Origins and rise
Tradition credits Oranmiyan, a prince of Ile-Ife, with founding Oyo. Its capital, Oyo-Ile (Old Oyo), lay in the savanna north of the forest belt. The open country suited cavalry, and by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Oyo was the strongest state in the Yoruba region. It drew tribute from a wide area, including Dahomey from the 1740s.
How power was divided
The king, the Alaafin, did not rule alone. The Oyo Mesi, a council of seven senior chiefs led by the Bashorun, selected the Alaafin from the eligible royal lineages and could withdraw its support. When it did, the Alaafin was expected to take his own life. The Ogboni society, which spoke for the earth and the community, stood as a further check between king and council.
When the balance failed
The system could be abused. Bashorun Gaha dominated Oyo for about two decades in the mid eighteenth century and is said to have forced several Alaafins to their deaths, until Alaafin Abiodun overthrew him in 1774. In the early nineteenth century, internal rivalry, the revolt of the army commander Afonja at Ilorin, and the expansion of the Sokoto Caliphate broke the empire. Old Oyo was abandoned in the 1830s, and a new Oyo was founded further south under Alaafin Atiba.
Further reading
- Robin Law, The Oyo Empire c.1600 to c.1836 (Clarendon Press, 1977)
- Samuel Johnson, The History of the Yorubas (1921)
- J. A. Atanda, The New Oyo Empire (Longman, 1973)