Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T09:06:37.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Dialogue with King Agaja: William Snelgrave’s 1727 Ardra Diary and the Contours of Dahomian-European Commercial Exchange

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2016

Abstract:

The rise of the Kingdom of Dahomey in the first quarter of the eighteenth century was a watershed event in the political history of precolonial West Africa. This article draws on a newly rediscovered copy of William Snelgrave’s diary who visited King Agaja of Dahomey in April 1727. The diary provides the fullest account to date of Agaja’s motives for invading Whydah in March 1727. In addition, the Diary provides the earliest evidence confirming the bona fides of Bulfinch Lambe’s 1731 mission to England to establish commercial relations with King George II.

Résumé:

L’essor du royaume d’Abomey dans le premier quart du XVIIIe siècle a été un tournant dans l’histoire politique précoloniale de l’Afrique de l’Ouest. Cet article se base sur un exemplaire nouvellement redécouvert du journal de William Snelgrave qui a rendu une visite au roi Agadja d’Abomey en avril 1727. Le journal fournit le récit le plus complet à ce jour des raisons qui ont poussé Agadja à envahir Ouidah en mars 1727. En outre, ce journal constitue la plus ancienne source confirmant les références données par le roi d’Abomey à la mission menée en 1731 par Bulfinch Lambe en Angleterre pour établir des relations commerciales avec le roi George II.

Type
Critical Source Analysis of European Travelers’ Sources
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akinjogbin, I.A., Dahomey and Its Neighbours, 1708–1818 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967).Google Scholar
Alpern, Stanley B., “What Africans Got for Their Slaves: A Master List of European Trade Goods,” History in Africa 22 (1995), 543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkins, John, The Navy-Surgeon: Or, a Practical System of Surgery (London: C. Ward and R. Chandler, 1734).Google Scholar
Atkins, John, A Voyage to Guinea, Brasil and the West-Indies (London: C. Ward and R. Chandler, 1735).Google Scholar
Bay, Edna G., Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Bosman, Willem, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea: Divided into the Gold, the Slave, and the Ivory Coasts (London: J. Knapton, 1705).Google Scholar
Dapper, Olfert, Beschreibung von Afrika (Amsterdam: Jacob von Meurs, 1670).Google Scholar
Dalzel, Archibald, The History of Dahomy: An Inland Kingdom of Africa (London: T. Spilbury and Son, 1793).Google Scholar
de Queirós Mattoso, Kátia M., To Be a Slave in Brazil, 1550–1888 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1986).Google Scholar
Feinberg, Harvey M., “Africans and Europeans in West Africa: Elminans and Dutchmen on the Gold Coast During the Eighteenth Century,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 79–7 (1989), 1186.Google Scholar
Hair, Paul E.H., Africa Encountered: European Contacts and Evidence, 1450–1700 (Hampshire: Variorum, 1997).Google Scholar
Hair, Paul E.H., Jones, Adam and Law, Robin (eds.), Barbot on Guinea: The Writings of Jean Barbot on West Africa, 1678–1712 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1992).Google Scholar
Harms, Robert W., The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade (New York: Basic Books, 2002).Google Scholar
Henige, David, “Guidelines for Editing Africanist Texts for Publication,” History in Africa 17 (1990), 379387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henige, David, and Johnson, Marion, “Agaja and the Slave Trade: Another Look at the Evidence,” History in Africa 3 (1976), 5767.Google Scholar
Herskovits, Melville J., Dahomey: An Ancient West African Kingdom (New York: J.J. Augustin, 1938).Google Scholar
Johnson, Marion, “The Cowrie Currencies of West Africa. Part I,” Journal of African History 11–1 (1970), 1749.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Marion, “Bulfinch Lambe and the Emperor of Pawpaw: A Footnote to Agaja and the Slave Trade,” History in Africa 5 (1978), 345350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Journal of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations from January 1728–9 to December 1734 (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1920).Google Scholar
Justesen, Ole (ed.), Danish Sources for the History of Ghana, 1657–1754 (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2005).Google Scholar
Labat, Jean Baptiste, Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinée, Isles Voisines, et à Cayenne, Fait en 1725, 1726 & 1727 (Paris: G. Saugrain, 1730).Google Scholar
Law, Robin, The Oyo Empire, c.1600 – c.1836: A West African Imperialism in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977).Google Scholar
Law, Robin, “Human Sacrifice in Pre-Colonial West Africa,” African Affairs 84–2 (1985), 5387.Google Scholar
Law, Robin, “A Neglected Account of the Dahomian Conquest of Whydah (1727), The ‘Relation de la Guerre de Juda’ of the Sieur Ringard of Nantes,” History in Africa 15 (1988), 321338.Google Scholar
Law, Robin (ed.), Correspondence from the Royal African Company’s Factories at Offra and Whydah on the Slave Coast of West Africa in the Public Record Office, London 1678–93 (Edinburgh: Centre of African Studies, Edinburgh University, 1989).Google Scholar
Law, Robin, “Further Light on Bulfinch Lambe and the ‘Emperor of Pawpaw:’ King Agaja of Dahomey’s Letter to King George I of England, 1726,” History in Africa 17 (1990), 211226.Google Scholar
Law, Robin, “The Original Manuscript Version of William Snelgrave’s ‘New Account of Some Parts of Guinea,’” History in Africa 17 (1990), 367372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Law, Robin, “King Agaja of Dahomey, the Slave Trade, and the Question of West African Plantations: The Embassy of Bulfinch Lambe and Adomo Tomo to England, 1726–32,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 19–2 (1991), 137163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Law, Robin, The Slave Coast of West Africa, 1550–1750: The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on an African Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).Google Scholar
Law, Robin (ed.), Correspondence of the Royal African Company’s Chief Merchants at Cabo Corso Castle with William’s Fort, Whydah, and the Little Popo Factory, 1727–1728: An Annotated Transcription of Ms. Francklin 1055/1 in the Bedfordshire County Record Office (Madison: University of Wisconsin Madison Press, 1991).Google Scholar
Law, Robin, “‘Here Is No Resisting the Country:’ The Realities of Power in Afro-European Relations on the West African ‘Slave Coast,’” Itinerario 18–2 (1994), 5064.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Law, Robin, The Kingdom of Allada (Leiden: Research School CNWS, 1997).Google Scholar
Law, Robin, “An Alternative Text of King Agaja of Dahomey’s Letter to King George I of England, 1726,” History in Africa 29 (2002), 257271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Law, Robin, Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving “Port”, 1727–1892 (Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Law, Robin, “West Africa’s Discovery of the Atlantic,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 44–1 (2011), 125.Google Scholar
Manning, Patrick, Slavery, Colonialism, and Economic Growth in Dahomey, 1640–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).Google Scholar
Mouser, Bruce L. (ed.), A Slaving Voyage to Africa and Jamaica: The Log of the Sandown, 1793–1794 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002).Google Scholar
Norris, Robert, Memoirs of the Reign of Bossa Ahádee, King of Dahomy, an Inland Country of Guiney (London: W. Lowndes, 1789).Google Scholar
Northrup, David A., Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1450–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).Google Scholar
Palmer, Colin A., Human Cargoes: The British Slave Trade to Spanish America, 1700–1739 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981).Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl, Dahomey and the Slave Trade: An Analysis of an Archaic Economy (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966).Google Scholar
Postlethwayt, Malachy, The National and Private Advantages of the African Trade Considered (London: Printed for John and Paul Knapton, 1746).Google Scholar
Postma, Johannes, The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).Google Scholar
Rawley, James, “Humphry Morice: Foremost London Slave Merchant of his Time,” in: Daget, Serge (ed.), De la Traite à L’esclavage: Actes du Colloque International sur la Traite des Noirs, Nantes, 1985 (Nantes: Centre de Recherches sur l’Histoire du Monde Atlantique, 1988), 275295.Google Scholar
Rediker, Marcus, The Slave Ship: A Human History (New York: Viking, 2008).Google Scholar
Ross, David, “The Anti-Slave Trade Theme in Dahoman History: An Examination of the Evidence,” History in Africa 9 (1982), 263271.Google Scholar
Ross, David, “ European Models and West African History: Further Comments on the Recent Historiography of Dahomey,” History in Africa 10 (1983), 293305.Google Scholar
Rodney, Walter, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Washington: Howard University Press, 1972).Google Scholar
Snelgrave, William, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave-Trade (London: J.J. and P. Knapton, 1734).Google Scholar
Strickrodt, Silke, Afro-European Trade in the Atlantic World: The Western Slave Coast, c.1550 – c.1885 (Suffolk: James Currey, 2015).Google Scholar
Sweet, James H., Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World (Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).Google Scholar
Smith, William, A New Voyage to Guinea (London: J. Nourse, 1744).Google Scholar
Thornton, John K., Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Thornton, John K., A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Dantzig, Albert (ed.), The Dutch and the Guinea Coast, 1674–1742: A Collection of Documents from the General State Archive at The Hague (Accra: GAAS, 1978).Google Scholar
Verger, Pierre, Trade Relations Between the Bight of Benin and Bahia from the 17th to 19th Century (Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1976).Google Scholar