Ṣọ̀pọ̀na worshippers in colonial Nigeria became the focus of an increasingly forceful government campaign against smallpox during the early decades of the twentieth century. One of the clearest episodes occurred in 1924, when 25 people in Ilaro Division of Abeokuta Province were arrested and convicted for practising Ṣọ̀pọ̀na worship.
The arrests belonged to a larger struggle over one of the most feared diseases in human history. For generations, Yoruba communities had understood smallpox partly through the religious institution associated with Ṣọ̀pọ̀na, an orisha closely linked with the disease. Colonial medical authorities, by contrast, increasingly relied on vaccination, sanitation, isolation and legal restrictions.
The resulting confrontation involved indigenous systems of healing, distrust of vaccination, imperfect colonial health services, allegations against certain priests, African medical professionals and the expanding coercive power of the colonial state.
At the centre of this history stood one of Nigeria’s pioneering doctors, Oguntola Odunbaku Sapara Williams.
Ṣọ̀pọ̀na and the Yoruba Understanding of Smallpox
Ṣọ̀pọ̀na, rendered in colonial sources in several forms including Sopona, Shopona and Sopono, was associated with smallpox and epidemic affliction in Yoruba religious thought.
Smallpox was terrifying. The disease could kill large numbers of people and leave survivors permanently scarred. Before the development of modern knowledge about the variola virus and its transmission, societies across the world created different explanations and practices for confronting it.
Within Yoruba communities, Ṣọ̀pọ̀na worship existed within a wider religious and therapeutic system. Priests associated with the deity could function as religious specialists and mediators in matters connected with disease, suffering and protection.
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British officials frequently described African religious institutions using terms such as “juju”. That language subsequently appeared in colonial legislation and administrative reports, reflecting the terminology of colonial government rather than the full meaning or complexity of Yoruba religious belief.
By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, colonial medical officers increasingly regarded some activities associated with Ṣọ̀pọ̀na worship as obstacles to smallpox control.
Dr Oguntola Sapara and the Epe Smallpox Crisis
Dr Oguntola Odunbaku Sapara Williams, born Alexander Johnson Williams in 1861, became one of the most significant Nigerian medical figures of the colonial period.
After medical training in Britain, he returned to Lagos and entered the colonial medical service in 1896 as an Assistant Colonial Surgeon. In 1897, he took charge of the medical district of Epe, an area repeatedly affected by outbreaks of smallpox.
Sapara later described Epe as a major centre of the disease. Vaccination and other precautions, he said, had not succeeded in bringing the outbreaks under control.
His response was extraordinary.
Sapara secretly joined the Ṣọ̀pọ̀na cult in order to investigate its organisation and practices from within. He later stated that after learning what he described as the cult’s methods, he confronted its priests and threatened prosecution for disseminating smallpox.
Accounts of Sapara’s work describe allegations that some practitioners used infectious material from smallpox victims to infect other people. These allegations became an important element in subsequent colonial efforts to suppress the worship.
Sapara’s experience eventually contributed to his influential report on smallpox in Yoruba country, dated 1 September 1909.
His role was especially significant because he was an African physician working within colonial medicine who combined medical training with direct knowledge of local society.
Colonial Laws Against Ṣọ̀pọ̀na Worship
Government suppression of Ṣọ̀pọ̀na developed through several stages.
Restrictions against worship of the smallpox deity appeared before the First World War, including an ordinance reported in 1907 under which worship was prohibited and priests could be fined.
The legal campaign later became more explicit. The Witchcraft and Juju Ordinance of 1917 strengthened the government’s ability to suppress practices colonial officials associated with danger, disease or public disorder.
The provisions had real consequences.
Later criminal-law provisions explicitly prohibited the worship or invocation of particular religious institutions identified by the authorities. Among those listed was Sopono, described in the legislation as the god of smallpox.
Government intervention therefore moved beyond medical persuasion. Police officers, sanitary officials, district administrators, courts and traditional rulers all became involved in enforcement.
Ṣọ̀pọ̀na Worshippers in Colonial Nigeria and the 1924 Ilaro Arrests
The most striking episode of this enforcement occurred in Ilaro Division of Abeokuta Province in 1924.
Authorities punished not only ordinary worshippers but also traditional rulers accused of allowing prohibited practices.
In Ipokia, Oba Adeola was deposed in 1924 for permitting Ṣọ̀pọ̀na worship in his district.
Akinloye, the ruler of Ilaro, and the Oba of Ado were also charged. They were each fined £50 by a Provincial Court and suspended under provisions of the Collective Punishment legislation.
The same year produced an even more significant episode.
Twenty-five people were arrested and convicted for practising Ṣọ̀pọ̀na worship in Ilaro Division.
The case appears in National Archives, Ibadan file CSO/26/3/21055, “Shopona Worshippers”. The relevant correspondence was sent by the Secretary of the Southern Provinces to the Chief Secretary of the Government in Lagos on 22 May 1925.
The maximum punishment for the offence was reported as a fine of £50 or six months’ imprisonment.
The arrests followed the appearance of smallpox cases that sanitary and police authorities linked with Ṣọ̀pọ̀na worship.
The episode illustrates how public health policy, policing, traditional political authority and religious practice became intertwined under colonial rule.
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The Thomas Jefferson Bowen Story Belongs to an Earlier Era
Another well-known historical account from Yorubaland belongs to a very different period.
American Baptist missionary Thomas Jefferson Bowen published Central Africa: Adventures and Missionary Labors in Several Countries in the Interior of Africa, from 1849 to 1856 in 1857.
During his travels through western Yorubaland, Bowen described encountering communities that were suspicious of European travellers.
At Aibo, Bowen wrote that people associated the visits of earlier European travellers with later destruction by warfare. He specifically referred to towns through which Richard and John Lander had travelled. According to Bowen, people in western Yorubaland had come to fear that similar calamity might follow the entrance of another white traveller.
Bowen described chiefs and elders discussing his presence. He was eventually permitted to leave Aibo after several days.
Continuing westward, he wrote about cultivated countryside and small quantities of produce left beside the road for sale, with buyers leaving cowries even when sellers were absent.
At Ishala, Bowen was told that he should not enter the town. He later reached Ijale in the Iketu kingdom, where fears again arose about the consequences of admitting him.
Bowen’s journey took place roughly seven decades before the 1924 prosecutions in Ilaro and belonged to a different period of Yoruba history.
Vaccination, Distrust and Colonial Public Health
The campaign against smallpox extended far beyond religious prohibition.
Colonial vaccination programmes faced serious practical problems. Medical personnel and facilities were limited, particularly outside major towns. Vaccine material could deteriorate during transportation, while methods and supplies changed over time.
Vaccination could also produce fever, sores and other reactions that contributed to distrust. In some communities, suspicion of colonial officials combined with established religious and therapeutic practices to limit acceptance.
Yoruba communities also had their own approaches to smallpox. Forms of inoculation existed before the expansion of colonial vaccination. These practices represented indigenous attempts to prevent severe disease, although the use of infectious material could itself carry serious risks.
Colonial officials increasingly turned to compulsory vaccination and legislation. The state sought to regulate public behaviour in the name of collective health, while opposition, distrust and weaknesses within the medical system continued to complicate its programmes.
Suppression Did Not Immediately End Ṣọ̀pọ̀na Worship
Legal prohibition did not make Ṣọ̀pọ̀na worship disappear.
The religious institution continued to appear in colonial records for decades. Officials were still dealing with the activities of priests and traditional healers long after the early prohibitions.
In 1945, allegations concerning Ṣọ̀pọ̀na priests at Igbologun near Lagos led to an investigation by a sanitary inspector, followed by arrests and prosecutions.
Such cases show that religious practices associated with Ṣọ̀pọ̀na continued despite colonial legislation.
Smallpox also remained a public health challenge in Nigeria well into the twentieth century, despite decades of legislation, vaccination and medical campaigns.
Nigeria and the Final Eradication of Smallpox
The decisive defeat of smallpox required a much larger public health effort.
In 1967, the World Health Organization launched its intensified global smallpox eradication programme. Vaccination remained central, but eradication increasingly depended on surveillance, rapid identification of cases, isolation and vaccination of people who had been in contact with infected patients.
Nigeria became an important part of the West and Central African eradication campaign.
The final known cases in the region occurred in 1970, after which intensive searches were conducted to determine whether hidden chains of transmission remained. An international commission subsequently concluded that endemic transmission had been interrupted in West Africa.
Elsewhere, smallpox survived for several more years.
The world’s last naturally occurring case was recorded in Somalia on 26 October 1977.
After an extensive international search found no further natural transmission, the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication concluded in December 1979 that the disease had been eradicated.
On 8 May 1980, the Thirty-third World Health Assembly formally endorsed the declaration of global smallpox eradication.
One of humanity’s oldest and deadliest diseases had finally been eliminated.
Conclusion
The history of Ṣọ̀pọ̀na worshippers in colonial Nigeria reveals how religion, medicine, political authority and public health became entangled during campaigns against epidemic disease.
It also highlights the important role of Dr Oguntola Sapara, an African physician who investigated practices associated with smallpox from within Yoruba society while serving in the colonial medical system.
By 1924, colonial officials were not merely promoting vaccination. They were arresting worshippers, prosecuting traditional rulers and using criminal law to regulate religious practice in the name of public health.
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Yet prohibition and punishment alone did not eradicate smallpox.
Its eventual disappearance depended on reliable vaccination, epidemiological surveillance, rapid investigation, isolation and coordinated international action.
The 25 arrests in Ilaro therefore belong to a much larger Nigerian story, one in which Yoruba religious traditions, African medical knowledge, colonial government and modern public health converged during the long struggle against a devastating disease.
Author’s Note
The history of Ṣọ̀pọ̀na and smallpox demonstrates how communities respond to epidemic disease through religion, medicine, social organisation and political authority. Yoruba society had established religious and therapeutic responses to smallpox before colonial rule, while modern vaccination and public health measures gradually transformed disease control. Dr Oguntola Sapara occupied a remarkable position at the meeting point of these traditions. The eventual eradication of smallpox came through decades of vaccination, surveillance, medical development and international cooperation, making this episode an important chapter in Nigerian medical, religious and colonial history.
References
Thomas Jefferson Bowen. Central Africa: Adventures and Missionary Labors in Several Countries in the Interior of Africa, from 1849 to 1856. Southern Baptist Publication Society, 1857.
Damilola Dorcas Fagite. “Managing Smallpox Outbreak: Colonial Authorities and Medical Policies in Southwestern Nigeria, 1903–1960.” West Bohemian Historical Review, Vol. XII, No. 2, 2022, pp. 27–44.
Adelola Adeloye. “Some Early Nigerian Doctors and Their Contribution to Modern Medicine in West Africa.” Medical History, Vol. 18, 1974, pp. 275–293.
Temitope O. Obadare and Adeyemi T. Adeyemo. “Lest We Forget: Odunbaku Oguntona Sapara William Beyond the Demystification of Deity.” FEMS Microbiology Letters, Vol. 370, 2023.
National Archives, Ibadan. CSO/26/3/21055, “Shopona Worshippers”, Secretary, Southern Provinces to the Chief Secretary of the Government, Lagos, 22 May 1925.
Government of Nigeria. Criminal Code Act, Witchcraft and Juju Order, provisions concerning Sopono and prohibited worship.
World Health Organization. Historical records of the intensified Smallpox Eradication Programme.
World Health Organization. WHA33.3, Declaration of Global Eradication of Smallpox, 8 May 1980.
