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⁴ ‘African Law’ in Larsen, A., Jenks, C. W. and others, Sovereignty within the Law (New York, 1965), 210–22.Google Scholar

⁵ Ibid. 220.

⁶ See, for example, Rodney, W., A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545–1800 (Oxford, 1970), 87–8.Google Scholar

⁷ The Yoruba kingdoms alone are characterized by a great diversity of political forms: see Smith, Robert, Kingdoms of the Yoruba (London, 1969), chapters VII, VIII and XI.Google Scholar

⁸ Ryder, A. F. C., Benin and the Europeans, 1485–1897 (London, 1969), 73.Google Scholar The letter is translated in full in Ryder, ‘The Benin Missions’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, II, 2 (1961), 258–9.Google Scholar

⁹ Ryder, Benin, 113.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Dapper, O., Description de l'Afrique (Amsterdam, 1636);Google ScholarBosman, W., A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea (London, 1705);Google ScholarBarbot, J., A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea (London, 1732);Google ScholarSneigrave, W., A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and of the Slave Trade (London, 1734);Google ScholarNorris, R., Memoirs of the Reign of Bossa Ahadee King of Dahomy (London, 1789);Google ScholarDaizel, A., The History of Dahomy (London, 1793).Google Scholar

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¹² Ibid. 135. See also Akinjogbin, I. A., Dahomey and its Neighbours, 1708–1818 (Cambridge, 1968), 91–2, for further details of this settlement.Google Scholar

¹³ Daaku, K. Y., Trade and Politics on the Gold Coast, 1600–1720 (Oxford, 1970), 124;Google ScholarFynn, J. K., Asante and its Neighbours, 1700–1807 (London, 1971), 87, 124.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See Akintoye, S. A., Revolution and Power Politics in Yorubaland, 1840–1893 (London, 1971), 146.Google Scholar

¹⁵ The importance of trade in the development of Western diplomacy is stressed by Nicolson, Harold, Diplomacy (Oxford, 1939; 1963 edition), 50.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Goody, J., Technology, Tradition and the State in Africa (Oxford, 1971), 39–42.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Lovejoy, P. E., ‘Long-Distance Trade and Islam: the case of the nineteenth century Hausa kola trade’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, V, (1971), 537–47.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid. 539.

¹⁹ Mattingly, G., Renaissance Diplomacy (London, 1965 edition), 63–4, cautiously admits the place of commercial agents in the history of diplomacy. He concludes, ‘For Venice, anyway, a case might be made for her consuls having been the precursors of her resident ambassadors’.Google Scholar

²⁰ Bontinck, F., ‘La premiere “Ambassade” Congolaise à Rome’, Etudes d'Histoire africaine, I (1970), 48–9.Google Scholar

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²² Dupuis, J., Journal of Residence in Ashantee (London, 1824), 168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²³ Smith, M. G., Government in Zazzau, 1800–1950 (Oxford, 1960) 43, 55. Some of these slave messengers were also eunuchs.Google Scholar

²⁴ Astley, J., Voyages and Travels (London, 1746), II, 68, 73;Google ScholarBowdich, T. E., Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee (London, 1824), 248–9, 257.Google ScholarAgyei is the subject of Story V in Stories of Strange Lands (London, 1835), 152–79, by Mrs R. Lee, formerly Mrs Bowdich.Google Scholar

²⁵ Bosman, Description, 194;Google ScholarBowdich, Mission, 294;Google ScholarMcCulloch, M., Peoples of Sierra Leone (London, 1950), 29–33;Google ScholarAdandé, A., Les Récades des Rois de Dahomey (Dakar, 1962), passim;Google ScholarKyerematen, A. A. Y., Panoply of Ghana (London, 1964), 92–6 and illustrations, 94–-7.Google ScholarWillett, , African Art. An Introduction (London, 1971), 184–5.Google Scholar

²⁶ Rev. Johnson, S., The History of the Yorubas (ed. Johnson, O.) (Lagos, 1921; 1957 edition), 60–3, 67, 468.Google Scholar See also Law, R. C. C., The Oyo Empire: the history of a Yoruba state, principally in the period c. 1600–c. 1836 (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1972), 75–80.Google Scholar

²⁷ See Johnson, History, 211, 468–70, 531, 627. The first reference describes the peace conference at Ikoyi between the Alafin and his rebellious chiefs during the last years of the old Oyo kingdom. The Ilari who represented the Alafin was Kafilegboin. This was taken by the chiefs to imply that the Alafin had no genuine wish to reach agreement, and they broke off negotiations. The other references concern the objection by Governor Carter of Lagos in 1893 to dealing with Oba ko-se-tan, who had taken part in abortive negotiations to end the Yoruba wars in 1881. The Alafin sent Oba l'olu in his place. Johnson, 72, apparently errs in describing the Oyo chief known as the Laguna as ‘the state ambassador in critical times’.Google Scholar

²⁸ Dalzel, History, 223, 254, 172;Google ScholarArgyle, W. J., The Fon of Dahomey (Oxford, 1966), 68–9. Akinjogbin, Dahomey, 118, writes that king Tegbesu (1740–74) introduced Oyo court institutions, including officials corresponding to the Ilari, into Dahomey.Google Scholar

²⁹ Mattingly, Diplomacy, 42–4, writes that although various forms of immunity had been established in Europe by the fifteenth century for the ambassador and his suite, there were so many exceptions that an international law of diplomacy cannot be said to have existed before the middle of the seventeenth century.Google ScholarNys, E., Les Origines de la Diplomatie (Brussels, 1884), 33–4, considers that the law became so exaggerated in the seventeenth century as to diminish the principle of national sovereignty, a development for which he blames Grotius.Google Scholar

³⁰ For example, see Barbot, Description, 128, 370, 396.Google Scholar

³¹ Dapper, Description, 266 (with an engraving).Google Scholar

³² Description, 226–7.Google Scholar

³³ Barbot, Description, 56. The same king, when receiving the French factor at Goree, removed the hat worn by an accompanying friar, refused to return it, and eventually sent a young slave in exchange.Google Scholar

³⁴ A History of the Gold Coast and Ashanti (London, 1925; 1961 reprint), I, 186.Google Scholar

³⁵ Bosman, Description, 396–8;Google ScholarDupuis, Journal, 22, 254, 256;Google ScholarFynn, Asante, III.Google Scholar

³⁶ Akintoye, Politics, 89, It is also alleged that Fabunmi of Imesi Igbodo habitually executed the messengers sent by the Are Latosisa of Ibadan.Google Scholar

³⁷ This was precipitated in the sixteenth century, according to Mattingly, Diplomacy, 266–7, by the embassy chapel question after the Reformation, and was explicitly stated by Grotius in De Jure ac Pacis, II, XVIII, para. 4, no. 8. The principle was challenged by the ruling of a London divorce court in May 2972Google Scholar (Daily Telegraph, 12 May 1972).Google Scholar

³⁸ For a note on Yoruba sanctuaries, see Smith, Robert, ‘Ijebu, 1892’ in Crowder, M. (ed.), West African Resistance (London, 1971), 198.Google Scholar

³⁹ Dalzel, History, viii; Argyle, Fon, 64, 72. Snelgrave, Account, 39, writes that courtiers whispered their messages for the king ‘into the Ear of an old Woman, who went to the King; and having received his answer, she returned with it to them’. This was probably one of the female officials known as the ‘mothers’ of the higher male officials, and who formed (according to Herskovits, cited by Argyle) a part of the royal system of control.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Dapper, Description, 267.Google Scholar

⁴¹ History, 592–3.Google Scholar

⁴² Ibid. 513.

⁴³ Hayford, Casely, Gold Coast Institutions (London, 1903), 37. The proverb is given as:wori bobo ingwa.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Bowdich, Mission, 252;Google ScholarWilks, I., ‘Ashanti Government’ in Forde, D. and Kaberry, P. M. (ed.), West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1967), 212–13.Google ScholarHagan, G. P., ‘Ashanti Bureaucracy’, Trans. Hist. Soc. Ghana, XII (1971), has traced the beginnings of the administrative changes beyond the reign of Osei Kwadwo, 1764–77, to that of Opoku Ware, c. 1720-c. 1750.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Cited in Ryder, Benin, 30.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Smith, Robert, ‘To the Palaver Islands: war and diplomacy on the Lagos lagoon in 1852–1854’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, v, I (1969), 21.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Dapper, Description, 305.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ For example, see Duke's, Antera diary in Forde, D., Efik Traders of Old Calabar (London, 1956).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ In Yoruba, for example, the word ajele for the resident representatives of Ibadan was apparently adopted for this purpose. It was applied in the mid-nineteenth century to the British consuls at Lagos and later to British Residents and District Officers. In Yorubalanguage newspapers today, olotu (‘head’) is generally used to translate ‘consul’, while ‘ambassador‘ or ‘enovy’ is ashoju, a title used by chiefs who have the special duty of representing their king. State messengers were previously known as Iko. (The writer thanks Dr W. Abimbola for confirming this information.)Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Little, K., ‘The Political Function of the Poro’, Africa, xxxv, (1965), XXXVI, I (1966).Google ScholarBloxham, G. W., ‘Exhibition of West African symbolic messages’, J. Anthrop. Inst., XVI (1887), 295–9. This and other examples are now in the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford (case 24).Google Scholar

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⁵² Akinjoghin, Dahomey, 63, citing Le Herissé and Hazoume.Google Scholar

⁵³ Argyle, Fon, 83–4.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Bowdich, Mission, 67–8, describes the close watch kept on his mission in Kumasi. He also mentions (294) that ‘a shrewd but mean boy… in the commonest capacity and meanest attire’ was attached to Ashanti embassies to spy on the ambassador.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Astley, Voyages, II, 66.Google Scholar See also Rodney, Upper Guinea, 195–6.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Journal, 166, 213.Google Scholar

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⁵⁸ For examples, see Snelgrave, Account, 58;Google ScholarDalzel, History, 157.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Description, 370. But this custom, even if accurately reported, had certainly died out by the latter part of the eighteenth century.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Dupuis, Journal, 174;Google ScholarDavies, A. W., ‘The History and Organization of the “Kambonse” in Dagomba’ (typescript c. 1935), S (kindly lent by Professor J. D. Fage). The leopards but not the ambassadors reached England.Google Scholar

⁶¹ History, 180–6, 191.Google ScholarAkinjogbin, Dahomey, 167, treats Dalzel's allegation of Dahomean intervention with some scepticism.Google Scholar

⁶² Dalzel, History, 193–6.Google Scholar

⁶³ Snelgrave, Account, 135;Google ScholarDalzel, History, 74;Google ScholarAkinjogbin, Dahomey, 90–2, 123–4.Google Scholar

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⁶⁵ Adeleye, R. A., Power and Diplomacy in Northern Nigeria, 1804–1906 (London, 1971), 69.Google Scholar

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⁶⁷ In Larsen, Sovereignty, 222.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Bohannan, Tiv, 30–1.Google ScholarBarbot, Description, 338, also refers to the mixing of blood in the solemnization of contracts.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Snelgrave, Account, 135.Google ScholarFor examples of hostages, see Barbot, Description, 298;Google ScholarDavies, ‘Dagomba’,Google ScholarDaaku, Trade and Politics, 170.Google Scholar In this connexion, a maxim by Folann, A., The Laws and Customs of Ebgaland (Lagos 1939), 54, is significant. Writing of contract (adehun in Yoruba), he says: ‘There is no agreement without consideration, in money, kind or otherwise.’Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Smith, Kingdoms, 41–2.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Description, 149.Google Scholar

⁷² This is to go less far than Triminghaxn, J. S., Islam in West Africa (Oxford, 1959), 147–8, who writes of Islamic laws as being generally subordinate to African customary law. It is not clear if he intends this to apply even to such Islamized states as the Fulani emirates of Hausaland.Google Scholar

⁷³ Khadduri, M., War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore, 1965), passim.Google Scholar See also Usman dan Fodio's handbook to the Jihad, , Bayan Wujub al-hijra, translated and edited by el-Masri, F. H. (Ph.D. thesis, Ibadan, 1968).Google Scholar

⁷⁴ In the Sokoto Caliphate, all foreigners who submitted to the protection of the Caliph and yet retained their own Customs, including Hausa pagans, were considered dhimmiGoogle Scholar: see Last, M., The Sokoto Caliphate (London, 1967), 67.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Islam in West Africa, 139.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Khadduri, War and Peace, chapter XXI. Unfortunately he does not deal with diplomatic relations between the Muslim states.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ The paragraph is based to this point on Hunwick, J. O., chapter 6, ‘Songhay, Bornu and Hausaland in the sixteenth century’, 206–12,Google Scholar and Adeleye, R. A., chapter 13, ‘Hausaland and Bornu, 1600–1800’, 498, 502–5,Google Scholar in History of West Africa, vol. I (London, 1971), ed. Ajayi, and Crowder, The French surgeon's evidence cited by Hunwick (as also by Barth) is from the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris, 3e serie, xi–xii, 1849, 252–9.Google Scholar

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⁷⁹ Bivar, A. D. H. and Hiskett, M., ‘The Arabic Literature of Nigeria to 1804: a provisional account’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, xxv (1962), 105.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Last, Sokoto, passim, especially 92, 190–5.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Bowdich, Mission, 90–1, 232, 296;Google ScholarDupuis, Journal, 112, 229.Google Scholar See also Wilks, I., ‘Ashanti Government’, 218.Google Scholar

⁸² For the identification of some of these Muslims, see Levtzion, N., ‘Early 19th. Century Arabic Manuscripts from Kumasi’, Trans. Hist. Soc. Ghana, VIII (1965), 99–119.Google Scholar According to Dupws, Journal, 245, the previous Asantehene, Osei Kwame, had been deposed for planning the extension of Islamic practices in Ashanti.Google Scholar

⁸³ Mission, 296.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ The account, by Landolphe, J. F., Mémoires, ed. Quesné, J. S. (Paris, 1823), vol. II, 85–8,Google Scholar is cited by Ryder, Benin, 224–5,Google Scholar and Law, , Oyo, 78–9. Both Ryder and Law conclude that the men were probably northerners, perhaps Hausa. There is a reference to the presence of ‘Malays’Google Scholar, that is, Muslims, in Dahomey in Norris, Memoirs, 102–3.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Ryder, Beam, 31–2, 45–6, 48, 72.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Bontinck, ‘“Ambassade” Congolaise’, passim.Google ScholarNys, La Diplomatie, 19, confirms that such embassies of obedience to a new Pope were especially ceremonious.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Akinjogbin, Dahomey, 27–31.Google Scholar For the embassy to France, see d'Elbée's account in Astley, , Voyages, II, 73–7.Google ScholarJohnson, History, 168, records that Obalokun, an Alafin of Oyo who probably reigned in the early seventeenth century, ‘was said to be in friendly relations with the King of France [probably Portugal] with whom he had direct communication. It is said that the King sent 800 messengers with presents to that European sovereign, but that they were never heard of again.’ There is no confirmation of the tradition.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Daaku, Trade and Politics, 12, 67, 80;Google ScholarFynn, Asante, 136.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Verger, P., Flux et Reflux de la Traite des Nègres… (Paris, 1968), chapter VII. This also describes tentative attempts by the king of Lagos in 1770 and 1807 to make diplomatic contact with the Portuguese, and an embassy of 1810 from the king of Ardra (Porto Novo) to the Portuguese Regent at Rio de Janeiro.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Mentioned by Bontinck, ‘“Ambassade” Congolaise’, 37, 38.Google Scholar

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⁹² Mission and Journal, both passim.Google Scholar See Collins, E., ‘The Panic Element in Nineteenth Century British Relations with Ashanti’, Trans. Hist. Soc. Ghana, V, 2 (1962), 79–144,Google Scholar and Fage, J. D., ‘On the reproduction and editing of classics of African history’, J. African Hist., VIII, 1 (1967), 157–61, for assessments of these two works.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹³ Journal, Part II, xiii. Dupuis also criticizes his interpreter, a Fante who gave offence at Kumasi by his ignorance of ‘diplomatic courtesy’.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Daaku, Trade and Politics, 67–8, 119, 165;Google ScholarFynn, Asante, 90, 95, 103, 107, 132, 144, 156–9.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Daaku, Trade and Politics, 55, 57, 78, 184.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Quoted in Ryder, Benin, 140–1.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Adeleye, Power and Diplomacy, 121, 131–5.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Markov, W. and Sebald, P., ‘The Treaty between Germany and the Sultan of Gwandu’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, IV, 1 (1967).Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, 66–76.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Ibid. 10, 95, 146–7. Mattingly also (57–8) postulates a connexion between the development of mercenary armies, and consequently of wars more difficult for statesmen to control, and the development of permanent diplomacy.

¹⁰¹ Khadduri, War and Peace, 286. The Sultan admitted permanent representatives from the major powers to his capital in the sixteenth century, but it was not until 1792 that he appointed his own resident ambassadors to Paris, London, Vienna and Berlin.Google Scholar

¹⁰² For the intervention of Bazilio, director of the Portuguese fort at Whydah, in negotiations between Oyo and Dahomey leading to the peace of 1730, see Akinjogbin, Dahomey, 91.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ Daaku, Trade and Politics, 69, 159.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Argyle, Fon, 25,Google Scholar citing Dalzel, History, 175, 205, 213. These references suggest but do not confirm that there was a permanent mission.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Smith, Kingdoms, 50, 162–3;Google ScholarRyder, Benin, 21;Google ScholarArhin, K., ‘The Structure of Greater Ashanti (1700–1824)’, J. African Hist., VIII, 1 (1967), 76–7;Google ScholarFynn, Asante, 121, 142;Google ScholarAkintoye, Power Politics, 98. Arhin maintains, unconvincingly, that the Ashanti presence in such places as Dagomba was ‘not political’.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Dupuis, Journal, xi, xiii, xviii.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Barth, H., Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (London, 1857), III, 260, 405, 424; Davies, ‘Dagomba’; private communication from Mr A. H. M. Kirk-Greene. The first Kunkuma was a hostage taken by the Ashanti after the treaty of Jarapanga, while the first Mestrema was a war prisoner of the Sultan of Bornu.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Bowen, T. J., Adventures and Missionary Labours (Charleston, 1857), 99;Google ScholarNewbury, C. W., The Western Slave Coast and its Rulers (Oxford, 1961), 47;Google ScholarBurton, R., A mission to Gelele, King of Dahome, ed. Newbury, C. W. (London, 1966), 32, 189;Google Scholarinformation (about Mizon) from Mr Kirk-Greene. See also Fynn, Asante, 121, for the three Ashanti officials posted to the Dutch, English and Danish quarters of Accra respectively in 1776.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Verger, Flux et Reftux, 214–17.Google ScholarLabarthe, P., Voyage à la Cóte de Guinée (Paris,1803), 165, cites Pierre Tamata to bear out his warning against giving a French education to Africans, as this creates not friends but enemies for France.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ That in the early eighteenth century, at least, Africa (including West Africa) was not everywhere regarded as outside the world's state system is shown by the extension of Pufendorf's Introduction to the History of the Principal States of Europe of a fourth volume (probably by Jodocus Crull) dealing with Asia, Africa and America.Google ScholarAlexandrowicz, C. H., ‘Pufendorf-Crull and the Afro-Asian World’, The British Year Book of International Law, XLIII (1968–1969), 208, writes that this was a logical expression of Pufendorf's ‘“natural law” approach to the law of nations which is conceived as an inherently universal and non-discriminatory system of law’. (The writer thanks Mr J. E. K. Aggrey-Orleans for this reference.)Google Scholar