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Welcome to Yorubaland
Great Britain explorers and travelers Hugh Clapperton and his servant Richard Lander recorded eyewitness accounts of what they saw while traveling throughout the interior of Western Yorubaland (present-day Southwest Nigeria) during the 19th century. Did the Englishmen describe the Africans of Yorubaland as so-called “savages” or “respectable” people towards the closing chapters of medieval times during the 19th century?
There are no eyewitness descriptions of Yorubaland beyond the coast during the 11th to 18th centuries. From the first years of the 19th century, travel accounts of European visitors to the Yoruba interior began. The first of these visitors was Hugh Clapperton in the 1820s to the Western and Northwestern parts of Yorubaland. The records of Clapperton and his companions painted a vivid picture that gives a lot of information about what Yorubaland must have been like in the 18th century.
Top Image: The granite outcrops at Idanre, the tallest geographical feature in the western half of Nigeria (i.e., Western Yorubaland)
Middle Image: Olumirin Waterfall at Erin-Ijesha
Bottom Image: Coastline near Badagry
The Sacred Soil of Yorubaland
Hugh Clapperton and his team, including his servant Richard Lander, started from Badagry on the Yoruba west coast at the end of December 1825 with the intent on collecting information about the course of the Niger River. Traveling slowly northwards through Western Yorubaland, they made it to Oyo-Ile (capital of the Oyo Empire) in late January 1826. They made minor observations about the general civilization and conditions of Yorubaland, and the roads were in peaceful conditions with traveling traders and marketplaces.
When they left Badagry, the Clapperton group didn’t travel a long distance before coming to a town. Since the Englishmen were traveling through a well-populated country, towns and villages were not far apart. According to Lander, every town or village were “fields of Indian corn,” numerous “plantations of cotton,” “extensive plantations of corn and plantains,” “rich plantations of yams.” After the group emerged from the thicker forest territory near the coast, they saw palm trees growing abundantly everywhere, sometimes appearing to belong to plantations.
A town they recorded was named “Choko,” and Lander wrote that they came through some “low mountains, on the summit and in the hollows of which were several hamlets, inhabited by an industrious race, who had extensive plantations in the valleys below, where the palm tree flourishes in great abundance.” Lander also observed that as his group penetrated further and further into the Yoruba interior, the population generally grew denser, the towns grew bigger, the land got more intensively cultivated, “and civilization became at every step more strikingly apparent.”
“Large towns at the distance of only a few miles from each other… lay on all sides…” – Englishman Richard Lander (19th Century)
Lander tried to guess the population sizes of some of the towns. The town which he called “Koofo,” he thought, had a population of about 20,000 people. He did not attempt to guess the population of a town named “Shaki,” but recorded that its king had a “considerable number of towns, and many thousands of people, under his protection.” The town of Shaki was “perched” attractively “on the top of the highest hill” in the region. About many other towns, Lander simply wrote that the towns were “densely inhabited.” Lander also said most of the bigger towns were walled. Some of the towns of the thick forests near the coast were “defended by a strong stockade or a mud wall, and sometimes by both together.”
In a town which Lander called “Engwai,” they saw “several busts of men, as well as figures of tigers, crocodiles, serpents carved of blocks of wood, and extremely well executed.”
Concerning the inhabitants of these towns and villages of Yorubaland, Lander had varied remarks. For example, sometimes, he could not understand the ways of the Yoruba people and, therefore, occasionally allowed himself to lapse into rude comments. Lander was sometimes irritated by the crowds which gathered to gaze at members of his group (even when they were trying to sleep) and by the fact that he and the other European members of his group were called “red men” by the Yoruba people.
“BEFORE THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY MOST AFRICANS ON the continent had never seen a real white face.” – Dr. Chancellor Williams
Lander was appreciative of the Yoruba people whose towns and villages he passed through. His assessment was that “the inhabitants … pay the greatest respect to the laws, and live under a regular government.” A few incidents illustrated the orderly government. All the way from Badagry to Oyo-Ile, Clapperton and his group found agencies and evidence of orderly control by the government of Oyo-Ile and by the local governments. When Clapperton and his group came across a district where Fulani (African ethnic group or tribe) rebels attacked the Yoruba city of Ilorin and burnt villages, the Englishmen found that the royal government of Oyo-Ile had provided armed guards to protect traders and travelers on the roads.
“We passed several hundred of men, women and children, with heavy loads on their heads, who had been traveling the whole of the previous night. They were carefully watched by overseers (one of whom was appointed to each fifty) who were all armed, either with short swords or bows and arrows…” – Englishman Richard Lander (19th Century)
Lander said he found the Yoruba people to be hospitable, cheerful, and good natured.
“We experienced as much civility from them (Yoruba people) as our countrymen would have bestowed upon us in our land (Great Britain). They were, generally speaking, neatly dressed in cap, shirt (tobe) and trousers, and very cleanly in their personal appearance.” – Englishman Richard Lander (19th Century)
Although the large town of “Ihumbo” had just suffered some pollical troubles during the 19th century in this region of Yorubaland, and much of it was in ruins. Nevertheless, the Yoruba people showed as much friendliness and hospitality as if there was no problem.
“Singing and dancing and music playing were kept up during the whole night, with as much spirit and good humor, as if the people had been the happiest in the world.” – Englishman Richard Lander (19th Century)
Overall, Richard Lander found the Yoruba to be a very musical and happy people. For instance, town after town the European group was surrounded by crowds of Yoruba men, women, and children, and Lander said, “the ladies enlivening us with song … and the men blowing on horns and beating on gongs and drums.” When Clapperton fell sick in one Yoruba town, the local herbalist gave him an intoxicating beverage called “Otee” which made everybody light-headed and cheerful. When the local herbalist gave Clapperton a potion to drink, it worked like magic because Clapperton was cured.
King after king in Yorubaland welcomed the Englishmen and their group with touching kindness and some of the Yoruba Royal grandeur. When the Englishmen and their group were ushered before the king of Shaki, Lander said, “the king was seated under his verandah, surrounded by a hundred of his wives and musicians and drums and fifes … and latter struck up a native air, the ladies keeping time with their feet, and accompanying the instruments with their voices.” Also, in many places on their journey, the kings and chiefs of Yorubaland lent horses to the Clapperton team. Generally, Lander had much to admire in the Yoruba kings. He said the king of a town called “Bidgie” was “a fine young man named Lollakelli.”
At “Bookhar,” not far from Badagry, Lander wrote that when the visitors were invited before the king, he said, “we found (him, the king of Bookhar) in earnest conversation with his elders … altogether forming the most venerable (respected) looking group of human beings I ever saw.”
Lander also had this to say about the Yoruba king of Bookhar:
“A tall thin man, well stricken in years, and respectfully dressed in a silk tobe and trousers of country cloth. On his head he wore a cap thickly studded with various colored glass beads. and small gold colored tassels of beads hung from it to the shoulders. The cap was neatly and fancifully made.”
The Yoruba people were the most urbanized people in the history of the tropical African forestlands, having largely lived in walled cities and towns since as early as the 11th century or 12th century. In those towns and cities, the Yoruba evolved a sophisticated monarchial system of government, whose governing elites established detailed institutions and processes for preserving society’s history and passing it on, a circumstance that has both encouraged and facilitated the study of Yoruba history in our times. From the beginning of the 20th century, the Yoruba have invested more in education than any other African people, and by the end of the 20th century, were widely regarded as the most literate people in Africa.
Yoruba Treasures
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Yorubaland
In 1910, a majestic bronze sculpture was found in the Nigerian (Yoruba) city of Ife (Ile-Ife)
To find out more about the Wonders of the Yoruba Ife Kingdom, click here: The Wonders of the Ife Kingdom
To find out more about the Yoruba Great Oyo Empire, click here: The Great Oyo Empire
“The natives of that part of Africa (Yorubaland) appear to have a genius for the art of sculpture, which is in great repute with them; and some of their productions rival, in point of delicacy, any of a similar kind that I have seen in Europe.”
– Englishman Richard Lander (19th Century)
The African Diaspora & European Colonization of Alkebu-lan (Africa: Land of the Spirit People)
The Yoruba part of the African Diaspora represents, culturally, its most vital, most measurable, part. In a recent study, the Yoruba civilization and Yoruba Diaspora is powerful and has widespread influence in the Americas.
“the Yorubas deserve particular notice … they are a fine race … their houses neat, comfortable and kept in perfect order within. In character, they are generally honest, and in disposition proud, and even haughty.” - Dr. de Verteuil
“Therefore, I have ventured to include a short chapter on the history of the Yoruba Diaspora in the Americas in this book (A History of the Yoruba People) to highlight the unavoidable continuity between the history of Africa and the history of the African Diaspora, in the hope that the Yoruba people in their West African homeland will become more actively interested in the history of their people across the Atlantic, and in the hope that black people in the Americas will become more proactive in searching and proudly interacting with their African roots and heritage.”
– Dr. Stephen Adebanji Akintoye, author of A History of the Yoruba People (December 2008)
On the authority of Dr. John Henrik Clarke, author of Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism. In the Europeans’ initial expansion, they not only colonized history, but they also colonized information about history. For example, the most disastrous of all their colonizations was the colonization of the image of God. They denied the conquered people the right to see God through their own imagination and optics, or to address God in a word that came from their own indigenous language. Every effort was made to wipe from the conquered people’s memory of how they ruled a state, kingdom, empire, or country, and how they related to their spirituality before the coming of the Europeans to Africa.
Most of the people of the world were forced to forget that over half of human history was over before anyone knew a European existed in the world. Before the 16th century, most Black people on the African continent had never seen a real white face. Non-European people, especially those people in the Nile Valley civilizations (East Africa), had laid the basis for the spirituality that would later be converted into the major religions of the world. These people also developed the thought pattern that would later be developed into the philosophical thought of the world. All of this happened outside of the sphere of European influence when the people of Africa were still ruling their indigenous lands that were passed down through many generations from their foremothers and forefathers.
Before some European nations learned longitude and latitude from the 15th century onwards, their home continent was impoverished. This led to the absolute concentration on conquering and controlling the entire non-white world with honing of the skill in murder, which explains the advancement of weaponry of murder by Europeans over other races they came across. The other people they came across were concentrating in areas of cultures and science for enhancement of the quality of human life. Coupled with the highly developed art of mass murder were the unfulfilled needs of the Europeans from their impoverished continent. This coupling effect led to the destruction of Africans, East Indians, American Indians, peoples of Australia and other islands of the sea as they, the Europeans, bled the natural resources of those lands and carried those resources back home to their European nations.
“If programming (brainwashing) wasn’t that potent, then explain to us how little tiny England was able to keep hundreds of millions of East Indians (India) divided for so long or millions of Africans in Africa divided against themselves that it took long numbers of years to overthrow their colonial rule.” – Dr. Calvin R. Robinson, Dr. Edward W. Robinson and Redman Battle, authors of The Journey of the Songhai People
According to Dr. Chancellor Williams, author of The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. It is this phenomenal success in conquest victories by Europeans of other peoples’ lands and their wealth that has allowed them to have this powerful “position of strength.” These conquest victories had led Europeans to believe they are, superior people and, therefore, the rightful rulers of world. The world greedily wanted the wealth of Africa, to enrich Europe and America. Almost every European nation had a piece of Africa. They stole gold, diamonds, precious metals, and stones. When they went to Egypt, and into the tombs of the Pharaohs and carried back to Europe the treasures of the Africans. England was the primary plunderer of Egypt. The wealth of Africa was so stupendous that England became the leader of Europe, dictating a policy of the economic world market; thus, giving England the name, John Bull.
Dr. Anthony Browder, author of Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization: Exploding the Myths Vol. 1 said:
“Although the total number of Africans stolen from their homeland varies greatly from source to source, we can conservatively estimate that a minimum of 50 million people were displaced. When you consider the fact that one-third of the enslaved Africans never survived the trans-Atlantic journey, and of the number who did survive, approximately one-third died during the ‘seasoning’ or breaking-in process; we are, therefore, talking about the deaths of more than 80 million people. These figures do not take into account the millions of Africans who died before they were loaded aboard the slave ships or the number of men, women and children who were raped, beaten to death or lynched once they arrived in the ‘new world.”
Europeans often derived the moral justification for imperialism and colonialism from features of the international trade as conducted up to the eve of European colonial rule in Africa. The British, particularly, were the chief spokesmen for the view that the desire to conquer and colonize Africa was largely based on their “good intentions” in wanting to put a stop to the Transatlantic slave trade.
“True enough, the British in the nineteenth century were as opposed to slave trading as they were once in favor of it.” – Dr. Walter Rodney, author of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
In East Africa, Arab slave trading persisted until the late 19th century. The British took special “self-righteous” delight in putting an end to Arab slave trading, and deposing rulers on the ground that they were slave traders. Quite to the contrary, during the very years the British proclaimed themselves to be “self-righteous” for destroying the slave trade in East Africa, the British were also crushing political leaders in West Africa, like King Jaja of the Bonny Empire in present-day Nigeria (during the 19th century, King Jaja was the first millionaire in Nigeria), and Queen Nana Asantewaa of the Asante Empire in present-day Ghana, who at the time, had both then ceased from participating in the Transatlantic slave trade with the Europeans.
While the enslaved African people were forced to labor against their will on the American continent, they also resisted their European slave masters. For instance, they rebelled in Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic) in 1522. They rebelled again in Porto Rico (present-day Puerto Rico) in 1527, then Santa Maria (small island off Cuba’s northern coast) in 1529 and Panama in 1531. In 1532, the Spanish established a special police force to capture runaway enslaved Africans.
“By the end of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese and the Spanish did most of the enslavement activities. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, other European nations became involved such as Holland (Netherlands), England, France, Denmark, Sweden and Prussia (Germany).” – Dr. Robin Walker, author of When We Ruled: The Ancient and Mediaeval History of Black Civilizations
On the authority of Historian Joseph O’ Callahan (Callaghan), in The History of Medieval Spain, when the Black-a-Moors (i.e., Africans) ruled much of Southwestern Europe, he said, “owners did not possess the power of life and death over them (slaves) nor could they inflict excessive punishment. Slaves had rights and they could actually seek assistance if they were exceedingly mal-treated.” Furthermore, Dr. Jose Pimienta-Bey comments “any student of American history knows that this was far from the case regarding the British and United States system of enslavement. The enslaved African was a non-human legally designated as ‘property.”
O’ Callahan also stated the Jews prospered in the Transatlantic slave trade. When the Almoravids (i.e., Berbers from North and West Africa) invaded Southwestern Europe in the 11th century, Jews endured persecution, and on the authority of Dr. Jose Pimienta-Bey, one could wonder if Jewish persecution under the Almoravid Dynasty (Moorish Empire), had something to do with the considerable Jewish involvement in the Transatlantic slave trade.
The infamous Berlin Conference was between 1884-1885, and 14 European nations met in Berlin, Germany, and agreed to stop fighting among themselves for the possession of Africa and African people. The only people not invited to the conference were the Africans, whose lives would be altered by the decisions agreed upon by the European nations in attendance. Africa was subsequently divided by the representatives seated at the table in Berlin, and indigenous African countries were given new names like Gold Coast (present-day Ghana), Ivory Coast (present day Côte d’ Ivoire), French Guinea (present-day Guinea), Belgian Congo (present-day Democratic Republic of Congo), etc.
These new names reflected the imperialistic intent of the new European colonial masters. It wasn’t until 72 years later that Africans began to liberate themselves in Africa from the economic, political, and social control of the Europeans. In 1957, the Gold Coast became the first African nation to gain its independence and was renamed Ghana after the ancient African empire: Ancient Ghana. When African Americans were free from forced bondage and enslavement for 127 years in the United States of America, the first independent African nation (i.e., Ghana) had been free for only 35 years.
The European occupation of Africa was from 1500 AD to 1960 and is subdivided in 1880 to mark the period of European colonialism.
The Beating Heart of Africa: The Kongo (Congo) Story
The Portuguese arrived at the mouth of the great Congo River in West Africa in 1488. Their aim in Africa was to turn their country of Portugal into a mighty and vast African-Indian empire. During this time, Africa had been safe and secured from Western (European) invasions because the Western world believed the earth was flat. This myth had exploded in 1434 by Gil Eanes when he dared to sail beyond the area where the Atlantic Ocean was supposed to end and ships plunge into the void. Indeed, Gil Eanes sailed around Cape Bojador (the west coast of the Western Sahara, Africa) and survived. The Portuguese were ignorant of the African people, just like they had been ignorant about the shape of the earth.
When they first arrived at the gates of the kingdom of Kongo, the Portuguese were surprised to find the country’s political structure and expertly organized administrative machinery equaled that of Portugal or any other European state at the time known to them. The Kongo’s economic system of agriculture and handicraft industries, organized into guilds, was the same; apprenticeship training for all skilled occupations was the same; and the general pattern of social organization was also the same as other African nations during medieval times.
The Kongo Kingdom was prosperous, carrying on external trade by both land and rivers with African nations farther north, east, and west. The country to the south of Kongo was Angola, where European foreigners made their presence felt with increasing numbers at the coast, on nearby islands. They began to sail up the rivers toward the interior of Southwest and Central Africa. African people from Angola began to migrate and migrations increased, even though the Portuguese were then bypassing the Angolan region in favor of the more highly advanced kingdom of Kongo.
Dr. Chancellor Williams once said:
“Was it the flight of so many potential slaves from the coastal areas that caused the Portuguese to move up the river closer to population centers? It was more likely a strategic move. By establishing a stronghold in the Kongo kingdom the Angola region would then be caught between Portuguese armed forced and the Angolan northern border and those on the seacoast and off-shore islands. In short, Portugal was as getting in a position to take over this whole region of black states. Many historians and apologists for Portuguese imperialism in Africa use the Kongo kingdom as the classic example of the Portuguese policy of racial equality. Nor did they not themselves declare this to be their policy? And did not the King of Portugal himself address the King of Kongo as “brother?” What happened was the Portuguese captains had met Kongo leaders, not just the King, who were in fact not only their equal, but men so anxious to advance their nation further that they were willing for anything new and better than the white world had to offer. They (Kongolese) took the Westerners (i.e., Europeans) at their word. They had painted their monarch as the greatest king in a world that advanced to a pinnacle of civilization under the guidance of a universal religion that was headed by a Supreme Pontiff who was appointed by the Son of God himself.”
In 1871, King Leopold II of Belgium, who was a cousin to Queen Victoria of England hired explorer Henry Stanley to explore the Congo. When Henry Stanley and his companions arrived in the Congo, they disguised themselves as missionaries and aid workers.
King Leopold II of Belgium, arguably the most notorious and brutal of the European colonizers and enslavers is responsible for Belgium’s genocide in the Congo (present-day Central Africa) in which 15 to 20 million African people of the Congo were exterminated. In the Congo, brutal and extensive forced labor started under King Leopold II. He used the “anti-slavery” excuse to introduce into Congo forced labor and modern slavery. This tactic of invading, thieving, murder, exploiting, and colonizing was the work of “God,” according to King Leopold II. This sadistic act of carnage committed by King Leopold II wiped out over 58% or more of the entire population of Congo. The looted resources from the country of Congo were shipped to Belgium, and much of the looted resources from the Congo is the reason why Belgium looks the way it does today during the modern era.
The king of Belgium thought his diabolical actions towards the Congolese was for their “salvation,” and for their own “good.” Many Congolese people were also killed and maimed by Leopold’s officials and police, and this generally earned European disapproval. Although some European states were outraged by the atrocities King Leopold II and Belgium committed against the Congolese people, but these same European states also derived ideas of racial and cultural superiority between the 15th and 19th centuries, while engaging in genocide and enslavement of non-white peoples. The Congo was consistently a source of immense wealth for Europe, because from the time of colonization until 1906, King Leopold II made at least $20 million from the rubber and ivory extracted from the Congo.
Image I (Left): Sculpture created by the talented Kwame Akoto-Bamfo from Ghana. The sculpture is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Transatlantic slave trade, and is at the entrance of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice that opened in 2018 in Montgomery, AL, USA.
Image II (Right): Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage, by Dr. Sowande' M. Mustakeem
It is estimated that over 100 million Africans were murdered during the 400 years of Africa’s invasions.
“For we will dwell upon the beauty of West African life and culture before the Voyages of Tears and the Era of the Fat Sharks, that is before the voyages of the so-called slave ships (really prisoners-of-wars ships), and before the 250 years when our fathers and mothers (i.e., ancestors) jumped overboard to the waiting sharks rather than remain captive.” – Dr. Calvin R. Robinson, Dr. Edward W. Robinson and Redman Battle, authors of The Journey of the Songhai People
“Yet the sea represented an important open arena of struggle for power and agency as (African) captives jumped to their deaths and (European) sailors flung slaves overboard knowing about, and in many respects relying upon, the presence of sharks and other dangerous sea creatures lurking beneath.” – Dr. Sowande’ M. Mustakeem
“It appears that from time immemorial, stark greed, the desire for wealth, has overridden all humane considerations. Greed has served as a kind of anesthesia, deadening humane sentiments and breaking the bonds of affection that relates man to man.” – Dr. Chancellor Williams
The Yoruba people were latecomers to the forced exile and transportation of African people who were to be enslaved on the American continent. Although the Transatlantic slave trade started in the 16th century, but hardly any Yoruba were recorded in the trade until the 17th century. From about 1750, starting with the beginning of the troubles in the Great Oyo Empire, the number of Yoruba people who boarded European slave ships began to increase. It increased rapidly as the 19th century opened, reaching its peak in about 1826, and remaining at its peak until 1850. The total number of Yoruba people taken to the Americas as enslaved people (late 16th century to about 1867) has been estimated to be about 1.12 million people, representing a little less than 9% of all Africans taken to the Americas as enslaved people during the three centuries of the Transatlantic slave trade. Of this number, nearly 80% were taken away in the century between 1750 and 1850.
Yoruba people were taken to different parts of the American continent, like Chesapeake Bay in North America to that of Rio de la Plata in South America, as well as the many islands of the Caribbean like Cuba, Saint Dominque (present-day Haiti), Jamacia, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Lucia, and many more islands. Various sizes of Yoruba people emerged in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida in North America; some countries in Central America like Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, and others; Guyana, Surinam, Venezuela, and Brazil in South America.
The enslaved Africans from specific ethnic groups or tribes were shipped to America in boats containing mostly or in some cases people from their specific ethnic group or tribe (i.e., Yoruba, Songhai, Mandinka, Edo, etc.). They invariably were thrown together, in the Americas, with enslaved Africans from other African ethnic groups or tribes. Each slave community was confronted with the challenge of forging and inventing new bonds of association and identity, drawing on the realities of their situation of being enslaved people. Most studies of the African Diaspora now confirm, every such creating, inventing and forging was informed by the African cultural heritages that the enslaved Africans brought with them. This eventually produced many variations of “African American” cultures, or Creole cultures, now existing as very significant contributions to civilizations of the so-called “New World.”
The cultural impact of the Yoruba people on the evolution of African American or Creole cultures was great. In a recent study David Eltis wrote:
“Within coerced African migration, the Yoruba were among the latest to arrive but were neither the most numerous nor the least scattered of the Americas. Reasonably precise estimates for other groups will eventually become available; but it is probable that Igbo and some West-Central African peoples were larger and more heavily concentrated than the Yoruba ― the Igbo in parts of the British Caribbean and some of what have been termed Congo groups in southeast Brazil. Yet the impact of the Yoruba speakers on Creole societies that emerged in many parts of the Americas appears to modern scholars to have been strong and, in the light of the evidence presented here, out of proportion to the relative size of Yoruba arrivals.”
The Yoruba, in comparison with other African ethnic groups or tribes, they contributed considerably more to Creole or African American civilization in “oral traditions, especially as expressed in songs, religious rituals, stories, proverbs, and so on,” as well as in various modes of family and societal structures. The main explanation for this is found in the strength of the civilization from which the Yoruba of the “New World” were extracted and taken away into slavery. The Yoruba are known for having strong family and settlement traditions, their urban orientations, their innumerable cooperative, collaborative and support institutions, their highly developed artistic culture as expressed in visual arts and folklore, and their strong spirituality.
How Did the Enslaved Africans Forget their True and Indigenous African Names?
On the arrival on the European slave ships, the enslaved Africans taken to Saint Dominque (i.e., Haiti) were immediately given French names by their French slave masters. The enslaved Africans then had to learn the French language quickly, and eventually the enslaved Africans largely forgot their native tongues. If the enslaved Africans had any children, they grew up speaking French only. Finally, Saint Dominque was notorious as the place where the enslaved Africans received some of the most brutal and dehumanizing, treatment on the American continent. This was a situation that, among other things, very rapidly wiped out distinctive African ethnic identities.
“For whether in Asia, Europe, South America, the United States or the West Indies (Caribbean Islands), the story was the same: The essential links with their past were broken. All knowledge of former greatness was lost. Even their kinship and family relationships were destroyed along with their true names. They were not regarded as human beings. They became a race of outcasts hating themselves for being. The Caucasian triumph was complete.” – Dr. Chancellor Williams
African Military Men Forced to be Slaves Start the Revolution on the Island of Saint Dominque (Haiti)
“America has programmed her people to believe that Africans were not only docile and child-like, but also incapable of organized warfare.” – Dr. Calvin R. Robinson, Dr. Edward W. Robinson and Redman Battle, authors of The Journey of the Songhai People
The generation of enslaved Africans exiled to Saint Dominque started revolting in 1791, and a very large population consisted of men who were recently brought from Africa, and these men still had memories of their African homeland, and these memories were still fresh in their minds. It was these African men, many of whom had had some military training and experience in wars in their African homelands before ending up on European slave ships. It was these African military men who became slaves for Europeans that constituted the core of the slave rebellions in Saint Dominque.
“A majority of St. Dominque’s slaves, especially those who fought steadily in the revolution, were born in Africa … In fact … a great many had served in African armies prior to their enslavement and arrival in Haiti … Sixty to seventy percent of the adult slaves listed on (St. Dominque’s) inventories in the late 1780s and 1790s were African born. Where the African military background of the slaves counted most was in those areas, especially in the north (of St. Dominque) where slaves themselves led the revolution both politically and militarily … These areas … threw up the powerful armies of Toussaint L’Ouverture and Dessalines and eventually carried the revolution.” – John Thornton
Was Ancestral Trauma of the Enslaved Africans from Hundreds of Years of Slavery in Western (European) Civilization Passed Down to their Black Descendants?
On the authority of Dr. Chancellor Williams, Black people are generally still quicker and more polite when serving white people. At times, their attitude toward members of their own race is one of indifference and often insulting. This is known to be true in both Africa and America.
For example, when Malcolm Little (i.e., Malcolm X) moved and lived with his sister Ella as a teenager, he was impressed with the sophisticated, homeowning black community in Roxbury, Boston, MA. Later, Malcolm came to realize these African Americans had prejudices of their own, often looking down on those from their own race who were less fortunate than themselves. He came to despise these successful African American citizens of America and their somewhat pretentious exhibitions of prosperity.
This negative and essentially “anti-black” attitude of “Blacks towards Blacks” is left over residue from slavery. This behavior by Blacks, according to Dr. Chancellor Williams, must be ruthlessly dealt with by Black people in both training and day-to-day administration.
The Path To Prosperity:
Yorubaland
The country of the Yoruba people (Yorubaland), which consisted of present-day Southwest Nigeria, a smaller part of Benin Republic, and still a smaller part of Togo Republic.
“The Yoruba people and country are split by two international boundaries, and while the largest portion is to be found in Nigeria, some substantial parts are to be found in Benin and Togo (Republics).” – Dr. Stephen Adebanji Akintoye (December 2008)
The Yoruba people pride themselves as people who honour and conscientiously take care of their aged persons and take care very seriously for the weaker people of the society, like the physically and intellectually challenged. In traditional Yoruba society, the Yoruba used to say proudly that they never let the weak and infirm become destitute in the streets or let them become beggars in the streets of Yorubaland. German scholar, Professor Ulli Beier who lived for many years in Yorubaland (Southwest Nigeria) in the 1950s and 1960s wrote that, in all those years, he never saw any Yoruba destitute or beggar in the streets.
“But the Assyrians, Hebrews, Greeks and Romans could make no such claim to support the myth of Caucasian superiority. For nothing seems clearer from ancient records than that the whole ancient world knew of nothing more ancient than the Black man’s civilization. The real challenge was standing there in monuments of stone which the Blacks had built on a scale that had withstood all passing ages.”
– Dr. Chancellor Williams
“This massive Yoruba statue is in Ifé, Nigeria. It is a statue of the orisha Olokun. Olokun is associated with the ocean, because Olokun represents the subconscious (the greatest part of your total being). In Kemet (ancient Egypt), Olokun is parallel to Hapi, the deification of the waters of the Nile.” – Mr. Imhotep, via Instagram
One Month Can't Hold Black History
“These wars spanned several thousand years, and in an earlier chapter (The Destruction of Black Civilization) I ‘wondered out loud’―and still wonder―how any people, weakened by perpetual hunger and disease, could possibly carry on wars of resistance to the white invaders for over 5,000 years. This they did―and this their descendants must know and remember with pride: That Black resistance to white domination covered over 5,000 years.”
– Dr. Chancellor Williams
King Leopold II hired Henry Stanley in 1871 to explore the Congo. Before the king of Belgium hired Henry Stanley, he had written to his ambassador in London stating his true intention, which was: “I do not want us to miss a chance of getting a slice of this magnificent African cake.”
“They (African people) will be coming back ─center stage─into their own history at last. But to what end? Will it be just for the intellectual satisfaction of knowing our true history? Knowing it, yes─but so what? The answer is nothing─unless from history we learn what our strengths were and, especially, in what particular aspect we were weak and vulnerable. Our history can then become at once the foundation and guiding light for united efforts in serious planning what we should be about now.” – Dr. Chancellor Williams
“History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is also a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. The role of history is to tell a people what they have been, and where they have been, what they are and where they are. The most important role that history plays is that it has the function of telling a people where they still must go and what they still must be.”
– Dr. John Henrik Clarke
“For no matter what the factual data were, all the books written about the Blacks by their conquerors reflected the conquerors’ viewpoints. Nothing else should be expected.” – Dr. Chancellor Williams
The Journey of the Songhai People, by Dr. Calvin R. Robinson, Dr. Edward W. Robinson, and Redman Battle
A History of the Yoruba People, by Dr. Stephen Adebanji Akintoye
The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 200 A.D., by Dr. Chancellor Williams
Black God: An Introduction to the World’s Religions and their Black Gods, by Dr. Supreme Understanding
Sources:
Africa.si. The Yoruba Peoples. Africa.si. Oct. 4, 2023. https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/olowe/yoruba/yoruba.htm
Akintoye, B. The Good News: Paths to Prosperity in Our Orilede Yoruba. TAC PUBLISHERS. (May 22, 2023). Oct. 4, 2023. p. 84.
Akintoye, S. A History of the Yoruba People. Amalion Publishing. (Jan 1, 2010). Oct. 4, 2023. p. Cover, 8-11, 258, 303-309, 528, 562.
apple.news. Nigerian Treasures: The Majestic Art of Ife – National Geographic History. apple.news. Pinterest. Oct. 6, 2023. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/690739661620917939/
Battle, R., Robinson, C., Robinson, E. The Journey of the Songhai People. Pan African Federation Organization; 2nd edition. (June 1, 1992). Oct. 15, 2023. p. Cover, 7, 15, 47, 86, 210-211, 241, 268.
Browder, A. Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization: Exploding the Myths Vol. 1. The Institute of Karmic Guidance; First Edition. (Dec. 1, 1992). Oct. 16, 2023. p. 29, 258-259.
Checkoutafrica_. A map indicating the major ancient and medieval states in sub-Saharan Africa. Areas and dates relate to a state at its peak. The shaded areas are approximate indicators only. Can you name any ancient states missing here? Checkoutafrica. Instagram. Nov. 29, 2022. Oct. 4, 2023. https://www.instagram.com/p/ClkMsBCoM-u/?igshid=NWQ4MGE5ZTk%3D
Clarke, J. Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism. Publishers Group. May 7, 2015. Oct. 18, 2023. p. 35.
Dr. Supreme Understanding. Black God: An Introduction to the World’s Religions and their Black Gods: Part of the Science of Self Series. Supreme Design. LCC. (Oct. 2, 2016). Oct. 16, 2023. p. Cover.
Hourly History. Malcolm X: A Life From Beginning to End. Hourly History. Nov. 12, 2018. Oct. 24, 2023. p. 7, 9.
Johnson, E. Nigeria's first millionaire and how the British ended his trade dominance in 1884. Face2Face Africa. Oct. 1, 2018. Oct. 24, 2023. https://face2faceafrica.com/article/the-story-of-nigerias-first-millionaire-and-how-the-british-ended-his-trade-dominance-in-1884
Misterimhotep. This massive Yoruba statue is in Ifé, Nigeria. It is a statue of the orisha Olokun. Olokun is associated with the ocean, because Olokun represents the subconscious (the greatest part of your total being). In Kemet, Olokun is parallel to Hapi, the deification of the waters of the Nile. - It is the subconscious that directs your behavior, NOT your consciousness. The subconscious can be navigated to direct your behavior in positive ways. HOWEVER, the subconscious does not utilize words. It operates from images. It does not listen to your excuse of why you are dwelling on an image, it only records that you are dwelling on the image and will manifest whatever you dwell on most. - So, even if you think you are "conscious," if you are dwelling on images of Eurasian supremacism (their Christian iconography, their superhero films, their fashion mags, their pop memes, etc) your subconscious will chart a path to making YOU like a European. Your subconscious will be convinced that you want to be a European since you dwell so heavily on European images. - Of course, you will not become a European, but only an imitation of one. Making you a slave to the real thing. - This is why many Blacks, even "Afrocentric" ones, have such difficulty letting go of their inner-Eurocentricity. It's not because their ancestors were taught Eurocentricity....it is because YOU are the one still dwelling on Eurocentric images. You believe that because you are conscious of its danger, you rise above the danger. That is a lie. That is like believing because you are conscious of the danger of bad food, you can still eat the bad food. - Your eyes (like your stomach) must censor what it ingests. Or you will pay the consequences from your subconscious. The subconscious can be your best friend, or your worse enemy if you don't take the means to feed it proper images that reinforce the image of the African deity living in you. Asé. Khonsu nok. Misterimhotep. Instagram. Nov. 7, 2020. Oct. 13, 2023. https://www.instagram.com/p/CHTaf2gHVxs/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY%3D
Mustakeem, S. Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage. University of Illinois Press. (Nov. 1, 2016). Oct. 23, 2023. p. Cover, 5.
Obietonbara, T. Rebirthing the African Consciousness. Aquqo Press Limited. (Nov. 22, 2021). Oct. 17, 2023. p. 45, 92.
Robyn. What You Didn’t Know About Slavery. Reclaiming Kin. Dec. 7, 2011. Oct. 6, 2023. https://reclaimingkin.com/what-you-didnt-know-about-slavery/
Rodney, W. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Verso. (Nov. 27, 2018). Oct. 17, 2023. p. 163, 180, 199.
Sertima, I. Golden Age of the Moor. Transaction Publishers; 2nd Printing edition. (January 1, 1990). Nov. 10, 2023. p. 12, 28, 198.
Vidar. Sculpture dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Transatlantic slave trade at the entrance of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Street Art Utopia. April 30, 2022. Oct. 15, 2023. https://streetartutopia.com/2022/04/30/sculpture-dedicated-to-the-memory-of-the-victims-of-the-transatlantic-slave-trade-at-the-entrance-of-the-national-memorial-for-peace-and-justice/
Walker, R. When We Ruled: The Ancient and Mediaeval History of Black Civilizations. Black Classic Press. (May 1, 2011). Oct. 21, 2023. p. 163, 408, 546-547.
Welsing, F. The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors. Third World Press; 1st Edition. (December 1, 1991). Oct. 23, 2023. p. 71.
West, R. Yaa Asantewaa (MID-1800s-1921). BlackPast. Feb. 8, 2019. Oct. 24, 2023. https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/yaa-asantewaa-mid-1800s-1921/
Wikipedia. Yorubaland. Oct. 4, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorubaland
Wikipedia. Yoruba people. Oct. 4, 2023. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoruba_people#
Williams, C. The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. Third World Press; 3rd Revised ed. edition. (Feb. 1, 1992). Oct. 4, 2023. p. Cover, 18-19, 45, 80-81, 83, 259, 261-262, 315-316, 324, 372.