Benin, 1600–1660 · a narrated atlas

Key

The Oba and the royal house Benin's chiefs Dutch traders Spanish Capuchins bond — succession, office, alliance conflict — war, revolt, prosecution

Sources & method

Ulsheimer's own account of the siege near Lagos and the king's yearly appearance (voyage of 1603–04), ed. W. Crecelius, Alemannia 7 (1879), pp. 97–120 — source
Ultzheimer (Ulsheimer), Andreas Josua — Neue Deutsche Biographie 26 (2016) — source
O. B. Osadolor, The Military System of Benin Kingdom, c.1440–1897 (PhD thesis, Hamburg, 2001): Ehengbuda's death, the end of the warrior kings, Ogina's revolt, the empty Iyase seat — source
P. Ben-Amos Girshick and J. Thornton, 'Civil War in the Kingdom of Benin, 1689–1721', Journal of African History 42 (2001): the broken succession after Ohuan, the coral beads, the rise of the officials — source
J. Kenny, The Catholic Church in Tropical Africa, ch. 3: the Spanish Capuchin mission to Benin, 1651 — source
The friars' own reports of the Benin mission (Felipe de Híjar, Alonso de Tolosa, 1654), in English translation — source
Ehengbuda — Wikipedia (Egharevba's tradition of his reign and drowning) — source
Ohuan — Wikipedia (accession, Ogina's revolt, the variant chronologies) — source
Ahenzae — Wikipedia (Eson, and A. F. C. Ryder's 1961 account of the Capuchin mission) — source
History of Lagos — Wikipedia (the Benin war camp, Eko) — source

Method. The chain of people follows a sourced account of the polity, 1600–1660; every claim the narration makes was checked against the sources above. Borders: historical-basemaps (A. Ourednik, GPL-3.0), the c.1600 snapshot, simplified — schematic, the right states in roughly the right places. Territorial changes: modern provinces (Natural Earth) or later snapshots standing in for historical ones. Portraits: each credited with its author, licence and source on the readable page. Relief: Esri World Physical Map. Narration: Azure neural voice.