# OSIFEKUNDE OF IJEBU (YORUBALAND)  
Olatunji Ojo*  
This is a preliminary study on the story of an enslaved Ijebu-Yoruba man popularly called Osifekunde but also known to his biographers, scholars, and enslavers variously as Osifekunwede, Osifekun, Osifeko, Osifekode, Osifakorede, Joaquim and Joseph depending on whether these writers, slavers or employers were in what later became Nigeria, Brazil or France. These many names reflect the diversity of Yoruba naming practices and the complex nature of the Yoruba experience and involvement in the Atlantic slave trade. The names capture his identities as an enslaved Ijebu-Yoruba (Osifekunde and its variants), Christian and Catholic in Brazil (Joaquim and perhaps Joaquim Mina and Joaquim Nago, depending on whether he was in Rio de Janeiro or Recife), and a freed African in France (Joseph). More than most Yoruba of his era, Osifekunde's story not only encapsulates but provides rich data on the history, geography, culture and economic activities in the eastern Bight of Benin between the 1780s and 1820 when he was sold to the Americas. His story comes to our attention because of the account of French ethnographer Marie-Armand Pascal d'Avezac de CasteraMacaya, published in Paris in 1845, with additional materials from Peter Lloyd's  
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[^0]:    * The author wishes to thank Ambassadors Alberto Da Silva and Olabiyi Yai, Professor Femi Ade-Ojo, and Andrew Quesnel for their ideas and references, Fati Deng and Blessing Babalola for research in the French Archives, Victoire Silva and Aplovi D'Almeida for materials on 'Aguda' families in Benin, Margaret Crosby-Arnold for sharing her conference paper and expertise on D'Avzac and blacks in France, and my Ilaje 'canoe mates', Akin Semilore, Godgift Jolowo, and Kola Akinfosile.