Lost history · 1818–1834 · Disputed
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In 1818 a Benin chief came to Akure carrying white chalk to announce a new Oba. He never went home. What happened to him brought a Benin army to the gates, cost the Deji his head, and made Akure a vassal for decades.
Akure, today the capital of Ondo State, tells its beginning through a prince from Ile-Ife called Omoremilekun, remembered in tradition as a descendant of Oduduwa. Before him, the area was a scatter of small communities that each ran their own affairs. He drew them together and became the first Ajapada of Akure, and his line ruled for generations after him.
To the south-east stood the kingdom of Benin, big and strong. For a long time the two got along. Akure acknowledged the Oba of Benin by sending tribute, and the Oba kept in touch through messengers. It was a lopsided friendship, but a calm one.
In Benin, every new Oba sent out a token called the Chalk of Good Tidings to the rulers and village heads under him. It was a way of saying, I am king now. Accepting it meant you stayed loyal. Refusing it, or failing to send the levy of provisions that was due twice a year, was treated as rebellion and could bring punishment.
Oba Osemwende took the throne in Benin in 1816. In 1818 he sent a palace chief named Osague, from the Iwebo Chancellery, to Akure with the chalk. The Deji of Akure at the time was Arakale, who had ruled since 1769, almost fifty years. That is the plain version. Not every historian tells it that way. The Yoruba historian S. A. Akintoye wrote that Osague was actually sent to scold Akure for installing a Deji without first asking Benin's permission. So already, at the very start of this story, the sources pull in two directions. Was he a messenger bringing good news, or an officer sent to tell Akure off? The answer shapes how you read everything that came next.
Osague arrived dressed in the full regalia of a Benin chief and handed the chalk to Arakale. Then something small went badly wrong. According to the Benin historian Jacob Egharevba, one of Osague's wives got into an argument with a woman selling tobacco. The argument grew into a wider fight, and in the middle of it Osague was killed. Arakale took his coral beads, which in Benin were a sign of rank and royal favour. Other accounts put the blame more squarely on Arakale, saying he started the confrontation that led to the envoy's death.
It was not the only trouble. Around the same time, a Benin trader named Ogonto was attacked in the Akure market, and the riot that followed left several Bini residents dead. Something similar happened at Igbara-Odo, where more Bini people were killed and their property burned. When the news of Osague's death reached Benin City, Oba Osemwende ordered war.
He did not send a small force. The Benin army marched under three senior commanders, the Ezomo, whose holder at the time was Erebor, the Ologbosere, and the Imaran, with two front commanders, Imadiyi and Oyodo, leading their own divisions. Egharevba records that they came in by different roads, the Ezomo by way of Okearo, the Ologbosere by Okelisa, and the Imaran by Isikan and Isinkin. Benin also had help from outside: men and supplies from Ikere in eastern Yorubaland and from Irrua, an Esan chiefdom. The Onojie of Uromi helped too, and the Oba later rewarded him with the right to inherit the property of childless people in Uromi.
The Akure army under Arakale fought back. But the Benin plan was to surround the town and close in from every side, and it worked. The Deji's palace was destroyed, and the town was taken by assault. A cannonball now kept in the Benin City National Museum may be linked to that attack on the palace, according to Egharevba's writings.
Arakale was captured and beheaded. His son, Adesoro, also called Osupa, was carried off as a captive to Benin. The army crushed resistance in the surrounding towns, including Ilawe and Igbara-Odo, and took away captives, livestock and valuables. From then on Akure had to pay a yearly tribute of slaves, ivory and coral. It had lost its independence and become a vassal of Benin.
Benin did not stop there. Imadiyi and Oyodo set up a base at Otun, and from there they pushed on into Ekiti and other parts of eastern Yorubaland. Several towns came under Benin, and their rulers had to send tribute too. One historian notes that this tribute kept flowing until the British occupation in 1897, and that the Deji of Akure himself came to play a key part in collecting it for the Oba.
That last detail has a story behind it. In 1834, about sixteen years after the war, the Oba of Benin let Adesoro, Arakale's son, go free and made him Deji of Akure. He took the title Osupa I, with the added words "Osupa lati Ado wa". He was given duties tied to Benin's rule over Ekiti. So the son of the man Benin had executed went home as the new king, now working for Benin.
There was someone in his way. A man named Orhuon, said in some accounts to be a son of a Benin Oba and perhaps the figure Akure remembers as Osuon, had already declared himself Deji. When he heard that Osupa was coming with the Oba's own representatives, he took his own life. Osupa took the throne. The quarrel that may have started with a tobacco seller in the market had come full circle, with a captive prince crowned in his father's town.
