Yorùbá - History, Identity and the In-Between

An Ifa oracle told his parents he would serve none of the 400 Yoruba deities. It was right — he served something harder to name. Samuel Ajayi Crowther was enslaved at twelve, freed at sea by the Royal Navy, and rebuilt himself through language. He wrote the first grammar of any African language authored by a native speaker, translated the Bible into Yoruba, and became the first African Anglican bi...

This is the pivot episode of Season 1. Everything YHIB has built — the collapse of Oyo, the rise of Ibadan, the construction of Yoruba identity, the mechanics of trade and civil war — comes to bear on this moment. In this episode How European trade was balanced and peripheral to Yorubaland for centuries — and when that changedThe real forces behind Britain's 1807 abolition of the slave trade (...

The Ogboni weren't just a secret society. They were a constitutional check on the king — and they could remove him. In this bonus episode of Yoruba History, Identity & the In-Between, we explore the Ogboni (also known as Òsùgbó among the Ijebu and Egba Yoruba) — the earth-veneration society that served as a third organ of Yoruba government alongside the king and the Oyo Mesi. We cover:– Th...

In 19th-century Yorubaland, rival kingdoms fought for sixteen years — and traded with each other the entire time. This is the story of how the Kiriji (Ekitiparapo) War reveals a system of rivalry that was brutal, sophisticated, and governed by rules we still haven't fully understood. Episode 5 of Yoruba History, Identity & the In-Between examines the most analytically demanding question of...

After the Oyo Empire collapsed, Yoruba kingdoms fought each other for sixty years. There was no center. No empire. No state holding things together. And yet — the culture held. How? Episode 4 of Yorùbá — History, Identity & the In-Between examines the seven mechanisms that kept Yoruba people connected across hostile political borders during the 19th-century civil wars. Shared language and ritu...

The word “Yoruba” is everywhere today — in language, diaspora culture, and political identity across three continents — yet in the early 19th century it barely existed as a shared label. Most people understood themselves through kingdom, lineage, or town, not as members of a single Yorùbá people. This episode asks the question at the heart of the entire series: how does a people become a people? I...

Yorùbá — History, Identity & the In-BetweenEpisode 2Season 1The Rise of Ibadan Out of the ruins of Oyo’s collapse came one of the most extraordinary political experiments in 19th-century West Africa. Ibadan began as a temporary war camp — a gathering point for refugees, soldiers, and displaced communities with nowhere else to go. Within decades, it had become the largest city in Yorubaland and...

Yorùbá — History, Identity & the In-BetweenEpisode 1Season 1The Fall of Oyo The Oyo Empire was one of West Africa’s most powerful political formations — a cavalry state that dominated the region for over a century, commanding trade routes, vassal kingdoms, and tribute networks stretching across the savanna. But by the early 19th century, it was hollowing from within. This episode traces the st...