Love
06/15/2023
MEET THE FIRST FEMALE SLAVE TRADER IN NIGERIA
A successful business tycoon, slave trader, aristocrat, and a king advisor E̩funroye Osuntinubu Olumo̩sa also popularly known as Madam Ęfunroye Tinubu was a significant figure in the Nigerian history because of the fame she built for herself.
Ęfunroye Tinubu is the first woman to kick against British rule in Nigeria during the colonial era. She was mostly popular in Abęokuta and Lagos politics.
Ęfunroye Tinubu was an astute and ambitious Nigerian business tycoon who wielded great economic power in West Africa. She married a man and had two sons with him, but he died shortly after. A widow and single mother, she recently started trading tree bark and leaves.
She acquired valuable marketing knowledge from her grandmother Osunso̩la, who also traded in bark, roots herbs and leaves. She also learned business skills from her mother Nije̩ede, who sold groceries.
Born in 1810 in Ojokodo, now in the state of Ogun, Tinubu remarried in 1833 after the death of her first husband. She moved with her new husband, the exiled O̩ba to Badagry, the traditional sanctuary of the Lagos kings. At Badagry she tapped into Adele's connections and built big businesses in to***co, salt and slaves. Adele were restored in 1835, but died two years later. Prior to his death, Tinubu intensified her trade with the emigrant community, the natives of Lagos and Abęokuta, and other communities in the Yoruba part of the country.
Tinubu was a huge influence in the palace and helped turn Akintoye, her son-in-law, into king after O̩ba Oluwo̩le. In 1851, when O̩ba Akintoye had full control of the throne, he granted the Tinubu lucrative trade concessions which encouraged them to continue trading with Brazilian and Portuguese traders in slave arms.
He also gave her a plot of land that is now part of what is now called Tinubu Square and Kakawa Street. Tinubu had such an influence on Akintoye that in 1853 two Lagos chiefs (Posu and Agenya) revolted against
