Dahomey
Encyclopedia
Dahomey was a country in west Africa in what is now the Republic of Benin
. The Kingdom of Dahomey was a powerful west African state that was founded in the seventeenth century and survived until 1894. From 1894 until 1960 Dahomey was a part of French West Africa
. The independent Republic of Dahomey
existed from 1960 to 1975. In 1975, the country was re-named "The People's Republic of Benin" after the Bight of Benin
(not the unrelated historical Kingdom of Benin) since "Benin," unlike "Dahomey," was deemed politically neutral for all ethnic groups in the state.
of sacrificial offerings. These included an emphasis on human sacrifice
s in large numbers, to the ancestors of the monarch. Human sacrifices were not only made in time of war, pestilence, calamity, and on the death of kings and chiefs, they were also made regularly in the Annual Customs
, believed to supply deceased kings with a fresh group of servants.
Four thousand Whydahs, for example, were sacrificed when Dahomey conquered the Kingdom of Whydah
in 1727. Five hundred were sacrificed for Adanzu II in 1791. Sacrifices for Gezo went on for days. Human sacrifice was usually by beheading, except in the case of the king's wives, who were buried alive. The king directly owned all land and collected taxes from all crops.
Economically, however, Wegbaja and his successors profited mainly from the slave trade and relations with slavers along the coast. As Dahomey's kings embarked on wars to expand their territory, they began using musket
s and other firearms traded with French and Spanish slave traders for young men captured in battle, who fetched a very high price from the European slave merchants.
Under King Agadja
(ruled 1708-1732), the kingdom conquered Allada, where the ruling family originated. They thus gained direct contact with European slave traders on the coast. Nevertheless, Agadja was unable to defeat the neighbouring kingdom of Oyo
, Dahomey's chief rival in the slave trade. By 1730, he became a tributary of Oyo. This required that Dahomey pay heavy taxes, but it otherwise remained mostly independent.
Even as a tributary state, Dahomey continued to expand and flourish because of the slave trade, and later through the export of palm oil
from large plantations that emerged. The king's ownership of all land gave him a virtual monopoly on all trade.
As one of West Africa's principal slave states, Dahomey became extremely unpopular with neighboring peoples. The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into the Transatlantic slave trade, rather than kill them in the Annual Customs
.
Historian Walter Rodney
estimates that by c.1770, the King of Dahomey earned around £250,000 per year by selling captive Africans to the European slave traders. He spent most of the money on British-made firearms (of poor quality) and industrial-grade alcohol.
ordered every family to send him their daughters, with the most fit being chosen as soldiers. Richard Francis Burton
commented on the "masculine physique of the women, enabling them to compete with men in enduring toil, hardship and privations," and Alfred Ellis concurred that the female soldiers, "endured all the toil and performed all the hard labour."
The women seem to have in fact considered themselves transformed into men, socially if not physically. At a parade in 1850, in which over 2,000 female soldiers participated, one of them began a speech by saying, "As the blacksmith takes an iron bar and by fire changes its fashion, so we have changed our nature. We are no longer women, we are men." About two-thirds of the soldiers were unmarried, and Burton noted a "...corps of prostitutes kept for the use of the Amazon-soldieresses."
A similar gender switch occurred among some men close to the royal court. Referred to as lagredis, the boys were chosen from among high ranking families and either castrated or given "potions" to feminize them. Richard Burton referred to them as "special slaves of the king, [who] bear the dignified title of royal wives." These lagredis were as entirely dependent on the king as other wives, but seem to have had more freedom of movement. Two of them reportedly accompanied any emissary sent by the king, to serve as royal eyes and ears.
(1892–1894), and established a colonial government. Most of the troops who fought against Dahomey were native African. Under French rule, the educated class learned French and the language became widely used. The area is still French-speaking today.
changed its name to Benin
in 1975.
, Elizabeth Taylor
, Lillian Gish
, James Earl Jones
, Roscoe Lee Brown, Alec Guinness
, Raymond St. Jacques
, Gloria Foster
, Zakes Mokae
, Paul Ford, Georg Stanford Brown
, Peter Ustinov
, Douta Seck and Cicely Tyson
. The movie is the story of an adulturous affair placed against the backdrop of Haiti
during the tumultuous dictatorship of François Duvalier
, (known as "Papa Doc"). Dahomey resembled Haiti in many ways, both geographically and culturally, and it was safer to film there than in Haiti.
In 1971, American novelist Frank Yerby
published The Man From Dahomey, a historical novel set partially in Dahomey. During the same year, British author George MacDonald Fraser
published Flash for Freedom!
, the third novel in the Flashman series that was set partially in Dahomey.
Benin
Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...
. The Kingdom of Dahomey was a powerful west African state that was founded in the seventeenth century and survived until 1894. From 1894 until 1960 Dahomey was a part of French West Africa
French West Africa
French West Africa was a federation of eight French colonial territories in Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan , French Guinea , Côte d'Ivoire , Upper Volta , Dahomey and Niger...
. The independent Republic of Dahomey
Republic of Dahomey
The Republic of Dahomey was established on December 11, 1958, as a self-governing colony within the French Community. Prior to attaining autonomy it had been French Dahomey, part of the French Union...
existed from 1960 to 1975. In 1975, the country was re-named "The People's Republic of Benin" after the Bight of Benin
Bight of Benin
The Bight of Benin is a bight on the western African coast that extends eastward for about 400 miles from Cape St. Paul to the Nun outlet of the Niger River. To the east it is continued by the Bight of Bonny . The bight is part of the Gulf of Guinea...
(not the unrelated historical Kingdom of Benin) since "Benin," unlike "Dahomey," was deemed politically neutral for all ethnic groups in the state.
Economy and politics
Based in his capital of Agbome, Wegbaja and his successors established a highly centralized state with a deep-rooted kingship cultCult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
of sacrificial offerings. These included an emphasis on human sacrifice
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
s in large numbers, to the ancestors of the monarch. Human sacrifices were not only made in time of war, pestilence, calamity, and on the death of kings and chiefs, they were also made regularly in the Annual Customs
The annual customs of Dahomey
Every year in the Kingdom of Dahomey, a huge festival in honor of the ancestors was organized called the annual "customs".In the customs, the king would assemble the entire court, foreign dignitaries, and the populace...
, believed to supply deceased kings with a fresh group of servants.
Four thousand Whydahs, for example, were sacrificed when Dahomey conquered the Kingdom of Whydah
Kingdom of Whydah
The Kingdom of Whydah , sometimes written Hueda, was a kingdom on the coast of West Africa in the boundaries of the modern nation of Benin. Between 1677 and 1681 it was conquered by the Akwamu a member of the Akan people. It was a major slave trading post...
in 1727. Five hundred were sacrificed for Adanzu II in 1791. Sacrifices for Gezo went on for days. Human sacrifice was usually by beheading, except in the case of the king's wives, who were buried alive. The king directly owned all land and collected taxes from all crops.
Economically, however, Wegbaja and his successors profited mainly from the slave trade and relations with slavers along the coast. As Dahomey's kings embarked on wars to expand their territory, they began using musket
Musket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer....
s and other firearms traded with French and Spanish slave traders for young men captured in battle, who fetched a very high price from the European slave merchants.
Under King Agadja
Agadja
Dossou Agadja was the fifth King of Dahomey. He succeeded Houessou Akaba, and ruled from 1708 to 1740. Akaba's only son, Agbo Sassa, was only ten years old when Akaba died, so as Akaba's brother, Agadja took the throne to become the fifth king...
(ruled 1708-1732), the kingdom conquered Allada, where the ruling family originated. They thus gained direct contact with European slave traders on the coast. Nevertheless, Agadja was unable to defeat the neighbouring kingdom of Oyo
Oyo Empire
The Oyo Empire was a Yoruba empire of what is today southwestern Nigeria. The empire was established before the 14th century and grew to become one of the largest West African states encountered by European explorers. It rose to preeminence through its possession of a powerful cavalry and wealth...
, Dahomey's chief rival in the slave trade. By 1730, he became a tributary of Oyo. This required that Dahomey pay heavy taxes, but it otherwise remained mostly independent.
Even as a tributary state, Dahomey continued to expand and flourish because of the slave trade, and later through the export of palm oil
Palm oil
Palm oil, coconut oil and palm kernel oil are edible plant oils derived from the fruits of palm trees. Palm oil is extracted from the pulp of the fruit of the oil palm Elaeis guineensis; palm kernel oil is derived from the kernel of the oil palm and coconut oil is derived from the kernel of the...
from large plantations that emerged. The king's ownership of all land gave him a virtual monopoly on all trade.
As one of West Africa's principal slave states, Dahomey became extremely unpopular with neighboring peoples. The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into the Transatlantic slave trade, rather than kill them in the Annual Customs
The annual customs of Dahomey
Every year in the Kingdom of Dahomey, a huge festival in honor of the ancestors was organized called the annual "customs".In the customs, the king would assemble the entire court, foreign dignitaries, and the populace...
.
Historian Walter Rodney
Walter Rodney
Walter Rodney was a prominent Guyanese historian and political activist, who was assassinated in Guyana in 1980.-Career:...
estimates that by c.1770, the King of Dahomey earned around £250,000 per year by selling captive Africans to the European slave traders. He spent most of the money on British-made firearms (of poor quality) and industrial-grade alcohol.
Female soldiers
The Dahomean state became widely known for its corps of female soldiers. They were organized around the year 1729 to fill out the army and make it look larger in battle, armed only with banners. The women reportedly behaved so courageously they became a permanent corps. In the beginning the soldiers were criminals pressed into service rather than being executed. Eventually, however, the corps became respected enough that King GhezoGhezo
Ghezo was the ninth King of Dahomey , considered one of the greatest of the twelve historical kings. He ruled from 1818 to 1858. His name before ascending to the throne was Gakpe....
ordered every family to send him their daughters, with the most fit being chosen as soldiers. Richard Francis Burton
Richard Francis Burton
Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS was a British geographer, explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia, Africa and the Americas as well as his...
commented on the "masculine physique of the women, enabling them to compete with men in enduring toil, hardship and privations," and Alfred Ellis concurred that the female soldiers, "endured all the toil and performed all the hard labour."
The women seem to have in fact considered themselves transformed into men, socially if not physically. At a parade in 1850, in which over 2,000 female soldiers participated, one of them began a speech by saying, "As the blacksmith takes an iron bar and by fire changes its fashion, so we have changed our nature. We are no longer women, we are men." About two-thirds of the soldiers were unmarried, and Burton noted a "...corps of prostitutes kept for the use of the Amazon-soldieresses."
A similar gender switch occurred among some men close to the royal court. Referred to as lagredis, the boys were chosen from among high ranking families and either castrated or given "potions" to feminize them. Richard Burton referred to them as "special slaves of the king, [who] bear the dignified title of royal wives." These lagredis were as entirely dependent on the king as other wives, but seem to have had more freedom of movement. Two of them reportedly accompanied any emissary sent by the king, to serve as royal eyes and ears.
Colonial history
During the 19th century, European nations established colonies in Africa to further exploit resources and expand economic influence. France conquered Dahomey in the Second Franco-Dahomean WarSecond Franco-Dahomean War
The Second Franco-Dahomean War, which raged from 1892 to 1894, was a major conflict between the French Third Republic, led by General Alfred-Amédée Dodds, and the Kingdom of Dahomey under King Béhanzin....
(1892–1894), and established a colonial government. Most of the troops who fought against Dahomey were native African. Under French rule, the educated class learned French and the language became widely used. The area is still French-speaking today.
Independence
In 1958, Dahomey became an autonomous republic, and gained full independence in 1960. The Republic of DahomeyRepublic of Dahomey
The Republic of Dahomey was established on December 11, 1958, as a self-governing colony within the French Community. Prior to attaining autonomy it had been French Dahomey, part of the French Union...
changed its name to Benin
People's Republic of Benin
The People's Republic of Benin was a socialist state located in the Gulf of Guinea on the African continent, which would become present-day Benin. The People's Republic was established on November 30, 1975, shortly after the 1972 coup d'état in the Republic of Dahomey...
in 1975.
Popular culture
Dahomey was chosen for some of the filming locations in the movie, The Comedians (1967 film), with an all-star cast that included Richard BurtonRichard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
, Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
, Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....
, James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones is an American actor. He is well-known for his distinctive bass voice and for his portrayal of characters of substance, gravitas and leadership...
, Roscoe Lee Brown, Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...
, Raymond St. Jacques
Raymond St. Jacques
Raymond St. Jacques was an American actor.-Career:St. Jacques was born James Arthur Johnson in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Vivienne Johnson, a medical technician...
, Gloria Foster
Gloria Foster
Gloria Foster was an American actress, most known for her stage performances portraying an array of African-American characters, including her acclaimed roles in plays In White America and Having Our Say, winning three Obie Awards during her career.In films, she was perhaps best known as The...
, Zakes Mokae
Zakes Mokae
Zakes Makgona Mokae was a South African-born American actor.-Life and career:Mokae was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, moved to Great Britain in 1961, and to the United States in 1969. He turned to acting at the same time as playwright Athol Fugard was emerging...
, Paul Ford, Georg Stanford Brown
Georg Stanford Brown
Georg Stanford Brown is an Afro-Cuban-American actor and director, perhaps best known as one of the stars of the ABC police television series The Rookies from 1972–76...
, Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov
Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter...
, Douta Seck and Cicely Tyson
Cicely Tyson
Cicely Tyson is an American actress. A successful stage actress, Tyson is also known for her Oscar-nominated role in the film Sounder and the television movies The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Roots....
. The movie is the story of an adulturous affair placed against the backdrop of Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
during the tumultuous dictatorship of François Duvalier
François Duvalier
François Duvalier was the President of Haiti from 1957 until his death in 1971. Duvalier first won acclaim in fighting diseases, earning him the nickname "Papa Doc" . He opposed a military coup d'état in 1950, and was elected President in 1957 on a populist and black nationalist platform...
, (known as "Papa Doc"). Dahomey resembled Haiti in many ways, both geographically and culturally, and it was safer to film there than in Haiti.
In 1971, American novelist Frank Yerby
Frank Yerby
Frank Garvin Yerby was an African American historical novelist. He is best known as the first African American writer to become a millionaire from his pen, and to have a book purchased by a Hollywood studio for a film adaptation.-Early life:...
published The Man From Dahomey, a historical novel set partially in Dahomey. During the same year, British author George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser, OBE was an English-born author of Scottish descent, who wrote both historical novels and non-fiction books, as well as several screenplays.-Early life and military career:...
published Flash for Freedom!
Flash for Freedom!
Flash for Freedom! is a 1971 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the third of the Flashman novels.- Plot introduction :Presented within the frame of the supposedly discovered historical Flashman Papers, this book describes the bully Flashman from Tom Brown's Schooldays...
, the third novel in the Flashman series that was set partially in Dahomey.
See also
- List of rulers of the Fon state of Danhome
- Dahomey AmazonsDahomey AmazonsThe Dahomey Amazons or Mino were a Fon all-female military regiment of the Kingdom of Dahomey which lasted until the end of the 19th century...
- Dahomey mythologyDahomey mythologyThe Dahomey are a nation located in Benin, Africa. The mythology of the Dahomey includes an entire pantheon of thunder gods; for example,*Xevioso is the god of thunder in the So region....
- West African Vodun
- First Franco-Dahomean War
- Second Franco-Dahomean WarSecond Franco-Dahomean WarThe Second Franco-Dahomean War, which raged from 1892 to 1894, was a major conflict between the French Third Republic, led by General Alfred-Amédée Dodds, and the Kingdom of Dahomey under King Béhanzin....
Further reading
- Edna G. Bay, Wives of the Leopard, University of Virginia Press, 1998, p. 376.
- A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa, Benin Press, 1965, pp. 177–238.
External links
- Urbanism on West Africa's Slave Coast, J. Cameron Monroe - American Scientist, Sept-Oct 2011. www.americanscientist.org. Retrieved 29-11-2011.