Remigio Herrera

Ño Remigio Herrera Adeshina Obara Meyi (1811/1816 – 1905) was a babalawo (Yoruba priest) recognized for being, along with his mentor Carlos Adé Ño Bí (birth name, Corona), the main successor of the religious system of Ifá in America. Ño Remigio Herrera was perhaps the most famous surviving African in Cuba in the 19th century. Ño, synonymous to "Sir", was a title of distinction, a term of respect and endearment bestowed upon the great native elders of the African "nations" on the island. His name "Adeshina" means "Crown-Opens-The-Way" in Yoruba.

Early life Herrera was born in Ijesha, in Osun state, in present-day Nigeria. Shortly before being caught by his captors in Africa, and the imminence of his future slavery, Adeshina quickly swallowed the representative basis of orisha Orula or Orunmila to carry with him to his new destination. This decision, and his display of intelligence on American soil buyers, subsequently constitutes the fundamental line of historical and religious continuity of Ifa diaspora with its African source.

Ño Remigio Herrera was sold into slavery in the early 1830s. According to certificates of baptism of the parish church of Nueva Paz, "Remigio Lucumí" was baptized in 1833. "Lucumí" was the nation-name given to the Yoruba in the four-hundred-year-old slave trade. Historians claim that Africans were often subject to three years of "preparation" for baptism, including Spanish language learning to carry out the required catechumens for baptism. Therefore, the probable year of arrival of Adeshina (Corona Gunning) to Cuba was 1830. He labored for twenty years on the giant plantation owned by Don Miguel Antonio Herrera in Nueva Paz, located in the fertile commercial crossroads between three bustling colonial cities: Trinidad, Havana, and Matanzas. He was recognized for his intelligence and extraordinary gifts and was sent to Havana to attend to his master's business.

In Rule, Adeshina cultivated good relations with the Spanish owner of a winery, and met Carlos Adé Ño Bí, a freedman, who had been the butler and personal confidant of the Spanish. Carlos Adé Bí was not only a mentor of Ifa divination to Adeshina, but also subsequently provided the financial resources to pay the price for his freedom around 1850. Ño Carlos Adé Bí Ojuani Boka was a priest of Ifa who negotiated his release before his Spanish master by displaying his skills with the use of Ifa divination tool, okpele or ekuele. He won his freedom after positively impressing two Spanish guests of his master, who were convinced of his intelligence. Ño Carlos had a bet with him that if he guessed to them accurately, would buy his freedom from his master, whom they considered particularly insensitive. Ño Carlos guessed exactly making a circular shells of okpele orange and branches of a vine, and the Spaniards avoided a precipitous loss in business and saved their fortunes. Cleverly, using valuable relationships, both took advantage of the security offered them in the winery, and used the back room to "wash" ritually, or "re-consecrating" the representative basis of orisha Orula or Orunmila which the young Adeshina had swallowed in Yorubaland and had subsequently defecated on the boat that had transported him along with other slaves.

Despite the training of Ifa that Adeshina Obara meyi had received in Yorubaland, Ño Carlos Adé Bí became his representative on the Cuban soil, and as his "godfather" they both formed a series of race relations and cross-class to ensure the back room of the winery as a ritual space, in a time when the sacred resources of lucumí, temples and his followers were still a critical mass, a significant population in Havana, in the second half of the 1830s. The town takes its name from the Holy Virgin of Regla, whose sanctuary was founded by the Spanish noble Antón Recio, who owned Regla's lands as early as the 1600s. A series of documents from 1900 also reveal the significant price of his home and other property. The house was valued at 115,000 pesos of Spanish gold and also showed rental income from other properties of six silver pesos monthly. Adeshina also owned other landed property unoccupied at Calle Morales (later renamed Street Perdomo) valued at 300 pesos of gold. Its economically independent position suggested by the fact that the mortgage, as seen in the pages 492, No. 32, November 12, 1900; and No. 1600 of the City of Rule, province of Havana, were related to urban properties.

As a result of Adeshina's significant social connections, prominent Cuban elites witnessed his marriage on October 26, 1891, including Matanzas Francisca Burlet, a white businessman, a magistrate, a pharmacist and a butler. In the marriage certificate, his birth date is stated as 1816.