NewStats: 3,262,392 , 8,177,012 topics. Date: Monday, 02 June 2025 at 07:02 AM 69566m

The main pre industrial empire that profited from the transatlantic slave trade was the Yoruba Oyo empire of West Africa that monopolized the trade for centuries by being in control of the Bight of Benin also known as the slave coast. Ajase (Porto Novo) was one of the big cities of the empire that was the headquarter of an Aare ona Kakanfo the head of the imperial army of the Oyo at one point. That was the Aare ona Kakanfo Oyabi who put down the Bashorun Gaha civil war at the Oyo ile capital by marching on the capital with the imperial army in of the Alaafin Abiodun.
The main human merchandise of the Oyo empire were Muslims of the Savannah especially Hausas, Fulanis, Malians and people from Central Africa then fellow Yorubas who were opponents of the Oyo but over the first few centuries of with Europe and the Americas by the Oyo and other Yoruba, the traffic in slaves was not heavy and more or less all slaves departed from the Oyo controlled slave coast which is also called the Bight of Benin. Badagry also was an Oyo controlled slave port after it was taken by the Oyo after a blockade. It was under the control of the Oyo when the Oyo Ile civil war of Bashorun Gaha broke out and some children of the Bashorun Gaha fled to the city and their descendants are indigenes of the place today.
It was later that the Ashanti empire became a player in the slave trade but not long after that they came under the control of the Oyo empire and the reigning Asantehene was removed and replaced by a new one under the authority of the Alaafin of Oyo after the Atakpame war. Therefore it can be said that the transatlantic slave trade to a large extent was firmly under the control of the Oyo empire until the beginning of the industrial revolution or until the early nineteenth century and the human merchandize was mainly Yoruba and Muslims of the Sahel and the Savannah of West Africa to North Africa but there were others too. DNA tests will confirm this.

It was after the decline of the Oyo empire that the slave trade became a free for all and it also approximated the time the British started to fight against the trade. Oyo ile was burnt down by Ilorin jihadists and Ibadan became the most prominent Oyo city but without the traditional cutting edge of the empire’s military which was the calvary, the long arm of the empire. Dahomey declared independence, Lisabi rose in Egba and led a rebellion that killed hundreds of Oyo Ajeles within a few days. The Oyo empire became a shadow of itself and it was Ibadan piecing it together without using calvary when the colonization by Britain started by the invitation of the Yoruba themselves after seventeen years of the Kiriji civil war. Egba remained independent and ed Nigeria voluntarily in 1914.

When Oyo remained mainly Ibadan, Ogbomosho, Oyo Alaafin Iwo, Ede and etc including Ilorin under the Ajikobi after the defeat of Ilorin in Osogbo and Ibadan was struggling to unite the Yoruba in the forest area and the Savannah up to River Niger while in alliance with the Borgu, the slave trade fell under the control of the Dahomey, Ijebu, Awori Ijaw and the Calabar. It was during this time that the trade spiked and there was very great traffic but a few decades of spike can still not be compared with centuries of steady flow of human merchandize and free men. For example a Nupe named Oshodi Tapa in the employ of the Oba of Lagos was still recorded to have gone to Brazil in the 1890s on behalf of his principal. A 15th century Ijesa King Owa Atakunmosa spent eleven years abroad with seven of it in Brazil where he left two sons (personal research). He returned to Ijesa and was made the King at about sixty years of age. There were a number of Oba of Benin and Olu of Warri as well in the same category. At the time of the spike in the volume of the trade late in the nineteenth century the majority of the people sold were Yoruba followed by Igbo and others and raiders in the Yoruba country thrived because of the many wars. The raiders included Oyo, Fulani and Nupe Muslims as well as other Yoruba as it was a free for all. People were captured as slaves during wars and in farms or at home and by raiders raiding small settlements.. For example Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther who was a freed slave that later became the first African Bishop of the Niger and hence the highest representative of the British in West Africa at a point said he was captured by a mixture of Oyo and Fulani people and was ed hand to hand, exchanged for a horse at one point before getting into the hands of those in control of the coast who would have been Ijebu. He was sold to a slaving ship but was rescued by the British and raised in Sierra Leone. Testimony in Calabar say the majority of slaves sold through the city were Yoruba and I have read the of an Ijebu noble man in who was sold by Ijaw pirates. Ijebu on the Yoruba coast could not be sold in any slave market because after the fall of Oyo they were in control of the slave trade hence their proverb that can be translated as ‘Anybody can be found in a slave market except an Ijebu or a white man” but an Ijebu noble man was sold by Ijaw pirates. It would however have been in the slave market of Eastern Nigeria and not on Yoruba land.
The first few centuries when it was a normal trade of slaves and movement of free men to the Americas, the people that crossed would be Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani, Akan, Fon, Malians Kanuri, Bariba, Nupe, Chadians and hundreds of others and it was a steady stream until the decline began of the Oyo empire via the independence of Asante, Dahomey, Egba, Ilorin and etc. The fact that the Yoruba of Brazil contain a large segment of groups like Ijesa is testimony to the fact that many Yoruba aristocrats who did not arrive in the Americas as slaves are the foundation of the Yoruba community there but people who arrived the Americas as Muslims are more likely to have arrived as slaves and they were assimilated into the culture of their households
It was the second wave of the transatlantic slave trade that had as merchandize some other groups in Southern Nigeria like the Igbos and etc. I do not think any Igbo was sold at all in Badagry or Porto Novo throughout the centuries the ports were in operation for the slave trade but in Calabar they say the majority of human merchandize that ed through the place during the spike in the volume that happened in the nineteenth century were Yorubas and that would of course be because of the Yoruba wars. Many of the people did not get to the Atlantic but were bought by people in Eastern Nigeria in need of farmhands and their descendants are Igbos today.
The only reason Hausa is not well represented in the Americas is because they arrived there as Muslims sold by the Oyo in the main and not as free men. If DNA is checked all over the Americas it will be confirmed though to distinguish Northern Yoruba or Oyo DNA from Hausa, Nupe or Bariba may be difficult because of years of intermarriage and to a large extent the same is true for the other Yoruba nations. (The first settler in our Ere Ijesa town was a Nupe man who did not stay.).
The other major contributor to the traffic is Angola and many of them landed in Brazil as free men as well and their culture is very visible in Brazil as a result of that.

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Summary

Before the industrial revolution, the slave trade was majorly under the control of the Oyo empire in the same way that the trade in gold, salt, African (Moroccan) leather and etc was under the control of Muslims and gold was money in Europe and etc and ithe enslavement of Muslims was one of the justifications for the Fulani jihad by the protagonists. The other non Oyo Yoruba states were also affected..

After the decline of the Oyo empire the trade became a free for all with Dahomey, Asante, Ijebu, Awori and etc controlling the western side

The Eastern side was controlled by the Ijaw, Calabar and among the Ijaws are the Igboid ones. The Ijaws on the western side were pirates and anybody could be captured by them. The Ijaws also controlled the palm oil trade on the Eastern side while the Yoruba controlled theirs when the palm oil trade became the most important commodity trade as palm oil was the lubricator of the machines of industrisl Europe. Palm oil was the first efficient oil of the industrial age.

The human merchandize on the western side after the decline of Oyo were mainly Yoruba while on the Eastern side it was a mixture of Yoruba, Igbo and other groups but after the decline of Oyo and during the Yoruba wars there was a great increase in the trade as would be expected.

That is a concise articulation of how I understand the transatlantic slave trade. It was a normal trade and if not for the industrial revolution, colonization of Africa and how Nigeria the giant of Africa turned out as a result of an unhealthy competition between the largest African ethnic nations, then there would have been no reason for the transatlantic slave trade to be a hotly debated issue while other slave trades like that of the Ottoman Turks and etc that occurred as a parallel of the transatlantic slave trade is not mentioned. In the past, whole cities were enslaved wholesale and sold in single deals and they did not see it as a big deal. Life must continue.

An interesting piece.

This again confirms that Benin Empire never had much appetite for slave trade. Of course, OP did not intend to say so.
I wish more tribes followed suit early to ban slave trade.

I have argued on NL for years that beginning with the rise of Oyo in about 1680/90s, slave trade volume increased. Up to about 1770s for sure. About the period that Oyabi and Alaafin Abiodun finally eliminated Bashorun Gaha.

Because there are some tribes who still insist that Benin traded in slaves massively. The duration was short and in fact slave trade in Benin persons or by Benin persons was outlawed quite early. Other tribes within Benin sphere of influence reserved the right to sell or buy themselves as slaves.

Ghostwon
Samuk
Automaticmotors
Gregyboy

AreaFada2:
An interesting piece.

This again confirms that Benin Empire never had much appetite for slave trade. Of course, OP did not intend to say so.
I wish more tribes followed suit early to ban slave trade.

I have argued on NL for years that beginning with the rise of Oyo in about 1680/90s, slave trade volume increased. Up to about 1770s for sure. About the period that Oyabi and Alaafin Abiodun finally eliminated Bashorun Gaha.

Because there are some tribes who still insist that Benin traded in slaves massively. The duration was short and in fact slave trade in Benin persons or by Benin persons was outlawed quite early. Other tribes within Benin sphere of influence reserved the right to sell or by themselves as slaves.

Ghostwon
Samuk
Automaticmotors
Gregyboy

People need to understand what slavery was in the past. It was a means of ing for everybody and slaves were not exported. Oyo were exporting their opponents as were doing other nations of west Africa. There was no slave port under the control of the Benin empire as far as I know. It was Oyo that dominated the trade. Any captive you can not keep us vest exported and they will include criminals and those that tend to attempt escaping

lawani:


People need to understand what slavery was in the past. It was a means of ing for everybody and slaves were not exported. Oyo were exporting their opponents as were doing other nations of west Africa. T[b]here was no slave port under the control of the Benin empire as far as I know. [/b]It was Oyo that dominated the trade. Any captive you can not keep us vest exported and they will include criminals and those that tend to attempt escaping

Wrong. Ughoton/Gwatto was a port near Benin, with European documented evidence of non-Benin slaves and non-Benin slave traders operating along the route. They were described as Yoruba and Igbo slaves/traders from non-Benin territories of the empire.

Who was the overlord of Lagos until late 1850s/early 1860s Eleko Dosunmu period? Some still claim Benin ed slave trade by ing Eleko Kosoko that dealt in slaves. To Benin, slave trade was a devolved matter.

What of Warri ruled by Oba of Benin's son and later grandchildren from 1480?

History is much wider than people know.

that Oyo didn't become powerful until 1690s. By then Benin had effectively outlawed slave trade proper. At least to exclude Benin ethnic group in any form of trade in slaves with foreigners.

AreaFada2:
An interesting piece.

This again confirms that Benin Empire never had much appetite for slave trade. Of course, OP did not intend to say so.
I wish more tribes followed suit early to ban slave trade.

I have argued on NL for years that beginning with the rise of Oyo in about 1680/90s, slave trade volume increased. Up to about 1770s for sure. About the period that Oyabi and Alaafin Abiodun finally eliminated Bashorun Gaha.

Because there are some tribes who still insist that Benin traded in slaves massively. The duration was short and in fact slave trade in Benin persons or by Benin persons was outlawed quite early. Other tribes within Benin sphere of influence reserved the right to sell or by themselves as slaves.

Ghostwon
Samuk
Automaticmotors
Gregyboy

Like you rightly said, Benin's involvement in slave trading was short lived. Slave trading by Benin was used as a means to boost it's economy and when trade in cloth, spices, palm oil and others grew it quickly abandoned slave trade and banned it. Slave trade was not allowed in Benin territory or even selling a Benin citizen as slave.