Chapter V

THE USUAL SKETCH—GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.

The country properly called Yoruba, or, by older writers, Yarribah, and Yahribah—imitations of the Hausa pronunciation—has larger limits than those usually assigned to it. Mr. Bowen, for instance, gives as its frontiers the lands of Nupe (Nufe, or Nyffe), Borghú, and the regions known as the Sudan, on the north; the Bight of Benin or Slave Coast, on the south—so far he is correct—on the east by Ibini, or Benin, and the Niger; and on the west by Mahi and Dahome, or, as it is here called, Idáhame. It is, however, abundantly evident that Benin and Dahome are integral parts of Yoruba, somewhat differing in language, but identical in manners, customs, and religion. I would accordingly make the Niger, in 6° 45′ east long., and the Volta River, in east long. 1° 45′, its extreme limits. Thus, instead of two hundred miles in breadth, the irregular parallelogram will be about three hundred and fifty, and its depth from north to south will be upwards of two hundred miles. The area will be seventy thousand instead of fifty thousand square miles. The population is set down at two millions, which may be safely doubled, thus giving about twenty-five souls to the square mile.

There is also a Yoruba Proper, which includes the two former kingdoms of Ife and Isehin. The southern limit lies about twenty miles beyond Abeokuta, or sixty miles from the sea, and thence it extends northwards to the frontiers of Borghú. The area is usually laid at thirty thousand square miles, and the population at eight hundred thousand souls; nor is this an over-estimate. In this part of Africa, though much of the country is desert, the cities[130] are numerous, many of them are ten to twelve miles in circumference, they contain thousands of houses, and each holds from ten to threescore souls. There are also many smaller towns numbering from two thousand to fifteen thousand people. In this section of the country lies the ancient metropolis of Yoruba, Oyo (also called Katanga or Eyeo), whence the people were known as Hios and Eyeos. The old capital, which is said to have been twenty miles in circumference, was destroyed by the Fulas and Hausas in 1825, when the king established himself at the tent-market ‘Ago-ojjá,’ which is now known by its former name, Oyo. The next most considerable cities are Ibadan, now at war with Abeokuta; Ijaye, the hapless ally of the latter; and Ilori. Besides which there are ten minor cities, whose names do not require mention. Yoruba Proper is now well nigh Moslem.

Besides Yoruba Proper, and the kingdoms of Wari, Benin, and Dahome—the latter was, according to native tradition, a mere tributary province—the great Yoruba country contains seven independent territories, whose names are as follows:—

1. Iketu, in our maps Ketu, with a capital of the same name, is a small country lying between Agbome and the River Ogun, south of Yoruba Proper, and shut out from the sea. It has hitherto withstood the power of Dahome, and as the soil is poor, whilst timber and water are far from abundant, it is not much coveted by its neighbours. The extent is conjectured to be two thousand square miles, and the population one hundred thousand.[131]

2. Ekko,[132] which the Portuguese called Lagos; the chief town is Aoni, or Awini, i.e., descended from Ini or Bini—Benin. The limits are Egba-land to the north, the sea to the south, the Ijebu country on the east, and Badagry, now its dependency, on the west. Its area cannot be less than one thousand square miles, and its population eighty thousand.[133]

3. Egba, which, with Iketu, forms the head-quarters of the so-called Aku nation. It is a small kingdom lying on both sides of the Ogun River, but principally on the left bank. It is bounded on the north by Yoruba Proper, south by Ekko, east by Ijebu, and west by Iketu. It also includes the fallen kingdom of Ota, lying between Badagry and Abeokuta. The capital of Egba-land is Abeokuta, and there are no other considerable cities. The area, including Ota, is about three thousand square miles, and the population may be assumed at two hundred thousand.[134]

4. Ijebu, popularly called Jaboo, lies between Egba-land and Benin: it is bounded northwards by Yoruba Proper and Kakanda, southwards by the sea, or more properly by the long lagoon called the Ikoradu, or Cradoo Waters. It is divided into two parts, the Ijebu Ode to the east, and westward the Ijebu Remo: the Awajali, or great king, however, resides at Ode. The land has been little visited by travellers: it is described as an undulating surface of bush and savannah. The area is set down at five thousand square miles, the population at two hundred thousand souls. The Ijebus, a warlike race, have ever been the most deadly enemies of the Egbas, who, in return, gave them the bad name of being the most barbarous of the Yoruban tribes.

5. Ijesha, whose capital is Ilesha, is a little-known province lying between Yoruba and Kakanda: its area is set down at two thousand square miles, and its population at two hundred thousand souls.

6. Kakanda,[135] more properly called Effong or Effon, extends from Yoruba Proper to the Niger and the Kwara Rivers. This province is very little known, but the people are celebrated for working copper, of which they are supposed to have mines. In Kakanda is the celebrated Ife, ‘said,’ if we believe the maps, ‘to be the origin of idolatry.’ It is the spot where the Yoruba nation and all others arose—the Eden of these regions; moreover, from it sprang the sea, and they show the source of the largest river known to them, namely, the Osa Lagoon, running between Lagos and Godomé. The Dahomans, who, like other Yorubans, thence derive their faith, call it Fe.

7. Ilori, which Richard Lander writes Alourie, a province and a city of that name, inhabited by Moslem Fulas and Gambari,[136] a tribe of Hausa men, together with a few pagan Yorubas. The king is a Fula, and the chiefs are mostly Gambari and Kaniki.[137] About 1820 Ilori became independent of Yoruba Proper: it then proclaimed the Jihad, and assisted in the destruction of Oyo or Eyeo. Of late years Ilori has suffered at the hands of Ibadan, but it has recovered since the latter people have been weakened by their wars with Abeokuta. About 1850, Masaba of Nupe, a half-caste Fula, made a coalition to attack Ilori and its chief Chítá, a relation of his own, whose daughter he had married. Two years afterwards, however, Masaba was driven out by his subjects, and Iláde, his capital, on the banks of the Niger, was burnt. The King of Sokoto then sent him to reside at Ilori as a private citizen. Shortly afterwards he left it, and he now resides at Bidda, on the Kaduna, a tributary of the Niger.

Ilori, like Tinbuktu and Sokoto, is one of the great marts of Central Africa. All manner of European goods are imported viâ the Desert from Tripoli and other Mediterranean ports, although an easy land journey of two hundred and fifty miles separates it from the Bight of Benin. The Niger River also runs at no great distance to the eastward of it. The exploitation of the whole Nigerian valley is in our hands if we choose to take the trouble.

The word Yoruba has, as might be expected, been identified by the ethnological sciolist with Europa. Sultan Mohammed Bello[138] derives the name Yarba from Yarab, son of Kahtan, called Joktan by the Hebrew annalist, and enumerated by Moslem genealogists amongst the Arab el Ariba, or pure Arabs who preceded the Mutaarab, the Ishmaelitic et insititious and impure Egypto-Arab race. Mr. Bowen derives it from Goru, which in Fula means river, and bah or ba, great. He is sensible enough to place little confidence in his own philology; and, for the most part, bah, as in Joli-bah, and Bah-fing, is believed to be an African corruption of the Arabic bahr, a sea or large stream. The popular derivation of Yoruba is Ori Obba, or ‘Head King’—with which, for want of a better, we must fain be satisfied.

With respect to the origin of the Yoruban race, some hold that it is an offshoot from Nupe, on the north of the Kwara, driven by a war across the Niger when the river was swollen; and thus the ship, Okko, became their emblem. They first founded Ife, and subsequently Igboho and Oyo.[139] Another well-known tradition makes the Yoruban forefathers to have been created at Ife, or rather at the obscurely remembered mythical town of that name, four months’ journey to the east. Another declares that they are descended from sixteen persons who were sent forth from the east to found a colony. Their leaders took with them a hen and a piece of cloth, containing a palm-nut in a few handfuls of mould. For a time they waded through water, till the earth, dissolved through the cloth, formed a bank in which the palm-nut grew to a tree with sixteen branches, whereupon the hen sprang upon the bank and dried the waters.[140] A third makes Iketu, Egba, Ijebu, Ife, Ibini, and Yoruba six brothers by one mother. Yoruba, the Benjamin of the family, settled at Ife, and after a time he reduced the others to the condition of his dependents and vassals, when he removed to Igboho and made it his capital. The great mother of the six tribes is still worshipped at Ife and Abeokuta as Iyommodi (contracted from Iya ommo oddi), the mother of the hunter’s children. Naturally enough the Moslems identify the hunter with Nimrod, and his children with the Canaanites, who, driven to the west, peopled the Sudan—Yauri and its vicinity. It is remarkable that all these legends derive the population of Yoruba from the east; and—even the fables which natives tell concerning their origin most frequently show a modicum of truth—we are so far justified in believing that from early times a race of pagans, pushed forward by the stream of immigration from the lands nearer Arabia, occupied the thinly populated countries south of the Kwara.[141]

We will now proceed to that province of the great Yoruban country which most interests us—Egba-land. According to its Aku population, it included at one time Dahome and the Popo, or races extending from Badagry to the Volta River. At last the giant Lishabe—there were good and bad giants in those days—rebelled against a Yoruban tyrant, and vindicated the freedom of his country. This West African Kav or Washington is now a god, and his farm, which it would be sacrilege to reclaim, is pointed out on the east of the Ogun River, a little below Abeokuta.

After their ‘declaration of independence’ the Egba race endured a succession of terrible calamities, which led to their dispersion. Though the worst must have happened almost within memory of man, there are many conflicting statements accounting for it. According to some—and this is the version recognized by the missionaries—the Egbas, after winning their independence, were long governed by a king of their own; but finally, growing weary of monarchy, they determined that every town should be ruled by its own chiefs. This led to mutual jealousies and dissensions; as might be expected, the oligarchies become more tyrannical than despots, without possessing the virtues and the habits of freemen. About fifty years ago this bad blood, stimulated by the slave trade and by the machinations of the Yorubas and the Ijebus, resulted in civil and internecine wars. In the course of twenty-five years the numerous cities and towns which covered the land were all laid waste with the sole exception of Oba, which is yet standing, about ten miles south-west of Abeokuta. It is probable that five hundred thousand people perished by sword and famine. Many were sold to the slave ships, and the remnant of the tribe was scattered abroad. Others say that the wars began about a little pepper in the market-town of Akponi—which shows that the country was ripe for confusion. The people of Ife, Ikija, Ikesi, Owu, and Ijebu, all armed against one another; whilst Afunja, chief of Ilori; Alimi, a Fula of Sokoto; and Ali, chief of the Gambari people, attacked Yoruba in force. Thousands of plunderers were already at work; the sword and torch, famine, and the slave-ship completed the destruction. Others declare that about two generations ago the Egbas had a king who determined to rule them with absolute sway. He was quietly directed to ‘go sleep,’ but he had the audacity to refuse. Then the turbulent Egbas arose, and in full durbar slew their anointed king, who claimed the right divine to do wrong. But the killing was murder in the eyes of Oro; punishment followed the regicidal act with no lame foot. The Fula Moslems of the Niger pressed upon Yoruba, Yoruba upon the Egbas. The latter having no head, and being, though not absolutely republican, a headstrong and unmanageable brood, began to fight among themselves, and to sell one another in all directions. According to Mr. T. B. Freeman, one of the earliest visitors to Abeokuta, a war had lasted nearly a century between the kings of Dahome and of Great Benin. The lands lying between the two rivals had suffered greatly; and even in the present day the line of country between Badagry and Abeokuta, which is one hundred miles long, does not contain more than five hundred souls. In those days the Egbas dwelt to the eastward[142] of their present homes, but were driven out by their neighbours the Ijebu, who had sided with Benin. Under their chief, Ladmodi, the Egbas made head against the violence of the enemy, but he was at last slain and the tribe dispersed.

Without attempting to decide which account is true, it is evident that during the first quarter of the present century there was a general dispersion of the Egbas. We know that about 1820-22 there was a great influx of Aku captives into Sierra Leone, and that they found their way east and west, to the United States,[143] Gambia, Fernando Po, Hausa, Borneo, Central Africa, the Fezzan, Egypt, and even to Stamboul. It was a race worsted and spoiled, not, as is commonly asserted, by Europeans, but by its own folly and want of proper despotism.

In 1825, as has been recounted, the Rock Olumo gave to a remnant of the Egbas a rallying point. When their numbers were equal to the task, they founded, about 1826, the town Abeokuta, under the chief Shodeke, who, as the next in rank, had succeeded Ladmodi. The novus homo then attacked Ijebu, the old enemy, but after some successes he was defeated by a coalition near Ekpe. The Ijebu raised another force, and fell upon Shodeke. After a long campaign, however, they were compelled to retire, losing one-third of their host. Shodeke then warred with Ilori, and wrested from Yoruba Proper the little kingdom and city of Ota. He took Ado, the key of the Badagry line, which connected him with the coast, and he made an alliance with Dahome. In 1838 he invited Europeans to settle in his capital; and he died honoured and revered in 1844.

The closer connection of Abeokuta with England dates from 1838-1839. In that year certain Christian Akus or Egbas of Sierra Leone, freighted with merchandize a small captured and condemned slaver—the class of vessel was ominous of what was fated to happen—and, with a white man for master and a crew of emancipados, sailed for Badagry. They were well received, and presently they returned with a cargo of palm oil. Two other confiscated ships followed suit, and a little trade was thus set up, originating the idea of returning to their old homes as Oibo, foreigners or civilized men. Between 1839 and 1842 some five hundred Yoruban recaptives determined to form a colony. About two hundred and sixty-five landed in three ships at Lagos, and suffered from the rapacity of the chiefs, reaching Abeokuta with difficulty. Between two hundred and three hundred entered viâ Badagry, where, by the influence of Yoe Wawu, the Popo ‘English chief,’[144] they were better received, and made for the interior in parties of fifty and sixty. Mr. T. B. Freeman, a coloured Wesleyan missionary from Cape Coast Castle, followed them for spiritual refreshment on the 11th December, 1842, visited Abeokuta, which he describes even then as double the size of Komasi, and reported his journey in the ‘Missionary Register’ for 1843. He and the other converts were hospitably and kindly treated by Shodeke the king, who allowed them to stand before him, not to prostrate themselves like his heathen subjects.

The movement was accelerated and intensified by the ill-fated Niger expedition, commanded by Captain Trotter, R.N., whose principal, if not sole success, was in persuading Obi, chief of Abo, the capital of the extensive Ibo (Eboe) country that occupies the lands lying about the head of the Delta, to sign the treaty for the suppression of the slave trade. Obi’s example was followed by the Ata of Igarrah, who also claims the city of Kakanda. On the return of the expedition it was decided that a Mr. Townsend, one of the Church Missionary Society’s catechists, should proceed to Yoruba, and select an eligible base for future operations. He embarked on the 14th November, 1842, on board a condemned slaver, which three negroes had purchased and freighted, for Badagry. There he met Mr. Freeman, who, on his return from Abeokuta, gave a favourable description of Shodeke. Mr. Townsend, accompanied by two blacks, Andrew Wilhelm and John M‘Cormack, proceeded to the capital, and after a satisfactory interview with the warrior-king, returned to Sierra Leone. Andrew Wilhelm was again sent to Abeokuta, whilst Mr. Townsend proceeded for ordination to England. It was then arranged that he should at once revisit Abeokuta in company with the Rev. Mr. Gollmer, who had been some years at Sierra Leone, and Mr. Crowther, who had lately been ‘crowned a minister,’ the first full-blooded negro who ever ‘wagged his pow’ in a Church of England pulpit, and who had preached his first sermon at Freetown in January, 1844.

The Rev. Mr. Townsend arrived at Sierra Leone in December, 1844, accompanied by Messrs. Gollmer and Crowther, with their wives and families, and sundry natives, catechists and interpreters, carpenters and labourers. He landed at Badagry in January, 1845; but Shodeke was dead, and the Ado war, which was then raging, delayed their advance: finally, it was decided that Messrs. Townsend and Crowther should proceed to Abeokuta, and that Mr. Gollmer should remain at Badagry. The quarrels of Akitoye and Kosoko detained the whole party seventeen weary months on the coast, until M. Domingo Martinez[145]—the well-known slave-dealer of Porto Novo and Whydah—effected a peace, and enabled the missionaries to proceed, despite the unwillingness of the Badagry people to part with them. Messrs. Townsend and Crowther, with their wives, left Badagry on the 27th July, 1846, and arriving safely at Abeokuta, were entertained by one Osho Ligregere, and were welcomed by Okokenu, the actual Alake.

Ake—the royal head-quarters, in which Shodeke had resided—was chosen for the first settlement. Three acres were granted by the king, a shed was erected, Mr. Townsend preached, Andrew Wilhelm translated, and the chiefs, Ogubonna, the Balogun, and Somoye, the Ibashorun, listened—curiously. The mission-house was built in December, 1846; in 1847, a church was opened; and the end of that year saw four preaching sheds at Owu, Itoku, Ikijá, and Igbein, where Mr. Crowther settled himself, about two miles from Ake.

In 1848, Mr. Townsend—leaving behind him Mr. J. C. Müller, who died in 1850—returned to England, bearing a letter and a country cloth, offered by the Alake and his caboceers to Her Most Gracious Majesty. His departure was the signal for an attempt at persecution, which, probably, the converts had brought upon themselves.[146] The conservative movement was directed by several chiefs, of whom Akigbogun—termed the ‘Pharaoh of Igbon’—distinguished himself. At the bottom of the affair, however, were the Ogboni lodges, who said that the converts were turning the world upside down; and certain Sierra Leone renegades, who had relapsed into heathenism and the slave export trade. The fetishmen, to whom the new faith was foolishness, also feared the loss of many goats and fowls. But the polytheist is a bad persecutor: there was a little shaking of roofs, flogging, pinioning, and prohibiting visits to the church or to white men. Enough was done to fill a chapter, headed Persecution; but all was of the mildest, none of the ‘curious juice,’ except from the back, was shed.

Meanwhile, the Earl of Chichester, President of the Church Missionary Society, was authorized to communicate with the Alake, acknowledging his present, and exhorting him to wean his people from illicit to lawful commerce. This letter, accompanied by a gift of English and Arabic Bibles, and a steel corn-mill, was conveyed by the Revs. Dr. Hinderer—who was sent to study the Hausa language—and J. Smith, to Abeokuta, in the spring of 1849. The Alake and the chiefs, highly gratified, proposed a sacrifice to the presents, which was rejected. The so-called persecution ended in 1849, when the continuance of the ‘sentimental squadron’ was determined on; and in the spring of the next year Mr. Townsend, who plays the part of the ‘great Eltchee’ in these lands, returned from England to Ake in March 1850. In the same year Mr. Hinderer, accompanied by Mr. Phillips, an interpreter, visited the towns of Igbara and Ishagga, and settled at Oshelle, about eight miles north-east of Ake.[147] In January, 1851, Mr. Beecroft, H.M.’s Consul for the Bight of Biafra, after a journey to Agbome, proceeded to Abeokuta, and made a covenant with the chiefs to repress future persecution. The same year saw Badagry burnt down and destroyed in a cut-throat affair, and Lagos scotched by the British. In March the King Gezo, of Dahome, determining to renew the scenes of Okeadon—where, it is said, 20,000 Otas were seized and sold—attacked Abeokuta, and suffered shameful defeat; and in the autumn of the same eventful year of Grace, 1851, Commander Forbes, R.N.—of ‘Sarah Forbes Bonetta’ celebrity—proceeded to Abeokuta in state,[148] and concluded a treaty between H.M.’s Government and the Alake and labourers.

Abeokuta, at the present time of writing (Nov. 1861), contains four several sects—Wesleyans, Episcopalians, Northern States Baptists, and Southern States Baptists—who have split upon the rock of slavery. There is a total of twenty whites—viz., three merchants—Messrs. Wike, Hughes, and Bergmeyer—eleven male missionaries, four women, and two children. The Wesleyans have one of each sex. The Church Missionary Society has six whites, including one woman at Ake, three men, one woman, and two children at Ikijá, and none at Owu: their total, therefore, is eight men, two women, and two children. The Baptists have two white men and one woman.

I felt truly grieved at the sight of my poor pretty countrywomen at Abeokuta, and anticipated but too correctly what, in many cases, has since proved their sad fate. They looked like galvanized corpses, even those who had left England but a few months before, radiant with pleasure, bright with youth and beauty. It is a crying sin and a shame to expose these tender beings to such rude, unworthy trials. But what words of mine would avail? I could only leave with them my wishes, my vain hopes that they may soon be restored to those homely decent lands, which no Englishwoman—if the power of ukase were mine—should ever be permitted to leave.

Seven deaths have occurred in this mission since 1846. Mr. and Mrs. Dennard, Messrs. Lord, Field, Paley, and Carter, and Mrs. Buhler, occupy ‘God’s Acre,’ the fetid, grassy graveyard of Abeokuta. Besides which there are numerous native converts. Some years ago the average of European life on the coast of the Benin Bight was two years; and of 100 white children only one or two, even when removed to England, reached the age of ten. At Abeokuta this state of things seems in a fair way to be perpetuated. The least that could be done by the authorities at home would be to allow every missionary, male and female, a full year’s furlough after every two years spent in the African interior.

As has been seen, the missionary holds a peculiar position in these lands. At home a carter, a blacksmith, or a cobbler, he comes out to Africa—I use his own expressions—‘to found empires, and to create nations.’ Whilst one Mr. T******* rings the bell for the ‘Western Times’ in the streets of Exeter, the other, a missionary, holds in his hand the destinies of Abeokuta. Far from being a disparagement, it is highly honourable, according to English ideas, for a man so to raise himself above his caste; but how often ‘honores mutant mores,’ and what a terribly bad politician from Indus to the Pole your reverend man mostly is!

The Sierra Leone settlers are numbered at 2000. They have the name of being prime disturbers of the public peace—especially those who have had the misfortune to visit England—and they are openly accused of relapsing into the lowest heathenism, and of slave-trading, under the specious pretext of redeeming captives. Of course they deny the charge, and if by any chance they speak the truth this time, they have been greatly maligned. But of them more in a future page.

The number of converts registered is about 1500, the communicants may amount to 800. The slave-trade, in its slow but sure reflux from the west to the east, has done this much of good. The Mombas Mission in Eastern Africa, where there are no re-captives, could, in the same number of years, boast of but one convert, and he had been a maniac. As might be expected, the stranger hears of shining lights amongst the Neo-christians of Abeokuta, such as John Baptist Dasalu, Martha Dasalu, Mat. Oluwalla, Mary Ije, and Susannah Kute. There is even a Christian Balogun or Caboceer, John Akirona, i.e. John the Great, and he is favourably spoken of as an independent and honest man. The neophytes are exposed to sore temptations. I have heard convert-women on the coast declare that their native catechists are holy men, that to offend with them is not the same as to sin with the laity; besides which, under such circumstances, it is not their—the weaker vessel’s—‘palaver.’ In the more degraded stages of the Roman Catholic religion the penitent thinks the same of her confessor. Moreover, if I am rightly informed, convicts are preferred for conversion, which must naturally lead to ‘breakings out.’

The schools contain 265 children, who are crammed with hymn-singing, reading, and other civilized arts. As an American missionary rightly observes, the English language is held to be a second revelation to mankind, and thus becomes a curse to the people. The natives should be induced to found, and to support their own schools; and, until they discover the value of education, it is perhaps better not to force their minds.

As for the adults—chiefs and commons—of Abeokuta generally, there is in their minds an ingrained idolatry, against which even the outburst of missionary spirit, in the days of Cary and his contemporaries, would prove futile. ‘At least thirteen apostles,’ as I heard a Scotchman say, ‘would be required for the people Egba.’ The power of the Ogboni is unlimited; it extends from Abeokuta to Sierra Leone, where the ‘Akoo companies’ form a complete vehm gericht, and no foreigner can expect to swim against such a tide. This may explain the later failures of our political relations with Abeokuta. And the Egba is stubborn, most suspicious and hard to change when he has once adopted an idea; it is to be feared that without main force—which we cannot apply—the Ogboni will succeed in defeating all our best intentions.