cheksbry: wow,this is very impressive!

Kairoseki77: So being a slave is being "well traveled"?


LMAO! I guess you will do anything to get away from your erosion ravaged land.

bigfrancis21:

Is that all you could extract from the whole passage??

IGBO-SON:


^^^Please ignore the bitter fool! He must have read the post with an inexplicable rising sense of anger and renewed hatred for anything 'Igbo'.

Heart warming post!

Active with other free black leaders, Mr. Bustill became one of the founders in Philadelphia of the Free African Society in 1787, "the first mutual aid organization of African Americans."

Kairoseki77:

Allow me to be serious then.

What is the entire first paragraph of OP's article except empty tribal chest beating?

There were countless African Americans who achieved great things during the slave era. They considered themselves to be African Americans, not anything else. This man did not even know that he was Igbo. His grandchildren decided to look into their family history and discovered that he had Igbo blood.

This is the worst form of "claiming". That man lived his life as a African American. He viewed his mixed race wife and his friends (who were likely Akan, Edo, etc) as fellow African Americans. Igbo culture and values had nothing to do with it. Stop trying to steal him from his people for your evil ends.

Edo Warrior Kingdom Opposed Atlantic Slave Trade

By Naiwu Osahon

Although over 30 per cent (about a third) of the Atlantic Slave Trade took place in the territory under Edo control, the Bight of Benin region of West Africa, the territory was too vast for the kingdom to police on a day by day and minute by minute basis, to prevent the trade. It was taboo, however, to capture or sell an Edo citizen and because the kingdom reasonably monitored this well, the African Diaspora has no concentration of Edo citizen slaves. Edo Chiefs had thousands of slaves captured in their territorial expansion wars but would not sell any. The Edo belief and saying was: "What level of hunger and deprivation would make an Edo Chief sell his slaves?" Rather than sell, Edo Chiefs helped thousands of slaves to escape from White holding camps in Edo territory. In fact, Edo Oba Eresoyen was shot at in his palace by a White slave merchant because he refused to help with the re-capture of escapee slaves from the White merchant's holding camps, hiding in Edo Chiefs farms in Edo kingdom. European slave trade in West Africa started with the acquisition of domestic servants in 1522, and warrior kingdoms like Edo (Benin) had plenty of them captured as war booties, but would not sell them. The slave trade was very unpopular with the Edo people. They thought it was silly to sell fellow human beings. Their Obas and nobles were vehemently opposed to the business of slave trade and to the export of the productive fighting male. The Edo, of course, could not control the day to day happenings of the slave merchants, who apparently largely acted under cover at first in the vast territories under Edo hegemony. However, it was forbidden to sell or take a native Edo (Bini) into slavery and so elaborate identification marks on faces and chests were eventually contrived. The Bini, therefore, were hardly ever captured by Arabs or Europeans into slavery.

Oba Ehengbuda (1578 - 1604 CE.) Ehengbuda ascended his father's throne in 1578 CE. While his father, Oba Orhogbua, might be considered a water warrior who made his greatest impact in the lagoon territories, Oba Ehengbuda campaigned mainly on land in the Yoruba areas. All the warrior Obas, most times, personally led their troops to war. Oba Ehengbuda, while prosecuting his military activities in the Akure area, sustained burns which healed to leave scars on his body. This was systematized in the Iwu body marks which every Edo adult had to acquire to be able to participate in royal and court activities of the land. The markings also served to identify the Edo person for protection during the slave trade. Strong efforts were made to prevent Edo people from being sold into slavery. Edo people openly and actively encouraged and facilitated the escape of slaves from the holding centres in the kingdom and particularly from the Ughoton port.

Alan Ryder, writing on this in his book: Benin and the European, narrated the experience of the Portuguese merchant, Machin Fernandes in Benin as early as 1522: That was during the reign of Oba Esigie.

"Of the whole cargo of 83 slaves bought by Machin Fernandes, only two were males - and it is quite possible that these were acquired outside the Oba's territory - despite a whole month (at Ughoton) spent in vain attempts to have a market opened for male slaves. The 81 females, mostly between ten and twenty years of age, were purchased in Benin City between 25 June and 8 August at the rate of one, two or three a day."

None of the 83 slaves was an Edo person, according to Ryder, and no Edo person could have been involved in the sales. It was taboo in Edo culture.

Edo Empire was vast, with a great concentration of people from different ethnic backgrounds, Yoruba, Ibo, Itsekiri, Ijaw, Urhobo, Igalla etc., making a living in the lucrative Ughoton route that was the main centre of commercial activities in the southern area at the time, of what later became Nigeria.

Kairoseki77: So being a slave is being "well traveled"?


LMAO! I guess you will do anything to get away from your erosion ravaged land.

Kairoseki77: So being a slave is being "well travel

yuzedo: Biko anam acho nwunye.. Imalu ezigbo nwanyi mara mma ga adi nze dika'm mma, zitara'm PM ozigbo ozigbo. Daalu nu!

Sincere Bigot: .

Big4wig: .

yuzedo: Biko anam acho nwunye.. Imalu ezigbo nwanyi mara mma ga adi nze dika'm mma, zitara'm PM ozigbo ozigbo. Daalu nu!

yuzedo: Biko anam acho nwunye.. Imalu ezigbo nwanyi mara mma ga adi nze dika'm mma, zitara'm PM ozigbo ozigbo. Daalu nu!