Dahomey, Portugal and Bahia: King Adandozan and the Atlantic Slave Trade
2011; Frank Cass & Co.; Volume: 33; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/0144039x.2011.604562
ISSN1743-9523
Autores Tópico(s)African history and culture studies
ResumoAbstract This article examines the correspondence between the Portuguese rulers and Dahomean kings, in particular King Adandozan (r. 1797–1818). The letters provide us with new elements to understand West African-European reciprocal perceptions and relations. In describing the main political and military conflicts of Adandozan's reign, the letters also reveal to what extent West African rulers were aware of the Napoleonic Wars. The correspondence sheds light on the impact European conflicts had on Dahomey's economy and how those events contributed to the decline of the Atlantic slave trade in West African ports such as Ouidah, giving clues about the motivations that eventually led to Adandozan's deposition. Acknowledgements This research was made possible with support from the New Faculty Start-Up Program at Howard University, Washington, DC, USA, which provided me with funding to conduct research in Brazilian archives in Rio de Janeiro (Biblioteca Nacional and Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro) and Salvador (Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia and Fundação Pierre Verger). Different parts of earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2009 American Historical Association meeting, the 2010 Forum on European Expansion and Global Interaction conference, and the 2010 conference on 'L'Impact du Monde Atlantique sur les "Anciens Mondes" Africain et Européen du XVe au XIXe Siècle', Nantes, France. I thank John K. Thornton for suggesting that I consult Adandozan's letters in the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro. I am grateful to Robin Law and Paul E. Lovejoy for their valuable comments on a previous draft of this article. I also thank Jeffrey Kerr-Ritchie, Margaret Crosby-Arnold and Lisa Earl Castillo for their comments on previous drafts of this article. I am grateful to the staff of the Biblioteca Nacional, Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, and Pierre Verger Foundation. I would like to thank the Museu Nacional Staff, in particular Thereza Baumann, who drew my attention to the pipe holder. I am also indebted to Mariza de Carvalho Soares, who among others helped me obtain permission to publish the pictures taken at the Museu Nacional. Notes The embassies were sent during the reigns of kings Tegbesu, Agonglo, Adandozan and Gezo. The years correspond to the arrival dates of the embassies, even though the Dahomean letters sometimes contain the date of the previous year, when they were written. Other kingdoms of the Bight of Benin sent embassies to Brazil as well. Porto-Novo (Ardra) sent an embassy to Bahia in 1810; Lagos (Onim) sent embassies to Brazil in 1770, 1807 and 1823. See Pierre Verger, Flux et reflux de la traite des nègres entre le Golfe de Bénin et Bahia de Todos os Santos, du XVIIe au XIXe siècle (Paris: Mouton, 1969), 132. See Robin Law, The Slave Coast of West Africa, 1550–1750: The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on an African Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 203. See Robin Law, Ouidah: The Social History of a Slave 'Port' 1727–1892 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004), 156; Pierre Verger, Fluxo e refluxo do tráfico de escravos entre o Golfo do Benin e a Bahia de Todos os Santos (Rio de Janeiro: Corrupio, 1987), 27. According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database: Voyages, 336,800 of a total of 551,800 enslaved Africans who were embarked in ports of the Bight of Benin between 1770 and 1850 were sent to Brazil. Of the individuals sent to Brazil, about 90 per cent disembarked in Salvador da Bahia. See http://www.slavevoyages.org. The Brazilian slave trade was officially abolished in 1831, but the illegal slave trade continued until 1850. When the Brazilian capital moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro in 1763, the Portuguese fort in Ouidah continued under the authority of Bahia's provincial governor. See Law, Ouidah, 34. Law, Ouidah, 60. See Verger, Fluxo e refluxo, 279–287; Silvia Hunold Lara, Fragmentos setecentistas: escravidão, cultura e poder na América portuguesa (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2007), 194; Ana Lucia Araujo, 'Images, Artefacts and Myths: Reconstructing the Connections between Brazil and the Kingdom of Dahomey', in Living History: Encountering the Memory of the Heirs of Slavery, ed. Ana Lucia Araujo (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2009), 180–202. Relaçam da Embayxada, que o poderoso Rey de Angome Kiayy Chiri Broncom, Senhor dos dilatadissimos Sertões de Guiné mandou ao Illustrissimo e Excellentissimo Senhor D. Luiz Peregrino de Ataide, Conde de Atouguia, Senhor das Villas de Atouguia, Peniche, Cernache, Monforte, Vilhaens, Lomba, e Paço da Ilha Dezerta, Cõmendador das Cõmendas de Santa Maria de Adaufe, e Villa velha de Rodam, na Ordem de Christo, do Conselho de Sua Magestade, Governador, e Capitão General, que foy do Reyno de Algarve & actualmente Vice-Rey do Estado do Brasil: pedindo a amizade, e aliança do muito alto; e poderoso Senhor Rey de Portugal Nosso Senhor / escrita por J. F. M. M. (Lisboa: Na Officina de Francisco da Silva, anno de 1751). Ibid., 4. All transcriptions and translations from Portuguese are mine. Ibid., 5. Ibid. King Dom João V died on 31 July 1750, but the news of his death took a long time to reach Brazil. Relaçam da Embayxada, 10. Ibid., 11. Verger, Fluxo e refluxo, 285. Ibid., 308n13. This voyage, this vessel and this captain are absent from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database: Voyages because, according to its editors, the database comprises only 'the vessels for which the documentation survived in 1994′. See David Eltis, Stephen D. Behrendt, and David Richardson, 'National Participation in the Transatlantic Slave Trade: New Evidence', in Africa and the Americas: Interconnections during the Slave Trade, ed. José C. Curto and Renée Soulodre-La France (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2005), 22. However, scholars such as Lisa Earl Castillo found in the Arquivo Público do Estado da Bahia numerous records related to voyages that do not appear in the online database. Law, Ouidah, 156. 'Ofício do Rei de Dahomey a D. Fernando José de Portugal enviando um branco chamado Luís Caetano e dois embaixadores para serem enviados a El-Rei e falando sôbre a ida de navios a seu pôrto, Abome, 20 de março de 1795', Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de Janeiro (hereafter BN-RJ): II–34, 2, 10, Doc. 551, f. 1, 20 March 1795. Verger, Fluxo e refluxo, 287. 'Ofício do Rei de Dahomey'. Verger, Fluxo e refluxo, 287. See Law, Slave Coast, 202–204; David Northrup, Africa's Discovery of Europe, 1450–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 81. Robert Norris, 'A Journey to the Court of Bossa Ahadee, King of Dahomey, in the Year of 1772', in The History of Dahomy: An Inland Kingdom of Africa, by Archibald Dalzel (1793; London: Elibron Classics, 2005), 119. Archibald Dalzel, The History of Dahomy: An Inland Kingdom of Africa (1793; London: Elibron Classics, 2005), 31; Norris, 'Journey', 112. Norris, 'Journey', 119; Northrup, Africa's Discovery, 87. Norris, 'Journey', 107, 132. Ibid., 138. BN-RJ: II–34, 2, 20, Doc. 563, f. 9, 19 February 1796. Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro (hereafter IHGB): Lata 137, Pasta 62, Doc. 3, f. 4v, Rio de Janeiro, 9 October 1810. BN-RJ: II–34, 2, 20, Doc. 563, f. 9, 19 February 1796. Ibid., f. 1, 7 April 1796. Pires published an account of the years spent in Dahomey. See Vicente Ferreira Pires, Viagem de África em o Reino de Dahomé escrita pelo Padre Vicente Ferreira Pires no ano de 1800 et até o presente inédita (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1957). BN-RJ: II–34, 2, 20, Doc. 563, f. 2, 7 April 1796. Pires, Viagem de África, 7. I.A. Akinjogbin, Dahomey and Its Neighbors (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 185. Ibid., 186. Edna G. Bay, Wives of the Leopard: Gender, Politics and Culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998), 155. See Paul Hazoumé, Le Pacte de sang au Dahomey (Paris: Institut d'Ethnologie, 1956); Pires, Viagem de África. Verger, Flux et reflux, 231. Denyau de la Garenne, 'Rapport écrit à Paris, le 25 nivôse [according to the Republic calendar, 21 or 22 December, or 20 or 22 January], de l'an VII (1799)', Archives Nationales, col . C6/27, quoted in Verger, Flux et reflux, 249n72. See Judith Gleason, Agõtime: Her Legend (New York: Viking Compass Books, 1970), 58. Pierre Verger, Os libertos: sete caminhos na liberdade de escravos da Bahia no século XIX (Salvador: Currupio, 1992), 71. Law, Ouidah, 149. See A. Le Hérissé, L'Ancien Royaume du Dahomey: moeurs, religion, histoire (Paris: Emile Larose, 1911), 56. Bay, Wives of the Leopard, 87. See Robin Law, 'The Politics of Commercial Transition: Factional Conflict in Dahomey in the Context of the Ending of the Atlantic Slave Trade', Journal of African History 38, no. 2 (1997): 213. Akinjogbin, Dahomey and Its Neighbors, 186. Bay, Wives of the Leopard, 162. Araujo, 'Images, Artefacts and Myths'. Law, 'Politics of Commercial Transition', 218–219. Akinjogbin, Dahomey and Its Neighbors, 187–188. See Le Hérissé, L'Ancien Royaume du Dahomey, 313, quoted in Law, Ouidah, 87. See also Francesca Piqué and Leslie Rainer, Wall Sculptures of Abomey (London: J. Paul Getty Trust, Thames and Hudson, 1999), 73. In Benin, the image of the baboon is also present in Abomey bas-reliefs and the monuments situated along Ouidah's slave route. See Ana Lucia Araujo, Public Memory of Slavery: Victims and Perpetrators in the South Atlantic (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2010), chap. 4. IHGB: Lata 137, Pasta 62, Doc. 1, ff. 3–3v, n.d. This letter is not dated, but was probably written in 1804 and sent with the embassy of 1805. Ibid., f. 6, n.d. Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1981), 102. Among the historians who contested Rodney's statement is Northrup, Africa's Discovery, 81. IHGB: Lata 137, Pasta 62, Doc. 1, ff. 6v, 7, n.d. BN-RJ: II–24, 5, 4, f. 1, Doc. 124, 20 November 1804. Ibid. Among these travelogues, see Dalzel, History of Dahomy; Frederick E. Forbes, Dahomey and the Dahomans: Being the Journals of Two Missions to the King of Dahomey, and Residence at his Capital (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1851). BN-RJ: II–24, 5, 4, Doc. 126, f. 1, 31 July 1805. Ibid., Doc. 138, f. 1v, 30 July 180. Alberto da Costa e Silva, Um rio chamado Atlântico: a África no Brasil e o Brasil na África (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 2003), 15. See Verger, Os libertos, 81; Verger, Flux et reflux, 273. IHGB: Lata 137, Pasta 62, Doc. 2, f. 1, 9 October 1810. The Mahi country was located north of Abomey. IHGB: Lata 137, Pasta 62, Doc. 2, f. 3, 9 October 1810. Ibid. Ibid., f. 4, 9 October 1810. Ibid. Ibid., f. 5, 9 October 1810. Ibid. Ibid., f. 5v, 9 October 1810. Ibid., f. 7v, 9 October 1810. Ibid., f. 7, 9 October 1810. See Elisée Soumonni, 'The Compatibility of the Slave and Palm Oil Trades in Dahomey, 1818–1858', in From Slave Trade to 'Legitimate' Commerce: The Commercial Transition in Nineteenth-Century West Africa, ed. Robin Law (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 79. Ibid., 80; Akinjogbin, Dahomey and Its Neighbors, 201. See Maurice Ahanhanzo Glèlè, Le Danxome: du pouvoir aja à la nation fon (Paris: Nubia, 1974), 120; Costa e Silva, Francisco Félix de Souza, mercedor de escravos (Rio de Janeiro: MINC/BN, Departmento Nacional do Livro, 2002), 87; Hazoumé, Le Pacte de sang, 5–6. It is difficult to establish whether Adandozan's relatives were sold and sent into slavery to the Americas or if they were sent to neighbouring areas in the Bight of Benin. Soumonni, 'Compatibility', 78–92. Based on the data provided by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, during Adandozan's reign (1797–1818) about 16,502 enslaved Africans were embarked in Ouidah, whereas during Gezo's reign (1818–1858) about 30,378 enslaved Africans were embarked in the same port. The annual average of slave exports during Adandozan's reign is 785.8, whereas the annual average of 759.46 during Gezo's reign is only slightly smaller. 'Enclosure 2: Letter from the King of Dahomey to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, alluded to in the preceding, Abomey, November 3, 1848', in King Guezo of Dahomey, 1850–52: The Abolition of the Slave Trade on the West Coast of Africa, ed. Tim Coates (London: Stationery Office, 2001), 12–13. See Glèlè, Le Danxome, 120; Bay, Wives of the Leopard, 174. Richard Burton, A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome, vol. 2 (London, 1893), 293. See also Akinjogbin, Dahomey and Its Neighbors, 200. Bay, Wives of the Leopard, 174. Law, 'Politics of Commercial Transition', 216. Verger, Os libertos, 70. IHGB: Lata 137, Pasta 62, Doc. 6, f. 1v, n.d. The letter is undated and although the 'folder' (pasta) indicates that the letters were archived before 1811, this letter was certainly sent after 1811, as Gezo took power only in 1818. For a discussion about the political importance of de Souza, see Ana Lucia Araujo, 'Enjeux politiques de la mémoire de l'esclavage dans l'Atlantique Sud: la reconstruction de la biographie de Francisco Félix de Souza', Lusotopie 14, no. 2 (2009): 107–131; Ana Lucia Araujo, 'Forgetting and Remembering the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Legacy of the Brazilian Slave Merchant Francisco Felix de Souza', in Crossing Memories: Slavery and African Diaspora, ed. Ana Lucia Araujo, Mariana P. Candido, and Paul Lovejoy (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2011), 79–103. The Museu Real was established in 1818. Maria [Graham] Callcot, Journal of a Voyage to Brazil, and Residence there during 1821, 1822, 1823 (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1824). This may be found at Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21201 (accessed 12 December 2008). Additional informationNotes on contributorsAna Lucia AraujoAna Lucia Araujo is Associate Professor in the Department of History, Howard University, 2441 6th Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20059, USA.
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