Yorubas

Yorubas, a large Negro people of West Africa, occupying nearly the whole of the region on the Slave Coast between Badagry and the Benin river west and east, and extending inland to about 8° N. lat.; chief divisions: Egbas (capital, Abeokuta), Ketu towards the Dahomey frontier, Jebus about Lagos, Ibadans east of the Egbas, Ondos, Ileshas, and Ilorins towards the eastern frontier, and the Yorubas proper in the extreme north, whose empire (capital, Oyo) was overthrown early in the present century by the Mohammedan Fulahs. Since then the Yorubas have been broken into a number of petty states either warring with the Dahomans or at strife amongst themselves till 1890-92, when the whole nation accepted the British protectorate. The Yorubas are an extremely intelligent agricultural and trading people.