Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, General Research and Reference Division

Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston, Liberia , vol. I (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1906)

In the United States, the region of the Slave Coast or Bight of Benin (Togo, Benin, southwest Nigeria) was of minor importance even though this was one of the most important sources of enslaved Africans for the rest of the Americas. The area included Yoruba, Ewe/Fon/Allada, and other people brought from the far interior, including Muslims. The fact that almost none of these people were to be found in North America marks an important difference between the origins of Africans in the United States and elsewhere. While the Bight of Benin accounts for some immigrants to the United States, they are very few by comparison with their substantial numbers in Cuba, Saint Domingue, Trinidad, and Brazil.