A Brief History of the Yoruba People

A Brief History of the Yoruba People

â€œA Brief History of the Yoruba Peopleâ€ provides a short of account of a Yoruba origin tradition, and a list of Yoruba kings. The Yoruba people live mainly in what is now southwestern Nigeria, as well as in the neighboring Republic of Benin. They are one of the largest ethnic groups in one of Africaâ€™s most populous nations (Nigeria).

This account of their history was written in the 19th century by a Yoruba Anglican bishop named Samuel Ajayi Crowther (c. 1809-1891). Crowther was born in the town of Osogun in modern-day Nigeria. His original name was Ajayi. He later adopted the name Samuel Crowther after his conversion to Christianity.

When he was a child, the once-powerful Yoruba Oyo Empire was in the midst of civil war. Rival Yoruba warlords fought one another and attacked each otherâ€™s territories and settlements. During the warfare, local civilians captured by the contending armies were routinely sold into slavery. Some of the enslaved people were kept in Africa, but others were sold to European traders on the coast, and transported to the Americas, mostly to Cuba and Brazil.

This was the fate of Crowther, who was captured in his early teens, along with several family members, when his hometown was attacked by a large enemy army. Crowther was sold into slavery, and passed from owner to owner, until he was finally sold to European slave traders in Lagos.

Great Britain had abolished its transatlantic slave trade from 1807-1808. Other nations, including the United States and several European powers, had either followed the British example voluntarily, or had been pressured by the British into abolishing the trade. Through a series of treaties, all Western nations agreed to end the transatlantic slave trade from the West African coast. But smugglers continued to operate on the West African coast, buying enslaved Africans and transporting them to the Americas.

British naval patrols, operating off the coast of Africa, tried to interrupt this illegal slave trade. When illegal slave ships were captured by the navy, the captive Africans were often taken to the British West African colony of Sierra Leone, where they were freed.

In 1822 Crowther was put on board an illegal Brazilian slave ship to be taken across the Atlantic. But the Brazilian human smugglers were caught by a British patrol, and Crowther was taken to Sierra Leone and freed. There the young Crowther learned English, learned to read and write, and converted to Christianity. He eventually rose to the rank of bishop in the Anglican Church, engaged in missionary activities in his native Yorubaland and other parts of West Africa, and wrote about his life, travels, and the Yoruba language.

This short account of Yoruba history by Reverend Crowther provides a slightly different one from that of later Sierra Leone Yoruba Creole historian and Anglican clergyman Samuel Johnson. Reverend Johnson was the author of the classic â€œA History of the Yorubas from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorateâ€, published in 1921 by his brother Dr. Obadiah Johnson. While Samuel Crowther had been born in what is now Nigeria, Samuel Johnson was born in Sierra Leone to Yoruba parents who had been freed from slave ships.
Country USA
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2015-04-04
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2015-04-04
Format	Kindle eBook

A Brief History of the Yoruba People

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