Ouidah. Robin Law
Danish fort, which was ‘now quite forgotten’; very probably, the later ‘tradition’ derives from his work.
117. Paul Erdman Isert, Letters on West Africa and the Slave Trade (trans. Selena Axelrod Winsnes, London, 1992), 96; see discussion in Klavs Randsborg, et al., ‘Subterranean structures: archaeology in Bénin, West Africa’, Acta Archeologica, 69 (1998), 219.
118. Burton, Mission, i, 83.
119. Agbo, Histoire, 32–3; Forbes, Dahomey. i, 224; Burton, Mission, i, 156. However, Agbo’s statement that the Ouidah forts were the first ‘storey houses [maisons à l’étage]’ on the Slave Coast is not accurate, since already in 1670 part of the royal palace at Allada was ‘raised in two storeys’: ‘Journal du voyage du Sieur Delbée’, in J. de Clodoré (ed.), Relation de ce qui s’est passé dans les isles et terre-ferme de l’Amérique pendant la dernière guerre avec l’Angleterre (Paris, 1671), 418–19.
120. ‘Relation du royaume de Judas’, 67; William Snelgrave, A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea, and the Slave Trade (London, 1734), 128.
121. ANF, C6/25, ‘Mémoire concernant la Colonie de Juda’, 1722.
122. For Elmina, see Feinberg, Africans and Europeans.
123. Robin Law, ‘“Here is no resisting the country”: the realities of power in Afro-European relations on the West African “Slave Coast”’, Itinerario, 18 (1994), 50–64.
124. Van Dantzig, Dutch and the Guinea Coast, no. 115: W. de la Palma, Elmina, 10 Oct. 1703, with no. 121, copy of agreement, 25 Apr. 1703; text of the treaty also in des Marchais, ‘Journal’, 29–30v; Labat, Voyage, ii, 88–91. The date given in the latter, 8 Sept. 1704, is that of a subsequent renewal of the treaty.
125. ANF, C6/25, Du Colombier, Hueda, 4 Feb. 1715; PRO, C113/276, Randle Logan, 20 Feb. 1715.
126. Agbo, Histoire, 41.
127. Gavoy, ‘Note historique’, 49.
128. Obra nova de lingua geral de Mina de António da Costa Peixoto (ed. Luís Silveira & Edmundo Correia Lopes, Lisbon, 1945), 20 (giving the term in the form ‘sujaquem’).
129. Burton, Mission, i, 65, n. The suggestion sometimes made that ‘Aguda’ derives from ‘Ajudá’, the Portuguese version of the name Hueda, is unlikely on both linguistic and historical grounds.
130. First in ibid., i, 64–5.
131. Gavoy, ‘Note historique’, 50–51.
132. Fall et al., ‘Typologie’, 66; also fieldwork, Zossoungbo compound, 9 Jan. 1996.
133. Local informants offer derivations from doko, a form of bean cake supposedly sold in the area, or from the male personal name Dosu, supposedly a member of the founding family. These look like imaginative speculations.
134. Reynier, ‘Ouidah’, 32–3; also fieldwork, Agbamou compound, 11 Dec. 2001.
135. Reynier, ‘Ouidah’, 38–9; cf. Gavoy, ‘Note historique’, 66; also fieldwork, Sebastien Amoua, 11 Dec. 2001. The name is alternatively spelt ‘Ahomblaca’ or ‘Baclahahoun’. Reynier says that Ahohunbakla was a nephew (son of a sister) of Kpate, but Sebastien Amoua says that Kpate was his son.
136. Merlo, ‘Hiérarchie fétichiste’, 16–17, who gives the name in the form ‘Ahoho Agbangla’ (ahoho meaning apparently ‘old king’); however, this identification is not recognized in local tradition.
137. Gavoy, ‘Note historique’, 67; Reynier, ‘Ouidah’, 35; fieldwork, Zossoungbo compound, 9 Jan. 1996; Déhoué compound, 9 Jan. 1996.
138. Davenant, Reflections, in Works, v, 226.
139. Phillips, ‘Journal’, 228; ANF, C6/25, ‘Mémoire de l’estat du pays de Juda’, 1716. The term ‘Minas’, although in origin referring specifically to Elmina (originally ‘A Mina’, ‘The Mine’ in Portuguese), the Dutch headquarters on the Gold Coast, was frequently used in a wider sense, of persons from the Gold Coast (called the ‘Costa da Mina’ in Portuguese usage) in general.
140. Law, Kingdom of Allada, 90–1; cf. Eltis, Rise of African Slavery, 226.
141. Parker, Making the Town, 10–14.
142. Already in the earliest documents surviving from the French fort: ANF, C6/25, ‘Estat ou mémoire de la dépense nécessaire pour relever le fort de Juda et pour l’entretien du directeur et des employés’, enc. to Du Colombier, 10 Aug. 1714. For ‘Acqueras’ as an ethnonym, see Law, Slave Coast, 189–90.
143. ANF, C6/25, Levesque, 4 April 1723. One early eighteenth-century account refers to the slaves of the French fort in Ouidah as ‘Bambaras’, which is a name usually given to slaves from the interior of Senegambia; but this is presumably used here in a generic sense, transferred from Senegambian usage, for slaves employed as soldiers: Labat, Voyage, ii, 34.
144. See, for example, Barbot, On Guinea, ii, 529; Phillips, ‘Journal’, 210, 228–9.
145. ‘Relation du voyage de Guynée fait en 1687 sur la frégate “La Tempeste” par le Sieur Du Casse’, in Roussier, L’Etablissement d’Issigny, 15.
146. Bosman, Description, 50–51.
147. ANF, C6/25, Du Colombier, 10 Aug. 1714. This disadvantage of the French is mentioned in several later documents, and was an argument regularly used in support of proposals for the French to acquire a fort on the Gold Coast.
148. ANF, C6/25, Pruneau & Guestard, ‘Mémoire pour servir à l’intelligence du commerce de Juda’, 18 March 1750.
149. Law, English in West Africa, ii, no. 819: Carter, Ouidah, 22 Nov. 1686.
150. Phillips, ‘Journal’, 219; Bosman, Description, 375.
151. William Smith, A New Voyage to Guinea (London, 1744), 192; Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge, 2/115.
152. ANF, C6/25, ‘Le Fort de Juda, Côte de Guinée’, n.d. [1714?]; C6/26, Baud-Duchiron, ‘Exploration et construction du comptoir de Juda’, 1 Sept. 1778; C6/27, Gourg, ‘Mémoire pour servir d’instruction au Directeur qui me succédera au comptoir de Juda’, 1791.
153. Verger, Flux et reflux, 136.
154. Law, Kingdom of Allada, 14.
155. Law, English in West Africa, ii, no. 822: Carter, Ouidah, 6 Jan. 1687.
156. For Abomey, see Sylvain C. Anignikin, ‘Etude sur l’évolution historique sociale et spatiale de la ville d’Abomey’ (Ministère de l’Equipement et des Transports, République Populaire du Bénin, 1986).
157. Although it should be noted that there is no reference to a market in Ouidah (as opposed to the capital Savi) in contemporary sources prior to the Dahomian conquest.
158. Labat, Voyage, ii, 33.
159. Barbot, On Guinea, ii, 635, 642.
160. Des Marchais, ‘Journal’, 41v; Labat, Voyage, ii, 12. The second element in the title seems to be a generic term for provincial governors, given in the form ‘onto’ in another source: ‘Relation du royaume de Judas’, 27. Perhaps ‘zonto’ is a miscopying of ‘honto’, i.e. hunto, which meant in origin ‘ship’s captain’ (hun = ‘boat’) but, at least by the nineteenth century, was also applied to indigenous officials: see Burton, Mission, i, 121, n.
161. This now seems to me more likely than that he held the title Yovogan, as suggested in Law, Slave Coast, 214.
162. Law, English in West Africa, i, no. 478, enc., Accounts of Thorne, Glehue, 20 April 1681, giving the title in the form ‘Captain Blanko’ (from Portuguese branco, ‘white’). The indigenous title is given (as