Olu Omoluyiri

Omoluyiri (also rendered Omoluyere) was an Olu of the Kingdom of Warri, or Iwere, in the western Niger Delta. The current palace chronology counts him as the ninth Olu, places him after Oyenakpagha and before Abejoye, and conventionally dates his reign to about 1654–1674. It also identifies him by the Portuguese name Dom Matias Ludovico.

Sources do not agree on whether the Dom Matias recorded by seventeenth-century missionaries was Omoluyiri or his successor, Abejoye. The missionaries who lived in Warri from 1656 to 1660 identify the reigning Olu only as Dom Matias and do not record his Itsekiri throne name. The palace chronology identifies this ruler as Omoluyiri. Fonseca, however, lists Omoluyere and Abejoye as successive rulers, gives no Portuguese name for Omoluyere and identifies Abejoye instead as Dom Matias. It is therefore uncertain which Itsekiri ruler the missionaries encountered. The precise reign dates and family relationships assigned to Omoluyiri and Abejoye are likewise not securely established.

Names and chronology

The spelling Omoluyiri and the reign dates 1654–1674 come from the received palace chronology. Fonseca uses the form Omoluyere and dates him only to the 17th century. Neither form occurs in the surviving European documents concerning the rulers of Warri in the 1650s and 1660s. The palace chronology places him after Oyenakpagha, whom it identifies with Dom Antonio Domingos, and describes the two rulers as brothers. An account based on information from 1644 identifies Antonio as the reigning Olu and describes him as a son of Dom Domingos (Atuwatse I) and a Portuguese woman. A later narrative by the Capuchin Bonaventura da Firenze instead says that the former Olu's Portuguese wife died in childbirth with her child, after which he had children by African women. According to Bonaventura, the eldest son, named Matias, was seven or eight when his father died. Court officials retained the government for nine years while the boy held the royal title, transferring full authority to him when he was about eighteen.

Kenny concludes that the sources allow at least three reconstructions: Matias may have been the same ruler as Antonio Domingos; the two may have been half-brothers and sons of Domingos; or Matias may have been Antonio's son. He notes that Bonaventura did not know the former Olu's name with certainty.

The revival of Catholic practice remained closely dependent on the court. Many people were unwilling to abandon polygyny or local spirit cults, and Angelo reported his disappointment with the mission in February 1659. When people challenged the friars to begin by persuading the Olu to enter a Christian marriage, he said that he would marry only a white woman, following the example associated with his father. One of the friars travelled to São Tomé and arranged a marriage to a 20-year-old woman who consented with her parents' approval. Her arrival was publicly celebrated at Warri and was followed by increased demand for Christian marriages.

The woman is identified in the missionary sources only as a resident of São Tomé. A later Capuchin account characterised her as poor but respected for her conduct and appearance; it does not describe her as a Portuguese noblewoman.

The mission ended through conflict with Portuguese ecclesiastical and commercial interests rather than a rejection by the Olu. After the friars excommunicated the captain of a Portuguese trading vessel in 1659, he accused them of conspiring with the Dutch. They left their liturgical equipment at Warri as an assurance that they would return, but were detained after reaching São Tomé in early 1660 and never resumed the mission.

Appeal of 1673 and succession

In October 1673 the Olu gave a visiting Franciscan, Sebastião dos Reis, a letter to the king of Portugal. He complained that no priest had come to Warri for more than ten years, that many converts had returned to non-Christian practices and that Portuguese ships now called only about once every three years, usually in passing. He asked for renewed missionary and commercial contact. The Portuguese Overseas Council agreed that missionaries should be sent but replied that the crown could not compel merchants to trade at Warri.

Fonseca treats this appeal as having been made by Dom Matias. It received no effective response until 1684, when the Capuchin Francesco da Monteleone accompanied a new bishop to São Tomé and subsequently travelled to Warri. Fonseca identifies the Olu then reigning as Dom Ludovico Domingos. The palace chronology places Omoluyiri's death or succession in 1674 and says that Abejoye, described as his son, followed him. Those details are part of the received royal list rather than facts independently established by the surviving 17th-century documents; in Fonseca's alternative table, Abejoye is himself the ruler identified as Dom Matias.