A New Map of Old Lagos: Mapping Race, Place, and Representation in 1880s Lagos

Visual representations of 19th-century Lagos have mostly focused on its Atlantic edge, the area colonial administrators and elite Lagosians frequented, glossing over the remaining ninety percent of the city. The best-known map of Lagos, Lawson’s 1885 “Plan of Lagos,” should actually be the most infamous. It was commissioned for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London; and with its straight lines and sharp edges, it suggested a rapidly modernizing and pacified space. In plotting a new map of the city using ArcGIS and Illustrator, this paper shifts the focus north and west in the city, to the densely populated and heterogenous indigenous quarters of the city. In examining the local debates—in newspapers as well as in government correspondence—about how the city was to be represented, this paper reveals another city: A Lagos dealing with changes around the meanings of space, effects of racial segregation, and reallocation of resources that troubled the lives of everyday Lagosians.