Fifty African American tourists, who are in Benin City, Edo State capital, to trace their origin, have visited the Palace of the Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, the Oba of Benin, Oba Ewuare II.

While welcoming the tourists, Oba Ewuare II commended them for making effort to trace their roots back home and thanked the ancestors for protecting African Americans in their sojourn.

The revered monarch tasked the tourists to support efforts against modern human slavery and join the fight against human trafficking in the state.

The Oba of Benin added that the African Americans have done well in their choice to come down to Benin and deserve to be applauded, noting that the Palace is proud of them.

Oba Ewuare II added that his Foundation was established to drive the integration of victims of illegal migration, who have returned back to Nigeria.

The Edo State Commissioner for Arts, Culture, Tourism and Diaspora Affairs, Hon. Osaze Osemwegie-Ero who accompanied the tourists on the courtesy visit to the Palace, expressed appreciation to the Benin Monarch for supporting the drive to grow the tourism sector of the state.

Mrs. Betty Arnold, who led the tourists, said they are honoured to be at the Palace, noting that some of them were visiting Africa for the first time.

The tourists were later hosted to a dinner at Edo State Government House, where the Commissioner for Arts, Culture, Tourism and Diaspora Affairs, assured that the state was safe for investors.


See more photos here; http://gistmore.com/african-american-tourists-visit-oba-of-benin

Even we are joining the foreigners to call them African Americans when we know fully well they are full fledged Nigerians.

Cool

Bha bokhian....

Na who Don chop belle full dey find where him come from

Cool

Nice one

thesicilian:
Even we are joining the foreigners to call them African Americans when we know fully well they are full fledged Nigerians.

Not all.
It will shock you to realize a lot more are Gambians than Nigerians.

meobizy:

Not all.
It will shock you to realize a lot more are Gambians than Nigerians.

Nigeria and Gambia didn't exist when their ancestors were abducted.

prolog3111:
Nigeria and Gambia didn't exist when their ancestors were abducted.

Yes they didn’t but the regions and ethnic groups their ancestors came from are located in present day Gambia.

thesicilian:
Even we are joining the foreigners to call them African Americans when we know fully well they are full fledged Nigerians.

How are they full-fledged Nigerians?

meobizy:

Yes they didn’t but the regions and ethnic groups their ancestors came from are located in present day Gambia.

And you get this from the top of your hat ?

prolog3111:
And you get this from the top of your hat ?

I saw it in random videos on YouTube tracing their ancestral origin.

meobizy:

I saw it in random videos on YouTube tracing their ancestral origin.

you saw these particular African Americans who came to Benin city (claiming their ancestry was from Benin Kingdom), you saw them claiming they are from Gambia ?

I know this is social media, but please still try and make sense.

prolog3111:
you saw these particular African Americans who came to Benin city (claiming their ancestry was from Benin Kingdom), you saw them claiming they are from Gambia ?

I know this is social media, but please still try and make sense.

prolog3111:
you saw these particular African Americans who came to Benin city (claiming their ancestry was from Benin Kingdom), you saw them claiming they are from Gambia ?

I know this is social media, but please still try and make sense.

...and your argument is what again?
What of the ones who visit Egypt and Ethiopia for their roots when it is already established that majority of them are originally from West Africa?

meobizy:

...and your argument is what again?
What of the ones who visit Egypt and Ethiopia for their roots when it is already established that majority of them are originally from West Africa?

lol...you must understand that until recently, many black Americans enjoyed living in denial of their true roots.

Now You See them dress up in Dashikis, believing that is all the passport they need to claim their "long lost" heritage.

thesicilian:
Even we are joining the foreigners to call them African Americans when we know fully well they are full fledged Nigerians.

Not a single person there is full-fledged anything. I can guarantee you that if they take DNA tests, the results will point to all over West Africa and Central Africa (with a heavy dose of Nigerian for some of them).

Also almost everyone of them will have some European ancestry as well. That light-skinned woman in blue looks like someone whose DNA result will say 30% European.

RedboneSmith:


Not a single person there is full-fledged anything. I can guarantee you that if they take DNA tests, the results will point to all over West Africa and Central Africa (with a heavy dose of Nigerian for some of them).

Also almost everyone of them will have some European ancestry as well. That light-skinned woman in blue looks like someone whose DNA result will say 40% European.

And you know for sure that they didn't take a dna test ? Why do you guys always confuse your assumptions with facts ? Is that what they teach you in Nigerian schools ?

prolog3111:
And you know for sure that they didn't take a dna test ? Why do you guys alwaysvconfuse your assumptions with facts ?

You again. No African American is 100% anything. And that is a FACT.

RedboneSmith:


You again. No African American is 100% anything. And that is a FACT.

you are a slowpoke, fact.

prolog3111:
you are a slowpoke, fact.

You're prolonging issues.

No African-American is 100% any ethnicity.

prolog3111:
you saw these particular African Americans who came to Benin city (claiming their ancestry was from Benin Kingdom), you saw them claiming they are from Gambia ?

I know this is social media, but please still try and make sense.

Nigga stop make false claim benin never sold themselves to slavery never in history they knew what slavery was .they were in the buisness with the Portuguese ( kpotokis) for long to know the in and out. they trace thier origins here was not dna base more of tourism base it could also be this people mistook benin republic for bini edo state or they could be edoid sub geoups like delta and other edo

czarina:
You're prolonging issues.

No African-American is 100% any ethnicity.

Did you test all of them ?

How I Thank God that I studied in France and not Nigeria. Your reasoning faculties are very poor.
Read my words, and read well. I am actually not endorsing your claim nor it's contrary. I am only telling you that you are not reasoning well and that you are confusing assumptions with facts. Benin Kingdom was a large empire with a lot of internal migration and movements like in all countries. Benin city was its capital. That tells you that the people living in Benin city are probably linked through blood to those in the provinces. Because the capital of every country seem to attract people from near and far in the country. Anyway, I am done with having to give free lesson to almost every person I have met on nairaland. Speculation is cheap. All that we know is what the article tells us: they traced their ancestry to Benin Kingdom. No need to make assumptions and confuse your assumptions with facts. People were not abducted in Benin city. Yes but what about their relatives in far away corners of the empire ? Corners which are now being called either Yorubaland, igboland or whateverland ? It just seems rather Unnecessary to speculate on this matter.

czarina:
You're prolonging issues.

No African-American is 100% any ethnicity.

True, hardly would you find an AA who is 100% of something but I have seen some tests come out as close as 80% or 90% of something. One AA who used to be a nairalander on this forum many years ago (between 2010 and 2013 or so) posted about receiving her DNA test and her paternal ancestry or maternal or so was 90%+ of SE Nigeria heritage. Her DNA tester was shocked as well and asked her if she had any recent Nigerian in her heritage to which she answered no and it was very surprising how her SE heritage had been so preserved all these generations despite all previous uncontrolled inter-marriages. Her tester's best guess was that there must have been a huge concentration of SE Nigerian heritage present in her area to have sustained her near 100% admixture.

However, 100% of anything would be very rare, if not impossible.

bigfrancis21:


True, hardly would you find an AA who is 100% of something but I have seen some tests come out as close as 80% or 90% of something. One AA who used to be a nairalander on this forum many years ago (between 2010 and 2013 or so) posted about receiving her DNA test and her paternal ancestry or maternal or so was 90%+ of SE Nigeria heritage. Her DNA tester was shocked as well and asked her if she had any recent Nigerian in her heritage to which she answered no and it was very surprising how her SE heritage had been so preserved all these generations despite all previous uncontrolled inter-marriages. Her tester's best guess was that there must have been a huge presence people of SE Nigerian heritage present in her area to have sustained her near 100% admixture.

However, 100% of anything would be very rare, if not impossible.

Yeah...true.


Is that you on your profile?

GistMore1:
GistMore.com

Fifty African American tourists, who are in Benin City, Edo State capital, to trace their origin, have visited the Palace of the Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, the Oba of Benin, Oba Ewuare II.

While welcoming the tourists, Oba Ewuare II commended them for making effort to trace their roots back home and thanked the ancestors for protecting African Americans in their sojourn.

The revered monarch tasked the tourists to support efforts against modern human slavery and join the fight against human trafficking in the state.

The Oba of Benin added that the African Americans have done well in their choice to come down to Benin and deserve to be applauded, noting that the Palace is proud of them.

Oba Ewuare II added that his Foundation was established to drive the integration of victims of illegal migration, who have returned back to Nigeria.

The Edo State Commissioner for Arts, Culture, Tourism and Diaspora Affairs, Hon. Osaze Osemwegie-Ero who accompanied the tourists on the courtesy visit to the Palace, expressed appreciation to the Benin Monarch for supporting the drive to grow the tourism sector of the state.

Mrs. Betty Arnold, who led the tourists, said they are honoured to be at the Palace, noting that some of them were visiting Africa for the first time.

The tourists were later hosted to a dinner at Edo State Government House, where the Commissioner for Arts, Culture, Tourism and Diaspora Affairs, assured that the state was safe for investors.


See more photos here; http://gistmore.com/african-american-tourists-visit-oba-of-benin

Lalasticlala

Edo Warrior Kingdom Opposed Atlantic Slave Trade
By Naiwu Osahon (Last update 09/10/2017)

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.

...

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.

Alan Ryder, recording the experiences of yet another European merchant, the French trader and Captain called Landolphe, in Benin in February 1778, said, "the Ezomo (leading military Chief) was the richest man in Benin, owning more than 10,000 slaves, none of whom was ever sold." The author then commented: "His (the Ezomo's) refusal to sell any of his slaves is also noteworthy for the light it sheds upon the attitude of powerful Edo chiefs towards the slave trade: however numerous they might be, a great man did not sell his slaves." Says Edo people: "vbo ghi da Oba no na mu ovionren khien?" Meaning, "what need does the Oba want to satisfy by putting out his slave for sale?"


https://www.edoworld.net/Edo_Warrior_Kingdom_Opposed_Atlantic_Slave_Trade.html

Two factors checked the spread of Portuguese
influence and the continued expansion of Benin,
however. First, Portugal stopped buying pepper
because of the availability of other spices in the
Indian Ocean region. Second, Benin placed an embargo
on the export of slaves, thereby isolating itself
from the growth of what was to become the major
export from the Nigerian coast for 300 years. Benin
continued to capture slaves and to employ them in
its domestic economy, but the Edo state remained
unique among Nigerian polities in refusing to
participate in the transatlantic trade. In the long
run, Benin remained relatively isolated from the
major changes along the Nigerian coast.
The Portuguese initially bought slaves for resale on
the Gold Coast, where slaves were traded for gold.
For this reason, the southwestern coast of Nigeria
and neighboring parts of the present-day Republic of Benin (not to be confused with the kingdom of Benin)
became known as the "slave coast." When the African
coast began to supply slaves to the Americas in the
last third of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese
continued to look to the Bight of Benin as one of
its sources of supply. By then they were
concentrating activities on the Angolan coast, which
supplied roughly 40 percent of all slaves shipped to
the Americas throughout the duration of the
transatlantic trade, but they always maintained a
presence on the Nigerian coast.
The Portuguese monopoly on West African trade was
broken at the end of the sixteenth century, when
Portugal's influence was challenged by the rising
naval power of the Netherlands. The Dutch took over
Portuguese trading stations on the coast that were
the source of slaves for the Americas. French and

Nigeria: Atlantic Ocean

English competition later undermined the Dutch
position. Although slave ports from Lagos to Calabar
would see the flags of many other European maritime
countries (including Denmark, Sweden, and
Brandenburg) and the North American colonies,
Britain became the dominant slaving power in the
eighteenth century. Its ships handled two-fifths of
the transatlantic traffic during the century. The
Portuguese and French were responsible for another
two-fifths.
Nigeria kept its important position in the slave
trade throughout the great expansion of the
transatlantic trade after the middle of the
seventeenth century. Slightly more slaves came from
the Nigerian coast than from Angola in the
eighteenth century, while in the nineteenth century
perhaps 30 percent of all slaves sent across the
Atlantic came from Nigeria. Over the period of the
whole trade, more than 3.5 million slaves were
shipped from Nigeria to the Americas. Most of these
slaves were Igbo and Yoruba, with significant
concentrations of Hausa, Ibibio, and other ethnic
groups. In the eighteenth century, two polities--Oyo
and the Aro confederacy--were responsible for most
of the slaves exported from Nigeria. The Aro
confederacy continued to export slaves through the
1830s, but most slaves in the nineteenth century
were a product of the Yoruba civil wars that
followed the collapse of Oyo in the 1820s.

http://www.edofolks.com/html/pub158.htm

From all indications, these african americans are looking for a cultural identity but are very likely and not in any way of edo ancestry. They may choose to identify with edo culture but their DNA ancestry definitely belongs somewhere else.