Latest / The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History / The Slave Trade in the Bight of Benin: Dahomey's Warriors and the Slave Coast
Transcript
- Lucas: So far on the show we've covered a lot of the major slave-trading regions — the Gold Coast, the Bight of Biafra, Angola. But there's one stretch of coastline that became so infamous it earned a name all its own: the Slave Coast, in what's now Benin and Togo. Luna: The Slave Coast — that's literally what European maps called it, right? Lucas: Exactly. And the kingdom that dominated that coast, especially from the early 1700s onward, was Dahomey. Dahomey was a militaristic state that basically built its economy around raiding for captives and selling them to European slave ships. It's a fascinating and brutal story. Lucas: Now, Dahomey had been a tributary of the Oyo Empire to the east, but around 1727, a king named Agaja broke free and started expanding toward the coast. He conquered the coastal kingdom of Whydah — that's Ouidah — which was already a major slave-trading hub with European forts. Luna: Ouidah — that's where the Portuguese had a fort, right? Lucas: Yeah, Fort São João Baptista de Ajudá — still standing today, though it's tiny. The French, English, and Dutch also had forts there. Agaja took control of the whole coastline and essentially became the middleman. From then on, Dahomey would raid its neighbors — especially the Mahi people to the north and the Oyo to the east — and march the captives down to Ouidah to sell. Lucas: What's really distinctive about Dahomey is how organized and ritualized the slave trade became. The king controlled every aspect. And part of that military machine was the Agojie — the all-female warrior regiment that the Europeans called the Dahomey Amazons. Luna: Wait — so these were actual frontline soldiers, not just ceremonial guards? Lucas: Absolutely frontline. They were elite troops — highly trained, armed with muskets and machetes, and they served as the king's bodyguards and shock troops. By the 19th century, under King Ghezo — that's g h e z o — they numbered somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 women. They fought in the annual slave raids against the Mahi and the Oyo, and they were feared. Lucas: The Agojie were recruited from among the king's wives — Dahomey had a huge royal harem — but also from free women who volunteered, and sometimes from captives who chose military service over enslavement. They were celibate, lived in the palace, and were forbidden to have children. Their whole identity was warrior. Luna: That's an incredible commitment. And what about the scale of the slave trade from this region? Lucas: Massive. The Slave Coast — primarily Ouidah and the nearby port of Porto-Novo — exported an estimated two million people over the course of the slave trade. That's about a sixth of all captives taken from Africa. Dahomey alone was probably responsible for several hundred thousand. Lucas: And the trade was tied to an annual ritual called the 'Annual Customs' — a huge ceremony where the king displayed his wealth, sacrificed captives, and reviewed his troops. It was partly religious, partly political — a way to demonstrate power and to ensure loyalty from nobles and military leaders. Luna: Human sacrifice was part of it? Lucas: Yes, and it's one of the most controversial aspects of Dahomey. At the height of the trade, hundreds of captives — maybe more — were killed during the Annual Customs. European accounts describe piles of skulls and blood-soaked altars. That said, some historians argue the accounts were exaggerated to justify European intervention later on. But the evidence is strong that it happened on a significant scale. Lucas: By the 19th century, the British were pressuring Dahomey to stop the slave trade. King Ghezo — who reigned from 1818 to 1858 — resisted. He famously told a British envoy, 'The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source of their glory and wealth.' He offered to stop if the British provided an alternative source of revenue — like trading in palm oil — but the transition was slow and difficult. Luna: And Ghezo was the one who expanded the Agojie even more, right? Lucas: That's right. Under Ghezo, the Agojie reached their peak. They were instrumental in a major campaign against the Oyo in 1823, which finally broke Oyo's dominance and freed Dahomey from tribute. After that, Dahomey became the dominant power in the region, and the slave trade continued until the 1860s. Lucas: Eventually, the British blockade and the decline of the transatlantic trade — plus French colonial ambitions — led to Dahomey's downfall. But the kingdom's legacy is complicated. On one hand, you have the Agojie, who are often celebrated as fierce warrior women. On the other, they were the enforcers of a slave-catching machine that devastated entire regions. Luna: It is complicated. And it's a side of the slave trade we haven't talked about much — the African kingdoms that actively participated. Lucas: Exactly. And that's part of why this episode matters. If today was actually useful to you, the way these stay ad-free is listener support — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Just a way to keep the conversations going without any ads. Luna: Yeah, every little bit helps. And speaking of conversations — what happened to the Agojie after the slave trade ended? Lucas: They fought on. In fact, they were central to the Dahomean resistance against the French in the 1890s. The French were shocked to face women in battle. The Agojie fought fiercely, but by 1894, Dahomey was defeated and became a French colony. The warrior corps was disbanded. But their story has been rediscovered in recent decades — they're a powerful symbol of resistance, even if their history is tied to the slave trade. Luna: It's a lot to hold — both the horror of what they did and the courage of who they were. Lucas: Yeah. And that tension is exactly what makes studying this period so important. You can't simplify it. The Slave Coast was a place where African agency and European demand collided, and millions of lives were caught in between.