IJESHA (IJESA/ILESA) PEOPLE: THE ANCIENT MILITARISTIC AND EXPERT TRADING YORUBA PEOPLE WHO FORMS THE LARGE PORTION OF THE YORUBA PEOPLE IN BRAZIL AND THE CARIBBEANS
The Ijesha (Ijesa)are ancient militaristic, agriculturalists and expert trading Yoruboid-speaking people that form a sub-ethnic of the larger Yoruba people of West Africa, particularly Nigeria and Benin. The Ijesa are predominantly from the city and environs of Ilesha (Ilesa) and the historic Kingdom of Ilesha in the same area. Ijesa people forms the largest chunk of sub-Yoruba ethnic group that were shipped into slavery in Americas and the Caribbeans.
The city of Ilesa was described by Rev. Williams Howard Clark in 1854 as: "For its cleanliness, regularity in breath and width, and the straightness of its streets, the ancient city of Ilesa far surpasses any native town I have seen in Africa."
Ijesa people are said to have migrated from Ile Ife, the cradle of Yoruba people, to build their Ilesaland (which is one of the oldest Yorubaland) in its present-day location in Osun State. According to tradition, Owa Ajibogun or Owa (“King”) who was one of the 16 sons of the deity Oduduwa founded Ilesha.  The standard version of tradition among the Ijesa themselves traces the origin of the Ijesas state to a younger son of Oduduwa called Obokun (Owa's ancestor), in commemoration of an occasion on which he fetched sea water to cure his father's blindness. Obokun then settled in what was to become Ijesaland. He found, like other founding heroes, pre-existing political structures including a confederacy of five towns in the Obokun area. Obokun himself is so central to the Ijesas that they call themselves Omo Obokun (Children of Obokun).
Ijesa military prowess is summed up in this war song "Ijesha ree arogun yooo..ye so'gbodo fowo kan omo obokun ri a......" "An old Yoruba community, Ilesha was an important and major military centre in the campaigns against Ibadan, 60 miles (97 km) west-Southwest in the 19th-century Yoruba civil wars. A leading member of a confederacy known as the Ekitiparapo meaning 'Ekiti together'. This combined forces of the Ijesa and Ekiti was formed to fight for the independence of their people. The town has a memorial to Ogedengbe, an Ijesa warrior-leader who died in 1910. Ogedengbe played a vital role during the kiriji war of the 19th century, which prevented Ilesa and other towns from being conquered and dominated by Ibadan and other powerful regions
The principle of self help, which was elevated to a philosophy of action by the aggressively individualistic Ijesa in the inter-war years, was to assist the socio-economic development of Ijesaland and to make the Ijesa very cautious towards, if not totally suspicious of all governments be it local, regional or national in the post war and pre-independence era. This explains why the few commercial and industrial establishments in Ijesaland today are owned largely by the Ijesa themselves. Indeed, with the exception of the recent Federal Government efforts to exploit the gold deposits at Itagunmodi and Igun in Atakumosa Local Government area, there are virtually no government-sponsored commercial and industrial undertakings in the whole of Ijesaland."
Ijesa from Ije Orisa (the food of the gods). They are described as stumpy, muscular, and sheepish-looking, with a marked want of intelligence : they never offered any resistance to this system, hence the saying "Ijesa Omo Owaju ti ife opo iyk " (Ijesas children of Owaju, subject to much sufferings). There is also a legend that when the nations began to disperse from Ile Ife and members of the Royal Family were appointed kings and rulers in diverse places, a young and brave scion of the house was appointed the first Owa or king over the Ijesas, but that he returned to the alafin and complained that his territory was too small, and his subjects few, the sire thereupon ordered a large bundle of sticks to be brought to him, and these sticks he converted into human beings for the Owa, in order to increase the number of his subjects. Hence to this day the Ijesas are often termed by their neighbours " Qmo igi " (offspring of sticks !)
