A Very Short History of Dahomey IV: Challenges to the Slave Trade

 

The earlier half of King Gezo’s reign had seen Dahomey throw off Oyo rule and become the primary military and slaving power in its corner of Africa. But just as Dahomey rose, so did Britain’s anti-slavery crusade alongside local resistance to the slave raids. Gezo would struggle to hold on to tradition in the face of new challenges.

"Procession of the Wealth of the King's Wealth." Gezo is the referenced King.

Chapter IV: Challenges to the Slave Trade

Gezo and the British

In 1839 the British once more threatened the existence of the slave trade. Lord Palmerston, one of the most prominent and influential politicians of 19^th Century Britain, was able to pass the Equipment Act. The Equipment Act allowed the British Navy to seize Portuguese slave ships even if they were unloaded (previously they could only take them if human cargo was presently onboard). This greatly reduced illegal slave trading. The British proved to be persistent enforcers, to the point that they began to violate Ouidah’s neutrally declared waters. Dahomeans watched as merchant ships were dragged away from their shore, along with any wealth they could have made.

Britain’s seamen did more than seize ships. They actually assaulted some African ports. While this targeted one of the most morally wretched institutions in human history, it was undeniably a gross violation of other nations’ sovereignty. The local Africans were not the only ones to suffer from Britain’s anti-slavery war. Ouidah’s Francisco de Souza, as a Trans-Atlantic slave baron, lost his monopoly. There are some claims that Gezo actually had a hand in reducing his influence in Dahomey, either out of a need to reorganize the slave trade in light of recent events or out of jealousy over the Portuguese’s wealth. Though his business took a hit, De Souza remained in Dahomey until his death in 1849.

With profits in slavery falling, Dahomey turned to palm-oil, nicknamed "red gold." This oil, an ingredient in food and beauty products, was produced from fruits that were stamped out. Palm-oil became a desired export thanks to British trader Thomas Hutton. In 1838 Hutton came to Ouidah and built a palm oil factory in the former English fort. A year later he gained an audience with King Gezo and an appointment to caboceer (fort governor). He left for another port while the factory swung into production. Hutton’s business was shortly closed down by an international incident. In 1841 a British warship sighted an Ouidah local’s attempt to warn a slaver of its approach by raising a flag. The ship fired a shell in the flag’s direction and reportedly killed 8 Dahomeans. The local lowered the flag. Enraged, Gezo ordered the factory dismantled. When tensions eased, Hutton was able to return and restart it.

An illustration of a palm oil plantation

With available resources and a willing buyer, Dahomey saw the palm oil trade rise throughout the 1840s, to the point that exports “more than quadrupled.” The Brazilians and Portuguese were willing to buy the oil themselves. Gezo was well pleased with this new source of wealth, and ordered that no trees capable of producing it should be torn down. De Souza, who based his life around slavery, became a competitor of Hutton’s, loading five ships with palm oil in 1846. Unfortunately the Brazilian and Portuguese traders saw palm oil as an additional item, rather than replacement, to slaves.

Palm oil altered Dahomey’s economy. While large-scale merchants dominated the slave trade, many Dahomeans could produce and profit off of oil (and for a while without state control). Plantations, owned by both whites and Dahomeans, emerged throughout the kingdom. Instead of squeezing the liquid out of fruit by hand, workers and slaves now stamped it out in large quantities with their feet. Instead of pursuing free labor, Dahomean planters sought more slaves. Now slavers could sell more people inland, offsetting the reduction of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Women gained a larger societal role with these changes. While the collection of fruits was labor-intensive and thus done by men, women processed and usually sold the derived oil to foreigners at Ouidah, and the Amazonian Agojie themselves took a large part in this enterprise.

By the mid-19^th Century Ouidah had expanded, along with new markets. Now other goods such as palm oil began to be sold in great quantities. The slave trade continued to flourish, but with less and less white customers it was much more localized. At this point Brazil was the major remaining foreign buyer, to the point that most whites living in Ouidah came from there. The influx of Brazilians further resulted in mulattoes, part black and part white people that preferred western styles of clothing.

Amidst this economic success, Dahomey faced a military mishap in 1850. This was against Atakpame, a sight of a raid ten years earlier. Gezo personally oversaw the assault, which was a series of blunders. First they were unable to stop most of the town, and thus potential captives, from escaping. Then some of the soldiers went too far while foraging, leaving the Agojie without support when the enemy counterattacked. Several of their officers as killed, as well as the Gau (commander) of the army. Despite their desperate fight and the retreat of their male comrades, the Agojie were able to drive off the attackers, capturing 346 of them. The battle was a victory, if not a solid one. Gezo had the leaders of the foragers shaved, and also confiscated their guns, signs of disgrace and demotion.

 

Abeokuta

Location of Abeokuta in present-day southwest Nigeria (https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-showing-the-study-location-in-Abeokuta-Ogun-State-South-western-Nigeria-Source_fig11_286937926)

Thousands of Yoruba people had been displaced by the dissolution of the Oyo Empire. In 1830 they, under Chief Sodeke, founded the city of Abeokuta (roughly east of Abomey, Dahomey’s capital), and by the 1840s its population numbered in the tens of thousands. The dominant ethnicity was Egba. The city was notable for its large granite buildings, some which rose 200 feet into the air. An earth wall surrounded it in a 15 mile circuit, and the Ogun River and a sizeable ditch provided further barriers.

Initially Sodeke had cultivated good relations with Dahomey, but as Abeokuta grew, King Gezo began to see it as a dangerous rival. Furthermore, thousands of Yoruba were going there to seek refuge from his slave raids. One Dahomean explained: “We no longer wanted any rival to Dahomey. Now Abeokuta threatened our power. All the Yoruba whose country we were devastating were taking refuge there and our enemies were thus concentrating at a single point, ever more numerous.”

A photo of houses in Abeokuta (https://www.legit.ng/1191449-history-abeokuta-ogun-state.html)

In 1844 Gezo agreed to lift the siege of Ado, carried out by the Yoruba group Egbado. Learning that Dahomey was on the way, the Egbado surprised them with an attack of their own, narrowly missing a capture of Gezo himself. They did get the king’s royal war stool and favorite umbrella (umbrellas were status symbols in Dahomey). Gezo offered to pay ransom for the latter. The Egbado refused and this started a long-running mutual hatred between the two peoples.

Throughout the rest of the decade soldiers and political figures urged Gezo to order the destruction of Abeokuta. This was sometimes done in song, with Agojie officers putting on a number deriding Yoruba claims that the city could defeat Dahomey’s army. On July 4, 1850, Gezo broke tradition by bluntly declaring war, instead of the usual sneakiness that ensured successful raids. Beechcroft, a British ambassador, went to Abeokuta and warned it of the attack. He also disregarded Gezo’s insistence that he remove European missionaries from the city. Instead they were determined to help the Yoruba defend their home.

In February 1851 Gezo personally attended 15,000 soldiers. Gau Akati, said to be a good general, commanded this large host. They first reached Ishagga, where its chief Oba Koko professed himself as an ally. He was in fact loyal to his Yoruba roots and fed the invaders false information. He claimed that at noon the people in Abeokuta would either be taking a siesta or working in the fields. They would be alert for the Dahomeans’ usual dawn assault. He also pointed to the southwestern gate as a weak point, when in fact it was heavily fortified. Furthermore they should ford the Ogun River, which was deep enough that its water would ruin some of their musket powder. As the Dahomeans followed this bad advice, 15,000 defenders waited with muskets. Abeokuta’s defense force was equal to or perhaps larger than Gezo’s. Between their formidable defenses, large supply of muskets, numerical parity, and Oba Koko’s trickery, the men of Abeokuta enjoyed unbelievable odds in their favor.

On March 3 the attack began. The Dahomeans advanced across a prairie. Surprisingly Egba soldiers tried to counterattack them across the Ogun River. The invaders drove them back. Perhaps this was meant to encourage the attackers and draw them closer to the wall. The Dahomeans reached it. The Agojie targeted the wall by the gate and started to scale it. Many got over and sent the defenders retreating. One got ahead of the others and fell mortally wounded at the feet of a chief. The chief realized it was a woman and had word of his discovery spread among the defenders. It was hoped that when they learned that women were pushing them back, they would feel ashamed and fight to prove themselves. It might not have mattered. As the Agojie traversed the wall, they ran into volleys of musketry that cut them down. Abeokuta’s musket power slaughtered the compact masses. The attackers fanned out to minimize casualties and looked for a weak spot, but with no success.

The Agojie suffered 1-2,000 dead out of 4-6,000 women. Months later British traveler and writer Richard Burton counted around 2,000 Agojie, stating that “King Gezo lost the flower of his force under the walls of Abeokuta, and the loss has never been made good.” Gau Akati also died in the battle. The heavy losses “struck dumb” the Dahomeans. The Dahomeans began a retreat, pursued by the Egba. A battle broke out as Ishagga, where the inhabitants showed their true colors and sided with the Egba. It was another defeat and Gezo had to undergo the indignity of fleeing on foot. Losses for the campaign numbered 3,000 soldiers.

 

Gezo “Ends” the Slave Trade

Britain continued its quest to pressure the end of the slave trade. At the start of the 1840s Gezo was still defiant. In 1845 Gezo asked that the British ships at least not seize any slave ships “till they had entirely left the coast” so as to keep Ouidah and other sites safe and neutral. Britain would not budge, and in fact started seizing suspected Brazilian slave ships alongside the Portuguese.

Gezo still wanted good trade relations with the British Empire and worked on a treaty. He promised unrestricted trade and full protection for traders. The British, however, stated that no treaty could be made until Dahomey ended its slave trade. Gezo balked, as slavery still accounted for a massive portion of the state’s profits. It was around this time he delivered this oft-quoted statement that showed the practice’s centrality to Dahomey life: “The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery.” Britain did try to establish a vice-consul in the old English fort in Ouidah. This did not amount to much and in fact caused tensions with Hutton, as the fort was part of his palm oil business.

At the end of 1851 Britain blockaded Ouidah. The blockade continued into 1852. Increasingly, ships that sought to bring slaves to the Americas fell afoul of patrolling warships. Around the same time Brazil finally ended its involvement in the slave trade, though slavery itself remained intact within its borders. Without buyers, slave markets overcrowded and the price of each human being fell. Between Brazil’s pull-out, the blockade, and hundreds to thousands of unsold slaves, Gezo indeed felt the pressure to end Dahomey’s long-running business. In early 1852 he finally did so, ending all slave trading from his ports, though the institution of slavery would continue within his kingdom’s borders. The following year Gezo also told the British that he had greatly curtailed the extent of human sacrifice.

To the outside world, palm oil was now the one cornerstone of Dahomey’s economy. This did not mean the end of slavery. Far from it. Palm oil collection required labor, and the Dahomeans and western planters brought in more and more slaves to man the plantations. Slaves were also deemed necessary for transporting the finished oil and other goods to the coast. The Dahomeans were either unable, after centuries of tradition, to break out of the mindset of slavery or thought that free labor would cut into their profits. The government also intervened in the new major trade. It raised prices and taxes on palm oil, and Gezo claimed ownership of all the necessary trees. Private merchants in Ouidah could still deal in palm oil, but now they had to give more of the profits to the king. Slave trading itself was not dead. Gezo had simply chosen a less direct method of profiting off the sale of humans. The treaty had stipulated that Dahomey could not sell slaves out of its ports. To get around this, Gezo had the captives taken in raids sold to slave-trading neighbors. Thus Dahomey still made money off of this trade.

Gezo had effectively created his own personal monopoly, and in the process destroyed the very trade he endorsed as an effective replacement for slaves. Merchants paid the same rates for palm oil as they did for slaves. However, palm oil cost much more to transport. Profits declined greatly. As for Ouidah, its fortunes would have declined regardless. Palm oil plantations were much closer to Porto Novo, Godomey, and Cotonou (a port established in 1851).

Then in 1857 the palm oil trade collapsed. It was still a valued commodity, but international prices dropped. Wanting to fill the state coffers, and encouraged by merchants who wanted to turn good profits again, Gezo began to reopen the slave trade at his ports. Sales of slaves were not as profitable as they had once been, but they did compensate somewhat for falling palm oil prices. The falling profits from palm oil were just one reason for Gezo’s about-face. Needing labor in its Caribbean holdings, France started a “free emigrant” program. What this entailed was purchasing slaves from West African kingdoms under the guise of liberating them through “voluntary” work contracts. Cuba outright restarted its involvement in the slave trade. The Cuban company Expedition por Africa looked for sellers, and Dahomey was eager to supply.

Dahomey undertook a new, large wave military campaigns. The purpose, of course, was to acquire thousands of slaves for Brazilian, Cuban, and French buyers. Gezo’s life came to an end in 1858, while he was attending a military expedition. A youth from the town of Expo, his reasons unknown, surprised and mortally wounded the king with a rifle. In retaliation the military wiped out Expo, taking over 1,400 people captive. Dahomey honored their deceased ruler with further bloodshed. They beheaded 800 slaves. The British press noticed this and released several articles lambasting Gezo and Dahomey for their practices. I have included a section of such an article.

Gezo had overseen some of Dahomey’s greatest successes, but also some considerable failures. He had removed the Oyo yoke, restored his military, and been able to cultivate the palm oil trade. At the same time, however, he oversaw the military disaster at Abeokuta and was unable to fully divorce his kingdom from the slave trade both through his own deviousness and his inability to comprehend the emerging modern world. Gezo’s successors would deal with the last gasps of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the rising imperialist aggression of Europe.

Sources

“800 Slaves Sacrificed in Tribute on the Death of Gezo the Great Slave King of Dahomey 1858.” https://bahamianology.com/800-slaves-sacrificed-in-tribute-on-the-death-of-gezo-the-great-slave-king-of-dahomey-1858/.

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.

Hellermann, Pauline von. “Red Gold: a History of Palm Oil in West Africa.” https://chinadialogue.net/en/food/red-gold-a-history-of-palm-oil-in-west-africa/.

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.