No General Descriptions provided.
| nominal allegiance to [---] |
| Dahomey |
| population migration |
| UNCLEAR: [population migration] | |
| Succeeding: Whydah (ni_whydah_k) [None] | |
| Succeeding: Foys (ni_dahomey_k) [None] |
| unitary state | |
| loose |
| 30,000 people |
| 4,800 km2 |
| 200,000 people |
| inferred present |
| inferred present |
| inferred present |
| absent |
| absent |
| absent |
| inferred present |
| absent |
| absent |
| absent |
| absent |
| absent |
| absent |
| absent |
| absent |
| absent |
| absent |
| inferred Transitional (Absent -> Present) | 1100 CE 1599 CE |
| present | 1600 CE 1724 CE |
| present |
| inferred present |
| Year Range | Allada (ni_allada_k) was in: |
|---|
“At its political and economic peak in the 16th and 17th centuries, the coastal kingdom of Allada stretched from the port of Offra – now the suburb of Godomey in the current Republic of Benin’s commercial capital of Cotonou – approximately 50 miles north into the hinterland beyond its capital city, also known as Allada.” [1]
[1]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC- CLIO, 2017: 7. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
“By the mid-15th century, the population of Allada had reached approximately 30,000 people. It seems likely that the collection of small settlements up to this time organized themselves politically along decentralized lines, meaning that they ruled by consensus rather than granting sovereignty to a leader or king. Demographic growth, however, likely necessitated a transition to political centralization. Legends suggest that three brothers who had descended from people in what is now the city of Allada split the region into three parts and administered rule as kings. The first, Kokpon, remained in the capital city and became the ruler of the Allada kingdom.” [1] “At its political and economic peak in the 16th and 17th centuries, the coastal kingdom of Allada stretched from the port of Offra – now the suburb of Godomey in the current Republic of Benin’s commercial capital of Cotonou – approximately 50 miles north into the hinterland beyond its capital city, also known as Allada.” [2] Grand Ardra seems to be an alternative name for Allada city: “By the mid-16th century, however, the Portuguese were actively trading at Allada’s capital, Grand Ardra. Grand Ardra was a city of considerable size, home to approximately 30,000 people; Allada as a whole had a population upwards of 200,000. Dutch physician Olfert Dapper wrote in his Description of Africa in 1668 of the presence of "towns and villages in great number" in Grand Ardra’s countryside. Over the course of the 17th century, Allada emerged as the paramount kingdom in the region, exacting regular tribute from its neighbors and legitimizing these tributary relationships through various ritual obligations.” [3]
[1]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC-CLIO, 2017: 8. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
[2]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC- CLIO, 2017: 7. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
[3]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 402. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
“Referred to by various African and European sources as Adra, Ardra, and Arder, the kingdom lay in a subtropical coastal region that typically experienced two rainy seasons a year.” [1] “By the mid-16th century, however, the Portuguese were actively trading at Allada’s capital, Grand Ardra. Grand Ardra was a city of considerable size, home to approximately 30,000 people; Allada as a whole had a population upwards of 200,000. Dutch physician Olfert Dapper wrote in his Description of Africa in 1668 of the presence of "towns and villages in great number" in Grand Ardra’s countryside. Over the course of the 17th century, Allada emerged as the paramount kingdom in the region, exacting regular tribute from its neighbors and legitimizing these tributary relationships through various ritual obligations.” [2]
[1]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC- CLIO, 2017: 7. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
[2]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 402. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
“Referred to by various African and European sources as Adra, Ardra, and Arder, the kingdom lay in a subtropical coastal region that typically experienced two rainy seasons a year.” [1] “By the mid-16th century, however, the Portuguese were actively trading at Allada’s capital, Grand Ardra. Grand Ardra was a city of considerable size, home to approximately 30,000 people; Allada as a whole had a population upwards of 200,000. Dutch physician Olfert Dapper wrote in his Description of Africa in 1668 of the presence of "towns and villages in great number" in Grand Ardra’s countryside. Over the course of the 17th century, Allada emerged as the paramount kingdom in the region, exacting regular tribute from its neighbors and legitimizing these tributary relationships through various ritual obligations.” [2]
[1]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC- CLIO, 2017: 7. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
[2]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 402. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
“Referred to by various African and European sources as Adra, Ardra, and Arder, the kingdom lay in a subtropical coastal region that typically experienced two rainy seasons a year.” [1] “By the mid-16th century, however, the Portuguese were actively trading at Allada’s capital, Grand Ardra. Grand Ardra was a city of considerable size, home to approximately 30,000 people; Allada as a whole had a population upwards of 200,000. Dutch physician Olfert Dapper wrote in his Description of Africa in 1668 of the presence of "towns and villages in great number" in Grand Ardra’s countryside. Over the course of the 17th century, Allada emerged as the paramount kingdom in the region, exacting regular tribute from its neighbors and legitimizing these tributary relationships through various ritual obligations.” [2]
[1]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC- CLIO, 2017: 7. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
[2]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 402. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
“Referred to by various African and European sources as Adra, Ardra, and Arder, the kingdom lay in a subtropical coastal region that typically experienced two rainy seasons a year.” [1] “By the mid-16th century, however, the Portuguese were actively trading at Allada’s capital, Grand Ardra. Grand Ardra was a city of considerable size, home to approximately 30,000 people; Allada as a whole had a population upwards of 200,000. Dutch physician Olfert Dapper wrote in his Description of Africa in 1668 of the presence of "towns and villages in great number" in Grand Ardra’s countryside. Over the course of the 17th century, Allada emerged as the paramount kingdom in the region, exacting regular tribute from its neighbors and legitimizing these tributary relationships through various ritual obligations.” [2]
[1]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC- CLIO, 2017: 7. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
[2]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 402. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
“At its political and economic peak in the 16th and 17th centuries, the coastal kingdom of Allada stretched from the port of Offra – now the suburb of Godomey in the current Republic of Benin’s commercial capital of Cotonou – approximately 50 miles north into the hinterland beyond its capital city, also known as Allada.” [1]
[1]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC- CLIO, 2017: 7. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
“Oral traditions indicate that the first settlers in the region were Aja speakers who arrived sometime in the 12th and 13th centuries from the area of Tado, which lay along the banks of the Mono River to the west.” [1] “The kingdom of Allada was the most powerful state in the Aja country during the seventeenth century. The Fon kingdom, later known as Dahomey, was founded, probably in the early seventeenth century, by a prince of the royal family of Aliada who had contested unsuccessfully for the Allada throne. In 1724 Dahomey, under its king Agaja, conquered Allada and displaced it as the leading power in the area.” [2] “By the early seventeenth century, Allada was the leading Aja polity. It first appeared on a map of the 1480s but was clearly more ancient. In the mid-seventeenth century, the coastal polity of Whydah, previously subject to Allada, gained its independence and from 1671 on, it dominated the external trade of the coast. The total demographic impact of the Atlantic slave trade is a complex and much disputed question, but there can be little doubt that it caused regional depopulation in some areas. Seventeenth-century observers stressed the density of the population round Whydah, whereas in the nineteenth century they were struck by its absence, and elephants — once extinct in the area — had returned.” [3] “We have seen that after its fall in 1724 Allada retained or recovered its position as the source of true kings, since the rulers of Dahomey legitimated their rule by reference to their descent from Allada. But this, obviously, did not make Allada the capital of the Aja country, or the Ajahutonon the ’real’ ruler of Dahomey. One should be careful to distinguish between ritual precedence and effective political power.” [4] About Agaja, of Dahomey: “His attack on Allada, the ancient Aja kingdom to the south, on March 30, 1724, marked the beginning of the Dahomean domination of Aja and the effective collapse of the commonwealth system in the region.” [5]
[1]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC- CLIO, 2017: 7-8. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
[2]: Law, R. C. C. “THE FALL OF ALLADA, 1724—AN IDEOLOGICAL REVOLUTION?” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, vol. 5, no. 1, 1969, pp. 157–63: 157. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EWX34U5S/collection
[3]: Isichei, Elizabeth. A History of African Societies to 1870. Cambridge University Press, 1997: 348–349. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Z4GK27CI/collection
[4]: Law, R. C. C. “THE FALL OF ALLADA, 1724—AN IDEOLOGICAL REVOLUTION?” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, vol. 5, no. 1, 1969, pp. 157–63: 163. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EWX34U5S/collection
[5]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC- CLIO, 2017: 55. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
Depends on how we define the relationship between Allada and Oyo. Seems that Allada was a largely independent vassal state of Oyo, and certainly a separate polity. “Dahomey attempted on more than one occasion in the eighteenth century to avert the hostility of Oyo by sending ’great presents’, and Allada, threatened by Dahomey, retained the support of Oyo by directing a stream of presents to the Alafin.” [1] “Moreover, because Allada was a tributary state to Oyo, the latter’s interests were directly involved.” [2] “It does not appear that these attacks on Weme, Dahomey, and Allada succeeded in bringing any of these western kingdoms under Oyo rule. It has sometimes been suggested that Allada became tributary to Oyo, either before or as a result of the invasion of 1698. On this view, the tribute later paid to Oyo by Dahomey is seen as a continuation of the tribute paid earlier by Allada. The basis for this suggestion appears to be, first, the Alafin’s claim in 1698 to be the protector of the king of Allada’s subjects against his misgovernment, and second, the fact that later, in the 1720s, the king of Allada appealed to Oyo for assistance when attacked by Dahomey. But these incidents hardly constitute decisive, or even strong, -evidence for an Oyo overlordship over Allada. The Alafin’s right to interfere in Allada was clearly not accepted by its king in 1698, and the Alafin’s intervention should be seen merely as an attempt to exploit disaffection within the declining Allada kingdom. Bosman’s account can reasonably be interpreted as recording the beginning of an Oyo attempt to establish control over Allada, but even the invasion of 1698 did not represent an Oyo conquest of Allada: on Bosman’s account, it was no more than a punitive raid, which the Alafin himself judged to be a failure. As for the appeal of Allada (and similar appeals from Weme and Hueda) for Oyo aid in the 1720s, there is no need to invoke an Oyo overlordship to explain these, since the victims of Dahomian aggression would naturally turn to Oyo, as a major power capable, as the invasion of 1698 had demonstrated, of effective intervention in the area. There is, in fact, no compelling evidence that Oyo rule was established on any formal basis over any part of the ’Popo’ country before the eighteenthcentury.” [3]
[1]: Smith, Robert. “Peace and Palaver: International Relations in Pre-Colonial West Africa.” The Journal of African History, vol. 14, no. 4, 1973, pp. 599–621: 610. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/WIFJS3HN/collection
[2]: Akinjogbin, I. A. (1963). Agaja and the Conquest of the Coastal Aja States 1724–30. Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 2(4), 545–566: 555. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/88W62WF3/collection
[3]: Law, R. (1977). The Oyo Empire c. 1600 – c. 1836: A West African Imperialism in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Oxford University Press: 156–157. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SB32ZPCF/collection
“The basic facts are not in dispute. The kingdom of Allada was the most powerful state in the Aja country during the seventeenth century. The Fon kingdom, later known as Dahomey, was founded, probably in the early seventeenth century, by a prince of the royal family of Allada who had contested unsuccessfully for the Allada throne. In 1724 Dahomey, under its king Agaja, conquered Allada and displaced it as the leading power in the area.” [1]
[1]: Law, R. C. C. “THE FALL OF ALLADA, 1724—AN IDEOLOGICAL REVOLUTION?” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, vol. 5, no. 1, 1969, pp. 157–63: 157. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EWX34U5S/collection
“Oral traditions indicate that the first settlers in the region were Aja speakers who arrived sometime in the 12th and 13th centuries from the area of Tado, which lay along the banks of the Mono River to the west. By the mid-15th century, the population of Allada had reached approximately 30,000 people.” [1]
[1]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC-CLIO, 2017: 8. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
“Oral traditions indicate that the first settlers in the region were Aja speakers who arrived sometime in the 12th and 13th centuries from the area of Tado, which lay along the banks of the Mono River to the west. By the mid-15th century, the population of Allada had reached approximately 30,000 people.” [1]
[1]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC-CLIO, 2017: 8. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
“The Kingdom of Whydah (Hueda),1 situated on the "Slave Coast" of West Africa (in what is today the Republic of Benin), emerged as an independent power only in the late seventeenth century. Earlier, it had apparently been an unimportant dependency of the larger kingdom of Allada, in the interior to the north-east.” [1] “The politics of Whydah were also profoundly influenced by its relations with its more powerful neighbor to the north-east, the kingdom of Allada. Several European sources of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries report that Whydah had in early times been subject to Alladah. The origin of this relationship, according to one account, was that the territory had belonged to Allada prior to the settlement in it of the founders of the Whydah kingdom. At some point, however, Whydah had revolted, defeated Allada in battle, and made itself independent. […] Whydah continued in some sense to acknowledge the sovereignty or suzerainty of Allada. Even after its rebellion the kings of Whydah continued to make occasional payments to those of Allada, which it is said the latter regarded as tribute but the former merely as gifts.” [2]
[1]: Law, Robin. “‘The Common People Were Divided’: Monarchy, Aristocracy and Political Factionalism in the Kingdom of Whydah, 1671-1727.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 23, no. 2, 1990, pp. 201–29: 201. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection
[2]: Law, Robin. “‘The Common People Were Divided’: Monarchy, Aristocracy and Political Factionalism in the Kingdom of Whydah, 1671-1727.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 23, no. 2, 1990, pp. 201–29: 213. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection
“The rise of the Fon kingdom of Dahomey is a well-studied theme of West African history. Founded probably in the first half of the seventeenth century, Dahomey was originally subordinate to the kingdom of Allada, from whom it asserted its independence only in 1715. Under its fourth ruler Agaja (d. 1740), Dahomey proceeded to conquer both Allada in 1724 and the coastal kingdom of Whydah (itself also a former dependency of Allada) in 1727, thus becoming the dominant power in the region.” [1]
[1]: Law, R. (1989). ‘My Head Belongs to the King’: On the Political and Ritual Significance of Decapitation in Pre-Colonial Dahomey. The Journal of African History, 30(3), 399–415: 399. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5335RH4I/collection
“Like Allada and Hueda to the south, Dahomey was only weakly centralized in the seventeenth century, yet expanded significantly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” [1] “By the mid-15th century, the population of Allada had reached approximately 30,000 people. It seems likely that the collection of small settlements up to this time organized themselves politically along decentralized lines, meaning that they ruled by consensus rather than granting sovereignty to a leader or king. Demographic growth, however, likely necessitated a transition to political centralization. Legends suggest that three brothers who had descended from people in what is now the city of Allada split the region into three parts and administered rule as kings. The first, Kokpon, remained in the capital city and became the ruler of the Allada kingdom. His brothers Do-Aklin and Te-Agdanlin allegedly left the city to establish their own kingdoms of Dahomey and Little Ardra, respectively, in what is now the city of Porto Novo.” [2] “[…] under Allada earlier, the state had been conceived as an enlarged kin-group, comprising a federation of essentially autonomous related lineages (with the king’s authority therefore necessarily limited), whereas Dahomey in contrast stood for a new conception, basing authority on the right of conquest rather than consanguinity or inheritance, and stressing the absolute and unmediated authority of the king over his subjects.” [3] A commonwealth-style system seems to have been present before Allada fell to the Dahomey. About Agaja, of Dahomey: “His attack on Allada, the ancient Aja kingdom to the south, on March 30, 1724, marked the beginning of the Dahomean domination of Aja and the effective collapse of the commonwealth system in the region.” [4] “In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the ’Slave Coast’ of West Africa suffered increasingly severe problems of disorder, which seem to have been in large part a consequence of the impact of the Atlantic slave trade. These disorders involved not only wars among the major states but also (in at least some cases) the weakening of political authority within states. The most obvious aspect of this dissolution of authority was the decline in the power of the kingdom of Allada, which had earlier exercised some degree of suzerainty over most if not all of the other states in the area. Among the tributaries of Allada which repudiated its authority was the kingdom of Whydah (Hueda), on the coast to the south-west, which was already effectively independent by the 1680s, and which even went to war with Allada in 1691-92 and again in 1714-17. The kingdom of Fon, or Dahomey, in the interior north of Allada, was originally also a dependency of Allada, but is recorded to have revolted and asserted its independence in 1715.” [5]
[1]: Monroe, J. C. (2007). Continuity, Revolution or Evolution on the Slave Coast of West Africa? Royal Architecture and Political Order in Precolonial Dahomey. The Journal of African History, 48(3), 349–373: 364. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ASTPFKNP/collection
[2]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC-CLIO, 2017: 8. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
[3]: Law, Robin. “‘My Head Belongs to the King’: On the Political and Ritual Significance of Decapitation in Pre-Colonial Dahomey.” The Journal of African History, vol. 30, no. 3, 1989, pp. 399–415: 399. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5335RH4I/collection
[4]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC- CLIO, 2017: 55. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
[5]: Law, Robin. “Ideologies of Royal Power: The Dissolution and Reconstruction of Political Authority on the ‘Slave Coast’, 1680-1750.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, vol. 57, no. 3, 1987, pp. 321–44: 321. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/VJPWCBM6/collection
“Like Allada and Hueda to the south, Dahomey was only weakly centralized in the seventeenth century, yet expanded significantly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” [1] “By the mid-15th century, the population of Allada had reached approximately 30,000 people. It seems likely that the collection of small settlements up to this time organized themselves politically along decentralized lines, meaning that they ruled by consensus rather than granting sovereignty to a leader or king. Demographic growth, however, likely necessitated a transition to political centralization. Legends suggest that three brothers who had descended from people in what is now the city of Allada split the region into three parts and administered rule as kings. The first, Kokpon, remained in the capital city and became the ruler of the Allada kingdom. His brothers Do-Aklin and Te-Agdanlin allegedly left the city to establish their own kingdoms of Dahomey and Little Ardra, respectively, in what is now the city of Porto Novo.” [2] “[…] under Allada earlier, the state had been conceived as an enlarged kin-group, comprising a federation of essentially autonomous related lineages (with the king’s authority therefore necessarily limited), whereas Dahomey in contrast stood for a new conception, basing authority on the right of conquest rather than consanguinity or inheritance, and stressing the absolute and unmediated authority of the king over his subjects.” [3] A commonwealth-style system seems to have been present before Allada fell to the Dahomey. About Agaja, of Dahomey: “His attack on Allada, the ancient Aja kingdom to the south, on March 30, 1724, marked the beginning of the Dahomean domination of Aja and the effective collapse of the commonwealth system in the region.” [4] “In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the ’Slave Coast’ of West Africa suffered increasingly severe problems of disorder, which seem to have been in large part a consequence of the impact of the Atlantic slave trade. These disorders involved not only wars among the major states but also (in at least some cases) the weakening of political authority within states. The most obvious aspect of this dissolution of authority was the decline in the power of the kingdom of Allada, which had earlier exercised some degree of suzerainty over most if not all of the other states in the area. Among the tributaries of Allada which repudiated its authority was the kingdom of Whydah (Hueda), on the coast to the south-west, which was already effectively independent by the 1680s, and which even went to war with Allada in 1691-92 and again in 1714-17. The kingdom of Fon, or Dahomey, in the interior north of Allada, was originally also a dependency of Allada, but is recorded to have revolted and asserted its independence in 1715.” [5]
[1]: Monroe, J. C. (2007). Continuity, Revolution or Evolution on the Slave Coast of West Africa? Royal Architecture and Political Order in Precolonial Dahomey. The Journal of African History, 48(3), 349–373: 364. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ASTPFKNP/collection
[2]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC-CLIO, 2017: 8. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
[3]: Law, Robin. “‘My Head Belongs to the King’: On the Political and Ritual Significance of Decapitation in Pre-Colonial Dahomey.” The Journal of African History, vol. 30, no. 3, 1989, pp. 399–415: 399. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5335RH4I/collection
[4]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC- CLIO, 2017: 55. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
[5]: Law, Robin. “Ideologies of Royal Power: The Dissolution and Reconstruction of Political Authority on the ‘Slave Coast’, 1680-1750.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, vol. 57, no. 3, 1987, pp. 321–44: 321. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/VJPWCBM6/collection
WALS uses term Ajagbe for this Benin-Togo area language, but it’s sometimes also referred to as Aja. “In this paper, as elsewhere (see Law and Asiwaju forthcoming), the term Aja will be given a comprehensive interpretation and will be held to cover the groups whose original homesteads are found mostly in the region between the Weme and the Volta rivers and generally south of latitude 9°N, who speak what are more or less dialects of the same Kwa language and whose traditional ruling classes profess a common origin usually traced to Tado. Apart from the nucleus, referred to by Newbury as ’Aja Proper’, who occupy the Mono River valley along the present Togo-Benin boundary, other important sub-groups are the Ewe of today’s Togo and Ghana; the Fon of ancient Allada, Agbome (Abomey), and Whydah or Hueda and the Gun of Porto Novo (new Allada).” [1] “Another reference suggests that in the seventeenth century, at the onset of Oyo’s imperial expansion, the Oyo language (or ’Yoruba proper’) was preferred for some purposes in Allada to the local Aja.” [2]
[1]: Asiwaju, A. I. “The Aja-Speaking Peoples of Nigeria: A Note on Their Origins, Settlement and Cultural Adaptation up to 1945.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, vol. 49, no. 1, 1979, pp. 15–28: 16. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2XUNFSVW/collection
[2]: Smith, Robert. “Peace and Palaver: International Relations in Pre-Colonial West Africa.” The Journal of African History, vol. 14, no. 4, 1973, pp. 599–621: 608. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/WIFJS3HN/collection
WALS uses term Ajagbe for this Benin-Togo area language, but it’s sometimes also referred to as Aja. “In this paper, as elsewhere (see Law and Asiwaju forthcoming), the term Aja will be given a comprehensive interpretation and will be held to cover the groups whose original homesteads are found mostly in the region between the Weme and the Volta rivers and generally south of latitude 9°N, who speak what are more or less dialects of the same Kwa language and whose traditional ruling classes profess a common origin usually traced to Tado. Apart from the nucleus, referred to by Newbury as ’Aja Proper’, who occupy the Mono River valley along the present Togo-Benin boundary, other important sub-groups are the Ewe of today’s Togo and Ghana; the Fon of ancient Allada, Agbome (Abomey), and Whydah or Hueda and the Gun of Porto Novo (new Allada).” [1] “Another reference suggests that in the seventeenth century, at the onset of Oyo’s imperial expansion, the Oyo language (or ’Yoruba proper’) was preferred for some purposes in Allada to the local Aja.” [2]
[1]: Asiwaju, A. I. “The Aja-Speaking Peoples of Nigeria: A Note on Their Origins, Settlement and Cultural Adaptation up to 1945.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, vol. 49, no. 1, 1979, pp. 15–28: 16. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2XUNFSVW/collection
[2]: Smith, Robert. “Peace and Palaver: International Relations in Pre-Colonial West Africa.” The Journal of African History, vol. 14, no. 4, 1973, pp. 599–621: 608. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/WIFJS3HN/collection
“Although the peoples of the Slave Coast recognised a multiplicity of deities (called generically vodun), it is clear that the idea of a single supreme God, more or less analogous to the God of the Christians, was familiar to them. There is no clear contemporary evidence on this point for Allada, but with regard to Whydah the Dutchman Bosman noted in the 1690s that "It is certain that [they] have a faint idea of the True God, and ascribe to him the attributes of Almighty and Omnipresent; they believe he created the Universe, and therefore vastly prefer him before their Idol Gods" (Bosman 1705: 36a).” [1] 2The king of Allada in 1660, for example, claimed that his own and his kingdom’s fortunes were bound up with the maintenance of the traditional religious practices: "if he gave them up he would die immediately, enemies would enter his gates, and there would be no forces to resist them” […] The implied suggestion of an immutable traditional religion is, however, highly misleading. There was in fact nothing very traditional about the indigenous religion of the area, since numerous local cults are recognised to have been in origin importations from other areas. An especially important but by no means exceptional example is the cult of Ifa, the god of divination, which was borrowed from the Yoruba to the east (Maupoil 1943)21. There is, indeed, some evidence for an explicit perception that the power of gods derived from the size of their human followings, so that the rise and decline of cults depended ultimately upon the voluntary allegiance of human worshippers. Karin Barber has discussed this attitude to gods among the Yoruba (Barber 1981), and it seems applicable also to the Slave Coast. In Whydah in the 1690s a local man (probably to be identified with Captain Assou) told the Dutchman Bosman that "we make and break our Gods daily, and consequentially are the Masters and Inventers of what we Sacrifice to" (Bosman 1705: 368).” [2] Christian missionaries, mostly Portuguese, were present: “Most explicitly, the king of Allada explained to the Spanish missionaries in 1660 that he had invited them "so that in his kingdom there should be no thunder, lightning, thunderbolts, or wars", because "he had been told that the priests of the whites had power against all these things"; and he desired baptism for himself because "[his] Christian interpreter had told him that holy water was good against demons". Apart from baptism, the king seems to have been especially interested in learning the Christian prayers; and it seems a reasonable inference that he valued these also for their magical (or instrumental) power. He seems further to have wished to monopolize the magical powers of the new cult for himself, and refused the Capuchins’ request to be allowed to preach direct to the people on the grounds that "it was not right that anyone in his kingdom should know the prayers before him, nor that anyone should be baptised”.” [3] “The king of Allada in 1660, for example, claimed that he could not give up the pagan cults "without the consent and approval of all the captains and fidalgoes [nobles] of his kingdom"; and though the Capuchins regarded this as an excuse or evasion (and it may well be that the king had in any case no intention or desire to abandon these cults), this statement accurately expressed the reality that the king’s authority was not absolute but circumscribed in practice by the countervailing power of the chiefs.” [4] “The difficulty about Christianizing the royal ancestor cult (or appropriating Christianity for adaptation as an ancestor cult) on the Slave Coast lay primarily, it may be suggested, in the local practice of offering human sacrifices to deceased kings, which was clearly incompatible with Christianity. But such human sacrifices were not practised on an especially large scale in Allada or Whydah, being offered only at actual royal funerals (and then not in large numbers).” [5]
[1]: Law, Robin. “Religion, Trade and Politics on the ‘Slave Coast’: Roman Catholic Missions in Allada and Whydah in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 21, no. 1, 1991, pp. 42–77: 65. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/C4ZBEWMH/collection
[2]: Law, Robin. “Religion, Trade and Politics on the ‘Slave Coast’: Roman Catholic Missions in Allada and Whydah in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 21, no. 1, 1991, pp. 42–77: 60–61. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/C4ZBEWMH/collection
[3]: Law, Robin. “Religion, Trade and Politics on the ‘Slave Coast’: Roman Catholic Missions in Allada and Whydah in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 21, no. 1, 1991, pp. 42–77: 64. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/C4ZBEWMH/collection
[4]: Law, Robin. “Religion, Trade and Politics on the ‘Slave Coast’: Roman Catholic Missions in Allada and Whydah in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 21, no. 1, 1991, pp. 42–77: 70. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/C4ZBEWMH/collection
[5]: Law, Robin. “Religion, Trade and Politics on the ‘Slave Coast’: Roman Catholic Missions in Allada and Whydah in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 21, no. 1, 1991, pp. 42–77: 72. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/C4ZBEWMH/collection
“By the mid-15th century, the population of Allada had reached approximately 30,000 people.” [1] “Grand Ardra was a city of considerable size, home to approximately 30,000 people; Allada as a whole had a population upwards of 200,000.” [2]
[1]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC-CLIO, 2017: 8. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
[2]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 402. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
Roughly calculated with reference to the map, Figure 2: [1]
[1]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 402. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
Seems likely that this mention of 30,000 people is referring to the city of Allada, rather than the entire polity, but it’s not clear: “By the mid-15th century, the population of Allada had reached approximately 30,000 people. It seems likely that the collection of small settlements up to this time organized themselves politically along decentralized lines, meaning that they ruled by consensus rather than granting sovereignty to a leader or king. Demographic growth, however, likely necessitated a transition to political centralization. Legends suggest that three brothers who had descended from people in what is now the city of Allada split the region into three parts and administered rule as kings. The first, Kokpon, remained in the capital city and became the ruler of the Allada kingdom. His brothers Do-Aklin and Te-Agdanlin allegedly left the city to establish their own kingdoms of Dahomey and Little Ardra, respectively, in what is now the city of Portno Novo.” [1] “By the mid-16th century, however, the Portuguese were actively trading at Allada’s capital, Grand Ardra. Grand Ardra was a city of considerable size, home to approximately 30,000 people; Allada as a whole had a population upwards of 200,000. Dutch physician Olfert Dapper wrote in his Description of Africa in 1668 of the presence of "towns and villages in great number" in Grand Ardra’s countryside. Over the course of the 17th century, Allada emerged as the paramount kingdom in the region, exacting regular tribute from its neighbors and legitimizing these tributary relationships through various ritual obligations.” [2]
[1]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC-CLIO, 2017: 8. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
[2]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 402. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
1) Capital city; 2) Cities; 3) Towns; 4) Villages. “By the mid-16th century, however, the Portuguese were actively trading at Allada’s capital, Grand Ardra. Grand Ardra was a city of considerable size, home to approximately 30,000 people; Aliada as a whole had a population upwards of 200,000. Dutch physician Olfert Dapper wrote in his Description of Africa in 1668 of the presence of "towns and villages in great number" in Grand Ardra’s countryside.” [1] Not clear whether Allada/Grand Ardra was the only city in the Allada Kingdom, or whether other settlements counted as cities. “These cities also provided the primary markets in their territories. The marketplace at Savi drew 5,000 people on market day in its heyday. Rural communities brought goods to the markets of Savi and Grand Ardra every fourth day (the market week) to ply commodities such as salt, tex tiles, basketry, calabashes, pottery and other products for sale. These polities were thus characterized by regional settlement differentiation, in which urban centers served as political and economic nexuses for smaller settlements across nearby rural areas. Rural communities and urban centers were integrated in terms of production and distribution of everyday domestic products.” [1]
[1]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 402. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
1) King (Ajahutonon); 2) High Priest; 3) Priests/spirit mediums. “The French in 1670 likewise believed that the king was at heart a Christian, but prevented from professing the religion openly by fear of the power of the "High Priest", whom they regarded as the most powerful person in the kingdom after the monarch.” [1] “According to recent tradition, prior to the Dahomian conquest in the 1720s the kings of Allada, in their capacity as Ajahutonon or priests of the dynastic ancestor Ajahuto, had the function of performing installation rituals for the kings of neighbouring dynasties which derived from Allada, including those of Dahomey itself (Lombard, 1966: 52).” [2] “Moreover, as the missionaries to Allada themselves noted, they were willing to describe themselves as "vodonu" – a term used locally for priest or spirit medium.” [3]
[1]: Law, Robin. “Religion, Trade and Politics on the ‘Slave Coast’: Roman Catholic Missions in Allada and Whydah in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 21, no. 1, 1991, pp. 42–77: 70. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/C4ZBEWMH/collection
[2]: Law, Robin. “Ideologies of Royal Power: The Dissolution and Reconstruction of Political Authority on the ‘Slave Coast’, 1680-1750.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, vol. 57, no. 3, 1987, pp. 321–44: 327. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/VJPWCBM6/collection
[3]: Thornton, J. K. (1988). On the Trail of Voodoo: African Christianity in Africa and the Americas. The Americas, 44(3), 261–278: 267. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/JZQ46GB8/collection
1) King; 2) Nobles); 3) Province Governors; 4). Chiefs. “The king of Allada in 1660, for example, claimed that he could not give up the pagan cults "without the consent and approval of all the captains and fidalgoes [nobles] of his kingdom"; and though the Capuchins regarded this as an excuse or evasion (and it may well be that the king had in any case no intention or desire to abandon these cults), this statement accurately expressed the reality that the king’s authority was not absolute but circumscribed in practice by the countervailing power of the chiefs (Brasio 1952-85, XII; 383).” [1] “In the years immediately preceding the Dahomean invasion, the kings of Allada and Whydah were, in political terms at least, little more than first among equals. The two monarchs actually governed only the territories lying in the immediate vicinity of their capitals, the towns of Allada and Savi. Both states’ royal provinces were surrounded by principalities ruled by hereditary commoner dignitaries. In Whydah alone there were twenty-five such polities. The ’governors’ of these areas paid tribute to their monarchs regularly and on ceremonial occasions treated their monarchs with immense respect. Nevertheless, they were often as powerful, if not more powerful, than their sovereigns.” [2] “In the early eighteenth century southern Ajaland’s various leaders jockeyed for position, formed alliances and counter alliances, and even went to war with each other. The kings of Allada and Whydah were usually at odds both with each other and with a number of their over-mighty subjects. The commoner governors were in turn often hostile not only to their monarchs but to a number of their fellows as well. This quarrelling and infighting did not stop at the interprovincial level. Most of the provinces seem to have been rent by internal factional disputes. Few, if any, of the region’s kings or governors appear to have exercised undisputed authority, even in their own principalities, and most of them seem to have had to contend with well-established ’family’ rivals who sought to supplant them. These rivals not only did not support the kings and the governors in their quarrels with their out-of-province enemies but allied with those enemies.” [2] “These accounts show that the king of Allada not only received payments from each European ship for permission to begin trading (to the value of fifty slaves, according to d’Elbee), but also asserted rights of pre-emption, all imported goods being taken to him first to allow him to choose whatever he wanted. Later sources indicate that the king also received an export duty on each slave sold, and that royal permission was required for the sale of slaves by any of his subjects. One of the chiefs of Allada, who apparently served as an intermediary between the European traders and the king, had the title ’Chief of the White Men’, or Yevogan.” [3] “"Fidalgo" (Portuguese for "noble") was commonly used in Allada and Whydah to designate local governors subordinate to the king.” [4]
[1]: Law, Robin. “Religion, Trade and Politics on the ‘Slave Coast’: Roman Catholic Missions in Allada and Whydah in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of Religion in Africa, vol. 21, no. 1, 1991, pp. 42–77: 70. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/C4ZBEWMH/collection
[2]: Ross, David. “Robert Norris, Agaja, and the Dahomean Conquest of Allada and Whydah.” History in Africa, vol. 16, 1989, pp. 311–24: 312. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/I3D8PCFM/collection
[3]: Law, Robin. “Royal Monopoly and Private Enterprise in the Atlantic Trade: The Case of Dahomey.” The Journal of African History, vol. 18, no. 4, 1977, pp. 555–77: 557. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/B7B2RSQ5/collection
[4]: Law, R. (1988). A Neglected Account of the Dahomian Conquest of Whydah (1727): The ‘Relation de la Guerre de Juda’ of the Sieur Ringard of Nantes. History in Africa, 15, 321–338: 332. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/U957EGQV/collection
Whereas local markets economically integrated town and countryside, it was luxuries acquired in trade that served as the political glue binding rural lords to urban royal dynasties.” [1] “These cities also provided the primary markets in their territories. The marketplace at Savi drew 5,000 people on market day in its heyday. Rural communities brought goods to the markets of Savi and Grand Ardra every fourth day (the market week) to ply commodities such as salt, tex tiles, basketry, calabashes, pottery and other products for sale. These polities were thus characterized by regional settlement differentiation, in which urban centers served as political and economic nexuses for smaller settlements across nearby rural areas. Rural communities and urban centers were integrated in terms of production and distribution of everyday domestic products.” [2]
[1]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 403. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
[2]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 402. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
Markets: “These cities also provided the primary markets in their territories. The marketplace at Savi drew 5,000 people on market day in its heyday. Rural communities brought goods to the markets of Savi and Grand Ardra every fourth day (the market week) to ply commodities such as salt, tex tiles, basketry, calabashes, pottery and other products for sale. These polities were thus characterized by regional settlement differentiation, in which urban centers served as political and economic nexuses for smaller settlements across nearby rural areas. Rural communities and urban centers were integrated in terms of production and distribution of everyday domestic products.” [1]
[1]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 402. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
“Among recent studies, the only systematic attempt to confront the problem of African wheel-lessness is that offered by A. G. Hopkins in his Economic History of West Africa. Hopkins argues that even in those areas of West Africa where potential draught animals were available wheeled transport was uneconomic because ’its greater cost was not justified by proportionately greater returns’, and more particularly because ’the poor quality of the roads would have greatly reduced the efficiency of wheeled vehicles, and the cost of improving the road system would have been prohibitive’. He concludes that ’pack animals predominated because they were relatively cheap to buy, inexpensive to operate and well suited to the terrain’ (Hopkins, 1973:74-5; cf also Fage 1978:19” [1]
[1]: Law, Robin. “Wheeled Transport in Pre-Colonial West Africa.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, vol. 50, no. 3, 1980, pp. 249–62: 250. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/3AEMSZPK/collection
“The Gbe-speaking peoples of the western Slave Coast also worshipped the sea, here called Hu (hu = "sea"), or Agbe. Hu was the national deity of the Pla (or Hula) people, who according to tradition originated in Grand-Popo, but migrated eastward to settle other towns along the coastal lagoon, including Ouidah and Jakin (modern Godomey, originally the main coastal port of Allada).” [1] “He also heard of a report of "a great quantity" of offerings to the sea made earlier by the neighboring King of Allada, presumably at its coastal port of Jakin; although these "availed nothing," which made the King "very angry." Sacrifices to the sea (including sometimes human sacrifices) were continued under the rule of Dahomey, which conquered both Hueda and Allada in the 1720s.” [1] “The importance of Whydah, once a vassal of the larger Allada kingdom, as a commercial hub waned in comparison to Allada’s main port in nearby Offra up to the mid-17th century. Following a revolt against Allada, Whydah became a primary supplier of slaves starting in the 1670s. While it maintained diplomatic relations with Allada, Wydah nonetheless displaced its former imperial ruler as the dominant middleman in what had become a booming transatlantic trade.” [2]
[1]: Law, Robin. “West Africa’s Discovery of the Atlantic.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 44, no. 1, 2011, pp. 1–25: 17. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/WA6SG9KW/collection
[2]: Aderinto, Saheed. African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilizations. ABC- CLIO, 2017: 278. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/EB5TWDG7/collection
The Kingdom of Allada was a major exporter of slaves through its ports on the Bight of Benin. There were traders and middlemen negotiating sales of slaves with European traders at least in these ports. “The section of the West African coast between the Volta and Lagos Rivers, known to Europeans as the ’Slave Coast’, was, as its name implies, a major source of slaves for the Atlantic trade. In all, this area probably supplied something approaching two million slaves, between one-fifth and one-sixth of total trans-Atlantic exports. Initially, the principal supplier of slaves here was the kingdom of Allada, but in the late seventeenth century the main focus of the trade shifted west to Whydah, and during the eighteenth century primacy in the supply of slaves passed to the hinterland kingdom of Dahomey, which conquered both Allada and Whydah in the 1720s.” [1] “These accounts show that the king of Allada not only received payments from each European ship for permission to begin trading (to the value of fifty slaves, according to d’Elbee), but also asserted rights of pre-emption, all imported goods being taken to him first to allow him to choose whatever he wanted. Later sources indicate that the king also received an export duty on each slave sold, and that royal permission was required for the sale of slaves by any of his subjects. One of the chiefs of Allada, who apparently served as an intermediary between the European traders and the king, had the title ’Chief of the White Men’, or Yevogan.” [2] “Initially, the Dahomians traded both at Jakin, the port of Allada, and at Whydah, but in 1732 Agaja destroyed Jakin and the Dahomian slave trade was thereafter concentrated at Whydah.” [3]
[1]: Law, Robin. “Slave-Raiders and Middlemen, Monopolists and Free-Traders: The Supply of Slaves for the Atlantic Trade in Dahomey c. 1715-1850.” The Journal of African History, vol. 30, no. 1, 1989, pp. 45–68: 46. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/DT865EHP/collection
[2]: Law, Robin. “Royal Monopoly and Private Enterprise in the Atlantic Trade: The Case of Dahomey.” The Journal of African History, vol. 18, no. 4, 1977, pp. 555–77: 557. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/B7B2RSQ5/collection
[3]: Law, Robin. “Slave-Raiders and Middlemen, Monopolists and Free-Traders: The Supply of Slaves for the Atlantic Trade in Dahomey c. 1715-1850.” The Journal of African History, vol. 30, no. 1, 1989, pp. 45–68: 50. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/DT865EHP/collection
“European accounts of Allada and Whydah before their conquest by Dahomey in the 1720s refer to the practice of human sacrifice in these kingdoms, but without great emphasis. Dapper, for example, refers to the killings of concubines and servants at royal funerals in Allada, and later accounts of Whydah record the sacrifice of wives and slaves at royal funerals there also, as well as the practice of substitutionary sacrifice, the killing of a man to preserve the king when ill. There is no suggestion, however, that human sacrifice was practised on any extravagant scale. Royal funerals involved the sacrifice of only two women and an unspecified number of men in Allada, and of only eight women and a variable but also unspecified number of men in Whydah. There is also no record of the offering of human sacrifices at any of the regular annual festivals of Allada or Whydah.” [1] “No graves from before the Dahomean kingdom have hitherto been found. But settlements of earlier periods have already been located in the region, and partly excavated (Randsborg et al.9 manuscript in preparation [1]), so it is no doubt only a matter of time before pre-Dahomean mortuary traditions are revealed. It should also be remembered that certain elements in the Dahomean burial tradition seem to have had a longer history. Consistency in grave installations, including those dated early, i.e., the 17th century, reflects well- established mortuary practices. Also, different ethnic and social groups subscribed to the same traditions, supporting the assumption of deeper roots to Dahomean mortuary practices. Regularity is also observed in the material reflections of the belief systems (for instance, inclusion of a fixed "survivor-kit" for the afterlife), something that cannot be introduced overnight.” [2]
[1]: Law, Robin. “Human Sacrifice in Pre-Colonial West Africa.” African Affairs, vol. 84, no. 334, 1985, pp. 53–87: 67. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/39VMC55B/collection
[2]: Merkyte, Inga, and Klavs Randsborg. “Graves from Dahomey: Beliefs, Ritual and Society in Ancient Bénin.” Journal of African Archaeology, vol. 7, no. 1, 2009, pp. 55–77: 75. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/HM36HSG5/collection
“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
“Another question arising from the incidence of credit in both the local economy and the overseas trade is the nature of the indigenous system of recordkeeping. In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”). Several later accounts allude to other mechanical devices for keeping financial (and fiscal) records in Dahomey. After the conquest of Allada in 1724, the King’s officers counted the captives taken (over 8,000) by “giving a booge [cowrie] to every one.” An English trader visiting the Dahomean court in 1772 recorded that the royal gunner showed him a calabash containing fifteen pebbles to indicate the number of cannon fired in a salute in his honour.” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).” [1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection
Cowries: “The first major imports of moneta cowries into West Africa via the Atlantic arrived in Benin from the Indian Ocean via Lisbon in 1515. The Benin political class, centered on the monarch, monopolized commercial activities with the European traders during the sixteenth century, and it was in that kingdom that we have the first evidence of the monetization of cowries in the Bight of Benin. From there, the monetization of cowries spread westwards following the sequence of African/European trading ports on the coast so that by the end of sixteenth century, cowry money had been adopted in Allada and was spreading to the Yoruba hinterlands. The impetus for the pan-regional adoption of cowry currency came from the imperial expansion of Old Oyo and Dahomey, the expansion of the local economy, and the high tide of cowry imports via coastal ports in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The sense that domestic economy in the Bight of Benin was almost entirely monetized by the seventeenth century is conveyed by Thomas Phillips, an English trader, who observed: "when they go to market [in Whydah] to buy anything they bargain for so many cowries ... and without these shells they can purchase nothing."56 The state, rather than Atlantic commerce itself, was responsible for the monetization of cowries by levying taxes and toll payments in cowries.’” [1] “Exports from the Slave Coast amounted to 5,000 captives per year in the 1680s, and peaked at 10,000 per year from the 1690s through the 1710s. Goods received in exchange for captives were predominantly textiles and cowry shells (Cypraea moneta), which originated in the Indian Ocean and were the principle currency in the region. However, other goods such as iron and brass bars, beads, guns and spirits are also mentioned in period texts. Additionally, beads, clay tobacco pipes, ceramic vessels, alcohol bottles and various other trinkets are documented at contemporary archaeological sites. The introduction of European and Asian manufactured goods had a significant impact on communities on the Slave Coast.” [2] “First, with regard to payment in cowry shells, Dapper had said that when cowries were available a third of the price was paid in them, but that when they were dear other goods were given instead, whereas according to Barbot normally half the price was paid in cowries, but when they were dear this might be reduced to a third or a quarter and the rest paid in other goods.” [3] Manillas and foreign currency (Dutch stuivers) are both mentioned here, but it’s unclear whether they were being used within Allada as currency, or only by the Dutch and/or Dahomeans: “In Allada in the mid-seventeenth century Dutch traders allowed the crews of the hammocks hired for journeys from the coast to the capital the sum of four brass manillas (equivalent to fifty cowries) per day for their food and drink. Since hammockmen were normally hired in crews of six, this suggests an allowance of eight or nine cowries daily per man. There are no comparable data on subsistence rates for free labourers later in the seventeenth century, but the cost of the diet of slaves awaiting embarkation was estimated by the English fort at Offra in 1681 at twenty cowries daily, and by Bosman at Whydah in the late 1690s at the even higher rate of two stuivers, equivalent to 2- English pence, or 32 cowries (perhaps an approximation for thirty) daily; and such slaves were certainly maintained at a more rudimentary level than free workers - on ’bread and water’, as Bosman himself expressed it. Phillips in 1694, it may be noted, reports the cost of a single meal of a dough ball (or ’cankey’) with meat (beef or dog) stew as eight or nine cowries. There had clearly been some increase in living costs, therefore, during the second half of the seventeenth century.” [4] “In the later stages of the nineteenth-century cowrie inflation, part of the loss of value of cowries in Dahomey was taken up by increasing the number of cowries in a string, the number of strings in a head remaining 50. Thus, at Whydah, instead of 40 cowries to the string there were 50; at Alladah and Abomey, 46. The ’royal’ string at this period was about 40.” [5]
[1]: Ogundiran, Akinwumi. “Of Small Things Remembered: Beads, Cowries, and Cultural Translations of the Atlantic Experience in Yorubaland.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 35, no. 2/3, 2002, pp. 427–57: 438–439. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/57IPD2M5/collection
[2]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 403. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
[3]: Law, Robin. “Jean Barbot as a Source for the Slave Coast of West Africa.” History in Africa, vol. 9, 1982, pp. 155–73: 161. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4D6NU7J/collection
[4]: Law, Robin. “Posthumous Questions for Karl Polanyi: Price Inflation in Pre-Colonial Dahomey.” The Journal of African History, vol. 33, no. 3, 1992, pp. 387–420: 411–412. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/VJ69UHEQ/collection
[5]: Johnson, M. (1970). The Cowrie Currencies of West Africa. Part I. The Journal of African History, 11(1), 17–49: 45. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/XZMB8INB/collection
Cowries: “The first major imports of moneta cowries into West Africa via the Atlantic arrived in Benin from the Indian Ocean via Lisbon in 1515. The Benin political class, centered on the monarch, monopolized commercial activities with the European traders during the sixteenth century, and it was in that kingdom that we have the first evidence of the monetization of cowries in the Bight of Benin. From there, the monetization of cowries spread westwards following the sequence of African/European trading ports on the coast so that by the end of sixteenth century, cowry money had been adopted in Allada and was spreading to the Yoruba hinterlands. The impetus for the pan-regional adoption of cowry currency came from the imperial expansion of Old Oyo and Dahomey, the expansion of the local economy, and the high tide of cowry imports via coastal ports in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The sense that domestic economy in the Bight of Benin was almost entirely monetized by the seventeenth century is conveyed by Thomas Phillips, an English trader, who observed: "when they go to market [in Whydah] to buy anything they bargain for so many cowries ... and without these shells they can purchase nothing."56 The state, rather than Atlantic commerce itself, was responsible for the monetization of cowries by levying taxes and toll payments in cowries.’” [1] “Exports from the Slave Coast amounted to 5,000 captives per year in the 1680s, and peaked at 10,000 per year from the 1690s through the 1710s. Goods received in exchange for captives were predominantly textiles and cowry shells (Cypraea moneta), which originated in the Indian Ocean and were the principle currency in the region. However, other goods such as iron and brass bars, beads, guns and spirits are also mentioned in period texts. Additionally, beads, clay tobacco pipes, ceramic vessels, alcohol bottles and various other trinkets are documented at contemporary archaeological sites. The introduction of European and Asian manufactured goods had a significant impact on communities on the Slave Coast.” [2] “First, with regard to payment in cowry shells, Dapper had said that when cowries were available a third of the price was paid in them, but that when they were dear other goods were given instead, whereas according to Barbot normally half the price was paid in cowries, but when they were dear this might be reduced to a third or a quarter and the rest paid in other goods.” [3] Manillas and foreign currency (Dutch stuivers) are both mentioned here, but it’s unclear whether they were being used within Allada as currency, or only by the Dutch and/or Dahomeans: “In Allada in the mid-seventeenth century Dutch traders allowed the crews of the hammocks hired for journeys from the coast to the capital the sum of four brass manillas (equivalent to fifty cowries) per day for their food and drink. Since hammockmen were normally hired in crews of six, this suggests an allowance of eight or nine cowries daily per man. There are no comparable data on subsistence rates for free labourers later in the seventeenth century, but the cost of the diet of slaves awaiting embarkation was estimated by the English fort at Offra in 1681 at twenty cowries daily, and by Bosman at Whydah in the late 1690s at the even higher rate of two stuivers, equivalent to 2- English pence, or 32 cowries (perhaps an approximation for thirty) daily; and such slaves were certainly maintained at a more rudimentary level than free workers - on ’bread and water’, as Bosman himself expressed it. Phillips in 1694, it may be noted, reports the cost of a single meal of a dough ball (or ’cankey’) with meat (beef or dog) stew as eight or nine cowries. There had clearly been some increase in living costs, therefore, during the second half of the seventeenth century.” [4] “In the later stages of the nineteenth-century cowrie inflation, part of the loss of value of cowries in Dahomey was taken up by increasing the number of cowries in a string, the number of strings in a head remaining 50. Thus, at Whydah, instead of 40 cowries to the string there were 50; at Alladah and Abomey, 46. The ’royal’ string at this period was about 40.” [5]
[1]: Ogundiran, Akinwumi. “Of Small Things Remembered: Beads, Cowries, and Cultural Translations of the Atlantic Experience in Yorubaland.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 35, no. 2/3, 2002, pp. 427–57: 438–439. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/57IPD2M5/collection
[2]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 403. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
[3]: Law, Robin. “Jean Barbot as a Source for the Slave Coast of West Africa.” History in Africa, vol. 9, 1982, pp. 155–73: 161. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4D6NU7J/collection
[4]: Law, Robin. “Posthumous Questions for Karl Polanyi: Price Inflation in Pre-Colonial Dahomey.” The Journal of African History, vol. 33, no. 3, 1992, pp. 387–420: 411–412. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/VJ69UHEQ/collection
[5]: Johnson, M. (1970). The Cowrie Currencies of West Africa. Part I. The Journal of African History, 11(1), 17–49: 45. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/XZMB8INB/collection
Textiles, beads, iron bars, etc: “Exports from the Slave Coast amounted to 5,000 captives per year in the 1680s, and peaked at 10,000 per year from the 1690s through the 1710s. Goods received in exchange for captives were predominantly textiles and cowry shells (Cypraea moneta), which originated in the Indian Ocean and were the principle currency in the region. However, other goods such as iron and brass bars, beads, guns and spirits are also mentioned in period texts. Additionally, beads, clay tobacco pipes, ceramic vessels, alcohol bottles and various other trinkets are documented at contemporary archaeological sites. The introduction of European and Asian manufactured goods had a significant impact on communities on the Slave Coast.” [1] “Given these distorting factors, it seems better to look at slave prices in terms of their local value on the Slave Coast -that is, their price in cowry shells, the local currency; and in iron bars, which appear also to have served as a standard for the valuation of other goods.125 Prices in cowries and iron bars also present some difficulties of interpretation, since they sometimes moved in opposite directions, and over the seventeenth century iron bars tended to depreciate in relative value against cowries.” [2]
[1]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 403. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection
[2]: Law, R. (1994). The Slave Trade in Seventeenth-Century Allada: A Revision. African Economic History, 22, 59–92: 80. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/T78WCTGJ/collection
“Although historical sources suggest some of these items entered regional markets for sale, imported trade goods were a closely guarded source of symbolic power for kings. Period, accounts describe public ceremonies, including royal coronations and elaborate rituals following the death of a king, in which large quantities of luxuries were displayed and distributed to the general public. Royal power and prestige were intimately tied to the success of these ceremonies. On the one hand, the public display of wealth accumulated in trade reinforced the symbolic power of the king. On the other, the distribution of such goods to loyal followers was a strategy for integrating subjects into a stable political system. Controlling access to Atlantic wealth became a key component of kings’ strategies to instill political order. Whereas local markets economically integrated town and countryside, it was luxuries acquired in trade that served as the political glue binding rural lords to urban royal dynasties.” [1]
[1]: Monroe, J. Cameron. “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology Sheds New Light on Cities in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade.” American Scientist, vol. 99, no. 5, 2011, pp. 400–09: 403. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E5WA63Z2/collection