Indigenous Igbos of Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone and Haiti.
You can find Indigenous Yorubas in Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago.
Nigeria is indeed the original home of Igbos and Yorubas but there are parts of Africa and the world at large where Igbos are deeply rooted and
They include;
Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Haiti.
You can also find Indigenous Yorubas in Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Tobago.
Watch on YouTube.👆🏿
Igbos in Cameroon:
It has been argued that Igbos have been in Cameroon since the time of Eri, and a British report since the colonial era affirmed the presence of Igbos since the 1800s when they controlled trade in the regions they occupied to date.
In Cameroon, the Igbo language is one of their recognized regional languages.
Igbos in Gabon:
During the Civil war, Igbo children were airlifted from the Igbo-speaking region of Nigeria and taken to Gabon where they all reside till today.
In the year 2015, French investigative Journalist, Pierre Pean revealed that the President of Gabon Ali Bongo Ondimba was an Igbo Nigerian who was adopted by the then president of Gabon, El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba during the Nigerian-Biafran war.
Igbos in Sierra Leone:
During the transatlantic slavery between 30 - 45% of the 'imported' slaves were from the Bight of Biafra, and 80% of these slaves were most likely Igbo.
After emancipation, Igbo slaves were among the slaves that settled in Freetown, Sierra Leone where they formed a settlement that has all the working of a functional Igbo community.
The Igbo dialect spoken in Sierra Leone is called Isoama/Isuama-Igbo
The first president of Sierra Leone was an Igbo by the name of Christopher Okoro Cole.
Igbos in Equatorial Guinea:
Nigeria is the indigenous home of over 40 million Igbos,
but there are countries in Africa and the diaspora where you will find a large population of Igbos.
One of them is:
Equatorial Guinea.
In Bioko, Equatorial Guinea, Igbo is the 4th largest tribe and the 4th most spoken language.
Bioko Island, formerly known as Fernando Po was named after the Portuguese explorer Fernão do Pó, who sighted it around the year 1472.
As of 2002, four languages were spoken in Bioko and they include Bubi (58%), Fang (16%), Fernandino (12%), and Igbo (7%).
The Igbos of Bioko as they are popularly called are said to be over 50,000 in number.
How they arrived at Bioko.
Before the Portuguese took charge, the native Bantu-speaking inhabitants of Bioko, the Bubi, are believed to have colonized the island about 2000 years ago.
In 1778, the Spanish Crown took possession of Fernando Po in Equatorial Guinea, from the Portuguese to develop an aggressive presence in the West African slave trading networks.
But following the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade by the British in 1808, there was pressure by the British government on Spain to leave the slave trade.
Unfortunately, the Spaniards had other plans which involved importing slaves from the Bight of Biafra located in present-day Nigeria.
The main reason for their choice was its geography, it allowed slave traders the opportunity to conceal their operations.
After the fall of the great Oyo empire in 1820, the Aro Confederacy had a monopoly on the slave trade in the regions known as present-day Nigeria.
They shipped slaves from Arochukwu in the Bight of Biafra to Fernando Po to work in Spanish Plantation; during that time the Igbos there named the place Panya.
Also, during the Nigerian-Biafran civil war, children were said to have been airlifted from Nigeria to Bioko, Bioko is also home to descendants of liberated slaves.
Popular dishes in Bioko include: Succotash, Bilola or Sea snails, Ocrosoup (Okro) served with cassava etc.
Just like the Igbos in Nigeria, the Igbos of Bioko are predominantly Christians but people with traditional beliefs still exist.
There are still traces of Igbo ancestral presence in Jamaica and Barbados culture and language.
Popular Methodist missionary who went to Fernando Po (now known as Bioko) in Africa in the early 1880s William Napoleon Barleycorn (1848–1925), is said to be of Igbo descent.
Igbos in Haiti:
In Haiti, there is a special celebration called Igbo day where the Haitian God Igbo Loa or Ibo Loa attributed to Nigerian Igbos is celebrated.
The majority of Afro-Haitians are descendants of enslaved Africans brought to the island by the Spanish Empire and the Kingdom of France to work on plantations.
According to history, the first king of independent Haiti was a former slave of Igbo descent. Henry Christophe is revered as a hero among the Haitians. Born in 1767 as a former slave, he was a military leader in the Haitian revolution of 1791-1804 that ended both slavery and French colonial rule. He later became president and king of the young nation.
The Igbo shrine is headed by the 'Igwes' and their language of incantation is Igbo.
The ceremony commences with the Igwe's appeasing the spirit of the dead African and Igbo slaves, heroes were honoured with dances, songs, and rituals.
Yoruba People of Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Tobago.
Towards the end of the slave trade in the 1880s, the Yorubas in the region of Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Tobago stood out as the African group most often shipped across these regions.
Watch on YouTube.👆🏿
This also gave birth to the Òrìsà-worshipping people of Brazil.
Salvador, Bahia state, in Brazil is one of the many areas influenced heavily by West African Slaves, birthing traditional worship of Yoruba gods, festivals, and food.
The high demand for labour in plantations led Brazil to import enslaved persons, and
It happened that most of them were from the Yoruba tribe in the Kingdom of Ketu in the Republic of Benin and southwest Nigeria.
The Yorubas in Brazil are commonly known as 'Nagos' which was given to them by the Fon-speaking people.
The Nagos tribe suffered during colonial times, they were forced to occupy the lowest status ranking in Latin America and were made to work hard until they died; this gave them a poor prospect.
Òrìsà-worshipping has survived since slavery, and today a large portion of Brazil's population still practices and upholds it.
Did you enjoy reading this?
Please subscribe to our newsletter.
Credit:
All Africa
BMC Genomics
Europenowjournal
Legit ng
Anaedoonline.
UIU Los Angeles
Oblong media
Joseph's project
Newsmakerslive.
Wikipedia.