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During the slave trade era, many Africans were taken as slaves abroad. While going, some left with their culture and tradition which they continued within the strange land where they found themselves. They continued with the culture and tradition of their fathers so as to maintain their identity.
The Yorubas in slavery are among the Africans that maintained their culture in the strange land and it was handed down to their children from generation to generation.
Many of their children, after the abolition of the slave trade, have married children of their former masters thus having children of mixed blood, that notwithstanding, they still carry on with their African culture in the foreign land since most of them cannot trace their roots back to Africa.
The Yoruba culture has been one of the most prominent and most celebrated throughout the world to date.
In the United States of America, there is a Yoruba community named Oyotunji African Village. It is located near Sheldon, Beaufort County, South Carolina. Oyotunji is regarded as North America’s oldest authentic African village. It was founded in 1970 and is the first intentional community in North America, based on the culture of the Yoruba and Dahomey tribes of West Africa. It has survived 48 years of sustaining the Yoruba traditional sociology and values in the diaspora.
The village is named after the Oyo Empire, and the name literally means “Oyo returns” or “Oyo rises again” or “Oyo resurrects”. The village occupies 27 acres of land.