The Rise of the Yoruba: African Warfare in Bahia and Cuba, 1807–44

This paper introduces the two cycles of slave movements that took place in Salvador de Bahia in Brazil from 1807, and around Havana and Matanzas in Cuba from the early 1820s. The paper will reveal how the Lucumí and the Nagô (Yoruba) became the undisputed protagonists –and leaders- of the vast majority of these movements, and it will also examine the organization, weaponry and tactics used by the rebels by looking at the area of Yorubaland and neighboring territories, drawing comparisons and establishing connections.

It is apparent that many of these movements were undertaken and led by newly arrived African slaves, who in some cases had barely spent days or even hours in their new places of destination. I will compare the existing descriptions of the Yoruba armies –and those of their immediate neighbors in West Africa- with the events that took place in Bahia and Cuba. I will also compare the organization of the armies and their limitations (i.e. the creation of cavalries in the New World was almost impossible due to the limitations imposed by the slave control in both Cuba and Bahia, the access to easy weaponry and its use according to West African warfare and their tactics, etc.)

Finally I will pay attention to the military operations of these armies, at their tactics and strategies, at their ways of recruitment, back-up plans, etc. All these elements will ultimately shed light upon what can only be considered the transplantation of West African Warfare in the New World.