Did anyone else watch the last edition of INSIDE AFRICA? They talked about a project being carried out to try and locate the African origins of some of the thousands of slaves on illegal slave ships captured when an effort was being made in Europe to end the slave trade.

I gathered that when the ships were captured, and the slaves disembarked, they were asked for their names. And this information -together with the name of the ship they were brought on, and the Port they left from- were noted down in logs. Thank God for the thorough documentation and preservation of the details gathered at the time.

The people that set up the site http://www.african-origins.org/african-data/detail/74746/onboard/ are inviting Africans from the areas where the slave trade was active to type in names of their ethnicity in the search box to see if they can identify the origins of most of the poor souls on those captured ships.

When i visited the site, i have to confess tears welled up in my eyes. The reality of it all hit me: those names that belonged to real brothers and sisters staring me in the face was just overwhelming. I could picture them just released from the slave hold of the ship for the first time in weeks, in a foreign land, with most of them probably naked and lined up, and then being asked for their details. Not knowing what the future holds, and if they'll ever see their loved ones again.

You see how built up Lagos; Ibadan; Calabar; Enugu; Port Harcourt; Accra; Elmina, etc, is right now? I want you to close your eyes and go back in time hundreds of years to when these places where just thick tropical forests, with just a handful of mud houses where skyscrapers/highways and massive projects now stand. I want you to picture a time when the only concrete structures may have been the castles and fortresses on the coasts, built by the Europeans to facilitate their evil trade in human cargo. Try and hear the cries of Mothers being seperated from their children; our Sisters being raped; picture columns of fresh slaves being brought in chains to the coastal ports from the hinterlands of Africa in preparation to be sold to the white man. This is the reality you attach to those names. Seeing those names affected me more than any film or book on the slave trade ever could. Oh! the wickedness of man!

See if you can locate the origin of some of those Brothers and Sisters. The results brought up -in some cases- may sound like names you're familiar with today, as they may not have written them down correctly at the time.

how authentic is this ? lots of felas in there lmao, also bankole and aina and abayomi etc. lots of yoruba peeps.

Wahala dey oh.

The american economy needs to be fixed, and fast.

Hope this isnt about africom.

wetin be africom ?

that military base the US has wanted to set up in nigeria for ages now.

i dont even know who is still blocking them.

This is a very interesting subject, though DNA analysis could be a more precise tool than archives of slave-ship manifests, for use in documenting and tracing the ancestry of American and Brazillian blacks, in correlation with data bases derived from parallel DNA studies carried out on present-day West Africans.

^^dont forget to roll out the welcome mat in your hometown, bro.

hope you arent planning to greet them elsewhere then just vanish.

@topic

fascinating manifest!!!


saw quite a number of "oyos" and it's amazing they have the ages exactly listed as well.

buzugee:

how authentic is this ? lots of felas in there lmao, also bankole and aina and abayomi etc. lots of yoruba peeps.

LOL . What made you start seaching for a 'Fela'? You must be a fan. Though i don't know if they shortened names in those days like we do today with names of friends and loved ones. Fela is short for a much longer name, i take it? Like Toks' is for Tokunbo, or Ify' is for Ifeanyi.

If there were Felas' on the ships, i can just imagine how stubborn and headstrong they might have been . Picture this: the Captain of a captured slave ship, standing up on the top deck and watching proceedings as his 'precious cargo' is being disembarked and processed, still smarting over getting caught by those pesky European authorities. The Ships mate comes up to give him a quick progress report of goings on down below, but the Captain barks at him to be quiet. And asks angrily: " what i really wanna know is, are all those 'Felas' off my gadem muthafukin ship?". When the Ships mate replies in the affirmative, the Captain looks up to the heavens and says a quick prayer of gratitude, looks back at his officer and -not really expecting an answer- asks, "just what is it about that name Fela?" LOL If only he knew.

On a more serious note, i think the bustling Badagary slave port may have been responsible for a high incidence of Yoruba names. Just my theory though.

Bancole = Bankole

Acquisanya = Akinsanya

Oyecambi = Oyekanbi

Acquichumi = Akinkumi

Bambopa = Bamgbopa

Chanu = Shanu

Ocunu = Okunnu

Adezoye = Adesoye

Macu = Maku

Uguremi = Ogunremi

Ollerinde = Olarinde

Fadei = Fadeyi

Bamboche = Bamgboshe

Echumade = Esumade

Oluquee = Oluchi

^^thanks for interpreting those.

more grease to your elbow.



however, the oil in yorubaland still isnt as much as the niger deltan oil fields.

This looks like a spanish/ brazilian/ cuban or french vessel. Because of the way the words are spelt. Likely bound for the west indies or south america.

PROUD-IGBO:

LOL . What made you start seaching for a 'Fela'? You must be a fan. Though i don't know if they shortened names in those days like we do today with names of friends and loved ones. Fela is short for a much longer name, i take it? Like Toks' is for Tokunbo, or Ify' is for Ifeanyi.

If there were Felas' on the ships, i can just imagine how stubborn and headstrong they might have been . Picture this: the Captain of a captured slave ship, standing up on the top deck and watching proceedings as his 'precious cargo' is being disembarked and processed, still smarting over getting caught by those pesky European authorities. The Ships mate comes up to give him a quick progress report of goings on down below, but the Captain barks at him to be quiet. And asks angrily: " what i really wanna know is, are all those 'Felas' off my gadem muthafukin ship?". When the Ships mate replies in the affirmative, the Captain looks up to the heavens and says a quick prayer of gratitude, looks back at his officer and -not really expecting an answer- asks, "just what is it about that name Fela?" LOL If only he knew.

On a more serious note, i think the bustling Badagary slave port may have been responsible for a high incidence of Yoruba names. Just my theory though.

oh yes bros i am a moderate fela fan. not quite sure if fela is the shortened form because the people i know called fela, the name stands alone. lol @ your scenario

Very interesting post.

anyone ready to explain the age factor?

little loose threads here and there.

http://www.african-origins.org/

Just saw this. This might bring up bitterness. Why can't the issue just be buried? It can't be changed and it will only serve to increase the inferiority complex of black people and the superiority complex of whites.