oluwabamis:

kudos to knowall. I have always insists that a million female children cant be compared to just one male child. (apologies to the female folks).

Da-rocha is what the yorubas called Olowo Ana. meaning people who were once rich. may God not make us Olowo Ana.
also business people should always evolve their businesses, they should always look for new ways of doing things, and also divesting into new ventures. Govt policies at times changes your fortune either for better or worse.

KnowAll:


I am not having a go at this family,

KnowAll:

[size=14pt]Could it be that this gentleman died a pauper having once being the richest man in Nigeria for such a saying" do you think I am Da Rocha" to have become so popular. Was it as a result of their father's extravegance and consequent poverty the family members felt embarass and they decided to jettison the name for something else. I would not want to have a surname like "Anini OR Dimka" neither.[/size]

oluwabamis:

kudos to knowall. I have always insists that a million female children cant be compared to just one male child. (apologies to the female folks).

Da-rocha is what the yorubas called Olowo Ana. meaning people who were once rich. may God not make us Olowo Ana.
also business people should always evolve their businesses, they should always look for new ways of doing things, and also divesting into new ventures. Govt policies at times changes your fortune either for better or worse.

tpiah:

please keep quiet before you embarass yourself further.

people like you are the reason why gays are taking over nigeria.

johnie:
Sorry about the wrong spelling in my first post.

The school is called ADRAO and I think it was founded in 1963.

One of the As in the name stands for Afodu.

KnowAll:



[size=14pt]Don't u think it is good as Nigerians to know your history. I never knew the supply of pipe borne water was done by one person in the past. One can see that private enterprise pays. Today the goverment owns and runs everything they cannot even supply water, Electricity OR Gas.

I pray we go back to the old ways of doing things. Private ownership of utility companies is the norm in advance countries, Nigeria should retrace her developmental step backwards to that humble beginning and start correcting the loopsided contraptions and anomalies we have today[/size].

gabng:

IN NIGERIA, TOUCHES OF BRAZILIAN STYLE
By JAMES BROOKE
Published: March 26, 1987

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IN this century Lagos has become a grimy metropolis of five million people, but pockets of what are known here as Brazilian houses still exist in quirky contrast to later local building styles, including colonial-issue British homes with deep verandas and overhanging eaves and oil-boom skyscrapers, faithful imitations of their Manhattan models.

Nigeria's Brazilian architecture is a legacy of the thousands of freed slaves who returned to West Africa in the 19th century. Trained as carpenters, cabinetmakers, masons and bricklayers in Brazil and borrowing from the baroque styles popular in Brazil through the 18th century, these freedmen stamped their exuberant and individualistic style on doorways, brightly painted facades and chunky concrete columns.

In recent years, the steady march of skyscrapers has spurred local residents to form a fledgling historic preservation movement, a rarity for an African city.

''We are concerned that the Brazilian houses are not only running down but might be destroyed,'' said Ike Ikwueme, curator of the National Museum. An inventory of Lagos historical sites, completed by a state committee last June, found that several Brazilian houses are under serious threat of demolition.

''Nobody cares about them,'' said Alan Vaughan-Richards, a Lagos architect who helped compile the inventory. ''They get rundown, and then people pull them down,''

Indeed, the concept of preserving old buildings has yet to become deeply rooted in this society, where half the population is under the age of 15. With its open sewers, shortage of public parks and disfiguring highway overpasses, Lagos seems to have benefited little from modern urban planning.

In other West African cities the brightly colored panels and delicate floral plaster motifs of the Brazilian artisans have survived in part because of local economic stagnation and in part because of the pride of the owners. The style can be found today in a crescent of West African nations, marking the points where freedmen landed in the 19th century: Freetown in Sierra Leone, Cotonou and Porto Novo in Benin and Badagri, Lagos and Calabar in Nigeria.

''They were determined to come home, and they were forced into high discipline,'' Angelica Yewande Oyediran said. ''They easily outshone the people at home.''

Mrs. Oyediran lives in Water House, one of the few two-story Brazilian buildings still standing in downtown Lagos today. On one wall hangs a dignified portrait of her mustachioed great-grandfather Joao Essan da Rocha.

Mr. da Rocha, a native of Ilesha, Nigeria, was captured by slave traders in the 1850's as he walked to a missionary school, Mrs. Oyediran said. Taken to Brazil, he eventually became a prosperous trader in Salvador. In 1870, he returned to Nigeria, settling in Lagos, and quickly built a small fortune plying the lucrative South Atlantic trade routes.

When Mr. da Rocha - and other prosperous 19th-century Nigerian merchants - wanted to build houses to match their means, they turned to the local community of Brazilian artisans. Freed Brazilian slaves had started returning to Nigeria in the late 1830's. By 1880, out of a population of 37,458, Lagos had 3,221 Brazilians and 111 Europeans.

''If you had any work to do, you called on a Brazilian descendant to make sure it was done right,'' Mrs. Oyediran said.

Water House, which has suffered from remodeling by later generations, still bears many touches of the Brazilian craftsmen: leafy plaster flourishes in the corners of the parlor ceiling and wrought-iron balustrades on the second-floor balcony.

The Brazilian stamp is most evident in the modest, whimsical houses that survive, both in downtown Lagos and across Lagos Lagoon in the old suburb of Ebute Metta, in contrast to indigenous building styles.

''Traditional Yoruba buildings have very plain, flat mud walls that are sometimes whitewashed,'' said Richard E. Ammann, an American living here and a former professor at the University of Nigeria. ''It was the Brazilians who brought in this ornate styling, the rounded doorways and windows, the pointed tops.''

On a recent Sunday morning, Ayo Vaughan-Richards took advantage of the weekly lull in Lagos traffic to take a visitor on a Brazilian architectural tour. Mrs. Vaughan-Richards, who grew up in a Brazilian house, is the descendant of an American slave of Nigerian origin who was freed in Camden, S.C., in 1825.

Starting down Martins Street, the tour stopped in front of the Shitta Mosque. Built in 1894 by Joao Baptista da Costa, the mosque presents an eclectic facade of baroque scalloped scrolls and Ottoman Empire pinnacles topped with stars and crescents.

In 1880, a Brazilian cabinetmaker, Balthazar dos Reis, carved the ornate woodwork of the high altar, throne and pulpit of the Holy Cross Cathedral on Catholic Mission Street. The cathedral's floral motifs were molded by two Brazilian master masons, Lazarus Borges da Silva and Francisco Nobre. One of the finest late Brazilian houses stands on Odunfa Street. Built in 1913 for A. W. U. Thomas, a Lagos auctioneer, the three-story building features pineapple-topped columns and is covered with ornate plasterwork. Today, however, it is a dilapidated tenement.

Indeed, the tour included references to lost preservation battles. Elephant House, a residence that had its namesake molded in plaster over a third-story bay window, has been torn down. And on the site of the city's old Brazilian-style central mosque rise concrete minarets of a modern mosque. ''Everyone pleaded with them to go to a new site, but down it came,'' Mr. Vaughan-Richards said.

Not all Brazilian buildings have suffered this fate. The tour ended at 29 Kakawa Street, the house where Mrs. Vaughan-Richards was born.

''It looks almost as good as when I was growing up,'' she said. With its baroque doorway and ornamented windows, the Vaughan house has been carefully restored and is now used for office space by a Lagos architectural firm.



SAuCE na New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/26/garden/in-nigeria-touches-of-brazilian-style.html

Mafious:
They are Nigerians Joao was from Illesha but his children could not adapt to this country more like those Naija kids born abroad.

opal4real:



Can Brazil be compared to Europe n America in the 18-19th century? Not until the late 70s n 80s Brazil was way behind Nigeria.

Also Esan Da Rocha had only a Son when he returned to Nigeria as freed slave. He was a poor man who lives in a wooden house close to beach. He suddenly became rich after the death of the wife Angelica who died in a controversial circumstance. His son(candido) later became mega rich after d mysterious disappearance of his father(esan) and candido gave birth to all his kids in Nigeria. The surviving son of candido da Rocha later moved to Ghana which was poorer than Nigeria for reasons best known to him. The daughters remained here and were married to different families.

Mafious:
Contrary to what you people think the Da-Rochas are Nigerians (Illesha to be precise) like my family the Munis and my Cousins the Carenas. Lopez, Salvadors etc. You would find our various lodges at the Brazilian Quarters on Lagos Island their Patriarch Joao Essan da Rocha was a captured slave who made sure Candido his millionaire son returned to Nigeria after the abolition of slave trade. To dispel rumors Candido did have sons but all went back to Brazil except Kojo who was a lawyer in the league of Awo in Ghana and his family are still revered there cause they are the single family with the most lawyers in Accra.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CDcQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fphotonews.sunmismartcole.com%2F%3Fp%3D61&rct=j&q=da-rocha%20nigeria%20&ei=V21iTcfaB4i48gOV7v3yCA&usg=AFQjCNH_KtyCRQtOKpybDKP8SguMyqYrxQ&cad=rja

gabng:

IN NIGERIA, TOUCHES OF BRAZILIAN STYLE
By JAMES BROOKE
Published: March 26, 1987

Email
Print

IN this century Lagos has become a grimy metropolis of five million people, but pockets of what are known here as Brazilian houses still exist in quirky contrast to later local building styles, including colonial-issue British homes with deep verandas and overhanging eaves and oil-boom skyscrapers, faithful imitations of their Manhattan models.

Nigeria's Brazilian architecture is a legacy of the thousands of freed slaves who returned to West Africa in the 19th century. Trained as carpenters, cabinetmakers, masons and bricklayers in Brazil and borrowing from the baroque styles popular in Brazil through the 18th century, these freedmen stamped their exuberant and individualistic style on doorways, brightly painted facades and chunky concrete columns.

In recent years, the steady march of skyscrapers has spurred local residents to form a fledgling historic preservation movement, a rarity for an African city.

''We are concerned that the Brazilian houses are not only running down but might be destroyed,'' said Ike Ikwueme, curator of the National Museum. An inventory of Lagos historical sites, completed by a state committee last June, found that several Brazilian houses are under serious threat of demolition.

''Nobody cares about them,'' said Alan Vaughan-Richards, a Lagos architect who helped compile the inventory. ''They get rundown, and then people pull them down,''

Indeed, the concept of preserving old buildings has yet to become deeply rooted in this society, where half the population is under the age of 15. With its open sewers, shortage of public parks and disfiguring highway overpasses, Lagos seems to have benefited little from modern urban planning.

In other West African cities the brightly colored panels and delicate floral plaster motifs of the Brazilian artisans have survived in part because of local economic stagnation and in part because of the pride of the owners. The style can be found today in a crescent of West African nations, marking the points where freedmen landed in the 19th century: Freetown in Sierra Leone, Cotonou and Porto Novo in Benin and Badagri, Lagos and Calabar in Nigeria.

''They were determined to come home, and they were forced into high discipline,'' Angelica Yewande Oyediran said. ''They easily outshone the people at home.''

Mrs. Oyediran lives in Water House, one of the few two-story Brazilian buildings still standing in downtown Lagos today. On one wall hangs a dignified portrait of her mustachioed great-grandfather Joao Essan da Rocha.

Mr. da Rocha, a native of Ilesha, Nigeria, was captured by slave traders in the 1850's as he walked to a missionary school, Mrs. Oyediran said. Taken to Brazil, he eventually became a prosperous trader in Salvador. In 1870, he returned to Nigeria, settling in Lagos, and quickly built a small fortune plying the lucrative South Atlantic trade routes.

When Mr. da Rocha - and other prosperous 19th-century Nigerian merchants - wanted to build houses to match their means, they turned to the local community of Brazilian artisans. Freed Brazilian slaves had started returning to Nigeria in the late 1830's. By 1880, out of a population of 37,458, Lagos had 3,221 Brazilians and 111 Europeans.

''If you had any work to do, you called on a Brazilian descendant to make sure it was done right,'' Mrs. Oyediran said.

Water House, which has suffered from remodeling by later generations, still bears many touches of the Brazilian craftsmen: leafy plaster flourishes in the corners of the parlor ceiling and wrought-iron balustrades on the second-floor balcony.

The Brazilian stamp is most evident in the modest, whimsical houses that survive, both in downtown Lagos and across Lagos Lagoon in the old suburb of Ebute Metta, in contrast to indigenous building styles.

''Traditional Yoruba buildings have very plain, flat mud walls that are sometimes whitewashed,'' said Richard E. Ammann, an American living here and a former professor at the University of Nigeria. ''It was the Brazilians who brought in this ornate styling, the rounded doorways and windows, the pointed tops.''

On a recent Sunday morning, Ayo Vaughan-Richards took advantage of the weekly lull in Lagos traffic to take a visitor on a Brazilian architectural tour. Mrs. Vaughan-Richards, who grew up in a Brazilian house, is the descendant of an American slave of Nigerian origin who was freed in Camden, S.C., in 1825.

Starting down Martins Street, the tour stopped in front of the Shitta Mosque. Built in 1894 by Joao Baptista da Costa, the mosque presents an eclectic facade of baroque scalloped scrolls and Ottoman Empire pinnacles topped with stars and crescents.

In 1880, a Brazilian cabinetmaker, Balthazar dos Reis, carved the ornate woodwork of the high altar, throne and pulpit of the Holy Cross Cathedral on Catholic Mission Street. The cathedral's floral motifs were molded by two Brazilian master masons, Lazarus Borges da Silva and Francisco Nobre. One of the finest late Brazilian houses stands on Odunfa Street. Built in 1913 for A. W. U. Thomas, a Lagos auctioneer, the three-story building features pineapple-topped columns and is covered with ornate plasterwork. Today, however, it is a dilapidated tenement.

Indeed, the tour included references to lost preservation battles. Elephant House, a residence that had its namesake molded in plaster over a third-story bay window, has been torn down. And on the site of the city's old Brazilian-style central mosque rise concrete minarets of a modern mosque. ''Everyone pleaded with them to go to a new site, but down it came,'' Mr. Vaughan-Richards said.

Not all Brazilian buildings have suffered this fate. The tour ended at 29 Kakawa Street, the house where Mrs. Vaughan-Richards was born.

''It looks almost as good as when I was growing up,'' she said. With its baroque doorway and ornamented windows, the Vaughan house has been carefully restored and is now used for office space by a Lagos architectural firm.



SAuCE na New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/26/garden/in-nigeria-touches-of-brazilian-style.html

XAUBulls:

Impressive! A 1987 article on
Lagos Island history from
New York Times.


Cc: Sukkot

johnie:
His daughter was the proprietress of ADRAO school beside NTA at Victoria Island.

I think the the name of the school comes from her name - Abimbola Da Rocha Afodu Omololu.

She presented the queen with flowers at the airport when the queen visited Nigeria in the 50s.

johnie:
His daughter was the proprietress of ADRAO school beside NTA at Victoria Island.

I think the the name of the school comes from her name - Abimbola Da Rocha Afodu Omololu.

She presented the queen with flowers at the airport when the queen visited Nigeria in the 50s.

Christistruth03:


Da Rocha had 2 daughters

One married into the Thomas family

DrAkpa:


I guess rituals and blood money didn't start today