Mapping old Lagos: digital histories and maps about the past

Abstract

ABSTRACTAs digital projects continue to grow in popularity, traditional concerns around evidence and argumentation linger. Some of these concerns are very old, such as the consequences of using European sources to write the history of West Africa. In response to this, some scholars have turned to digital platforms to expand the range, analysis, and design of their historical research. New Maps of Old Lagos, for instance, is a web-based collection of cartographic narratives focusing on the history of Lagos. It demonstrates how, with ArcGIS and other mapping tools, European colonial maps can be used in combination with indigenous knowledge as sources to reconstruct local urban spatial patterns in old Lagos. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, Yoruba-speaking peoples settled and built towns and cities on West Africa’s Bight of Benin. However, very little evidence of the history of cities like Lagos exists outside of oral traditions passed down through generations, and beneath the uneven settlement of the British colonial city that was built on top of and around it. New Maps deploys archival evidence and urban fieldwork to begin the process of plotting the old city by finding its boundaries, its physical features, and plotting meaningful sites and scenes around Lagos Island. These vignettes are hosted online at newmapsoldlagos.com