Ouidah. Robin Law
governor of Allada to the north, from where forces were evidently sent temporarily to support the Ouidah garrison. In July or August 1755 they apparently attacked Ouidah itself, but were driven off by the local Dahomian forces.78 In October of the same year the Hueda, this time assisted by the Popos, again raided the beach, where they seized several Europeans, and remained for two and a half days, defeating the local Dahomian forces and inflicting severe casualties, including ‘an army General, 3 Captains of War, several of the principal merchants, and many soldiers’; those killed on the Dahomian side on this occasion included the Caho, commander-in-chief of the Ouidah garrison, and the Boya, one of the king’s merchants. Ouidah itself was again attacked, or at least threatened, since the English fort recorded that its African personnel had been afraid to go out to buy provisions until reinforcements for the garrison arrived; once again the Aplogan came ‘down from Arda [Allada] on the first alarm’, this time followed shortly afterwards by the main Dahomian army under the command of the Gau.79 The nervousness arising from this raid was still apparent at the beginning of the following year, when Europeans returning from attending the ‘Annual Customs’ at the capital were escorted from Allada to Ouidah by forces supplied by the Aplogan, ‘on account of the Whydahs’. Later in the year, in September or October, there was a further raid by the Popos (the Hueda this time not being explicitly mentioned), once more causing the Aplogan to be summoned down from Allada, followed again by the main army under the Gau.80
The most serious attack in the series came on 12 July 1763, when a combined force of Hueda and Popo, commanded by a son of Ashangmo called Foli (‘Affurey’ in contemporary reports), crossed to the north of the lagoon and attacked the town of Ouidah itself. The Yovogan was wounded in the action and took refuge in the French fort. The town was abandoned to the invaders, who ‘set the suburbs on fire’ and were ‘preparing to burn the vice-roy’s quarters’, when they were checked by artillery fire from the English fort. The Dahomian forces then rallied and repelled the invaders, with great slaughter; 30 of 32 generals of the attacking army were killed in the action and its commander Foli committed suicide in his disgrace, the main Dahomian army under the Gau this time arriving only after the fighting was over.81 The tree under which Foli shot himself continued to be identified into the nineteenth century, and even beyond.82
The war of 1763 did not mark the end of Hueda–Popo raids, but nevertheless represented a decisive defeat of the exiled Hueda and their allies, who were no longer able to present any serious threat to Dahomian control of Ouidah. After 1763, they gave up the attempt to dispute possession of the town, contenting themselves with raiding the beach to the south in order to disrupt the operation of the European trade, though they may have calculated that the destruction of the town’s commercial value would eventually persuade the Dahomians to abandon it.83 In April 1767, for example, a party of Popos raided the beach and plundered goods landed from European ships which they found there, but did not advance any further; there was another raid in February 1768, and further attacks were feared, raising apprehensions for the security of the European forts at Ouidah.84 In 1769 Tegbesu announced that he was ‘at peace with the Popoes’, but this was evidently only short-lived.85 Between July and September 1770, the Hueda–Popo forces made no fewer than five raids on the beach, plundering goods and burning the Europeans’ tents and canoes. On a final raid they stayed four days, 16–20 September, provoking fears that they might attack Ouidah itself, where the French fort put itself in readiness against such an event; but no such attack materialized, the Hueda retiring upon the approach of a reinforcing Dahomian force, commanded this time by the Mehu, the second most senior chief of Dahomey.86 Early in 1772 the Popos again seized control of the beach and interrupted communication between Ouidah and the shipping for an entire month, causing the main Dahomian army under the Gau again to be sent down to protect the town.87
Later in 1772, Tegbesu enlisted the governor of the English fort, Lionel Abson, to negotiate peace with Little Popo; and in July the Mehu was sent down to Ouidah, invested with full powers ‘to settle all differences with the Popos’.88 The exiled Hueda are not explicitly mentioned as parties to these negotiations, which suggests that they had been abandoned by their erstwhile allies. King Kpengla, who succeeded to the Dahomian throne in 1774, was able to go over on to the offensive against the Hueda. His opportunity was provided, as for Agaja in 1733, by a disputed succession to the Hueda kingship. Following the death of the reigning king, the throne was contested between two princes, Agbamu and Yé (these names being given as ‘Agbavou’ and ‘Eyee’ in a contemporary report). Agbamu initially seized control and drove out his rival, but the latter then appealed for assistance to Kpengla. Dahomian forces invaded the Hueda country and besieged Agbamu on an ‘island’, into which they eventually forced entry by building a causeway across the lagoon. Agbamu surrendered and was taken captive to Dahomey, where he was executed, his head being exhibited to a visiting European in the following year.89
In Hueda tradition, the defeat and death of Agbamu in 1775 are recognized as marking the end of the kingdom’s independence and ‘the end of the resistance’.90 In fact, it does not appear that the exiled Hueda community became formally subject to Dahomey. Although Yé was enthroned as their king, he was deposed in an internal coup soon afterwards, without the Dahomians attempting further intervention in his support;91 and in 1776 the Hueda were described as preserving ‘neutrality’, implying that they remained beyond formal Dahomian rule.92 Their military power, however, had been decisively curbed, and the regular raids they had mounted against Ouidah now came to an end; subsequent hostilities involved rather Dahomian raids on the Hueda in their place of exile, as on several occasions during the 1780s.93 Little Popo to the west remained a threat for several years longer. In 1777 the king of Popo sent to Ouidah to give notice of the termination of the peace with Dahomey.94 In 1778 and 1780 there were reports that the Popos intended to attack, causing the Europeans to bring their canoes north of the lagoon for safety; in 1781 the main Dahomian army under the Gau was posted to Savi as a precaution against an invasion, and in 1784 there were again rumours of an impending attack.95 But, in the event, no attacks materialized. In 1789 there were fears that the Popos might attack Ouidah itself, causing the Posu, the second-in-command of the metropolitan army, to be sent down to defend the town, but again the reports proved false.96 The threat from Little Popo was finally brought to a definitive end in 1795, when Dahomey allied with Grand-Popo to inflict a crushing defeat upon it.97
No serious threat to Dahomian possession of Ouidah seems ever to have been offered from any other quarter. In 1787–8 there were reports that forces from Porto-Novo and Badagry, to the east, planned to attack Ouidah, but no attack in fact occurred.98 Again, in 1803, there were fears of an attack on the town by enemy forces in the neighbourhood, and a false alarm caused the Yovogan to take refuge in the English fort, but no attack materialized, and a Dahomian force was despatched to chase off the raiders; although the attackers on this occasion are not identified in the contemporary report, they were probably also from Badagry.99 Thereafter, no challenge to Dahomian control of Ouidah occurred for the remainder of the nineteenth century until the war with France in the 1890s.
The Dahomian conquest in local tradition
In the traditions of Ouidah, as recorded in the twentieth century, it is the campaign of 1743 under Tegbesu, rather than the original invasion of the Hueda kingdom by Agaja in 1727, which is regarded as representing the definitive Dahomian conquest of the town, although this campaign is commonly given the incorrect date of 1741, derived from published European sources.100 The Ouidah traditions, however, present a distorted account of the Dahomian conquest, which in particular telescopes events that in fact occurred over several years into a single campaign. Although unreliable as a source for the actual events of the Dahomian conquest, these stories are illuminating of the way in which the Ouidah community viewed its historical relationship both to the pre–1727 Hueda monarchy and to the Dahomian state that replaced it, and therefore warrant extended treatment here.
Some brief accounts of local traditions concerning the Dahomian conquest were already recorded by European visitors to Ouidah in the 1860s.101 More extended accounts were recorded by French administrators in the early years of colonial rule, first by Gavoy in 1913, with supplementary