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Yoruba American

Yoruba Americans
Total population
1,800,000 (2000 US Census)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston and Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. New York, Maryland, Florida, California and most Southern States.
Languages
American English, African American Vernacular English, Yoruba
Religion
Christianity, Islam and Yoruba religion
Related ethnic groups
Yoruba people, African Americans, Nigerian Americans, Beninese Americans

Yoruba Americans are Americans of Yoruba descent. The Yoruba people (Yoruba: Àwọ̀n ọ́mọ́ Yorùbá) are an ethnic group originating in southwestern Nigeria and southern Benin in West Africa.

Contents

  • History 1
  • Notable Yoruba-Americans 2
  • See also 3
  • Notes 4
  • References 5

History

The first Yoruba people who arrived to the United States were captured in war from the West African "Gold Coast" an enslaved in the United States during the Atlantic slave trade. This ethnicity of the slaves was one of the main origins of present-day Nigerians who arrived to the United States, along with the Igbo and Hausa. In addition, native slaves of current Benin hailed from peoples such as Nago (Yoruba subgroup, although exported mainly by Spanish,[2] when Louisiana was Spanish) -, Ewe, Fon and Gen. Many of the slaves imported to the modern United States from Benin were sold by the King of Dahomey, in Whydah.[3] [note 1]

The slaves brought with them their cultural practices, languages, and religious beliefs rooted in spirit and ancestor worship. So, the manners of the Yoruba, Fon, Gen and Ewe of Benin were key elements of Louisiana Voodoo.[5] Also Haitians, who migrated Louisiana since the late nineteenth century and also contributed to Voodoo of this state, have the Yoruba and Ewe origins as some of their main origins.

The Yoruba, and some northern Nigerian ethnic groups, had tribal facial identification marks. These could have assisted a returning slave in relocating his or her ethnic group, but few slaves escaped the colonies. In the colonies, masters tried to dissuade the practice of tribal customs. They also sometimes mixed people of different ethnic groups to make it more difficult for them to communicate and bond together in rebellion.[6]

After the slavery abolition in 1865, many modern Nigerian immigrants have come to the United States to pursue educational opportunities in undergraduate and post-graduate institutions. This was possible because in the 1960s and 1970s, after the Biafra War, Nigeria's government funded scholarships for Nigerian students, and many of them were admitted to American universities. While this was happening, there were several military coups, among which there were brief periods of civilian rule. All this caused many Nigerians to emigrate.[7] Most of these Nigerian immigrants are of Yoruba, Igbo and Ibibio origins.

Notable Yoruba-Americans

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Indeed, Dahomey was one of the main proslavery Kingdoms of West Africa during the colonial period of the Americas and the nineteenth century, arriving to his maximum economic splendor to late of the eighteenth century thanks to its slave trade with the European traders of many areas of the Americas (from the U.S. to Brazil). The majority of his slaves were, since this time, to second half of the nineteenth century, of Yoruba origin.[4]

References

  1. ^ "Table 1. First, Second, and Total Responses to the Ancestry Question by Detailed Ancestry Code: 2000". U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved 2013-06-19. 
  2. ^ Google books: Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana's Free People of Color. Wrote by Sybil Kein.
  3. ^ "Question of the Month: Cudjo Lewis: Last African Slave in the U.S.?", by David Pilgrim, Curator, Jim Crow Museum, July 2005, webpage:Ferris-Clotilde.
  4. ^ EL ELEMENTO SUBSAHÁRICO EN EL LÉXICO VENEZOLANO (in Spanish: The Subsaharian element in the Venezolan lexicon).
  5. ^ Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo (1995). Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Louisiana State University Press. p. 58. 
  6. ^ "Ethnicity and the Slave Trade: 'Lucumi' and 'Nago' as Ethnonyms in West Africa"
  7. ^ Encyclopedia ofChicago: Nigerians in Chicago. Posted by Charles Adams Cogan and Cyril Ibe. Retrieved May 2, 2013, to 16:30 pm.
Yoruba topics
History
Subgroups
Politics
Geography
(Yorubaland)
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Major cities:
Demographics
Culture
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North Africa
Horn of Africa
Southeast Africa
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Central Africa
West Africa
African ethnic groups in United States 1
1African ethnic groups can be dispersed in an important area in Africa, regardless Africa countries or geographic areas. Thus, the Fulbe people live between West Africa and several countries of Central Africa and there little Berber communities in Mali and Niger.
By geography
Other countries
Atlantic
Diaspora
Wide issues
1An Afro-Latin American is any person from Latin America with origins in Africa. They can be Afro-South Americans, Afro-Central Americans, or Afro-Mexicans. An African Caribbean is any person from the Caribbean with origins in Africa.
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