Ọ̀yọ́ Ile

Ọ̀yọ́ Ile was the capital of the Oyo Empire, its palace and market enclosed by great earthen walls. From the Aafin, the palace, the Alaafin, meaning lord of the palace, ruled as king and judge over a state whose cavalry and political reach extended far beyond the northern Yoruba country. Several lines of walls and ditches enclosed the city, and the Akesan market was one of the largest in the region.

Oyo's rise followed a period of adversity. Tradition recalls that Nupe forces drove the royal court out of Ọ̀yọ́ Ile and that it lived in exile at Igboho until a later Alaafin led it back. In the following generations Oyo expanded towards the coast and exerted power over Dahomey. In the early nineteenth century Afonja, an Oyo commander based at Ilorin, rebelled against the Alaafin. The followers of a Muslim scholar joined his cause, and Ilorin became an emirate that the Alaafin never won back. Raiders led by the chief Lanloke of Ogodo then twice attacked the capital, which held out, but its people understood they could not do so for long and nearly all of them fled. The royal family went south to found New Oyo, and the raiders came back a third time to plunder what was left. By the 1830s the old capital stood abandoned.