08/09/2023
According to the Eshilokun's: “Prince Kosoko, who was Oba Eshilokun’s son, did not wait to be King before becoming a major slave trader. Princess Opo Olu, Kosoko’s sister owned 1400 slaves. Oshodi Tapa, Dada Antonio and Ojo Akanbi, like Ajayi Crowther, were former slaves, but unlike Crowther, they rose to become merchants themselves.” They reckoned I meant that Oshodi Tapa was a slave of Prince Kosoko. In that passage, I was listing the personalities who were slave traders and those who were ex-slaves; I was not listing who owned them. Ajayi Crowther was enslaved in March 1821 at his village of Oshogun 140km north of Lagos by Fulani slavers who capitalised on the weakened Oyo Empire to attack his village. Crowther, a boy of 12 years old was exchanged for a horse. The lady who brought him later exchanged him for to***co leaves and a bottle of English wine from an Ijebu man who in turn sold him in Lagos to the Portuguese slave ship, Esperenza Feliz (meaning Free Spirit). Oba Eshilokun was the king at this time.
Like his children – Princess Opo Olu and Princes Idewu Ojulari and Kosoko, – Eshilokun was a slave exporter and price fixer who would not allow market forces to determine slave prices hence owned slave warehouses. There was no record that he or his family owned Crowther but he received commission on his sale because as the Oba of Lagos, he had put in place a rigorous and aggressive tax system which ensured that for every slave ship that docked in Lagos, for every slave sold to those ships, his cut was assured.