Remigio Herrera Adesina: This Yoruba Man Was A Slave In Cuba in the 1830s

Remigio Herrera Adesina was born in Ijesha land, Ekiti, western Nigeria in 1811 as the census record states. Contrarily, his marriage certificate annotates 1816 as his birth year.

Adesina was captured and shipped off to Cuba as a slave in the 1830s. It was in 1833 that his Yoruba birth name, Adesina, was changed to Remigio Lucumi. Lucumi was a common name given to Yoruba slaves in Cuba.

Remigio Herrera Adesina was enslaved for thirty years and worked during his slavery years for a Cuban slave master named Don Miguel Antonio Herrera. He dropped the slave name Lucumi and adopted his Master’s name, Herrera. He was later freed by an ex slave named Carlos Adé in 1850.

Adesina died in 1905 in Havana, Cuba.

Thanks for reading, OldNaija

Reference:

Remigio Herrera: The Nigerian slave who heavily influenced Cuba as a mystic in the 1800s – Face 2 Face Africa