YORUBA ENSLAVEMENT OF AFRICAN ANCESTORS, MAJOR BLOCKS ON W.AFRICAN TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE

“Most of these slaves were Igbo and Yoruba, with significant concentrations of Hausa, Ibibio, and other ethnic groups. In the eighteenth century, two polities--Oyo and the Aro confederacy--were responsible for most of the slaves exported from Nigeria. The Aro confederacy continued to export slaves through the 1830s, but most slaves in the nineteenth century were a product of the Yoruba civil wars that followed the collapse of Oyo in the 1820s.

A desire for glory and profit from trade, missionary zeal, and considerations of global strategy brought Portuguese navigators to the West African coast in the late fifteenth century. Locked in a seemingly interminable crusading war with Muslim Morocco, the Portuguese conceived of a plan whereby maritime expansion might bypass the Islamic world and open new markets that would result in commercial gain. They hoped to tap the fabled Saharan gold trade, establish a sea route around Africa to India, and link up with the mysterious Christian kingdom of Prester John. The Portuguese achieved all these goals. They obtained access to the gold trade by trading along the Gulf of Guinea, establishing a base at Elmina ("the mine") on the Gold Coast (Ghana), and they made their way into the Indian Ocean, militarily securing a monopoly of the spice trade. Even the Christian kingdom turned out to be real; it was Ethiopia, although Portuguese adventures there turned sour very quickly. Portugal's lasting legacy for Nigeria, however, was its initiation of the transatlantic slave trade.

By 1471 Portuguese ships had reconnoitered the West African coast south as far as the Niger Delta, although they did not know that it was the delta, and in 1481 emissaries from the king of Portugal visited the court of the oba of Benin. For a time, Portugal and Benin maintained close relations. Portuguese soldiers aided Benin in its wars; Portuguese even came to be spoken at the oba's court. Gwatto, the port of Benin, became the depot to handle the peppers, ivory, and increasing numbers of slaves offered by the oba in exchange for coral beads; textile imports from India; European-manufactured articles, including tools and weapons; and manillas (brass and bronze bracelets that were used as currency and also were melted down for objets d'art). Portugal also may have been the first European power to import cowrie shells, which were the currency of the far interior.

Benin profited from its close ties with the Portuguese and exploited the firearms bought from them to tighten its hold on the lower Niger area. Two factors checked the spread of Portuguese influence and the continued expansion of Benin, however. First, Portugal stopped buying pepper because of the availability of other spices in the Indian Ocean region. Second, Benin placed an embargo on the export of slaves, thereby isolating itself from the growth of what was to become the major export from the Nigerian coast for 300 years. Benin continued to capture slaves and to employ them in its domestic economy, but the Edo state remained unique among Nigerian polities in refusing to participate in the transatlantic trade. In the long run, Benin remained relatively isolated from the major changes along the Nigerian coast.

The Portuguese initially bought slaves for resale on the Gold Coast, where slaves were traded for gold. For this reason, the southwestern coast of Nigeria and neighboring parts of the present-day Republic of Benin (not to be confused with the kingdom of Benin) became known as the "slave coast." When the African coast began to supply slaves to the Americas in the last third of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese continued to look to the Bight of Benin as one of its sources of supply. By then they were concentrating activities on the Angolan coast, which supplied roughly 40 percent of all slaves shipped to the Americas throughout the duration of the transatlantic trade, but they always maintained a presence on the Nigerian coast.

The Portuguese monopoly on West African trade was broken at the end of the sixteenth century, when Portugal's influence was challenged by the rising naval power of the Netherlands. The Dutch took over Portuguese trading stations on the coast that were the source of slaves for the Americas. French and English competition later undermined the Dutch position. Although slave ports from Lagos to Calabar would see the flags of many other European maritime countries (including Denmark, Sweden, and Brandenburg) and the North American colonies, Britain became the dominant slaving power in the eighteenth century. Its ships handled two-fifths of the transatlantic traffic during the century. The Portuguese and French were responsible for another two-fifths.

The expansion of Oyo after the middle of the sixteenth century was closely associated with the growth of slave exports across the Atlantic. Oyo's cavalry pushed southward along a natural break in the forests known as the Benin(Republic of Benin-Dahomey) Gap, i.e., the opening in the forest where the savanna stretched to the Bight of Benin), and thereby gained access to the coastal ports.

Most slaves exported from that region of Africa were sold by Yoruba traders, and many (if not most) of those slaves had been transshipped from further inside Africa. Many were identified by Europeans as coming from the Yoruba. Over time, as well, Yoruba culture and religion became common among many slaves in the Americas, so that a spiritual and communal connection became quite common. 

Several African states took an active part in the European slave trade when it began in the early sixteenth century. West Africa, in particular, was one of the principal routes for this commerce in human lives. Several forest kingdoms, such as the Oyo kingdom (Yoruba) and the kingdom of Dahomey, derived immense wealth from the slave trade. This slave trade, however, had a double edge. It meant that the kingdoms and city-states which derived commercial gain also had to fight more wars in order to obtain captives for the slave trade. The result was a high degree of political instability for these forest kingdoms; not only did the slave trade produce the largest single displacement of human peoples in human history, it also fragmented the African civilizations that participated in this commerce. "

Your's truly has the first edition published in 1901. The Egba's did not need Ijebu's to be sold in slavery when amongst them was Madam Tinubu the Iyalode of Egba who was a prominent trader and head of Egba women and who Tinubu square in Lagos is named after.She was said to be responsible for selling Ijaiye's to Slavery.Ijaye was where Kurunmi the Aare ona kakanfo or Generallisimo of Yoruba's had his base.He had a fight with the Alaafin of Oyo over succesion to the throne.The Egba's were allied to Ijaye but the Ibadan's and Oyo kingdom laid seige and defeated them. Ijaye no longer exists where it used to be and Ijaye is now an area in Abeokuta. Other books to read are Yoruba warfare in the 19th century by J Ade Ajayi. You can also read the Egba's and their neighbours by Saburi Biobaku. Also read any of the papers or books by the contemporary giant of Yoruba history Adebayo Falola.”

Continue at http://ihuanedo.ning.com/forum/topics/yoruba-enslavement-of-african

SLAVE ESTIMATE RECORDS: 
http://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates