Igbos Of SS/SE Nigeria

There will be plenty of white christian slave masters in hell. Plenty of white christian missionaries in hell.

Your going to be up to your neck in Christians in hell. The worse kind of Christians.

I just wanted to add that there are so so so many Igbo people that white people (men) would not have been able to change our "look". Consider the limited time and space. If this is true, then the people on the coast should be lighter than those as inland as Imo state, abi?

USnaijagirl, just realized you wrote "Imo state, the heart of Igbo land". LOL! I'm from ABIA! What, what! or should I say Igbo Kwenu? Anyhow, where you from in Imo mama?

espcially @ afeni _{(your posts are half baked sometimes)}

Some of the history on this board are half baked at times, like the one I'm about to give you.

Benin (a city in current day nigeria) had a powerful empire and europeans did trade with them. Slave trade got to its height because some kingdoms suddenly had upper hand with the use of guns and they often raided villages to get their supply of slaves(there was a demand to be met).

This does not necessarily mean that there was any major confrontation between any group. It was a civil war of some sort. Even the major war of the Yoruba vs Hausa/Fulani (Sokoto was their capital)wasn't that big (In my opinion).

Hausa saw it as a victory against Yorubaland. A lot of Yorubas at that time saw it as a loss of a war post and city (ilorin and old oyo). But you should note that Ilorin at that time had converted to Islam.

I've heard that islam had always been there but this time there was some sort of revival. And some of the citizens of Ilorin saw it as a liberation by a brother (not blood but muslim). So, Ilorin fell quiet easily.

The Yoruba military capital moved away from old oyo southward to present day Ibadan and a lot of people moved with them too for safety reasons.

What baffles me is the fact that Nigeria never had a proper slave port. I am tempted to believe that the coast from ghana to benin (the country not the city) is where the slaves are from.

But this is not true, it is obvious some of those slaves where Yoruba since they have gods like "ESU" in Brazil. Its on the tarot cards.

Another opinion of mine is that slave trade became illegal and it was at this time that traders moved inwards into present day nigeria and that is the reason why slaves still had their heritage intact until the global abolishment of slave trade, hence the noticable yoruba influence.

history can be manipulated sometimes, thats why I don't really like that subject. To say Igbos are from Isreal is absurd (in my opinion) where did you get your facts from? History is constantly being changed by the present.

Despite Yoruba's claim to a common heritage, do you know that Yoruba only used to be a term used for citizens of Oyo and sometimes those under the oyo empire? People had a sense of brotherhood when their language is similar to the other hence the acceptance of one ethnicity. No two ethnic groups can speak the same language without having a common link.


_{Sorry for going off topic, silly me, I've actually forgotten the topic}

food4tot,

The webpage itself acknowledges that the slaves, their descendants and all historians call African Americans::::::::Yoruba's.

Their not trying to convince you that the well known fact that Africans in America are Yoruba's is untrue.

What their trying to convince you is that it is all just one big mistake!

The people meant to call themselves Igbo not Yoruba!

It's one of those way out there on the fringes idea!

Actually, Nigeria had more slave ports than any other region by far, though none were ever developed to be as fancy as those found in Ghana, Senegal and the likes further north, and in Angola. But this was for a reason, and that is that the Nigerian ports were never owned long enough by any one European power to build such elaborate slave ports as that in which are found in other areas.

Don't let the media fool you, Lagos, Sapele, Badagory (sp), and the infamous slaving ports of Calabar and Bonny are just a few of the many that were established for the sole purpose of orchestrating the African end of the triangle trade. An whopping 1/3 of ALLLL slaves who arrived in the Americas and Europe came from South-Eastern Nigeria alone, that's an astonishing, about, 4Mill people,  the VAST majority of which were Igbo, captured by coastal tribes armed by the Europeans with guns and cannon.

The demand for Igbo slaves in the Americas, especially the US and the Caribbean,  grew so demanding between the early 1600's on into the early 1800's when the British began blocking slave shipments from Africa----  that nearly 80% of all of the over 4Mill South-Eastern Naiga slaves were captured and sent to the Americas.  

Most of them where shipped from Calabar and Bonny ports, though alot were also shipped from much smaller shotty ports in which after the trade was ended,  rotted away into nothingness and or where covered over by forestation growth. There used to be a ton of these all along the Nigerian coast. South Western Nigeria numbered 3rd behind Angola as the departure place for slaves to the new world. Over 3Mill came from that region and the vast majority were sent to the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and Brazil, NOT THE US. Only a minute fraction were ever sent to the US, who's very affluent planters preferred the the very pricey SE Nigerian Igbo and Ibibio, pejoratively,  instead.

A constant 80% of the black populations from North Carolina up, was/is historically known to be of Igbo and Ibibio descent alone. South of this area, the percentage drops to about 50%-55%.

Just curious, how come their language couldn't survive but Yoruba language survived. Your claims can be flawed. I know Igbo and ibibio where taken as slave but PLEASE, for the love of sanity don't tell me 80% of Nigerian slaves where igbo and ibibio.

How come the remaining 20%(I'm assuming yorubas would be in this mix) were able to make more impact on America? Dont you question your reasoning?

food4tot,

In Africa, have you ever seen a tribe call themselves Yoruba.

For 400 years everybody know they are Yoruba's.

All the Historians write books about the Yoruba slaves.

Suddenly, it's just all a BIG MISTAKE and Yoruba's should now call themselves Igbo's?

It is like saying that Aliens came down and brought Igbo slaves to America and gave them all mind control drugs to convince them they are Yoruba's.

food4tot,

Alright. Then it was my mistake.

I know this is an Igbo thread but I just want to say I have mad respect for Yoruba people. Somehow they kept their language & culture alive despite the odds. In the Americas, there are Yoruba indigenes in S. America, notably Brazil. There culture is still alive in different countries though it's thought of as mysticism. You've gotta be a pretty strong group of people to do that. So if you're Yoruba, whether from Benin, Togo or Nigeria, give yourself a pat on the back. In fact I proclaim today: International Yoruba Day!

Ok, let me touch on the part in red first and then later I'll do the rest. Ok, you've brought up a really good question, and the answer to it is rather interesting as well. Well, not really. The plain and simple fact is that the Igbo were just outshined by the more flamboyant Yorubas upon reaching the Americas. Once being degraded by being torn from their homeland and stripped of their freedom lived under the very democratic way of life back home in Igboland,  many simply either gave up on life and killed themselves rather than spend their lives as freeless slaves, while many more attempted to fight against their oppressionist rulers in the Americas and were slaughtered and forced into conditions in which retarded their cultural contributions in the Americas.

Yet the vast majority of the rest like the vast majority of the other hundreds of tribes that were brought to the Americas,  simply just gave up on their cultural attributes, and as the generations went on ended up totally loosing it in replace of those of their European masters and other African groups Like the Yoruba and Luanda of Angola who made it a point to hold tight to their cultural traditions, and they were allowed to flourish within the Portuguese, Spanish and French slave systems; yet under the Anglo system it they were not.

The Anglos set out to insure that very little if any African influence was spread into their colonies and nations, and so the first step they did was make it a point to only or most bring in Africans whom, as observed in the older more established slave systems of their Latin cousins, were most acceptable to being assimilated out of their ethnic traditions.  

Further more in a desperate need to play a quick game of catchup with the Latin Colonies, they needed Africans in whom were known to come with very productive, multi faceted skills and a rugged diplomatic nature, in which would help them carve their colonies out of the thick and rugged forested areas of North America, learn both English and Native-American languages fast, and apply the knowledge of how to grow various North American crops given by the Natives--- in a fast and efficient way, in that the growing seasons in the British North America were relatively short compared to the year round growing conditions in which their colonial cousins to the south experienced.

So to stay in the game the Anglos needed alot of what they saw via the Latin systems to be the best and brightest of the Africans under in performance while under the system of slavery. This system was very different from the Latin one. It was built on very proficient hand picked distribution of African into and around the system, with infacist on preservation of available stock, selective breading of available stock for proficiency, and most importantly,  self replenishment of available stock, in which cut down on losses incurred by uprisings from new imports, and interference in system's cultural and genetic balance in which was systematically structured to achieve the greatest level of work proficiency, production and profits from the available number of slaves.

In other wards, the Anglo system was structured in a way that would see that their Africans lived much longer, received less abuse, and grew much faster via self-replenishment, and lived much healthier lives than their average Latin owned counterparts. In all reality the latin systems were structured as nearly one big holocaustic system in which up until the time the British began cracking down on slave shipments from Africa to the Americas,  pretty much just mass important Africans of all types into their colonies and placed them under suicidal work conditions until they dropped dead within 2-3 years after arriving in the Americas, only to be replaced by loads more who too dropped dead within 2-3 years after arriving in the Americas.

This devastating cycle went on within the Latin Systems for centuries--- until the Latins were forced, by the British, into following the more liberal or human, if you will, Anglo system of preservation of available stock. By the time this was achieved by the Brits, already about 3/4 of the black population in the US was US born, and numbered about 1/3 to 2/5 the total population of Brazil's black population; an Amazing feet considering that Brazil imported a reported nearly 4.5Mill blacks, while only about 550,000 blacks were ever imported into the US.

After much trial and error and study the Igbo and their south-Western Naiga cousin groups were found to be most sufficient and fitting into the Anglo slave system, followed by groups from the Gold and Ivory coastal region,  most of whom were taken to Jamaica, Bahamas and other other British Isles in the Caribbean, and lastly were the Senegambian regional Africans. The Americans and Brits rarely deterred from these three groups.

The reasons that the Igbo were so much more willing to fit into this system than the Latin one are kind of up in the air, possibly the major difference in humanness between the two was one, but the point is that they did, and they ended up becoming the largest ethnic group in the US by an 60% majority.

So to recap: Their contributions under the latin structures were overshadowed and diluted by the more influential Yoruba, Luanda and other groups attributes, and in the Anglo lands they along with all other groups attributes, were utterly suppressed by the Anglo system and they were systematically pressured into replacing the vast majority of it with the Anglo and later on--- Celtic and Germanic cultures.

The Yoruba's strong desire and insistence in hanging on to and spreading their cultural attributes would have been very problematic in a system like this, and so the British rarely imported them into their colonies, yet instead sold them (along with other south-westerners and Northerners who where hauled into their ports at Lagos, Badagary among other South-South and South-Western areas),  to the Latins, in mass.

And those are the Facts. Do I need to post up documents supporting this, or what?  

@Topic & USnaijagirl
It occured to me today that many African Americans say "I didn't know you were African" not b/c we have lack distinct features but b/c of their preconcieved notions of what Africans are. Whether Black, white or undecided many Americans - more so than Europeans I think - think Africans are ugly, naked, ignorant and did I say ugly. If you are a pretty girl or an intelligent person, people will be amazed that you are African and when you ask "Why?" they will not say "B/c of my ingrained racist perspections" but instead "You do not look it."

This statement, "You do not look it" maybe w/o intention offence but it is still loaded. Perhaps we are looking for the wrong thing! Here we are trying to explain why Igbos are light skinned or "Igbo people look like A.A.s" when we should ask "Do we really?" I don't think that we (ndi Igbo) look more like A.A. than Edo people - and that's a compliment. Instead of questioning ourselves we should be questioning others. Let 'em know the truth y'all.

click on the link below! Would you consider that info as credible enough for you?

http://www.biafraland.com/ibo_reunification_train_rolls_on.htm



If not, here's another bit of credible work in which you should possibly invest in getting a hold of. It's a book called 'Murder At Montpelier: Igbo Africans In Virginia'.  I've read it, and it's a very good and telling book. Trust me it's known and it's know very well,  by those whom study these things, that we AfAm's are holders of the worlds second largest Igbo population; second to only Nigeria. Almost 30 million of us are of Majority Igbo genes, with several millions more being of significant levels of Igbo stock. In Nigeria there's believed to be about 40-45 million Igbos. All studies done on this issue show that the Igbo ethnic group was by far the most sought after people by the American slave holders,  and thus they were by far the most prolifically imported group into the nation.

Here's the link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1578067065/102-4777379-1715367?v=glance&n=283155

Here's an review of it: Check out the red highlighter part on the bottom.

.

MORE COMING SOON!!! 

MISEDUCATION OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN.

What you need to do is dig up journals of sailors involved in slave trade and european adventurers.

Please note that one of the reasons why slaves native languages were unsustainable is because of the small numbers of the speakers. There might have been large numbers of slaves but there were equally large numbers of languages.

The number of languages in present day west africa has reduced drastically with the introduction of lingua franca like french and english. Some west africans now claim french as their native language.

You would wonder where I am going with this, Here it is

. . .if your slave master says you are Black who are you to object, it is his language and that is what he wishes to call you. Likewise, if he says you are Igbo, (Yoruba, or whatever) who are you to object too.

Afterall a lot of the slave traders don't know a great deal about the diversity of west africa.
Imagine a gang of raiders takes captive of a group of villagers with an unfamiliar language in a very small village not far from Benin (the city). They could wrongly inform their fellow partner in crime (the guy who transports them to America) that this bunch of fellows are Yorubas.

food4tot,

I think the problem comes in when certain African Americans (Hero is not the first) fall in love with a particular place or people in Africa. Then they want desparately to be from those people.

So they throw up 4 or 5 webpages and that is supposed to be the proof.

The written and oral records show the overwhelming proof that most of the slaves were Yoruba or Angolan.

What is being posted here as Igbo history, is in fact being gotten out of historical books about Yoruba history in the America's.

food4tot,

I hear ya. I even think Hero's theory is moderately appealing.

African Americans are really descendants of Jews. It's not unheard of.

I appreciate what he is trying to say.

I just would suggest that it is easier using the bible, history and science to prove this.

Hero's way is a long way to go and a hard way to get there.