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Mid-Nineteenth Century Dahomey: Recent Views vs. Contemporary Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

David Ross
David Ross*
Affiliation:
Simon Eraser University
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Extract

Three mid-nineteenth century English travellers, F.E. Forbes, R.F. Burton, and J.A. Skertchly, published books which contain detailed descriptions of the way in which the Dahoman state was then organized. The three authors' works, when taken together, form the most coherent, best researched, precolonial account of the Dahoman kingdom.

Dahomey's more recent historians, while purporting to rely on Forbes', Burton's, and Skertchly's evidence, have nevertheless advanced arguments which are incompatible with that evidence. The three authors believed that Dahomey was an Abomey area slave-raiding community, whereas the kingdom's new historians claim that Dahomey was a European-like nation state. They have, it appears, while searching for their new interpretations, lost sight of their source material. As a means of drawing attention back to these sources there follows an analysis of Forbes', Burton's, and Skertchly's testimony.

F.E. Forbes was a naval officer who became interested in Dahomey while serving on board one of the anti-slave squadron's ships. R.F. Burton, the well-known explorer and author, made a study of the kingdom while he held the position of British Consul for the Bight of Biafra. J.A. Skertchly was an entomologist who developed an interest in Dahomey while on a West African specimen collecting trip.

Forbes gathered his material in 1849/50, while Burton collected his in 1863/64. Both visited Dahomey as members of anti-slave trade factfinding missions and both considered that their instructions obliged them to find out as much as they could about the way in which the kingdom was organized. Forbes' and Burton's books are published versions of their official reports.3 Skertchly, who collected his evidence in 1871, had intended to spend only about a week in Dahomey but was detained there for almost eight months, during which he was unable to collect specimens.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 12 , 1985 , pp. 307 - 323
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1985

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References

NOTES

1. Forbes, F.E., Dahomey and the Dahomans (2 vols.: London, 1851)Google Scholar; Burton, R.F., A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome (2 vols.: London, 1864)Google Scholar; Skertchly, J.A., Dahomey As It Is (London, 1874).Google Scholar All references are to the second edition of Burton's work, published in 1966 in one volume.

2. See Ross, David, “The Anti-Slave Trade Theme in Dahoman History: An Examination of the Evidence,” HA, 9 (1982), 263–71Google Scholar, and “European Models and West African History: Further Comments on the Recent Historiography of Dahomey,” HA, 10 (1983), 293–305.Google Scholar

3. Public Record Office, London, (hereafter P.R.O.) F.O. 84/826, Forbes to Fanshawe, 2 April 1850; F.O. 84/827, Forbes to Fanshawe, 18 July 1850; F.O. 84/1221, Burton to Russell, 23 March 1864.

4. Duncan, John, Travels in Hestern Africa, in 1845 and 1846, comprising a Journey from Whydah, through the Kingdom of Dahomey to Adofoodia, in the interior (2 vols.: London, 1847).Google ScholarJohnson, Marion, “News from Nowhere: Duncan and ‘Adofoodia’,” HA, 1 (1974), 55–66Google Scholar, examines Duncan's account of his travels in the lands lying to the north of Abomey and concludes that he is unlikely to have been there. Johnson accepts, however, that he visited Abomey itself.

5. Dike, K.O., “Beecroft 1835-49,” Journal of the Historiaal Society of Nigeria, 1 (12 1956), 5–14.Google Scholar

6. P.R.O. F.O. 84/816, Beecroft to Palmerston, 13 and 22 July 1850.

7. Burton paid an unofficial visit to Dahomey in May and June 1863, during which he had set about learning Fon. In his book and his report Burton deals only with the events of his official December 1863/January 1864 visit.

8. Burton, , Mission, 39.Google Scholar

9. Criticisms of Forbes are to be found in Burton, Mission, 68, 84n59, 93nl7, 125, 201, 203, 254, 258n10.

10. For criticisms of Burton see Skertchly, , Dahomey, 127, 134, 150, 156, 157, 170, 282, 303, 391, 406.Google Scholar

11. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1: 6–7, 2: 86-87Google Scholar; Burton, , Mission, 105-07, 121, 125, 169–70Google Scholar; Skertchly, , Dahomey, 86-87, 448–50.Google Scholar

12. Burton, , Mission, 107, 107n47, 107n49.Google Scholar

13. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1: 6.Google Scholar

14. Burton, , Mission, 139, 140, 213Google Scholar, made it clear that the majority of the dominant groups' members were Agasuvi. He did, however, name a number of exceptions. There were, it appears no more than 2000 dominant Agasuvi.

15. Burton, , Mission, 138n32.Google Scholar

16. The Dahomans called all the Agasuvi lineage heads' wives Akhosi or Minos. There is no record of their having given his fighting wives a special name. Detailed accounts of the Amazons are to be found in Burton, , Mission, 254–67Google Scholar, and Skertchly, , Dahomey, 454–59.Google Scholar

17. Burton, , Mission, 256Google Scholar, noted that Gezo (1818-1858) had kept the Amazon corps “clear of the servile and the captive.” He also remarked that Gelele (1858-1889) recruited Amazons from all ranks in society. Skertchly, , Dahomey, 454–55Google Scholar, stated that, in Gelele's time,as in Gezo's, Amazon “officers” were recruited from “the upper ten,” Amazon ordinary soldiers from the “lower orders,” and Amazon slaves from the slave population. Burton's general argument suggests that Skertchly's account of Amazon recruitment is accurate.

18. When describing the community drawn up in formation awaiting the arrival of the Dahomey Dadda, Burton, , Mission, 137Google Scholar, noted that he saw twenty-four ‘great’ dignitaries, but did not name the six ‘extra’ leaders whom he included in the ‘great’ group. He probably included six leaders of the second rank--men who although powerful were actually near relatives or important clients of either the Dahomey Dadda or one or another of the eighteen identifiable ‘great’ dignitaries.

19. Burton, , Mission, 145.Google Scholar

20. The Amazon force was organized as a replica of the male community. The Amazon ‘officers’ played a prominent part in all the dominant group's activités since they were, like the males, warriors. Burton, , Mission, 162Google Scholar, noted that the Amazons frequently stressed that they were “no longer females but males.” Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:134Google Scholar, and 2:27, also remarked that the Amazons emphasized that they were ‘men,’ despite the fact that in theory, they were the Dahomey Dad-da's wives.

21. Forbes, , Dahomey, 2:89–91Google Scholar; Burton, , Mission, 137-40, 254–67Google Scholar; Skertchly, , Dahomey, 139-41, 444-46, 454–59.Google Scholar The ‘great’ dignitaries were divided into senior and junior groups., The seniors (the Migan, Meu, Yeovogun, Gao, Kposu, Adjaho, Topo, Sogan, and Akplogun) each held positions which had existed from at least the first half of the eighteenth century. The nine juniors were usually called the first group's “seconds” or “lieutenants,” and their positions had been created in the first half of the nineteenth century for the near relatives of Gezo. Dahoman traditions state that the seniors were always commoners, suggesting that they were descended from the Abomey area's pre-Agasuvi inhabitants. The senior ‘great’ dignitaries may, to speculate, have been descended from the warriors who led the original Abomey area statelet's military forces. The fact that most of the mid-nineteenth century ‘great’ dignitaries appear to have been Agasuvi does not entirely rule out this possibility. An individual became a member of the Agasuvi lineage if his mother belonged to that lineage. An Agasuvi son could therefore have inherited a ‘commoner’ position without having upset what seems to have been the Dahoman pattern of father-to-son inheritance.

22. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:73, 2:28, 45, 102, 104, 123, 130, 143, and 144Google Scholar; Burton, , Mission, 77n38, 87, 131, 132, 138, 176, 184, 185, 212, 217, 240, 241, 245, and 286-87n29, nos 5, 6, 9, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 24, 26, 27, 29, and 30Google Scholar; Skertchly, , Dahomey, 70, 71, 72, 129, 248, 291, 439-40, and 445.Google Scholar

23. Burton, , Mission, 193.Google Scholar

24. Forbes, , Dahomey, 2:43, 61Google Scholar; Burton, , Mission, 77, 96, 184, 185, 284, and 289Google Scholar; Skertchly, , Dahomey, 290–92.Google Scholar Where the three authors' figures differ, I have usually accepted those of Burton. Forbes' and Skertchly's figures differ dramatically from Burton's only when they speculate on total or overall numbers. When they give an account of what they actually saw, their figures roughly agree with Burton's.

25. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:27Google Scholar and Burton, , Mission, 54n22, 213, and 271Google Scholar, both make this point when describing the system in general terms. Burton, , Mission, 213–14Google Scholar, and Skertchly, , Dahomey, 347–49Google Scholar, gave descriptions of a “great” dignitary's appointment and installation, but neither gives an account of all ‘great’ dignitary's relationship either to his predecessor or his rivals. Indeed Burton remarked that his newly-appointed ‘great’ dignitary was a “novus homo,” but since he also noted that they new appointee was a prominent captain, he was obviously not in any real sense a new man. The general tenor of Burton's argument suggests that the new appointee, and his rivals, were probably all half-brothers. The most frequently-mentioned members of the prominent client group, the Bokonu and the Kpofensu, certainly both held hereditary positions. The Kpofensu was the ‘captain’ of a company of blunderbuss men and also acted as a priest-executioner and as the leader of a troop of court jesters. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:74Google Scholar, Burton, , Mission, 193, 241Google Scholar, Skertchly, , Dahomey, 250–395.Google Scholar

26. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:135.Google Scholar

27. Burton, , Mission, 54n22.Google Scholar

28. The junior ‘great’ dignitaries positions were only the most obvious of the nineteenth-century creations.

29. Burton, , Mission, 270Google Scholar, mentioned two captains who had begun life as common soldiers and it seems likely that most of the outsiders were poor, free Dahomans from the Abomey area. Skertchly, , Dahomey, 326, 448Google Scholar, remarked that he had heard that even the highest offices were open to captives but this is unlikely to have been the case. Captives may sometimes have come to wield considerable influence but only as the Dahoman leaders' slaves.

30. P.R.O. F.O. 84/827, Forbes to Fanshawe, 18 July 1850. Forbes clearly uses the word “feudal” in a very general sense.

31. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:15.Google Scholar

32. Ibid., 6-7.

33. Burton, , Mission, 260.Google Scholar

34. Forbes, , Dahomey, 2:182Google Scholar, and Burton, , Mission, 289Google Scholar, described the ways in which the surviving inhabitants of a raided town or village made their submission.

35. The Dahomey Dadda's new subjects may all have had to swear that they would, if required, send troops to take part in Dahomey's annual campaign, but there is no evidence of ‘new’ nineteenth century subjects having taken part in any of these.

36. The traditional authority who submitted quickly was permitted to continue in office, but one who was seized before he submitted was almost always dispatched to serve the Dahomey Dadda's ancestors.

37. The pre-Dahoman coastal state, Whydah, had its capital at Savi. The town of Whydah came into being as a major center after the Dahoman conquest. Burton, , Mission, 58-59, 94, 99–100Google Scholar, and Skertchly, , Dahomey, 44–45Google Scholar, gave an account of Whydah's history.

38. Forbes, , Dahomey, 2:72Google Scholar, Burton, , Mission, 171, 324Google Scholar, Skertchly, , Dahomey, 310, 406Google Scholar, each mentioned the home village of one or another of the community leaders. Forbes, , Dahomey, 2: 199Google Scholar noted that “official positions are mostly held by Abomey people.” Forbes' own evidence, as well as that of Burton and Skertchly, showed that official positions were mainly held by Abomey area people.

39. A fourth major community settlement, Cotonou, grew up after 1864, becoming the community's most important palm oil exporting port. Kana, another central Aja town, often housed a fairly substantial Dahoman population but shared much of its population with Abomey. The Dahoman leaders spent part of their time in Kana (which the Europeans often called the country capital), taking with them much of Abomey's population.

40. Most of these villages were pre-Dahoman. Burton, , Mission, 110–11Google Scholar, and Skertchly, , Dahomey, 95, 107Google Scholar, both wrote, however, of Dahoman founded villages. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:17Google Scholar, gave the impression that the Dahomans had Ahwangan stationed in all of central Ajaland's villages but this was the case only in the more strategically important villages.

41. Burton, , Mission, 58, 322Google Scholar, claimed that Abomey's population was no larger than Whydah's and that Whydah had a population of about twelve thousand. He added, however, that Abomey might, at times, have housed as many as twenty thousand people. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:14Google Scholar, put Abomey's population at “not more than thirty thousand.” Forbes visited Abomey while some of the community's more important festivals were being performed; even so his figure seems high. Burton, Mission, 127nl8, described how he made his calculations; his population estimates tend to be fairly similar to late nineteenth-century French estimates.

42. Burton, , Mission, 326Google Scholar; Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:68–71.Google Scholar

43. Skertchly, , Dahomey, 288, 301, 436, 444.Google Scholar Disputes and criminal cases involving senior members of the community were heard before the Dahomey Dadda during Khwetanun while other important cases were settled by the ‘great’ dignitaries. As Skertchly put it, “all minor criminal cases are submitted to the caboceers in order of their rank.”

44. The use of the catch-all phrase, the Dahoman Annual Customs, first used by the eighteenth-century Whydah slavers, has tended to prevent its being realized that the Dahomans--certainly the nineteenth-century Dahomans--performed elaborate ceremonies throughout the year. These slavers were usually summoned to Abomey during Khwetanun. Later visitors tended to call any ceremony either the Dahoman Annual Customs or part of the Annual Customs. Some visitors to Abomey assumed that ceremonies involving human sacrifice were performed only during the Annual Customs but the Dahomans performed such rites throughout the year. Burton, , Mission, 232–36Google Scholar, Skertchly, , Dahomey, 239.Google Scholar

45. Forbes, , Dahomey, 2:181Google Scholar, Burton, , Mission, 155, 314–18.Google Scholar

46. Burton, , Mission, 58.Google Scholar Burton obtained the figure of twelve thousand from the French Whydah-based missionaries. Skertchly, , Dahomey, 45Google Scholar, estimated that Whydah had a population of ten thousand. By Skertchly's time Cotonou had become an important Dahoman center.

47. Burton, , Mission, 105–08Google Scholar, Skertchly, , Dahomey, 85–88.Google Scholar The original town of Allada, the Agasuvi lineage's first home, had been destroyed by the Dahomans in 1724 and Dahoman Allada built on its site.

48. Burton, , Mission, 94, 102, 108Google Scholar, noted that Allada's population was a little larger than Toll's, that Toll's population was a little larger than Savi's, and that Savi had a population of about four hundred. Skertchly, , Dahomey, 80Google Scholar, gave Toll a population of about fifteen hundred and Savi a population of about twelve hundred, but did not estimate the size of Allada's population.

49. Skertchly, , Dahomey, 88–89Google Scholar, mistakenly thought that the Akplogun was the Menjoten's second.

50. Skertchly, , Dahomey, 84–85.Google Scholar

51. In the nineteenth century the traditional authorities were prominent local figures but not as Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:17Google Scholar, wrote, the Ahwangan's “coadjutors.” The Ahwangan, the community's representatives, were the traditional authorities' superiors.

52. The Ahwangan or their men collected local customs duties and perhaps sometimes local market taxes as well. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:27 and 90Google Scholar, noted that the local headman of a town or a district—the village Ahwangan—could declare a “king's court,” presumably when crimes or disputes involving more than local interests occurred.

53. Skertchly, , Dahomey, 444.Google Scholar

54. Although Forbes, Burton, and Skertchly each emphasized both that Dahomey was a slaving community and that the Dahoman leaders were all warriors, the problem of describing leaders who had no European equivalents brought each of them, to call one or another of the Dahoman leaders a minister, a priest, or a trader at some point. Such references have to be seen in context.

55. Burton, , Mission, 59n6Google Scholar, noted that the Yeovogun did not go on campaign, being “supposed to look after Whydah.”

56. Burton, , Mission, 201Google Scholar, Skertchly, , Dahomey, 179.Google Scholar The similar, but more elaborate, round of events staged after the death of a Dahomey Dadda was called Akhosutanun, “the king's head thing.”

57. Forbes, , Dahomey, 2:44–55Google Scholar, Skertchly, , Dahomey, 186-299, 338–69.Google Scholar

58. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:20.Google Scholar

59. Burton, , Mission, 201, 264.Google Scholar

60. Skertchly, , Dahomey, 448.Google Scholar

61. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:15-17, 110–24Google Scholar; 2:122-27; Burton, , Mission, 254-67, 288–90Google Scholar; 359-64; Skertchly, , Dahomey, 447–48.Google Scholar For an analysis of Dahoman military tactics, based partly on the three authors' evidence, see Ross, David, “Dahomey,” in West African Resistance, ed. Crowder, Michael (London, 1971), 144–69.Google Scholar

62. Peukert, Werner, Der Atlantisahe Sklavenhandel von Dahomey, 1740-1979. Wirtsahaftsanthropologie und Sozialgesahiahte (Wiesbaden, 1978)Google Scholar, has demonstrated that the late eighteenth-century Dahomans bought most of their slaves, though not that they gave up going on their regular annual slave hunt.

63. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:19Google Scholar; 2:90.

64. Skertchly, , Dahomey, 444Google Scholar; Burton, , Mission, 264.Google Scholar

65. Burton, , Mission, 263–67Google Scholar, counted the number of warriors who set out on the 1864 Abeokuta campaign.

66. Ketu was only the best known of the several states which the Dahomans subdued during the nineteenth century.

67. Burton, , Mission, 155, 226Google Scholar, told of subject states being attacked either because they had not paid enough tribute or because their inhabitants were held to have insulted the Dahomey Dadda.

68. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:7.Google Scholar Buying freedom from attack by paying tribute did not, it would appear, necessarily bring Dahomey's neighbors complete security.

69. Burton, , Mission, 260.Google Scholar

70. Skertchly, , Dahomey, 180.Google Scholar

71. Only the ruling classes' warriors took part in the debates. Although the tributary peoples' representatives visited Abomey during Khwetanun, they played no part in the debates, being there to hand over their tribute rather than to discuss the community's affairs. Many of the ruling classes' ‘dependent or slave’ soldier followers were also in Abomey during Khwetanun, forming ‘the crowd.’ Their role was to approve and applaud their betters' activities.

72. Forbes, , Dahomey, 2:86.Google Scholar

73. Burton, , Mission, 159Google Scholar; Skertchly, , Dahomey, 443–44.Google Scholar

74. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:83.Google Scholar Forbes' companion on his second visit to Abomey, Consul Beecroft, made the point rather more exactly, noting that “this great despot, the King of Dahomey, has been awfully exaggereated as to his wealth and power. I am perfectly satisfied that he is under the control and opinion of several of his principal officers.” P.R.O. F.O. 84/816, Beecroft to Palmerston, 22 July 1850.

75. Burton, , Mission, 159Google Scholar; Skertchly, , Dahomey, 443–44.Google Scholar

76. Burton, , Mission, 266–67Google Scholar, argued that the 1851 and 1864 defeats by the Egba showed that the Dahoman community's power was in rapid decline, however these defeats indicated merely that the community's early nineteenth-century expansionist phase was over. After 1864, the community consolidated its position as the dominant power in what had been the extreme southwestern portion of the Oyo empire. Late nineteenth-century Dahomey was by no means in decline.

77. Burton, , Mission, 168.Google Scholar

78. Burton, , Mission, 116–17.Google Scholar Also Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:6–7Google Scholar; Burton, , Mission, 260Google Scholar; Skertchly, , Dahomey, 44.Google Scholar

79. The Dahomans had never sold all of their captives, placing some of them on the lands surrounding their settlements. Burton, , Mission, 136, 170-71, and 183Google Scholar, claimed that the Dahomans placed their captives in villages named after the places from which the captives had been seized but Skertchly, , Dahomey, 156–57Google Scholar, denied this, arguing that the Dahomans named slave villages after raided places simply in order to commemorate their campaigns and that these villages did not always house either the original town's inhabitants or their descendants. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:31Google Scholar, noted that the slave villages were placed “under the direction of a Dahoman caboceer.” Neither he, nor Burton, nor Skertchly, provided any further information about the way in which the slave villages were governed.

80. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:14Google Scholar, estimated that nine-tenths of the Dahomey Dadda's subjects were slaves; Skertchly, , Dahomey, 45Google Scholar, that eight out of ten of Whydah's inhabitants were slaves; and Burton, , Mission, 331Google Scholar, terms the inhabitants of the A-bomey area “a slave race.” Burton, , Mission, 159Google Scholar, used the terms “serfs and slaves,” suggesting that he may have realized that the Dahomans distinguished between first-generation captives and their descendants.

81. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:25–26.Google Scholar

82. Burton, , Mission, 117.Google Scholar

83. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:35Google Scholar; Burton, , Mission, 330.Google Scholar

84. Burton, , Mission, 113, 354–55Google Scholar, and Skertchly, , Dahomey, 97–98Google Scholar, both gave accounts of a seemingly typical northern Terre de Barre people, the Toffo, or Aizoh, which substantiate this. The Toffo had been conquered in the second quarter of the eighteenth century, when many had been killed, many sold to the Europeans, and many settled as slaves in the Abomey area. Nevertheless by the mid-nineteenth century, both free and slave-descended Toffo had, as Skertchly notes, “merged into one family with the old Ffons.” Of mid-nineteenth century Ajaland's inhabitants only first generation captives and some Mahi remained hostile to Dahomey.

85. Forbes, , Dahomey, 1:19.Google Scholar

86. Burton, , Mission, 264n25.Google Scholar