Ouidah (English: ; French: ) or Whydah (; Ouidah, Juida, and Juda by the French;Kein, Sybil, Creole, p. 227. Ajudá by the Portuguese;http://www.red.unb.br/index.php/ textos/article/viewArticle/5714 and Fida by the Dutch), and known locally as Glexwe, formerly the chief port of the Kingdom of Whydah, is a city on the coast of the Republic of Benin. The commune covers an area of and as of 2002 had a population of 76,555 people.
History
In local tradition Kpassa is supposed to have founded the town.Robin Law, Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving 'Port', 1727–1892, 2004, p. 21. This probably happened towards the end of the sixteenth century.Law, Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving 'Port', 1727–1892, 2004, pp. 24–25. The town was originally known as Glēxwé, literally 'Farmhouse', and was part of the Kingdom of Whydah.
Ouidah saw its role in international trade rise when the Royal African Company (RAC) constructed a fort there in 1650.national "Benin History Timeline", One World Nations Online.
Whydah troops pushed their way into the African interior, capturing millions of people through wars, and selling them to European and Arab slave traders.Ouidah Museum, Benin – "Depart pour D'Autres 'Ceux', Convoi De negres: homes, femmes et enfants, conduits enchaines par des metis Arabes" Brandenburg established some forts between the years 1682 and 1700,Andrea Weindl, Die Kurbrandenburger im ‘atlantischen System’ 1650-1720,Universität zu Köln ISSN 1616-9085 p. 23 alongside the English (British after 1707) and Dutch. By 1716, the Kingdom of Whydah had become the second largest slave port in the triangular trade, as noted by the crew of the slave ship Whydah Gally when it arrived to purchase 500 slaves from King Haffon to sell in Jamaica.
The Kingdom was ruled by King Haffon, who received his coronation crown as a gift from Portugal, until, in 1727, the Kingdom of Whydah was captured by the forces of King Agaja of Dahomey.Butler, Stuart (2019), Bradt Travel Guide – Benin, pp. 101–112. On 19 March 1727, The Boston News-Letter gave this report:
In 1860, Whydah was the port that sent the last recorded shipment of slaves to the United States, even though that country had prohibited the transatlantic slave trade in 1808. This illegal shipment was aboard the Clotilda and went to Mobile, Alabama."Last Slaver from U.S. to Africa. A.D. 1860": Capt. William Foster, Journal of Clotilda, 1860, Mobile Public Library Digital Collections; accessed 28 January 2018. The last shipment of slaves to Spanish Cuba occurred as late as 1873.Transatlantic slavery continued for years after 1867, historian finds The Guardian
France captured the town in 1894, by which time the town had declined due to the outlawing of the slave trade. In the time frame of 1946–1949 French government estimates put the population of Ouidah at about 14,600. By then it had a railway. It was a centre for production and trade in palm kernels, palm oil, copra, coffee, manioc, beans, tomatoes and onions. It was also a centre of the fish trade and the manufacture of vegetable oil. It had Catholic, Protestant and Muslim places of worship.Columbia-Lippincott Gazetteer, p. 1408.
European involvement in West Africa differed between the Slave Coast and the Gold Coast. In contrast to the grand forts of the Gold Coast, William's Fort at Ouidah (ex-Slave Coast) stood as a testimonial to the slave trade.Robin Law, Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving 'Port', 1727–1892 (Oxford: James Currey, 2004).A.W. Lawrence, Trade Castles and Forts of West Africa (London: Jonathan Cape, 1963).
Today, Ouidah is economically peripheral, and 'cultural tourism' based on the slave trade is less successful. Unlike true ports, Ouidah was inland. Slaves and goods were transported along the "slave route" to the beach for embarkation.Robin Law, 'Between the Sea and the Lagoons: The Interaction of Maritime and Inland Navigation on the Pre-colonial Slave Coast', Cahiers d’études africaines 29 (1989): 209–237.K.B. Dickson, 'Evolution of Seaports in Ghana: 1800–1928', Annals of the Association of American Geographers 55 (1965): 98–111. Ships couldn't approach due to sandbars and used canoes for communication (common on both the Slave Coast and the Gold Coast).
Fort of São João Baptista de Ajudá
The Fort of São João Baptista de Ajudá (in English Fort of St John the Baptist of Ouidah) is a small fortress built by the Portuguese in Ouidah on the coast of Dahomey (originally Ajudá, from Hweda, on the Atlantic coast of modern Benin), reached by the Portuguese in 1580, after which it grew around the slave trade, for which the Slave Coast was already renowned. In 1680 the Portuguese governor of São Tomé and Príncipe was authorized to erect a fort but nothing was done and it was only in 1721 that construction of the fort, which was named Fort of São João Baptista de Ajudá, started. The fort, built on land given to Portugal by King Haffon of Whydah, remained under Portuguese control from 1721 until 1961.
William's Fort
Introduction Ouidah's importance arose from the fact that several European powers (French, Portuguese, English) competed for influence, weakening their overall authority.Law, Robin. "William’s Fort: The English Fort at Ouidah, 1680s–1960s." Forts, Castles and Society in West Africa. Brill, 2018. 119-147.Simone Berbain, Le Comptoir français de Ouidah (Juda) au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: ifan, 1942).Pierre Verger, Le Fort Saint Jean-Baptiste d’Ajuda (Porto Novo: IRAD, 1966). The British presence peaked at the height of the slave trade (1680s-1710s) before shifting focus.David Eltis, Paul E. Lovejoy, and David Richardson, 'Slave-trading Ports: Towards an Atlanticwide Perspective', in Robin Law and Silke Strickrodt (eds.), Ports of the Slave Trade (Bights of Benin and Biafra) (University of Stirling: Centre of Commonwealth Studies, 1999), 12–34. The 1830s saw a switch to palm oil, dominated by French companies. This coincided with Ouidah's decline compared to Cotonou's better port access that French colonial rule consolidated.
William's Fort William's Fort began as a modest English trading post in the late 17th century, named after King William III and initially fortified during his reign (1689–1702).Venance S. Quénum, Ouidah: Cité historique des 'Houeda' (Ouidah: B.Quenum, 1983), 12. The English presence in Ouidah predates the fort, with the Royal African Company suffering initial setbacks before securing a permanent factory in 1684,Robin Law, The Kingdom of Allada (Leiden: Research School cnws, 1997), 5–9.Robin Law, The English in West Africa: The Local Correspondence of the Royal African Company of England, 1681–1699 (3 vols., Oxford, 1997, 2001, 2006), i, nos. 476–478. with guns often only used for salutes.P.E.H. Hair, Adam Jones, and Robin Law (eds.), Barbot on Guinea: The Writings of Jean Barbot on West Africa, 1678–1712 (2 vols., London:Hakluyt Society, 1992), 647, n. 6.
Built of mud and straw, early fortifications were simple, with cannons probably used for signal purposes rather than combat.Law, English in West Africa, ii, no. 820: John Carter, Whydah, 6 December 1686.Law, English in West Africa, ii, no. 1342: John Wortley, Whydah, 5 January 1692. Tensions with the French factory culminated in an exchange of fire in 1692, prompting the English to build proper fortifications. Historical documents later describe the fort as an important slave trading facility.Law, English in West Africa, ii, nos. 813, 822.John Carter, Whydah, 28 December 1685, 6 January 1687.
Despite being deserted by the British in 1812,I.A. Akinjogbin, Dahomey and its Neighbours, 1708–1818 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 192. the fort had a surprisingly large populace. The British attempted to reoccupy it with a vice-consulate, but encountered difficulties.Robin Law (ed.), Dahomey and the Ending of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: The Journals and Correspondence of Vice-Consul Louis Fraser, 1851–1852 (London: Oxford University Press, 2012). Missionaries from the English Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society took up residence for a time and even built a chapel.Burton, Richard. A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1864. The fort then returned to the commercial sphere, with various trading companies controlling it.J.A. Skertchly, Dahomey As It Is (London: Chapman and Hall, 1874), 46.Bismarck to King Glele, 16 January 1882, in Milan Kalous, 'Some Correspondence between the German Empire and Dahomey in 1882–1892', Cahiers d’études africaines 8 (1968): 635–641, 636.Casimir Agbo, Histoire de Ouidah (Avignon: Presses de la Maison Aubanel Père, 1959), 30. Interestingly, it was even under French control during the First World War.Frank J. Quinn, A Coaster’s Letters from Dahomey, French West Africa (n.p., 1928), 54. The local area around the fort still reflects its British past with names like "The English Fort" and a shop named after the last British resident.Sinou and Agbo, Ouidah et son patrimoine, 133.
Limited local power Unlike their counterparts on the Gold Coast, the European forts in Ouidah, including William's Fort, lacked real authority. They couldn't compete militarily with local rulers and deferred to them, first in Hueda and then in Dahomey.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. This was very unlike the Gold Coast forts, such as Cape Coast Castle, which eventually evolved into full colonies. At William's Fort, abandoned by the British in 1812, French reconstruction relied on private enterprise rather than government interventionIbid.).
The key difference was one of legal authority. European forts, even large ones, weren't sovereign entities in West Africa. They remained under African control, essentially acting as 'tenants' with limited powers, paying rent to local rulers.K.G. Davies, The Royal African Company (London: Longmans, 1957), 282.Larry Yarak, Asante and the Dutch, 1744–1873 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 133–172.Journal of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, Vol. 9 (London: hmso, 1932), 270–271 (14 February 1752). The European presence in Ouidah, particularly at William's Fort, was particularly weak. The Dahomians saw the European governors as part of their own system, not as independent rulers. This is reflected in the king's expectation of their attendance at feasts and the way they were treated on death, which mirrored Dahomian officials.Law, Ouidah, 57.Akinjogbin, Dahomey, 190.
A microcosm of Ouidah society The European forts in Ouidah, especially William's Fort with its extensive records, offer a unique perspective on the social and economic life of the city. These records document interactions with the local community, particularly those employed by the fort (both enslaved and free Africans) and those providing various services. William's Fort itself functioned as a commercial centre, relying on local currency and outside suppliers. Historians can use these records, including wages and prices, to trace economic trends within Ouidah.Robin Law, 'Posthumous Questions for Karl Polanyi: Price Inflation in Pre-colonial Dahomey', Journal of African History 33 (1992): 387–420.