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A Neglected Account of the Dahomian Conquest of Whydah (1727): the “Relation de la guerre de Juda” of the Sieur Ringard of Nantes*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Robin Law
Robin Law*
Affiliation:
University of Stirling
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Extract

The conquest of Whydah by the Dahomians under King Agaja in March 1727 was indisputably an event of great historical importance. In Dahomian tradition it was recalled above all-- with a degree of oversimplication--as marking the beginning of Dahomey's involvement in the Atlantic slave trade, and was regarded as Agaja's greatest triumph, commemorated in his surname “Hunyito” (“taker of ships”) and his heraldic emblem, a European ship. It also made a considerable impression on contemporary European observers, being perceived from the first as an especially dramatic and significant event - “a great Revolution,” in the words of one eyewitness. Part of the impact of the fall of Whydah lay in the scale and comprehensiveness of the human and material destruction which the Dahomian conquest involved, and the contrast with Whydah's former prosperity: “such a terrible Desolation by the Sword, Fire and Famine, as hardly ever befel any Country… It was a lamentable Story to hear, and a dismal Sight to see, the Desolation of so fine a Country, lately exceedingly populous, now destroyed in such a manner by Fire and Sword”. In addition, the defeat of Whydah by Dahomey had been wholly unexpected. Before the event Bulfinch Lamb, an English trader held captive in Dahomey, had advised Agaja against attacking Whydah, urging that given the large population and access to imported European firearms of the latter “there was no probability of Success.”

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 15 , 1988 , pp. 321 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1988

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Footnotes

*

My thanks to David Henige, who first drew my attention to the document discusssed here; to Hertfordshire County Record Office for permission to reproduce it; to Peter Walme, the County Archivist at Hertford, and Catherine Botreau, Sous-Archiviste of the Archives Municipales de Nantes, for their helpful responses to my enquiries about the provenance and context of the document; and to Robert Smith, for supplying other relevant material and for comments on an early draft of this article; and also to the Nuffield Foundation, the British Academy, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, and the University of Stirling for financial support of the author's current research on the early history of the “Slave Coast,” of which this article is a by-product.

References

Notes to Introduction

1. Le Hérissé, A., L'Ancien Royaume du Dahomey (Paris, 1911), 51.Google Scholar

2. Ibid., 16.

3. Public Record Office, London [hereafter PRO]: T.70/7, Abstract of letter of Abraham Duport, Whydah, 20 March 1727. Cf. also Atkins, John, A Voyage to Guinea, Brasil and the West Indies (London, 1735), 119Google Scholar (“the surprizing Revolution… turning things topsy-turvy”). The term “revolution” here seems to carry its normal connotation in the usage of the period, of “a sudden reversal of fate,” rather than its more familiar implication in later times of a radical transformation of political or social structures: cf. Calvert, Peter, Revolution (London, 1970), 57, 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Snelgrave, William, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea (London, 1734), 5, 19.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., 9.

6. Ibid., 15.

7. See especially Akinjogbin, I. A., Dahomey and its Neighbours, 1708-1818 (Cambridge 1967), 73–81Google Scholar; Henige, David/Johnson, Marion, “Agaja and the Slave Trade: Another Look at the Evidence,” HA, 3 (1976), 57–67Google Scholar; Ross, David, “The Anti-Slave Trade Theme in Dahoman History: An Examination of the Evidence,” HA, 9 (1982), 263–65Google Scholar; Law, Robin, “Dahomey and the Slave Trade: Reflections on the Historiography of the Rise of Dahomey,” JAH, 27 (1986), 243–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Some reference to the campaign can, however, be found in Smith, Robert, Warfare and Diplomanoy in Pre-Colonial West Africa (London, 1976), 140, 164.Google Scholar

9. Snelgrave said that he arrived at Whydah “the latter end of March” (New Account, 19), but this is evidently according to the Julian (or “Old Style”) calendar then still in official use in Britain, which in the eighteenth century was eleven days behind the Gregorian (or “New Style”) calendar which most other European nations employed (and which Britain itself belatedly adopted in 1751). However, Snelgrave1 s placing of the Dahomian conquest of Whydah in March (ibid., 2), is on this basis imprecise, since by “Old Style” reckoning it occurred in late February.

10. Ibid., 19. Snelgrave specifically named as informants on particular points [Abraham] Duport and [Francisco] Pereyra [Mendes], Governors respectively of the English and Portuguese factories in Whydah: cf. ibid., 16-17.

11. Ibid., 3-4. Snelgrave also suggested that the cowardly flight of the Whydahs was provoked by the Dahomians' reputation of being cannibals: ibid., 41-42.

12. Ibid., 5.

13. Ibid., 9-18.

14. Whereas at the beginning of the campaign Snelgrave spoke of “the King” as if actively involved (9-10), he subsequently refered rather to “the King of Dahome's General” (13-15), and he explicitly stated that when Whydah fell the King was “encamped with another Army, about forty Miles off in the Kingdom of Ardra [Allada]” (17).

15. An account recorded in Whydah a generation later gives a rather different explanation, that the Whydahs thought themselves safe because the Dahomians had no boats and did not know how to swim, but that the Dahomians sounded the river and discovered a fordable place, by implication-- though this is difficult to credit--one unknown to the Whydahs themselves (Archives Nationales, Paris [hereafter AN]: C.6/25, Pruneau/Guestard, “Mémoire pour servir à l'intelligence du commerce du Juda,” 18 March 1750). While the Dahomians' unfamiliarity with canoes is well attested (cf. e.g. Norris, Robert, Memoirs of the Reign of Bossa Ahadee, King of Dahomy [London, 1789], 27, 55, 131Google Scholar; Smith, , Warfare and Diplomacy, 180Google Scholar), there is no suggestion in Snelgrave's account that the fording place was not well known.

16. The assertion in some later sources that the Whydahs actually placed their sacred snake on the river bank in the path of the Dahomians seems to arise from a misunderstanding of Snelgrave: Norris, , Memoirs, 69Google Scholar; Burton, Richard, A Mission to Gelele, King of Dohome, ed. Newbury, C.W. (London, 1966), 100.Google Scholar

17. Letter of Francisco Pereyra Mendes, Whydah, 4 April 1727, quoted in Verger, Pierre, Flux et Reflux de la Traite des Nègres entre le Golfe de Bénin et Babia de Todos os Santos du XVIIe au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1968), 145.Google Scholar

18. Smith, William, A New Voyage to Guinea (London, 1744), 190.Google Scholar Smith arrived at Whydah on 7 April [=18 April, N.S.] 1727 (166). His statement that Whydah was conquered “about the beginning of February” (190) is presumably a slip for “about the end of February” [=early March, N.S.].

19. “Agou” was the title of the Whydah chief who served as official interpreter in the king's dealings with European traders: e.g. “Relation du Royaume de Judas en Guinée, de son gouvernement, des moeurs de ses habitans, de leur religion, et du négoce qui sy fait” (anonymous and undated [ca.1714] ms, in Archives d Outre-Mer, Aixen-Provence: Dépôt des Fortifications des Colonies, Côtes d'Afrique, ms 104), 27.

20. Extract of letter of Hendrik Hertog, Jakin, 18 March 1727 in Elmina Journal, 8 May 1727, in Van Dantzig, Albert, ed., The Dutch and the Guinea Coast, 1674-1742: A Collection of Documents from the General State Archives at the Hague (accra, 1978), 147–48.Google Scholar The cryptic allusion here to the chiefs' “inheritance” is probably to be explained by the fact that in Whydah on a chief's death his wives and goods passed to the king (cf. Thomas Phillips, “A Journal of a Voyage made in the Hannibal of London, Ann. 1693, 1694,” in Churchill, Awnsham/Churchill, John, eds., Collection of Voyages and Travels [London, 1732], 6: 219Google Scholar). Presumably, as was the case in Dahomey later, the king was normally expected to restore the wives and property to the chief's successor, on payment of a death duty (cf. Le Herissé, , Ancien Royaume, 84–85Google Scholar), but the king on this occasion had kept all (or an unreasonable share) of the estate for himself.

An account recorded a generation later gives a rather different explanation of the Aplogan's defection. According to this account, on the death of the old Aplogan the succession to his title was disputed between two of his sons, and the defeated candidate sought support from the King of Whydah, who in turn called in the assistance of the King of Dahomey; and although the King of Whydah then had second thoughts and asked the King of Dahomey not to come after all, the latter proceeded with the invasion anyway, killed the incumbent Aplogan and installed his rival in the title (AN: C.6/25, Pruneau/Guestard, “Mémoire”. While this story of a disputed succession to the Aplogan title is not inherently implausible, it is not supported by Snelgrave's account (which has the incumbent Aplogan submitting to Dahomey, rather than overthrown in favor of a rival claimant), and the claim that the king of Whydah had him self originally invited the Dahomian intervention seems clearly spurious, representing merely a concrete dramatization of the view that the Whydahs had brought their destruction upon themselves.

21. Le Herissé, , Ancien Royaume, 296–97.Google Scholar

22. Cf. Smith, , Warfare, 164.Google Scholar For example, in 1732 Agaja gave out that he was sending his army to attack “Paon”, a province of Whydah, as a cover for his real intention of attacking Jakin, to the east: Letter of João Basilio, Whydah, 2 April 1732, in Verger, , Flux et Reflux, 154–55.Google Scholar

23. Akinjogbin, , Dahomey, 70Google Scholar; cf. Smith, , Warfare, 164.Google Scholar

24. An alternative version of the story is that the Whydahs had earlier sold the Dahomians muskets only with the locks previously removed, but that Na Gheze discovered and sent to her father the missing locks (e.g. Agbo, Casimir, Histoire de Ouidah [2nd ed., Avignon, 1959], 35–37Google Scholar). In one account, it was a daughter of the Whydah king married to the King of Dahomey (rather than the other way round) who revealed this deceit (PRO: FO.84/886, Louis Fraser, “Occurrences, Gossip, & c. at Whydah,” entry for 16 March 1852). For parallel stories in local traditions, see the case of the defeat of king Yahase of Werne by the Dahomian king Akaba (according to tradition the immediate predecessor of Agaja), said to have been made possible by one of Akaba's daughters who was married to Yahase and who took measures to neutralize his war charms (Herskovits, Melville J. and Herskovits, Frances S., Dahomean Narrative [Evanston, 1958], 368–72Google Scholar; and (in the traditions of neighboring Porto-Novo) that of the defeat of Kpokpo, king of Tado, by Dassa (ancestor of the kings of Allada and Porto-Novo), after a daughter of Dassa married to Kpokpo had stolen his tutelary deity Dangbe (the python) (Akindélé, A. and Aguessy, C., Contribution à l'étude de l'histoire de l'ancien royaume de Porto-Novo [Dakar, 1953], 24–25).Google Scholar See also Law, Robin, “Problems of Plagiarism, Harmonization and Misunderstanding in Contemporary European Sources: Early (pre-1680s) Sources for the ‘Slave Coast’ of West Africa,” Paideuma, 33 (1987), 348–49.Google Scholar

25. Labat, Jean-Baptiste, Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinée, Isles Voisines et à Cayenne (2nd ed., Amsterdam, 1731), 1:XIII–XIV.Google Scholar Labat had no first-hand knowledge of Whydah and its affairs, and was presumably reproducing what he had heard directly or indirectly from French traders active there. His source was probably not Des Marchais himself, who apparently had last visited Whydah in 1725, two years before the Dahomian conquest.

26. This document was originally cataloged as DE/4347, but has recently been recataloged as D/ER Z10.

27. Information kindly supplied by Peter Walme, the County Archivist.

28. Archives Municipales, Nantes [hereafter AMN]: HH 236, letters of Mellier to Comte de Maurepas and the Duc d'Estrées, both 29 July 1727; a copy of the former is also in AN: B.3/315, f. 313.

29. This is clear from the mistaken spelling of the name “Dahome” (Dahomey) at its first occurrence in the document (though not subsequently) as “d'Ahome,” a common copying error in eighteenth-century sources.

30. This is perhaps suggested by the fact that it ends with a comma rather than a full stop. Note also that Mellier, in one of his letters forwarding the “Relation,” stated that “the war had not finished on 13 March” (AMN: HH 236, letter of Mellier to Duc d'Estrées, 29 July 1727), probably alluding to the fact that after the fall of Savi on 9 March Dahomian forces proceeded to the coastal village of Glehue where they destroyed the fort of the Portuguese traders and for some days threatened those of the French and English also (cf. Letter of Hendrik Hertog, Jakin, 18 March 1727, in Van Dantzig, , Dutch anã Guinea Coast, 222Google Scholar; letter of Francisco Pereyra Mendes, Whydah, 4 April 1727, in Verger, , Flux et Reflux, 145Google Scholar). But there is no statement or clear implication to this effect in the “Relation” as preserved.

31. A similar process of distortion can be discerned in the account given to Snelgrave in 1727 of a Dahomian war against Oyo in the previous year. A contemporary report makes clear that the Dahomians were badly defeated in this campaign (Letter of Francisco Pereyra Mendes, Whydah, 22 May 1726, quoted in Verger, , Flux et Reflux, 144Google Scholar). Snelgrave's account not only claimed a Dahomian victory, but stated that this was obtained by the ruse of feigning withdrawal, leaving quantities of French brandy in the abandoned Dahomian camp for the Oyo to loot, and then surprising them with an attack after they had fallen into a drunken stupor on the looted liquor (Snelgrave, , New Account, 57–58Google Scholar). This story is another traditional stereotype, a version of it being applied in Dahomian tradition, for example, to a later (and in this case genuinely victorious) campaign against Oyo in 1823, with on this occasion silk cloth rather than brandy as the bait for the trap (Herissé, Le, Ancien Royaume, 320Google Scholar). For some further discussion see Law, Robin, “Traditional History,” in Biobaku, S. O., ed., Sources of yoruba History (Oxford, 1973), 37–38.Google Scholar