THE ANTI-SLAVE TRADE THEME IN DAHOMAN HISTORY! AN EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE David Ross Simon Fraser University Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travelers who described pre-colonial Dahomey all stressed that the Dahomans were dedicated, enthusiastic slavers. The kingdom's first historian, Archibald Dalzel, remarked, for example, that the Dahomans were “bred solely to war and rapine."! ¥F.E, Forbes, the author of one of the best-known nineteenth-century accounts of the kingdom, in a similar vein,declared of Dahomey that "strange and contra- dictory as it may sound, this great nation is no nation, but a banditti."? The views of these and other similarly-minded writers were, until the 1960s, everywhere accepted. In that decade, however, Isaac A, Akinjogbin published a series of works in which he gave an account of a long-lived Dahoman anti-slave trade tradition.® Dahomey was, he claims, founded ca 1620 by a group of "highly principled and far-seeing" Aja in the Abomey area.” These Aja founded the kingdom so as to be able to wage war effectively against those of their countrymen who traded in slaves. Akinjogbin believed that the Dahomans spent about ninety years making war on their slave trading neighbors. It was, he claims, only in 1730 that the European slavers and their African allies were able to force the Dahomans to abandon their anti- slave trade campaign and to begin trading in slaves themselves.® The very destructive wars of the 1720s, the wars which made Dahomey a major west African power, were, it seems undertaken as part of a virtuous, anti-slave trade crusade. ‘Although the Dahomans were forced to begin trading in slaves in 1730, they did not, Aknjogbin implies, entirely abandon their anti-slave trade ideals. At any rate, anti-slave trade sentiment returned to the forefront of Dahoman political life in the last decade of the eighteenth century, when Adandozan (1797-1818), ascended the throne. This ruler was an "imaginative and pro- gressive young monarch" who tried to lead his people away from slave trading and, “back to a love of agriculture."’ Adandozan's pro-agriculture scheme was, however, like his predecessors’ anti-~ slave trade crusade, undermined by the Europeans, As Akinjogbin emphasizes, "Dahomey was soon internationally recognised as, or rather condemned to be, a slave trading kingdom, HISTORY IN AFRICA, Vol. 9(1982)264 DAVID ROSS Akinjogbin's claim that anti-slave trade sentiment formed an important-~indeed, vital--thene in Dahomey's pre-1818 history has been taken up and extended by John C. Yoder.” Yoder accepts that Dahoman politics were dominated after 1818 by a military pro-slave trade clique headed by Gezo (1818-1858), the slaver- supported usurper who drove Adandozan from his throne.'® He argues, however, that Gezo and his militarist friends were able to dominate Dahoman political life for only about twenty years. The power of Gezo's clique was, it appears, challenged when anti-slave trade feeling began to emerge--or re-emerge-- as a force in Dahoman political life. The rise of this senti- ment brought two great political parties into existence in the 1840s, the Fly party and the Elephant party. As Yoder puts it, “competing viewpoints began to co-alesce around opposing positions as two distinct political parties emerged in the decades between 1840 and 1870."1? The members of the anti-slave trade Fly party wished, it seems, both to cooperate with Britain in putting down the slave trade and to make peace with Britain's ally, Abeokuta. The supporters of Gezo's militarist, pro-slave trade Elephant party, on the other hand, wanted to defy Britain and to make war on Abeokuta, '* ‘The strength of the anti-slave trade movement increased steadily during the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s. By 1870 the slaver- backed military faction's power was, Yoder claims, in rapid decline.+* The kingdom was, it must be assumed then on the threshold of a new age, an age during which Dahomey's progressive Fly party leaders could have liberalized and modernized their nation's economy. The implication here is, of course, that it was the growth of the post-1870 French military menace which prevented the Fly party's leaders from being able to carry through their anti-slave trade, anti-military measures. Between them Akinjogbin and Yoder have presented a revolu- tionary interpretation of Dahoman history. This interpretation suggests both that anti-slave trade sentiment formed a powerful force in pre-colonial Dahoman political life and that the Dahomans were often reluctant slavers. It implies moreover--and very strongly--that it was European pressure and European intervention which prevented progressive, liberal Dahomans from moulding their nation's destiny. David Henige and Marion Johnson have already questioned one important aspect of the anti-slave trade sentiment interpretation of Dahoman history. After re-examining the evidence, they have been able to demonstrate both that the Dahomans traded in slaves in the 1720s and that they are very unlikely indeed to have attacked the Aja coastal states in order to prevent these states from exporting slaves.'* Akinjogbin's account of Dahomey's 1720s record is not, however, the only part of the anti-slave trade sentiment interpretation of Dahoman history which needs to be challenged. The other anti-slave trade episodes in the Akinjogbin-Yoder account of the Dahoman past are equally open to question. Akinjogbin cites only two pieces of evidence in support of‘THE ANTI-SLAVE TRADE THEME IN DAHOMAN HISTORY! AN EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE David Foss Simon Fraser University Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travelers vho described pre-colonial Dahomey all stressed that the Dahomans were dedicated, enthusiastic slevers. The kingdom's first historian, Archibald Dalzel, renarked, for example, that the Dahomans vere “bred solely to war and rapine."? F.E. Forbes, the author of one of the best-known nineteenth-century accounts of the kingdom, in a similar vein,declared of Dahomey that "strange and contra~ dictory as it may sound, this great nation is no nation, but a banditti." ‘The views of these and other similarly-minded vriters vere, until the 1960s, everywhere accepted. In that decade, however, Isaac A, Akinjogbin published a series of works in which he gave an account of a long-lived Dahonan anti-slave trade tradition,’ Dahoney was, he claims, founded ca 1620 by a group of "highly principled and far-seeing" Aja in the Aboney area.” These Aja founded the kingdom so as to be able to wage war effectively against those of their countrymen who traded in slaves.* ‘Akinjogbin believed that the Dahomans spent about ninety years naking war on their slave trading neighbors. Lt was, he claims, only in 1730 that the European slavers and their African allies vere able to force the Dahotns to abandon their anti- slave trade campaign and to begin trading in slaves themselves. The very destructive wars of the 1720s, the wars which made Dahomey a major west African power, were, it seens undertaken as part of a virtuous, anti-slave trade crusade. Although the Dahonans were forced to begin trading in slaves in 1730, they did not, Aknjogbin implies, entirely abandon their anti-slave trade ideals. At any rate, anti-slave trade sentinent| returned to the forefront of Dahoman political life ia the last decade of the eighteenth century, when Adandozen (1797-1818), ascended the throne. This ruler was en “inaginative and pro gressive young monarch" who tried to lead his people away from slave trading and, “back to a love of agriculture."” pro-agriculture schene was, however, like his predecessors’ anti- slave trade crusade, undermined by the Europeans, As Akinjogbin enphasizes, "Dahoney was soon intemationally recognised as, or rather condemned to be, a slave trading kingdom."* HISTORY IW AFRICA, Vol. 9(1982)ANTI-SLAVE TRADE THEME IN DAHOMAN HISTORY 265 his claim that the Dahomans were engaged in a long term anti- slave trade crusade before 1720, One of these citations is, quite simply, incorrect.'° His interpretation of the second piece of evidence is at best dubious.'® When describing Dahomey's pre-1720s anti-slave trade activity Akinjogbin has, moreover, failed to take note of two vital pieces of informa— tion, The first of these is to be found in A. Le Herissé's excellent tradition-based account of the kingdom. The traditions to be found in that work show that Dahomey's first monarch, Wegbadja (c.1640~c.1680), did a good deal of business with the Europeans who traded on the Aja coast.'” Since in that king's time these Europeans were beginning to buy large numbers of slaves, this evidence certainly implies that the Dahomans were trading in slaves in the seventeenth century. The second piece of information which Akinjogbin failed to note is to be found in a French slaver's report. The crucial passage in this report reads: Le Roy d'Agoeme pays situe au dela d'Ardres [Allada] dans les terres de Foin a secou le joug au Roy d'ardres et en devenue son amy [M. Bouchel, the French factor at Whydah] par son entremise et cette du Capt. Affou, le ceremonie s'en faute dans le Comptoir; tous les captives font depuis huits mois son venu de chez ce Roy d'Agoeme et on passer autour des terres du Roy a'Ardres, il y a apparence que le commerce va ce retablir dans ce pays sur le pied qu'il etait en 1709. *° This evidence appears to prove conclusively that the early Dahomans were not anti-slave trade activists. Akinjogbin's account of the "imaginative and progressive" Adandozan's early nineteenth-century attempt to lead his people away from slave trading and back to a love of agriculture is based on two very brief entries in a list of the English Whydah slaving forts" expenses. The relevant entries read Visit going up to Abomey, to the small corn custom 1/4 barrel of powder Visit after the small corn custom 1/4 barrel of powder’? There is nothing in this list of expenses to suggest either that the small corn custom was new or that it had been introduced as part of a larger anti-slave trade, pro-agricultural, policy. Still less is there anything which could be taken to show that Adandozan was "an imaginative and progressive young monarch." It seems unlikely then this ruler made an attempt to lead his people away from slave trading and "back to a love of agriculture. Yoder's account of nineteenth-century Dahoman anti-slave trade sentiment is even less soundly based than Akinjogbin's description of pre-1818 Dahoman anti-slave trade activity. Yoder notes that he termed his anti-slave trade party the Fly party because the members of Dahomey's mid-nineteenth century anti- slave trade faction were "willing to restrict future slave wars266 DAVID ROSS to forays against small manageable targets outside of Abeokuta's sphere of interest."*° Such "small towns and tribes" were, he states, "popularly referred to by the Dahomans as flies."?! Yoder calls his pro-slave trade faction the Elephant party because "the goals of the party were the defeat of Abeokuta, mown in Dahomey as the Elephant."** In support of his claim that the Dahomans referred to Abeokuta as "the Elephant" and to "small manageable targets outside of Abeokuta's sphere of influence" as "flies" Yoder has cited two of the Amazon, or female warrior, speeches which F.E, Forbes recorded during his 1849/50 visit to Abomey. In the first of these speeches an Amazon warrior declared, "I am the mother of Antoine; I long to kill an elephant for him to show my regard but Attakpalm must be exterminated first."?* As Yoder quotes her speech the second Amazon said that "if we go to war we cannot come back empty handed, if we fail to catch elephants let us be content with flies."*" Yoder simply states that both Amazons used the word "elephant" to mean Abeokuta and that the second Amazon used the word "flies" to mean "small manageable targets outside of Abeokuta's sphere of influence." He has failed to provide any proof--from Forbes or from any other source--that these Amazons did in fact, when they used the words "flies" and “elephants” mean what he claims they meant. When dealing with the names of his parties, Yoder has failed to take note of a number of points, The first is that Forbes stated that both his Amazon speechmakers belonged to a "bush ranger" regiment.” This term was often used by the Europeans to describe a body of Amazon warriors whose duty it was to hunt elephants. Forbes himself states that he used the term to mean this.*® Since they were both members of the elephant hunting section of the Dahoman army they may well have used the word elephant to mean exactly what it usually means--a large grayish animal with two prominent tusks. The first Amazon may, since she was a bush ranger, have made her reference to an elephant simply to pay a compliment to the Afro-Brazilian slave trader Antonio Da Souza, who had recently arrived in Abomey bearing presents for the king.*’ If this was the case her speech may well have meant something like: "I am the Dahoman charged with watching over Anténio while he is in Abomey. I would like to go at once (with my fellow bush rangers) to hunt an elephant, so that its tusks may be presented to him--such a hunt must, however, be postponed until after the army (of which my bush ranger force forms a part) has attacked and destroyed Attakpalm." The second point which Yoder has failed to consider when dealing with the names of his parties is that Forbes has given the second Amazon speech a final line. As Forbes records the speech it reads "if we go to war we cannot come back empty handed; if we fail to catch elephants let us be content with flies; the king alone knows where war will be."*® The speech could therefore mean something like: "the king will tell us where to make war next; let us abide by his decision and beANTI-SLAVE TRADE THEME IN DAHOMAN HISTORY 267 content to go wherever he wishes us to go--just as we would be content if he told us to hunt flies rather than elephants." When the two Amazon elephant huntresses made their speeches the kingdom's warriors appear to have been debating whether they should attack Abeokuta or Atakpame that year. The second Amazon may well have been intent on making a conciliatory speech, a speech in which she urged both sides to do as the King wished. The third point which Yoder has failed to note is that a mid-nineteenth century visitor to Dahomey, J.A, Skertchly, has left an account of a Dahoman tradition which suggests that the Dahomans referred to an Oyo general as "the Elephant.” This general was, it appears, the commander of an Oyo force that the Dahomans fought during the early part of Gezo's reign.”® Somehow, it seems unlikely that the Dahomans would have nicknamed both an Oyo general and the Egba capital “the Elephant."2° The brief, ambiguous, metaphor-laden speeches on which Yoder relies so heavily, are of course very likely to have been ill-understood and poorly translated. Moreover they can be interpreted in a variety of different ways. They certainly do not prove, as Yoder appears to believe, either that Abeokuta was known in Dahomey as "the Elephant" or that the Dahomans referred to small manageable targets outside Abeokuta's sphere of influence as "flies." Yoder could, in fact, with equal justification have called his parties Whigs and Tories or Guelphs and Ghibellines. Yoder states that his anti-slave trade Fly party was “made up of Amazon soldiers, Dahoman religious leaders, and middle level functionaires He later adds to this list "wealthy Dahoman entrepreneurs. In support of his claim that there was a body of “Amazon soldiers" opposed to the slave trade, Yoder cites only the evidence which is to be found in the brief ambiguous Amazon speeches already discussed.°*? In support of his claim that there was a group of "wealthy entrepreneurs" who opposed the slave trade, he cites evidence which shows only that the Dahoman dignitaries in charge of trading matters and their agents desired to maintain Anglo-Dahoman trade relations on a mutually profitable basis.** He has failed then to support either his "Amazon" or his "wealthy entrepreneur" argument with satisfactory evidence. In support of his "religious leaders" claim Yoder notes only that "hany of the nation's shrine priests may also have been sympathetic to the Fly party, Their prediction that the king would die should Dahomey attack Abeokuta's ally Ketu was evidence of a profound pessimism about the outcome of any war involving Abeokuta."®* This argument is based on a brief comment to be found in Forbes‘ account of Dahomey's annexed territories. This comment reads: "To the west,Katoo is a possession, not by conquest, but by conciliation. ‘The people wished and the king agreed to war; but the Fetish people declared that, if war was made on Katoo, the king would be killed: the king sent large presents to the chiefs, and Katoo voluntarily submitted. "® waz268 DAVID ROSS Yoder fails to explain why he has taken Forbes' very vague "Fetish people" to mean either the "Dahoman religious leaders” or "the nation's shrine priests," or why he believes that Ketu was, at some uncertain date an ally of Abeokuta before it sub- mitted to Dahomey.?” He has even been unable to say why he considers that pessimism about the outcome of a war with Abeokuta was a sure indication of opposition to the slave trade between 1840 and 1870. Yoder has, in fact, in support of his "religious leaders" argument quoted evidence which does not even imply what he appears to believe it proves. When making his claim that middle-level functionaries opposed the slave trade Yoder notes that "the middle level officials responsible for administration throughout the country formed a third group opposing an aggressive military posture. That the mid-nineteenth century witnessed the rise of this group's discontent is clearly evident in Commodore Wilmot 's remarks in 1863: "People have no time for peaceful pursuits: war, war, is alone thought of and the King gives them no rest. Many of the chiefs complain of this, and seem heartily tired of it."°* In support of his "middle level functionaries" argument Yoder cites only Wilmot's comments, omitting to say why Wilmot's very vague "many of the chiefs" and "people" must mean "middle level officials responsible for administration throughout the country. He has failed to tell his readers why Wilmot's remarks on the attitudes of "many of the chiefs," to the wars of the early years of Gelele's reign should be taken as an accurate account of their attitude to the wars of the whole 1840-1870 period. He has even omitted to say why Wilmot's description of the way in which "many of the chiefs" viewed Gelele's early wars should be taken to prove that "many of the chiefs" were opposed to the slave trade during this period."® Yoder has then been unable to demonstrate either that there was a body of "middle level functionaries" or that they opposed the slave trade. Yoder's account of those who made up his Fly party is based on the assumption that there were a series of important groups in pre-colonial Dahomey whose members had a single, specialized, business or professional interest which brought them to join an anti-slave trade party. On the evidence this assumption is unjustified. An examination of the available evidence shows that all the politically important Dahomans had, in fact, more than one business or professional interest. For example, one of the more powerful Dahomans, the Meu--whom Yoder names as a member of his Fly party*!--was the minister in charge of trade with the Europeans, the bureaucrat who supervised the administration of Whydah province, the religious leader who performed many of the kingdom's more important sacrificial ceremonies, an important magistrate,and the military officer who led the left wing of the kingdom's army."* Even a much less prominent figure, the Kpo- fen-su, was the chief court jester, a religious leader who performed some of the kingdom's less important sacrificial ceremonies, and a military officer who led a detachment of blunderbuss men.** Moreover both the Meu and the Kpo-fen-su were probably also "wealthy Dahoman entrepreneurs."** If the 39ANTI~SLAVE TRADE THEME IN DAHOMAN HISTORY 269 Dahomans had joined political parties in order to protect their business or professional interests most of them would, like the Meu and the Kpo-fen-su, have had to join both Yoder's Fly party and Yoder's Elephant party! The Europeans who visited pre-colonial Dahomey may well have failed to understand much of what they saw and heard there. Some of them may even have given deli erately false accounts of the kingdom. The proponents of the anti-slave trade sentiment inter- pretation of Dahoman history have nevertheless failed to come up with any convincing evidence in support of their arguments. It remains reasonable then to argue on the basis of the available evidence that Dahomans may very well have been an Abomey-based “banditti" who, during the era of the slave trade, made them selves the masters of most of Ajaland. NOTES 1. Archibald Dalzel, The History of Dahomey (London, 1793), 26. 2. F.E. Forbes, Dahomey and the Dahomans (2 vols.: London, 1851), 1:19. The author of the other very well-known nineteenth-century description of Dahomey, R.F, Burton, singled out this remark for special praise; see R.F. Burton, A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahomey (London, 1864), 264n25. Unless otherwise stated all references are to the more readily available 1966 reprint. 3. Akinjogbin develops this theme most fully in Dahomey and its Neighbours 1708-1818 (Cambridge, 1967). He also deals with it in his "Agaja and the Conquest of the Aja Coastal States," JHSW, 2/4(1963), 545-66, and in his "The Expansion of Oyo and the Rise of Dahomey, 1600-1800" in J.F.A. Ajayi and M, Crowder, eds., History of West Africa (London, 1971), 1:323-30. All references below are to Dahomey and its Neighbours. 4, Akinjogbin, Dahomey, 203. 5. Ibid, 21-26. 6. Ibid, 23-92. 7. bid, 200, 193. 8. Ibid, 194, 9, John C. Yoder, "Fly and Elephant Parties: Political Polarisation in Dahomey, 1840-1870," JAH, 15(1974), 417-32. 10, Ibid, 423-24, ll. Ibid, 417. 12. When Gezo died he was succeeded by his son, Gelele (1858- 1889). Yoder believes that Gelele maintained his father's policies and that as a result he was the leading member of the Elephant party after 1858 13, Yoder, "Fly and Elephant Parties," 431-32. 14, David Henige and Marion Johnson, “Agaja and the Slave Trade: Another Look at the Evidence," HA, 3(1976), 57-67. 15. Ibid, 66n41. 16. Ibid. 17. A. Le Herissé, L'ancien royawne du Dahomey (Paris, 1911), 60-61, 84,270 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24, 25. 26. 2h 28, 29. 30. a1. 32, 33. 34, 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. a. 42. 43. DAVID ROSS Marine BI19 Deliberations du Conseil de Marine Colonies, Pendants 4 premiers moins 1717, Le Sieur Bouchel 4 Juda, le 22 Juin, 1716. My brackets. Archives Nationale, Paris. 1770/1163, Accounts and Daybooks for Whydah, 23 October 1808. Public Record Office, Lond Yoder, "Fly and Elephant Parties, Ibid. Ibid. Ibid, 427. Forbes, Dahomey, 2:109, For an account of the way in which the word "mother" is used in the Dahoman literature see W.J. Argyle, The Fon of Dahomey (Oxford, 1966), 64-65. On "Antoine" see below. Yoder, "Fly and Elephant Parties," 427. Forbes, Dahomey, 2:108, Ibid, 1:157-59. Ibid, 2:7, 80. Ibid, 2:109. J.A. Skertchly, Dahomey 4s It Is (London, 1874), 326. A further, although minor point, which suggests that the second Amazon was talking about animals, not Abeokuta, is that she used the plural of the word: elephants. If she had been speaking of Abeokuta she would, presumably, have used the singular. Yoder, "Fly and Elephant Parties," 427. Tid, 430, Ibid, 427. Tbid, 430-31; Forbes, Dahomey, 1:53, 112-15; 175-76, 189-90, 243-46. Yoder, "Fly and Elephant Parties," 427-28. Forbes, Dahomey, 1:20. Ketu may--or may not--have become tributary to Dahomey, at some time before Forbes visited Abomey, in 1849, If Ketu did become tributary at some point in Gezo's reign, it may well have done so long before the outbreak of Egba- Dahoman hostilities in the 1840s. Yoder, "Fly and Elephant Parties," 428. Burton, Mission [1864 ed.], 2:366. Appendix III, no. 2, Commodore Wilmot to Rear Admiral Sir B. Walker, Rattlesnake at sea, 10 February 1863. Although Wilmot noted that "many of the chiefs" were tired of war he did not suggest that they wished to put an end to the slave trade. R.F, Burton the official who was sent in late 1863 to follow up Wilmot's initiative in visiting Abomey provided a much more detailed account of Dahomey than did Wilmot. Burton stressed that in 1863 the Dahomans remained enthusiastic slavers. Yoder, "Fly and Elephant Parties," 429-30. Even the evidence to be found in the works which Yoder cites in his footnotes shows this; see Burton, Mission, 76, 138-403 Skertchly, Dahomey, 165, 436, 445; Le Herissé, L'ancien royaune, 41-42, See also Argyle, Fon, 72-73. Forbes, Dahomey, 1:74, 2:48; Burton, Miseton, 241; Skertchly, 426.