Information About ™Oyo |
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Oyo (Ọyọ in Yoruba orthography, pronounced ) is the name of a Yoruba city in modern-day Nigeria and also of the loose empire which that city controlled in the 17th and 18th centuries. What was to become the Oyo empire began as the state of Oyo, founded sometime before 1400, with its capital at Oyo-Ile , (also known as ''Katunga'' or ''Old Oyo''). Rising to preeminence through wealth gained from trade and through the possession of a powerful cavalry, the Oyo Empire was the most politically important Yoruba state from the mid-17th to the late 18th century, holding sway not only over the lesser Yoruba states, but also over the Fon kingdom of Dahomey (located in the state now known as the Republic Of Benin .) In 1796, an Ilorin -centred revolt against Awole , the then-reigning '' Alaafin '', or chief-ruler of Oyo, was initiated by Afonja , the '' Aare Ona Kakanfo '', or chief military commander of the provincial army. The internal power had been weakened since the beginning of the 18th century by a struggle for power between the ''Alaafin'' and the ''Oyo Mesi'', a council of the seven principal non-royal chiefs. The revolt, which led to the secession of Ilorin, marked the beginning of the disintegration of the Oyo empire, as other vassal states soon began to follow Ilorin's example. In the hope of securing the support of Yoruba muslims (mainly slaves taking care of the Empire's horses, the main military strength of Oyo) and volunteers from the Hausa-Fulani north, Afonja had enlisted an itinerant Fulani scholar of Islam called Alim Al-Salih to his cause, but this eventually led to the razing of Oyo-Ile by the islamic Fulani Empire in 1835, once Afonja had himself been killed by Fulani. After the destruction of Oyo-Ile, the center of Yoruba power moved further south, to Ilorin, and Oyo never regained its prominence in the region. It became a protectorate of Great Britain in 1888. LIST OF OYO EMPERORS
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