Adewale: Naming the Ancestor
Florida would tell me about her Nigerian ancestor, a grandfather, or great grandfather, or someone even further down the line. He was a king, she said, from Nigeria. Our people came from something.
She took so much pride in her family.
They were not wealthy, but they were not poor.
Everyone worked hard, saved, and ensured they had something to pass down.
She shared these stories with pride, not because wealth mattered, but because safety mattered, and not being the absolute poorest mattered.
This ancestor, he had a name.
I can see my large portion of Nigerian ancestry, which lends credence to her claim.
I imagine him as a male version of her.
Strong. Healthy. Hard working.
Stoic.
I imagine him being Yoruba, tall and intelligent.
A dark skinned, beautiful African man in the process of losing more than he could have ever imagined.
Many of us were captured after a war or fight with a rival tribe.
What is now called Nigeria was then a collection of powerful and organized societies, Yoruba city states with their own leadership, language, and systems of meaning.
A man like him, who I will name Adewale, which means the crown has come home, would not have moved through life unnoticed.
His daily life would have been structured. He would have woken with purpose tied to his family, his role, and his community. There would have been expectation placed on him, and he would have understood what it meant to carry responsibility.
His religious and spiritual life might have been deeply connected to the unseen. He would have believed in the presence of ancestors, in guidance that extended beyond the physical world. Ritual, prayer, and reverence would not have been separate from daily life, but woven into it.
And when it came to family, he would have understood connection as something sacred. Not optional. Not fragile. But central to who he was.
And then, in a moment he could not have prepared for, everything changed.
A bit about the Yoruba Kingdom in Nigeria:
What is now called Nigeria was not a single place, but a network of powerful Yoruba city-states, each with its own leadership, language, and structure.
These were not people wandering without identity. They lived in organized societies with kings, councils, markets, and spiritual systems that shaped daily life.
By the late 1700s and early 1800s, when my ancestors would have lived there, these societies were both thriving and fracturing. Wars between neighboring states created instability, and many people were captured and taken to the coast.
That is the moment where history shifts.
Where a man who had a place in the world became a man removed from it.
Yoruba: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yoruba
Oyo Empire: https://www.britannica.com/place/Oyo-empire