigeria in the following decades, cleverly played rival emirs of the caliphate against each other during a relentless march into their territory. It was during this time of rapid expansion that this map was compiled - a synthesis of the most up-to-date cartographic information collected by intelligence of.
