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Chapter two Ouidah as a Multiethnic Community Robin Law The town of Ouidah, in the modern Republic of Bénin (formerly the French colony of Dahomey), was one of the preeminent “port” towns on the Atlantic coast of Africa in the precolonial period.1 It was a major point of embarkation of slaves for export across the Atlantic from the 1670s onward, and continued to flourish in this role even after the legal prohibition of the slave trade in the early nineteenth century, into the early 1860s. The only African exporting city that exceeded Ouidah in volume and importance for the transatlantic slave trade was Luanda, covered by Roquinaldo Ferreira in his chapter of this volume. Ouidah’s role as a commercial entrepôt was carried over into the “legitimate commerce” in palm oil and kernels, which developed to replace the slave trade from the 1840s onward, though by the end of the nineteenth century it had been overshadowed by the new port of Cotonou, to the east, and in the colonial period it was altogether commercially marginalized. Initially , it was subject to the small coastal kingdom of Hueda (whence the name “Ouidah”),2 but in 1727 Hueda was conquered by the kingdom of Dahomey, whose capital was at Abomey some one hundred kilometers inland, to which the town of Ouidah then became subject, until the French colonial conquest in 1892. From its long history of involvement in overseas commerce, Ouidah grew to be a substantial urban center, its population being estimated by European visitors at around seven to eight thousand in the second half of the eighteenth century, rising to between fifteen and twenty thousand by the mid-nineteenth century.3 The process of its demographic and spatial growth can be traced through the history of the foundation of its component quarters.4 As it existed 43 Ouidah by the mid-nineteenth century, Ouidah comprised twelve distinct quarters, only one of which (Tovè, in the northeast) predated the beginning of continuous European trade in the 1670s. Three others were formed during the period of Hueda rule (to 1727). These were those associated with the three European fortified trading posts that were established in the town: from west to east (which was also the chronological order of their foundation) the French (Ahouandjigo quarter), English (Sogbadji), and Portuguese (Docomè). Two quarters on the north of the town (Fonsaramè, Cahosaramè) represent the Dahomian administrative and military establishment installed after the Dahomian conquest of 1727. The remaining six quarters, all on the western side of the town, were founded in the nineteenth century, mostly by individual wealthy merchants. One (Ganvè) represents the household of Nicolas d’Oliveira, an Afro-French merchant prominent in the early nineteenth century, two (Blézin, i.e., Brazil, and Zomaï) derive from that of Francisco Felix de Souza, surnamed “Chacha,” a Brazilian who settled permanently in the town in 1820,5 and two (Boya and Quénum) were founded by indigenous African merchants who were originally associates of de Souza. The sixth and final quarter (Maro) was settled by African-born former slaves who returned from Brazil from the 1830s. Involvement in international commerce affected not only the size of the town, but also its character. Ouidah was a cosmopolitan community, in which European (and American) and African populations and cultures underwent intensive interaction and intermixture, what would commonly be referred to in the Americas as “creolization.” The most obvious instances of this are provided by the cases of European (and American) traders who settled permanently in the town, or at least long enough to leave families of descendants, by African wives—such as the Afro-French d’Oliveiras and the Afro-Brazilian de Souzas. Ouidah was unusual (although not unique) among West African coastal towns in that permanent posts were established in it by three different European nations—French, English, and Portuguese.6 Although these forts were abandoned when the slave trade became illegal in the early nineteenth century, they were reoccupied in the 1840s: the French and English forts by private merchants involved in the new palm produce trade, but the Portuguese by the Portuguese government. Despite this diversity of overseas links, the most important external influence on Ouidah throughout the period of the Atlantic slave trade was that of Portugal, or more precisely of its colony Brazil, which took by far the greatest share of the slaves exported through Ouidah. In the first phase of its ] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 08:32 GMT) Chapter...

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