The captives disembarked in Bahia before moving further south to work on plantations, assist tradesmen or hawk goods for white Brazilians.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, an Afro-Brazilian community had begun to emerge along the West African coast, developed by descendants of slaves who had twice crossed the Atlantic.

The first recorded repatriation of African people from Brazil to what is now Nigeria was a government-led deportation in 1835 in the aftermath of a Yoruba and Hausa rebellion in the city of Salvador known as the Malê Revolt.

[3] A few Africans who were free and had saved some money were able to return to Africa as a result of the tough conditions, taxation, racism and homesickness.

Though coastal Lagos was the preferred destination, most of the returnees were descendants of groups such as Ijeshas, Oyos, Ijebu and Egba based in the interior.

The Agudas were aware of their home cities but preferred to set up shop in Lagos because it was conducive for trade, they were warmly received in Badagry and also because of on-going wars in the interior.

[4] In some cases, the Oba of Lagos gave them land to build a house and provided men to assist them in their transition to local life.

[5] Keen on acquiring wealth in Africa, some of the earliest Agudas were morally ambivalent on issues such as slavery and became slave traders themselves,[6]such as the descendants of Francisco Felix de Sousa and Domingo Martinez.

When Agudas arrived from Bahia and Pernambuco, they took up residence on the Eastern parts of Lagos on land provided by Oba Ojulari.

Within the quarters diasporic sensibilities were evident, the community lacked signs of ethnic grouping, and fluidity was present in the religious practices of the residents.

Returnees from Brazil and their present-day descendants were and are more commonly called "Agudas" (from agudão, a non-standard Portuguese word for cotton properly rendered as algodão[10]) or "Amaro".

They utilized a western style of dressing, owned race horses and organized waltzes, square dances and musical soirees where Molière was performed.

They ate pirão de caranguejo during holidays and prepared mungunzá, mingau (porridge) and feijão-de-leite (coconut milk beans) as food staples.

[16] Returnees in Lagos dominated the trade with Brazil and sold cotton, traditional artifacts and kola-nuts to Africans in Bahia.

Such patriarchs included Angelo Campos, Esan da Rocha and Joaquim Branco (originally settled in Dahomey) who were able to sponsor their children for further education in Bahia, Havana or Europe.

In 1897, of the 96 qualified Aguda artisans listed in a directory, 11 were bricklayers and builders, 6 were cabinet makers, 9 tailors, 21 carpenters, 17 clerks and 24 traders.

[17] Trained as carpenters, cabinetmakers, masons and bricklayers in Brazil, the ex-slaves were notably technically skilled artisans and were known for their exuberant and individualistic style on doorways, brightly painted facades and chunky concrete columns which are rooted in the baroque styles popular in Brazil in the 18th century.

The residences of the Oba and chiefs were much bigger, they had large courtyards, pillars and arches, a mixture of European and indigenous styles.

Influenced by the symmetrical plans of the Brazilian colonial house,[18] they introduced a new architectural style to Lagos that was soon embraced by wealthy traders.