Oluewu
Yoruba · mortal · oyo empire · Recorded classification
Oluewu is where the Oyo empire stops. He inherited a state that had been losing provinces for twenty years and decided to reverse it in the only way a defeat of that kind can be reversed, by going at Ilorin — the town Afonja had taken out and the Fulani had kept — and the attempt destroyed what was left. The detail the sources keep is his son riding up to salute him inside the encirclement before going into the fighting, which is the kind of thing that survives a battle when nothing else does. After 1835 there is no imperial Oyo; there is Atiba's town.
Domains
- sovereignty
- warfare
Sources
- Oluewu is the Alaafin of Oyo from 1833 to 1835 whose defeat and death at the Battle of Ilorin in 1835, alongside his eldest son, marked the end of Oyo's imperial period.: Reference treatments of Oluewu's reign and of the Battle of Ilorin of 1835. (secondary)