Nupe in Saint Domingue

The Nupe, known in Saint Domingue as Tapa or Taqua, the former derived from a Yoruba appellation for them, also had a presence there before the 1770s. The above example, from the corpus of runaway notices on this excellent site, indicates that by 1766, an enslaved Nupe (or Atapa) man, Jupiter, had run away. This early appearance of the Nupe coincides with the appearance of a Gambery (Gambary) maroon the same year. While we need to find evidence of Nupe and Hausa in Saint Domingue from earlier plantation records and sales, this does suggest that people from areas north of Oyo were being sold along the Slave Coast. In small numbers, yes, and still referred to by the label known via Yoruba-speakers, but illustrative of how the slave trading network of Oyo intersected with both the Atlantic and the northern regions. Oyo, in exchange for horses, slaves and other goods, was an intermediary the Nupe and Hausa to the north would have engaged with for access to European goods from the coast (although European products were also crossing the Sahara via the trans-Saharan trade routes). 

What is particularly interesting about the Nupe in Saint-Domingue is the mention of "Nago-Taqua" captives in 1773 and 1778 in the runaway slave ads posted in Affiches américaines. Bringing to mind the pattern in 19th century Cuba where Lucumi-Jausa, Lucumi-Tapa and other combinations appear in the archive, this almost certainly reflects the centuries-long interactions between Nupe and Yoruba groups. It could also reflect, perhaps, a Nupe person who had been enslaved in Oyo for some length of time before being sold on the coast. It makes one wonder if some of the people categorized as being of the "Nago" nation in Saint Domingue may have been of Nupe, Bariba or Hausa origins.