Iwofa: An Historical Survey of the Yoruba Institution of Indenture

The existing accounts of the iwofa system are generally concerned with three issues. First, they stress the contractual nature of the system with a view to establishing that iwofa was an institution distinct from slavery. Second, they argue that an iwofa, a person rendering service to a creditor in lieu of interest on a loan received, cannot be aptly described as a pawn in the sense common in England where goods (not persons) are held, but not used, by the creditor as a security for a debt. Third, they make generalized statements about the composite function of iwofa as a system of credit alleviating the hardships of the poor and the needy, and also providing facilities for apprenticeship and education, apart from being a source of labor supply in a society without a system of wage labor. By and large these accounts, though useful, are synchronic, for they provide precious little evidence on the growth of the institution over the years and, in consequence, fail to bring into focus the increasing significance which the institution began to acquire as a source of labor supply, especially in the realm of agriculture and related industries, from the 1890s when, as a result of the British penetration of the Yoruba interior, the institution of domestic slavery which had hitherto2 provided the bulk of the labor force began to disintegrate. This article seeks to overcome the limitations of existing analyses by viewing iwofa not as a static but as a dynamic social institution.