Nigeria Emigration and Immigration

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Emigration and Immigration

Online Records

• Immigrant Ancestors Project
• 1878-1960 UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960 at Ancestry - index & images ($)
• 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at Findmypast - index & images ($); includes those with Destination of Nigeria

British Overseas Subjects

• British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, Nigeria, index & images ($)
• British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, Africa at Findmypast - index & images ($)
• British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages, Africa at Findmypast - index & images ($)

• British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages, Nigeria, index & images ($)

• British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials at Findmypast - index & images ($)

Immigration to Nigeria

The British Colony of Lagos

• Lagos Colony was a British colonial possession centered on the port of Lagos in what is now southern Nigeria.
• Lagos was declared a colony on 5 March 1862. By 1872 Lagos was a cosmopolitan trading center with a population over 60,000. Lagos became the capital of the Protectorate of Nigeria in January 1914.
• By 1872 the population of the colony was over 60,000, of whom less than 100 were of European origin.
• Colonial Lagos developed into a busy, cosmopolitan port, with an architecture that blended Victorian and Brazilian styles. The Brazilian element was imparted by skilled builders and masons who had returned from Brazil.
• The black elite was composed of English-speaking "Saros" from Sierra Leone and other emancipated slaves who had been repatriated from Brazil and Cuba.

Afro-Cubans

See also: Cuba Emigration and Immigration – Wiki page with additional larger databases which also include Nigerians

• African countries such as Nigeria, the home of the Yoruba and Igbo cultures, and Spanish Guinea experienced an influx of ex-slaves from Cuba brought there as indentured servants during the 17th century, and again during the 19th century. In Spanish Guinea, they became part of the Emancipados; in Nigeria, they were called Amaros. Despite being free to return to Cuba when their tenure was over, they remained in these countries marrying into the local indigenous population.

Brazilians in Nigeria

See also: Brazil Emigration and Immigration – Wiki page with additional larger databases which also include Nigerians

• Brazilians in Nigeria, Amaros or Agudas consist of the descendants of freed Afro-Brazilian slaves who left Brazil and settled in Nigeria. The term Brazilians in Nigeria can also otherwise refer to first generation expatriates from Brazil.
• Starting from the 1830s, many emancipated Africans who had been through forced labour and discrimination in Brazil began moving back to Lagos. These emancipated Africans were often called "Aguda" or "Amaro", and also included returnees from Cuba.
• At the height of the Transatlantic slave trade in West Africa, many prisoners of war or those kidnapped for sale in slave markets were sold to Europeans and transported across the Atlantic. Estimates of the number of slaves from the Gulf of Guinea to Brazil totaled about 300,000 in the nineteenth century. The captives disembarked in Bahia before moving further south to work on plantations, assist tradesmen or hawk goods for white Brazilians. As some gained manumission, earned savings or got deported as a result of racism, waves of African migration back to the West African coast developed.
• The first recorded repatriation of African people from Brazil to what is now Nigeria was a government-led deportation in 1835 in the aftermath of a Yoruba and Hausa rebellion in the city of Salvador known as the Malê Revolt. After the rebellion, the Brazilian government - fearful of further insurrection - allowed freed or manumitted Africans the option to return home or keep paying an exorbitant tax to the government. A few Africans who were free and had saved some money were able to return to Africa as a result of the tough conditions, taxation, racism and homesickness. In 1851, 60 Mina Africans put together $4,000 to charter a ship for Badagry.
• After slavery was abolished in Cuba and Brazil in 1886 and 1888 respectively, further migration to Lagos continued. Many of the returnees chose to return to Nigeria for cultural, missionary and economic reasons. Many of them descended from the Yoruba. In Lagos, they were given the watery terrains of Popo Aguda as their settlement. By the 1880s, they comprised about 9% of the population of Lagos. Towards the end of 1920, the migration stopped.
• When Agudas arrived from Bahia and Pernambuco, they took up residence on the Eastern parts of Lagos on land provided by Oba Ojulari. In 1852, this region was demarcated as the Brazilian quarters (what later came to be known as Popo Aguda).
• Popo Aguda was also a commercial center of trade, serving as a distribution center for imported goods. A sister community of Brazilians also exists in Ago Egba, the Egba colony in Lagos, which is located on the mainland in Ebute Metta.

Emigration From Nigeria

• Today millions of ethnic Nigerians live abroad, the largest communities can be found in the United Kingdom' (500,000–3,000,000) and the United States (600,000–1,000,000 Nigerians), other countries that followed closely are South Africa, Gambia, and Canada respectively.
• There are between 90,000 and 100,000 Nigerians in Brazil, many of them living illegally without proper documentation.
• Additionally, there were around 100,000 Nigerians living in China in 2012, mostly in the city of Guangzhou, but have since declined to about 10,000.
• There are also large groups in Ireland, Portugal and many other countries.
• Inspiration for emigration is based heavily on socio-economical issues such as warfare, insecurity, economical instability and civil unrest.
• Between 1400–1900, of 1.4 million of 2 million emigrants were slaves sent to the Americas. This is due to the fact that the land now known as Nigeria was a central point for four slave trades during the 19th century.
• Though bondage represented a great deal, an estimated 30,000 Nigerian inhabitants would relocate to Kano City and Gambia to take advantage of financial opportunities afforded by fertile land and available natural resources.
• What's more, the presence of gold mines and rail lines along the Gold Coast, present-day Ghana, attracted an estimated 6,500 Nigerian citizens to attain financial gain and opportunity. The population of Nigerians in Ghana rose to roughly 149,000 before the 1969 alien expulsion order would displace nearly the entire population to surrounding countries.

Nigerian Americans

• The first people of ancestry from what is now modern Nigeria to arrive in what is now the modern United States were brought by force as slaves.
• Most of the slaves of Bight of Biafra – many of whom hailed from the Igbo hinterland – were trafficked to Virginia.
• Most of the people who were kidnapped from Nigeria were likely to have been, Igbo or Yoruba. The Igbo were exported mainly to Maryland and Virginia. They comprised the majority of all enslaved Africans in Virginia during the 18th century: of the 37,000 Africans trafficked to Virginia from Calabar during the eighteenth century, 30,000 were Igbo.
• In the next century, people of Igbo descent were taken with settlers who moved to Kentucky. According to some historians, the Igbo also comprised most of the slaves in Maryland.
• Other ethnic groups, such as the Fulani and Edo people were also captured and transported to the colonies in the New World.
• Lot of Nigerians of Igbo origin were also brought into the U.S. in the late 1960s as war refugees during Nigerian civil war.
• When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, U.S. restrictions on immigration from regions outside of Northwestern Europe were eliminated, allowing for a greater number of Nigerians in the United States.
• The modern generation of Nigerian migrants was initially motivated by the desire to pursue educational opportunities in undergraduate and postgraduate institutions in the United States. During the 1960s and the 1970s, the Nigerian government funded the education of Nigerian students attending U.S. universities. Government instability resulted in many Nigerian professionals emigrating, especially doctors, lawyers and academics, who found it difficult to return to Nigeria.
• During the mid- to late-1980s, a larger wave of Nigerians immigrated to the United States, fleeing on account of religious persecutions, endless political unrests and ethnic/tribal conflicts, the presumption of Nigeria as a failing state, or just to enhance the quality of lives for themselves and their families. The most noticeable exodus occurred among professional and middle-class Nigerians who, along with their children, took advantage of education and employment opportunities in the United States.
• Since 1980, the estimated population of foreign-born Nigerians has grown from 25,000 to 392,811 in 2019.

Nigerian Canadians

• Nigerians began migrating to Canada during the 1967–1970 Biafra War.
• 3,919 landed immigrants of Nigerian nationality arrived in Canada from 1973 to 1991.
• There is a significant number of Nigerians living in the Greater Toronto Area, especially in Brampton and Etobicoke.
• In the 2016 Census, 51,800 people identified themselves as Nigerians, with over half living in Ontario.
• There has also been a steady increase in the number of Nigerians living in the western cities of Canada, such as Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg.
• There are many more Nigerians in Canada, who identified themselves by their tribe instead of their country - such as 9,600 as Yoruba, 5,600 as Igbo, and 1,900 as Edo.

Records of Nigerian Emigrants in Their Destination Nations

One option is to look for records about the ancestor in the country of destination, the country they immigrated into. See links to Wiki articles about immigration records for major destination countries below. Additional Wiki articles for other destinations can be found at Category:Emigration and Immigration Records.

United States Emigration and Immigration Canada Emigration and Immigration South Africa Emigration and Immigration Gambia Emigration and Immigration Brazil Emigration and Immigration China Emigration and Immigration Ireland Emigration and Immigration

Australia Emigration and Immigration Portugal Emigration and Immigration Australia Emigration and Immigration Netherlands Emigration and Immigration England Emigration and Immigration Ghana Emigration and Immigration Vietnam Emigration and Immigration