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History and Legitimacy: Aspects of the Use of the Past in Precolonial Dahomey*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Robin Law
Robin Law*
Affiliation:
University of Stirling
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Extract

The kingdom of Dahomey (or Fon) was probably founded during the first half of the seventheenth century, but emerged clearly as a major power only in the early eighteenth century when its king Agaja (ca. 1716–40) conquered its southern neighbours Allada (1724) and Whydah (1727), thereby establishing direct contact with the European slave-traders at the coast. Dahomey then remained the dominant power in the area until it was itself conquered by the French in the 1892–94. The kingdom ceased to exist as a political entity when its last king was deposed by the French in 1900, but a degree of institutional continuity has been maintained through the performance of rituals at the royal palace (now a museum) in the capital city Abomey. The history of Dahomey from the 1720s onwards is relatively well documented from contemporary European sources, enjoying in particular the unique distinction of being made the subject already in the eighteenth century of a published book—Archibald Dalzel's History of Dahomy (1793). There is also a rich and coherent corpus of narrative traditions relating to the kingdom's history, best known in the classic recension published in 1911 by the French colonial official Le Herissé, which is in fact merely a translation (and in some measure an abridgement, omitting some detailed material) of the account given to him by a single Dahomian informant, Agbidinukun, the chef de canton of the cercle of Abomey under French colonial rule and a brother of the last independent king of Dahomey, Behanzin (1889–94).

Type
Papers from the Conference “Memoires, Histoires, Identites: Experiences Des Societes Francophones”
Information
History in Africa , Volume 15 , 1988 , pp. 431 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1988

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the conference on “Mémoires, histoires, identités: expériences des sociétés francophones,” Université Laval, Québec, in October 1987. My thanks are due to those who contributed to discussion of the paper on that occasion, and also to the Nuffield Foundation, the British Academy, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, and the University of Stirling, for their financial support of the research on which it is based.

References

Notes

1. Dalzel, Archibald, The History of Dahomy (London, 1793; reprinted 1967).Google Scholar

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11. An early fascination with literacy was evinced by Agaja, who according to an English trader held captive in Dahomey in 1724, “much love[s] to look in a Book, and commonly carries a Latin Mass-Book, in his Pocket … and when he has a mind to banter any Body out of their Requests, he looks in his Book as studiously as if he understood it, and could employ his Thought on no other Subject, and much affects scrawling on Paper, often sending me his Letters:” letter of Bulfinch Lamb, 27 Nov. 1724, in Smith, William, A New Voyage to Guinea (London, 1744; reprinted 1967), 182–83.Google Scholar For an especially interesting example of written communication by a Dahomian king see the letter of King Adanzan to the Regent of Portugal, 20 Nov. 1804, written for him by a Portuguese held captive in Dahomey, in Verger, Pierre, Flux et réflux de la traite des négres entre le Golfe de Bénin et Bahia de Todos os Santos du XVIIe au XIXe siécle (Paris, 1968), 281–82.Google Scholar

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14. For the possiblity of such “feedback” from European published sources into local traditions in the Dahomey area as early as the seventeenth century, see Law, Robin, “Problems of Plagiarism, Harmonization and Misunderstanding in Contemporary European Sources: Early (pre-1680s) Sources for the ‘Slave Coast’ of West Africa,” Paideumz, 33(1987), 346.Google Scholar

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22. Ibid., 9–10.

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29. Herskovits, /Herskovits, , Dahomean Narrative, 21.Google Scholar

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33. Forbes, , Dahomey, 2:21.Google Scholar

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38. Dalzel, , History of Dahomy, 2.Google Scholar

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42. Argyle, W. J., The Fon of Dahomey (Oxford, 1966), 2.Google Scholar

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45. Dalzel, , History of Dahomy, 2, 211, 219.Google Scholar

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48. Burton, , Mission to Gelele, 2:111–12Google Scholar; cf. Le Hérissé, L'ancien royaume du Dahomey, 288n2.

49. Le Hérissé, , L'ancien royaume du Dahomey, 289.Google Scholar

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51. Dalzel, , History of Dahomy, 1.Google Scholar

52. Argyle, , The Fon of Dahomey, 2Google Scholar; for a particular instance in which Dahomian traditions are dismissed as “propaganda” see Akinjogbin, I. A., Dahomey and Its Neighbours, 1708-1818 (Cambridge, 1967), 75.Google Scholar

53. Le Hérissé, , L'ancien royaume du Dahomey, 6–8.Google Scholar

54. Ibid., 351.

55. See esp. Herskovits, , Dahomey, 1:11–14Google Scholar; Argyle, , The Fon of Dahomey, 34–36Google Scholar; Akinjogbin, , Dahomey and Its Neighbours, 199–200.Google Scholar

56. Foà, , Dahomey, 20.Google Scholar

57. PRO: CO.2/11, letter of G. A. Robertson to Lord Bathurst, Cape Coast, 2 Sept. 1820.

58. Brue, , “Voyage fait en 1843,” 61.Google Scholar

59. Forbes, , Dahomey, 2:23.Google Scholar

60. Burton, , Mission to Gelele, 2:292–93.Google Scholar

61. The contemporary account of Pires, , Viagem de Africa, 77–79Google Scholar, shows that Adanzan (in this account called “Ariconúm”) had to fight for the throne against an elder brother called “Anibabel” (presumably Ganse). An account recorded in 1803, only six years after the event, already suppressed mention of this civil war, and implied a peaceful succession, stating like Burton later that the eldest son was rejected because of a physical imperfection, though this was allegedly not gibbosity (a hunched back) but a deformity of the toes: M'Leod, John, A Voyage to Africa (London, 1820; reprinted 1971), 39.Google Scholar

62. Le Hérissé, , L'ancien royaume du Dahomey, 311–12.Google Scholar

63. Letter of Jan Bronssema, Badagry, 11 Aug. 1740, in Elmina Journal, 1 Feb. 1741, in Dantzig, Albert Van, ed. The Dutch and the Guinea Coast, 1674-1742: A Collection of Documents from the General State Archive of the Hague (Accra, 1978), 353.Google Scholar

64. Archives Nationales, Paris [hereafter AN]: C.6/25, letter of Conseil de Direction, Whydah, 18 Feb. 1753.

65. Norris, , Memoirs of the Reign of Bossa Ahadee, 4–6.Google Scholar

66. Le Hérissé, , L'ancien royaume du Dahomey, 299–300.Google Scholar

67. See Akinjogbin, , Dahomey and Its Neighbours, 60–62.Google Scholar

68. Le Hérissé, , L'ancien royaume du Dahomey, 295Google Scholar; cf. ibid., 7.

69. Skertchly, J. A., Dahomey As It Is (London, 1874), 450.Google Scholar

70. Bergé, J., “Etude sur le Pays Mahi,” Bulletin du Comité d'études historiques et scientifiques de l'Afrique ôccidentale Française, 11/4 (1928), 719Google Scholar, reporting tradition in the Mahi country, to the north of Dahomey, whither Agbosassa is said to have retired after his unsuccessful bid for the Dahomian throne. The story of Agbosassa's claim to the throne and exile was already recorded in the 1860s by Burton, , Mission to Gelele, 2:268Google Scholar, but connected with the accession of Akaba rather than of Agaja.

71. Coissy, Anatole, “Un régne de femme dans l'ancien royaume d'Abomey,” Etudes Dahoméennes, 2 (1949), 5–8.Google Scholar

72. PRO: C.113/276, letter of William Baillie, Whydah, 18 Jan. 1718.

73. Le Hérissé, , L'ancien royaume du Dahomey, 3, 25.Google Scholar

74. Ibid., 12; cf. also ibid., 283.

75. Herskovits, , Dahomey, 2:73.Google Scholar

76. Argyle, , The Fon of Dahomey, 98.Google Scholar

77. Herskovits, , Dahomey, 2:73.Google Scholar

78. Forbes, , Dahomey, 2:73.Google Scholar

79. AN: C.6/25, letter of Delisle, Dahomey, 7 Sept. 1728.

80. Ibid.

81. See Duncan, , Travels in Western Africa, 2:275Google Scholar; Forbes, Dahomey, 2:24.Google Scholar

82. Brue, , “Voyage fait en 1843,” 66Google Scholar; cf. also Duncan, , Travels in Western Africa, 2:275.Google Scholar

83. Le Hérissé, , L'ancien royaume du Dahomey, esp. 318-22 (Gezo's victorious wars), 299–300 (tribute paid by Agaja).Google Scholar

84. Ibid, 312-13.

85. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:7Google Scholar; cf. ibid., 2:23.

86. Argyle, , The Fon of Dahomey, 35.Google Scholar

87. See esp. Foà, , Dahomey, 12–26.Google Scholar

88. Letter of Lieutenant Forbes to Commodore Fanshawe, 5 Nov. 1849, in Papers Relative to the Reduction of Lagos, inclosure 13 in no. 3.

89. Forbes, , Dahomey, 2:89.Google Scholar

90. Cf. Akinjobgin, Dahomey and Its Neighbours, chapter 6.

91. Le Hérissé, , L'ancien royaume du Dahomey 289Google Scholar; cf. Burton, , Mission to Gelele, 2:111, 266–67.Google Scholar

92. Le Hérissé, , L'ancien royaume du Dahomey, 24–25 (prostration)Google Scholar; 84-86 (fiscal innovations); 74, 290 (judicial centralization); 213 (security of property); 56, 291 (ban on export of native Dahomians); 161 (change in burial customs).

93. Herskovits, /Herskovits, , Dahomean Narrative, 359–61Google Scholar; for cotton cloth see also Herskovits, , Dahomey, 1:16.Google Scholar

94. See esp. Akinjogbin, , Dahomey and Its Neighbours, 24-26, 203–04.Google Scholar

95. Norris, , Memoirs of the Reign of Bossa Ahadee, xivGoogle Scholar; Burton, , Mission to Gelele, 1:105–06Google Scholar; contrast Foà, , Dahomey, 3–6Google Scholar; Le Hérissé, , L'ancien royaume du Dahomey, 288.Google Scholar

96. Burton, , Mission to Gelele, 2:270–71Google Scholar; cf. Forbes, , Dahomey 2:135Google Scholar; contrast Le Hérissé, L'ancien royaume du Dahomey, plan opposite 30.

97. For prostration see e.g. for Allada, , “Journal du Voyage du Sieur Delbée” in Relat on de ce qui s'est passé dans les Isles et Terre ferme de l'Amérique, ed. Clodoré, J. de (Paris, 1671), 2:427Google Scholar; and for Whydah, e.g. Bosman, William, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea (London, 1705; reprinted 1967), 365.Google Scholar For royal inheritance rights see for Allada, , Dapper, Olfert, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten (Amsterdam, 1668), 493Google Scholar; and for Whydah, , Phillips, Thomas, “A Journal of a Voyage made in the Hannibal of London” in Collection of Voyages and Travels, ed. Churchill, Awnsham and Churchill, John (6 vols.: London, 1732), 6:219.Google Scholar

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99. For further discussion see Law, , “Ideologies of Kingship,” 336–38.Google Scholar

100. Norris, , Memoirs of the Reign of Bossa Ahadee, 128–30Google Scholar; Dalzel, , History of Dahomy, 204–05.Google Scholar

101. See e.g. Bosman, , New and Accurate Description, 366a.Google Scholar

102. AN: B.1/9, f. 125, letter of Bouchel, Whydah, 30 Jan. 1716.

103. Le Hérissé, , L'ancien royaume du Dahomey, 274–77.Google Scholar

104. Ronen, Dov, Dahomey: Between Tradition and Modernity (Ithaca, 1975), 20.Google Scholar

105. Akinjogbin, , Dahomey and Its Neighbours, 91.Google Scholar

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107. AN: C.6/25, Pruneau, and Guestard, , “Mémoire pour servir à l'intelligence du commerce de Juda,” 18 March 1750.Google Scholar

108. Burton, , Mission to Gelele, 1:104.Google Scholar

109. Foà, , Dahomey, 3–5.Google Scholar

110. Herskovits, , Dahomey, 1:167–69.Google Scholar

111. Le Hérissé, L'ancien royaume du Dahomey, 18n2.

112. Burton, , Mission to Gelele, 2:97.Google Scholar

113. For further discussion of Dahomey's attempt to appropriate the legitimacy of the Allada kinship, see Law, , “Ideologies of Kingship,” 327–29.Google Scholar