ABSTRACT
On 23 January 1826 Captain Hugh Clapperton, R.N., accompanied by his servant Richard Lander, an English merchant from the Benin River, Mr Houtson, and a small party of Africans, reached Oyo Ile after traveling for forty-seven days, at first by canoe and then by horse and on foot, from Badagry up the road which was the main artery of the trade of the Oyo kingdom. From the north gate to the palace was an hour’s ride, or about five miles, much of the intervening ground being ‘open and cultivated’. The complex events in the half-century which elapsed between the death of Abiodun and the abandonment of Oyo Ile, covering the reigns of six Alafin and one interregnum in the kingship, are described in detail by Johnson. The ruin of Oyo was of tragic moment for the whole Yoruba country, involving the other kingdoms as well as Oyo itself.
