The Treasury building at Shendam, Nigeria, 1923 offers an unusually tangible glimpse into the machinery of colonial government. At first sight, the structure appears modest: an earthen building covered with a thin layer of cement, with broad openings at the front and an external stairway rising towards its roof. Yet the institution it represented stood at the centre of taxation, public expenditure and Native Administration.
The historical caption associated with the photograph identifies the structure as the Treasury of Shendam and describes it as being built of mud with a thin cement coating. Rather than a monumental European-style government office, it was a comparatively restrained building serving an important financial purpose.
In 1923, Shendam Division formed part of Muri Province. British colonial administrative records for that year preserve quarterly and annual reports specifically titled Shendam Division Muri Province Quarterly Reports and Annual Reports. These records place the town firmly within the administrative network of Northern Nigeria and show that Shendam was already an established divisional centre.
The photograph belongs to a wider visual record of Shendam during the same period. Yale University Library preserves a 1923 photographic album associated with Father Eugène Sirlinger, who arrived at Shendam Mission in 1913. The album documents mission activity and life in northern Nigeria and forms part of an important surviving photographic collection from the region.
Shendam as a Colonial Administrative Centre
Shendam’s position on the colonial administrative map changed as British officials repeatedly reorganised territorial units, Native Authorities and provincial boundaries.
In 1923, surviving divisional reports explicitly identify Shendam Division as part of Muri Province.
A major reorganisation followed in 1926. The official colonial report for that year recorded the absorption of the former Nasarawa and Muri Provinces and the formation of a new Plateau Province. British Library records from the same year contain a Shendam Division Plateau Province Half Yearly Report, placing Shendam within the reorganised provincial structure.
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This change illustrates an important feature of British rule in Northern Nigeria. Administrative geography was not simply inherited unchanged from pre-colonial societies. Provincial boundaries and divisions could be altered according to the priorities of the colonial administration.
For people living within these territories, such changes affected more than the names appearing on official maps. They could influence where taxes were administered, where political officers were stationed, which Native Authority exercised jurisdiction and how communities were connected to the machinery of government.
Treasury building at Shendam, Nigeria, 1923 and the Native Treasury System
The significance of the Treasury building at Shendam, Nigeria, 1923 becomes clearer when placed within the development of Native Treasuries in Northern Nigeria.
British colonial administration relied heavily on what later became widely known as indirect rule. Rather than attempting to govern every locality directly through European officials, the administration worked through recognised rulers, chiefs, district heads and other local officials operating under British supervision.
Taxation was central to this arrangement.
The Native Revenue Proclamation of 1906 formed part of the developing legal framework for direct native taxation in the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria. During the years that followed, Native Treasuries became increasingly important institutions through which locally retained revenue could be administered.
By 1910 and 1911, official reports were describing an organised system in which part of the revenue raised from communities was paid into the Beit-el-Mal, or Native Treasury.
The money was not intended solely for storage.
Official reports described Native Treasury funds being used for the salaries and allowances of rulers, councillors, police, messengers, judges and officials responsible for roads, buildings, sanitation and other administrative work. Treasury funds could also contribute to markets, wells, roads, education and other public purposes.
The same system made it possible to establish financial reserves for difficult periods, including circumstances in which poor harvests might require reductions or remissions in taxation.
By the early twentieth century, therefore, a Native Treasury had become much more than a room containing money. It was part of an administrative structure through which colonial government organised local finance.
Taxation, Authority and the Reach of Government
The treasury at Shendam formed one part of a much larger administrative chain.
Taxes first had to be assessed. Administrators required information about populations, settlements, agricultural production, livestock and local political organisation. Chiefs, district heads, village heads, tax collectors, clerks and British political officers could all become involved in the process.
Revenue then had to be collected, entered into accounts, safeguarded and allocated.
The result was a system in which taxation and political authority became closely connected. A recognised local authority required revenue to pay officials and carry out administrative work. At the same time, the collection of revenue strengthened the capacity of the colonial state to maintain its presence.
The scale of the system became considerable.
The official report on Nigeria for 1926 stated that Native Treasury balances carried forward on 31 March that year, including money invested in securities, amounted to £1,275,881. Of that sum, £465,558 was invested in securities.
The report also recorded a rise in Native Treasury revenue and noted increased expenditure on public works and improved remuneration for personnel.
Those figures demonstrate how far the treasury system had developed by the middle of the 1920s. The Shendam building was therefore one local expression of a financial structure operating across large parts of colonial Nigeria.
The Architecture of the Shendam Treasury
The physical appearance of the Shendam treasury is striking partly because it does not resemble the imposing stone and concrete buildings often associated with colonial government.
Its mud construction should not be confused with insignificance.
Earthen building traditions had long histories across northern and central Nigeria. Substantial structures could be made from earth when properly constructed and maintained. The thin cement coating described in the historical caption represented the combination of an earthen core with a different surface finish.
The photograph also shows distinctive architectural features, particularly the external staircase and broad openings.
The staircase provided access towards the upper part or roof of the structure. Its precise everyday use is not recorded in the surviving description.
Similarly, the broad openings at the front formed prominent features of the building. Their exact administrative functions are not specified in the surviving caption.
The greater historical importance lies in the function of the treasury itself.
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A treasury required systems of accounting, custody and authorised expenditure. Its significance came not from elaborate architecture but from the financial responsibilities concentrated within it.
Native Administration and Colonial Government
The Shendam treasury also helps explain one of the most important complexities of British colonial rule.
Native Administration was often presented by colonial officials as government through existing African institutions. In practice, colonial rule frequently transformed the political structures it incorporated.
British officials recognised some rulers, reorganised districts, created administrative groupings, altered boundaries and assigned new responsibilities to chiefs and other office-holders. Existing political institutions could therefore be incorporated into structures designed to meet colonial administrative objectives.
Taxation played a major role in that transformation.
A chief or Native Authority responsible for collecting and administering revenue occupied a different institutional position from one operating outside a colonial fiscal system. Salaries, treasury accounts, official estimates, financial regulations and British supervision increasingly connected local political authority to the colonial administration.
Shendam’s movement between different provincial arrangements demonstrates how fluid this system could be. The administrative map was repeatedly modified even while colonial officials described their system as government through established local authorities.
From Revenue Collection to Public Administration
Native Treasuries also show why colonial taxation cannot be understood solely as the collection of money from communities.
Tax revenue helped sustain the machinery of colonial government, while part of the system also involved locally administered expenditure. Roads, markets, wells, courts, officials and other services could be financed through Native Treasury funds.
This dual role was important.
The treasury could support public administration while simultaneously strengthening colonial authority. The existence of locally funded services did not make the system politically independent. The colonial government retained supervisory authority and determined the wider legal framework in which Native Authorities operated.
The Treasury of Shendam therefore belonged to a structure that combined local participation with external colonial control.
That tension was one of the defining features of indirect rule.
Why the 1923 Shendam Photograph Matters
The importance of the photograph lies partly in its ordinariness.
Colonial history is often represented through governors, soldiers, treaties, railway lines and major political confrontations. Yet government was also exercised through quieter institutions: courts, district offices, tax registers, Native Authority councils and treasuries.
The Shendam treasury brings that everyday machinery into view.
Behind the walls were questions with direct consequences for ordinary people. How much tax would a community pay? Who would collect it? Who controlled the money after collection? Which officials received salaries? Which projects qualified for expenditure? What records were kept, and who supervised the accounts?
Those were not minor administrative matters.
They helped determine how colonial rule functioned at local level.
The photograph also records Shendam during a period of administrative change. In 1923, the division belonged to Muri Province. Three years later, Shendam Division appeared within the newly organised Plateau Province.
The building therefore stands at the intersection of local history and the wider restructuring of Northern Nigeria.
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Conclusion
The Treasury building at Shendam, Nigeria, 1923 is more than an architectural curiosity. It represents a financial institution through which taxation, Native Administration and colonial authority were brought together at local level.
Its modest mud walls belonged to a system that had become financially substantial by the 1920s. Native Treasury funds supported officials, administration and public works, while taxation helped extend the reach of government into communities across Northern Nigeria.
Shendam’s changing administrative position also illustrates how colonial boundaries and institutions were repeatedly reorganised. The division was recorded under Muri Province in 1923 and under Plateau Province following the major provincial restructuring of 1926.
The photograph preserves the physical setting of that history. It shows that the infrastructure of power was not always grand. Sometimes it was an earthen treasury in a divisional town, a place where taxes were accounted for, officials were financed and the authority of government acquired a practical, everyday form.
Author’s Note
The Treasury of Shendam offers a powerful reminder that the history of colonial rule is found not only in famous governors, military campaigns and political decrees, but also in the institutions that shaped everyday administration. Native Treasuries connected taxation to salaries, public works, courts and local political authority while placing those functions within a colonial system of supervision. Seen in this wider context, the 1923 photograph records much more than an old building. It captures a period when finance, administration and political power were being woven together in ways that shaped the organisation of government in colonial Nigeria.
References
Yale University Library, Yale Divinity Library, Miscellaneous Personal Papers Collection, RG 30, Eugène Sirlinger, Box 449, Folder 2, Photograph Album Documenting Mission Activity in Northern Nigeria, 1923.
British Library, Endangered Archives Programme, EAP532/1/24/36, Shendam Division Muri Province Quarterly Reports and Annual Reports, 1923.
British Library, Endangered Archives Programme, Shendam Division Plateau Province Half Yearly Report, 1926.
Colonial Office, Colonial Reports, Annual: Nigeria, 1926, sections concerning the reorganisation of the Northern Provinces and Native Treasuries.
Colonial Office, Annual Report on Northern Nigeria, 1906–1907, including the Native Revenue Proclamation of 1906.
Colonial Office, Annual Report on Northern Nigeria, 1910–1911, sections concerning Native Treasury administration, revenue and expenditure.
