In contrast, the Aláàfin was alternately chosen from Öyô-Ilé’s three royal wards composed of those lineages that traced their descent from Odùduwà or Odùduwà’s son, Òràñyàn. The Aláàfin represented another principle of political organization, namely, the centralization of authority in the adé (crown) of the Æba and in the royal court. It was the Aláàfin who possessed supreme judicial authority, who controlled the succession of chiefly titles and who, when he wore the veiled crown, was acknowledged to be èkejì òrì«à, meaning “next to” or “like unto the gods” of the Yoruba pantheon. Under his authority was an elaborate court organization that included palace slaves or eunuchs, whose leaders were in charge of judicial, religious, and administrative matters; slaves who served as bodyguards, messengers, and collectors of taxes; and “titled officers” who fulfilled various administrative and ritual functions.

According to oral traditions, once the Bariba and Nupe threat from the north was ended, the struggle for power between the Aláàfin and the Öyô Mèsì shaped the political life of Öyô-Ilé. Indeed, one of the principal factors in the development of the empire was the royal court’s need to establish authority over towns outside of Öyô from which to receive revenues and manpower, resources over which the Öyô Mèsì had little or no control. This was achieved by the employment of cavalry, which the Öyô adopted from the Bariba and Nupe, against which many Yoruba towns were defenceless. Once the northern area around the capital had been consolidated early in the seventeenth century, successive Aláàfin met the potential threat from Benin by establishing their authority, or at least a presence, amongÌjë«à, Ìgbómìnà, and some Èkìtì towns to the east. However, the extension of the Aláàfin’s suzerainty to Òñdó and Ìdànrè was unsuccessful, in part due to inhospitable terrain for cavalry manoeuvres.

The next move on the part of the Aláàfin was to the south, carefully bypassing Ilé-Ifë. The kingdoms of Òwu and Ìjëbú were well-established powers in their own right, and even though the nineteenth-century Yorùbá historian Samuel Johnson claims that “from the days of »àngó [son of Òràñyàn] they have been very loyal to the Aláàfin of Òyô,” court traditions suggest that Òwu was as an ally or friend closer to Òyô than Ìjëbú and that Öyô may have on one occasion asserted an influence on, without fully dominating, the internal politics of Ìjëbú-Òde, the capital city of the Ìjëbú Yorùbá. Indeed, it was the kingdom of Benin that exerted the greatest influence among the Ìjëbú in the sixteenth century, while Öyô’s greatest influence was among the Ëgbá in the south. Ëgbá was called “an offshoot of the Yorùbás proper” (i.e., Öyô), having been settled by Ë«ó (war-chiefs) of Öyô during the campaigns of Òràñyàn, the founder of Öyô. There is no doubt that some northern Ëgbá towns were founded by Öyô settlers in the early seventeenth century, but Ëgbá traditions claim that the Aláàfin was the youngest child of Odùduwà and was still a minor when Odùduwà died. His brothers, who were kings of other Yorùbá towns, gave the child gifts to enable him to support himself, a tradition that continued. Later Aláàfin, however, chose to look upon the gifts as tribute and required them “as a matter of right.”

In the second half of the seventeenth century the royal court at Öyô-Ilé extended its authority into areas of the Ëgbádò and Ànàgó in the southwest, and to a somewhat lesser extent among the western peoples of Kétu and »ábê. By the beginning of the eighteenth century formal rule was established among Yorùbá peoples, and Öyô and its Aláàfin could claim an empire encompassing 18,000 square miles and perhaps a million people. The stage was set for Öyô’s conquest of Dahomey (1726-30).

For the next fifty years the Öyô Empire dominated the lives of northeastern, central and southwestern Yorùbá peoples and made its presence known in other parts as well. The organization of the slaves of the royal court, whose positions at times were of greater importance than those of many lineage chiefs in Öyô-Ilé, enabled the Aláàfin to supervise closely the administration of the empire.

Some areas were colonized, especially among the Ëgbádò. Where long established local kingdoms existed, the capital received annual tribute or recognition through the exchange of gifts and assistance in times of war. For the most part the empire was a confederacy of ìlú-aládé (“crowned towns”) and trade centers that acknowledged the primacy of the Aláàfin of Öyô-Ilé.

As in the relationship between the Aláàfin and the Öyô Mèsì in the capital city, the same conflicting principles of political organization characterized the relationship between the royal court and the provinces: centralization of authority versus allegiance to local communities. So long as there was a strong figure at the center, such as Aláàfin Abíôdún (reigned 1774-1789), the empire was held intact. But once the struggle for power between the Öyô Mèsì and the Aláàfin in Öyô-Ilé reasserted itself, the ephemeral greatness of the Öyô Empire was revealed. With lesser figures on the throne the center collapsed; and within forty-five years of Aláàfin Abíôdún’s death the capital city would no longer exist. The empire as a political phenomenon was over, but a powerful cultural legacy continued for another century or longer.

Next