At first glance these short biographies of Iyá Nassô and Shetelu appear quite different. The evidence preserved in the surviving sources, written primarily by ecclesiastical and secular authorities, or handed down orally by orisha worshippers, inevitably shapes what we know about them. Despite their differences, the biographies illuminate a number of common themes in early nineteenth-century Afro-Bahian history, from the perspective of gender, age, and chronology. Each illuminates, for example, the experience of Yoruba speakers enslaved in the early phase of the calamitous collapse of the Oyo empire, one at the centre of the maelstrom, the other on the southern frontier where the conflict quickly spread. A mature woman at the time she was captured with her son Domingos,  
it is not surprising that Iyá Nassô was sold into the Atlantic trade. Her price on the coast would have been significantly higher than in the interior; moreover, her ritual knowledge and authority may have made her a dangerous investment locally. Shetelu's youth and gender, on the other hand, made him well-suited for specialized training and careful grooming as a worker in the transatlantic trade. Both aspects surely helped catch his Brazilian buyer's eye. ${ }^{6}$ Ayebomi, a small child at the time of her capture, was not attractive for export and thus entered the African slave market, although her older sister Ajatu was not so fortunate. How the girls' mother escaped being captured is not known.