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The Root Is Also Here: The Non-Diasporic Foundations of Yoruba Ethnicity

Olatunji Ojo, Maxwell School, Syracuse University

Interactions between religion, politics and commerce during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are central to the transformation of Yorubaland as well as to understanding the region’s history. Starting in northern Yorubaland, the rise of Oyo kingdom set in motion a gradual integration of several Yoruba-speaking districts. The collapse of Oyo, which temporarily aborted this effort, led to political crises which spread to other regions through the inflow of soldiers, slaves, refugees and traders. Within a short time, the whole of Yorubaland was engulfed in conflict that undermined monarchical authority and opened up opportunities for the military class. It also led to the reorganization of state structures thereby diffusing power among groups with aristocratic and mercantile origins. These struggles sometimes took the form of revolts led by ethnic and social groups. Despite this apparent diversity and even extreme disunity, warfare and the constant movement of people also produced a complex ethnic admixture that during the nineteenth century, Yoruba ethnic (sub-ethnic?) boundaries were not clear cut and difficult to draw. These factors complement the factors of wide linguistic and cultural connections which evolved over centuries. There were intermarriages, population relocation/mixture, religious diffusion and integration, narratives of common origin, and fellow feeling among people from different towns and districts. In effect, there was the creation of supra-ethnic networks among the Yoruba groups, and between them and their non-Yoruba speaking neighbors. In all this intermixture was the basis of Yoruba cultural affinity/ethnicity (ethno-national consciousness) or the production of common ideological communication that were both meaningful and effective. Thus by the mid-nineteenth century, some of the prescriptions by diasporic ‘makers of the Yoruba’ could be understood and accepted by the majority of the peoples in the homeland because the new ideology drew upon certain existing commonly shared beliefs.