Ondo

Ondo was a Yoruba kingdom in the forest south-east of Ife, centred on Ode Ondo. Its origins were linked by tradition to the royal house of Ile-Ife.

In the sixteenth century, according to one tradition, Princess Pupupu was exiled for bearing twins and led followers to Ile-Oluji. Remembered as Ondo's first Osemawe, she was displaced by her son Airo, who built the palace and organised royal houses. Ondo remained independent of regional powers; in the nineteenth century the slave trade and population movements shifted power towards slaveholding.