1872 Petermann Map of Borno, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad

This is August Petermann's 1872 map of what is today the Borno (or Bornu) region of Nigeria and neighboring territories, sitting at the meeting point of Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad along the southern banks of Lake Chad. In the years and decades following this map's publication, this region would play an important role in the Scramble for Africa.

A Closer Look

This map traces the routes of several European explorers from the 1820s - 1860s, namely Gerhard Rohlfs, Major Dixon Denham, Dr. Heinrich Barth, Dr. Adolf Overweg, and Eduard Vogel. Vogel's route, partially unknown and otherwise overlapping with Barth and Rohlfs, was not originally illustrated, but a previous owner added it in, explaining the annotation in the top margin. In addition to the explorers' routes (red lines), areas of elevation, rivers, lakes, terrain (such as wetlands), settlements, and paths or roads are indicated. Explanatory notes drawn from the accounts of the explorers on the peoples and geography of various locations are included.

Historical Context

At the time this map was produced, most of this area was ruled by the Kanem-Bornu Empire, which existed in some form since the 8th century. The empire had declined in the 18th century and its capital of Ngazargamu was overrun in 1809 by Fulani warriors. It was soon after reconstituted by Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi, who founded a new capital at Kukawa, here as 'Kukaua' at top-left (the city is now far from the lake's shore, showing its recession over the years). However, this revival was short-lived; Kukawa was captured by the Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr in 1893 and then by the British in 1902.

Scramble for Africa

The Scramble for Africa was mainly characterized by heightened occupation and direct ownership of colonial lands. Rivalries and treaties led to a number of new African states, many of which remain, but few of which paid heed to traditional boundaries or cultural distinctions. Though there were early actions in years prior, the Scramble began in earnest at the Berlin Conference of 1884, wherein European colonization of Africa was regulated, and the doctrine of Effective Occupation introduced. In the following months and years, European military officers, administrators, and businessmen raced to sign treaties with indigenous leaders establishing protectorates and gaining mining rights on their lands. The more ambitious of these colonial entrepreneurs imagined transcontinental strings of colonies, such as Cecil Rhodes' famous notion of 'the Cape to Cairo,' the Portuguese 'Pink Map' plot linking Angola and Mozambique, and French efforts to tie together their growing number of African colonies.

French Equatorial and West Africa

French presence in the region was cemented by a battle at Kousseri (Kússuri) towards top-right, now Cameroon, in 1900. There, the French defeated the powerful warlord Rabih az-Zubayr, killing him.

The French commander, Amédée-Francois Lamy, was also killed in the battle and a French fort established nearby, where the Lognoe River meets the Chari River, was named in his honor. The site, noted here as 'Siña-Fatscha, Schéggua, od. Kindja-Burga,' became the major military and administrative center of the region. After Chad gained independence, it was made the country's capital and renamed N'Djamena in 1973. Lamy's death in fact came at the end of a long expedition led by himself and Fernand Foureau, an explorer very familiar with the Sahara. Their goal, which Lamy achieved, albeit at the cost of his life, was to unify French territory in west, central, and north Africa via the Chad Basin.

It is worth noting that most of what is today Cameroon and parts of neighboring countries became the German colony of Kamerun in the 1880s, while the British pressed into the region from Nigeria in the west. Those colonies notwithstanding, the Battle of Kousseri cemented France's dominance over most of West and Equatorial Africa. Along with the Fashoda Incident a couple years earlier, it can be seen as the end of the Scramble for Africa, as nearly the entire continent was by then claimed by one or another European power. At that point, African colonization moved into a phase of 'pacification,' as European powers cemented their control.

Publication History and Census

This map was prepared by August Petermann and printed by Carl Hellfarth of Justus Perthes. It appeared in 1872 as Plate I in Supplemental Booklet (Ergänzungsheft) No. 34 to Petermann's geographische Mittheilungen. It is independently cataloged among the holdings of five institutions in the OCLC, while Petermann's geographische Mittheilungen is somewhat more widely dispersed, especially in Germany.