Saro people

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Saros (Nigeria)
)

The Saro, or Nigerian Creoles of the 19th and early 20th centuries, were

Sierra Leone Creoles, with ancestral roots to the Yoruba people of Nigeria.[1]

A related community of people were likewise known as Amaro, and were migrants from Brazil and Cuba.[2] Saro and Amaro also settled in other West African countries such as the Gold Coast (

Igbos, Hausa and Nupe
.

The returnees mostly resided in the Lagos Colony, with substantial populations in Abeokuta and Ibadan. Some also settled in Calabar, Port Harcourt and other cities in the Niger Delta. Though many were originally dedicated Anglophiles in Nigeria, they later adopted an indigenous and patriotic attitude on Nigerian affairs due to a rise in discrimination in the 1880s,[3] and were later known as cultural nationalists.

Life in Sierra Leone

An 1835 illustration of liberated slaves arriving in Sierra Leone.

While living in Sierra Leone, many

Ajayi Crowther furthered the evangelical interest of many Sierra Leoneans towards Nigeria, many of them having joined the missionaries and their effort.[4]

Life in Lagos and Abeokuta

Lagos was a strategic and important

Binis, and the Egbas. Trade with Europeans also fueled the commercial rise of the city.[5] By 1880, Lagos had already become a cosmopolitan city. Sierra Leonean immigrants started moving to Lagos in the 1840s. Many of the immigrants were of Egba and Oyo heritage, and some were familiar with Yoruba
traditions and culture. They assimilated fairly well with the Yorubas, and coupled with an earlier training and interaction with the British in Sierra Leone, they were able to become part of the colonial society. The returnees were generally focused on trade and rose to become commercial middlemen between residents of Lagos, Abeokuta and the British colony in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

In Lagos, the Saro chose Ebute Metta, Olowogbowo, and Yaba as primary settlements.[6] Mostly of Egba heritage, they established a few of the oldest churches in Lagos and also expanded the missionary work of the British in Nigeria. The Saro also emerged as a dominant commercial group in Lagos. Having developed a migratory forte, they had an edge as travelers who were able to go into the interiors to meet directly with various commodity producers and traders. They were the pioneer Southern Nigerian traders in Kola, a cash crop that later emerged as a viable and important export commodity for the Western region in the early twentieth century.[7] The Saro introduced the crop which was bought from Hausa traders across the River Niger into Southern Nigerian agriculture. The first Kola farm and the dominant trading firm in Kola were both orchestrated by Saros.[7] Their owner, Mohammed Shitta Bey, was himself a Saro. The Saros also did not drop their yearning for Western education as they dominated the ranks of professions open to Africans. They were lawyers, doctors, and civil servants.[8][9][10]

Skirmishes in western Nigeria

Early on, the Saro who had acquired Western education and European cultural mores during their time in Sierra Leone, began to show paternal characteristics in their relationship with native residents of Lagos. The perceived disrespect extended to some Lagos citizens led to the Saro being expelled from Lagos in the 1850s, although they soon returned.

In 1867, another conflict emerged, this time in

Ago Egba, an Egba colony, in Ebute Metta. Prior to the conflict, a few notable Saros and the English missionary Henry Townsend, played prominent roles as advisers to the council of chiefs in Abeokuta.[citation needed
]

Life in the delta

The Niger delta was a little bit dissimilar to Lagos and western Nigeria where the Yorubas were dominant. Lagos was much more

clergymen
and others were transferred for administrative duty.

The Saro emerged in the city as pioneers of African commerce as they became suppliers to the residents of the new city. However, life in Port Harcourt was rough for many Saro. Some came to the city as workers for British merchant houses and the colonial government. However, there was no job security afforded the immigrants in the new city. Some Saro workers were retired without

idealistic revolt against the British was led among the missionaries by James Johnson
, who decried excessive British interference in the affairs of the missionary society and who wanted more African involvement in promoting Christianity.

Notable Saro people

Amaro

Unlike the Saro who were principally from Sierra Leone, the Amaro, who were sometimes called

Portuguese and Spanish names
in Nigeria, and even once had Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking populations there.

The Brazilian returnees were notably technically skilled

architectural designs, two-story buildings and bungalows with stucco facades. The Brazilian returnees also popularized the use of Cassava as a food crop.[13] They had pioneered trade with Brazil in the mid-nineteenth century. By the 1880s however, ruinous competitors and an economic downturn had forced many to abandon the export trade. Agriculture soon became an avenue to supplement shortfalls in economic activity. They also introduced cocoa plantations together with the Saro J. P. L. Davies
.

Prominent Amaro include Oloye Sir Adeyemo Alakija and Chief Antonio Deinde Fernandez.

See also

References

  1. .
  2. ^ .
  3. ^ Matory, Lorand, "The English Professors of Brazil: On the Diasporic Roots of the Yoruba Nation", Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 41, No. 1, January 1999, p. 89.
  4. . Retrieved 2021-09-15.
  5. ^ Faluyi, Kehinde, Migrants and the Economic Development of Lagos, From the Earliest of Times to 1880, p. 1.
  6. ^ Faluyi, p. 9.
  7. ^ a b Agiri, Babatunde "The Introduction of Nitida Kola into Nigerian Agriculture, 1880–1920", African Economic History, No. 3, Spring 1977, p. 1.
  8. ^ Sawada, Nozomi (PhD thesis, Univ. of Birmingham, 2012)Sawada, Nozomi (2012). The educated elite and associational life in early Lagos newspapers : in search of unity for the progress ofsociety. ethos.bl.uk (British Library) (Ph.D).
  9. ^ a b Dixon-Fyle, Mac, "The Saro in the Political Life of Early Port Harcourt, 1913–49", The Journal of African History, Vol. 30, No. 1, p. 126.
  10. ^ Derrick, Jonathan, "The 'Native Clerk' in Colonial West Africa", African Affairs, Vol. 82, No. 326, p. 65.
  11. ^ Derrick, Jonathan, "The 'Native Clerk' in Colonial West Africa", African Affairs, Vol. 82, No. 326, p. 65.
  12. The Journal of American Folklore
    , Vol. 97, No. 383, January 1984, p. 6.
  13. ^ Faluyi, pp. 11, 12.