The last post covered the bulk of the Tegbesu Dynasty. This dynasty ended after several failures to become the top slaving power in “armpit” of Africa, as well as various unpopular measures by the kings. This section will look at the earlier part of King Gezo’s reign, the start of a new line of rulers, and also cover some general aspects of Dahomey’s culture and practices which in many cases extended back into the 16th and 17th Century.
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| A Frederick E Forbes illustration of Gezo from Dahomey and the Dahomans. A servant holds a royal umbrella over him. |
Chapter Three: Dahomey Under King Gezo
Lifting the Oyo
Yoke
Gezo was determined to start his reign and new dynasty by ridding Dahomey of Oyo superiority. The time was right, as Oyo was suffering from internal divisions, primarily between the king and the council of elders. Also the Islamic states to the north of Oyo had gone on the warpath, with the Fulani Jihads the most threatening to the empire. When the Oyo came for their first tribute from him, he offered “a tiny piece of cloth – enough for one man’s underpants and just two bags of cowries. He sent the collectors back saying that any more gifts “would be disproportionate to Dahomey’s wealth.” Oyo sent another team to collect proper tribute. Gezo had them beheaded, starting a war.
In
1820 Gezo declared the independence of Dahomey. Oyo sent an army to deal with its
vassal. However this was hardly an actual invasion from the Oyo army, as the Fulani
jihad commanded Oyo’s primary attention. It was made up of other vassal Yoruba groups
and Mahi allies who knew that an independent and strengthened Dahomey would be a
threat. The Dahomeans defeated them and captured their commander, Ajanaku. Gezo
had him executed.
Gezo’s
first offensive target was not Oyo, but their ally Mahi. In 1828 or 1829 his
soldiers took the Mahi stronghold of Hounjroto. Casualties were high enough
that Gezo turned the Agojie into a frontline force to compensate. In 1839 the
Dahomeans assaulted the Mahi capital. A “prickly bush” surrounded the town, but
this did not deter the female Agojie warriors (in fact mounting a prickly bush
was part of the final initiation ceremony for this new wing of the military, a
test of one’s endurance against pain). In three days Dahomey conquered over 100
towns, shattering Mahi as a rival power. The following year they assaulted
Atakpame, a Mahi-Yoruba town. The town’s citizenry fled, leaving 400 soldiers
to fight. They put up a good defense and actually routed the male part of the
Dahomey force. The Agojie stepped in and turned the tide.
In
1841 Dahomey marched against Inubi, where thousands of Oyo had taken refuge.
They took the town, killing almost every man, woman, and child. Two years later
they took Lefu-Lefu. This time they kept most of the people there alive for
slave labor on the king’s plantations. Following the lifting of the Oyo yoke,
Dahomey’s trade in slaves saw a boom as it was better able to war on its
neighbors. Ironically, at the time that the slave trade underwent a ban,
Dahomey finally had plenty of people to sell into servitude. Prices did drop in
the 1830s as other African wars provided more slaves for Europeans to buy
elsewhere, but experienced a resurgence in the later 1840s. The Oyo Empire
disintegrated, many of its sections declaring independence. Oyo power was
broken, but for many of its former constituents Dahomey now loomed as an
oppressor.
The Agojie
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| Partly colorized photo of Agojie warriors (Smithsonian Magazine) |
The Agojie, the famed female soldiers of Dahomey, were active participants in the final wars against Oyo. The various wars of the later 18th and early 18th Century created a shortage of fighting men. Facing such a shortage at the start of his reign, Gezo turned to women, of which there were plenty, to make up the numbers. Female warriors were not new to Dahomey. There had been the gbeto elephant hunters, as well as the king’s personal police force (a celibate wing of his harem). There were several occasions in which women had participated in military operations because of a dearth of manpower. Under Gezo, women became a permanent part of the military as the Agojie, called Amazons by the Europeans. Descended from the king’s loyal harem, the Agojie were the ruler’s fiercest and most loyal fighters.
The
Agojie wielded clubs, machetes, and muskets. While the recent movie Woman King understandably prioritized
flashy melee combat, the primary weapon was the flintlock musket. The women
would fire these until they were forced into melee combat. Then they would use
a variety of bladed implements. Fearless and bloodthirsty, the Agojie rarely
considered the use of shields, preferring to free both hands for killing. Blunderbusses
and other heavy rifles took the place of artillery, though the French did gift
Gezo a pair of howitzers. He assigned some of the Agojie to man them. While
Dahomey received many artillery pieces, they rarely used them. They lacked
draft animals to pull them along. Needing speed for slave raids, they could not
afford to haul them by hand. Thus they reserved the big guns for defending
Dahomey’s key towns.
European
observers noted that the Agojie looked quite muscular for their sex. They
reasoned that since they performed so many laborious tasks in civilian life,
they were able to become effective soldiers. In general West African women were
noted for their physical strength (Even today many are strong from such
performing tasks like woodcutting). It was only Dahomey, however, where they
were organized into military regiments. Because men frequently died in war, and
because male slaves were more likely to be sold to other countries, there was a
gender imbalance that favored women. By creating an unmarried female military
force, Dahomey maximized its military strength without depriving the domestic
economy of female labor.
The Agojie, and many male units, underwent “insensitivity training.” This was done to ensure they would never flinch at violence and bloodshed. Some of this training simply involved witnessing human sacrifices. Sometimes they were asked to participate in it, or would be ordered to kill war captives by the king. In the late 1880s an Agojie named Nansica was ordered to kill her first man, a tied up man seated in a basket. She swaggered up to him and slashed his neck three times. A small bit of skin still kept the head attached, so she sawed it off. After drinking some of the man’s blood, she turned to the crowd and displayed her weapon, prompting “furious” dancing. The Agojie were as fanatical in captivity. Even when disarmed they looked for ways to kill their enemies, such as biting their throats. Enemies tried to turn the prettier ones into house servants, which was met with defiance to the point of suicide.
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| Agojie (to the right) watch human sacrifices. |
The Agojie’s ranks, and the ranks of wives and servants, consisted of mostly the extra daughters of the wealthy and troublemakers. The wealthy would hand over girls to the king to increase their political clout. Other families also handed over troublesome daughters. At the palace they would learn discipline as servants or warriors. Adulteresses could also end up at the palace in lieu of death. They would not serve as soldiers or guards, though, but as the king’s slaves. Gezo in particular favored female war captives for the Agojie. By giving these outsiders, unaffiliated with any potential political rivals, a privileged position and rescue from slavery, he gained their complete loyalty. Not all female slaves got this chance, as many served the Agojie as porters, carrying all their gear and provisions on the campaign trail.
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| An Agojie in her striped uniform. She holds the decapitated head of an enemy. |
Though much has been made of the Agojie as warriors, they also served as the king’s personal police force, a role historically also carried out by the third, celibate class of the king’s thousands-strong harem. When the king wanted to strip a house of property (often as punishment), the women would come in a group with long poles and switches. With these they could hit the house’s inhabitants. Any attempt to stop them was seen as an attack on the king and would bring down heavy punishment. The Agojie also stepped in to stop conflicts between villages and local authorities. Once they did this they brought any suspected of starting the hostilities to the king for judgment. In short the Agojie were an oft brutal military police force that could act against Dahomey’s citizens with impunity as long as the king nodded his approval.
Other
palace residents included the eunuchs. One group called the Kangbode walked
before the king, picking up sticks and stones and warning of the slightest
uneven elevation or decline so that their master could walk smoothly. They also
wore silver bells around their neck. They rang these to signal silence before a
proclamation. The king’s main wives were known as the Kposi, meaning “leopard
wives.”
Challenges to
the Slave Trade
In
the first two decades of the 19th Century, several western nations
outlawed the slave trade. Denmark was the first, but Britain and the United
States’ ban in 1808 were much more notable considering they had been far larger
customers. France followed ten years later. For Dahomey these bans meant little
as their primary customers, Portuguese and Spanish colonies, still allowed the
import of unpaid labor. Then by the 1820s, under British pressure, Spain and
Portugal, as well as newly independent Brazil, agreed to outlaw all slavery
north of the equator. Dahomey’s coast was included. Fortunately for slave
traders on both sides of the Atlantic, it was quite easy to circumvent the ban.
European ships carried authorization papers for southern ports, then went to
the closer equatorial sites instead.
Also,
ships could only be seized if containing slaves. Thus any ship seen going to
Ouidah could not be stopped. As for getting away with their cargo, they now
massed their purchases on the shore. The local traders obligated them by
stocking up on humans up to months in advance. This way they could dispose of
thousands of slaves within a short span of time. When the slavers arrived, they
put the unfortunate Africans into as many canoes as they needed and quickly got
them aboard. This narrowed the timeframe in which British ships could find and
catch them. One British officer claimed they could load 600 people within 3
hours. This whole process meant that slaves spent much more time in crowded
Ouidah pens before their sale. Since conditions in the port had not improved,
they were generally less healthy and death rates in the 19th Century
rose. Dahomey also sought to circumvent British patrols by shipping their
slaves south to be sold in legal ports. The former slaving port of Jakin was
finally reactivated under the name of Godomey.
The
Europeans gradually abandoned their forts in Ouidah. The French fort became the
personal warehouse of De Souza, while the British saw no reason to keep theirs
because they were no longer participants in the trade. The Portuguese
technically abandoned their fort, but the building housed many Portuguese
captains when they visited Ouidah. With the emerging paucity of European
officials and middlemen, local residents, De Souza included, were able to step into
their place. Though Brazil gained its independence in 1822 and briefly claimed
control of the fort, De Souza acted as its governor (though he lived in a
separate house). The slave merchant identified himself as Portuguese, since
this gave his vessels immunity from seizure by the British (this immunity
lasted until 1839). He built up his own fleet, buying pre-owned ships and
ordering the construction of others. With this fleet he was able to run a
slaving business all over the Atlantic.
If
one could not already tell, Francisco de Souza had was richly rewarded for his
aid in the coup. For example, all traders were expected to buy goods (often a
set minimum) from the king before trading with anyone else at Ouidah. By this
law the king and thus the state’s personal wealth was expanded. De Souza was
allowed to refuse any of the king’s goods. When Britain became anti-slave trade
and then anti-slavery in general, de Souza felt that he had to morally justify
his business as a slave trader. He argued that he was in fact rescuing Africans
from gruesome sacrificial ceremonies (he was not the only one to use this
claim). While Dahomey did practice annual mass human sacrifice, they would only
select a few hundred out of thousands of captives. Some of the more ignorant
slaves actually thought it was the Europeans who were going to kill them for a
religious ritual. One recalled, “I had never seen a ship before, and my idea of
it was, that it was some object of worship of the white man. I imagined that we
were all to be slaughtered, and were being led there for that purpose.”
Ouidah
Throughout
Dahomey rule, Ouidah rose to the third largest city in the kingdom, after
Abomey the capital and Cana the seasonal royal city. Ouidah’s population would
expand throughout the 19th Century. The native population, almost 90
percent slaves, numbered in favor of women. This was explained by who Dahomey
chose to sell to their buyers. Female captives were more often sold
domestically as house servants, concubines, prostitutes, etc. Male prisoners
were more likely to be sold abroad, as muscle was needed for plantations and
mines in the West Indies and Latin America. Images of slave ports conjure up
images of auctions, but in fact slaves were usually sold at set prices, and their
first buyers auctioned them off once they were unloaded in the Americas.
Disease
was the greatest threat to Ouidah. Large crowds of penned up and filthy slaves
enabled fast and wide transmission. In 1864, for example, smallpox killed 800
out of a shipment of 2,000 people. Conditions for slaves awaiting sale were
“filth, disease, and famine.” Many slaves also died when being taken to the
large ships. This did not discount other dangers. The surf off of Ouidah could
be treacherous, and there are accounts of captives being swept overboard. There
they could drown or be eaten by sharks, who saw any slaving vessel as a source
of easy food.
Dahomeans
only questioned the morality of the slave trade when it came to who could be
bought and sold. As with most any other culture in human history, they only
sold foreign prisoners of war into slavery. This precedent was set by 17th
century king Wegbaja, who decreed that none born within Dahomey’s borders could
be sold. In fact Adandozan's (alleged) sale of his own people was a leading grievance among
his deposers. Pregnant female captives had a loophole available. Since they
were close to giving birth within the kingdom, they were at least saved from
being sold overseas because of their imminent child. Actual Dahomeans could
only be enslaved as punishment for crimes.
Aside
from slaves Dahomeans sold various cotton, fish, nuts, palm oil, local
handicrafts, salt, and various herbs and plants with medicinal properties. Palm
oil would become a major item of sale and a considered alternative for those seeking
accommodation with anti-slavery Europeans. Ouidah was owned by the king, as was
all land in Dahomey. Nobles and farmers could only manage land with permission
from the king, and the king would demand a cut of everything they made, Ouidah
traders included.
Dahomey’s
rulers, moreso Gezo, sought to ensure that Ouidah remained a neutral port, as
it was their trade hub with foreign powers. There was to be no hostilities
amongst the Europeans, or between them and the Africans. In one 1802 incident
the British seized a French ship offshore. Dahomey arrested a group of British
in response. Crimes against Europeans by Africans could be harshly dealt with,
as this threatened good trade relations. In 1843 a group of Dahomeans murdered
a German merchant. The killers were executed and had their naked corpses
displayed along the lagoon.
Interestingly,
many ex-slaves from Brazil and Cuba, some shipped over by Dahomean slavers,
returned to West Africa. A large number went to Ouidah, and some engaged in the
very business that had uprooted their or their ancestors’ lives. The immigrants
were mostly Christian and Muslim in religion, developing unique communities
within Ouidah. Also, once Oyo was defeated, the city had an influx of Yoruba slaves.
For decades the Oyo peoples had avoided mass enslavement. Now they were the primary
source of human chattel among their neighbors. Many were used as permanent servants
within Ouidah, so there was a large, permanent Yoruba minority.
Historians
have debated the effect of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade on the local economy.
Some argued that it was entirely separate as it only put money into the pockets
of the government and elites. However, Buyers at inland Dahomean markets could
find many European goods on sale. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade thus provided
Africans with valued imports, as well as currency that now circulated widely
throughout the economy.
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| Under Gezo Dahomey reached the peak of its power and territorial control (https://www.britannica.com/place/Dahomey-historical-kingdom-Africa) |
Dahomean
Religion and its Wars
Vodun
(one of the foundations of the New World’s voodoo) was the chief religion of
Dahomey. Vodun was not an all-encompassing single religion, but a collection of
them. Each family chose a god to worship, resulting in myriad cults. Dahomeans
and their subjects could also worship ancestors or historic figures. The cult
of the snake god Dangbe caught the attention of the Europeans. Dangbe was the most
popular deity, with over 1,000 followers in Ouidah. All his adherents were
referred to as his wives regardless of sex. Killing snakes, associated with the
god, could result in various ceremonial punishments. An interesting religious
rule was that the king could never view the sea. As a result no ruler after
Agaja ever visited Ouidah. This gave the local administrator a good degree of
independence, though the king did have personal traders who sold slaves for
him.
Dahomean
religion held that human sacrifice was necessary to establish links between the
living and the dead. Facing pressure to end this custom, Gezo and his successor
Glele both stated that if they did so the people would revolt, as human lives
were needed to honor their ancestors. A few scholars have argued that the wars
were in fact conducted for religious rather than economic reasons. Only extra
prisoners were sold to the ships. This is an interesting and viable theory, but
I find that economics played a large role in warmaking. The number of slaves
sold internationally was still a high number and the kings desperately tried to
keep the slave trade running even when it invited aggressive actions from
Britain.
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| A Dahomean beheading |
The most common form of human sacrifice was beheading by machetes, an act partaken in by soldiers. Another form of human sacrifice was bundling up captives inside open baskets. Their executors would either wrap them in sheets or tie and gag them. They then carried the baskets to a platform 12 to 16 feet high, where they would tip them. The victims fell helplessly to the ground, sometimes into crocodile-infested water. In a way human sacrifice extended to the royal architecture. Human jawbones lined the top of the short wall around the king’s bedchamber, and the area inside paved with skulls so that the ruler “might enjoy the savage gratification of trampling on the heads of his enemies.”
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| Dahomeans prepare to throw baskets of prisoners off a roof. |
Starting
back in the 18th Century, Dahomey’s kings disputed the idea that
they only made war to provide human chattel for the slave ships (as seen with
Kpengla’s speech to the British). As with any nation that warred offensively,
they claimed they were responding to “depredations” by their neighbors. The
rulers further claimed to have extensive spy networks that uncovered attempts
on Dahomey. These spies, disguised as traders, did exist, but their true
purpose was to look for good targets and find weak points. Thus many of their
wars were justified, preemptive strikes. To European observers and critics they
also made the not-so-appealing case that many times they had mass slaughtered
their captives instead of selling them.
Speaking
of religion and war, Dahomey’s indirect method of warfare, from pre-dawn
attacks to false peace gestures to sneakily surrounding small villages, may
have been done to avoid the attention of the enemy’s gods and spirits. Spies
would slip harmful fetishes into enemy camps and towns and pour contaminated
palm oil over idols to negate opposing supernatural power. Sneaky tactics were
of course also necessary to bag as many prisoners as possible. The night of the
attack, the soldiers would camp fairly far from their target without any fires
or shelters. Doing so would leave no signs of the impending attack and create a
false sense of safety. When they moved out, they took care that no weapons or
other tools would clank. They would not even whisper. Close to the village,
they would crawl through long grass until the commander issued a rooster call.
If victory was achieved, the soldiers would slaughter the elderly, who would
fetch no price on the market. They marched the survivors off to be enslaved or
sacrificed.
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| Each Dahomean king got his own flag. Ghezo's is an elephant with a crown. |
Dahomey may have become the primary power in this part of Africa, but they were far from unchallenged. From land they would suffer the thorn of the Yoruba city of Abeokuta, and from the sea Britain would attempt to guide their foreign trade.
Sources
Akinjogbin,
I.A. Dahomey and it’s Neighbours:
1708-1818. Cambridge University Press, 1967.
Alpern, Stanley
BB. Amazons of Black Sparta: The Women
Warriors of Dahomey. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
Asiwaju, A.I. “Dahomey,
Yorubaland, Borgu and Benin in the nineteenth century” in General History of Africa Vol. VI: Africa in the Nineteenth Century.
UNESCO, 1989: 699-723.
Cartwright, Mark.
“Oyo Empire.” https://www.worldhistory.org/Oyo_Empire/.
April 2, 2020
Davidson, Basil
(ed.). The African Past: Chronicles from
Antiquity to Modern Times. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1964.
Herskovits,
Melville J. Dahomey: An Ancient West
African Kingdom. New York: J.J. Augustin, 1938.
“Kingdom of
Dahomey,” https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Kingdom_of_Dahomey
Law, Robin. Ouidah: The Social History of a West African
Slaving ‘Port,’ 1727-1892. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004.
“The Real Warriors
Behind ‘The Woman King’.” https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/real-warriors-woman-king-dahomey-agojie-amazons-180980750/.
September 15, 2022.
Ronen, Dov. Dahomey: Between Tradition and Modernity. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975.
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