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³⁴ PRO: FO. 84/1465, Governor Geo. Strahan, C. to Earl of Carnarvon, 22 Nov. 1875.Google Scholar

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⁴⁷ Duncan, , Travels in Western Africa, ii, 264.Google Scholar

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⁵⁷ AN: C. 6/27 bis, Bullet, Abbé, ‘Reflexions sur Juda’, 1 June 1776, ch. 5Google Scholar. The office of Coki does not appear to have survived into the nineteenth century, but the Bonyon is listed among the ‘six traders or superintendents of trade appointed by the king’ in 1850: Forbes, , Dahomey and the Dahomans, I, iiiGoogle Scholar. The Bonyon in the nineteenth century also served as governor of the Portuguese quarter of Whydah: ibid. I, 105; Burton, , Mission to Gelele, 60.Google Scholar

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⁵⁹ AN: C. 6/25, Levet to Compagnie des Indes, 1 Feb. 1746, ‘pour faire luy seul tout le commerce'.

⁶⁰ For instances of royal officials at Whydah trading illegally on their own account, see e.g. AN: C. 6/25, Levet to Compagnie des Indes, 26 Aug. 1733 (lettre de nouvelles); id. to id., 26 Aug. 1733 (lettre de commerce).

⁶¹ It is noteworthy that a separate military commander for Whydah, the Kawo, was also appointed in 1747: Akinjogbin, , Dahomey and its Neighbours, 121Google Scholar. There was evidently a systematic move at this time to reduce the powers of the Yevogan, by transferring some of his functions to new officials: probably this was inspired by an abortive rebellion by the Yevogan in 1745, recorded by Norris, , Memoirs of the Reign of Bossa Ahadee, 40–8.Google Scholar

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⁶⁴ Norris, , Memoirs of the Reign of Bossa Ahadee, 138.Google Scholar

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⁸⁹ For the career of da Souza, see esp. Ross, David, ‘The First Chacha of Whydah: Francisco Felix da Souza’, Odu, new series, ii (1969), 19–28.Google Scholar

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⁹⁵ PP, 1852 (1455) vol. liv, Papers relative to the reduction of Lagos, item 3, inclosure 18: Duncan, Vice Consul to Palmerston, Viscount, 22 Sept. 1849.Google Scholar

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⁹⁷ Burton, , Mission to Gelele, 79.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ The French fort at Whydah had been abandoned in 1797, the Portuguese in 1807, and the British in 1812.

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¹⁰¹ Foà, Édouard, Le Dahomey, (Paris, 1895), 23Google Scholar. The commercial operations of Joaquim d'Almeida were, however, conducted primarily at Agoue, west of Whydah, where he died in 1857.

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¹¹⁵ Foà, , Le Dahomey, 23Google Scholar. A less credible account of the rivalry between the elder Kwenun and da Souza is given by Quénum, , ‘Au Pays des Fons’, 296–7.Google Scholar

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¹²¹ Foà, , Le Dahomey, 33–4Google Scholar. It was this incident which initiated the disputes which led to the British blockade of Whydah in 1876–7.

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¹³⁸ Forbes, , Dahomey and the Dahomans, i, 114, 115, 123.Google Scholar

¹³⁹ Ibid. I, 31.

¹⁴⁰ Private merchants could, however, be marginally involved in slave ‘production’, since they might be required to supply forces to serve with the Dahomian army: cf. Ibid. I, 113. They could also finance slave-producing operations, by supplying guns and ammunition on credit to the military chiefs.

¹⁴¹ Dalzel, , History of Dahomy, 215.Google Scholar

¹⁴² Forbes, , Dahomey and the Dahomans, i, 113.Google Scholar

¹⁴³ Herissé, Le, L'Ancien Royaume de Dahomey, 86–7.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁴ Forbes, , Dahomey and the Dahomans, i, 35, 111.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁵ Herissé, Le, L'Ancien Royaume de Dahomey, 87.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁶ PRO: FO. 84/893, Forbes, T. G. to Bruce, H. W., 18 Jan. 1852Google Scholar; ibid., Forbes, T. G., ‘Journal of Proceedings on My Visit to Abomey’, entry for 13 Jan. 1852Google Scholar; FO. 84/886, Fraser, L., ‘Occurrences, Gossip &c. at Whydah’, entries for 20 Jan. and 16 Feb. 1852Google Scholar; Ross, David, ‘The Autonomous Kingdom of Dahomey, 1818–94’ (Ph.D. Thesis, University of London, 1967), 123–4.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁷ PRO: FO. 84/886, Fraser, L., ‘Occurrences, Gossip &c. at Whydah’, entry for 16 Feb. 1852.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁸ Skertchly, , Dahomey As It Is, 272Google Scholar. Other royal oil plantations were established on the Abomey plateau: Ross, , ‘The Autonomous Kingdom of Dahomey’, 83–4.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁹ Skertchly, , Dahomey As It Is, 52, 89.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁰ Gezo's successor Glele had the alternative identity of Addokpon. For the institution of the ‘Bush King’, see Burton, , Mission to Gelele, 268–9Google Scholar; Skertchly, , Dahomey As It Is, 271–2Google Scholar. Skertchly links the institution to the oil trade; Burton gives a similar commercial explanation of its origins, but refers not to trade in oil but to the manufacture of cloth, clay pipes, etc. The institution had been established by 1857, when Gezo is recorded to have employed the name Gankpe while trading oil to Prya Nova, west of Whydah: PRO: FO. 2/20, Consul Campbell to Earl of Clarendon, 7 Mar. 1857, with inclosures, esp. Commander George H. Day to Commodore John Adams, 24 Feb.

¹⁵¹ Skertchly, , Dahomey As It Is, 271.Google Scholar

¹⁵² PRO: FO. 84/1465, Anonymous letter to the Editor of the African Times, 23 June 1876Google Scholar, inclosure to Fitzgerald, E. to Wylde, W. H., 27 July 1876Google Scholar. The writer, however, refers to having been at Whydah in 1843–5, and it seems likely that his account reflects conditions in the 1840s rather than in the 1870s.

¹⁵³ Ross, , ‘The Career of Domingo Martinez’, 83.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁴ Skertchly, , Dahomey As It Is, 23, 32–4.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁵ Ibid. 406.

¹⁵⁶ Burton, , Mission to Gelele, 193.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁷ It does appear, indeed, that there was some sort of struggle for control of trade between the state bureaucracy and private entrepreneurs in Asante during the nineteenth century: Wilks, Ivor, Asante in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1975), 194–6, 688–92, 700–5Google Scholar. In Benin also, royal control over the Atlantic trade appears to have partially broken down for a period in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries: Ryder, A. F. C., Benin and the Europeans 1485–1897 (London, 1969), 130, 153.Google Scholar