Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving "Port," 1727-1892 (review)

Robin Law's Ouidah, the latest of his works on precolonial West African history, is a splendid study of a town that figured prominently in the history of the Atlantic slave trade. While the subtitle suggests that this book is largely a social history—given its discussion of Ouidah as a town subordinate to and often in conflict with its long-time overlord, Dahomey, as well as a town with many residents from different locales from around the world—in reality Law focuses just as much, if not more, on the its political and economic history. The author uses European documentary sources and oral traditions most effectively to explore the origins of Ouidah, the conquest of the town by Dahomey and the character of Dahomeyan Ouidah, the operations of the slave trade during both its legal and illegal phases, and the transition from slaves to palm oil.

Law's most impressive accomplishment is his ability to bring together in his treatment of the oral sources an analysis of memory and the ongoing discussions about how the slave trade is remembered in Ouidah in the context of a growing heritage tourism industry. He also discusses two other coastal West African ports—Elmina and Lagos—to provide a comparative context for the history of Ouidah (which technically was not a port, but operated more or less as one nevertheless). Challenges to and verifications of underinvestigated ideas in the economic history literature are interposed throughout this superbly written text.

As a social and cultural historian, I found Law's efforts to document the experiences of those enslaved and transported through Ouidah particularly admirable. His detailed discussion of Francisco Felix de Souza and the Brazilian community in Ouidah as it operated within both local and international political and economic networks is also very informative. By documenting the expansion and contraction of the town's districts, Law's study provides considerable insight into the history of Ouidah as a coherent yet constantly changing social, cultural, and political unit. I would have loved to have seen more on gender relations in Ouidah (a topic confined largely to the discussion of the roles of the enslaved and the evolving role of women and men in the palm oil trade). The religious history of the town is given fuller attention, largely in the context of Ouidah's residential and political history, but the book left me wanting still more, even of a speculative nature.

Despite these minor quibbles—which may have more to do with the limitations of the sources than with the author's choices—this is an excellent study that should be of great interest to those studying West African precolonial history, the history of the Atlantic slave trade, and premodern urban history.