¹ No other Protestant missionary society was active in this area. For the work of the Roman Catholic Société des Missions Africaines from 1861 onwards, cf. J. Lafitte, Le Dahomé. Souvenirs de voyage et de mission (1873);Google ScholarDesribes, E., L'Evangile au Dahomey et à la Côte des Esclaves (1877);Google ScholarBouche, P., La Côte des Esclaves et le Dahomey (1885);.Google ScholarTodd, J. M., African Mission (1962), especially chapter iii and IV.Google Scholar

² Louis Fraser describes as follows the procedure of a meeting he had as British vice-consul with the King of Dahomey in 1851: ‘I read [Lord Palmerston's two letters] piecemeal, then rendered them as near as I could into Madiki's English, which is no joke, and then he interpreted, as well as he could, I suppose.’ Fraser's Journal, fo. 90^r, in Beecroft to Palmerston, 19 Feb. 1852, F.O. 84/886, end. 20, sub-encl. in no. 3.Google Scholar

³ Todd, J. M., op. cit. 3, prefers the term ‘religious murder’.Google Scholar

⁴ Draft treaty of 8 Mar. 1847, in Winniett to Grey, 12 May 1847, C.O. 96/11, no. 42. The draft treaty of 6 May 1843, of which there is a copy in the Gold Coast inward correspondence of the Methodist Missionary Society, had proposed £700 p.a. for seven years.Google Scholar

⁵ Beecroft extended to five years, subject to ratification, Palmerston's authorization to offer £3000 p.a. for three years. Palmerston to Beecroft, 25 Seb. 1850, F.O. 84/816, no. 1 and encl. 6; Beecroft to Palmerston, 22 July 1850, F.O. 84/816, no. 9 and end. Cf. S. O. Biobaku, The Egba and their Neighbours, 1842–72 (1957), 39f.Google Scholar

⁶ By Cruickshank Cf. C. W. Newbury, The Western Slave Coast and its rulers (1961), 51. Winniett's estimate the previous year had been $50,000 or £10,400 p.a. Winniett to Grey, 12 May 1847, C.O. 96/11, no. 42.Google Scholar

⁷ Minute by Palmerston, 30 Sept. 1850, on Beecroft to Palmerston, 22 July 1810, F.O. 84/816, no. 9; cf. K. O. Dike, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830–1885 (1956), 130.Google Scholar

⁸ Malmesbury to Beecroft, 20 Mar. 1852, F.O. 84/886, encl. 23 in no. 4Google Scholar

⁹ Ghezo to Queen Victoria, 20 Jan. 1852, ibid. encl. 24; cf. Freeman to Secretaries of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, 12 Aug. 1854; Freeman to Ord, 2 Apr. 1856. Unless otherwise specified, references are to Gold Coast inward correspondence of the Methodist Missionary Society.

¹⁰ The evidence is conflicting. In Oct. 1853 Campbell reported that the slave trade was on the increase, except at Whydah where the King of Dahomey had forbidden it. In the following May Freeman saw a shipment of 650 slaves, but noted that Ghezo's court seemed poorer than he had previously known it. (Campbell to Clarendon, 31 Oct. 1853, F.O. 84/920, no. 24; Freeman to Secretaries, 12 Aug. 1854; Campbell to Ghezo, 13 Apr. 1854, in Campbell to Clarendon, 4 May 1854, F.O. 84/950, encl, 1 in no. 6.)Google Scholar

¹¹ Campbell to Clarendon, 4 Apr. 1857, F.O. 84/1031, n. 9. Cf. Newbury, op. cit. 54, n. 1.Google Scholar

¹² Bernasko to West (?), 1 Feb. 1862.Google Scholar

¹³ Bernasko to West (?), 1 May 1862.Google Scholar

¹⁴ On these, Hurt, cf. N. K., Wesleyan Missions on the Eastern Frontier of Cape Colony, 1820–1840, unpublished M.A. thesis (London, 1958), folios 32–8.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Wesleyan Methodism in Britain, in a conservative reaction after the French Revolution, became anxious to show that religious nonconformity did not imply revolutionary tendencies in politics. Cf. R. G. Cowherd, The Politics of English Dissent (1959 edition), 17; R. E. Davies, Methodism (1963) Pelican edition, 134f.Google Scholar

¹⁶ West to Hoole, 6 June 1859.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Campbell to Clarendon, 28 May 1855, F.O. 84/976, no. 8 and encl; same to same, 30 Aug. F.O. 84/976, encl. 7 in no. 15.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Freeman to Forster, 5 June 1855*; same to same, 2 July 1855*. The asterisk denotes autograph copies of Freeman's correspondence, M.M.S.: B. West Africa 3.Google Scholar

¹⁹ W.M.S. General Committee minute, 9 Oct. 1850, M.M.S.: M/OM 1, 484.Google Scholar

²⁰ Cf. Andrews to Newcastle, 31 Aug. 1860, C.O. 96/48; same to same, 9 Oct. 1861, CO. 96/54.Google Scholar

²¹ Freeman to Secretaries, 5 Nov. 1873; cf. Wolseley to Secretaries, 13 Dec. 1873, unsigned articles by Freeman entitled ‘The Ashantee War’, Methodist Recorder, 9 Jan.; 16 Jan. and 6 Feb. 1874.Google Scholar

²² Freeman to Forster, 6 Mar. 1855*; same to same, 5 June 1855*.Google Scholar

²³ Freeman to Ord, 27 Mar. 1856; cf. N. A. Birtwhistle, Thomas Birch Freeman (1950), 101.Google Scholar

²⁴ Freeman to Forster, 15 May 1856*.Google Scholar

²⁵ Cf. e.g., Winniett's Report for 1846, C.O. 96/11, no. 27, which concludes: ‘… the Christian Religion on which all the principles of good Government are founded is steadily and surely making its way among the people’.Google Scholar

²⁶ Freeman, fo. 514, in Andrews to Newcastle, 9 Aug. 1861, C.O. 96/54.Google Scholar

²⁷ Freeman to Swanzy, 12 June 1855*.Google Scholar

²⁸ Typescript of untitled MS., M.M.S.: B. ‘West Africa 4, fo. 286. Henceforward referred to as ‘Reminiscences’.Google Scholar

²⁹ African priests from Sāo Tomé visited Whydah twice a year. Cf. F. E. Forbes, Dahomey and the Dahomans (1851), 1, 176, and 118f.; Todd, op. cit. 50.Google Scholar

³⁰ ‘Reminiscences’, folios 232, 421–6; cf. Newbury, op. Cit. 50.Google Scholar

³¹ ‘Reminiscences’, folios 200, 238.Google Scholar

³² Freeman, T. B., Journal of Various Visits … (1844), II, 239ff., for 3 01 and 12–14 Mar. 1843.Google Scholar

³³ 13 Mar. 1843. In Freeman to Secretaries, 27 Mar. 1843; cf. Wesleyan Missionary Notices, 1843, 395.Google Scholar

³⁴ Freeman to Secretaries, 27 Mar. 1843.Google Scholar

³⁵ Freeman to Maclean, 11 May 1843.Google Scholar

³⁶ Maclean to Freeman, 24 May 1843, in ‘Reminiscences’, folios 422 f.Google Scholar

³⁷ Winniett to Grey, 22 Feb. 1847, C.O. 96/11.Google Scholar

³⁸ Hill to Stanley, 16 May 1844; same to same, 11 Nov. 1844, C.O. 96/4, nos. 15, 56; Freeman to Bannerman, 30 Jan. 1851*; ‘Reminiscences’, ch. xxxi, esp. folio 444.Google Scholar

³⁹ Duncan, J., Travels in West Africa (1847), II, 268–71.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ ‘I believe this humane change has been principally brought about through the advice of Mr Freeman, who is much in favour with his Majesty’.Google ScholarDuncan, , op. cit. I, 258, cf. it, 305f.; ‘Reminiscences’, folios 286, 310, 313.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Cf. Fraser's Journals, in Beecroft to Palmerston, 19 Feb. 1852, F.O. 84/886, encl. 20, sub-encl. 1 in no. 3, and in Beecroft to Malmesbury, 28 June 1852, F.O. 84/886, no; 2; cf. Malmesbury to Fraser, 19 Apr. 1852, F.O. 84/886, no. 3.Google Scholar

⁴² Beecroft's Journal for 4 July 1850, in Beecroft to Palmerston, 22 July 1850, F.O. 84/816, no. 9 Bannerman to Grey, 11 Feb. 1851, C.O. 96/22, no. 16 and encls.Google Scholar

⁴³ ‘Reminiscences’, folios 25–8, cf. folios 15f.; Christianity the Means of Civilization (evidence given to the House of Commons Committee on Aborigines by secretaris of three missionary societies) (1837). For the contrary view, cf. Duncan, op. cit. 1, 116Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Freeman to Beecham, 1 June 1853.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Freeman to Ghezo, 18 July 1853;Google ScholarFreeman to Dawson, 18 July 1853*.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Freeman to Secretarie, 30 May 1853; same to Hill, 9 Dec. 1853*.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Freeman to Secretaries, 5 July 1854; same to same, 12 Aug. 1854; same to Hill, 10 08. 1854*;Google ScholarWharton to Secretaries, 16 Aug. 1854;Google ScholarFreeman to Secretaries, 20 July 1855; same to same, 14 Feb. 1856; same to same, 15 May 1856; ‘Reminiscences’, folio 337.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ A few years later, Roman Catholic missionaries were to encounter the same reluctance on the part of Glele to allow mission work to extend beyond a similar ‘curtain society’, whose focus in this case was the Portuguese fort at Whydah. Cf. Todd, op. cit. 49ff.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Dawson to Freeman, 23 Feb. 1855.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Freeman to Secretaries, 12 Aug. 1854. Freeman set up a regular postal service between Whydah and the eastern frontier of the Gold Coast.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Freeman to Dawson, 5 Feb. 1855.*Google Scholar

⁵² Dawson to Freeman, 23 Feb. 1855, reporting an interview of 24 Dec. 1854.Google Scholar

⁵³ Freeman to Laing, 1 Sept. 1856*.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Freeman to Secretaries, 2 Apr. 1856.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ West to Hoole, 6 June 1859; same to same, 10 Sept. 1858.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ West to Hoole, 10 Feb. 1860.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Bernasko to Wharton (?), 31 Dec. 1860.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Wharton to Osborn, 3 Apr. 1861;Google Scholarcf. Bernasko to Wharton (?), 29 Nov. 1860. The word ‘missionary’ had at this time no racial connotation, African Wesleyan ministers being known until 1870 as ‘native assistant missionaries’.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Bernasko to West (?), 1 May 1860;Google ScholarWest to Secretaries, 12 Aug. 1862;Google ScholarBernasko to West (?), 3 Oct. 1862.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Bernasko to West (?), 29 Dec. 1862;Google ScholarWest to Secretaries, 12 Sept. 1863;Google ScholarBurton to Secretaries, 13 June 1863, in F. D. Walker, A Hundred Years in Nigeria (1942), 56;Google ScholarBurton, R. F., A Mission to Gelele King of Dahome (1893 edition), 1, 18, 56f., 79; 11, 227, 229;Google ScholarSkertchly, J. A., Dahomey as it is (1874), 16f., 49f., 237f.Google Scholar

⁶¹ The Scantier evidence from smaller neighbouring kingdoms in which the W.M.S. was at work points in the same direction, although mission workers were less involved than at Whydah in unofficial diplomatic activity. At Porto Nova, the African minister Joseph Marshall preached periodically to King Sodji from his arrival in 1862, but this did not prevent a rumour in 1867 that converts (not, apparently, recaptives) at an outstation named Ashipa were building, not a church, but a British fort. The subsequent persecution did not extend to ‘expatriate’ Christians, e.g. from Lagos (Marshall to West, 24 Sept. 1867; Richmond to West, 2 Oct. 1867; Grimmer to Boyce, 1 Dec. 1868). At Agoué, where Roman Catholic work had begun without European initiative as early as 1835, the long-standing hostility between wards known as ‘English Town’ and ‘Portuguese Town’, which had led to civil war in 1860, assumed in 1876 a religious aspect. A house which Quashi Gazo or Ganzozo, the chief of English Town, had transferred to the W.M.S. by deed of gift was occupied, under French pressure, by the ‘Portuguese’ and Roman Catholic party, Quashi Gazo's gift being understood as a step towards British occupation of the whole town (Milum to Boyce, 15 June 1876; T. E. Williams to Secretaries, 18 Sept. 1876; Milum to Secretaries, 23 Nov. 1876; cf. T. E. Williams to Secretaries, 19 July 1878; Bouche, op. cit. 266f.). At Anécho, it was popularly thought that one of the aims of Protestant mission work was ‘to introduce a foreign government to a country’ (Franklin to Secretaries, 29 Oct. 1880). At Ado, the Wesleyan agent was accused by the chief in 1880 of being a British spy (Marshall to Kilner, 31 July 1880).Google Scholar