1. Norris, Robert, Memoirs of Bossa Ahádee King of Dahomey (London, 1789), 1–2.Google Scholar The early Dahomean monarchs' regnal dates are discussed in notes 28 and 31.

2. See especially Akinjogbin, I. A., “Agaja and the Conquest of the Coastal Aja States,” JHSN, 2/4 (1963), 545–66Google Scholar and Dahomey and its Neighbours 1708-1818 (Cambridge, 1967), 8–109.Google Scholar

3. See Akinjogbin, I. A., “The Expansion of Oyo and the Rise of Dahomey, 1600-1800,” in Ajayi, J.F. Ade and Crowder, Michael, eds., The History of West Africa. (2 vols.: London, 1971), 1:323–30Google Scholar and Rodney, Walter, “The Guinea Coast,” in Gray, Richard, ed., The Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 4, c.1600-1790 (Cambridge, 1975), 223–52.Google Scholar

4. See Law, Robin, “Ideologies of Royal Power: The Dissolution and Reconstruction of Political Authority on the ‘Slave Coast’, 1680-1750,” Africa, 57 (1987) 321-23, 330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Norris' nation-building argument also provides the foundation for the thesis advanced by Law, , “Dahomey and the Slave Trade: Reflections on the Historiography of the Rise of Dahomey,” JAH, 27 (1986), 260–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Henige, David and Johnson, Marion, “Agaja and the Slave Trade: Another Look at the Evidence,” HA, 3 (1976), 57–67Google Scholar; Ross, David, “The Anti-Slave Trade Theme in Daho-man History,” HA, 9 (1982), 263–71Google Scholar; idem., “European Models and West African History,” HA, 10 (1983), 293-305.

6. When Bosman, William, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea (London, 1705), 338Google Scholar, described Whydah he wrote that “its Extent along the Sea-shore is about nine or ten Miles; and in the middle it reaches six or seven Miles In-land: After which it extends like two Arms; and in some places is ten or twelve Miles broad, and in others much narrower.”

7. Labat, Jean-Baptiste, Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinée, Isles Voisines, à Cayenne fait en 1725, 1726 et 1727 (4 vols. Paris, 1730), 2:13–15.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., 250.

9. Bosman, , Description, 361 A.Google Scholar

10. On early eighteenth century Allada and Whydah see Atkins, John, A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil and the West Indies (London, 1735)Google Scholar; Barbot, Jean, A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea (London, 1732)Google Scholar; Bosman, Description; du Casse, J-B, “Relation du Sieur du Casse sur son voyage de Guynée,” in Roussier, P., ed., L'établissement d'Issiny, 1687-1702 (Paris, 1935)Google Scholar; Labat, Voyage; Snelgrave, William, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade (London, 1734)Google Scholar; Smith, William, A New Voyage to Guinea (London, 1744)Google Scholar; Archives Nationales, Paris (hereafter AN), C. 6/25, Du Colombier, “Relation envoyer à la Compagnie,” 10 August 1714, “Mémoire de la suitte des affaires,” 14 February 1715, Bouchel à la Compagnie, Juda, 30 April 1722, Pruneau et Guestard, “Mémoire pour servir à l' intelligence du Commerce de Juda,” 18 March 1750; Public Record Office, London (hereafter PRO), T.70/5, H. Hillyard and C. Green to James Phipps, Whydah, 15 May 1712; T. 70/3, J. Blaney and M. Hardrett to Company, Whydah, 22 April 1714; T.70/6, L. Green to Company, Whydah, 28 May 1715; T.70/19, R. Masson, D. Welsh and W. Brandon to Company, Whydah, 10 December 1715, T.70/6, D. Welsh and W. Brandon to Company, 12 June 1716; T.70/54, Baillie to Cape Coast Castle, Whydah, 10 May 1720, C.113/35 Part I, W. Baillie to Company, Savi, 13 October 1717; Bodleian Library: Rawlinson, C.747, John Carter to Cape Coast Castle, Whydah, 10 May 1687; John Wortley to Cape Coast Castle, Whydah, 17 January 1692; Edward Jacklen to Cape Coast Castle, Whydah, 13 October and 25 December 1692; Josiah Pearson to Cape Coast Castle, Whydah, 3 April 1694 and 7 April 1695.

11. See Bosman, , Description, 366–66aGoogle Scholar; AN, C.6/25, Du Colombier, “Relation envoyer á la Compagnie,” 10 August 1714; PRO, T.70/13, Peter Duffield to Company, 5 August, 25 August, and 7 October 1703; and John Carter to Company, 26 August 1703, quoted in Akinjogbin, , Dahomey and its Neighbours, 35.Google Scholar

12. Bosman, , Description, 332–33Google Scholar; Bodleian Library: Rawlinson, C.747, John Carter to Cape Coast Castle, Whydah, 10 May 1687; John Wortley to Cape Coast Castle, Whydah, 17 January 1692; Edward Jacklen to Cape Coast Castle, Whydah, 13 October and 25 December 1692, Josiah Pearson to Cape Coast Castle, Whydah, 3 April 1694 and 7 April 1695.

13. This account of Agaja's 1724-27 southern campaigns is based primarily on AN, C.6/25, Pruneau and Guestard, “Mémoire,” 18 March 1750. See also Dunglas, E., “Contribution à l'histoire du Moyen-Dahomey”, Etudes Dahoméennes, 19/21 (1957–1958), 143–64Google Scholar; Hérissé, A Le, L'Ancien royaume du Dahomey (Paris, 1911), 294–99Google Scholar; Snelgrave, , Account, 1–156Google Scholar; Smith, , New Voyage, 166–207Google Scholar; Verger, Pierre, Trade Relations Between the Bight of Benin and Bahia, 17th-19th Century (Ibadan, 1976), 119–27Google Scholar; PRO, T.70/7, Abstract of ‘In’ Letters, Tinker, Mabyn and Humfrey, Whydah, 1724, Tinker and Humphrey, Whydah, 23 February 1724; Tinker, Humphrey and Green, Whydah, 28 May 1726; and A. Duport, Whydah, 17 May 1727.

14. According to Snelgrave (Account, 7), Agaja went to Hussar's assistance because he was offered “a large Sum of Money” to do so.

15. Snelgrave, (Account, 20)Google Scholar, states that the ruler of Jaquin submitted as soon as Agaja conquered Allada.

16. Archivo Público, Bahia (hereafter APB) 20, doc. 61, Pereyra Mendes to Viceroy of Brazil, 22 May 1726, quoted in Verger, , Trede Relations, 121Google Scholar, observed, wrongly, that the Dahomeans were severely defeated and Agaja's power probably broken. Snelgrave, , Account, 55–59Google Scholar, gives what appears to be the Dahomean version of this episode, noting that the Dahomeans claimed a tactical victory over the Oyo.

17. Snelgrave, , Account, 9–10Google Scholar, gives a slightly simplified version of these events, stating that Houfon refused to help the Akplogan when the Dahomeans attacked. The Ak-plogan, he claims, submitted to Agaja because he was unable to resist on his own.

18. Contemporary European observers were puzzled by the Whydah rulers' failure to mount any real resistance. For a discussion see Argyle, W.J., The Fon of Dahomey (Oxford, 1966), 85–86.Google Scholar

19. When the Dahomeans occupied Savi they appear to have set about trying to make themselves middlemen in the trade between the Bight of Benin and the interior and this may have provoked the Oyo attack. See Ross, “The Dahomean Middleman System, 1727-c.1818,” JAH, 28(1987), 357–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. For a reliable review of the evidence relating to the Oyo invasions see Law, Robin, The Oyo Empire c.1600-c.1836 (Oxford, 1977), 157–69.Google Scholar

21. Snelgrave, , Account, 36–37.Google Scholar The Toffo inhabited a territory lying to the north of Allada on the edge of the Lama. On the Toffo, see further Burton, R.F., A Mission to Ge-kle, King of Dahome (London, 1966), 113, 354–55Google Scholar, and Skertchly, J.A., Dahomey As It Is (London, 1874), 97–98.Google Scholar

22. Snelgrave, , Account, 49–151Google Scholar; Verger, , Trade Relations, 130–31Google Scholar; Norris, , Memoirs, 33–35Google Scholar; Archives of the (Second) Dutch West India Company, the Hague (hereafter WIC), 138, H. Hertzog to Company, Apa, 16 April 1732 and 26 September 1732.

23. AN, C.6/25, J. Dubelay to Company, Whydah, 17 January 1734.

24. APB, 44, f. 93, Viceroy of Brazil to Lisbon, 8 October 1747, quoted in Verger, , Trade Relations, 161–62Google Scholar, shows that Apa was destroyed before October 1747. Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon (hereafter AHU), São Tomé, caixa 6, Espirito Santo to Viceroy, Whydah, 6 April 1746, quoted in Verger, , Trade Relations, 155Google Scholar, indicates that Apa still flourished in 1746. Akinjogbin, (Dahomey, iii, note 4), found evidence of a 1747 Dahomean raid on Epe. Since it is always very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to sort out references to Epe from references to Apa in contemporary documents, it is possible that the 1747 raid was actually on Apa.

25. Hérissé, Le, Ancien royaume, 298Google Scholar; PRO, T.70/1158, Accounts and Daybooks, Whydah, September-October 1754.

26. PRO. T.70/1158, Accounts and Daybooks, Whydah, September-October 1754.

27. See below.

28. Ryder, A.F.C., “The Re-establishment of Portuguese Factories on the Costa Da Mina to the Mid Eighteenth Century,” JHSN, 1/3 (1958), 171Google Scholar, established that Agaja died in 1740. Verger, , Trade Relations, 145–46Google Scholar and Akinjogbin, , Dahomey, 107Google Scholar, confirm that this was so.

29. Oral traditions collected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries indicate that Dahomey was founded in the second quarter of the seventeenth century by a group of royal immigrants fleeing from Allada after an unsuccessful coup. See esp. Herissé, LeAncien royaume, 274–91Google Scholar; Dunglas, , “Contribution,” 75–89Google Scholar; Burton, , Mission, 106–7.Google Scholar The first European to give an account of Dahomey's early history, a French trader named Pruneau de Pommegorge (Description de la Negritie, [Amsterdam, 1789], 153Google Scholar and AN, C.6/ 25 Pruneau, and Guestard, , “Mémoire,” 18 March 1750Google Scholar) claimed, however, that the Dahomean founding fathers were merely a gang of Abomey area petty thieves.

30. In the first quarter of the eighteenth century the Europeans purchased more slaves on the Bight of Benin than on any other stretch of the west African coast. The slave traders congregated mainly in Savi and in Jaquin, a port which stood at the center of Allada's most important coastal province. On slave trading on the pre-Dahomean coast see esp. Robin, Law, , “Royal Monopoly and Private Enterprise in the Atlantic Trade: The Case of Dahomey,” JAH, 18, (1977), 555–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Trade and Politics behind the Slave Coast: the Lagoon Traffic and the Rise of Lagos, 1500-1800,” JAH, 24 (1983), 321–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lovejoy, Paul E., Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge, 1983), 54–55Google Scholar; Manning, Patrick, “The Slave Trade in the Bight of Benin, 1640-1890” in Gemery, Henry A. and Hogendorn, Jan S., eds., The Uncommon Market; Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic Slave Trade (New York, 1979), 107–41Google Scholar; and Slavery, Colonialism and Economic Growth in Dahomey, 1640-1960 (Cambridge, 1982), 1–50.Google Scholar On pre-1727 Dahomean slaving see Ross, ,“The Anti-Slave Trade Theme,” 263–265.Google Scholar

31. Dahomean traditions (Herissé, Le, Ancien royaume, 294–95Google Scholar and Dunglas, , “Contributions,” 95-96, 99–100Google Scholar) indicate both that Agaja's predecessor, Akaba, died ca. 1708 and that an unusually divisive succession dispute followed. AN, B.I/19, letter from Bouchel, Whydah, 22 June 1716, shows that the Dahomeans, or some of the Dahomeans, had paid tribute to the king of Allada in 1709, intimating that the Dahomeans were weaker in 1709 than they had previously been, possibly because the post-Akaba succession dispute was in full swing. PRO, C.113/35 part 2, W. Baillie and T. Bounds to Cape Coast Castle, Whydah, 18 January 1718, contains a passage which indicates that the succession question was finally settled in early 1718. The passage reads: “about twelve days ago we heard of a battle between the Two Kings of Foay wherein a great many prisoners are taken, this is several times confirmed since and we may very soon expect to see the effects.” The victor in this battle between the “Two Kings of Foay” (the Fon, i.e. Dahomeans) could only have been Agaja.

32. Bosman, , Description, 339.Google Scholar

33. Labat, , Voyage, 2:15.Google Scholar

34. Ibid. 1:xi.

35. Snelgrave, , Account, 7.Google Scholar

36. AN, C.6/25 M. Levet to Company, 29 November 1733, quoted in Verger, , Trade Relations, 140.Google Scholar According to Norris, (Memoirs, 27–33)Google Scholar Tegbesu was again able to play one Hueda royal faction off against another in 1741.

37. Snelgrave, , Account, 5.Google Scholar

38. Ibid, 7.

39. Above, note 31.

40. Agaja wanted to gain control of the roads because, as Snelgrave (Account, 21) put it, he was determined never to “want a supply of Arms and Gun powder to carry on his designed Conquests.” Although the Dahomeans possessed European weapons when they crossed the Lama, they may well have had difficulty in obtaining them. Given the nature of pre-1724 southern Aja politics it would, in fact, be surprising if the flow of arms to Abomey had not been interrupted fairly frequently.

41. Ross, , “The Middleman System” 357–61.Google Scholar

42. Henige, /Johnston, , “Agaja and the Slave Trade,” 61–65.Google Scholar

43. Many of the Europeans who visited nineteenth-century Ajaland described the way in which the Dahomeans made war. For an analysis of the information to be found in their works see Ross, David, “Dahomey” in Crowder, Michael, ed., West African Resistance (2d ed.: London, 1978), 144–69.Google Scholar

44. Snelgrave, , Account, 150Google Scholar; Verger, , Trade Relations, 130–31Google Scholar; WIC, 138, H. Hertzog to company, 16 April 1732, 26 September 1732.

45. Snelgrave, , Account, 36–39.Google Scholar

46. AHU, São Tomé, caixa 4, J. Basilio to Viceroy of Brazil, Ajuda, 8 September 1732, quoted in Verger, , Trade Relations, 132.Google Scholar

47. Edouard Foà, Le Dahomey (Paris, 1895), 4, 10, 12.

48. Agaja's repeat raids are well documented, see notes 22,23, and 25 above. They are, moreover, by no means unusual in the annals of Dahomean history. Although Herissé, Le (Ancien royaume, 56, 245, 291)Google Scholar, records traditions which indicate that the Dahomean authorities sold Dahomeans, whether free or slave, only if they had committed a serious offense, this does not mean that the act of paying tribute always, or even often, brought a raided place a permanent respite from attack. Le Herissé's informants probably meant by Dahomeans members of the Abomey area warrior community, their dependants and slaves and, possibly, those who had been ruled by the community for a very long time.

49. Snelgrave, , Account, 129.Google Scholar

50. Contemporary documents all stress that the number of slaves to be found in Grehue declined dramatically after the Dahomean conquest of Savi. In their analysis of the ‘decline,’ however, Henige, and Johnson, (“Agaja and the Slave Trade,” 61–65Google Scholar) point out that the “decline” was mainly in English, French and Dutch trade (the Dutch, in fact, withdrew from the former Whydah kingdom's territories in 1717). The “decline” in Portuguese trade, they stress, is much less obvious. Although the Portuguese merchants complained bitterly that trade was slow and frequently interrupted, their supplies of gold and Brazilian tobacco enabled them to buy the majority of the Dahomeans' captives. In the 1730s the Dahomeans seem, in fact, to have sold the Portuguese most of the six thousand or so slaves they required annually in Brazil. On the Portuguese trade see esp. APB, 35, F, 370, Viceroy of Brazil to Lisbon, 20 September 1739 and APB, 44, f, 93, Viceroy of Brazil to Lisbon, 8 October 1747, quoted in Verger, , Trade Relations, 141-42, 161–62.Google Scholar

51. Ross, , “Dahomean Middleman System,” 360–368.Google Scholar

52. AHU, São Tomé, caixa 4, J. Basilio to Viceroy of Brazil, Ajuda, 8 September 1732, quoted in Verger, , Trade Relations, 132.Google Scholar

53. AN, C.6/25, M. Levet to Company, 29 November 1733, quoted in Verger, , Trade Relations, 140.Google Scholar

54. Snelgrave, , Account, 19.Google Scholar

55. Ibid, 152.

56. Ibid, 26.

57. Ibid, 28.

58. Ibid, 156.

59. Norris, , Memoirs, 72.Google Scholar

60. Burton, , Mission, 116–17.Google Scholar In the nineteenth century the lands surrounding the Dahomeans' southern Ajaland settlements (Burton's “towns where there is centraliza tion”) were prosperous and densely populated. Since the Dahomeans placed their captives and dependants around their settlements this does not mean that the inhabitants of these prosperous, densely populated places were all descended from southern Aja who had both survived the conquest and managed to continue living on their ancestral lands as free men. In the 1870s the English traveller, Skertchly, J.A. (Dahomey, 45)Google Scholar, estimated, for example, that four out of five of Ouidah's inhabitants were unfree.

61. Labarthe, P., Voyage à la Côte du Guinée (Paris, 1803), 116Google Scholar; AN, C.6/27 bis. Abbé Bullet, “Reflexions sur Juda,” 1 June 1776, ch. 2; Norris, , Memoirs, 49.Google Scholar

62. Ouidah was settled, probably in the early 1740s, on the site of Savi's port, Grehue, see Ross, , “Dahomean Middleman System,” 362–366.Google Scholar The form of the Dahomean port's name usually used today—the French form—Ouidah, has for convenience been used throughout. The English form, Whydah, has been used only when referring to the pre Dahomean state of that name.

63. See Ross, , “Middleman System,” 366–67.Google Scholar

64. Norris, , Memoirs, 69–70.Google Scholar

65. Ibid, x.

66. The descendants of the conquered southern Aja probably came to identify with Dahomey after two or three generations, perhaps in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Since the Dahomeans held the European slave traders in open captivity in Ouidah until ca. 1818 (see Ross, , “Dahomean Middleman System,” 366–75Google Scholar) the Europeans seldom knew very much about conditions in the interior. The fact that the Dahomeans abandoned the open captivity policy in ca. 1818 suggests that the southern Aja had, by that time, accepted the Dahomeans as their rulers.

67. Norris, , Memoirs, 26.Google Scholar

68. Ross, , “Mid-Nineteenth Century Dahomey: Recent Views vs. Contemporary Evidence,” HA, 12 (1985), 307–23.Google Scholar