Home Region:  West Africa (Africa)

Whydah

1671 CE 1727 CE

G SC EC New WA  ni_whydah_k



Preceding Entity: Add one more here.
1100 CE 1724 CE Allada (ni_allada_k)    [None]

Succeeding Entity:
No Polity found. Add one here.

No General Descriptions provided.

General Variables
Social Complexity Variables
Warfare Variables (Military Technologies)
Fortifications
Military use of Metals
Projectiles
Handheld weapons
Animals used in warfare
Armor
Naval technology
Economy Variables (Luxury Goods)
Religion Variables Coding in Progress.
Human Sacrifice Coding in Progress.
Crisis Consequences Coding in Progress.
Power Transitions Coding in Progress.

NGA Settlements:

Year Range Whydah (ni_whydah_k) was in:
Home NGA: None

General Variables
Identity and Location
Utm Zone:
30 N
[1671, 1727]

Original Name:
Whydah
[1671, 1727]

“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.” [1]

[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


Capital:
Savi
[1671, 1727]

“The origins and early history of the Whydah kingdom are obscure, and their reconstruction is complicated by the fact that the two principal communities which comprised it, the capital city of Savi and the coastal port of Glehue, apparently had distinct origins.” [1]

[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: 203. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection


Alternative Name:
Hueda
[1671, 1727]

“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.” [1] “This circumscribed settlement isolated the European traders by separating them from their naval reinforcements at the coastal port of Ouidah.” [2] “The second letter of the third section of the 1688 Description comprises an extended description of the kingdom of "Juda" or Whydah (133-38). Barbot describes the natural resources of the country, the conduct of the European trade there, the local king and his court, the local religion (especially the veneration of snakes), the administration of justice (including a form of trial by ordeal, the accused being obliged to swim across a crocodile-infested river), burial customs (including human sacrifice), the ceremony of the blood pact, agriculture and crafts, weaponry, the local currency (of cowry shells), domestic slavery and polygamy, and much else besides.” [3]

[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]: Norman, N. L., & Kelly, K. G. (2004). Landscape Politics: The Serpent Ditch and the Rainbow in West Africa. American Anthropologist, 106(1), 98–110: 101. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/98WGJINI/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: 159. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4D6NU7J/collection

Alternative Name:
Ouidah
[1671, 1727]

“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.” [1] “This circumscribed settlement isolated the European traders by separating them from their naval reinforcements at the coastal port of Ouidah.” [2] “The second letter of the third section of the 1688 Description comprises an extended description of the kingdom of "Juda" or Whydah (133-38). Barbot describes the natural resources of the country, the conduct of the European trade there, the local king and his court, the local religion (especially the veneration of snakes), the administration of justice (including a form of trial by ordeal, the accused being obliged to swim across a crocodile-infested river), burial customs (including human sacrifice), the ceremony of the blood pact, agriculture and crafts, weaponry, the local currency (of cowry shells), domestic slavery and polygamy, and much else besides.” [3]

[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]: Norman, N. L., & Kelly, K. G. (2004). Landscape Politics: The Serpent Ditch and the Rainbow in West Africa. American Anthropologist, 106(1), 98–110: 101. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/98WGJINI/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: 159. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4D6NU7J/collection

Alternative Name:
Juda
[1671, 1727]

“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.” [1] “This circumscribed settlement isolated the European traders by separating them from their naval reinforcements at the coastal port of Ouidah.” [2] “The second letter of the third section of the 1688 Description comprises an extended description of the kingdom of "Juda" or Whydah (133-38). Barbot describes the natural resources of the country, the conduct of the European trade there, the local king and his court, the local religion (especially the veneration of snakes), the administration of justice (including a form of trial by ordeal, the accused being obliged to swim across a crocodile-infested river), burial customs (including human sacrifice), the ceremony of the blood pact, agriculture and crafts, weaponry, the local currency (of cowry shells), domestic slavery and polygamy, and much else besides.” [3]

[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]: Norman, N. L., & Kelly, K. G. (2004). Landscape Politics: The Serpent Ditch and the Rainbow in West Africa. American Anthropologist, 106(1), 98–110: 101. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/98WGJINI/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: 159. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4D6NU7J/collection


Temporal Bounds
Peak Years:
[1671 CE ➜ 1700 CE]
 

“From the 1670s, however, it developed into a major center of the Atlantic slave trade, rivalling and then eclipsing Allada as the principal supplier of slaves in the region. Its political and commercial florescence proved to be brief, falling before the expansion of the hinterland kingdom of Dahomey in the 1720s. The Dahomians, having already conquered Allada in 1724, invaded Whydah in 1727, inflicting devastating destruction upon the country and driving out its king and much of its population into exile to the west.2 In the years preceding this conquest in 1727, Whydah had suffered protracted and bitter internal disputes, degenerating on more than one occasion into actual civil war, and these domestic divisions clearly contributed to its failure to present any effective resistance to the Dahomian conquest.” [1] “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.” [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]: Isichei, Elizabeth. A History of African Societies to 1870. Cambridge University Press, 1997: 348. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Z4GK27CI/collection


Duration:
[1671 CE ➜ 1727 CE]
 

“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.” [1] “Originally tributary to Allada, it expanded dramatically under Wegbaja (c. 1680-1716), whom tradition remembers as the first king, and still more so under his successor Agaja (c. 1716–40), who conquered Allada and Whydah, in 1724 and 1727 respectively.” [2] “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. From the 1670s, however, it developed into a major center of the Atlantic slave trade, rivalling and then eclipsing Allada as the principal supplier of slaves in the region. Its political and commercial florescence proved to be brief, falling before the expansion of the hinterland kingdom of Dahomey in the 1720s. The Dahomians, having already conquered Allada in 1724, invaded Whydah in 1727, inflicting devastating destruction upon the country and driving out its king and much of its population into exile to the west.2 In the years preceding this conquest in 1727, Whydah had suffered protracted and bitter internal disputes, degenerating on more than one occasion into actual civil war, and these domestic divisions clearly contributed to its failure to present any effective resistance to the Dahomian conquest.” [3]

[1]: 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

[2]: Isichei, Elizabeth. A History of African Societies to 1870. Cambridge University Press, 1997: 349. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Z4GK27CI/collection

[3]: 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


Political and Cultural Relations
Suprapolity Relations:
vassalage to [---]
[1671, 1727]

“Originally tributary to Allada, it expanded dramatically under Wegbaja (c. 1680-1716), whom tradition remembers as the first king, and still more so under his successor Agaja (c. 1716-40), who conquered Allada and Whydah, in 1724 and 1727 respectively.” [1] “Huffon’s authority was compromised not only by his age, but also by the fact that he did not, at least for the greater part of his reign, complete the traditional ceremonies of installation, so that he was never acknowledged as possessing fully legitimate authority; in particular, his accession did not receive the sanction of Whydah’s traditional overlord, the king of Allada.” [2] “Whydah was probably already in rebellion against Allada by the mid- seventeenth century, when a contemporary source reports that the coastal village of "Foulaen" (as noted earlier, probably Glehue, the port of Whydah), although subject to the king of Allada, defied his authority, and even sent brigands by night to raid the coastal villages of his kingdom. Whydah was certainly understood by European observers to be independent of Allada by the 1680s. // “Although effectively independent, however, 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.” [3]

[1]: Isichei, Elizabeth. A History of African Societies to 1870. Cambridge University Press, 1997: 349. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Z4GK27CI/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: 202. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection

[3]: 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


Succeeding Entity:
Dahomey
[1671, 1727]

“Originally tributary to Allada, it expanded dramatically under Wegbaja (c. 1680-1716), whom tradition remembers as the first king, and still more so under his successor Agaja (c. 1716-40), who conquered Allada and Whydah, in 1724 and 1727 respectively.” [1]

[1]: Isichei, Elizabeth. A History of African Societies to 1870. Cambridge University Press, 1997: 349. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Z4GK27CI/collection


Preceding Entity:
1100 CE 1724 CE Allada (ni_allada_k)    [None]  
 

“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


Degree of Centralization:
confederated state
[1671, 1727]

“What is clear is that those chiefs who served as governors of subordinate villages of the kingdom enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy in their local administration: as was noted in the 1690s, ‘these in the King’s absence and in their Vice-royalties, command as arbitrarily and keep up as great state as the King himself.’ The governors exercised an independent local judicial authority in minor cases, acted as spokesmen before the king on behalf of those under their government, and transmitted their tribute to him. They also raised contingents of soldiers for the national army, and commanded them in battle. The king’s power in practice was clearly limited by that of these provincial governors, and its effectiveness dependent upon their cooperation.” [1]

[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: 208–209. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection


Language
Linguistic Family:
Niger-Congo
[1671, 1727]

WALS classification.


Language:
Ajagbe
[1671, 1727]

WALS classification is Ajabge; sometimes also called 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]

[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


Religion
Religious Tradition:
Vodun
[1671, 1727]

Temple of Dangbe is, at least today, described as a Vodun temple, but no specific references to this in the literature. “The principal shrine of Dangbe at this period, however, was located at the Hueda capital Savi, rather than in Ouidah; its relocation in Oudah being a consequence of the destruction of Savi in the Dahomian conquest of the 1720s. In Ouidah itself in recent times, it is in fact Hu rather than Dangbe who has been regarded as first in status among local vodun”. [1] “When local people speak of Ouidah’s special religious status, however, they are generally referring to something rather different: the organized cults of the vodun. […] Rather than thinking of vodun as a single religion worshipping a pantheon of many gods, it is better conceptualized as comprising a number of distinct and separate ‘churches’. What distinguishes Ouidah above all is the sheer number of vodun worshipped in the town. A European visitor in 1784–5 reported that the town contained more than 30 ‘public fetish temples’, but this was certainly an underestimate; a survey in 1937 counted a total of 104 vodun ‘temples’, and the quarters of the town that already existed in the eighteenth century – Tové, Ahouandjigo, Sogbadji, Docomè and Fonsaramè – accounted for the great majority of these, no fewer than 79. The total of vodun worshipped is greater since, although some vodun have more than one temple, several different vodun are normally worshipped within each temple.” [2]

[1]: Law, Robin. Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving “port” 1727-1892. Ohio State University Press, 2004: 22–23. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/NQ5VFMUD/collection

[2]: Law, Robin. Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving “port” 1727-1892. Ohio State University Press, 2004: 89. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/NQ5VFMUD/collection


Religion Family:
Vodun
[1671, 1727]

“Understanding of the distribution of political power in Whydah also requires consideration of the sphere of religion, which both legitimated and circumscribed the actions of the ruling elite. The most important national cult in Whydah was that of the god Dangbe (incarnated in the royal python), which was celebrated by annual public processions to the principal Dangbe shrine. Dangbe was primarily concerned with regulation of the weather and of agricultural fertility, but was also invoked for political purposes, "on all occasions relating to their government." Some European accounts imply that the worship of Dangbe was controlled by the king, the head of the cult being an official of the royal palace. It appears, however, that the Dangbe priesthood had rather more autonomy vis-a-vis the king than this suggests, since other evidence shows that King Agbangla in the 1690s expressed resentment at the scale of offerings which he was obliged to make to the cult and sought to reduce the expense which they involved. There was also a publicly celebrated cult of the deceased kings of the royal dynasty, with annual processions to offer sacrifices at their tombs. These did not, however, attain the elaboration of the comparable "Annual Customs" of the kingdom of Dahomey later, where these rather than the worship of any of the gods constituted the principal national religious ceremony. The "Annual Customs" in Whydah are mentioned only in a single contemporary account, and were clearly of much less political significance than the cult of the snake god Dangbe.” [1]

[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: 209. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection



Social Complexity Variables
Social Scale
Polity Territory:
1,000 km2
[1671, 1727]

in squared kilometers. Area calculated using a sketch-map provided in the following reference for political boundaries of the various kingdoms in approximately 1700 CE: [1]

[1]: Norman, Neil L. “Hueda (Whydah) Country and Town: Archaeological Perspectives on the Rise and Collapse of an African Atlantic Kingdom.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, 2009, pp. 387–410: 388. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5UK64SQ5/collection


Hierarchical Complexity
Settlement Hierarchy:
3
[1671, 1727]

1) Capital city (Savi); 2) Chief towns; 3) Villages/hamlets. “Astley, A New General Collection, 9, summarizing from the account of Des Marchais, reports that the residences of community leaders resembled towns, each of which was surrounded by radiating settlements: "Each of these twenty-six ... [chief towns] has fewer smaller villages, or hamlets, which are subordinate to it; and although the bounds of the kingdom are small, and consequently the provinces [proportionally] little, yet the country is so populous and full of hamlets, that the whole kingdom seems to be one town, divided into many quarters, and separated only by cultivated lands, which appear like gardens." The Astley account suggests that the king gave each of these twenty-six regional provinces to a prominent man of the kingdom who occupied a "Chief Town" within the provinces.” [1] “These architectural clusters are interpreted as sprawling house compounds and associated collections of smaller residential structures, administrative structures, and market facilities. Apparently, Huedans constructed these architectural clusters as accretional and evolving connections of architectural features; they added later building efforts to open zones adjacent to earlier structures. While accretional, this landscape appears to be a purposefully organized one, the negative spaces of the boundary ditches/borrow pits often abutted structures. When viewing the system in plan and in aggregate, interior structures are surrounded by non-contiguous yet radiating collections of structures and ditches. As this pattern repeated itself throughout the landscape, systems of the negative space created by ditches/borrow pits connected to larger structures checked terrestrial movement. During the Hueda era it was, as it is today, difficult to traverse the landscape without passing through or adjacent to a structure. Indeed, it is highly likely that Huedans created these enclosed architectural systems as a form of protection against foreign and domestic threats.” [2]

[1]: Norman, Neil L. “Hueda (Whydah) Country and Town: Archaeological Perspectives on the Rise and Collapse of an African Atlantic Kingdom.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, 2009, pp. 387–410: 395. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5UK64SQ5/collection

[2]: Norman, Neil L. “Hueda (Whydah) Country and Town: Archaeological Perspectives on the Rise and Collapse of an African Atlantic Kingdom.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, 2009, pp. 387–410: 394. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5UK64SQ5/collection


Religious Level:
3
[1671, 1727]

1) King (Ahosu); 2) Aplogan (in charge of all cults); 3) Dangbe priesthood. It is likely there were further, finer, gradations of seniority in the priesthood and cults, but there are no clear descriptions available in the literature. “Understanding of the distribution of political power in Whydah also requires consideration of the sphere of religion, which both legitimated and circumscribed the actions of the ruling elite. The most important national cult in Whydah was that of the god Dangbe (incarnated in the royal python), which was celebrated by annual public processions to the principal Dangbe shrine. Dangbe was primarily concerned with regulation of the weather and of agricultural fertility, but was also invoked for political purposes, "on all occasions relating to their government." Some European accounts imply that the worship of Dangbe was controlled by the king, the head of the cult being an official of the royal palace. It appears, however, that the Dangbe priesthood had rather more autonomy vis-a-vis the king than this suggests, since other evidence shows that King Agbangla in the 1690s expressed resentment at the scale of offerings which he was obliged to make to the cult and sought to reduce the expense which they involved. There was also a publicly celebrated cult of the deceased kings of the royal dynasty, with annual processions to offer sacrifices at their tombs. These did not, however, attain the elaboration of the comparable "Annual Customs" of the kingdom of Dahomey later, where these rather than the worship of any of the gods constituted the principal national religious ceremony. The "Annual Customs" in Whydah are mentioned only in a single contemporary account, and were clearly of much less political significance than the cult of the snake god Dangbe.” [1] “The most important of the Whydah chiefs had the titles of Gogan and Aplogan, which were also those of the highest-ranking officials in the later kingdom of Porto-Novo. In Porto-Novo the Gogan was the head of the royal lineage (and as such, conducted the ceremony of the king’s own installation) and the Aplogan had general charge of the community’s religious cults, and these may well also have been the functions of their namesakes in Whydah. In addition to their specific individual functions, the more important chiefs also served as hereditary governors of the component villages of the Whydah kingdom: the Gogan and the Aplogan, for example, served as governors respectively of the important settlements of Paon and Gome, both in the north of the kingdom.” [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: 209. 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: 207–208. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection


Military Level:
2
[1671, 1727]

1) Chiefs/governors; 2) Soldiers. There is no clear description of the formation or size of the army in Whydah in the literature consulted, though clearly they had a military presence. “The governors exercised an independent local judicial authority in minor cases, acted as spokesmen before the king on behalf of those under their government, and transmitted their tribute to him. They also raised contingents of soldiers for the national army, and commanded them in battle.” [1] “Whydah was probably already in rebellion against Allada by the mid- seventeenth century, when a contemporary source reports that the coastal village of "Foulaen" (as noted earlier, probably Glehue, the port of Whydah), although subject to the king of Allada, defied his authority, and even sent brigands by night to raid the coastal villages of his kingdom.” [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: 209. 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


Administrative Level:
[6 to 7]
1671 CE 1710 CE

1) King (Ahosu); 2) Council of elders (possibly including the most important hereditary chiefs); 3) Palace officials; 4) King’s wives; 5) King’s servants, guards, and messengers (possibly only from 1710s); 6) the great men/grand captains (may be considered part of the caboceers level); 7) Caboceers (chiefs/captains/headmen); 8) Governors of villages/areas. “Whydah was a monarchy, whose ruler had the indigenous title of ahosu, generally (and reasonably) translated by Europeans as "king." The kingship was hereditary, in the sense that succession to it was restricted to a single patrilineally defined family. Some contemporary European sources assert that succession to the kingship was by primogeniture, the reigning king’s eldest son being the heir apparent, but this is an oversimplification. Rather, it appears that the reigning king could appoint one of his sons, normally but not necessarily the eldest, as his heir apparent; but this designated heir did not succeed automatically, since the leading men of the kingdom could set aside his claim in favor of another of his brothers. In practice, in any case, effective occupation of the royal palace was as important as seniority, designation, or election: as one European observer explicitly observed, a claimant to the succession sought primarily "to take possession of the late King’s court and wives," since ‘the commonalty will not easily consent that after that he shall be driven from the throne.’” [1] “Under the king, the affairs of the palace were administered by a number of male officials, who had responsibility for the management of the king’s wives and the supply of provisions: whether these officials were free men or (as analogy with other kingdoms would suggest) royal slaves is not made clear. The bulk of the palace staff consisted of women, legally regarded as the king’s "wives" although clearly including servants engaged in menial tasks as well as "wives" properly speaking, who are said to have numbered several hundreds. Besides ministering to the king’s needs within the palace, these women played an important role in enforcing his authority outside it. Their status as royal wives made them sacrosanct, merely touching them being a capital offence, so that they could not be effectively obstructed or resisted. The king in consequence was able to use them to execute his judicial decisions, sending them to destroy the houses of condemned offenders. They might also be employed to impose peace in disputes which threatened to lead to civil war, by literally interposing their bodies between the two factions to prevent them fighting. In addition to his wives, the king is also said to have had a group of 200-300 male servants, distinguished by having half of their heads shaved bare, who served as his guards and carried messages outside the palace: these are not, however, attested earlier than the 1710s, and may possibly have been then a recent innovation. In addition to the king and the officials of his palace, there were numerous other office-holders in the Whydah kingdom. In contemporary European sources, these are generally called "captains" or "caboceers" (from the Portuguese cabeceiro, "head man"), both of which terms appear to have been employed to translate the vernacular generic suffix -gan; the more familiar modern term "chiefs" is employed in this article as an equivalent. Some accounts distinguish, within the generality of chiefs, a smaller group of higher rank, termed the "grand [or great] captains," or simply "the great men," who are said to have shared political authority with the king. Most of these offices were evidently hereditary, passing like the monarchy normally from father to eldest son, it being explicitly noted that the king "cannot grant them to anyone else." The senior chiefs can thus be regarded as forming a sort of hereditary nobility or aristocracy. The most important of the Whydah chiefs had the titles of Gogan and Aplogan, which were also those of the highest-ranking officials in the later kingdom of Porto-Novo. In Porto-Novo the Gogan was the head of the royal lineage (and as such, conducted the ceremony of the king’s own installation) and the Aplogan had general charge of the community’s religious cults, and these may well also have been the functions of their namesakes in Whydah. In addition to their specific individual functions, the more important chiefs also served as hereditary governors of the component villages of the Whydah kingdom: the Gogan and the Aplogan, for example, served as governors respectively of the important settlements of Paon and Gome, both in the north of the kingdom.” [2] “It appears that the king was expected to act in conjunction with a council of "elders," who normally included the principal hereditary chiefs, but whether the membership of this council was fixed or variable according to the king’s choice is not clearly indicated.” [3] “What is clear is that those chiefs who served as governors of subordinate villages of the kingdom enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy in their local administration: as was noted in the 1690s, "these in the King’s absence and in their Vice-royalties, command as arbitrarily and keep up as great state as the King himself.’ The governors exercised an independent local judicial authority in minor cases, acted as spokesmen before the king on behalf of those under their government, and transmitted their tribute to him. They also raised contingents of soldiers for the national army, and commanded them in battle. The king’s power in practice was clearly limited by that of these provincial governors, and its effectiveness dependent upon their cooperation.” [4]

[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: 205. 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: 206-208. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection

[3]: 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: 208. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection

[4]: 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: 208-209. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection

Administrative Level:
[7 to 8]
1711 CE 1727 CE

1) King (Ahosu); 2) Council of elders (possibly including the most important hereditary chiefs); 3) Palace officials; 4) King’s wives; 5) King’s servants, guards, and messengers (possibly only from 1710s); 6) the great men/grand captains (may be considered part of the caboceers level); 7) Caboceers (chiefs/captains/headmen); 8) Governors of villages/areas. “Whydah was a monarchy, whose ruler had the indigenous title of ahosu, generally (and reasonably) translated by Europeans as "king." The kingship was hereditary, in the sense that succession to it was restricted to a single patrilineally defined family. Some contemporary European sources assert that succession to the kingship was by primogeniture, the reigning king’s eldest son being the heir apparent, but this is an oversimplification. Rather, it appears that the reigning king could appoint one of his sons, normally but not necessarily the eldest, as his heir apparent; but this designated heir did not succeed automatically, since the leading men of the kingdom could set aside his claim in favor of another of his brothers. In practice, in any case, effective occupation of the royal palace was as important as seniority, designation, or election: as one European observer explicitly observed, a claimant to the succession sought primarily "to take possession of the late King’s court and wives," since ‘the commonalty will not easily consent that after that he shall be driven from the throne.’” [1] “Under the king, the affairs of the palace were administered by a number of male officials, who had responsibility for the management of the king’s wives and the supply of provisions: whether these officials were free men or (as analogy with other kingdoms would suggest) royal slaves is not made clear. The bulk of the palace staff consisted of women, legally regarded as the king’s "wives" although clearly including servants engaged in menial tasks as well as "wives" properly speaking, who are said to have numbered several hundreds. Besides ministering to the king’s needs within the palace, these women played an important role in enforcing his authority outside it. Their status as royal wives made them sacrosanct, merely touching them being a capital offence, so that they could not be effectively obstructed or resisted. The king in consequence was able to use them to execute his judicial decisions, sending them to destroy the houses of condemned offenders. They might also be employed to impose peace in disputes which threatened to lead to civil war, by literally interposing their bodies between the two factions to prevent them fighting. In addition to his wives, the king is also said to have had a group of 200-300 male servants, distinguished by having half of their heads shaved bare, who served as his guards and carried messages outside the palace: these are not, however, attested earlier than the 1710s, and may possibly have been then a recent innovation. In addition to the king and the officials of his palace, there were numerous other office-holders in the Whydah kingdom. In contemporary European sources, these are generally called "captains" or "caboceers" (from the Portuguese cabeceiro, "head man"), both of which terms appear to have been employed to translate the vernacular generic suffix -gan; the more familiar modern term "chiefs" is employed in this article as an equivalent. Some accounts distinguish, within the generality of chiefs, a smaller group of higher rank, termed the "grand [or great] captains," or simply "the great men," who are said to have shared political authority with the king. Most of these offices were evidently hereditary, passing like the monarchy normally from father to eldest son, it being explicitly noted that the king "cannot grant them to anyone else." The senior chiefs can thus be regarded as forming a sort of hereditary nobility or aristocracy. The most important of the Whydah chiefs had the titles of Gogan and Aplogan, which were also those of the highest-ranking officials in the later kingdom of Porto-Novo. In Porto-Novo the Gogan was the head of the royal lineage (and as such, conducted the ceremony of the king’s own installation) and the Aplogan had general charge of the community’s religious cults, and these may well also have been the functions of their namesakes in Whydah. In addition to their specific individual functions, the more important chiefs also served as hereditary governors of the component villages of the Whydah kingdom: the Gogan and the Aplogan, for example, served as governors respectively of the important settlements of Paon and Gome, both in the north of the kingdom.” [2] “It appears that the king was expected to act in conjunction with a council of "elders," who normally included the principal hereditary chiefs, but whether the membership of this council was fixed or variable according to the king’s choice is not clearly indicated.” [3] “What is clear is that those chiefs who served as governors of subordinate villages of the kingdom enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy in their local administration: as was noted in the 1690s, "these in the King’s absence and in their Vice-royalties, command as arbitrarily and keep up as great state as the King himself.’ The governors exercised an independent local judicial authority in minor cases, acted as spokesmen before the king on behalf of those under their government, and transmitted their tribute to him. They also raised contingents of soldiers for the national army, and commanded them in battle. The king’s power in practice was clearly limited by that of these provincial governors, and its effectiveness dependent upon their cooperation.” [4]

[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: 205. 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: 206-208. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection

[3]: 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: 208. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection

[4]: 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: 208-209. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection


Professions
Professional Soldier:
Present
[1671, 1727]

Reference to a “national army”: “The governors exercised an independent local judicial authority in minor cases, acted as spokesmen before the king on behalf of those under their government, and transmitted their tribute to him. They also raised contingents of soldiers for the national army, and commanded them in battle.” [1] “Snelgrave’s explanation of the unexpected defeat of the Whydahs was essentially their cowardice, which he attributed to the enervating effects of their involvement in the Atlantic trade: ‘Trade having likewise flourished for a long time, had greatly enriched the People; which, with the Fertility of their Country, had unhappily made them so proud, effeminate, and luxurious, that tho’ they could have brought at least one hundred thousand Men into the Field, yet so great were their fears, that they were driven out of their Principal City, by two hundred of their Enemies...’” [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: 209. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection

[2]: Law, Robin. “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, vol. 15, 1988, pp. 321–38: 322. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/U957EGQV/collection


Professional Priesthood:
Present
[1671, 1727]

“Understanding of the distribution of political power in Whydah also requires consideration of the sphere of religion, which both legitimated and circumscribed the actions of the ruling elite. The most important national cult in Whydah was that of the god Dangbe (incarnated in the royal python), which was celebrated by annual public processions to the principal Dangbe shrine. Dangbe was primarily concerned with regulation of the weather and of agricultural fertility, but was also invoked for political purposes, "on all occasions relating to their government." Some European accounts imply that the worship of Dangbe was controlled by the king, the head of the cult being an official of the royal palace. It appears, however, that the Dangbe priesthood had rather more autonomy vis-a-vis the king than this suggests, since other evidence shows that King Agbangla in the 1690s expressed resentment at the scale of offerings which he was obliged to make to the cult and sought to reduce the expense which they involved. There was also a publicly celebrated cult of the deceased kings of the royal dynasty, with annual processions to offer sacrifices at their tombs. These did not, however, attain the elaboration of the comparable "Annual Customs" of the kingdom of Dahomey later, where these rather than the worship of any of the gods constituted the principal national religious ceremony. The "Annual Customs" in Whydah are mentioned only in a single contemporary account, and were clearly of much less political significance than the cult of the snake god Dangbe.” [1]

[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: 209. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection


Bureaucracy Characteristics
Law
Formal Legal Code:
Present
[1671, 1727]

“In local thought, the king’s primary function was the exercise of judicial authority and the maintenance of judicial order. This idea was given symbolic expression in the interval between the death of one king and the installation of his successor, when crimes could be committed with impunity, as one European observer explained, ‘as tho’ the death of the king put an end to all manner of reason and justice.’” [1] “A similar ambiguity of perception can be seen in European accounts of the administration of justice in Whydah. Although the king was clearly regarded as the supreme judicial authority in the kingdom (and in particular seems to have enjoyed the sole right to inflict capital punishment), he normally exercised his judicial functions in serious cases with the advice of a council of leading chiefs. But whereas one account asserts that he could only condemn offenders to death "on the advice of his great men," another claims that he was not obliged to follow the council’s advice but could act "according to his royal will and pleasure." This contradiction, as suggested earlier, may reflect dis- agreements about the legitimate extent of the royal prerogative within the Whydah ruling elite itself.” [2] “What is clear is that those chiefs who served as governors of subordinate villages of the kingdom enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy in their local administration: as was noted in the 1690s, ‘these in the King’s absence and in their Vice-royalties, command as arbitrarily and keep up as great state as the King himself.’ The governors exercised an independent local judicial authority in minor cases, acted as spokesmen before the king on behalf of those under their government, and transmitted their tribute to him.” [3] “The second letter of the third section of the 1688 Description comprises an extended description of the kingdom of "Juda" or Whydah (133-38). Barbot describes the natural resources of the country, the conduct of the European trade there, the local king and his court, the local religion (especially the veneration of snakes), the administration of justice (including a form of trial by ordeal, the accused being obliged to swim across a crocodile-infested river), burial customs (including human sacrifice), the ceremony of the blood pact, agriculture and crafts, weaponry, the local currency (of cowry shells), domestic slavery and polygamy, and much else besides.” [4]

[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: 205. 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: 208. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection

[3]: 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: 208–209. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection

[4]: Law, Robin. “Jean Barbot as a Source for the Slave Coast of West Africa.” History in Africa, vol. 9, 1982, pp. 155–73: 159. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4D6NU7J/collection


Specialized Buildings: polity owned
Market:
Present
[1671, 1727]

“The king also enjoyed extensive rights of disposition over the property and persons of his subjects. He levied taxes on all goods sold in markets or carried along the roads of the kingdom, and on fish taken in the coastal lagoons, and received a share of his subjects’ agricultural crops.” [1] “If these architectural concentrations can be interpreted as the residences of regional community leaders, the spacing between these complexes is suggestive of the distance of political administration operating at the local level as well as the distance between mark smaller than the large regional market historically recorded at Savi.” [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: 205. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection

[2]: Norman, Neil L. “Hueda (Whydah) Country and Town: Archaeological Perspectives on the Rise and Collapse of an African Atlantic Kingdom.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, 2009, pp. 387–410: 395-396. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5UK64SQ5/collection


Utilitarian Public Building:
Present
[1671, 1727]

Markets: “The king also enjoyed extensive rights of disposition over the property and persons of his subjects. He levied taxes on all goods sold in markets or carried along the roads of the kingdom, and on fish taken in the coastal lagoons, and received a share of his subjects’ agricultural crops.” [1] “If these architectural concentrations can be interpreted as the residences of regional community leaders, the spacing between these complexes is suggestive of the distance of political administration operating at the local level as well as the distance between mark smaller than the large regional market historically recorded at Savi.” [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: 205. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection

[2]: Norman, Neil L. “Hueda (Whydah) Country and Town: Archaeological Perspectives on the Rise and Collapse of an African Atlantic Kingdom.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, 2009, pp. 387–410: 395-396. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5UK64SQ5/collection


Transport Infrastructure
Road:
Present
[1671, 1727]

“The king also enjoyed extensive rights of disposition over the property and persons of his subjects. He levied taxes on all goods sold in markets or carried along the roads of the kingdom, and on fish taken in the coastal lagoons, and received a share of his subjects’ agricultural crops.” [1]

[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: 205. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection


Port:
Present
[1671, 1727]

“Whydah was probably already in rebellion against Allada by the mid-seventeenth century, when a contemporary source reports that the coastal village of "Foulaen" (as noted earlier, probably Glehue, the port of Whydah), although subject to the king of Allada, defied his authority, and even sent brigands by night to raid the coastal villages of his kingdom.” [1]

[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: 213. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8JKAH2V5/collection


Special-purpose Sites
Special Purpose Site:
Present
[1671, 1727]

Burial sites: “These references to embarkation in a canoe are usually understood to be purely metaphorical, the remains of the dead being in fact buried in the ground. A contemporary report of the funeral ceremonies for a king of Hueda in 1708, however, refers to the making of an actual model canoe (a foot and a half by two feet in size), which was carried with an image of the king, to be placed on the road to the ancestral homeland of the royal family.” [1] “The second letter of the third section of the 1688 Description comprises an extended description of the kingdom of "Juda" or Whydah (133-38). Barbot describes the natural resources of the country, the conduct of the European trade there, the local king and his court, the local religion (especially the veneration of snakes), the administration of justice (including a form of trial by ordeal, the accused being obliged to swim across a crocodile-infested river), burial customs (including human sacrifice), the ceremony of the blood pact, agriculture and crafts, weaponry, the local currency (of cowry shells), domestic slavery and polygamy, and much else besides.” [2] Enclosures: “Astley, in summarizing Desmarchais, supports such findings when he suggests that ditches/borrow pits were common in the area surrounding Savi, where: "As the ...[Huedans] build with Earth, which they dig-up as near as possible to their Habitations, their Houses are surrounded with such Holes, or Pits." Astley continues the description of the ditches to suggest that they were filled with all manner of trash and that the area surrounding Savi was so populated that the slopes of ditches were under cultivation, such that: “The Borders of the Hedges, the Sides of Ditches, and the Foot of their [enclosures, are planted with Melons of different Kinds, besides Pulse; so that not an inch of Ground lies unimproved, and that without Interruption”. Alongside their use as borrow pits, researchers argue for connections between ditches in the region of Abomey and the Savi palace zone and the Huedan python deity Dangbe, who Huedans considered to have the ability to check movement and create zones of inclusion and protection. Beyond their cosmological associations, Huedans placed structures and house compounds abutting ditches/borrow pits to maximize the defensive potential of various features. Thus, the contiguous architectural system of ditches/borrow pits together with the walls of house compounds presented an unbroken boundary between the interior of the compound and exterior spaces. As the opening paragraph suggests, these cosmological and physical attempts to bracket and buttress the Huedan countryside and palace were ultimately unsuccessful.” [3]

[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: 12. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/WA6SG9KW/collection

[2]: Law, Robin. “Jean Barbot as a Source for the Slave Coast of West Africa.” History in Africa, vol. 9, 1982, pp. 155–73: 159. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4D6NU7J/collection

[3]: Norman, Neil L. “Hueda (Whydah) Country and Town: Archaeological Perspectives on the Rise and Collapse of an African Atlantic Kingdom.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, 2009, pp. 387–410: 397. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5UK64SQ5/collection


Enclosure:
Present
[1671, 1727]

“Astley, in summarizing Desmarchais, supports such findings when he suggests that ditches/borrow pits were common in the area surrounding Savi, where: "As the ...[Huedans] build with Earth, which they dig-up as near as possible to their Habitations, their Houses are surrounded with such Holes, or Pits." Astley continues the description of the ditches to suggest that they were filled with all manner of trash and that the area surrounding Savi was so populated that the slopes of ditches were under cultivation, such that: “The Borders of the Hedges, the Sides of Ditches, and the Foot of their [enclosures, are planted with Melons of different Kinds, besides Pulse; so that not an inch of Ground lies unimproved, and that without Interruption”. Alongside their use as borrow pits, researchers argue for connections between ditches in the region of Abomey and the Savi palace zone and the Huedan python deity Dangbe, who Huedans considered to have the ability to check movement and create zones of inclusion and protection. Beyond their cosmological associations, Huedans placed structures and house compounds abutting ditches/borrow pits to maximize the defensive potential of various features. Thus, the contiguous architectural system of ditches/borrow pits together with the walls of house compounds presented an unbroken boundary between the interior of the compound and exterior spaces. As the opening paragraph suggests, these cosmological and physical attempts to bracket and buttress the Huedan countryside and palace were ultimately unsuccessful.” [1]

[1]: Norman, Neil L. “Hueda (Whydah) Country and Town: Archaeological Perspectives on the Rise and Collapse of an African Atlantic Kingdom.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, 2009, pp. 387–410: 397. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5UK64SQ5/collection


Burial Site:
Present
[1671, 1727]

“These references to embarkation in a canoe are usually understood to be purely metaphorical, the remains of the dead being in fact buried in the ground. A contemporary report of the funeral ceremonies for a king of Hueda in 1708, however, refers to the making of an actual model canoe (a foot and a half by two feet in size), which was carried with an image of the king, to be placed on the road to the ancestral homeland of the royal family.” [1] “The second letter of the third section of the 1688 Description comprises an extended description of the kingdom of "Juda" or Whydah (133-38). Barbot describes the natural resources of the country, the conduct of the European trade there, the local king and his court, the local religion (especially the veneration of snakes), the administration of justice (including a form of trial by ordeal, the accused being obliged to swim across a crocodile-infested river), burial customs (including human sacrifice), the ceremony of the blood pact, agriculture and crafts, weaponry, the local currency (of cowry shells), domestic slavery and polygamy, and much else besides.” [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: 12. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/WA6SG9KW/collection

[2]: Law, Robin. “Jean Barbot as a Source for the Slave Coast of West Africa.” History in Africa, vol. 9, 1982, pp. 155–73: 159. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4D6NU7J/collection


Information / Writing System
Written Record:
Absent
[1671, 1727]

No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “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.” [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


Script:
Absent
[1671, 1727]

No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “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.” [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


Phonetic Alphabetic Writing:
Absent
[1671, 1727]

No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “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.” [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


Nonwritten Record:
Present
[1671, 1727]

Present in Allada and Dahomey, so very likely also in Whydah: “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


Non Phonetic Writing:
Absent
[1671, 1727]

No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “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.” [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


Information / Kinds of Written Documents
Scientific Literature:
Absent
[1671, 1727]

No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “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.” [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


Sacred Text:
Absent
[1671, 1727]

No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “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.” [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


Religious Literature:
Absent
[1671, 1727]

No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “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.” [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


Practical Literature:
Absent
[1671, 1727]

No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “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.” [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


Philosophy:
Absent
[1671, 1727]

No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “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.” [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


Lists Tables and Classification:
Absent
[1671, 1727]

No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “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.” [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


History:
Absent
[1671, 1727]

No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “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.” [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


Fiction:
Absent
[1671, 1727]

No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “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.” [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


Calendar:
Absent
[1671, 1727]

No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “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.” [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


Information / Money
Token:
Present
[1671, 1727]

Cowries: “The second letter of the third section of the 1688 Description comprises an extended description of the kingdom of "Juda" or Whydah (133-38). Barbot describes the natural resources of the country, the conduct of the European trade there, the local king and his court, the local religion (especially the veneration of snakes), the administration of justice (including a form of trial by ordeal, the accused being obliged to swim across a crocodile-infested river), burial customs (including human sacrifice), the ceremony of the blood pact, agriculture and crafts, weaponry, the local currency (of cowry shells), domestic slavery and polygamy, and much else besides.” [1] “These cowries, brought in the early sixteenth century by the Portuguese, and in the first place by way of Sao Tome, were in use on the coast in the sixteenth century, in both the Benin and Forcados areas; by the seventeenth century they were in use at Whydah and Ardra,"l and we have discussed above the possibility that cowries may have been already in use in these areas before the arrival of the Portuguese." In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Whydah was the main centre of cowrie imports, though cowries were in use as far west as Lay (a little west of modern Ada, west of the Volta) in the 1680s, and in Christiansborg by the early eighteenth century, and probably in the later seventeenth century.” [2]

[1]: Law, Robin. “Jean Barbot as a Source for the Slave Coast of West Africa.” History in Africa, vol. 9, 1982, pp. 155–73: 159. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4D6NU7J/collection

[2]: Johnson, Marion. “The Cowrie Currencies of West Africa. Part I.” The Journal of African History, vol. 11, no. 1, 1970, pp. 17–49: 34-35. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/XZMB8INB/collection


Article:
Present
[1671, 1727]

Iron bars: “Pre-colonial Dahomey (and Allada and Whydah before it) had a money economy, employing a currency of cowrie shells (called locally àkué). Many commercial transactions, most taxes, and to some extent social payments such as bride wealth were monetized. In particular, exchange in local markets was fully monetized, all transactions being normally for cash. This applied not only to local people but also to Europeans who wanted to purchase in the market. The European factories, for example, found that if they ran out of cowries they could not procure provisions by bartering other commodities, but had to sell goods such as iron bars or even slaves to obtain cowries for use in purchasing food.” [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: 21-22. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection


Store Of Wealth:
Present
[1671, 1727]

“One consequence of the introduction of the cowrie currency was to facilitate the storage of wealth, since the shells were relatively imperishable.” [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: 30-36. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection


Debt And Credit Structure:
Present
[1671, 1727]

“One feature of the operation of the Atlantic trade which is often overlooked is that credit was not extended only by Europeans to Africans, but often in the opposite direction as well. An English merchant who traded at Whydah in the early eighteenth century before its conquest by Dahomey in 1727, noted that the Whydah traders were happy to grant him credit “for ten days together” when the state of the sea prevented the landing of goods from his ship—though he found the King of Dahomey’s traders after the conquest much less tolerant of such delays.” [1] “These accounts seem to imply that such credit was essentially shortterm—being cleared within a few days, or at least at the end of a ship’s trading—but other evidence shows that it could be extended by Africans to Europeans over longer periods. In 1697 the Dutchman Bosman, having got his slaves on board his ship but unable to land the goods to pay for them due to a storm lasting for several days, mooted the idea of dispatching the ship without paying for its slaves. He found the King and “other Great Men” of Whydah quite happy to have him promise “that they receive payment at the arrival of other ships” (though in the event the weather improved, and Bosman was able to pay them in the normal way).” [2] “Although there is far less evidence in regard to the strictly domestic economy, clearly credit was extended in purely intra-African transactions, as well as in the trade with Europeans. The principal evidence for this relates to the practice of enslaving and selling insolvent debtors, referred to in contemporary European sources from the late seventeenth century onwards. Although generally cast in the language of slavery, such references should probably be interpreted as relating to the pawning of a debtor (or one or more of his household) as security for a debt; in principle, such pawns were distinct from slaves, and were protected from sale into the trans-Atlantic trade, though it is evident that this prohibition was often violated in practice.” [3]

[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: 27. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection

[2]: 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: 27-28. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection

[3]: 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: 30-31. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection


Information / Postal System
Information / Measurement System

Warfare Variables (Military Technologies)
Fortifications
Military use of Metals
Projectiles
Handheld weapons
Animals used in warfare
Armor
Naval technology

Economy Variables (Luxury Goods)
Luxury Goods
[1671, 1727]
Luxury Precious Metal: Present
Place(s) of Provenance: Portuguese Empire - Early Modern
Consumption by Ruler: Present
Consumption by Elite: Present

‘‘‘ Gold, silver. A note on vocabulary: The Gbe region was the area where Gbe languages were spoken. This includes the Whydah polity. “Gold: soon after gold was discovered in Brazil in 1698 Portuguese ships took some to Whydah to buy slaves and would do so for a half a century or more. […] These were the status symbols, the privileges of rank and wealth that propped up the egos of African kings, chiefs, grandees, and rich helping to set them apart from the common folk. The roster of trappings would be long: […] silver-headed canes, silver tobacco pipes […] elegant silverware velvet upholstered armchairs with gilt legs […] Silver: a form used to adulterate gold was available on the Gold Coast by 1601 and silver bullion by the late seventeenth century. Silver dust was being imported into the Slave Coast by 1670. Silver chains, rings, and other objects appear in the records, probably intended mainly as gifts. But the main source of silver for Kwaland seems to have been coins: English, Dutch, and French crowns, French pounds, Dutch patacas, Spanish pieces of eight and reals, Spanish-American dollars. Presumably most of them were melted down and reworked into ornaments or regal paraphernalia.“ [Alpern 1995, p. 14], [Alpern 1995, p. 29]


[1671, 1727]
Luxury Manufactured Goods: Present
Place(s) of Provenance: domestic foreign
Consumption by Ruler: Present

“As status markers, tobacco and pipes were integrated into religious practices. Along with other European items such as glass bottles and beads, pipes became standard burial effects in upper-class graves and were employed during ritual offerings to Vodun deities” [Zaugg 2018, p. 125] “The archaeologically recorded most likely related to personal or familial levels of veneration as they are located inside architectural zones designated as house compounds. At Loci 2, 4, and 7, shrines contained collections of nails, beads, and imported/local smoking pipes. This finding indicates Huedans expended some of the gains pouring into the area from throughout the Atlantic world on the veneration of cosmological actors. However, these shrines were repositories for local material as well. From possible religious/ritual contexts, archaeological project members recovered locally produced expediently constructed, utilitarian ceramics that are striking similar in size, form, decoration, and construction modern ritual vessels” […] “Material affluence arguably accompanied social prominence associated with these larger house compounds as imported trade items such as pipe fragments concentrated in and around loci with massive architecture.” [Norman 2009, pp. 402-403] “The archaeologically recorded most likely related to personal or familial levels of veneration as they are located inside architectural zones designated as house compounds. At Loci 2, 4, and 7, shrines contained collections of nails, beads, and imported/local smoking pipes. This finding indicates Huedans expended some of the gains pouring into the area from throughout the Atlantic world on the veneration of cosmological actors. However, these shrines were repositories for local material as well. From possible religious/ritual contexts, archaeological project members recovered locally produced expediently constructed, utilitarian ceramics that are striking similar in size, form, decoration, and construction modern ritual vessels”. [Norman 2009, p. 402] “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. Trade goods were thus hotly sought after in Allada and Hueda, and their respective kings jockeyed to corner the lion’s share of these new sources of power.” [Monroe 2011, p. 403]


[1671, 1727]
Luxury Glass Goods: Present
Consumption by Ruler: Present
Consumption by Elite: Present
Consumption by Common People: Inferred Absent

“As status markers, tobacco and pipes were integrated into religious practices. Along with other European items such as glass bottles and beads, pipes became standard burial effects in upper-class graves and were employed during ritual offerings to Vodun deities.” [Zaugg 2018, p. 130] “According to Muller, one way to tell "low-status" men and women from "distinguished gentlemen" and "important ladies" was by the beads they wore. Ordinary men had "poor-quality" beads round their necks; grandees sported gold beads an aggrey beads (prized ornaments of West African origin) in their hair a beards, and on their necks, arms, hands and legs. Ordinary women might "hang just one large blue bead" in their hair and had strings of "common" beads round their necks, arms and legs. Grandes dames, like their men, wore "precious stones and golden ornaments" in their hair and adorned their neck with "all kinds of beads-blue, red, brown, white, yellow."' Some Africanists sneer at the glass beads Europe brought to Africa. But the vital measure of personal ornaments is surely the pleasure charms they set off, not their cost of production. To call cheap but pretty beads rubbish is to see them through the eyes of a Western sophisticate, not those of an African consumer. "Genuine value," Lewis Mumford "lies in the power to sustain or enrich life: a glass bead may be than a diamond. […] real crystal beads as well as fake ones were brought to the coast of Kwaland, though obviously as presents or for sale to the elite. Crystal earrings are mentioned too. […] These were the status symbols, the privileges of rank and wealth that propped up the egos of African kings, chiefs, grandees, and rich helping to set them apart from the common folk. The roster of trappings would be long: […] glassware” [Alpern 1995, p. 23], [Alpern 1995, p. 29] “According to Muller, one way to tell "low-status" men and women from "distinguished gentlemen" and "important ladies" was by the beads they wore. Ordinary men had "poor-quality" beads round their necks; grandees sported gold beads an aggrey beads (prized ornaments of West African origin) in their hair a beards, and on their necks, arms, hands and legs. Ordinary women might "hang just one large blue bead" in their hair and had strings of "common" beads round their necks, arms and legs. Grandes dames, like their men, wore "precious stones and golden ornaments" in their hair and adorned their neck with "all kinds of beads-blue, red, brown, white, yellow."' Some Africanists sneer at the glass beads Europe brought to Africa. But the vital measure of personal ornaments is surely the pleasure charms they set off, not their cost of production. To call cheap but pretty beads rubbish is to see them through the eyes of a Western sophisticate, not those of an African consumer. "Genuine value," Lewis Mumford "lies in the power to sustain or enrich life: a glass bead may be than a diamond. […] real crystal beads as well as fake ones were brought to the coast of Kwaland, though obviously as presents or for sale to the elite. Crystal earrings are mentioned too.” [Alpern 1995, p. 23] “According to Muller, one way to tell "low-status" men and women at Fetu from "distinguished gentlemen" and "important ladies" was by the beads they wore. Ordinary men had "poor-quality" beads round their necks; grandees sported gold beads an aggrey beads (prized ornaments of West African origin) in their hair a beards, and on their necks, arms, hands and legs. Ordinary women might "hang just one large blue bead" in their hair and had strings of "common" beads round their necks, arms and legs. Grandes dames, like their men, wore "precious stones and golden ornaments" in their hair and adorned their neck with "all kinds of beads-blue, red, brown, white, yellow."' Some Africanists sneer at the glass beads Europe brought to Africa. But the vital measure of personal ornaments is surely the pleasure charms they set off, not their cost of production. To call cheap but pretty beads rubbish is to see them through the eyes of a Western sophisticate, not those of an African consumer. "Genuine value," Lewis Mumford "lies in the power to sustain or enrich life: a glass bead may be than a diamond. […] real crystal beads as well as fake ones were brought to the coast of Kwaland, though obviously as presents or for sale to the elite. Crystal earrings are mentioned too.” [Alpern 1995, p. 23]


[1671, 1727]
Luxury Food: Inferred Absent
Place(s) of Provenance: inferred absent
Consumption by Ruler: Inferred Absent
Consumption by Elite: Inferred Absent
Consumption by Common People: Inferred Absent

‘‘‘ Also, a note on vocabulary: The Gbe region is/was the area where Gbe languages were spoken. This includes the Allada polity. “As a result of the slave trade, the influx of foreign goods and their social use as status markers were pronounced phenomena in the Gbe region. […] Even gastronomic habits were influenced by the Atlantic trade: The king and the grandees, even the wealthy common people, eat like the French. Their table is set in the same manner; they have […] marmalades, which they buy from the Europeans; they take pride in excelling each other with regard to the meals they serve.” [Zaugg 2018, p. 125] “Exotic Foods: chocolate,, preserves, candied fruit, white biscuits, butter, cheese, pickled herring, barrels of salt beef or salt pork, casks of flour, […] any item, it would seem, that a European ship carried as provisions for its own officers and crew or for European residents of the coast-made suitable, often solicited, gifts for the African elite.” [Alpern 1995, p. 28] ‘‘‘ “As a result of the slave trade, the influx of foreign goods and their social use as status markers were pronounced phenomena in the Gbe region. […] Even gastronomic habits were influenced by the Atlantic trade: The king and the grandees, even the wealthy common people, eat like the French. Their table is set in the same manner; they have […] marmalades, which they buy from the Europeans; they take pride in excelling each other with regard to the meals they serve.” [Zaugg 2018, p. 125]


[1671, 1727]
Luxury Fabrics: Present
Place(s) of Provenance: foreign domestic
Consumption by Ruler: Present
Consumption by Elite: Present

“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, textiles, basketry, calabashes, pottery and other products for sale. […] Despite the indigenous origins and local orientation of these cities, trans-Atlantic trade emerged as an increasingly significant factor in urban-rural dynamics along the Slave Coast. During this period, human captives— taken in slave raids against weaker neighbors—became the predominant export from the region. 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.” [Monroe 2011, pp. 402-403] “African slave dealers, whether they were traditional chiefs, like those on the Slave Coast, or private traders, developed an expensive taste for European luxury goods, in particular for silks, velvets and gold-embroidered cloth. One might say that the slave trade prevented or suppressed the development of an African industry of refined luxury goods; but there are various accounts on the for instance, of an important cottage industry for the production of coarse cotton cloth on the Slave Coast. Some of this cloth was produced for export and bought by European traders who sold it again on other parts of the coast and even in the West Indies.” [Van_Dantzig 1975, p. 264] “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. Trade goods were thus hotly sought after in Allada and Hueda, and their respective kings jockeyed to corner the lion’s share of these new sources of power.” [Monroe 2011, p. 403] “The king and his dignitaries, as well as representatives of the European companies, were carried in hammocks of “braided or woven cotton” imported from Brazil.” [Zaugg 2018, p. 125] “As was the case in Allada, historical sources indicate that the Huedan king’s power rested largely on how well he was able to funnel Atlantic wealth into the hands of rural chiefs. Excavations conducted by Norman at rural sites reveal hardly any examples of such goods, however, indicating that the provinces and their rural hinterlands were never integrated economically into the circulation of imported commodities. Thus the countryside did not share in the Atlantic wealth that defined court life at Savi.” [Monroe 2011, p. 404] “In Hueda, as a French slave ship captain explained, the “grandees” used to wear “a piece of silk cloth, six to seven au[nes] long,” around their waists.” [Zaugg 2018, p. 125]


[1671, 1727]
Luxury Drink/Alcohol: Present
Place(s) of Provenance: Portuguese Empire - Early Modern
Consumption by Ruler: Present
Consumption by Elite: Present
Consumption by Common People: Present

‘‘‘ Also, a note on vocabulary: The Gbe region is/was the area where Gbe languages were spoken. This includes the Allada polity.“As a result of the slave trade, the influx of foreign goods and their social use as status markers were pronounced phenomena in the Gbe region. […] Even gastronomic habits were influenced by the Atlantic trade: The king and the grandees, even the wealthy common people, eat like the French. Their table is set in the same manner; they have […] good wines, liquors […] which they buy from the Europeans; they take pride in excelling each other with regard to the meals they serve.” [Zaugg 2018, p. 125] “Wine: introduced by the first Portuguese, it continued to be sent to Kwaland through the whole slave-trade period. Much of it was intended for European residents, but it was also given or sold as a luxury to the African upper class. It came from mainland Portugal and Spain, Madeira, the Canary Islands, and France. Dutch, English, and later American slavers would pick up port, malmsey, or Tenerife wine en route to West Africa. […] Exotic Foods: tea, coffee […] bottled beer, distilled water - any item, it would seem, that a European ship carried as provisions for its own officers and crew or for European residents of the coast-made suitable, often solicited, gifts for the African elite.” [Alpern 1995, p. 25], [Alpern 1995, p. 28] ‘‘‘ Also, a note on vocabulary: The Gbe region is/was the area where Gbe languages were spoken. This includes the Allada polity. “As a result of the slave trade, the influx of foreign goods and their social use as status markers were pronounced phenomena in the Gbe region. […] Even gastronomic habits were influenced by the Atlantic trade: The king and the grandees, even the wealthy common people, eat like the French. Their table is set in the same manner; they have […] good wines, liquors […] which they buy from the Europeans; they take pride in excelling each other with regard to the meals they serve.” [Zaugg 2018, p. 125] “Wine: introduced by the first Portuguese, it continued to be sent to Kwaland through the whole slave-trade period. Much of it was intended for European residents, but it was also given or sold as a luxury to the African upper class. It came from mainland Portugal and Spain, Madeira, the Canary Islands, and France. Dutch, English, and later American slavers would pick up port, malmsey, or Tenerife wine en route to West Africa. […] Exotic Foods: tea, coffee […] bottled beer, distilled water - any item, it would seem, that a European ship carried as provisions for its own officers and crew or for European residents of the coast-made suitable, often solicited, gifts for the African elite. […] Pompous trappings shade into high-quality items in every category of trade good: for example, fine wines” [Alpern 1995, p. 25], [Alpern 1995, p. 28], [Alpern 1995, p. 30] ‘‘‘ “As a result of the slave trade, the influx of foreign goods and their social use as status markers were pronounced phenomena in the Gbe region. […] Even gastronomic habits were influenced by the Atlantic trade: The king and the grandees, even the wealthy common people, eat like the French. Their table is set in the same manner; they have […] good wines, liquors […] which they buy from the Europeans; they take pride in excelling each other with regard to the meals they serve.” [Zaugg 2018, p. 125]


[1671, 1727]
Luxury Precious Stone: Present
Consumption by Ruler: Present
Consumption by Elite: Present

The following quote broadly refers to elites in West Africa at this time. “Grandes dames, like their men, wore "precious stones and golden ornaments" in their hair […] Semiprecious stones: agates, amber, garnets, bloodstones, and carnelians are mentioned. Amber came in the form of beads, bracelets, necklaces, and rings. Popular beads called rangoes or arrangoes may have been carnelians imported from India, or glass imitatations” [Alpern 1995, p. 22]


[1671, 1727]
Luxury Fine Ceramic Wares: Present
Place(s) of Provenance: British Empire I
Dutch Empire
French Kingdom - Late Bourbon
Portuguese Empire - Early Modern
Consumption by Ruler: Present
Consumption by Elite: Inferred Absent
Consumption by Common People: Absent

“The archaeologically recorded most likely related to personal or familial levels of veneration as they are located inside architectural zones designated as house compounds. At Loci 2, 4, and 7, shrines contained collections of nails, beads, and imported/local smoking pipes. This finding indicates Huedans expended some of the gains pouring into the area from throughout the Atlantic world on the veneration of cosmological actors. However, these shrines were repositories for local material as well. From possible religious/ritual contexts, archaeological project members recovered locally produced expediently constructed, utilitarian ceramics that are striking similar in size, form, decoration, and construction modern ritual vessels”. [Norman 2009, p. 402] “In the second half of the seventeenth century, a veritable porcelain-mania broke out among European monarchs and European elites […] Only a few of those Chinese ceramic vessels brought to Europe were re-embarked on ships sailing to West Africa, whether for use by company officers or as gifts for African partner.” [Zaugg 2018, pp. 117-132] The following quote refers to the archaeological site of Savi, in Hueda territory “At its center, Kelly located a series of deep ditches encircling a royal precinct covering an area of 6.5 hectares and centering on the remains of a large palace complex. This area would have served as the primary location for public ceremonies glorifying the king and his dynasty. European traders were required to live in trading lodges that were built near the palace within this royal precinct, and a marketplace was established under the watchful gaze of the king. This was, in all probability, an attempt to control the European merchants, increasingly important sources of wealth—and of potential instability. Kelly’s excavations in the royal palace recovered large quantities of imported trade goods, including Dutch tobacco pipes, Chinese porcelains, wine and liquor bottles, and even Dutch bricks lining the palace floors. Importantly, these objects were recovered in the palace’s most public areas, precisely where the king received guests, indicating the importance of such goods to the symbolic power and authority of the Huedan monarchy.” [Monroe 2011, p. 404] “During his stay in Savi, the barber-surgeon was lodged in the palace district—in a room which he described as a windowless “beggars’ hovel”—and was admitted to the court of King Agbangla of Hueda (r. early 1680s–1703). The monarch and his mud-walled residence left a vivid impression on Oettinger, who at the same time struggled to make sense of what he saw around him. When recording in his journal what had elicited his curiosity during an audience, Oettinger noted— amongst other things—that the king “constantly smokes tobacco from a pipe about two ells long, which holds a big handful of tobacco; he also has a porcelain bowl, in which he spits.” […] “In the 1990s, while excavating the palace complex at Savi (completely destroyed during the Dahomean conquest in 1727), the archaeologist Kenneth G. Kelly discovered some shards of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain. They were located in a room floored with “exotic” Dutch bricks that had presumably been the audience hall. Although we cannot of course be sure that the shards—now exhibited at the Musée d’histoire de Ouidah—are the remains of the specific vessel employed by King Agbangla as a spittoon, these findings strikingly converge with the observations made by Oettinger in 1693, attesting the display of porcelain items in the royalaudience hall.” [Zaugg 2018, p. 117], [Zaugg 2018, p. 135] “In general, and even though the presence of porcelain became more frequent over the early modern era, Asian ceramics—unlike tobacco—never became a widely consumed commodity in West Africa during the period under consideration. Rather, they belonged to that category of “exotic” goods that kings would display at court to impress their subjects.” [Zaugg 2018, p. 117], [Zaugg 2018, pp. 134-135]



Human Sacrifice Data
Human Sacrifice is the deliberate and ritualized killing of a person to please or placate supernatural entities (including gods, spirits, and ancestors) or gain other supernatural benefits.
Coding in Progress.
Coding in Progress.
Power Transitions
Coding in Progress.