The Long Goodbye

The ruler of Dahomey from 1797 (up until possibly 1818) was Adandozan. But his reign has been erased from oral memory and the local tradition. Why this is so, constitutes another mystery in Dahomean history. In any case, his reign and that of his successors saw the official but slow and tortuous disentanglement of the European and American powers from slavery, the slave trade, and the Slave Coast (until the colonial conquest). As the locals were opposed to the abolition of the slave trade, the result was for a while a moderately thriving so-called illegal slave trade with the connivance of the Brazilian authorities. In addition, a trade in palm-oil developed. If we add the final collapse of Oyo and the subsequent eruption of the Yoruba wars, we could say that prospects looked fairly promising for Dahomey. Dahomey was eclipsed, and in fact defeated at times, by the polities (some new) of the Yoruba in the east, principally Lagos and Abeokuta.