Richard Lemon Lander

Richard Lemon Lander (8 February 1804 – 6 February 1834) was a British explorer of western Africa. He and his brother John were the first Europeans to follow the course of the River Niger, and discover that it led to the Atlantic. Biography Lander was the son of John Lander, a Truro innkeeper and noted wrestler, and was born in the Fighting Cocks Inn (later the Dolphin Inn). Educated at 'Old Pascoe’s’ in Coombs Lane, Truro, until 1817 when, aged 13, he accompanied a merchant to the West Indies, where he suffered an attack of yellow fever in San Domingo. Returning home in 1818, he gained employment as a servant to several wealthy London families with whom he travelled in Europe. Lander's explorations began as a servant to the Scottish explorer Hugh Clapperton with whom he went in 1823 to the Cape Colony, and then on to an expedition to Western Africa in 1825. Clapperton died on 13 April 1827 near Sokoto, in present-day Nigeria, leaving Lander as the only surviving European member of the expedition. He proceeded southeast to Kano and from there decided to travel south to Funda on the Benue River which led him to becoming the first European to visit the important town of Zangon Katab whose people, the Atyap he described in his notes before returning through the Yoruba region to the coast and thence Britain in July 1828. Commissioned by the British Government, Lander returned to West Africa in 1830, accompanied by his brother John. They landed at Badagri on 22 March 1830 and followed the lower River Niger from Bussa to the sea. After exploring about 160 kilometres of the River Niger upstream, they returned to explore by canoe the River Benue and Niger Delta. In the delta they were kidnapped by the locals at Aboh, and a large ransom was demanded by the local king Obi Ossai of Aboh kingdom, which was paid. The Lander Brothers were ransomed by Kingboy Amain, the heir to his father King Forday Kulo of Nembe Brass Kingdom, a Kingdom involved deeply in the oil palm trade and slave trade between the hinterland and critical to British interests, in present day Bayelsa State.